Friday, July 3, 2009

planning the 'scandinavian roadtrip'

last weekend was quite amazing as we visited leena's old stompin grounds. first we visited her college town where we were able to catch a few bands at the jazz fest and saw a finnish cover band that gave tribute to the late great king of pop (who knew finns had soul). then we went to a lighthouse-restaurant-hotel run by amazing people (suvi and tom, you guys are amazing!) where leena formerly worked. last summer tom teasingly prophesied that leena would meet and fall in love with some american while on her trip and...well, here i am. so we went and visited suvi, tom and the lighthouse where leena spent the previous 2 summers of her life. what an incredible place; the entire concept is just genius, great food, quaint accomodations and the best scenery of the famous finnish archipelago (its a large chain of islands). they let us borrow a kayak and we paddled about 30minutes to another island that was equipped with 3 huge cannons left over from when it was used as a former naval base in the WW2 era. before paddling back to the lighthouse we met an older gentlemen with a passion for rocks who fashioned leena a pendent before i could mispronounce more of his language. the lighthouse is in the pics but for better ones click here.
this week has flown by and been a little more calm; its included less shoveling, more work inside the summer cottages and we've been prepping for this two week roadtrip we're taking off for tomorrow morning. so the plan is to drive up the eastern border of finland stop off at a handful of national parks (including this one that made in NG click here), spending a few days in norway to see the ice sea and then heading back down south via the western border and stoppin off in sweden along the way. iäm excited and excited and begining to miss the conveniences of the states like free refilss, fast food and heavily hopped beer...(sigh) i'm hungry...more next time
[this weeks photos can be found by clicking the 'my finnish summer' photo to the right. enjoy]