Helsinki & Home

Posted by Julie (from home sweet home)

Friday was our last day in Finland and we spent it exploring the beautiful capital city of Helsinki. Jarmo, our host for the day, took us to Kiasma, the modern art museum, first. The name of the exhibit was "I just don't get it," which was very appropriate. We also visited the Design Museum. I wanted to buy every piece of furniture and lighting that I saw. After getting our fill of Finnish art, we went to lunch and then parted ways. Kari, Patti and I went shopping and Mary went to a travel agent to make her arrangements for Estonia, Sweden, Denmark and Germany. The girls and I went into the cathedral and took the lift down to the crypt where there was a cafe and art exhibit. In the square outside the church there was a festival celebrating Karelian culture and art. We did some shopping and then, of course, had to have some ice cream. After we met up with Mary, we walked down to the harbor and up to the Russian Orthodox church. On the way, we spotted a structure fire and stopped to watch the firefighters in action. The fire was right next door to the presidential palace, so there was a lot of action outside. We had to hold Kari back from running into the burning building to offer her services.

After our day in Helsinki, Jarmo took us to our hotel where we met Kyosti and Seneca for dinner. It was sad to leave our most gracious hosts, but our last sauna together made us feel a little better.

Mary walked us to the bus stop at 5:30 on Saturday morning like the fabulous team leader/mom she is. We had smooth sailing to Paris aside from a two year old throwing a temper tantrum and yelling aiti (mom in Finnish) over and over again for an hour. All I can say is, "Thanks for the ear plugs, Kari!" We hit a couple more bumps in Paris when we were yanked out of the boarding line and grilled by security. Word of advice: When asked where you're coming from, answer quickly. The French apparently do not like delayed responses. Two or three movies later, we were home. I think it's safe to say that we were all overjoyed to be back.

For me, our homecoming was bitter sweet. I will miss my days with Kari, Patti and Mary. I can't think of three other women I would have wanted to travel with for 30 days. The people we met, things we saw, and experiences we shared together may never come to pass again and I will forever treasure the memories we created. I love you guys!

Moi Moi!

Julie

Last Day in Salo

Kari's Post:

We met Tuomo and Jyrki at the market place and headed off in Jyrki's Land Rover to Teijo National Park. The plan for the day was hiking and fishing... but while I was off with Patti hunting for a bathroom, Jyrki and Tuomo were busy setting up a birthday party for me, complete with freshly prepared birthday cake and champagne. And as a birthday gift, they gave me a gorgeous knife made by a well known Lapland knife maker. It was very sweet.

After the birthday party wrapped up, we headed off into the forest. On our hike, we saw a number of fairy ornaments scattered in the forest. These ornaments represent the traditional Finnish gods and beliefs. We also crossed paths with a large group of small children dressed up in handmade native american headdress, grilling Finnish sausage. We have noticed that a lot of childrens' activites are planned around nature in Finland.

After the hike, it was time to fish. We didn't have much luck at the first lake, but Patti started things off reeling in a lake trout shortly after we arrived at the second lake. Not even a few minutes later, Mary had a nibble. Mary reeled in a lake trout just a tad bigger than Patti's; it was the first fish that Mary has ever caught. A very excited moment. Patti, Mary, and I tried fly fishing briefly before the group headed to another part of the park for lunch. We were back at the homes of our host famlies in the early afternoon. Most of us are planning to meet up again at the market center this evening for a concert by a local artist.

Tomorrow is the last official day of our GSE trip. We will leave Salo early in the morning and will spend the day touring around at our leisure in Helsinki. Julie, Patti, and I will leave for Minnesota early on Saturday morning. Mary will stay and travel around Europe for a couple of weeks. Stay tuned for the last photos of our trip...

Salo, Our Last Rotary Destination

Posted by Patti Keillor

Today was our first morning in Salo, our last stop on this trip. Salo is known as the headquarters of the Nokia Corporation. Jari, a local Rotary member, gave us a presentation tour and lunch. We learned many interesting things about the cell phone company, including the fact that they don't refer to their products as phones, but rather "devices" because today's phone is so much more than a phone.

Nokia orginally began in Tampere, Finland in 1865 and moved to Nokia, Finland a few years later. The company has worn many hats over the years, but orginally started selling wood products, then rubber boots and tires. They started in the phone industry in 1945 when the government asked the company to develop a radio transmitter for military usage. In the 1970's Nokia first began making mobile phones. Today Nokia is manufactured in 9 countries, research and development takes place in 10 countries and they sell their devices in more than 150 countries.

The corporation on a whole has 120,000 employees, about 3,000 in Salo. Salo is more of an operations hub, although it does have a factory, it is the smallest factory in the corporation. It is more economical for the company to manufacture the phones in other countries due to shipping costs.

In 2007 Nokia made 437 million devices and had a net sales of 51,058 Million Euros. Nokia is the #1 cell phone in the whole world. The sales breakdown includes 39% of Europe, 22% Asia Pacific, 13% China, 14% Middle East and only 4% in the US. Nokia has 40% of the market share followed by Samsung at 14%, Motorola at 12%, Sony Ericsson at 9%, LG at 7% and others at 18% (this includes the i phone which apparently has only about 1% of the market.) Nokia has clearly done a good job at understanding many different types of cultures and markets in this very global business.

After our Nokia visit we headed to the Salo Art Museum. The Salo Art Museum was an old railcar storage facility that was renovated to become an art museum. There was a wonderful display by Kuutti Lavenen, a Finnish artist whose interest seemed to be with the human form, faces and religious figures. He used several different mediums including charcoal, paint, pastels and used many different canvases included some with plywood.

We then went to the University of Turku's Salo campus of applied sciences. We met with Paive and she told us more about the Finnish college system. We were interested to learn that there were a variety of vocational degrees including a popular nursing degree all taught in English which has 10% international students.

To cap off our fantastic day, we all headed to a Rotary meeting and our farewell dinner with the Salo club. Everyone throughout our entire journey has been so generous and wonderful hosts and we all got the chance to express this at our farewell dinner. Kyosti, the GSE coordinator and Matti, the district governor where there, and we enjoyed spending more time in their company.

We had a fantastic evening and we were also sad to think that our trip will soon be over. We are all excited to tell our families, friends and Rotary Clubs in Minnesota about how wonderful Finland is, especially the Finnish people!

Nordkalk, Nauvo and a castle called Qvidja

a post from Mary

Leaving Turku this morning was hard for us. We enjoyed being in the homes of our hosts and it was sad saying good-bye. It is amazing how close you can get to someone in 3 or 4 days. Thank you Tapio, Eero and Marja-Liisa for taking such good care of us.

Our hosts from the Rotary clubs of Parainen picked us up in Turku at 9 am and brought us to visit Nordkalk, which is a limestone quarry on one of the islands in the archipelago. The limestone in this mine is used for cement, aggregate, for making paper and a few other products.

The first part of our trip focused on the mine. We drove down into a pit that was over 180 meters deep. ( The pit is only a short distance from the sea.) The trucks up on the road looked like toys in a sand box. It is really impossible to describe how big this place is. We went into a tunnel and went down another 100 meters or so. I would have taken notes to give you precise depths, but I wasn't thinking about you at the time. I was thinking about why there was water in the tunnel and how we would get out if it started to collapse and just how deep were we going???

We stop and get out of the truck to look at the machine that is grinding the limestone into pieces that can be moved onto a conveyor belt and brought to the surface. The photo you see if from the platform by the machine, looking back at our truck. This is all in a tunnel. The tunnel started to be dug in the 70's and possibly it will have another 30 years of limestone to be dug out. There is only one person who works in the tunnel. The majority of work is done by giant machines. We drove out of the mine on a road ( narrow) that is alongside the conveyor belt. The angle of this road and the conveyor belt is 17 degrees. The distance is 500 meters from bottom to top.

From there we went to the cement factory. The complex covers acres, and includes not only the grinding, mixing and firing areas but also a port for the ships that take the cement to areas of Finland and to Russia.

After lunch, we took a boat trip. We've been told that there are 60,000 islands in the archipelago. Some are tiny, others big enough for towns and a huge limestone mines. But from the water what you see are low islands, covered in evergreens. Some have houses, red with white trim, up a bit from the sea shore. A small building down by the dock is the sauna. There are other islands off in the distance as far as you can see. Even though the weather today was cold and gray, and the seas very choppy, being among the islands was beautiful.

We stopped at a small island that had a pilot house on it. The water in this area can be treacherous to navigate. In the past, if a skipper of a ship needed help , he would raise a distress flag and the pilot would come out the the ship and help navigate. There is a small museum devoted to the pilots.

We went on Nauvo, a very popular island in the summer. There are over 150 boats that stay in the harbor all summer, plus hundreds of other boats that have shorter stays. There is a sushi bar and a sauna, of course, along with other staples for use by the visitor boaters. Cruising ships stop here on there way from Estonia to Stockholm. There are flags of Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark and the Aaland Islands flying in the harbor.

One of our hosts for the day, Anders af Heurlin, invited us to his place for coffee and cake after the boat ride. He owns a castle that has been in his family for 6 generations, 4 of the generations a direct line. The castle is from the early 15th century, built over 40 years starting around 1419. It is the oldest castle in Finland still owned privately. The family lives in a house built in the 1800's that is across from the castle. At one time his family owned the entire island, some 6000 acres. About one third of their land was given to farmers who were displaced from eastern Finland when the Russians took control of those lands after the war. This was the case for all farmers outside of the captured region in Finland at that time.

The Rotarians of the Parainen clubs then handed us over to Rotarians from the clubs of Salo and Uskela. We will be here until Friday when we go to Helsinki and our exchange is over. The time is going so fast.

Turku Weekend Update

A post from Julie

We arrived in Turku on Friday mroning. We were greete4d by our host families and daily hosts, Rune and Caterina. We had an interesting visit with Seppo, the CMO of Oncology at the Turku University Hospital where we learned more about the Finnish health care system. Seppo also gave us a tour of the hospital that included a resource center where patients and families can find information on all sorts of diseases and ailments. Caterina then whisked us away to the Rotary Club of Turku Aninkainen for a lunch meeting followed by a presentation and tour of the district courthouse. We learned many interesting facts about the Finnish judicial system including don't open the door if the "in session" light is on. Afterwards, we walked through the promenade and discovered Stockman's, the Finnish department store, had some ice cream and watched all the beautiful people of Turku go about their days.

On Saturday, Caterina took us to her architecture firm, CC-M, where we got to view some of their 3D building models and talked about becoming an architect, employee benefits and the disparities among salaries between men and women. Afterwards, Caterina took us to the Handicrafts Museum, an old village in the town center that survived the Great Fire of 1827. We then went down to the river to have a beer on one of the boats, followed by a delicious lunch buffet on yet another river boat. The town center was alive with people and avid football fans (the European football matches were ramping up). After a delightful morning and afternoon with Caterina, we went to the Kakola prison for a guided tour. The prison just closed in September of last year and is now the most popular tourist destination in Turku for visitors and locals alike. Some lucky prisoners had a gorgeous view of the city and the Baltic Sea. There were many protests when they found out they were moving to a new location. Rune bailed us out of prison a couple of hours later and took us to the Turku Cathedral to be redeemed. There was a wedding in progress, so we just took a quick look around and then set our eyes on ice cream (we've been eating a lot of ice cream on this trip).

To close out the weekend, we went to Rymättylä Harbor where we met Olli, the president of the Rotary Club of Turku, his wife Liisa and their guest, Layla. Olli took us out on his motor boat for a day in the Turku Archipelago. We first went to Seili Island where lepers and the mentally ill were banished in the 17th century. The mental hospital is now a university research center and the island is quite beautiful. After lunch we headed back in to the harbor, but not before stopping to have coffee and dessert. We were all exhausted after a long day at sea and headed home to our host families.

Last Day in Naantali

From Kari

The weather was perfect and sunny again today. We started this morning with a tour of the gardens around the summer residence of the President of the Republic of Finland at Kultaranta. The president is arriving early next week, so all of her gardeners are busy planting, watering, and trimming. Afterward we went to the Kultaranta Golf and Sports Center. Because today was the Center's opening day, we each enjoyed a visit to a theraputic salt room, complimentary massages, and over lunch on the patio balcony we watched former US golf pro Bobby Mitchell tee off. Ironically, his cerimonial swing put his ball in one of the course's ponds not too far down the fairway.

Markku and Tiina met up with us in the center of Naantali after lunch and Markku took us sailing on his boat. Though he built it recently, the boat is based on the wooden boats sailed in Finland during the 17th and 18th centuries. The trip was quite the experience, even for those of us who had sailed before. I even had the opportunity to raise a sail with Ossi and Mary manned the helm.

After our voyage, Markku dropped us off at Heikki and Heidi's. Eija, a local Rotary Coordinator, met us there to sauna and the bravest of us swam in the sea. After the sauna, we took a dip in the hot tub and then sat down on the patio for a dinner of Finnish sausage and Eija's strawberry meringue cake for dessert.

Which came first? Raisio or Naantali?

A post from Julie

We have been struggling with this perplexing question since our arrival here two days ago. Erkki, one of our hosts, argues that Raisio was first (he lives in Raisio, so he may be somewhat biased). According to historical documents, Raisio was first mentioned in 1292, but wasn't officially declared a town until 1974. Naantali, on the other hand, was officially founded in 1443. You be the judge.

upon our arrival on Tuesday, we were greeted by Erkki and Ossi, our gracious hosts during our stay here in Raisio and Naantali. We toured the Raisio library first, but had an improptu visit first at the fire station when Kari noticed the new fire truck pulling into the station. The library was built in 1999 and is the 5th most used library in Finland. They have 300,000 visitors per year (in a town with 24,000 people) and a collection of 700,000 books.

Afterwards, we visited a school where Ossi's brother is headmaster. From there we went to the Raisio flour mill and pasta factory for a brief presentation and tour. The mill was founded in 1939 and Erkki's grandfather was one of the founders. The mill specializes in manufacturing natural, plant-based and healthy foods. They were one of the first food manufacturers to put the ecological footprint on their packaging and they have a product supplement called Benecol that helps lower cholesterol.

We also visited Hermann's Project Design Oy, a company that builds interiors for public spaces aboard passenger cruise lines. The Raisio harbor is the construction site of the largest passenger cruise line on the market right now. Having the design & production company and ship construction site so close to each other makes for extremely effecient production.

The absolute highlight of the day was the opening night of the Naantali Music Festival. The evening began with a reception where the former Prime Minister of Finland gave a speech. We then went to the Naantali church, which was founded in the 1430s, to see the Shanghai Symphony perform. All night long, we kept asking ourselves, how often do you get to the Shanghai Symphony perform in Finland in a church that is over 550 years old? Pretty amazing.

We closed out the evening with a delicious dinner on the harbor with our hosts and their beautiful wives.

Today (Wednesday), Mary and I started the day with a tour of Erkki's family farm. Erkki is a 5th generation farmer. The main house was built in 1827 and his parents have an absolutely spell-binding collection of Finnish and Russian art in their home. They also have a beautiful garden and grow their own herbs and vegetables. Mary and I now know how white asparagus is grown.

After a scrumptous breakfast of homemade porridge, we met Kari, Patti and Ossi at the Naantali Spa Hotel for a tour of the grounds. The hotel has a cruise ship in the harbor that serves as a floating hotel. From there, we went to Naantali city hall for a visit and lunch with the mayor and a gentleman from the city council. With full stomachs, we then went on a walking tour of the old town, museum and Convent Church. We also went to Moomi World, a theme park for the very famous Finnish childrens' characters that are popular in Europe and - you guessed it - Japan.

We ended the day at the last meeting of the summer with the Naantali Rotary Club. We had dinner out on the terrace overlooking the harbor and enjoyed meeting our fellow Rotarians.

Julie