Puu-Vallila or Wooden Vallila walk

Today we went for a walk to this old district in Helsinki - wooden Vallila, old Vallila. It is few blocks with old wooden houses build in the beginning of XX century. They look a bit like those old small towns like Porvoo or Rauma. I mean that by walking down those narrow streets along those small wooden painted houses you don't have a feeling of being in a big city. You get the feeling of moving back several decades to some long forgotten old days. The weather was also perfect. Cold, a bit cloudy (and finally it started to snow a little), first sunny but soon quite dark. You know sort of the atmosphere from Kaurismaki's movies. Old fashion. Old Finland. Places you don't know where they are. And they hidden form the public eye. They hide nowadays between much higher newer buildings (still quite old though) which stand along main streets. For me it was sort of a surprise to "discover" the whole Vanha Vallila right behind a street which I used to drive almost for the whole last year (it was on my way to a day care). The houses still look quite good (some were under renovation) but what they say it is not a posh neighborhood. It used to be working class area but nowadays it is becoming trendy (or bohemian) like Kallio. I'm not sure about those wooden houses, but it is said about the whole Vallila. Unfortunately we didn't check the battery in our camera (it was empty) so no pics were taken. But I believe the one Helsinki episode from old Jim Jarmush movie has a scene either in this area or another with very similar old wooden houses. So, you can google and see that scene (when the drunk guy ends up being kicked out of the taxi around his house). Anyway, I like Helsinki for still having so many places like that. Preserved for decades without any touch of modern life.

Saturday at Haltiala Farm

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's in full

And we enjoy it so so much! It is unbelievably hot, sunny and awesome and I really cannot imagine the snow, coldness and darkness from just few months ago. It is sunny when I'm going to sleep and sunny again when my lovely little boy wakes up in a middle of the night to get some milk. And we party and will party in coming days. We celebrated Wanda's friend birthday yesterday in Linnanmaki amusement park. It was fun! Crazy fun. Wanda and her three best friends and we - moms and friends too. When we got home after 7 in the evening Wanda hardly was able to brush her teeth and she immediately fell asleep. For the last few weeks they are practicing in a day care songs and dances for a Spring Concert. Wanda and her friends will be monkeys :) And the event will take part tomorrow in Seurasaari (it is a beautiful island with an open-air museum and the woods). Then there will be a BBQ party by our friends and next week I am organizing Wanda's party - to celebrate a bit earlier her coming birthday and also to say good-bye to her best friend. We are already so sad because of that. Almost every day Wanda says: I'm sad that Lotte is leaving. Yes, me too, because I really love this cute little girl and we are such good friends with her mom. But this is the expat life - one day someone has to go back to his home country or another place and it is sad. On the other hand it was similar in the States - people there are so mobile. They graduate in California and get a job in New England, or go from Minnesota to Florida or oversees and so forth and this is what was also going on while we were living in New Jersey. So, maybe it is actually quite a normal situation. I used to it too, but still hard to say good-bye. 

Let's spring!

Spring is now official. Well, no wonder on May 20th... but I mean also a spring atmosphere around the town. Last Saturday there was a Restaurant Day in Helsinki. What it means is just everyone could establish a restaurant for one day. What does it mean in practice? You could make a stand somewhere in a park or on a street, cook or bake some meal, cakes, snacks, whatever you'd wish and you could sell them to the people. One of my friends established a "Mobile Cookie Jar", that is a huge basket full of home made cookies on a Christiania Bike and she was riding the bike and selling cookies for one day. We didn't make any restaurant, but we did try the goodies made by others. And it was fun. Some Mayan snacks, Indian vegan meals, Asian sweets, Eastern cookies etc. After such lunch my stomach was a bit confused, but I survived. Next Saturday there will be a Cleaning Day means again - everyone can become a seller for one day. Or a donor. So, you can sell or donate (to one of a few foundations like Fida, UFF) whatever you don't need anymore but what is still in a good shape and someone could use it. This time I'm considering to join the crowd. Most probably I will just donate some clothes and stuff. The spring/summer spirit you can see from people relaxing on the lawns around the town and from hundreds of bikers. There will be plenty of events but of course with a baby still depending on my breast it is hard to plan a night out. Talking about "night" - there is hardly any already. Yesterday right before going to bed I went out to our balcony to breath the fresh air and I was really astounded how light there was outside. And we have still a whole month to the longest day.
Oh, and I went to Poland for a week. Me plus the kids. I was a brave mom traveling by for the first time myself - first by car to Turku, then by plain to Gdansk. My in-laws were sort of shocked that I want to make it all by myself and that my husband should drive me there and help me, but actually it was a piece of cake. I packed the kids to the car in our garage and drove all the way (one strait like in Arizona highway) to Turku airport. And it is only two hours drive. Have you ever been there? Especially on terminal 2? It doesn't look like an airport. It looks like a wooden stable somewhere in the woods. Really. There is a forest around. You park right in the front of this building and walk inside. There is no people cause there are only a few flights from that terminal. One check-in point. One gate. One plain. And besides - my great daughter is just a perfect traveler. I love to travel in her company. She is alert, smart, smiley, ready to go.

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.

The "why?" question

It started just recently. Wanda wants to now "why?" About basically everything she sees around her. Like yesterday when we went to a nice park on an island (Tervasaari). To get to the island you have to walk along the little marina - now full packed with boats. So she saw the people around those boats. "Why they are standing over there?" "Because they probably want to get to their boat." "Why?" "Maybe they want to have a ride, go to the see." "Why?" "The weather is so nice and they enjoy spending time on their boat". OK, she's watching them, than she sees a lady walking on a pier. "Why is she walking there?" She sees people lying on a lawn. "Why do they lie there?" She sees a dog's playground and there are some huge wooden dog statues. "Why there are those dogs?" And so forth. Sometimes it's fun to answer her questions, but sometimes I feel I get lost and I feel a lack of more explanations or just no more creativity in finding a quick and simple but still sufficient answer. Oh, and she found her old book "The very hungry caterpillar". She used to love this book, but we didn't read it for ages. So I started to read it to her. "In the night in the moonlight a little egg was lying on a leaf" (this is just my not accurate translation form my Polish version of the book, sorry for any errors). And my little daughter immediately asked: "Why?" "Why what honey?" "Why is was lying on that leaf?" "Hm, good question, I don't know actually, where the egg came from and how it got to that leaf, they don't tell us this fact in the book, but let's read what's next". The caterpillar is very hungry and eats constantly. On Monday he ate one apple, but he was still hungry. "Why?" "Because...." etc. etc. It was really funny to read the book now, cause I realized that this book is definitely for younger kids. My girl is already too smart to take such facts for granted :) And it's cool that we can now really discuss things. Another curious period just started!

A day on an island

Last weekend was unbelievably warm. Perfect weather for a whole day picnic. My mum visited us for a weekend, my husband was away on a conference and so I decided to go for a trip. Short trip. And I found a wonderful place, especially magical at this part of a year. Uunisaari and Harakka. Tiny islands just couple hundreds meters from a mainland and the southern marina in the heart of Helsinki. So we packed our picnic, that is some oranges and bananas and water and off we go! The boat goes to Uunisaari (3,50 euro round trip) and you can walk along that island and cross to the other one on a tiny bridge. It's green and rocky and the most amazing thing there were the nesting birds. This is actually why I wanted to go there, cause I've read in SixDegrees that it is a great place for bird watching. And it is indeed. At this part of the year the birds are nesting and they just sit on a grass, I mean they do have sort of nests, but they are set up on the ground and not hidden from humans eyes. They sit literally steps from the path people use for walking. And they look so calm and relaxed. And there weren't that many people, so I guess they can feel safe. So the females were sitting on eggs and around each female there was a male watching around and keeping his eye on any potential danger. There were some sort of geese (I don't know the name) and seagulls mostly but we also saw a swam couple. Beautiful and amazing. Wanda was so happy to see that many birds and also some offspring. She was jumping around on the rocks and splashing water in the tiny ponds. I wasn't in charge of taking pictures, but there is just couple to show you the atmosphere. We had our first summer day in Helsinki.