Vaasa

Vaasa was definitely the highlight of our trip...and the purpose; to see where my dad grew up.  I'm sure so much is different now than when my dad was there, and it was crushing to not be able to talk to him about all that I saw and experienced, but I will forever be grateful that I got to go.

When we drove into Vaasa, we weren't sure where to go, so we just parked and got out to find somewhere to eat.  After some terrible pizza, we discovered that we had parked exactly across the street from the Borenstein's old suit shop (Kansa) where my grandma worked and where both Bene and his father, Felix had lived.

The "poopy" pizzeria

The street where the shop used to be...oh how I wish it had still been there!  Crazy to think that my grandmother was a young girl walking these streets to work.

We decided just to walk around the little square in the center of Vaasa.  I recognized this church from my cousins Facebook as the place my Grandma and Grandpa Kurki were married.  It had a beautiful park around it.  As we walked through the grounds all the emotions hit me, and I felt so unbelievably sad that Dad wasn't with me...or the rest of my family...or that I couldn't even just talk to him about where I was and what I was seeing.  That was the only time on the trip that I cried.  I wish I had been able to make this trip when Dad was still alive. 

One of my absolute favorite things I saw on this trip was this statue!  It was in the park surrounding the church in Vaasa, and was just the epitome of Finland to me--haha

The little house we stayed at was actually 15-20 min outside of Vaasa in the middle of nowhere.  We drove through fields and fields of (what we think were) rye and barley.  It was so beautiful and peaceful...and maybe a little too rustic;)

When we were driving home one night, we saw a couple moose running through the fields right across the street from our house.  Then, one morning a giant jackrabbit ran across the street!

The next morning we grabbed some "piggies" and fresh fruit for breakfast, and then met up with one of Dad's cousins Marion.  She was absolutely fabulous.  She showed us all around Vaasa and even brought us back to her home to sit in her beautiful garden and eat her homemade pulla.  

She took us to the beach where Dad and his siblings used to swim

The street my dad lived on

(Walking around the streets where my Dad lived, we noticed all the yards looked very similar to the yard he created for us in Canada--all filled with fruit trees, bushes and vines.)

One of the schools Dad went to

The church where he was most likely baptized

A buffet style lunch (which Mike LOVED)

She smuggled us into the music festival to get a picture with the only Vaasa sign

She took us to the bakery that had the best pulla in town!

The old Vaasa ruins

The statue in the center of the square

The factory where my Grandpa Kurki worked

A festival where people showed off their tradition Finnish costumes

And so many more places!  

We were all surprised by how much Marion could walk...she's almost 70 but we could barely keep up!  She was so wonderful and I am so glad we were able to meet up with her.

While in Vaasa we bumped into some missionaries from our church--twice!  It was so neat to talk to them and share the story of Dad's family being introduced to the church by missionaries in Vaasa 60 years earlier.  Amazing to think about all the lives that were changed by two young missionaries serving the Lord in a far away land.  It was very special.

On our last day in Vaasa we decided to head to the cemetery.  We weren't sure if we had any relatives buried there, so we started to research.  We discovered that Grandpa Kurki's parents were buried there, and with the help of google, "find a grave", and a very helpful priest, we found their headstone.  We were amazed at how beautiful (and organized) the cemetery was; very well maintained with beautiful red flowers everywhere.  

With all the rain we had on our trip, we were so happy that our last day in Vaasa was warm enough to go for a swim at the beach by where Dad used to live.  Tina and Ted had the idea of bringing some little pots that Dad made and leaving them in Vaasa, so Tina and I swam out and threw them into the grasses on the edge of the water.  One of my favorite things while we were there, was listening to all the natives speak Finnish.  While we were laying on the beach, there were two ladies just chatting away.  They sounded so much like my Grandma Kurki, I just imagined her sitting there with her friend, chatting as their kids swam.  It was such a beautiful, peaceful little place, I loved it.

On our way back to Helsinki, we finally tried a Finnish McDonald's.  Not too different from America in taste, but their menu was about 10 times longer!  They even had burgers with rye buns haha.

  

That is a wrap on our time in Vaasa.  Such a magical, special experience that I will cherish always.

Now on to Sweden!

Boys trip--Ross Lake

Canoeing Ross Lake had been on the YM bucket list for years.  This summer, Mike and the other young men leaders were finally going to make it happen for the priests.  The only problem, Mike got released as Bishop!  That meant another group of YM leaders would be taking Tyson and the other boys to Ross Lake.  Disappointing.

The good news, they still needed Mike to come along.  So, he and Tyson got to spend a week off the grid (seriously, there was literally no way to get in touch with them!) at the beautiful North Cascade mountains.  I'm just a little jealous.

The much anticipated Finland Trip {Helsinki}

Wow!  I honestly can't believe it really happened...actually sometimes I question if it really did.  It is strange finally going somewhere you have dreamed about going your entire life.  It is definitely surreal when you're there, and just as surreal when you get home.  

So...here it is...my trip to Finland...I'll start with Helsinki:

Everything went pretty smoothly on our first LONG day of travel...well, all except picking up the rental car...and the not sleeping.

We all got to sit in one row on the way to Amsterdam...of course my TV wasn't working for the longest leg of the flight!!  I managed to get a small selection of movies to work luckily, and the rest of the flight went smoothly, just hard to sleep as always on a plane. We had a quick layover in Amsterdam and then on to Helsinki.

We arrived in Helsinki at at around 1pm.  Walking through the airport we saw "slippers" (Karjalanpiirakka) which was super neat since my Dad had taught us how to make these when we were kids (they were not nearly as yummy as the homemade ones we have had)

It was also fun to see the rye bread selection at every grocery store.  

Definitely not something you see in America.

After the rental car debacle (first, we thought the rental car company was actually at the airport, but it was an offsite location so we had to take an Uber--with four adults and all our suitcases it was a tight fit!  Then once we got to the car rental (which was super hard to find), they tried to upsell us like crazy, then Mike's credit card had been cancelled because of fraudulent charges and they wouldn't allow us to switch cards.  We probably stood there for literally at least 2 hours trying to figure it all out.  Then we finally got our car and it was too small to fit all our stuff--haha.  So we had to upgrade to the bigger vehicle--oops.  What an ordeal),we drove straight to the Helsinki temple.

It was raining SO HARD.  But it was serene and beautiful and the gardens were all bright reds and yellows (snapdragons, begonias and sunflowers)

After Daddy Greens pizza (which was so yummy) we checked into our Airbnb (which was super hard to find again--oh and trying to read and understand street signs in a different language was tricky!  there was a lot of googling and hoping we didn't get a ticket) and got some much needed rest.  There was construction right outside our window that started at 7am every morning, so there was no sleeping in for us...not that we really wanted to sleep in since we were excited to explore.

(Our Airbnb was a little more sketch on the outside than anticipated...but super cute on the inside.   And we quickly learned that the elevator was called a Hissi:)

Tina and I braving the Hissi

We stared the next day at Suomenlinna (the sea fortress)

Then onto Market Square.  Everything in Helsinki was less "city" like than I was expecting.  Very few crowds and lots of understated buildings (except a few impressive churches).  I was just surprised by it's "small-town" feel.

It was fun to try some of the famous Finnish foods...although not the dried fish that was everywhere (Mike sampled that -yuck).  We had some reindeer and reindeer sausage, meatballs, and of course the salmon soup (which was a little too fishy for me, but the reindeer sausage was delicious)!  

It was fun to see the souvenir shops stocked with all the sauna staples.

One of the things we noticed being in Finland was that the language was really interesting.  Just about everyone spoke English, which was a lifesaver for us!  But we couldn't help but wonder how so many Finnish words were SO LONG!  Here's one example I just had to take a picture of (and listening to the GPS voice pronounce some of the street names was hilarious):

Tuomiokirkko or the Helsinki Cathedral was impossible to miss.  As we walked into the square where it was located, I smelled something that took me back to my Grandma and Grandpa Kurkis house.  I wasn't sure what it was, but there were some pop-up bakeries/coffee shops near by, so I am sure it was something they were baking (but it wasn't cardamom, because I know that smell)

Uspenski Cathedral (Eastern Orthodox) was another impressive church in Helsinki.  It was up on a hill and really stood out as different from all surrounding architecture.

Since we really only had one full day in Helsinki, we had squeeze in a lot:

The Oodi Library

The Rock Church

The Fazer Cafe

And the Jewish Cemetery

We found the graves for Ben-Zion, Salomon, Rasche & Fischel

The train station

After we were done in Helsinki, we headed north to Vaasa.  

We stopped at Pori on the way for a quick sauna on a house boat! 

(We were planning on going to the famous Loyly Sauna located right on the Baltic Sea in Helsinki, but didn't realize you had to make reservations.  So when we showed up, they were full.  I was really disappointed because that was one of the things I was most excited about doing.  After a bunch of research, we found this cute little floating sauna and thought it was worth checking out.  When we showed up, there was just a code to get in and that's it.  We started a fire and we had our very own sauna:)  Ted was the only one brave enough to jump in the river.)

After our sauna we finally tried Hesburger (they are everywhere in Finland).  We were not big fans...all their burgers had a type of tarter sauce instead of mayonnaise, which was interesting.

Look at those Finnish names of the hamburgers!!

And...on to Vaasa...the real reason for the trip.