Today is our last day in Helsinki and tomorrow we fly back to the US. Gerald will be back to continue his work on occasion though mostly he'll be working virtually from Las Cruces, but we don't really have to say final farewells. We've got assurances of visits from Finnish friends and certainly plan to return as we haven't seen all we would like of this beautiful region of the world. It's been an excellent empty nest adventure, but now we need to head back to feather our new desert nest once our two shipments of EU & US stuff arrive. So we are still in the midst of moving, continuing stateside tomorrow. We'll be gearing down with margaritas on the veranda some day soon.
Our estimated mileage totals, not including our return flight:
me - 85,000 miles/137,000 km & Gerald - 118,000 miles/190,000 km
Yesterday I met one final goal, borrowed from Claire, of seeing live reindeer at the Korkeasaari Zoo. As with Suomenlinna, the zoo is on a nearby island of its own, and the setting is quite pretty with the cityscape views across the sparkling water. The zoo has natural landscaping and older wooden buildings typical of Finland, and I had a nice quark berry tart in the lovely alcove pictured here.
The dominant male deer was going from feed box to feed box, ousting the others so he could eat it all, and the babies had a cute little bleat as they trotted around. Reindeer are an important industry in the north, so it was good to actually see some in person, as I'd only seen them in the news until now. That male's antlers looked so soft and furry, though they are obviously a serious defense.
And so ends our tale with this final post. Thanks (kiitos) for following along. Our things are sailing west in their Scandinavian (recylable) couture and the Z is packed in there too, all seen to by our careful Finnish packers.
HeiHei, MoiMoi, Näkemiin!
Laurie
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