The city of Rovaniemi sits at the confluence of two rivers ( the Kemijoki River and its tributary, the Ounasjoki). Rivers are always important strategic points in war and Rovaniemi found itself in this situation in WWII. At the end of the war when German soldiers were retreating, they destroyed the entire city. Literally. The bombed out the bridge and leveled nearly every building. 90% of the city was leveled. Have you ever been in a city built entirely in the 1950s? Not really very inspiring architecturally. Starting with a blank slate Alvar Alto (of course) designed a new street layout that looks like reindeer antlers ... ... and new municipal buildings. We never ventured out far enough in the cold to see those buildings. Maybe they were more interesting than the main street.
One morning, though, we did walk down the pedestrian mall to the river. We saw this ... ... an Alvar Alto sculpture of the Northern Lights.
After the war they re-build the railroad bridge and then, more recently, added this bridge a bit further down river. Short bench? No, just lots of hard-packed snow. In Lapland you can make a snowman that stays all winter long. Kalee takes a bow. Now, a few state, according to wikipedia:
average temperature: +0.2 °C (+32°F)
annual rainfall: 535 mm/annum (21 inches)
snow stays on the grounds 183 days a year on average
lowest temperature ever recorded: −47.5 °C (−54°F), recorded on January 28, 1999
highest temperature ever recorded: +30.6 °C (+87°F)
the midnight sun can be seen from June 6 to July 7
Kalee is influenced by Jyvaskyla's most famous son, architect Alvar Alto, and creates a post-modern house. Her aunt will be proud. And adds a garage. Laundry. Have I mentioned the laundry situation? Here are our washer ... and dryer. The air in the apartment is quiet dry so hanging the clothes is pretty quick (24hrs) and improves air quality a bit (when we aren't ducking to avoid the pants). The washer only holds about half what we are used to so every other day our living room is decorated by drying clothing. This adds color to an otherwise drab room.
After writing the above about the "dryer" some angels appeared in our lives bringing a daily ride to school for Kalee (giving me an extra hour in the morning), an assisted grocery shopping trip for me (the translation help was invaluable), and a drying rack. The angels are Kalee's pen pall's family who just returned from their winter holiday trip to California, Arizona and Hawaii. So very generous. And here is the miraculous drying rack loaded up with TWO loads of wash, and still not full. This means we can take down the green laundry line that currently circles our living room ceiling. Speaking of drab ... perhaps you noticed in some earlier pictures that the living room is quite drab and dorm-ish looking. The couch is not only stained, it is ripped, exposing the inner foam and tempting small fingers to pick it to bits. So I bought sheets to cover the ugliness. The sheets are bright and colorful. However, I'm afraid the total effect is even more dorm-ish, my attempt at covering it up only drawing more attention to the problem and looking as cheep as it was. Ah well. I prefer it with the flowers anyway. The end of the week brought us temperatures of -14F. I do NOT enjoy these temperatures. It is just rediculously cold. I am dealing with it by giving myself permission to take the bus wherever I go. But you can't stay inside this little apartment all weekend, not even all day, so today (it was only -6) we went for a walk. Kalee had a lot of energy so we headed out on the lake and actually walked all the way across. It's not that far, but it is a pretty cool thing to do. In this picture Kalee and I have just started across the lake. You can see it's not all that far to the boat on the other side. This is the narrowest part of the lake. The sun is just starting to go down around 3:30 and is reflecting beautifully on the bridge and hills. We have reached the other side. Behind the boat is the cutest little round wood hut where you can buy hot chocolate and coffee on the weekends. We hadn't brought our money so we came home and had hot chocolate at home. Although hot chocolate has become a daily beverage for Kalee, this was special because Charles actually melted chuncks of a chocolate bar into the hot chocolate. Kalee liked it.
... and new municipal buildings. We never ventured out far enough in the cold to see those buildings. Maybe they were more interesting than the main street.
... an Alvar Alto sculpture of the Northern Lights.
Short bench?
No, just lots of hard-packed snow.
In Lapland you can make a snowman that stays all winter long.
Kalee takes a bow.
Now, a few state, according to wikipedia:
