Wednesday 26.5.2010 - The Rotary Clubs of Naantali and Meri-Naantali and Nousiainen Arriving to Naantali to Bridget Inn, Kaivokatu 18, Naantali, which wiil be t A sightseeing walk in the old town of Naantali and lunch in restaurant Merisali by the sea. Transport to Kuhankuono ( Kuhankuono hiking route). The program there will consist of a 3 mile walk and meal outdoors with the rotary club of Nousiainen
NAANTALI AND SURROUNDING AREAS
Today we had a visit to KultaRanta, the "Golden Shore", which is a small island area across the harbor from where we were staying at the Bridget Inn. If ever in Naantali make sure to stay at this cute little B&B, where the owners speak great English, are very hospitable and offer a delish breakfast.
Kultaranta was originally commissioned by the agriculturalist Alfred Kordelin. The 19-room house was designed by the famous turn-of-the-century architect Lars Sonck, and construction work started in 1914. Alfred Kordelin only spent a few summers at Kultaranta before his sudden death. He left Kultaranta to the Finnish University of Turku Society, and it was later acquired by the Finnish government following a Parliament decision to use the house as the President of the Republic's summer residence.
So, since the president hadn't began her stay (yes the president is a woman) for the summer, we had the chance to tour the area. Unfortunately, it was so cold that none of the flowers were in the gardens. It was a nice place, had a huge sauna and one of the great features of the house is that it is set on a hill with a huge rock criss-cross path down the side. This is now just a walking path, but originally was the private bob-sledding path for Mr Kordelin...how cool is that!
Next we were off to a great lunch with Perrti and then onto Mylly, which is the largest mall in southwest Finland. There we shopped a bit, had a presentation from the Pekka the mall operator and Rotary friend and then were treated to Belgian chocolates by him.
Rotary Meeting-Raisio-Jokilaakso on the island of Ruissalo
Lastly, we joined a very kind dinner group for a Rotary meeting. During the meeting the new Rotary president was officially given her title, it was a woman. That was fun to know, since most Rotary clubs in Finland do not accept women as members yet. Then we gave our presentation, had a great dinner provided by one of the restaurants at the mall, and then went for a sauna and jumped in the sea. It was the first time the whole team jumped in the sea after a sauna. The water is quite cold, like REALLY cold in some instances. It sounds crazy but it is amazing, and something I will miss greatly. If I lived in Finland I would sauna and jump in the ice and snow year round because it feels so stinking good!
Here is Jill enjoying some of our chocolate!
Today, we visited Valmet automotive. Valmet is where Katja from the Finland-to-Oklahoma team works as the EA to the CEO. Valmet is the only place that manufactures Porsche Cayman and Boxters outside of Germany. Finland is very proud of this fact and they should be as Porsche is very strict in their standards (as they should be given their price) and those that are made in Finland actually score better in quality than those from Germany - even given their reputation.
(On a side note, this is consistent with what we've seen throughout the country - with only 5 million inhabitants, they don't have many companies, but those that they do are top-notch - of course, including Nokia. I had a site visit to Technip Offshore - a manufacturer of deep water drilling rigs. As is typical in today's business market, Technip has been acquired and is now French owned, but was previously Finnish. Though rigs can be built cheaper in Asia, Technip has maintained the Finland operations because of the superior quality. During Hurricane Katrina, the only platforms NOT lost in the gulf were those built by Technip's Finnish plant. Additionally, we later visited STX (you'll hear more on this later) - the largest builder of luxury cruiseliners in the world. Of course, this shipyard started locally as a Finnish company years ago, but is now Korean owned. Once again, boats can be built cheaper elsewhere, but the quality doesn't compare so the best boats are still built in Finland where the top talent is.)
OK, back to Valmet - it truly is unfortunate that we were unable to take any pictures inside Valmet - (I'm sure the five of us looked pretty threatening to their trade secrets) - this place was most men's dreamland as Porsches floated over our heads one after another down the assembly line - every color, hard top, soft top, fancy-schmancy wheels, etc. Each vehicle was custom-made to order and each vehicle varied from that ten feet in front and behind on the line. The huge robots used to assemble much of the body of the car were amazing - quite large, nimble, and eerily human-like in their motion. Humans still manipulated much of the small details of the cars, but they have over 70 robots today.
In addition to these two Porsche models, Valmet is in first production of the 'Karma* for automotive company Fisker-Karma. This is a cool-looking, fancy hybrid, until we were turned off by the steep price that is proposed - $80,000. For those of you crazy/wealthy enough to buy this, they're coming out next year so keep your eyes open!
Finally, Valmet also manufactures high-end electric golf cart/Smartcar sized vehicle called Think - City. This is an all electric vehicle - takes about 8 hours to charge. Unfortunately, we weren't able to drive a Porsche, but we did have the opportunity to drive a Think!
Following our Valmet visit, our host picked us up and took us to the town hall of Mynämäki where we met the mayor. We find it interesting as we've met two Mayors to date and they've both been quick to let us know that they're appointed not elected - but we've learned that the town council consisting of the strongest political parties is who appoints the mayor, so they are actually quite political and as such popular or unpopular as any other politician. We heard quite a bit about his viewpoints on energy, consumption, and conservation. While we didn't agree with the majority of his comments, it certainly was interesting to hear his point of view.
We headed to kill time in a Finnish grocery store then a sandwich/coffee shop - not so different from Panera Bread. We enjoyed coffee and tea and then headed and presented to the Mynämäki Rotary Club's dinner meeting.
We began today with the luxury of sleeping in since our program didn't start til 11:30 am. Amy and I have been so sleepy lately, so we took advantage of the extra time to catch up on our sleep. We began our first program of the day at a local private health care center, "Laitilan-Terveyskoti" in Laitila. Terveyskoti in Finnish translates as, "Home for Brothers". There are currently 23 rehab centers in Finland that provides rehabilitative care to those who have served in the Finnish War. We were informed that the spouses and widows are also cared for here, which we felt was pretty cool. Marine Rapala and Paulina Iiskala were our gracious hosts at the center. We began with lunch in the cafeteria where we sat and enjoyed live music with the facility and patients. After a tour of the facility and a short presentation we headed for the sauna- let me just say this was unlike any previous sauna experience. We had to first shower with a special shampoo and then place a mixture of mud all over our hair and bodies before we went into the sauna. We had to remain in the sauna for 30 minutes ( low setting), while the staff brought us refreshments. We looked so ridiculous that we couldn't stop laughing at each other. We took pictures, but we can not post them until we have a chance to censor them-believe me when I say, "We looked hilarious". Next we walked to Vakka-Suomen Musiikkiopisto, the music school of Laitila. We enjoyed a music presentation and tour of the classrooms. Heli Laaksonen, a famous poet, has a studio in the school where she writes funny poems on female issues in a local dialect. We really enjoyed listening to the children play for us. Later in the evening we gave a presentation to the Rotary of Laitian, where we enjoyed dinner and conversation.
We left our Rauma host families this morning and headed by van to Uusikaupunki. We were quite curious why we needed to leave Rauma so early when we were thoroughly enjoying ourselves and our host families. However, after we arrived at Uusikaupunki and met Marita, our host for the day, we were happy we did. We checked into the Hotel Aquarius for four nights of bliss. Lynn and Aimee were roomies. Amy and Robynn were roomies. Jill got her own room. After settling in, Marita gave us a walking tour of Uusikaupunki. We enjoyed lunch at a local resturant where we were able to order our own food - no buffet here!! We each ordered an original pilsner that was brewed at the local Uusikaupunki brewery. After lunch we headed back to our hotel just in time to watch the weigh-in for the local fundraising fishing contest. The boat with the most Pike, by weight, was declared the winner and won the prize of a brand new fishing boat. In case you haven't learned by now, Finland has a woman President and not all Rotary clubs allow women in their clubs. With this in mind, you wouldn't believe how excited we were when the winning boat was three woman!!!
 The rest of the afternoon was spent enjoying the hotel sauna and pool. Later that evening, we walked down to the restaurants along the sea for a drink and some dinner. We debated over which restaurant had the best menu, but finally decided and went inside to find a table. Luckily for us (unluckily for the kitchen staff) we only had 10 minutes to place our order before the kitchen closed. Since we thought we were REALLY hungry that night, we made our own Finnish buffet right on our table and we all enjoyed a fabulous dinner of mushroom soup, shrimp Caesar salad, chicken Caesar salad, nachos with feta cheese (none of the orange cheese sauce), fillet of beef, and a pizza. Yes, we shared, and no, we didn't finish it all...but our leftovers made a great midnight snack and breakfast the next morning!!
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