Week 5 24 - 26 September Helsinki Finland at Lena & Johan's place

We packed our bags and headed to the airport at 7.00 am to head to Finland to stay with Lena and her family. Lena has a long term guiding connection with Jen Baron through Sangam the world guide centre in Pune in India. Lena’s daughter Emma visited Sydney earlier this year and our circle of friends guiding network. We arranged whilst away to stay in their top floor apartment in the heart of Helsinki.

Lena is incredibly organised helping us plan our itinery or 2 days; Johan gave us all the wonderful history; Emma shared her room with us in between exams and Ida double consulted with Lena on how to travel to our tourist destinations in between university and Scout meetings.
We loved having traditional Finnish fare for dinner with the family and especially loved the smoked trout. They live on the top floor of their apartment and the lift opens right out into their apartment.
On the first night Emma showed around the local area of their home including her old primary school. Their apartment is close to the city and opposite the Olympic stadium that was built in 1952. She showed us to their local part and a well known monument.

We managed to walk around the city; see the market; visit the White Church for Lutherans which represents 90% of the country; visit the Orthodox Church; catch the very like Melbourne trams and visit Stockman’s books where Ben was able to purchase the newly released Brisingra from the Eragon series which he has been waiting for and wasn’t available in London.

The next day we visited the Fortress which is UNESCO listed. Johan and Lena told us about the history of Finland which was originally settled by the Swedes (hence they are Swedish speaking Fins); then Russia took over and moved the capital to Helsinki because the port was closer to St Petersburg and finally after fighting Russia in the second world war they won tier independence after the war. So the fortress had guns facing Russia and Sweden. It was a lovely trip out on the ferry. We did a bit of shopping with Shelley buying her standard cup and saucer as a souvenir. We had a great fish meals at the local market including dilled fish soup.

Lena gave us a lovely tour around her Helsinki where we learnt of the many traditions that are part of the life of their family and the people of Finland. We saw the amazing cemetery where her relations were buried and that they visit covered in snow ever year when it has candles every where and soldiers lined up to pay respect. Ben and Laura loved the squirrels which were everwhere in the cemetary and much like possums in Australia. We saw their yaught club where their family sails as do many Fins and heard about their holiday house which is on an island they own which is not an uncommon thing in Finland as there are so many islands. We heard stories from Lena about Carmine and her sister Kierty who she knows from Sangam as she has been travelling to India for 25 years after she met Carmine in London when they were both working for WAGGGS the world association for Girl Guides. Lena gave Shelley a present to give both of them as they would be attending a birthday party at Sangam for them. Emma shared here stories about learning languages because Fins need to know Finnish, English, Swedish and she learns German and French!! Our favourite Finish word was for ice cream. It was very sad that on the day we arrived there was a national event of sadness as 19 children were killed at a school by a gunman, the second occasion in 12 months.

Next time we want to comeback so that we can jump aboard the ferry that takes you to Tarlina, Estonia in 2 hours and St Petersburg, Russia in on hrs. We thank Lena and her family for their hospitality. It made a wonderful difference to our familiy's visit and showed the connections that Girl Guiding and Girl scouting ahve around the world.

Impressions: Clean; friendly; super cold in winter (Emma used to walk to school in -22 degrees!); history & involvement with Russia; the sea; the resilience of people living in the cold; connection to guiding