Second trip to the market

Here are some pictures from our second market visit on Saturday, 8/25.

Some outdoor pictures

Here are some pictures from our stroll for dinner on Friday night - August 24. We came upon a jazz band playing for the city-wide night of the arts, and also some neat steeples and spires, and an outdoor bar.

Differences

It took me a week but I finally used our inroom sauna - and it's very nice. The Finns would say the electric is not as nice as wood-burning, but I don't think I'd want to stay in a hotel with that more rustic version. I did work up a good sweat and also had a good sleep afterward. Another thing I enjoy is the drying cupboard above the sink - it's open to drain into the sink area. Works great.

However there is one thing that Gerald does not like - the open shower arrangement. Think of the whole bath space as a washroom - with the sauna and all. So after you shower, you need to squeegee the floor (ok I admit it, I'm not sure how to spell squeegee!) so it will dry, and it does seem to pretty quickly. He'll adjust. He already did try the "Totally Black" licorice ice cream bar I've become very fond of, and he didn't hate it.

Other news - we've just learned we got an apartment! It's the one in the Ruoholati section of Helsinki which is a newly residential former shipping area right on the water, with a canal running in front of our place, and a marina and terrace cafes right nearby. It's lovely. We went the other night to see the neighborhood, and saw two swans with their cygnets resting just at our corner. It's a newer building and has a great kitchen, room for Gerald's studio, and a guest room for all you potential guests! More details coming soon.

Marketing - as it's meant to be

On Saturday, August 18th we made our way to Helsinki's market square (Kauppatori) by tram and shopped. We walked through the old market building which is indoors and full of small niches of permanent vendors, and also fish and meat vendors - charming. Then we walked through the outdoor market just beside it where there are fruits and vegetable vendors and also food vendors with giant wok-type pots with Finnish stews - usually potatoes and some meat and maybe mushrooms too. Hard to tell! We bought cherries, plums, apricots, chanterelle type mushrooms, summer squash, a pepper, cucumbers, small potatoes, some little cheese pastries decorated with berries and a reindeer sandwich. Plus the odd broccoli relation we had seen previously in Firenze and big peas - both pictured here for your amusement. We cooked our first meal that night and everything tasted great.

It's nice to have the option of cooking at 'home', but we're certainly enjoying our meals out too. I am beginning to decipher some roots in the long Finnish food words and so can occasionally figure out menu items now (kurkku, tomaatti) but we have a long ways to go. The wait staff are very helpful everywhere though, particularly the night we went to the nice Cafe Tori's outdoor terrace after a rain, and got meatballs with lingonberries and mashed potatoes. The waiter suggested sharing and that worked fine - along with the salmon dill soup - all delicious. We won't starve!

Extricating ourselves from STUFF

Early-August was a blur of freecycling, recycling and dumping all of our excess and we are still shocked by how much STUFF we acquired - most of which we did not NEED. Now there's a word that deserves clearer definition these days! On July 10th the movers drove up with our container and packed what we decided to bring to Helsinki. The lead mover was engineering everything into a tight fit into the container while it was being wrapped up in the house - ingenious. The worst of it was August 13th when we had to finally clear out the rest of the house. I guess the years of my being home alone all week and producing minimal garbage in Dexter balance out the giant mound we left behind as we finally drove off to spend the last night in the US for a while with my mom, sweat-soaked and exhausted. We made a late emergency extra duffle run to Target to redistribute our excess baggage into weights human beings could manage, at least those handlers accustomed to it, and after a nice night with my family, we got to the airport and checked all 7(!) bags in and made our way to our flight in plenty of time. We still didn't feel that gush of relief on having gotten everything accomplished since it was such an ordeal. I'm not sure I do yet over a week later now. But we couldn't have done any of this without everyone's help, so thanks again!

Consider yourselves warned - attics, closets, basements and garages hold far more than you think, if you dare to contemplate their potential.