Past summer in the city - Suomenlinna, Linnanmaki and stuff

OK, almost two months without putting a single word to my blog is a shame. I really even had a thought to stop posting at all. But it was a stupid idea. I should keep writing, for me, for the readers, for my English (buhhaaah! it's on a slippery slope since I've left the States!). So, let's look back to the summer. That is to August. It was a nice month. It was really super warm and sunny in Helsinki, we really had perfect summer weather and we had guests. My two nieces and my sister came to visit us. Wanda and Tomek were amazed and I hope everyone was happy. I decided to be a good auntie and I planned busy and active week in the city. There were too many of us to use my car, so everything we did was planned in a way we could have reach the place easily by public transport what is of course easy in Helsinki. And so one day we went to the Olympic Stadium swimming pool. I wrote about that place before. It is one of my faves place to spend a warm summer day. I love the old school architecture reminding me of the past era and the forested area. It's perfect to spend even a whole day, cause there is also a play ground for the kids or even two of them - one for little ones and one for big kids. You can use sauna, lay in the sun, have ice-cream. The only weird thing is that you are not allowed to take pictures. And I don't know what's the reason - that accidentally you can take a pic of another person or that you are not suppose to document the premises itself. Of course I didn't know it and so I started to take pics of my kids (I've managed to take some)and the staff person reminded me not to use my camera. Oh, actually they reminded us of other things too - like when my daughter took her swimsuit off and wanted to run to the water naked (it is not allowed) and when my niece wanted to snorkeling (and this is also not allowed for some reasons). I felt weird, cause there were only our family constantly being reminded of things, burt anyway, I didn't mind. I respect their rules. Another day we went for a whole day trip to Suomenlinna. It is a must for any visitor in Helsinki and of course I've been there several times but this time it was a very different visit. I found out that you can go there to tunnels in a fortress and the tunnels are scattered around the whole island area. And so the day before our trip I bought two torches, we packed lots of food for a picnic, took a blanket, good shoes and we went to downtown market. Ferries go from the Kauppatori and it takes about 15 minutes to get to the island. The first thing we did there was a visit on a play ground! Yes, what a surprise :) next thing was a picnic on a lawn, because all of us got extremely hungry and we packed all the delicious stuff. And when we were finishing our food we notices the sign telling "The toy museum". All right. I've never been there and so it looked like we were in a perfect company to explore it. It is hidden from the view and easy to omit if you follow the main track and not stopping at the playground. You have to turn towards the shore and than the path follows you through some old maintenance buildings, but after that you see a beautiful cosy house with a cute cafe, flowers, colors and you are right there. The toy museum is small, there is an entrance fee for kids too, but it is packed with old toys especially for girls. You can find there all kinds of old doll houses with all sort of tiny equipment - furniture, kitchen utensils. All tiny and beautiful and you wonder how it was possible to make such tiny pieces of all that. One of my nieces was over amazed, she could have spend there a whole day looking at the houses. She's the fan on Sylvinian Family if you know what I mean :). And after we were ready with that the girls wanted finally to use their torches and see the tunnels. They are marked on a map and not hard to find. Some of them are not very spectacular - too light and not underground, but the best one is close to the Kings Gate at the end of the island's main path and that one was something! The kids were excited, it was dark, wet and long tunnel and you could have "discover" some different paths inside. On our way back home (we took the ferry from the King's Gate) and than the metro home, Wanda fell asleep and she slept up to the next morning. It was an exhausted and exciting day. Oh, and of course one day we spent in Linnanmaki and even I went to one of their roller-coster. But I am not a person who enjoys it... anyway kids had lots of fun. I was mostly amazed by the prizes: a single ride is 7 euros not depending on age , one good thing is that some small kids carusells are for free. What else have we done during that week? They explored the Natural History Museum which is fun for the kids, cause you can see the skeletons of dinosaurs and plenty of animals from all over the world. We've been there with Wanda twice already. It's good especially in a winter time. This time we didn't go to Heureka - again the car didn't fit so many people. But the girls were happy to play in our play park Myllynsippi, which is now brand new renovated and really nice. Oh, it's so good to memorize the summer!

Summer in the city

Yes, it came! Summer! It's so beautiful - warm and sunny and I enjoy those warm days more than ever since this year even summer in Poland was awful. And what do we do with this great weather? We went to an outdoor swimming pool. It's a cool place for a nice family day or just mom plus kid day. The pool in a part of the Olympic Stadium that is it was build for the Olympics held in Helsinki in 1952. And it means the whole area is in this old-school style. There is a big tower with a trampoline and a clock - a view resembling pictures from American movies from the 50s. And the surroundings - an old park, so lots of trees and those huge rocks "growing" from the ground. First time I took there Wanda about two weeks ago and today we went there again. She was quite tired after her daycare, but when you have 24C and no single cloud on the sky you don't want to head home in the afternoon. So we went refresh in a warm water. Yes, the water there is nice and warm - it's heated. And Wanda can already swim by herself (I mean of course wearing the water wings). Anyway, if you ever have a chance visit the place.