so once again today, random fruit appeared in our finnish salad. often to our surprise, there is fruit mixed in with the cabbage or lettuce salads which we eat at school everyday. sometimes it is diced peaches, canned pineapple (the finns love their pineapple), oranges, or even berries! my irish friend amy coined these as "sneaky fruits" which fits perfectly. we asked our professor if sneaky fruits were always in lettuce salads, and laughing she told us she never noticed them before but now is aware of just how often they appear. also, she said it wasn't typical, just at school. hmmm. very interesting.
in other news, today it was completely dark before 3pm. by 4 i was falling asleep while working in studio. i feel like it is time for me to hibernate. the darkness is so powerful. it is only 6:30 but it feels like 10pm. it is really something to experience... now, i think i will take a little nap, eat some dinner and then get back to work. one project down, two to go.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Saturday, November 22, 2008
st. petersburg
by the time i got to st. petersburg both loaves of peanut and jelly sandwiches i brought were gone, and so i got the chance to eat some russian food. for breakfast we had a strangely cooked omelet that was a bit rubbery, with cheese on top, of course tea, and then a stack of crepe like pancakes with strawberry coulee on top, quite delicious!
after breakfast we had a guided bus tour of the city where we saw many beautiful streets and canals... st. petersburg is made on 42 different islands which are separated by canals and bridges over the neva river delta. the land was originally swampy and they had to bring fertile soil to the area in order to settle the city. originally, it was such a damp and bitterly cold place people were brought in chains to settle the city. however, soon it became the cultural capital of russia, and then the actual capital for awhile.
on the tour, we saw the fortress of peter and paul and st.isaac's cathedral which is the 3rd largest cupola in a cathedral after st. peter's in rome and st. paul's in london... the cathedral had an interesting history of being destroyed and used for other things. during soviet times the holy spirit dove at the top of the dome was removed and replaced with a huge pendulum which came all the way to the floor proving that the earth rotates. the mosaics which replaced the oil paintings in the cathedral (the paintings started to be ruined because there was no heating system, so they were replaced slowly with mosaics) were so beautiful! they had to create 12000 different mosaic colors to reproduce the oil colors ...
in the afternoon, we went to the beautiful church of the spilled blood, which was completely covered in intricate gold and brightly saturated mosaics. the amount of detail and intricacy of of the patterns was simply breathtaking. it was one of the most impressive places i have ever seen. then we visited the kazan cathedral which was built to celebrate the victory over napoleon. the interior was dim and mysterious and filled with religious russian orthodox believers going around from icon to icon praying. the priest was preparing for a mass and the air was filled with incense and singing voices.
that night, we all went to a traditional russian dinner party. we were served borsht (very tasty), herring salad (not so much), a main dish (kind of like salesbury steak), dessert, and of course vodka! our tour guide taught us how to drink vodka russian style. 3 rules, never drink without good company, good food or for a good reason. first, only a boy can pour the shot (a small half inch) and then everyone toasts, "nasdroyva" clinks glasses, drinks the shot, and then smells rye bread. when smelling the bread, no taste of vodka hits your mouth and you only experience the bread. very tricky! the dinner was really fun and we were delightfully entertained with traditional music!
on wed. we first took a tour of catherine's palace, an amazingly huge palace about an hour from the city. the inside was decorated with carved wood with gold leaf in russian baroque style and each room was more magnificent than the last. the most impressive room almost completely covered in large pieces of amber (the current room is a reproduction, the original amber panels were lost in WWII when the nazis occupied the palace, the original panels have never been found)....
during our free time, we went to the russian museum where we saw more russian art masterpieces, and in the evening we took a canal tour of the city. it was cold on the boat, but the lights of the city were very beautiful! under each bridge we had to hold our breath and make a wish until we passed to the other side.
our final day in st. petersburg we spent at the state hermitage museum which is inside the winter palace and 4 other attached buildings. it is the 3rd largest art museum in the world and holds amazing masterpieces. the palace itself was simply breathtaking with gold everywhere, spectacular chandeliers and intricate and beautiful wooden inlay floors. i felt like i was in a fairlytale.
we started with a guided tour of the most famous works of the italian rennaissance (paintings from davinci, titian, rafael, a great unpolished sculpture of a crouched boy by michelangelo) and then to other masters carravaggio, rembrandt, vandyke, rubins, rodin, the second biggest collection of french impressionists (cezanne, renoir, monet, etc) and then the largest collection of matisse (dance and harmony in red, 2 of my favorite paintings which i never thought i would get to see!) and then many works by picasso... the museum was phenomenal and i could have spent much longer than 5 hrs there! the guide said that if you look at each piece of art for 30 sec. it would take 3 yrs of constant walking to see everything there, amazing.
after the museum,we got on the bus and rode the 17 hrs back to oulu! it was a long trip and the border formalities were rather extensive. we had to get out of the bus 2 times to go through customs and had our passports and exit migration cards checked a total of 6 times. 5 times on the russian side. but finally, we all made it through and safe back to oulu.
this weekend, i have a lot of catching up to do... now, it is crunch time! i hope all of you have a very happy thanksgiving (i will be having a makeshift one with friends here, but it is not the same as my mom's delicious food and family's company) take care and send me an email update! i would love to hear from home.
nasdrovya!
after breakfast we had a guided bus tour of the city where we saw many beautiful streets and canals... st. petersburg is made on 42 different islands which are separated by canals and bridges over the neva river delta. the land was originally swampy and they had to bring fertile soil to the area in order to settle the city. originally, it was such a damp and bitterly cold place people were brought in chains to settle the city. however, soon it became the cultural capital of russia, and then the actual capital for awhile.
on the tour, we saw the fortress of peter and paul and st.isaac's cathedral which is the 3rd largest cupola in a cathedral after st. peter's in rome and st. paul's in london... the cathedral had an interesting history of being destroyed and used for other things. during soviet times the holy spirit dove at the top of the dome was removed and replaced with a huge pendulum which came all the way to the floor proving that the earth rotates. the mosaics which replaced the oil paintings in the cathedral (the paintings started to be ruined because there was no heating system, so they were replaced slowly with mosaics) were so beautiful! they had to create 12000 different mosaic colors to reproduce the oil colors ...
in the afternoon, we went to the beautiful church of the spilled blood, which was completely covered in intricate gold and brightly saturated mosaics. the amount of detail and intricacy of of the patterns was simply breathtaking. it was one of the most impressive places i have ever seen. then we visited the kazan cathedral which was built to celebrate the victory over napoleon. the interior was dim and mysterious and filled with religious russian orthodox believers going around from icon to icon praying. the priest was preparing for a mass and the air was filled with incense and singing voices.
that night, we all went to a traditional russian dinner party. we were served borsht (very tasty), herring salad (not so much), a main dish (kind of like salesbury steak), dessert, and of course vodka! our tour guide taught us how to drink vodka russian style. 3 rules, never drink without good company, good food or for a good reason. first, only a boy can pour the shot (a small half inch) and then everyone toasts, "nasdroyva" clinks glasses, drinks the shot, and then smells rye bread. when smelling the bread, no taste of vodka hits your mouth and you only experience the bread. very tricky! the dinner was really fun and we were delightfully entertained with traditional music!
on wed. we first took a tour of catherine's palace, an amazingly huge palace about an hour from the city. the inside was decorated with carved wood with gold leaf in russian baroque style and each room was more magnificent than the last. the most impressive room almost completely covered in large pieces of amber (the current room is a reproduction, the original amber panels were lost in WWII when the nazis occupied the palace, the original panels have never been found)....
during our free time, we went to the russian museum where we saw more russian art masterpieces, and in the evening we took a canal tour of the city. it was cold on the boat, but the lights of the city were very beautiful! under each bridge we had to hold our breath and make a wish until we passed to the other side.
our final day in st. petersburg we spent at the state hermitage museum which is inside the winter palace and 4 other attached buildings. it is the 3rd largest art museum in the world and holds amazing masterpieces. the palace itself was simply breathtaking with gold everywhere, spectacular chandeliers and intricate and beautiful wooden inlay floors. i felt like i was in a fairlytale.
we started with a guided tour of the most famous works of the italian rennaissance (paintings from davinci, titian, rafael, a great unpolished sculpture of a crouched boy by michelangelo) and then to other masters carravaggio, rembrandt, vandyke, rubins, rodin, the second biggest collection of french impressionists (cezanne, renoir, monet, etc) and then the largest collection of matisse (dance and harmony in red, 2 of my favorite paintings which i never thought i would get to see!) and then many works by picasso... the museum was phenomenal and i could have spent much longer than 5 hrs there! the guide said that if you look at each piece of art for 30 sec. it would take 3 yrs of constant walking to see everything there, amazing.
after the museum,we got on the bus and rode the 17 hrs back to oulu! it was a long trip and the border formalities were rather extensive. we had to get out of the bus 2 times to go through customs and had our passports and exit migration cards checked a total of 6 times. 5 times on the russian side. but finally, we all made it through and safe back to oulu.
this weekend, i have a lot of catching up to do... now, it is crunch time! i hope all of you have a very happy thanksgiving (i will be having a makeshift one with friends here, but it is not the same as my mom's delicious food and family's company) take care and send me an email update! i would love to hear from home.
nasdrovya!
Friday, November 21, 2008
moscow!
wow. i just arrived safe back to oulu from an 8 day excursion to russia! i got to see and do so many amazing things i don't really know where to start to explain my experience. pretty much it was 2 days of traveling and 6 days of constant sightseeing and activities in moscow and st. petersburg!
so i left last friday at 10 am and we took a bus to southern finland all day...and then hopped on the tolstoi overnight train to moscow. the train was really old and squeaky and on each car there is an old lady who watches over things and makes tea, strange. it was a long train ride, but i fell asleep easily in our sleeper car. we awoke early in moscow and straightaway started the city bus tour of the city.
immediately, leaving the train station i knew i was in russia.... with the cars, the building styles and the people with their fur hats. we toured around the city seeing the major sights of the kremlin, bolshoi theater, statue of peter the great (that was supposed to be christopher columbus and a gift to the usa but didn't happen so they replaced the head with peter's), the novodevichy convent, the cathedral of christ the savior, red square with lenin's masoleum and st. basil's cathedral... etc. etc. we also walked through the city to visit the art nouveau house of the writer gorkiy which reminded me a bit of casa batllo in barcelona...very sweet.
in moscow you can definitely feel the presence of the soviet past. the architecture of stalin's 7 towers and the terribly intimidating university of moscow made you feel about 2 inches tall. the pulse of the city was very alive, but at the same time the people felt sad. people didn't laugh or smile in the streets and all workers in restaurants and musuems spoke little to no english and often just barked out words in russian saying them louder when you shook your head not understanding. even at the tourist sights, the people were not terribly welcoming. it was also a little nerve racking walking in the streets because there was a police or military guard about every 50 m in the city center. the police have the right to check your passport and hostel papers at any time, and are also known for needing a monetary bribe to give your papers back, but luckily none stopped me in moscow. (in st. petersburg me and 2 friends were stopped by 3 police and they asked for our passports which we had in the safe at the hostel....they didn't speak much english, but when they asked where i was from i just said finland and then showed them my iowa driver's license... then we repeated students, tourism until they understood. they were polite to me, but did a very detailed strip search on the two friends i was with, luckily no problems, phew.)
so our first night in moscow, we had a guided tour of the subway with the same woman from the bus tour, she had a crazy russian/british english accent with a new york accent on top. so she would be speaking about something and then the new york accent "look over here at the red "squahr" would come out.., it was hilarious. the subway is really impressive with many of the stations elaborately decorated. it was meant to be a palace for everyday people and it really is amazing to see. it was funny because our group was about 3/4 design and architecture students and we all were really interested the whole time taking pictures everywhere. our guide was like, "wow, you are the most interested group i have ever had on this tour."
on sunday, we started the day with a great tour of the kremlin (where the russian president works). our guide was an excellent story teller who drew us all into the history of the site, making the stories actually come alive. he was a professor of russian history, and asked us questions to think about what we were seeing and to really understand the mindset of the leaders and history of his country. it was really captivating, and the curiousity i felt when listening reminded me of ms demoss one of my favorite teachers in highschool... he showed us the cannons that were captured from napoleon's army, the biggest bell in the world (that never rang) and the biggest cannon in the world (that never fired) as well as all of the beautiful buildings inside the kremlin.
one of my favorite buildings is the russian orthodox coronation chapel (where all of the tsars were coronated starting with ivan the terrible in 1547) it is completely covered (walls and ceiling) in intricate mosaics. the icons tell the story of mary, jesus, the last judgement (on the back wall to remind you when you are leaving) and saints that were the namesakes of the different tsars. it is interesting that when napoleon controlled the kremlin for 30 some days he used this beautiful building as a horse stable and ordered all the silver and metals to be stripped from the icons and melted down in order to be taken to france. when napoleon was later defeated on his way back, the silver was returned to the church and cast into an amazing silver chandelier.
after the tour of the kremlin we toured the tretyakov art gallery which houses the biggest collection of russian art. we traveled through time starting with icons (my favorite was an icon of jesus with untraceable eyes) and moved through to 1900s. we had the same guide as the morning and it was a very enjoyable tour.
russian history is so vast that it is really hard to have a mental time line of everything and to keep all the tsars straight...it is a lot of "he married her, had this illegitimate child and then murdered his son. and then the nephew of him comes to power, is a bad ruler, is murdered by his wife who takes over power...etc" one of my favorite paintings of the exhibit was of a noble woman getting taken off to the gulag concentration camp being pulled on the back of a sled. her black dress starkly contrasts with the white snow, and while the men are laughing, the women all look on with fear and sympathy in their eyes. i think it is all very fascinating and would love to learn more of the history! i also now really want to reread all the russian classics... i saw both of the famous portraits of tolstoi and dostoevsky at this museum...
after the art museum we went to the world famous moscow circus! it was really fantastic with crazy acrobats, tumbling, clowns, motorbikes in a cage, lions, tigers, horses, contortionists and daredevils! i was on the edge of my seat and very entertained.. after we went on a city tour of moscow at night. red square is really awesome all lit up!
monday we started the day with a tour all about the soviet past of moscow where we toured the novedichy cemetary where lots of famous people are buried and visited the fallen idols sculpture park. our guide pointed out that a lot is explained about soviet times in the famous cemetary where the graves of all the important people (writers, politicians, actors, ballet dancers, musicians, poets, etc.) are buried from the 1800s... in the most central area there is a plot that contains the body of stalin's second wife (who either commited "suicide" or was murdered) but this one grave takes up the space of 8 plots. who was buried there before and what happened to their graves when they were removed for her plot? there is no record of who was buried there before.... very interesting. in the fallen idols park there was one area with a really haunting sculpture depicting the innocent victims of the gulag, and in front of the sculpture was stalin with his face chipped off and next to him a sculpture of the man who invented the gulag system, terrible.
monday evening we went to the ballet at the bolshoi (unfortunately at the new theater because the original is being rennovated) the ballet consisted of parts of 3 famous ballets. the first and last were classical and the middle was very modern and a sad story. the dancers were incredibly graceful, beautiful, powerful and so controlled. it was an awesome performance and everytime i see ballet i want to see more!
we then took an overnight train to st. petersburg! we arrived early in the morning and immediately from the station you could feel the city felt much more european. the atmosphere reminded me a bit of milano with more color, plus canals... very beautiful!
phew. i will switch now to uploading some pictures and will continue with my st. petersburg adventures after my sauna.it is good to be back in finland, so safe, clean water, friendly people and of course the sauna!!
so i left last friday at 10 am and we took a bus to southern finland all day...and then hopped on the tolstoi overnight train to moscow. the train was really old and squeaky and on each car there is an old lady who watches over things and makes tea, strange. it was a long train ride, but i fell asleep easily in our sleeper car. we awoke early in moscow and straightaway started the city bus tour of the city.
immediately, leaving the train station i knew i was in russia.... with the cars, the building styles and the people with their fur hats. we toured around the city seeing the major sights of the kremlin, bolshoi theater, statue of peter the great (that was supposed to be christopher columbus and a gift to the usa but didn't happen so they replaced the head with peter's), the novodevichy convent, the cathedral of christ the savior, red square with lenin's masoleum and st. basil's cathedral... etc. etc. we also walked through the city to visit the art nouveau house of the writer gorkiy which reminded me a bit of casa batllo in barcelona...very sweet.
in moscow you can definitely feel the presence of the soviet past. the architecture of stalin's 7 towers and the terribly intimidating university of moscow made you feel about 2 inches tall. the pulse of the city was very alive, but at the same time the people felt sad. people didn't laugh or smile in the streets and all workers in restaurants and musuems spoke little to no english and often just barked out words in russian saying them louder when you shook your head not understanding. even at the tourist sights, the people were not terribly welcoming. it was also a little nerve racking walking in the streets because there was a police or military guard about every 50 m in the city center. the police have the right to check your passport and hostel papers at any time, and are also known for needing a monetary bribe to give your papers back, but luckily none stopped me in moscow. (in st. petersburg me and 2 friends were stopped by 3 police and they asked for our passports which we had in the safe at the hostel....they didn't speak much english, but when they asked where i was from i just said finland and then showed them my iowa driver's license... then we repeated students, tourism until they understood. they were polite to me, but did a very detailed strip search on the two friends i was with, luckily no problems, phew.)
so our first night in moscow, we had a guided tour of the subway with the same woman from the bus tour, she had a crazy russian/british english accent with a new york accent on top. so she would be speaking about something and then the new york accent "look over here at the red "squahr" would come out.., it was hilarious. the subway is really impressive with many of the stations elaborately decorated. it was meant to be a palace for everyday people and it really is amazing to see. it was funny because our group was about 3/4 design and architecture students and we all were really interested the whole time taking pictures everywhere. our guide was like, "wow, you are the most interested group i have ever had on this tour."
on sunday, we started the day with a great tour of the kremlin (where the russian president works). our guide was an excellent story teller who drew us all into the history of the site, making the stories actually come alive. he was a professor of russian history, and asked us questions to think about what we were seeing and to really understand the mindset of the leaders and history of his country. it was really captivating, and the curiousity i felt when listening reminded me of ms demoss one of my favorite teachers in highschool... he showed us the cannons that were captured from napoleon's army, the biggest bell in the world (that never rang) and the biggest cannon in the world (that never fired) as well as all of the beautiful buildings inside the kremlin.
one of my favorite buildings is the russian orthodox coronation chapel (where all of the tsars were coronated starting with ivan the terrible in 1547) it is completely covered (walls and ceiling) in intricate mosaics. the icons tell the story of mary, jesus, the last judgement (on the back wall to remind you when you are leaving) and saints that were the namesakes of the different tsars. it is interesting that when napoleon controlled the kremlin for 30 some days he used this beautiful building as a horse stable and ordered all the silver and metals to be stripped from the icons and melted down in order to be taken to france. when napoleon was later defeated on his way back, the silver was returned to the church and cast into an amazing silver chandelier.
after the tour of the kremlin we toured the tretyakov art gallery which houses the biggest collection of russian art. we traveled through time starting with icons (my favorite was an icon of jesus with untraceable eyes) and moved through to 1900s. we had the same guide as the morning and it was a very enjoyable tour.
russian history is so vast that it is really hard to have a mental time line of everything and to keep all the tsars straight...it is a lot of "he married her, had this illegitimate child and then murdered his son. and then the nephew of him comes to power, is a bad ruler, is murdered by his wife who takes over power...etc" one of my favorite paintings of the exhibit was of a noble woman getting taken off to the gulag concentration camp being pulled on the back of a sled. her black dress starkly contrasts with the white snow, and while the men are laughing, the women all look on with fear and sympathy in their eyes. i think it is all very fascinating and would love to learn more of the history! i also now really want to reread all the russian classics... i saw both of the famous portraits of tolstoi and dostoevsky at this museum...
after the art museum we went to the world famous moscow circus! it was really fantastic with crazy acrobats, tumbling, clowns, motorbikes in a cage, lions, tigers, horses, contortionists and daredevils! i was on the edge of my seat and very entertained.. after we went on a city tour of moscow at night. red square is really awesome all lit up!
monday we started the day with a tour all about the soviet past of moscow where we toured the novedichy cemetary where lots of famous people are buried and visited the fallen idols sculpture park. our guide pointed out that a lot is explained about soviet times in the famous cemetary where the graves of all the important people (writers, politicians, actors, ballet dancers, musicians, poets, etc.) are buried from the 1800s... in the most central area there is a plot that contains the body of stalin's second wife (who either commited "suicide" or was murdered) but this one grave takes up the space of 8 plots. who was buried there before and what happened to their graves when they were removed for her plot? there is no record of who was buried there before.... very interesting. in the fallen idols park there was one area with a really haunting sculpture depicting the innocent victims of the gulag, and in front of the sculpture was stalin with his face chipped off and next to him a sculpture of the man who invented the gulag system, terrible.
monday evening we went to the ballet at the bolshoi (unfortunately at the new theater because the original is being rennovated) the ballet consisted of parts of 3 famous ballets. the first and last were classical and the middle was very modern and a sad story. the dancers were incredibly graceful, beautiful, powerful and so controlled. it was an awesome performance and everytime i see ballet i want to see more!
we then took an overnight train to st. petersburg! we arrived early in the morning and immediately from the station you could feel the city felt much more european. the atmosphere reminded me a bit of milano with more color, plus canals... very beautiful!
phew. i will switch now to uploading some pictures and will continue with my st. petersburg adventures after my sauna.it is good to be back in finland, so safe, clean water, friendly people and of course the sauna!!
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
i think i just invented the zero... what? oh, nothing, nothing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leG6mHngH48&NR=1
a little excerpt one of my favorite short films.. 'why man creates' by saul bass. i haven't seen it in years and thought everyone would like to see this edifice clip, great stuff...thank you cf alpha program.
today, i went to rovaniemi (the gateway into lapland) with my class! we saw some of alvar aalto's most successful buildings (a city library with great skylights), the artic circle, santa's village and a great museum all about the artic region and lapland. it was a great day!
i am counting down now my trip for russia. 2 days! woot.
a little excerpt one of my favorite short films.. 'why man creates' by saul bass. i haven't seen it in years and thought everyone would like to see this edifice clip, great stuff...thank you cf alpha program.
today, i went to rovaniemi (the gateway into lapland) with my class! we saw some of alvar aalto's most successful buildings (a city library with great skylights), the artic circle, santa's village and a great museum all about the artic region and lapland. it was a great day!
i am counting down now my trip for russia. 2 days! woot.
Friday, November 7, 2008
hope
what an amazing week to be an american. ever since living in italy or finland this is the first time that i feel truly proud to tell people that i am american. it is amazing what a change in attitude the world is feeling about our country right now. the positive pulse is beating strong. each of my international friends congratulated me on the election and i am encouraged listening to their hopes about how the whole world might change. it is most exciting!
this week i have been keeping very busy trying to do a lot of school work! things are coming up fast with 8 days this month in russia! i think the deadlines will be here before i can even blink. time flies in finland.
wed. night i had a great experience making karelian piiraka (karelian pie) with ESN... they are thin rye flour dough pasties filled with rice porridge.. you eat them hot with egg butter. they were easy and delicious!
last night, i went to my kummi family's house and made them chicken fajitas and guacamole and chips! they have never had fajitas or avocados before so it was really awesome to introduce them to new tasty food. they both really enjoyed everything and now know what to do with tortillas (tortillas just just came to finland 4-5 yrs ago)! it was really great to cook for them and just hang out. each time we get together we laugh a lot and are both learning new words. i also found out that they have 2 disc golf courses in oulu and they want to learn how to play, so i am going to teach them sometime!
tonight, i am going to cook jodi's tasty pasta with parmesan, basil, bacon and corn for my 3 french friends and then really get to work. i have lots of homework this weekend, and am looking forward to relaxing a bit here in oulu after i have spent the last 3 weekends away....
i would love to hear from you back home.
peace.
this week i have been keeping very busy trying to do a lot of school work! things are coming up fast with 8 days this month in russia! i think the deadlines will be here before i can even blink. time flies in finland.
wed. night i had a great experience making karelian piiraka (karelian pie) with ESN... they are thin rye flour dough pasties filled with rice porridge.. you eat them hot with egg butter. they were easy and delicious!
last night, i went to my kummi family's house and made them chicken fajitas and guacamole and chips! they have never had fajitas or avocados before so it was really awesome to introduce them to new tasty food. they both really enjoyed everything and now know what to do with tortillas (tortillas just just came to finland 4-5 yrs ago)! it was really great to cook for them and just hang out. each time we get together we laugh a lot and are both learning new words. i also found out that they have 2 disc golf courses in oulu and they want to learn how to play, so i am going to teach them sometime!
tonight, i am going to cook jodi's tasty pasta with parmesan, basil, bacon and corn for my 3 french friends and then really get to work. i have lots of homework this weekend, and am looking forward to relaxing a bit here in oulu after i have spent the last 3 weekends away....
i would love to hear from you back home.
peace.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
update
hey everyone! so long time no update! i have been so busy traveling. i just got back from a nine day trip to helsinki, tallinn and riga.. (all amazing cities..i am still going through my 4 gigs of photos from that week...)and then this weekend we had another class field trip up to the north east to hossa.. where all of us in nordic design stayed in a cabin on a beautiful lake. we enjoyed the fresh snow, saw amazing amounts of stars and shooting stars, went on a great hike through the woods to see 4000 yr old pictographs, cooked around the fire and of course enjoyed the sauna! i really enjoyed going straight from the sauna into the lake and of course rolling in the snow, too. check out my pictures from the finnish nature.. i will try to write more soon!
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