Matkalla etelään - A trip down south

I went down to Vaasa on the second of this month to visit a Canadian friend of mine who is also a Rotary Exchange Student. We live 6 hours apart in Finland, and because it is so hard and expensive to travel I hadn’t had a chance to visit her. I know it was the last time I’ll see her until we’re both back in Canada, and we spent most of our two days together talking about going back home and how hard it was going to be. Though it may sound like a sad thing, talking about it with her really helped both of us, and I know that we’ll be there for each other when we’re both going through the “going home crisis”.

The path on the left was the trip there, the right one the way back.

On the fourth, my good friend Mika and his family picked me up from Vaasa and we continued south to Turku. I was so happy I got to travel to the south of Finland at least once this year! That’s one big problem with being north; it costs so much to travel anywhere.

In Turku we visited Turku Castle and the Cathedral, which were both beautiful but very simplistic. I like that about Finland, they get right to the point. Why make it super fancy when it could be practical instead?

Turku Church

In the castle, there was a place where people had thrown money from various countries. Some Canadian decided to throw a 50! I might have considered climbing over the rail and getting it...

The highlight of the trip was definitely the day we spent in Nantali, at Muumimaailma (Muumin land). For those of you who don’t know, the Muumins are characters created by a Finnish author Tove Jansson, and almost every single Finn grows up watching the TV show and reading the books. They’re so incredibly adorable, I can’t even explain. I’ve grown to love the Muumins in the past year that I’ve been here, and will really miss seeing their lovely faces on bowls, candies, pop, blankets… really just everywhere. Here are a few links you can check out if you’re interested in getting to know the Muumins:

Wikipedia page
Theme song (original Finnish)
Theme song (English), sounds totally weird to me
All things Moomin
First Moomin Episode turns out they have this on YouTube. Weird...

ANYWAYS, in Nantali there is an island that is essentially a Muumin theme park.  The park is very obviously made with six-year-olds in mind, but us two 19-year-olds had a blast anyways! There were times when I would just smile at the cuteness overload. Anyways, enough chit-chat, here’s some photos.

Traditional Finnish doughnuts that are to die for

Finally, something I understand ;)

My favorite Muumi, Niisku 

As of today, as I’m writing this right now, I have 23 days, 13 hours, 26 minutes and 23 second until I leave on a plane from Helsinki, leaving Finland and my exchange year behind. This is the most terrifying thing on the planet. My emotions are currently very unstable, and I feel that at any moment I could laugh, burst into tears, or both.

Because my exchange clock is really ticking, this will be my last blog post I will write while I am in Finland. I need to absorb every last second, breath in my last breaths of the beautiful Finnish air… and all that other poetic stuff. I will give you a blog post about the rest of my exchange when I get back to Canada and some posts about how I’m adapting into Canada again.  

See you later alligators!