One of our hosts, Anssi Korhonen, graciously offered to drive Tom Lassiter, Lanshu Wong and I around his home town of Helsinki. After driving past the Stockman department store, the Zoo (the Finnish Parliament, home of 200 animals), the Olympic Stadium, the American Embassy, the apartment where Anssi lived as a small boy, and assorted other sites around downtown Helsinki we stopped at the Alexander the Great Cathedral. The statue in front is of Czar Alexander II of Russia.
We stopped at the American Embassy for a picture, but when I got out of the car the guard immediately approached and asked what I was doing. When I asked if I could take a picture I was told I could take a picture of the flag but none of the buildings. After snapping the picture he asked me to pull up the image on the camera and let him take a look at it. As I got in the car and we drove away my friends kidded me about my potential good news/bad news predicament. Good news - "Honey, I am at the American Embassy", Bad news - "I may be here for a while".
After driving around Helsinki, we headed north to the Lake Tuusual area. It is about 30KM north of the downtown area, but actually fairly close to the airport area where our hotel is located. This area was the center of the Finnish artist community in the early 1900's with the building of Halosenniemi in 1902 and Ainola in 1904. Halosenniemi (Cape Halonen) was the home of the famous Finnish painter Pekka Halonen, his wife, and their 8 children. It is located on a small pennisula jutting out into Lake Tuusala. Today the house functions as an art museum and has been fully restored to its orignial style. Ainola, the home of Jean Sibelius, was built in 1904 and is located a few kilometers north of the Halonen home. The area was also the home of several other Finnish writers, poets, and artists.
Anssi started our tour by slipping a CD of Willie Nelson performing at Billie Bob's into the car stereo to make all of the Texans feel at home. However, as we approached the Lake Tuusula area, Willie Nelson was changed to a recording of Finlandia. Clearly, this area has deep meaning to the natives of Finland.
The weather here continues to be unseasonably warm, but very wet, and of course it is very dark. Anssi told us this year is one of the two warmest Novembers in the last 100 years. It has been in the 40s all of this week but is forecasted to drop below freezing tomorrow or the next day.
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ReplyDeleteDid you see the parliament AND the zoo or are you saying the parliament is a zoo with 200 members?
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