of blogs, visits and teeth

Friends,
It has been a long while since I have written anything here on the blog. We were away for 10 days in Israel and Istanbul and then I felt I should get those pictures up and write about the trip before I did anything else. But I haven't done those trip summaries yet, nor have I culled through our over-500 pics from the trip, and I decided I just needed to get on with life and the blog. So here we go.

Last weekend my colleague/mom's minister, Suzelle, came for to visit for the weekend. She was in Finland to explore her Finnish heritage for 10 days as part of her sabbatical. After three days together I can now call her "my friend Suzelle." We had such a great time. It was delightful for me simply to have someone to talk to and do things with who gets me and listens and has interesting insights on the world. The effortless communication ... goodness I have missed that.

Kalee also had a smashingly wonderful time with Suzelle. This woman LOVES children and Kalee reciprocated. Suzelle charmed her with her warmth and her thick pile of origami paper. The spent the whole weekend doing fun crafty things. By the end of the weekend Kalee was physically attached to Suzelle as much as possible and when Suzelle left on Sunday, Kalee spontaneously ran up to her and gave her a hug. If you know Kalee you know what a radical thing that is.On Friday Suzelle took us to The Craft Museum of Finland. Leave it to the visitor to show you around your own city! How did that happen? Anyway, not only do they have cool exhibits, they have a workroom filled with every sort of craft supply and tool you can imagine (and some you haven't thought of). Suzelle, Kalee and I played there for nearly two hours. Kalee and I went back today for three hours. It is endless fun and my new favorite place in Jyvaskyla.

On Saturday we all climbed the big hill in downtown Jyvaskyla. Lots of stairs ...
... then up an elevator to the observatory where we could have seen our apartment over on the other side of the lake, just to the right of the bridge, on a clear day.
The snow is melting in Jyvaskyla and spring is on it's way. I haven't seen anyone out walking on the lake for about 4 days now. Which is smart of these folks 'cause it has been above freezing during the day for the whole last week. The next few days are supposed to stay above freezing even through the night.

This morning we woke to a dusting of snow and the sight of two giant bunnies (hares, I guess) in the parking lot. The snow meant that Kalee and I could follow bunny tracks around the parking lot while we waited for her ride to school. But the MOST IMPORTANT happening of late is that Kalee lost her first tooth today. She is proud and happy and trying to stay awake to catch a glimpse of the tooth fairy.

Arctic Circle (5 of 5): The ARKTIKUM Museum

Our last day in Rovaniemi we visit The Arktikum Museum a museum dedicated to teaching about arctic peoples, traditions, history, wild life and environment. The exhibits were great but we couldn't take pictures of most of that (we snuck a few). I was really struck by the building itself, though. Most of it is underground, practical in that cold climate and also mimicking the way nature shelters itself from the harsh winter in the north. You enter through the crecent shaped building at the back of this picture, then decend under the highway and into the grand hallway that is flanked on each side by exhibit space.
Looking down the whole length of the building, from the river to the entrance.
Chairs made from birth trees and reindeer hides. Much of the building uses these and other indigenous building materials.
We meet a polar bear,
... explore the inside of an ice chamber ...
... see a very old sled...
... hug a brown bear ...
... see some arctic fish ...
... and Kalee and Charles make an important proclamation.

There must be a traditional story about these geese and the little charter who is leading them, but we didn't hear it.



Kalee dances to some contemporary Sami folk music. We ended the day at a great restaurant at a mall next to our hotel and Kalee had perhaps her favorite moment of the whole trip - a free bouncer in the mall.

Arctic Circle (4 of 5): Reindeer

Friday afternoon it was time for our Reindeer Safari at the Sirmakko Family Reindeer Farm. These are REAL reindeer herders, not just people making a euro off the tourists (though they are doing that, too). The family has been in the Reindeer business for at least 5 generations. They are Sami people (indigenous Laplanders) and our guide said he has shaman blood in him.
Our visit started in the "kota." The Sirmakko kota is sided in wood but a traditional one would be sided with reindeer hides, much like a Native American tepee. The Sami were nomadic people who followed their reindeer and lived in these kotas year-round as recently as 50 years ago.
Our guide did a short drumming ceremony to ask the gods permission to do the ceremony welcoming us across the arctic circle. There is no stress or hurry north of the arctic circle, our guide said. "Sometimes I have many things to do in a short time, but I never hurry," he said. I love that. I think that if you hurry you are more likely to make mistakes, and mistakes in the arctic can be deadly. Better to be focused and clear and leave stress and hurry behind.
Logs in the fire place are all laid in one direction, other wise your reindeer will get lost. (Also, our guide told us on the side, traditionally the fire would be on the floor, not raised up like this one, and the family would all be living right around it, even little kids. Logs laid across one another have a tendency to shift and roll when they burn down and might roll into the living area, but logs laid straight are more stable and safer. I love hearing the daily reality behind the stories.) Legend has it that anyone who has once visited the Lapland will return again ... in their next life ... as reindeer! But only if you receive the spots where your antlers will grow (otherwise you will come back as an elephant in Africa). We all got our spots and left them on for the required three hours.
Kalee is practicing being a reindeer.
After the ceremony it was a colorful traditional (vegetarian) Sami dinner of mashed potatoes (white), beets (purple), and rice and carrots (orange) with tomatoes, bread, pickles, and preserved lingonberries on the side. Our guide's grandmother picked and preserved the berries. They were a bit sweet but also vinegary. Not usually what I would choose but quite good.

Kalee's best cranky face. How can a girl be that cranky while drinking hot chocolate? Such determination.
Finally the sun is setting and it is time for our sleigh ride. First we meet the reindeer that will pull us. We stay well away from the antlers.
Into the sled ...
... and away we go. It's blurry but you can see how wrapped up we are attempting to stay warm at about 15 below F.
The view from the sled ...

That little white crescent is the moon.
Kalee thinks she saw some elf foot prints (our guide told her that sometimes kids can see elves in the woods) but said they also looked a lot like fox prints. Our guide said elves can be sneeky that way.

Some things we learned in our time at Sirmakko:

• There are no wild reindeer in Finland. The Lapland is divided into herding regions and each region is FENCED (unbelievable). A collective of Reindeer herders work together to round-up and tag all the reindeer and babies two times a year.
  
• The Sirmakko family also harvests hundreds of kilos of berries each year to preserve and to sell. In Finland, berries and mushrooms are considered 'fruits of the forest' and belong to all the people of Finland. You can harvest in any forest land even if you don't own it.
  
• Dehydration is just as much of a problem at very cold temperatures (-30 C.) as at very warm temps (+30C.) The kidneys, our guide said, are working just as hard, only in the cold you aren't sweating it out. No wonder I have been so thirsty.
• I asked about the symbolism of our guide's costume. Not symbolic, he said, but each Sami tribe has a slightly different costume. One distinguishing feature of his tribe, he said, is they are Lutheran. I asked, "How does the shamanism mix or live along with the Lutheranism?" "It doesn't" he said. Generations ago the Lutherans sought to wipe out shamanic belief and practice and nearly did. Most of the shamans of his tribe (over 25 of them) committed suicide by walking into the river and drowning rather than convert to Lutheranism. Some shamanic knowledge and practice went underground but much of it was lost.
• It takes two years to train a reindeer to pull a sleigh. Only the males pull the sleighs because female reindeer are too small.
  
• Reindeer drop their antlers every year and grow new ones. The antlers grow bigger each year until the animals reach about 8 years old (middle age) and then come back smaller each year. Both male and female reindeer have antlers.
  

Arctic Circle (3 of 5): Rovaniemi

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

Arctic Circle (2 of 5): Santa's House

On Thursday we made the long-anticipated trip to Santa's house, just outside of Rovaniemi right on the arctic circle.The coolest part was going into Santa's Chamber where we got to see the giant machinery Santa uses to stop the earth from turning on Christmas Eve so he can deliver presents to all the children of the world. Photography was forbidden and I also couldn't find any pictures on the web so you'll just have to take my word for it - walking through all those creaky gears and cranks was really neat. Then we all had our photo taken with Santa. He is a very sweet man, over 300 years old, he said, but doesn't look a day over 200. Instead of the real picture, here's Kalee with a fake Santa.


Here is the line of the arctic circle, itself.


Santa lives 6204 km from New York.
Naturally, there are many crafts people who live near Santa. Some of them have shops that we visited. Here Kalee is standing near a large amethyst rock that is native to Lapland.
We stopped for a bite to eat ...
played a little ...


... and visited Santa's main post office.

It was COLD outside. Yes, that says -20 C. (which is -4 F). Our last morning in Rovaniemi the temperature was -32 F!! Forcasters have the sense to call this "bitterly cold."
But we didn't let the cold stop us. Slide across the Arctic Circle, anyone? Kalee had a great time with this ice slide. No sled required.

In this kind of cold you can build houses out of ice. The had a whole ice village but it was closed when we were there.

We visited more shops with some beautiful hand-crafted wares,
and got to see some jewelers at work. Kalee has had about enough of this, but ...... she got her energy back as soon as we went outside to wait for the bus.