Rauma, Laitila, and Uusikaupunki

Kari's post...

Friday was our last day in Rauma. In the morning we visted the UPM paper mill there. It was quite an experience to learn about paper production, tour the plant, and see the machines in action. Some of the machines move paper through at a pace of over 80 mph. And longer rolls of paper can weigh up to 6 tons and stretch out for 10 miles. Over lunch we met with and presented to the Rotary Club in Rauma. We visited the shops of Old Rauma in the afternoon before heading off for an evening with our host families.

We arrived in Laitila early on Saturday morning. The president of the Laitila Rotary Club brought us to a end-of-term celebration, where young children sing, received their marks for the class they are in, and "graduate" to the next class (i.e. grade). After that we met with a nature guide and took a boat to an island for a picnic and bird watching. The day was beautiful and the island was quite amazing. Everyone roasted up a traditional Finnish sausage over the fire and enjoyed a variety of other treats. We stopped at a few other bird watching spots, including the Otajarvi bird watching tower, before heading to Uusikaupunki.

The presidents of the two Uusikaupunki Rotary Clubs, Esa and Marita, met us as we arrived in Uusikaupunki. They showed us around the Yara guesthouse, a guesthouse for a local company, where we will be staying for the next 3 nights. We had a couple hours to relax and unpack, before being picked up to have a wonderful dinner, sauna (our first electric one), and dessert at Marita's.

A Visit to Eura

Posted by: Julie

This post is a couple of days behind schedule due to "technical difficulties."

On Thursday, we all had our individual programs in the morning. I met with the marketing department at Oras Oy, a company that manufactures beautifully designed faucets and showers. The family-owned company was founded in 1945 and has distribution all over Europe. I found my dream bathtub in their showroom. It costs a mere €6,500 if anyone is interested. Mary went to Nordea Bank and Kari went to the fire and police departments. Patti went to Toivontalo ("The House of Hope"), a place where people are encouraged to get back on their feet following drug or alcohol abuse or incarceration. Surprisingly, she met a man from Colorado...and another man who claims to be her new boyfriend. I'll let the other ladies elaborate on their individual programs if they so choose.

Following our programs, we drove to Eura where our gracious tour guide, Johan (John), took us to the sacred grounds of Sammallahdenmäki. There were many burial cairns from the Bronze Age and is the first Finnish prehistoric monument to be named a UNESCO World Heritage List site in 1999. The most impressive structure at the site is called the "Church Floor." The folk story behind this structure is long, but it involves Christians and giants - use your imagination...or Google. We also went to Naurava Lohikäärme (The Laughing Dragon), a museum of Eura artifacts and culture.

After such a busy day, the sauna was calling our names. Luckily, our evening host, Jussi, from the local insurance company invited us to their guest house for sauna and dinner. We had a great time and headed back to our host families feeling refreshed and exhausted all at the same time.

nuclear power+crawfish+grapes

Hi everyone,
What a great day. I had no idea that a presentation on nuclear power could be so interesting. It was fabulous.
Our host, Mikko Kosonen, a Rotarian and host to Kari, picked us up at our host families this morning and took us to Teollisuuden Voima Oyj or as it's friends know it, TVO, a nuclear power plant outside of Rauma. This plant has two reactors, one has been in production since 1978 the other since 1980. There is a third planned to go on line in 2012, which will be twice as big as the other two reactors. In 2007 the two operating reactors provided 14 TWh, which is 16% of the power used in Finland. We heard so many facts and numbers that I will not try to keep them all straight, I will only tell what I found most interesting.
The power plant is owned by several investors. The power is given to the investors net of all operating costs. The risk of operation is borne by the investors, and the possible gains are also owned by them. The power plant has 700 employees, and an additional 3000 during the construction phase of the new reactor. The new reactor, Unit 3, will provide 1600 MWe. It would take an equivilent 6400 wind mills to generate the same amount of electricty provided by this power plant at Rauma. One pellet of fuel ( about the size as a pellet of rabbit food) provides enough energy to provide electricty to 5 homes for one year.
The type of plant in Rauma is called a pressurized water reactor. The reactor takes in 30 cubic meters of sea water per second. When the water comes in, the temerature is 13 degrees C. when it returns to the sea, it is 26 degrees C. None of it is exposed to radiation. There is an area of about 2 k in the sea, about 5 meters deep, that has warmer water than is natural when this water is returned to the sea. TVO is experimenting with this water to see how it might be used. Currently they are farming crawfish, salmon, and rainbow trout. They are also growing a vinyard.
Reactor 3 has new and improved safty features. The most obvious is that it is in two containers, one to enclose an accident from inside the reactor, the second to prevent damage from outside of the reactor, such as a plane crashing into it. In addition, there are redundent power sources, and disposal systems for contaminated material.
We all were interested in the production of uranium, which is used in this reactor. We heard that most uranium is mined in Canada and Australia. ( Another source of uranium was from Russia, from the nuclear weapons that were disarmed years ago.) Yellow cake that is mined is changed to a gas form and then enriched into uranium 285 or 239. The countries that do this work are France, Germany and Russia. One quarter of the fuel is relaced every year. It takes 7 days to replace the spent uranium with new. The old units are stored enclosed in tubes, in water for 5 years and then in another place for 20 years.
Another company owned by the same investors that own TVO, is Posiva. This is a company which is currently researching and developing and will eventually implement a geological disposal site for spent rods in the same area as the reactors. In 1994 the government of Finland passed a law that said that all spent fuel would be buried in Finland. They are planning a cave system that winds round and round, going deeper and deeper until a depth of 520 meters. The cost of this project is expected to be 300 Billion €. It should be competed in 2020 and will be full in 2100.
The visitor center was expertly developed to show both by animation and video how the reactor works. It also is a beauty building, light and set right on the edge of the estuary.
After our visit to TVO we drove Vuojoki Mansion for a delicious 4 course lunch. The mansion is an empire style building now completeöy renovated.
Tonight we are spending time with our families. Mine has invited an exchange student from Grand Marais Minnesota to have dinner with us. We are eating outside tonight, with our jackets on.

by Mary

Our First Day in Beautiful Rauma

Posted by Patti Keillor

This morning our team was busy packing up to leave Pori and drive to Rauma. At my host family, I was living on a pennisula on the sea. I ate breakfast this morning the same time a beautful swan was bobbing on the sea, doing the same thing! What a wonderful site. It took a good 20 minutes for us to pack all of our luggage into Kari's vehicle. We are definitely gaining weight in the luggage department and we are only halfway through our trip!

We arrived in Rauma to greetings from Pekka and Mikko. We then headed to City Hall, where the city sponsored a wonderful day for us. At City Hall we met with the Deputy Mayor, Tomi; The City Administrator, Sari; and City Planner, Johanna, who did the GSE Exchange last year to Brazil. They were all fantastic hosts. We learned about the school system in Rauma, and that the majority of people in Rauma are employed by the municipality. They also have several Nuclear Power plants, and have more planned. We will get the opportunity to visit one of them tomorrow.

After our visit in City Hall, we toured the new local library. It has a very friendly design with a lot of natural light incorporated and a geothermal heating system, that much of the city also uses. The librairians said the glass was specially designed to block UV rays that would damage the books. There were many interesting break-out spaces for flexible learning and also unique circular skylights to provided lighted nooks in the even in the middle of the library.

After the Library, we headed to a local school The Kari School. It was a school for general education, with an emphasis in Music. The music students performed a song for us, and they were excellent! When the students heard we were from Minnesota, the instantly knew the Minnesota Wild, and Mikko Koivu. If no one has mentioned yet, the Finns are HUGE ice hockey fans. It is worth mentioning again, I think because it is often a topic of conversation here.

We left the school on foot for a tour of Old Rauma, which was gorgeous. Rauma is one of the six Medieval towns in Finland and has a rich heritage of wooden houses. We visited The Church of the Holy Cross built in the mid 15th century. We also visited a home, now a museum that was originally built 300 years ago and another home that was built in 1820 for a rich man in the shipping business. Apparently that house had the first indoor bathroom, which consisted of a toilet seat and a bucket...just use your imagination!

Rauma is well known for lace-making, and we had the exciting opportunity to see a woman in-action making lace! Amazing. That is the best word to describe it. The town has "Lace Days" in the summer and every year crowns a "Lace Lady."

After our wonderful day in Rauma, we all went back to our new host families for dinner and of course coffee and tea!

Last Day in Pori

Terve, it's Kari again.

Today was our last day in Pori. And we cannot belive how fast the four days have gone.

Today was a busy day of vocational programs. This morning, my host Matti and I met with a local fire station captain to talk about the fire service and tour one of the three Pori fire stations. Patti visited Prizztech, a Pori firm that connects local businesses and educatonal instituations for cooperative projects. Mary met with a local investment banker and chatted about international investment opportunities.

Over lunch, the team gave a presentation to the Pori-Teljä Rotary Club and said goodbye to Antti Harkila (a Pori-Teljä RC member and the team leader of the Finnish District 1410 GSE team that came to Minnesota). It was great to see him again and we have really enjoyed his company over the past few days.

The afternoon was also busy. Mary and Julie were interviewed by Radio Pori. Patti and Kari Kontula were able to schedule an impromptu tour at a local architectural wonder that is not usually open to the public. And Kari learned more about the Finnish legal system at the local prosecutor's office. We all met up at Nina's shop to listen to Julie and Mary on Radio Pori before splitting off to enjoy one last evening with our host families in Pori.

Our visit to Pori has been the perfect combination of city and nature. We've had a wonderful time here!

Pori Nature & Art

Julie's post:

Can I just say how wonderful it was to sleep in and have a leisurely breakfast with our host families this morning? We gathered at the ympärisotoimisto (local environmental protection office) at 11AM and met Matti Lnakiniemi, our nature guide for the day. Matti showed us the website where they post air emmisions and particle counts for the whole country of Finland. Go to www.airquality.fi if you want to check it out. He aslo talked about the regulations that are in place to hold large companies accountable for their waste production. Finland is quite a beautiful and clean country and they owe it to Matti. Afterwards, we viewed an exhibit of Pori nature and then went hiking to see the real thing. We went to a lake, the Baltic sea, and then to the river delta. It was a beautiful day - not too much wind and the sun was warm. You couldn't have asked for better weather. After our nature hike, we went to the Pori Art Museum, the first contemporary art museum in Finland. The exhibits were very interesting and interactive. Who knew there was such a thing as Finnish Kung Fu? We retired for the evening with our host families and have been enjoying a nice, relaxing Sunday. Tomorrow, we have our individual vocational programs, the Pori-Teljä Rotary Club meeting and then, hopefully, more shopping with Nina!

A big "kiitos" to Kyosti for bringing us a phone, program booklets and a conversion chart so we know what the Finns mean when they use celcius, kilograms, and kilometers. We'd be lost without him.

Julie

Pori and Reposaari

hello again,

This is Mary.

Yesterday we left Parkano and had an hour long drive through pine forests to the town of Pori. Pori is a town near the Baltic Sea. There are about 75000 people living here. As soon as we arrived in this town, we all agreed that we could spend the entire month here. It is a beautiful river town that has preserved many historic buildings. There is a lovely park in the middle of the town, full of red tulips.

We were met by Kari Kontula. He brought us to city hall where we had a tour of the building that will be the new home for city hall. It is a magnificent home that was built in the 1800's, and has been restored to it's original condition. The deputy mayor, Kari Hannus, met with us and talked about governmental systems in Finland and the differences between the municipal, state and federal governments.

There are many social services provided to the citizens of Finland, and most of them come from the municipal government. Pori has a budget of about 5.2million €. 1 million € come from the state government, the rest comes from earnings of municipal businesses and taxes. The city taxes are around 14% ( the state is about 22%). The city must manage it's revenues by attracting young people and business to the city. This is the job of the deputy mayor. By the way, the Mayor and Deputy Mayor are not elected to office, but are hired by the council members who are elected. We spent about an hour discussing these issues with the deputy mayor. He was extremely generous with his time and patient explaining the issues with us.

We left for the Rotary noon meeting where we presented our program. We are getting better every time and the Rotary members were interested in what we had to say, especially the part about the three Finnish players on the Minnesota Wild hockey team. The Pori Rotary club is a men only club. There are still a few of these left in the world.

After the meeting we went to the University Consortium of Pori. This is consortium of 5 universities that offer classes under one umbrella in Pori. They call it academic multi tasking. They have 2700 students and 220 instructors. It is housed in old brick milling buildings on the river. It is a beautiful environment.

From there we went to our host families. I am staying with Krista, Mikko and Petteri Levijervi. Petteri is two and a half and is helping me with my Finnish. We worked on counting this morning before I had to leave to meet the other team members.

This morning we went to the farmers market and then shopping. Finnish design is amazing and we just kept saying "wow". After shopping Kari K. brought us to a yacht club on the port of Pori and the commander took us out in a fishing trawler across the bay to Reposaari, an old fishing town on a peninsula. This area is a huge port area. We saw a drilling platform on a ship that is leaving soon for the Gulf of Mexico. The platform is 15 stories high when laying on it's side. It was made in Finland. We walked through the village of Reposaari. The houses are all wooden, and the area looks like a simple version of Cape Cod. From there Kari brought us to see his summer home and then we went to the Pori City sauna. The sauna is much more than a sauna. It is more like a lodge built of logs, with porches, dining room, dock and yes, a large sauna. The team members took our sauna, once again dreaming of where each of us could build one when we return home. After the sauna, we had a fabulous dinner of several types of cured, smoked, and fried fish and several salads.

I am constantly amazed by the time our hosts devote to our team. Kari spent two entire days driving us to interesting venues and enduring our constant talking and laughing. Many people prepared presentations for us, in English, so that we can learn more about Finland. What we are learning is that this is a beautiful country with charming and engaging people.

To the Small City of Parkano

Moi Moi everyone! It's Kari. We had another busy day today. We start out in Vammala. I had breakfast with my hosts, Jouni and Maarit (mentioned already as the owners of Pyymaen Leipomo), before we gathered in their driveway to make the caravan to Parkano. Mauno and Tarmo were our drivers and graciously packed our heavy bags into the trunks. About 80 kilometers later, we arrived in the small community of Parkano (pop. 7 000) where we were met by another Mauno, Martti, and Martti's wife. Hugs all around for our friends before they departed for Vammala and we began our day in Parkano with Mauno, Martti, and Martti's wife.

First, Paivi gave us a presentation and a tour of the Finnish Forest Research Center. They study many thing there, including the affects of Climate Change and the draining of peat fields that occurred in the 1950s and 60s. Next we went to city hall for an impressive presentation about the city and surrounding area from a young man who we expect might one day be mayor. Our last stops were at the UPM Aureskoski Timber Components Mill and Seitseminen National Park. Martti and his wife introduced us to Parkano's newest Rotary member, his wife, and baby daughter before treating us to a beautiful dinner in the evening. It's been a short, but splendid visit in Parkano.

A Wonderful Day in Vammala!

Posted By Patti Keillor

Today we woke up to breakfast with our individual host families. My host mother is very kind. Her name is Ansa and her husband's name is Heikki. I was feeling sick yesterday and she took very good care of me, gave me vitamins and slippers and a hug goodnight. I told her that my mother would appreciate someone taking care of me. We went first to a factory called Vexve where they manufacture water valves of all sizes. We were very interested to learn more about the process of making a product and about the employer benefits that the Finnish people receive.

After the factory tour we went to Vammala's City Hall for lunch. We met a very nice man named Ashton who lived in the US until he was 10 and then moved back to Finland because his mother is from this area. We talked about the different economies in Minnesota and Finland and Ashton said he would like to visit Minnesota someday, and had heard about the Mall of America.

Kari and Mauno then took us an a boat ride. It was a gorgeous sunny day right until the moment that we got to the boat and then it started to downpour! We got on the boat anyway, and it had a cabin to keep us dry. We took the boat to a resort where they have skiing in the winter and summer cabins. We had our raincoats on as we hiked through the woods and then it got very sunny and wonderful again. It was probably about 50 degrees F. We hiked through the woods to a stone cottage of a famous Finnish painter Emil Danielson. We then hiked futher up to a gorgeous lookout view. We loved to have some good excersize and and some clean, crisp Finland air. The trees and rocks and lakes remind us all of Northern Minnesota..sometimes I wonder if I actually left! The difference here is that the forest floors are draped in a beautiful soft moss.

After our hike the Skipper, Kari and Mauno brought us to a Finnish church that was 800 years old. I took lots of pictures so I could show my Dad (he is an architect who designs churches). It was an A frame building with wooden shingles and the structure is mostly stone. The facility is still used today and they have many music concerts there. (And by the way Dad, they said the acoustics are fantastic!)

After this we went to Kari's summer cottage to sauna and have dinner with our Vammala friends. We will be leaving to the next town tomorrow morning, so we will all be sad to say goodbye to our new, good friends in Vammala.

Goodbye Forssa, Hello Vammala

From Julie:

Today we gave our first GSE presentation at the Forssa Rotary Club. Aside from some minor technical difficulties, the presentation went very well. We miss everyone in Forssa already. Mattias drove us to Vammala, which is about 80km north of Forssa. We met Ansa, Mauno and Kari there and had champagne, coffee, pie and pastries in Ansa's gift shop. After some much needed coffee, we went shopping in the town and stopped at a book store and a jewelry shop, all owned by members of the club. We also went to Herra Hakkaraisen Talo (the house of Mr. Clutterbuck), which is a character in a famous childrens' book written by a Finn from Vammala. The displays were amazing and made you want to be eight years old again. Afterwards, we went to Maarit and Jouni's bakery, Pyymaen Leipomo, for lunch. Ole hyvaa! They gave us a tour of their bakery as well.

Then it was off to our host families for some much needed rest before the Vammala Rotary Club meeting. We gave our Finnish introductions at the meeting and no one laughed, so that's a good sign. Our Finnish is getting better day by day...we think/hope. Now, we are all resting comfortably with our host families.

Tomorrow, we are going to a valve factory, for a nature hike and then on a boat ride before heading to Kari's summer house to sauna. What a rough life!

Julie

hello from Finland

Terve-
You have now had your first Finnish lesson ( trans. Hi !)
This is me, Mary. Let me tell you what has happened so far.
We are in Forsa tonight, a beautiful town of 18000 people in SW Finland. Today was a classic Group Study Exchange day, a meeting with the communications director of a recycling plant, tour of the "old town" of Forsa, lunch with Rotary members, an interview with the local press, a tour of an art school, individual professional visits ( me to a bank, Kari to a police station, Patti to e-commerce marketing company and Julie to an ad agency). Then, a little shopping and dinner with our host Maija.
When we arrived in Helsinki on Saturday, we were met by Kyosti, Jaakko, Tuula and a cold bottle of champagne. They were a welcome sight. We drove to Jaakko and his wife Seija's house for a light dinner and our first sauna. Seija likes to take a quick swim after a sauna and I thought if not now, when, so I followed her in. Kari, Patti and Julie had to follow to save face! It was stunning and fabulous! We slept well that night. The next day, Sunday, we were given a tour by our guide Risto of a national park. We planned to fly over the region in Jaakko's plane, but the weather was bad, rainy and cold. So instead, we had went to a sky diving club and preceded to fawn over the dive master. ( See picture.) At 3 we had lunch, which included several courses and much alcohol. It was at the hunting club of Major Mannerheim, a distinguished general of the WWI. We presented our gift to the District Govenor of district 1410, which is our host district.
By the way, Group Study Exchange is a program of Rotary International that arranges annual opportunities for thousands of young people to learn about the customs and culture of other countries. Our team was choosen from a group of applicants last fall for this years exhange with Finland.
Tomorrow we give our first presentation to the Forsa Rotary Club. Wish us luck.
Mary

2008 GSE Team Photos

Patti, Kari, Julie and Mary on top of Mary's condo in downtown Minneapolis. Three days and counting!!!!