Festival of Light

Here is St. Lucia about to proceed through Helsinki by horse-drawn carriage for today's festival of bringing light to the darkest time of year, and an article from today's news:

Sunday is Santa Lucia Day, the festival of lights. According to tradition, Lucia, a young woman dressed in white and wearing a crown of candles, brings light during the darkest time of the year. This year, Ellen Husberg, a student at the Swedish School of Economics in Vaasa, was voted in as the national Lucia during a charity fund drive. She was crowned by University of Helsinki rector Thomas Wilhelmsson at the Helsinki Cathedral at 5 p.m. After her coronation, she descended the steps of the Cathedral and lead a procession towards the city centre. Many other towns and schools also select their own Lucia. Over the next weeks and months, these young women and their entourages visit hospitals, retirement homes, prisons, orphanages and schools, bringing light, song -- as well as buns and coffee. Schools also have their own Lucia Day celebrations. Since there can only be one Lucia at school, many little girls, wearing store-bought plastic crowns, stage their own Lucia processions at home for their families. The Lucia tradition can be traced back to St. Lucia, an Italian martyr who died in 303 A.D. The Nordic Lucia tradition began in the 18th century in Sweden. In the 1900s, the tradition spread to the Åland Islands and to other Swedish-speaking regions in Finland.

I can really understand creating a festival of light at this point in the year! Best wishes to all for light and warmth this winter - and maybe some buns and coffee too.

Sharing Thanksgiving

We did it - we had Thanksgiving on the day, and we both took Friday off too, so we've had a typical overfed long holiday weekend and it's been great. We invited several friends over for dinner on Thursday so they could taste the traditional turkey and trimmings and Gerald's bird was very well received - one Polish guest was fascinated that he cooked the whole bird and asked for instructions. I was able to find classic Ocean Spray canned (whole berry) cranberry sauce and Libby's pumpkin too, so the tastes were authentic. Gerald said my crab-apple sauce went great with the meat too. I harvested from trees in our yard a few months ago and cooked them whole, mashed & strained them into sauce and added a lot of sugar as it's very tart; it's bright red naturally so adds a nice touch of color to a plate. He said I 'out-Finned the Finns on that one' by foraging something right in the middle of town. Gerald also shared his sugar cream pies, and our American friend Angela did a green bean casserole, and her sweet potatoes with marshmallows dish raised not a little suspicion, as did a pie made from a pumpkin. But everyone was adventurous and very appreciative of our sharing this holiday cuisine with them. We had a house-full, and the apartment kitchen got buried in dishes, with people underfoot as we were setting the food out, just like home! I made cream of turkey soup yesterday, and have more stock for another day, and it looks like we'll have turkey and stuffing for dinner again tonight with the last spoonfuls of cranberry sauce.

We did not completely hibernate though after our big feast - we went to the big Picasso exhibit Friday - a comprehensive show from the Picasso museum in Paris, so we've had our taste of culture too. But staying awake is certainly a challenge now in this darkest time of year. We're at 6.5 hours of daylight now, but also in the midst of weeks of rain so that adds to the light deprivation quite a bit. Sunrise: 8:52am and sunset 3:24pm and we're still not used to evening beginning mid-afternoon. But today is also the first day that most Christmas decorations will be hung, so that should brighten things up. It's time for the excellent Christmas markets now too and, may I ask, where did 2009 go??

Our last first snowfall

We woke to a white world this morning and it's still snowing now, steady but no blizzard. The seasonal shift is on with the hunger/fatigue/what time is it?? confusion but we are more aware of it this year, and maybe it's tinged with nostalgia as this may be our last true winter onset. Next year at this time... that's a saying we are now using a lot to adapt, as we look toward a move to the southwestern desert zone next summer. But we are also taking our vitamin D!

I currently am having some problems loading pictures from my camera so I'll share some BIG news instead. Did you notice the story of the world's largest cruise ship recently built here in Turku, Finland? It set sail last week, with a stop in England and then on to Miami. Having been on the ferry to Stockholm, which we all thought was huge, I cannot fathom the size of this vessel. The Swedes and Danes had a fun night watching as it passed under their bridge with a 2-foot clearance! That's after they lowered the telescoping smokestacks. Here's a bit from the AP:

KORSOER, Denmark — The world's largest cruise ship cleared a crucial obstacle Sunday, lowering its smokestacks to squeeze under a bridge in Denmark. The Oasis of the Seas — which rises about 20 stories high — passed below the Great Belt Fixed Link with a slim margin as it left the Baltic Sea on its maiden voyage to Florida. Bridge operators said that even after lowering its telescopic smokestacks the giant ship had less than a 2-foot (half-meter) gap. Hundreds of people gathered on beaches at both ends of the bridge, waiting for hours to watch the brightly lit behemoth sail by shortly after midnight (2300GMT; 7 p.m. EDT). "It was fantastic to see it glide under the bridge. Boy, it was big," said Kurt Hal, 56. Company officials are banking that its novelty will help guarantee its success. Five times larger than the Titanic, the $1.5 billion ship has seven neighborhoods, an ice rink, a small golf course and a 750-seat outdoor amphitheater. It has 2,700 cabins and can accommodate 6,300 passengers and 2,100 crew members. Accommodations include loft cabins, with floor-to-ceiling windows, and 1,600-square-foot (487-meter) luxury suites with balconies overlooking the sea or promenades. The liner also has four swimming pools, volleyball and basketball courts, and a youth zone with theme parks and nurseries for children.

There's some realtime video of the voyage at the ship's website www.oasisoftheseas.com if you are interested. And of course the quintessential Finnish quote:

Aboard the Oasis of the Seas, project manager Toivo Ilvonen of STX Finland confirmed that the ship had passed under the bridge without any incidents. "Nothing fell off," he said.

Masters of understatement that they are - a quality I find too rare these days.





So happy winter everyone! I'll return to readying the den for hibernation now, but hope to be able to post some of our own pictures again soon, or maybe some small news from Finland.

Suomi stamps

We're back to our routine after some wonderful visits this summer and not having as many adventures to share, so I thought I share something else I enjoy here and that is Finnish stamp design - they are quite interesting and varied. The snowflake design is transparent and the sauna pictures are scratch&sniff with a birch aroma - Claire sent some of those on her recent visit. The post offices here sell a lot of other supplies and gift items too and are a great place to spend some euros.

We are enjoying a balmy start to autumn here so far, but do feel the chill in mornings and evenings; it's another month until official 'winter time' in Europe.

Suomi stamps page 2

Festival of the Arts - Helsinki

Claire has arrived for a visit and luckily the annual Helsinki Festival is still going on. She missed the French company Les Plasticiens Volants and their balloon procession through Helsinki but Gerald and I saw it. Here are some pictures and I suggest you look them up the web too, to see moving images - really spectacular in person though. We also saw a Russian clown troop last night, Teatr Licedei, performing "Semianyki", a hilarious mostly pantomime show of family life - they too have some online footage - and as Claire studied 'clown' this last year, she was very happy to catch this comedia performance. We'll also see the Belarus Free Theatre Sunday, so she'll get quite a dose of far away art this visit. Gerald and I saw Kraftwerk (German) and Buika (Spanish/flamenco) and so we've been getting around this festival all while staying in town, and all of it has been really inspired. Even the canoe exhibition in my neighborhood! Art everywhere to bring summer to a close. (More pictures on page 2.)

Festival - page 2

As I was happily watching the cute fish floating through the plaza, Gerald pointed behind me and there was a huge fanged sea snake emerging from a side street, then it chased the fish a bit and descended down into the thrilled crowd too. The kids were fearless. What a wonderful performance - the puppeteers just walked right in the crowd and the jellyfish in particular was beautiful with its tentacles opening and closing as it ebbed up and down. We couldn't see the others - a whale, a lobster, some seahorses, because there were so many people - more than the Madonna gig even! I'm so glad we got to see more of the festival this year as we won't be here for it next year.