A Day on the Viking Cruise Ship
This is a ship which goes from Turku port to Stockholm, Sweden. Our agenda included a day from Turku to a point between there and Sweden, and then to turn back around and come home. So, we weren't quite sure what to expect...I'm not sure anything could have prepared us for what was to come.

Part 1
As we entered the boat at 8am, a drunk man wearing only a shirt and whitey-tighties was being escorted off the boat. Next we rushed with our hosts Raimo and Helena (who are amazing people) up to another buffet smorgasbord, just another in a long long line of this style of dining. AS you can imagine we were experts in that experience. Then we moved onto to the exploration of the boat, where we saw many slot machines, gaming tables, bars, duty free shopping, saunas and hot tubs. Since the boat is really more lively in the evening we decided to have a seat in a bar area and write postcards and some of our group had some bloody marys. Some of the first real American bar drinks of the trip, they get rave review!
That concludes the morning part of the trip.
The afternoon livened up with some group Karaoke. Lynn has a really great voice and decided to entertain us all with some Norah Jones "don't know why" and Whitney Houston's " I wanna dance with somebody".

Here is Lynn singing and Raimo dancing, the first Finnish man brave enough to dance on stage with Lynn, way to go Raimo!!


Part 2-The story continues
After some fun karaoking, we then disembarked from boat #1 midway bt Finland and Sweden and hopped right onto the next cruise home. So, as things were looking more lively for the evening trip back, we decided to try another round of karaoke, in another location. This time Lynn got up to sing a classic " I will survive", everyone loves that song, the perfect sing-a-long in the US and Europe alike, right?
NOPE, not our new crowd. Lynn literally SURVIVED the worst karaoke crowd in history, she sang her heart out, did a fabulous job while a room of completely stoic folks stared dead pan at her the ENTIRE song. Oh, well she's a trooper and she had managed to WOW the audience in the first boat. We knew because of their great response and the fanfare we recieved that afternoon as we walked around the boat. Thanks Lynn.

Part 3- Cheetah and the Bandit
Many of our facebook friends have already been introduced to this duo but for those of you who are not, here it goes.

Introducing Cheetah and the Bandit!!!

Cheetah on the left Bandit on the right. Though Cheetah was a fascinating performer and I could only catch him in a photo from the side, due to his stealth and cat like moves, we were SO much happier to hear bandit sing, because he unlike Cheetah had a really lovely singing voice .

Well, the day ended with a few cover songs from the band, a bit of dancing by our hosts, Raimo and Helena and a drive back home, where we relaxed around the hotel and then crawled into bed, awaiting the next days big adventure. Though, after a day like that we felt...surely, we had seen it all.

Today we traveled to the Vuojoki Mansion. The Empire-style Vuojoki Mansion was designed by the acknowledged architect Carl Ludwig Engel (1777-1840) and represents the most prestigious architectural heritage in Finland. The Mansion centre consists of the main building and its annexes, the greenhouse and other outbuildings as well as the park and the cultivated areas.

Previously known as Vuojoki Castle, the mansion’s current, elegant design was created in 1836 by architect C.L. Engel. The work was commissioned by Lars Magnus Björkenheim, a Finnish iron works magnate.

Today, Vuojoki Mansion, one of Finland’s architectural treasures, is owned by Eurajoki Municipality and leased to Posiva Ltd, while the Vuojoki Foundation plays the key role in preserving and publicising the mansion’s cultural heritage. The Foundation also sponsors research, development and educational work associated with the mansion’s historical legacy.

Our tour guide showed the grounds of the estate, including a version "English" garden complete with a river.  We were served lunch here and learned that it was a very common place for locals to eat lunch as well.  As always, lunch was very good.

After lunch, we toured the Teollisuuden Voima Oyj (TVO) nuclear power plant. Mikko, a local Rotarian and TVO Plant Manager, gave us a brief introduction to TVO before stepping out for a meeting.  Hannu then finished the presentation and gave us a tour of low and intermediate nuclear waste depository.  The depository was deep within the earth and the waste is kept in containers in the rock.  The contamination area was not the most pleasant smelly and we all joked about our future children being born with 3 heads or spare limbs. However, Robynn and Jill wore radiation detectors and any radiation we experienced during that time was less than the radiation that a person receives on a typical Finnish day on the surface of the earth. I think we're all safe :)  We finished our time at TVO with good conversation, coffee, tea and cake.

We had a great site visit on Thursday - we went to Pori Brigade.  One of the Brigade Directors is a Rotarian and he met us Thursday morning to tour us around and show us Finnish army life.  We arrived at 9:20am for our tour, and our host was scheduled to be on a 17:00 flight from Tampere (over 1 hour away) headed to Afghanistan.  He spent the entire day with us until he had to change into his traveling fatigues and leave around 15:30.  Amazingly, he was as cool-minded as I've seen any leisure traveler a few hours prior to an overseas flight - much less someone headed to a hostile warzone!  He was a fabulous host who helped us understand military life in Finland.  The five us learned about Finland's required military service for all men.  We had heard of the requirement since our arrival, but didn't understand many details prior to our trip.  I had lots of questions - starting with "as a country who hasn't participated in a war in 100 years, why do you still require military service?"  Our host's answer was refreshingly honest - "because we share a 1300 km border with Russia."  One of his colleagues quickly jumped in with the response that they also are active in humanitarian aid through International Peacekeepers abroad.  He agreed and we all got a laugh as he acknowledged that his answer wasn't the official/politically correct response.   In our American eyes, it was the best response we could have heard rather than a canned one!  Our Brigade hosts taught us a new word - "conscripts" - referring to the young men "drafted" to serve their 6-12 months rather than the men and women who voluntarily enlist for a career. 
We were joined by our cohost, Paula, a young social worker who oversees the 200+ International Peacekeepers deployed from Pori Brigade on international missions - primarily to Afghanistan, Somalia, and Chad.  Finland seems to be a strong presence in overseas peacekeeping support.  
Next, we went to the canteen for "Thursday lunch".  Pori Brigade has served the same lunch for decades and is "historical".  We had really scrumptuous pea soup (with mustard and onions).  We were thrilled to have a "normal" sized meal since 99% of the meals we've eaten are served "smorgasbord" style so we eat A LOT here!!!  Lynn and Aimee had coincidentally discussed pea soup with their hosts the night before. 

We visited the barracks of the conscripts in the 1st Jaeger (Finnish Rapid Deployment Force) - the top group in the brigade who are most likely to serve overseas.  Their barracks don't vary much from those of our forts in the states.  
Finally, we visited the brigade's health center where Lynn saw a military ambulance similar to that which her father has restored. 
This was a great site visit!!

Today began in the new town of Rauma.  We met our new host families and prepared for our day's programs.  We first toured the Aijansuo Hockey Arena where Rauma's professional hockey team, Rauman Lukko plays.  We viewed all the private boxes that were individually decorated.  One of the boxes included a sauna, which parties can enjoy while watching the game-NICE!!  Later we received a guided tour of Old Town Rauma by Johanna Suokanto.  We visited old homes and churches where the architecture was unique.   We walked around all the historic streets and had ice cream in the square.  We ended our tour at The City Hall, where Johanna spoke briefly on the key points of Rauma over coffee and snacks. After lunch everyone went home to settle in with their new host families.  I went straight to the Physiotherapy Center downtown Rauma, where Rotarian Jukka Karenius's son Toni and wife Anna own and manage.  I was given a tour of the facilities and introduced to all the staff.  I even participated in Anna's Zumba class-where I discovered that I have 2 left feet ;).  Since chiropractic and physiotherapy are quite similar fields of practice, Jukka felt it was better that I stayed with them so we could discuss more on our work.  I was very grateful to Toni and Anna for opening their home to me and allowing me to tour their facility. :) R

Toivontalo-means "Hope House" in Finnish
Lynn and I visited this place for those struggling with drug and alcohol addiction. We were met by Anne Babb, a wonderful woman who runs the house, she had also arranged a group tour with some other women from Wales, Scotland, and the US. They are all here bc their husbands work at TVO, the local nuclear power plant. We enjoyed the tour, meeting new friends and as we left feeling...well, hopeful.

Rotary-the official presentation
We met the local Rauma group and gave our typical presentation. It was a lively group, a yummy lunch and at the end we were given a compliment by a Dr. in the group who said we "had the best GSE presentation" he had seen in 6 years. YAY for us.

Sauna and Summer fun at the cottage
Lynn and I had the same host and they took us to their summer cottage for the night. We had a super good dinner, a spin out on the boat in the sea, and then of course sauna and a freezing dip in the water. I'd like to give a special thanks to Henrick our captain, Johannes for translating the concept of the show Punk'd to his parents, Pekka for being a great conversationalist, and Mari for being the best hostess ever and making us feel so welcome!

We spent the mornings with our individual host families today.  So, Liisa and I woke pretty early and she took me to the local Pori cemetery to see a mausoleum built by a very wealthy businessman in 1903 when his 11-year-old daughter, Sigrid, died.  He commissioned a famous Finnish architect for the structure as well as a very prominent painter for the frescoes.  

Next, we drove to Reposaari to eat at a very local, traditional Finnish coast restaurant.  The food was served smorgasbord style and we had great fresh salmon, "white fish", and baltic herring prepared four different ways including salt cured, curried, and with a tomato sauce.  Baltic herring is a TRUE specialty here and we're not sure how we feel about it as a group.  Only a couple of us have been willing to try it - it's not bad, but it is quite small and has so many bones (that are soft and one eats), that it's hard psychologically to eat.  The taste, however, isn't bad - just pretty salty!  It was a bit of a shame because Liisa saw an old friend who offered the two of us to join with friends and sail back to Pori on their private boat.  That would have been amazing, but we had arrived by car and there was no way to get the car back home and we had to be back to Pori for the events with too little time.

In addition to saunas, it seems that all Finns have summer cottages and we have each been fortunate to visit those of our respective hosts.  Liisa and I visited hers to find two birds in the front room flying repeatedly into the glass windows.  We finally managed to free the birds and enter the cottage.  The pic below shows the cottage, and she had another matching building housing the sauna and shower facilities, as well as a third on the water - traditionally for boat storage, though she doesn't currently have a boat, so now housing mower and other necessities.  The view from this location was amazing as was the amount of time, effort and labor that Liisa expends to keep a fabulous garden at the cottage!

Tonight, we all attended a Finnish baseball game.  This sport is quite different from our national pastime!  The pitcher in the picture is the guy in the black outfit - he tosses the ball straight up into the air over the white disc on the ground.  The batter runs into the area and hits the ball.  The batter's three strikes were at first confusing as he has the option of which ball to run the bases - if he hits the ball, but doesn't like where it goes, he can take it as a strike and hit another - even if it's in fair territory and not a foul ball!  The base pattern is different - yes they have 1st, 2nd, 3rd and home, but they are not in a diamond, and the bases are HUGE chalk areas they only have to stand in.  There isn't a home plate so the batter only need cross the baseline across the entire width of the field to tag home - basically it's only beating the ball, and no skill on the "catcher" (he's the same guy as the "pitcher" to tag, etc.  The players don't "tag up" either - again, having the choice to run - not often in a force out situation.  There is a back line boundary so a home run isn't possible - in fact we never saw a batter get more than a single since the field is quite a bit smaller.  We did see a couple of steals so that was exciting.  It's much faster paced than American baseball - they play four innings, take a break and play another four innings.  It poured rain on us a few times, but we enjoyed cheering for the local Pori/Ulvila team though they lost to a much more experienced team. 

Chauffeur-Lynn Goldberg

Sorry it has taken so long to post this weeks blob, but we are running out of fumes!



  Monday May 17th- We woke up this morning to the news that Oklahoma City had been hit by an enormous hail storm, the size of grapefruits.  Amy Scott and I unfortunately received some roof and window damage.  I hope the rest of you in Oklahoma City were not hit too badly.  This mornings program began with a short walk from Suomalainen Klubi to City Hall where Matti Korpinen was gracious enough to accompany us.  Our program speaker was Esko Karra, M.D. who spoke to us regarding combination plans for social and health organizations with in the Pori area.  We enjoyed his presentation and respected his honesty when asked questions on Finland's health care system. ( I will not go into detail, but it sounded similar to some of the current issues we are facing in the U.S.). 
  After our presentation at RC Telja we all scattered to our afternoon programs.  Lynn and I departed from Finnish club in style driven by Matti Korpinen in his 1964 Silver Cloud 3 Rolls Royce to Polartherm Oy, Luvia.  We met the president of the company and were given a presentation and tour of the facilities.  After our visit Lynn was fortunate enough to be able to drive us back to Pori, Matti sat up front of course.  Lynn was a safe driver-see picture.  
  When we returned to Pori, I had the pleasure to meet with Ragna Valli, D.C.    We chatted over coffee about the history of chiropractic in Finland and how she faught to practice here over 30 years ago.  Dr. Valli presented to me with a book on the history of chiropractic in europe and demonstrated some of her treatment techinques.  I was honored to have spent time with her, she is certainly a pioneer in the chiropractic profession-see pictures.
  After our programs we all returned home to our last night here in Pori.  We will miss everyone that has been so gracious here and hope to continue meeting more wonderful people on our journeys ahead. 

Lynn Goldberg,Pasi Anittila,Paavo J. Sorvakko (President of Polartherm),Robynn Poortvliet.

  This morning we had our final breakfasts with our host families and then met at the Hotel PumpuliEnkeli to say our goodbyes and head to the town of Pori.  Saku was gracious enough to drive us, but he kept looking down at his phone and driving too fast, which was making us all car sick.  For those of you that are not familiar with the roads in Finland, they are very winding.  Lynn kept telling him to watch the road and to slow down, but he did not understand her English that well so Aimee pulled out her translation book and told Saku, in Finnish, that he was making us ,"Nauseous".  Saku understood and drove us there safely in time to meet Seppo Niemisto and Matti Korpinen at the Suomalainen Klubi in Pori.  We presented our district to the RC Pori meeting (Suomalainen Klubi(Finnish/Swedish Club)).  I felt our presentation went smoothly and the club enjoyed it.  Amy Scott spoke french with a gentleman from the same small town were she had studied in France- small world!  
  Our afternoon program began at The Satakunta University of Applied Sciences.  We were given a brief tour by Seppo's wife, Pirjo and then met with Viveka Hoijer-Brear, The Senior Lecturer and International Relations Coordinator at SAMK.  We were given an informative overview on the Finland Health Care Education System and she answered many of our questions. 
   After our program all of us met back at the club and we were introduced to our new host families.  I have to admit I was a little nervous at first meeting our new Pori families, especially after we had such a wonderful time with our Forssa families, but everyone is just as warm and gracious here and we are settling in just fine. 
  My Pori family, Petri Nieminen, his wife Erica and their 3 children Mikael-14, Linnea-12 and Ellen-7 had prepared a wonderful meal for my first night in Pori. We started our first coarse sitting on the front porch enjoying the 30*C temperature with an assortment of toasted bowl shaped crackers with drizzled garlic and red peppers paired with herb cheese balls that fit perfectly inside the crackers- Yummy!  Then we had malt bread with a fine layer of Wahhabi dressing, sliced smoked salmon and sprinkled dill-Yummy2.  To drink we had mango-pear cider (alcohol).  For the next coarse we moved to the backyard, were we sipped Riesling on the porch that over looked the river and ate asparagus drizzled with olive oil, shaved Parmesan cheese and garlic bread (to soak up the olive oil)-Yummy3.  For our main coarse we paired a mixed green salad with an eggplant-red pepper relish along with seared lemoned white fish-Yummy4.  For dessert, well I was so incredibly full that I skipped it :(  My pants are already becoming too tight from my previous week in Forssa! 
   Later that night, Petri and I took a taxi to meet the rest of the girls for drinks at Westin.  We grabbed a table and watched some of the hockey game, but there was a creepy guy that kept standing right behind us, so we decided to move our venue to Cafe Antone, which I really liked.  It was another sports bar minus the creepy guys.  After the game we went to a club called Cabaret that featured a half time show of burlesque women dancing.  That was interesting, not in a good way, LOL.  The jet-lag started to catch up with us so home to bed we went.    I hope my first blog didn't bore you all too badly.  Please forgive my grammar and spelling.  Thanks, Robynn :)

 THE AHLSTROM EMPIRE
Here you see a photo of some of the buildings we visited today owned by the Ahlstrom family. You may ask who are these people and why post about them? Let me tell you in short, Antti Ahlstrom was a self made country business man, who took great risks in the early 1820's and became very wealthy through shipping and lumber production and later in 1870 bought a millwork. He chose to add the the surrounding area places for workers to live, to have recreation, church and school and other activities. All within walking distance of their workplace. Sound like a familiar business plan to anyone?
Anyhow, the Ahlstrom empire, as I have called it, expanded for several generations and today is still a 70% family owned corporation, which has several companies represented.

ABOUT ONE OF THE COMPANIES....
A. Ahlstrom is the company which keeps the historical museum within the old millworks and also has the museum of Villa Mairea.

The grandaughter of Antti Ahlstrom was Maire Gullichsen and she is noteworthy because she married Harry Gullichsen, studied art in France, brought modern art to Finland, collaborated with her friends Alvar Aalto and his wife Aino to build an amazing modern home in the 1938 which we visited, Villa Mairea. www.villamairea.fi

Anyhow, check out the website and for those who will not, just know that in the home it has "extra Picassos" in storage for when they feel like changing the art work, as well some of the most amazing design I've ever seen. Open floor plans, furniture designed by the Aalto family, and many pieces of art by  "personal friends" of the couple, names we only read about.

We all left quite impressed, inspired and pleased to know that the Ahlstrom family of great wealth and success still use the home today to vacation together, all the while still sharing their home as a museum

We rose early to another fabulous spread of breakfast.  Robynn and I stayed together with our host, Heidi, a gracious hostess and a good cook!  Our first night, we arrived to Forssa and her house a few km out of town in Matku to have a great chicken lasagna, ham and cheese quiche, salad, and brownies.  In the mornings, we have tea, coffee, milk, OJ, yogurt with muesli, grain bread, cheese, tomatoes, cucumbers, and turkey - we love Europe!  We live with a 160-pound Pyrenees dog named Ninni (see picture!). 

This morning, we met the rest of the group at 9:00am and headed to Humppila Glass Factory - where we saw an artist blowing glass, and shopped at some specliaty boutique outlets including Finland's most well known female boutique,  Marimekko.  Thankfully, we got some items at a decent price and tax free!  Following the shops, we had an American hamburger at a local resto. 
We had the same driver, Saku, for several days in Forssa - he's a 19 year old student who doesn't speak any English, but has been great to accompany us anywhere and seemed to be a great sport - apparently even volunteering to chauffeur us around. 

This afternoon, we went to one of Finland's national parks on a lake - wow it was gorgeous.  We walked around the lake and were pleased to see that our host, Jaako and our driver, Saku, were waiting for us through the forests with champagne!!!  We had a lovely toast on the bank of a river with a breathtaking view.  Some of us dipped our legs, and it was freezing!!  We ventured to the visitor's center in the national park where a guide gave us a tour and explanation of life in that bog.

Following, we headed to the local airport to take a tour of the surrounding area by air!!!  When we arrived at the TINY country airport, we found about 40 Finnish police officers using the long and non-trafficked runways as a track to test/improve their motorcycle skills.  They were doing road tests on their bikes - practicing chases at high speeds in populated areas.  Jaako is a pilot of a small Cessna and took up some of the group members for a flyover of Forssa and surrounding areas.  A Finnish pilot approached us in English - Heidi says it was odd for a Finn to open conversation like that, so we think he might have thought Robynn was quite cute - which isn't a bad thing as he was himself!!!  We learned that he is a commercial pilot for FinnComm Air (regional airline) - it was his day off and he was there with another pilot flying gliders.  Aimee and I were lucky to each have a glider ride with him (Pertti) over the area - we didn't go as far out as the others in the Cessna, but we got some fabulous pictures of the many lakes, and it was a once in a lifetime opportunity!!!  The scariest part was the very serious overview of how to exit the plane in a parachute if we lost control.  Going up in the tow plane was very interesting!!  I got lots of laughs, and some pictures, of Pertti ever-so-delicately and politely trying to strap Aimee into her parachute harnesses as she wore a dress!  Our glider flights were longer than anticipated because we had such a great time!  Pertti had warned us that we'd each likely vomit since it was our first glider flight, so we were pleased that we didn't! 

We rushed from the airport almost one hour late to a great dinner that Jaako and Heidi had arranged at Marshal Mannerheim's Hunting Cabin.  If we understood teh story correctly, he was a Russian Marshal who was integral in Finland gaining independence during the Winter War - he was sympathetic to them and urged them to fight.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Gustaf_Emil_Mannerheim
This was a very unique dinner with good food - and it was quite entertaining because we reenacted as if we were dinner guests of his so we ate his menu and the owner-host told us of his story with many DON'Ts while a guest at Mannerheim's cabin - including a) no elbows on the table b) not leaving the table before cognac and coffee at the very end c) not speaking of work at the table, etc.  The menu was:
Gronvall's cocktail - a specialty drink with strict instructions on how to raise glass
Karelian pastries with a mixture that was butter and scrambled eggs (better than it sounds!)
Filet of lamb, potatoes, and cauliflower and broccoli
***the owner made the best homemade mint jelly any of us had tasted (no creepy food coloring to make it bright green as at US stores!!)
Red wine
Dessert - pancakes with cloudberry jam and whipped cream
Port
Cognac and coffee (the cabin had some really great metal cognac "stands" to heat our cognac to appropriate temperature to drink.

We left the hunting cabin with very full stomachs and were again given a great surprise!  Our hosts had arranged for a private showing at a new boutique featuring high-end European designers.  This boutique is in an old house that has been refurbished and is in the middle of the forest in the middle of nowhere!  The owner allowed us to shop and try on specialty items for a bit - apparently the store has only been open for one month!  We all helped Jill pick out a great item for her son's wedding festivities this fall!

One of the best things about Finland is the daylight - it doesn't get as dark as we're experience back home, but it's daylight until very late with it not getting dark until after 11pm.  Unfortunately, this means that we have a tendancy to stay up longer than we'd hope!