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