Things we've seen while travelling around Suomi

Last week while taking an evening walk we came across a small area of garden plots called Siirtolapuutarha (allotment garden). It was an area of miniature houses constructed without foundations and garden plots. Apparently, the plots are owned, not rented. And people cultivate their gardens and sometimes spend the night in these small houses. All of the paths going through the area were posted to keep people from walking through. Close by we discovered an area of tall evergreen trees with multiple bike, walking, and cross-country ski paths. It is a very beautiful place and I expect we will return often. There are various exercise spots along the routes. The Finns are very active people. We often see 75-80 year old people riding bikes. No one saunters, they move quickly, take long strides, and have great posture. Finns have a keeping fit discipline calleed sauvakavely (walking with sticks). The discipline was developed from training methods used by professional skiers. The Finns walk briskly with two sticks to exercise legs and arms/upper body. By the way, I read that Finns watch TV 2.5 hours a week on average.

While walking through the university the other day there was a large crowd watching two teams play a game that appeared on first glance to be baseball. But........the ball is tossed in the air by someone playing what would ordinarily be the catcher's position and the batter hits the ball into the field. We don't know how many chances the batter gets or why he starts running, or what determines what direction he runs or how anyone is put out. A man stands in the area with 5 wooden markers spread out like a peacock's tail. We don't know who he was or what he was doing. A couple of referee types blew whistles from time to time. The person who hit the ball sometimes ran toward what would be the area of third base or sometimes toward where first base would be. Sometimes the runner ran back and forth between the two areas. It was all a mystery. Points were scored, apparently at random. We think it was called pesapallo. Near the stadium were two areas marked pyoraparki to indicate where bicycles were to be parked. There were at least 200 bikes there.

And more about bikes: While in Tampere I saw a girls with nylons, high heels, short professional skirt riding her bike. We often see riders with opened umbrellas and talking on cell phones. Yesterday I saw a bike with a trestle bench attached to the back rack. Looked like they were moving it to another home. Also saw a woman in long black skirt with violin riding her bike, I assume to a performance of some sort.

Last night we rode home from our home teaching appointment at a very late hour. The sun never sets completely anymore. It is always light toward the north. David took a picture of the lake outside our home teaching person's house around 10:30 and there was plenty of light to do it with. We lost complete track of time because of the light. Also it was a really fun and interesting visit. The sister we visited speaks Finnish, Dutch, and English. Her neighbor came who speaks Finnish, Russian, and English. We brought a Russian with us who speaks Dutch and English also. The conversation was hilarious as people would forget who spoke what and mix the languages together into sentences to express their thoughts.