Prof and Wife visit Stockholm, Sweden

Elaine and I have just completed a quick trip to Stockholm and she does a fantastic job downloading the photos. We took a Viking Lines ship from Helsinki to Stockholm. We left after my class on Wednesday and arrived the next morning in Stockholm. That afternoon we got back on the ship and sailed overnight back to Helsinki. On the ship we had plenty of food and an adequate inner cabin with a lighthouse picture serving as an imaginary portal. We also had a very small shower. (The Prof and I felt as if we were back at the Etap with the tiny bathroom and bunk beds.) A colleague at the university provided us with free tickets for the ship, although the food on board turned out to be a tad expensive.

Stockholm is much bigger than Helsinki and also has a monarchy. Some of the photos are of the royal palace. "Old town" in Stockholm is very lovely with small windy streets and plenty of churches and small boutiques. Stockholm is built on several separate islands and the boat trip into the city is through an archipelago with numerous islands on both sides. We lucked out and had very nice weather while we were there.

Last week I was in Saint Petersburg and still consider it as the most beautiful city I have visited during this trip. The Hermitage was fantastic. Stockholm also has a great museum which we did not have time to visit. It houses the Vasa warship which was launched in 1628 with many cannons on board to fight a war against Poland. However, it was too top heavy and sank within a few thousand yards of its launching point, killing about 50 sailors. The ship was salvaged in 1961 and was almost totally preserved, thanks in part to the low salt content in the Baltic Sea.

Elaine and I are off to Vilnius, Lithuania next weekend where I will make a presentation at a conference. Lithuania was once part of the Soviet Union and is located within a few miles of Belarus which is still run by a dictator. However, Lithuania is supposed to be quite nice and civilized. We will keep you posted.

Culture Shock

I frequently have people ask me what has been the biggest surprise about living in Finland. You know, culture shock. I really have not known what to answer. I don't think that I have had any problems moving here. Other than the fact that it feels as if I am on the other side of the world from my family and loved ones. Oh, wait a minute. I am pretty close to being on the other side of the world.

There have not been a lot of surprises. We lived in Paris for three months in the fall of 2007 with 21 BYU students. I was very grumpy about the jam on the kitchen floor and the melted and refrozen ice cream in the freezer. The wall paper peeling off the walls did not help either. In Paris we had the toilet in its own little space with no sink. So I was not surprised to find that it is located in a small closet here. It has the huge advantage of actually having a sink in the same room/closet here so that you can wash your hands.

Probably the biggest adjustment has been doing the laundry. It takes about two hours to wash a load of white clothes and then about three hours to dry the load of clothes. This was also pretty much the case in Paris but because of the electrical wiring in the Paris apartment you could not run the washer and dryer at the same time. Here at least I can be washing a load of clothes while another load is drying. However, I don't remember that doing the laundry was such a long process. Part of the insurance on the apartment stipulates that someone has to be here while the washing machine is running in case of flooding. We turn the water off when the washer is not in use. Because of this I can spend an entire day doing nothing but hanging out while I wash three loads of laundry in the small capacity machine.

All of that being said, I am extremely grateful that I am not washing clothes by hand or going to the laundromat.

Presumably the slower washing and drying is a significant savings of energy and Finland is very much concerned about using resources wisely. I am just an extravagant American who misses the energy wasting laundry machines back home.

Dining with Friends

Left, Director of the Department of World Cultures Lars-Folke Landgrén, Counselor for Cultural and Press Affairs Marjut Robinson**, Professor Markku Henriksson

Last night the Professor and I went to dinner with his department chairman Markku Henriksson and his wife Ritva. I have been dreading it. And I was so silly. We took the Metro and then met two women from the university and the four of us took the bus to the Henriksson's apartment.

We had a wonderful evening with lots of stories and laughter. Markku is leaving on Friday for a month in California. He is visiting some of the parks there. All the way from the red woods to Death Valley. His wife Ritva has worked with the Hopis doing research in communitcations. They actually lived with a family for two months at one time and about a month in another year.

Their joke about the Hopis was...how many people live in a Hopi home. 5: a mother, a father, a son, a daughter and an anthopologist.

We had wild salmon and rice and started with half an avocado filled with vegan caviar* on a bed of delicate green leaves with three different types of curled pieces of smoked fish. For dessert she had baked a wonderful pie similar to a cheese cake with apples in it.

They are just so kind and so welcoming and generous.

I gave her a necklace with turquoise and silver and a bracelet that I had brought from Utah. I think she was really pleased. The necklace was a really delicate one and I think was perfect for her. She is small and delicate herself.

I wasn't sure if I was ready to have to take the metro and the bus and walk home but it went faster than I expected.

*The good news for vegetarian gourmands, however, is that vegetarian caviar substitutes, made from seaweed and algae for that "fishy" taste, are readily available. Kelp Caviar, made in Canada, comes in sturgeon, wasabi and salmon flavors and is available online through KelpCaviar.com. Cavi-Art vegetarian caviar comes in salmon flavor, as well as black, yellow or red lumpfish flavors and is available online through Food Fight Vegan Grocery.

**Marjut Robinson and Markku met us at the airport when we landed in Helsinki.

Notes from the Professor

I have just returned from Saint Petersburg where I attended a conference for a couple of days. Most of the photos below are of the outside or inside of the Hermitage, which I would rank as one of the world's five best museums. It is huge but smaller than the Louvre. It has a great collection of French art, probably reflective of Catherine the Great's intense love affair with French culture.

St. Pete is much lovelier than Helsinki. It is a living museum in many respects. On the other hand, brownish water spewed out of my bathroom sink and water in the city is not fit to drink. Some of the infrastructure also needs major repairs. In Helsinki, the water ranks among the best in the world, the city's infrastructure is first rate, everything runs efficiently, and the people are honest to a fault. What a contrast for two neighboring countries, and the fact that Finland was under Russian control for a century up until just before WWI.

On the other hand, if I were a tourist, I would definitely go to St. Pete before I would go to Helsinki.

The two photos of individual paintings are special for Mom and me. One is of the Trinity Church. Mom and I lived right next to the Church when we were in Paris in 1974 for my Fulbright at the Sorbonne. The second is a view of the Champs-Elysee from where the Arc de Triomphe is located today.

The architecture in St. Pete has a distinct Western flavor, but the one big church reflects the Russian Orthodox influence. The canals add a nice Venice touch to the city.

Letter to our Grandchildren

Lissankatu, 6
Helsingin, Suomi

Hi,
This is Grandma. I have been thinking about what to write to you. I decided to take you on a walk to the grocery store with me.
It is getting cold outside and windy but there are very few colored leaves so it doesn’t really look like autumn. I walked almost all of the way to the store behind a mother with two children. One was in the stroller and the other one was walking. I think that the mom must have just picked up her daughter from school. Can you tell what is on her backpack? It is a bit hard to see. That is Sleeping Beauty.
Grandpa and I do not have a car so we walk lots of places. In Helsinki you always have to watch out for bicycles on the sidewalk. Can you see the man on the bicycle? Grandpa has to remind me a lot to walk close to the buildings or the side of bridge, so that I am not in the bike lane.
I never buy very much at the store because I know that I will have to carry it home. There are lots of buses to take or trams and even a metro with only one line. Can you see the wires that give the power to the trams? They do not use gasoline like the buses or cars do.
One last thing before we go back home. Can you read the words on the side of the red tram? You say the words exactly as they are spelled. Put the emphasis on the first syllable. I don’t have any idea though what these two words mean.
This is a picture of the street sign on the street where we live. All of the street signs are on the sides of the buildings. Sometimes it is very hard to tell what street we are on. It must be really difficult if you are driving a car. There really is only one name for our street. There are two official languages in Finland. One is Finnish and the other is Swedish. The top word is in Finnish since most people speak Finnish here in Helsinki. The bottom word is in Swedish. If you look at the address at the top of the letter you will see how the Finnish spell Helsinki, Finland. They call their country Suomi.
When we get back home we climb the stairs. There is a ground floor and then a first floor and we live on the second floor. It is an old building close to the center of the city. There is an elevator but we have never used it.
We have two keys to get into our apartment. And we have two doors. The white one is never locked though. I don’t know if it has a key for it.
I will just take the few groceries I bought into the kitchen. Next time I’ll show you some pictures inside the store.

LDS Temple in Finland

Church in Helsinki

Russian influence

Reading

This is just a note to myself. So far since I got on a plane going to Chicago I have read:

James, PD - The Private Patient

See, Lisa - Interior - Mystery set in China

Carlson, PM - Murder in the Dog Days ( set in 1975 with references to the US war in Vietnam)

Tood, Charles - Legacy of the Dead ( set in post WW I with a Scotland Yard inspector who has PTSD from fighting in the trenches.)

Wingate, Lisa - Good Hope Road - Small town after tornado

Plain, Belva - Homecoming

Connelly, Michael - A Darkness More Than Night 24/9/2011 - a bit depressing

Penny, Louise - A Trick of the Light 1/10/2011 - Inspector Gourmand is always great

Evanovich, Janet - Finger Lickin' Fifteen 30/29 - Gotta love Stephanie Plum

Jance, J A - Desert Heat - Sheriff Joanna Brady (1993)

Jance, J A - Tombston Courage (1994)

Jance, J A - Shoot Don't Shoot (1995)

Jance, J A - Dead to Rights (1996)

Jance, J A - Devil's Claw (1997)

Jance, J A - Rattlesnake Crossing (1998)

Jance, J A - Devil's Claw (2000)

Jance, J A- Exit Wounds (2003)

Gardner, Lisa - The Third Victim - Shooting at an elementary school

Patterson, James and Liza Marklund - Postcard Killings - Takes place in Stockholm. A bit weird and grim

Connelly, Michael - The Scarecrow - Suspenseful but too much language and horrible murder m/o of a serial killer.

Connelly, Michael - The Shallows

• Three to a Loaf
  Michael J. Goodspeed

James, P D - Death Comes to Pemberley - She needs to stick to the 21st century

Bell, Josephine - Curtain Call for a Corpse - So so. I was put off by her main characters calling the learning disabled boy in the town a nitwit. It was written in 1939, but Bell was an MD. Glad she was not mine. :)

Thomas, Graham Pseudonym of Gordon Kosakoski, 1950- - Malice in London Tough going. I never had a moment when I could not put it down to do something else. Every time the main character, Chief Inspector Powell, went anywhere in London Thomas had to show that he knew the city by telling us every street he walked or drove on. Who cares?

Ash, Linda - My Twelfth Christmas I enjoyed this short book very much. The cover is a bit discouraging but it was a nice book about a girl's relationaship with her grandmother.

Bridge of Love

This was my first encounter with a Bridge of Love. It caught my interest and imagination. In a city full of inlets and bridges, this little pedestrian bridge seems to fit in well with its surroundings. Just on the other side of this bridge is a building with a life boat hanging from its wall.

Who wouldn't be enchanted by the idea of leaving a lock instead of defacing a tree or a rock that is millions of years old with your initials?


While in Vilnius we walked across the bridge below one evening. It was delightful to encounter another bridge of love in a different country.

Wellies with attitude

Everyone that we have talked to has told us that November is the most difficult month of the year. It is dark and rainy. When the snow comes, it lightens up the world.

So I have been looking at rubber boots. On other people's feet and at the store. I decided that I was going to buy some Wellington boots with attitude. Now that I have seen the pictures of my recent purchase, I am not sure that I made the right decision. They are super cute but maybe I should have gone for a shorter pair in plain red. Am I equal to this pair of wellies?

One of our favorite British television imports has been Midsomer Murders. Earl and I have joked about the show because invariably the trouble maker is shown with a unisex pair of Wellies and a nondescript raincoat. You cannot tell if the villain is a man or a woman with the ubiquitous Wellies the only clue.

My boots would probably be a dead give away in Midsomer. They definitely look like a woman's rubber boots.

Lunch at the Unicafe

With 19 locations on 5 University of Helsinki campuses, it is not hard for almost anyone to eat at the Unicafe, a student owned university cafeteria. In fact I was surprised to discover that several blogs recommend that tourists find a Unicafe for an inexpensive lunch in Helsinki. Now I wonder if the students think that Earl and I are tourists instead of faculty.

There is a Unicafe in the courtyard where Earl's office is and a large one that is open longer for lunch in the building next door . Having lunch here would probably remind American students of the school cafeteria in elementary school - including the lunch lady who spoons out the main item on the menu. Usually there are about four or five options. Yesterday there was salmon if you wanted to pay more. It was a large piece. Or for the regular price very black meat balls or very black meatloaf. I had the vegetarian casserole yesterday and really enjoyed it. Spices just right. Boiled potatoes seem to be a staple of the cafeteria. They have always been new white potatoes. I have noticed that all of the Finnish eaters carefully peal the potato before eating it. Of cousre, I just mashed my with a fork and added butter. There is also a modest salad bar that always has a carrot salad with pineapple tidbits. However, no dressing on the carrots.

Earl asked me what kind of bread was available. The answer is very simple. You can have rye bread or dark rye bread. Overall I have been pleased with having lunch on campus. I am never hungry when I leave. And dessert always consists of cut up fruit in a cup. No cakes or cookies on this school menu.

The Downside to being unable to Read Finnish

We discovered the down side of not being able to speak or read Finnish today.

There has been construction going on outside our front door and around the corner by the chocolate bistro ever since we moved in. When we got here, Aki (who works in the Fulbright center) warned us that on such and such a day there would be no hot water all day long. The construction work involves putting in new huge pipes under the street.

This morning when I got in the shower, it did not take me long to decide that I was not going to shampoo my hair and that I was getting out of the shower very quickly. The water was definitely cool.

We have been wondering if the notice attached to the front door of our apartment building says that there is not going to be hot water today. I guess I'll put off the laundry until tomorrow. And check to see if there is another date on the door! Fortunately those tend to be numerical.

PS

I shared my story about the cold water today in an email to a couple of my co-workers back in Utah. I guess they do not know me very well. I have an odd sense of humor, I know.

They didn't seem to get at all the fact that I was trying to be funny.

I got a note back saying to wash the clothes in cold water and another one telling me that I needed to get a good dictionary. Sob! And here I thought I was such an amusiing person.