Bon Voyage with my wonderful colleagues - go Peacocks!
Bon voyage posters from our wonderful students - thanks guys!!!
Welcome to Helsinki, Finland!!!
Birch Trees - quite common in Europe
Finnish Shopping Mall
First stop in Finland - a Japanese Garden!
Lemons? In Finland?
Emergency Services
They really are everywhere!
Subterranean red granite - the foundation of southern Finland
IKEA
Not so different from Virginia!
Ice Fishing
On the way home...
No boat rides on this trip!
The Baltic Sea
A public sauna - there's a hole in the ice at the bottom of the steps...it's popular in FInland to jump in the ice water, and then run to the sauna; quite an adrenaline rush - I wasn't brave enough to take the polar plunge!
Russia in the distance (Baltic Sea)
Ice Road
Driveable Baltic Sea
Finnish landscape (southeast) - many boulders and pines
Easter Bread (with a rooster)
Moss covered rocks
Finnish House
Reindeer with lingonberry sauce and mashed potatoes - very tasty!
Finnish Barn (old)
These are very common around southeast Finland...originally used as a refrigerator, they are still used to store potatoes, etc.
Driving...
COmmunity Meeting House
An Irish Wolfhound that belongs to the friends of my host - as I discovered, dog and cat shows are very popular in Europe, even with teenagers
Kotka Secondary School Science and Geography Classroom
School Lunch - free for all, only one choice (with modifications for vegetarians and dietary needs) - potatoes with meat gravy, cabbage, pickled vegetables, beets, whole wheat bread with butter, served with water, milk or “sour milk” - which tastes like sour cream, but much runnier - very healthy and yummy!
The winners of a contest related to a school wide environmental preservation campaign
Kotka Secondary School hallway (no lockers!!!)
Student courtyard - students take a 15 minute outdoor break after each 45 minute class, and return relatively calm and settled. School lasts from 8:00am - 2:45pm
Bulletin Board
Kotka Secondary School
Mrs. Senni Alatalo - the teacher who arranged my day in Kotka - thank you so much!!!
Wonderful School
Hard to see - a moose crossing sign
Electric fence to prevent mooses from entering the highway
History of the road leading to Klamila
Klamilan Koulu (Klamila Elementary School)
Gymnasium Klamilan Koulu
Hallway of Klamilan Koulu (34 students)
Recess
Teacher's Desk
Woodshop - learning is very project based and interdisciplinary- 11 and 12 year old children were familiar with woodshop and electrical equipment, in addition to learning 2 foreign languages and other school disciplines - such a wonderful, welcoming school!
Walking in the forest near the house
Lingonberry bushes
Finland is so full of trees!
Much of the landscape is made of a very rocky terrain - we essentially hiked up a huge rock - but the rocks are not considered mountains. One theory is that a giant iceberg melted, and deposited the rocks in prehistoric times
A moose track!
Back down the rock!
A farm
Pussy Willow - it grows wild, and is very popular at Easter
Hiking up the road
A boulder
Headed back home
Klamilan Kuolu from the road
A shed
A paper mill - one of Finland's major industries
Forestry, paper, and Nokia - a large part of Finnish livelihood
A river...
A cool building!
Reminds me of Alaska...
Signs of warmer months...
So cold, and so fast...
Mrs. Goldstone
Springtime
A coffee shop
A map of all of the areas that I visited
Frozen Harbor
A bull made from old boats
A popular tourist area in the summer...
... but not so much in the winter and spring...
A “yacht club”
House boat
The melting ice pack
Crazy as loons!!! Enjoying a patch of unfrozen water
Shopping
Courthouse in Hamina
A church - the buildings are so colorful! Red...
Sky blue!
Darker blue
Ochre and green
Yellow and red-orange
yellow
olive green
Cool wooden doors!
A ride you don't want to take in Finland
A war hero that helped to carry medical supplies and food to soldiers
A darker part of Finnish history - a Nazi tank
Inside a coffee shop in Hamina!
Many of the decorations are made of sugar!
Enjoying coffee and pastries with the Suokallios
Made of sugar!
Walking in Hamina
Raw salmon with salt and seasoning - very fresh and tasty!
Learning Finnish with Inka
I never actually saw a moose - but here are some moose droppings!
The Finnish flag - white and blue - which stands for the snow and water that prevail, and offer a sense of purity and clarity
On the border of Russia - the line of trucks waiting to cross the border went for miles - and could take days to get through!
On the border of Russia...
As close to Russia as we could get without entry or exit visas
An evening church service - the majority of Finns are Evangelical Lutheran
Church in Virolahti
A cemetary serving as a final resting place for the Virolahti sons of WWII
Honoring fallen soldiers
A memorial to men lost on the Baltic sea...and presumed dead
Last night in Finland
A final hike through the forest at sunset - markings of a Finnish woodpecker (!!!)
Words can't describe the hush of the forest at sunset...
An ant hill - the eggs are harvested twice a year, and exported to Germany to be used in medicine
Sooo mystical...
An icy path...
A tower looking out on the landscape
Suomi
So clean...
The rising moon
Amazing...
A final night in the sauna!!!
So relaxing...
The Berlin train station, big and bustling - but very easy to figure out!
Such an eclectic city!
Waiting for the Regional Express to Cottbus - and then Pozna!
The next day...in the Czech Republic!
Pretty countryside!
Czech town
Some really old statues
Czech building
Beautiful Polish Easter breakfast with the Perons!
Thank you so much for an amazing time!
Looking out into paradise...really, Pozna is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been blessed enough to visit - the warm hospitality of the Perons made it an absolutely perfect Easter
My room at the Perons - and their many awards from dog shows
Looking out the bedroom window
Pozna
Walking on Easter afternoon with the Perons
Paula from Brazil!
Pozna from the road - right on the German border
Mr. Paszkowska on my first day in Krakow, Poland
Very old architecture
Krakow
Amazing that these buildings have survived - what a beautiful city!
A city of religions - mostly Catholic and Judaism
Walking the city streets of Krakow
An art sale
An art museum that houses and Da Vinci painting!
My eyes were open so wide...
Walking...the weather was perfect
WInding roads
One of many, many cathedrals
In the city square
Out of respect, no photos are allowed inside these houses of worship - but, take my word, the outside doesn't even touch the beauty of the inside...
City square - many cafes
And lots of tourists and statues!!!
Mrs. Paszkowska in front of a cathedral
Pretty architecture - great example of one point perspective!
A contrversial modern art piece in a very traditional part of town - very interactive - kids were climbing in and out!
Renovation
A very old (but renovated) cathedral
Neat texture!!!
Cathedral
Beautiful gardens at the university
The Wawel castle
Walking up to the castle
A memorial to Pope John Paul II
Ruins
The many chapels dedicated by various kings (whose tombs are in the castle) in order to preserve the "immortality" of the different nobles within the castle - the gold one on the right was covered in shoe polish during WWII to prevent the gold from being stolen by the Germans - the camouflage worked!
Looking out on Krakow
In the courtyard
Polish flag
I want these gutters!
Overlooking the Vistula river
The dragons cave!!!
And...the fire breathing dragon!!!
The exit of the cave!
Voted the ugliest statue in Krakow...
What a face!
The Jewish quarter
A farmers market
A synogogue! While standing here, I had an old man who spoke just a small amount of English walk up, and tell me how much he loved Americans - and how happy he was that I was there - kind of cool!
Synogogue
So heartwrenching to think of the atrocities that happened in this very area in WWII...
One of the oldest cathedrals in Krakow
Walking
A tourist balloon
Catholic seminary
A very holy area
Modern
The final night of Krakow...and the last photo...pierogies!!! So delicious!!!
