Sauna Bussi

So we went to a Christmas concert in Helsinki a little bit ago.  The boys trumpet teacher, Nancy,  was playing.  It was very nice though Finnish carols tend to be a bit sad.  On the way to the concert we came across the SAUNA BUSSI or SAUNA BUS.  Daniel and I were the only ones to see it but through the frosty windows we could see the outline of men in towels (and probably only towels) moving around inside the bus.  It was just so Finnish.  Good solid communal transportation and a sauna.  Sadly we've run out of time to test it.

Here are the lyrics from one Finnish Christmas carol.
It tells a story of a girl and her dead little brother. The brother has died of famine, but visits the girl on Christmas morning in a shape of a sparrow. “The morsel of food you offered brought me from the land on angels.
http://depressingfinland.tumblr.com/post/68773575251/some-cheery-finnish-christmas-charols

Varpunen Jouluaamuna

http://lyricstranslate.com

Snow have already covered the flowers in the valley,
frozen wave of lake in cold winter
Little sparrow, eaten food of summer,
frozen wave of lake in cold winter

In the stairs of little cabin was dear girl:
Come sparrow with joy, take seed from me!
It's Christmas, my homeless and unhappy sparrow,
come here with joy, take seed from me!

Dear sparrow flew now to the girl with joy:
I'll be grateful for the seed from you.
If God wants to reward you,
I'll be grateful for the seed from you!

I'm not, my child, bird from this world,
I'm your little brother, I came from heaven.
Little seed you gave to the poor,
get your little brother from the land of angels

The thing that has surprised me most about Finland.


The thing that most surprised me most about Finland was the lack of snow. Finland is partly in the Arctic Circle and there is no snow in the southern and central parts this year.  New York, which is roughly 20 degrees latitude below Finland already has loads of snow. I believe this is from a jet stream in the lower parts of the Atlantic ocean that is bringing warm air to Finland. In north Finland where the jet stream has less effect they get an average of 60 to 90 centimeters of snow every year and may have some snow year round. Helsinki has no snow at this time even though last year at this time they almost had a meter and a half. This is an unusual year in Finland. They normally have one every 10 years or so but it still surprises me.  

Daniel Schuckers

What I wrote in Homeschool

Things That Surprised Me Most About Finland

Weather

The weather here is surprising!

The first day was weird because the sun went down at 9:30pm. I woke up at 5:00am and thought it was 6:00am. Now that it is December, the sun comes up at 9:00am and goes down at 4:00pm.

October was rainy but we missed part of it because we were in Turku, London and Paris. Now the weather is cold, windy and rainy. It snowed three times and then the temperature rose or it started to rain.

School

School is hard and easy.

Everyone has independence. We have to do a lot of assignments at home but all the school work is easy. We have 15 minute recess after every lesson except after the 8:00 to 9:00 lesson. We have a 15 minute lunch. The two schools are separated which is hard and a little fun. It is only fun because we aren’t stuck in a 20 by 15 meter playground. The other playground is big and has a lot of big rocks to climb on, but it only has 3 swings.                       

My favorite lesson was probably Finnish because our teacher was really nice and I feel cool knowing two languages. My second favorite lesson was probably math because my math teacher was nice. I also love math because it is logic.

Stockholm

 So last weekend (now weekend before last) we went to Stockholm for the long Finnish weekend.  Friday December 6th was Finnish Independence Day.  As with most things Finnish, it is pretty low key.  Mostly the day is spent with friends and family.  Nationally, the President hosts a big ball and it is like the Oscars.  Everyone gathers around the TV and watches who is going with whom and who is wearing what.


We arrived on Friday evening and returned Monday.  This picture is the kids with Steph in front of the Nordiska Museum in Stockholm.  This was the first real snow that we had seen (it fell Friday night) and the day got very windy and cold.  We did not go into this museum but it was a nice picture.  We were on our way to the Wasa Museum.  The Wasa (pronounced Vasa) was a double decker gun ship (cannons on the two uppermost levels) that was commissioned in 1625.  One of the first double decker gun ships, it sailed for all of 1300 meters before it sank, largely because it was poorly-design, top heavy and the first good solid crosswind tipped her over.  It sat at the bottom of the Baltic largely forgotten until it was recovered in the 1950's and brought back up in the 1960's.


 We then went to Skansen which is an old Swedish village.  Lots of different shops with things like glassblowing, blacksmithery, etc.  This was Saturday and it was freezing.  So we walked a little then snuck into a building.  Got some glogg or glogi and went into another buidling.  We visited some of the Christmas markets there.  We were a ways from anything so we decided to go to the aquarium near Skansen.  It was a small aquarium about the same size as Helsinki's.  There were tarantula's to touch, a path under a gaggle of monkeys threatening to jump on your head.  Then there was the crocodiles with the following sign.

After all of that, we headed home.  We decided to get dinner at a Chinese restaurant near our apartment.  It was a somewhat surreal sight.  Fortunately, the menu had pictures because no one spoke English.  A family of Americans, in a Chinese restaurant, in Stockholm and the music is playing Sting's "Russians".  Which leads to a discussion of The Cold War and World War II.  The Swedes and WWII and the Finns in WWII and the spectre of nuclear war during The Cold War and how the Cold War started.  Why I was in Stockholm in 1986.  I did not get into Yalta but we did discuss Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, Russian losses during the siege of Leningrad and the involvement of grandfathers.  And then they liked the Chinese food.  Christopher in particular has discovered on this trip that he likes Thai food, curry (a little) and way more chinese dishes than the two we usually are allowed to eat for take out.  

 The pictures (left, above and below) are of the Christmas markets outside the Nobel Museum in Gamla Stan (Old Town) Stockholm.  Took those on Sunday.  Still cold.  We did manage to have a really great hot chocolate at a local shop late morning.

Here is the doorway of the shop in Gamla Stan where we ate lunch.  Was a stable in the 1500's or so.  

 So we are walking around Stockholm later on Sunday on our way to the Modern Art Museum.  I had memories of such a place  On the way there we stopped at the very cool Medieval Stockholm Museum.  Boys got toy swords.  Gab got a gold ring.  Interesting note: Finns were never Vikings.  We are walking to the art museum and G and C are out in front weaving in and out of pedestrians.  D comments:  "There really are some problems with our family."





My sword wielding son and his sister in Stockholm.

In June 1986, I came to Stockholm with a school group on our way to the Soviet Union.  We spent a day in Stockholm and my memory was of a modern art museum followed by some brightly colored modern buildings.  I think I found the art museum but the buildings were not as bright as I recalled them to be.  Could have had something to do with the short days this time around.

  This last picture is for my Uncle Dave or Big Bear to his grandkids but now he has a new name 'Bygginfart'.

Not all sightseeing, smiles and saunas

We have overall had a really good time in Finland but it has not been perfect.  I want to balance out a little of the sunshine (we haven't had much here lately) of this blog with some of the hurdles.

1. The kids did not like school at first.  There was trepidation since the kids had to take English language tests to get into their schools very soon after we arrived here.  The English here is English English not American English.  Daniel's test had a story about taking a lift to a flat.  Kinda tough.  Daniel adjusted the fastest.  He could walk to and from his school.  Gab and Christo took longer.  Perhaps because they had to take two buses to get to their school.  Each day involved slowfootedness and fretting.  I remember well the first time I dropped Gab at school and she did not cry.  That was a big day; I cried.  
2. We have had sickness and injuries.  Daniel injured his big toe (playing soccer against his mother) on the first or second day and that hobbled him for awhile.  About a week before we headed to Paris/London, Daniel had bronchitis.  As Daniel was mending, Christo injured his foot.  It has taken about 10 weeks for him to fully heal.  We think he is close to fully healed.  During that time he was a crutches.  We navigated the subways of Paris and London with those crutches.  I'll remember 'the tube' as the place where I carried Christo up and down as we made transfers.
3. Lice.  We have had head lice.  It has been big news in Helsinki that there are problems in the school this year.  And we got it.  And, of course, Our struggles were with trying to get everything washed and cleaned considering that we really had only one set of linens which meant washing them everyday.  And while our apartment was supposed to have a drier, it did not.  We used the sauna to dry clothes.  Steph also took many trips to a very expensive laundramat to get everything done.
4. The place where I am working has had to cut about 15% of their workforce this year due to the economy in Europe which has been slower to recover than the US.  (We had a brief scare this past summer after buying our tickets that my fellowship would be cancelled.  Actually it was cancelled but not by someone with the power to cancel it.)  Yes, people here are jealous of the recovery of the US economy.  I know, the US economy is not recovering quickly but it is recovering and growing, unlike many of the economies of Europe, even frugal northern Europe.  This has meant that morale is low.  Sometime in about October, the group that I having working with found out that about 1/3 of their positions would move to the local university.  Having already lost another 1/3 to cuts.  Morale in the group has been very low.  Then about two weeks ago, those moving to the university found out that they would not being going there and their contracts have not been renewed.  Good times.

Overall those aren't really bad issues.  But they have led to some stress in ours lives.  I am incredibly proud of my kids for how they have handled these hiccups.  We were in Stockholm last weekend and it was amazing to watch the confidence of our kids as they strode through the city walking 50 feet in front of their parents totally knowing what to do and how to act.  Well okay maybe they still act like 'country mice' in the city but they carry themselves well.

Some hockey stuff

I got interviewed for an article that appeared in The Toronto Star yesterday.  The article mentions a methodology that one of my students and I worked on.  

Hockey Article in The Toronto Star

No Snow and Darkness!

Getting into the Christmas Spirit.(With Candles).

There has been a little bit of snow but it just melts.Take a pic of the amount of snow you have and email me please i don't get many emails.Email me at ccschuckers@gmail.com PLEASE.

4:00 and its this dark!

More Lights.

We have a Christmas tree.

Thanksgiving weekend

After touring Parliament on Friday, all of the Fulbrighters were invited to a sort of Thanksgiving potluck at the Helsinki apartment of one of the Fulbrighters.  We had a nice time and I even found a way to make fresh hummus (using Macedonian Tahini, go figure). We had a super time.  Over the last couple of months, we gotten to know some of the students and faculty on the program and it was a really nice time.  Currently, we are one of only two families here though a couple of the faculty have their spouse along.  Our kids are a novelty for most and so they have been tolerant.

Saturday morning we drove to the Northwest about 100km to Liesjärven National Park where we had rented a rustic cabin for the night.  No electricity, just a propane stove for cooking, a wood stove for heat and a separate building with a sauna.  We got there after stopping to pick up the key from a lunch place.  The lunch was a typically Finnish buffet with salad, bread, and a couple of other options on this day meatballs and pork.  Daniel and Gab had chicken nuggets with fries.  They seem universal.

 

 From lunch we drove to the cabin.  This picture is not the cabin but the sauna.  It too was heated by a wood stove though a more efficient one than the one in the cabin.  We started by making a fire in the cabin which took some time to get going.  Time to find the flue.  By late afternoon snow was falling.  The first real snow we had had on the trip.  Pretty amazing given that it has snowed at least three times in Canton, NY already.  The sauna house was about 150m from the main cabin.

 Here is the view from the cabin.  There was a dock onto a lake.  The lake had about 2 or 3 inches of ice on it.  Of course, our kids wanted to go walk on the ice.  Nope, ain't happening.

 Here is Daniel standing outside the sauna cabin getting a drink with the first snowflakes before we headed down to the load up with water at the outdoor well.

 The picture is from the sign on the door to the well.  The well was a real well dug about 15 feet down.  There was a bucket attached to a long pole and you lowered the pole down to the water and then pulled the bucket back up with the pole.  This was our source of fresh water for the night.

 We went for a hike after getting both the fire in the cabin and the fire in the sauna going.  This bridge is part of one of the trails in the national park between two large lakes.  When we got back we took a sauna.  We got the temp in the sauna to about 60 degrees C and stayed in there a good long time.  All of us in our underwear.  We went out of the a couple of times and the snow falling on our unclothed bodies felt good.  Christo in particular seemed to enjoy the hot then cold, hot then cold juxtaposition.  After we were done, I walked back to the main cabin without a shirt on.

 After the sauna is was dark (pitch black) and still not 4pm.  We had some chips and salsa for snack.  We reheated taco meat for dinner and ate it in tortillas with rice and salsa.  One of our camping staples.  We also managed to make hot chocolate.  The picture (at left) is from after breakfast the next morning but the candles give you a sense of  the place.

We

 Here is Christo in bed reading at the cabin.  The cabin had two bunks.  The plan was to have one of the kids (usually Christo since he moves the least in the night) sleep with one of the adults.  However, while Steph was reading 'Tom Sawyer' to us all, Christo and Gab fell asleep in the same bed and that is how we stayed for the night.

 Here is the woodstove.  It held heat for a good 2 hours which necessitated several visits in the night.  Fortunately I fell asleep at about 8:30p and so getting up a couple of times was not a huge ordeal.  Steph loaded it up around 10 and again at 12 only to try to get it to go for three hours to find that it was out at 2:30.  She relit it and then I took the rest of the night to keep it going.  Fairly easy since I was up from about 2:30 to 4.  The cabin never really got above about 55 during the night but under the blackets and comforters that we brought it was not uncomfortable.

 This sign says that the cabin is at 33 degrees 27" east and 67degrees 34" North.

 This picture was taken about 10 in the morning as we were packing to go.  By we, I mean, Steph and I as the kids were down by the dock having stick sword fights.

 Here are the kids as we were ready to leave.  The upstairs is a special old fashioned sauna known as a smoke sauna and you have to reserve that and pay extra for it.  We did not.

 Part of the national park is a restored old farmhouse.  We drove over and had lunch near where this picture was taken.  Hard to see from the picture but the farm is on a peninsula that sticks out into the lake.  In this picture it is hard to see but there is a well just behind the fence much like the one we used except that this pole was attached to a balance that makes pulling up the bucket much easier.




We came home Sunday afternoon and then Sunday evening we went to Helsinki to see Swan Lake performed by the Ukrainian National Ballet Company.  It was pretty impressive especially the female lead.  We all managed to stay awake for the whole thing.  Here is a picture of us taken at intermission.  It is possible to order food and drinks for intermission and then your order is waiting for you at a designated table when you come out for intermission.  Pretty nice.  Probably common in big cities but not for these country mice.

 

Catching Up (November)

Okay I'm behind and to catch up just a little snippet to go with some pictures.

Here's a picture from a hike north of Espoo taken November 2nd.  This little cliff overlooks a beautiful clear lake.

 We went to a concert in Helsinki at Finlandia Hall of the BeunaVista Social Club.  It was Cuban music.  There was an old Cuban woman probably in her 70's and she could sing but she could not move super well.  Not often you see a band led by a trombonist but this band was really good and the trombonist was incredible.  All the kids were dancing (even Daniel, but just a little.)

 On November 15th, we went to see a professional hockey match at the arena, Barona Areena, which is about 300 m from our apartment.  The attraction of this particular game was that my former student, Matt Generous, was playing for the visiting Rauma Lock.  Matt is number 21 leaning over the boards.  Matt was a great student (honors in math and econ) while playing hockey for St. Lawrence.  He's turned into an even better person.












We got to visit with Matt briefly after the game.  He brought posters and pucks for the kids.  Though the mustache is somewhat sketchy (I'm one to talk, right, look at that beard.), it was great to see him and hear about his Finnish girlfriend.

This picture was taken the next day (16 November at 12:48 in the afternoon.  Notice the long shadows.  We are atop the steps of the 'White Church' overlooking Senate Square.  Unfortunately there was a funeral going on so we could not go inside the church.  That's still on our to do list.

 This picture is Daniel riding a bike on a high wire cable at the Heureka (Eureka) Science Museum in Helsinki.  This is a small museum but it has a lot of hands on activities.

 As we were leaving the Science Museum we took this picture at 5:48pm (17:48) in the picture with the nearly full moon in the sky.  The picture is definitely representative of the darkness that day (16 November) at that time.








 Switching gears somewhat, here is a picture of my workspace at VTT.  The windows are higher that it appears here.  I share my office with a woman named Katariina who works in a different group.  As is typical we do not talk much.  We have spoken less than 2000 words to each other since August.  Most days are simple: "Good morning", "Hello" and "Good bye".  Very Finnish.

10 days ago we went to the Helsinki Aquarium.  It is a small aquarium but it had some cool stuff.  And not surprisingly some herring.  Here is a picture of the kids in front of the largest tank.

 Here's a picture of the kids outside the aquarium at about 3pm.  The Aquarium is located near the amusement park and not far from the Olympic Stadium from the 1952 Summer games.

So last week, the week of Thanksgiving, we got to say the best sentence ever uttered by a parent.  "Kids tomorrow you get to skip school and tour a chocolate factory!"  So Fazer (pronouned Fotz-zer) is a Finnish high quality chocolate company.  I mention this to distinguish from Hershey's which I consider to be good but more average quality.  The picture at left is from the part of the Fazer tour where you get to eat as much as you want.  Heaven.

So I've been doing a good bit of running (3+ times per week) while we've been here and I have been doing about 10K every Sunday morning. You need special gear for running this time of year in Finland.  So here are Daniel and I dressed for a run.  Daniel has on a headlamp, I have on an armband with lights that flash.  He has gotten a good bit taller and we just bought sneakers for him that were size 10.5.  I'm thinking he's not done growing.

 Here we are outside with our reflective gear on.

Last Friday, along with the Fulbrighters I got to take a tour of the Finnish Parliament.  They are in the midst of budget negotiations and that was likely to be done by now.  The Finnish system is a unicameral legislature with currently eight political parties, six of whom participate in the current government.  This picture is from the main chamber looking at the speakers chair from the diplomats box.  We had a lunch hosted by the Chair of the Grand Committee which oversee relations with the EU.

The proposed Finnish budget (the yellow book).  Surprisingly the font inside was 12pt.













Whew...

London Part 2

So when last we were together, I mentioned something about London.  So we found ourselves in London.  Our first day was spent sussing out the town and getting some basic supplies for our stay.  We arrived Friday night and Saturday we went to the Tower of London.  Very nice and great for the kids.  Lots of armor, jewels, cannons and sausages.  We got to see 'the Crown Jewels' and 'Traitor's Gate'  I'll let you guess which of my three kids were enthralled by the jewels.  They have found Roman remains on that site dating from the 4th century.  Pretty cool.  After that we took a boat ride on the Thames.  managed to get ourselves around to Trafagar Square and to take a double decker bus tour.  After the boat ride, we ate at an English pub called The Sherlock Holmes a couple blocks from Trafalgar Square.  Again getting meat into the bellies was a very good idea.  Christo was still on crutches and so most of our tube times involved carrying him to speed things up and not tire him out.

Sunday was a big thrill for me (Michael).  Ever since we have known that we were going to go on this trip, I have been planning to see an English football/soccer game in person.  (I've now seen a Serie A match, an EPL match and a Finnish first division match.)  From outside England, it was hard to get tickets.  So we ended up with tickets to a match in Birmingham England: Tottenham Hotspurs (Spurs) at Aston Villa (Villans).  Would have preferred to see a match in London but no luck.  That meant we spent about two hours of train rides to get to the match.  We arrived pretty early to take in the atmosphere.  And the atmosphere was damp.  It was a rainy not quite chilly but not warm.  Fortunately that day was a 'Family Fun' day and so there were activities for the kids in the team practice area.  There was archery, obstacle courses, players doing skill demonstration and a gladiator style (foam covered paddles atop cushions) battle area.  Final score at the battle area: Christo 2; Daniel 2.  A draw.  Gab tried and liked the archery.  We were able to spend/kill a good bit of time there.  We had really nice seats near midfield a bit high up.  The Spurs fans were in a section about 25 to 30 seats to our right.  They would cheer very loudly throughout.  We were almost treated to an all goalkeeping match as Brad Guzan is the usual keeper for Aston Villa and Brad Friedel is the usual keeper for the Spurs.  Match was close but the Spurs scored late in the first half promptly very loud cheering to our right....and one of the Spurs fans threw a smoke flare onto the field hitting a linesman in the back of the neck.  This was bad and made these parents very nervous.  Another smoke flare appeared on the field.  The authorities were quick to make arrests and hauled a bunch of people out of the stadium.  The home side had even less to cheer in the second half as Andros Townsend was spectacular.  Nice to have great speed, great touch and be 22.  We survived a ride home and arrived late.  Crowd waiting for the local train back to the main Birmingham train station was a bit rough and there was plenty of alcohol being enjoyed.  Fans were tolerant which English soccer fans have not always been known for.  Can't say that I came away loving Aston Villa but I can say that I dislike Tottenham.

Monday was the British Natural History Museum.  This was a revelation.  Some of the pictures are below.   There are over 70 million specimens in the museum and some 20 million of them are available for display.  It's also a research facility.  We got to take the 'Spirit Tour' which let us go behind the scenes to some of the research areas and the storage areas.  Our guide was a biologist whose job it is to identify unknown species.  You would think that would involved lots of cool species from Borneo or Madagascar, but really she mostly does work on unidentified things that end up in peoples food.  We got to see flesh eating beetles in action from the other side of a think glass wall, the preserved body of the only giant squid captured alive (a 7m long little girl giant squid) and some of Darwin's original specimen's again on the other side of a think wall.  The museum was just massive.  An the overwhelming sense that I got from all of those creatures, especially the fossils was: Wow we are all very very much alike.  I was certainly someone who believed in evolution before the trip but after it there was little doubt in my mind that we're all descended from the same family tree.

By about 4p were all exhausted and we had not seen close to half of what the museum held.  Kids had Subway for dinner and Steph and I split curry and noodles from a noodle house.  We headed back to the apartment with Steph and I sharing secret glances about maybe going back the next day.  WE were pretty sure that the kids were not in the mood for more art.....so back we went.  Did I mention that the museum is free though it costs to check your coat?  Another awesome feature.  So Tuesday was spent at the museum again.  We got to see the Darwin Center Centre, a David Attenborough interactive movie in the David Attenborough Studio, and a special exhibit on the best nature photographs of the year.  There is a special rotating exhibit of treasures where we saw more of Darwin's original samples, first edition of The Origin of the Species, some of Wallace's birds, the first fossil collected by Anne Manning, my new heroine, and the plates from the first edition of John Audubon's Birds of America.  The other overwhelming sense that I came away with was wonder at the people who spent their lives and often their fortunes collecting these specimens that have made so much science possible.  It's an impressive place.  After two days we calculated that we had been in just over 75% of the musuem.  We did another English Pub, the Hoop and Toy.

We had reservations for the London Eye that evening.  It was cool and we got to do it at Dusk so we saw the London skyline both in light and dark.  We also got to go to the express line (because of CC's crutchers) and we got to say that "Elvis sent us."  Apparently the manager is Elvis and he was taking tickets in the regular line and sent us to the express.  The picture below left was taken on our way into something called the London Eye 4D experience which is why we are wearing the glasses.  Interestingly enough, all of the other people who got their picture taken at that spot, took off the glasses.  We look really cool, though.

Two other events stick out from London.  One was Hamley's Toy Store which is in Piccadilly Circus and is 7 floors.  It was tough to get out of that place.  The other was Steph trying to take a picture out the window of our apartment.  On the upper floor the view of downtown is from the bathroom and closest to the tub.  So Steph steps into the tub to take the picture with her cellphone.  And she slips and the cellphone goes out the window.  This is her US cellphone.  We each have a US cellphone from home and a Finnish cellphone for calls here.  You can imagine this cellphone floating through the air ...in......slow.....motion......and out the bathroom window.  Well it landed on the windowsill of an apartment two floors below and at 90 degrees to the bathroom window.  There it lay shining its little glow on that windowsill.  Now Steph has to go down to this apartment the really stinky from cigarette smoke one and ask for her cellphone back by saying.....knock, knock, umm excuse me could you grab my cellphone; it's on your windowsill.  Amazingly that worked.