Apr 11
17
Ruissalo
This entry is long overdue, but we wat to share it with you anyway …
The weather has been beautiful again and we decided to ride to the harbor on our bikes. As the day before there were lots and lots of people on their feet around the city. Awesome, how busy Finland turns with just a bit of sunshine. At the harbor we decided to go a bit further. There is an island just behind the harbor that was formerly known as an island of villas and a recreation area for the rich (?) – Ruissalo. It has many foot- and bikepaths that you an take through the woods and over the fields, which makes it really nice to visit by bike. And we even got to see some toads on their way to a pond.
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Apr 11
16
Spring Flower
Our Finish friendship family told us that spring in Finland has arrived when the first flowers called “leskenlehti” can be seen. So here also this evidence that the spring is there:
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Apr 11
16
Mylly
The Mall Mylly is supposed to be one of Finland’s largest commercial centers. As it is only 9km away from where we live we thought it would be worth going there. So we took our bikes and started our tour. Arrived there we expected a few nice hours of shopping. But, we are in Finland and “one of Finland’s largest commercial centers” doesn’t mean that it is big! We visited a few shops but did not buy anything and were ready in less than 45 minutes. As the ikea was quite close we than decided to have a chocolate and a cake there. On our way back we again visited the market at the river as we had to try this Finish crepe with marmalade and cream we saw the day before. It was really tasty!
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Apr 11
15
Spring has finally arrived
As people from Germany are telling us since a few weeks how nice the weather is, how often they barbecued already and how nice it is to be outside we were really looking forward to the spring in Finland. Even though that in a few areas you still can find a little bit of snow today was the first spring day in Turku. Not only that we had 14°C (!), but it was a totally different day in all areas. It felt like there was a change in people’s minds and behavior today. It might sound funny, but we now really understand what people were talking about when saying in summer everything is different.
Because of the nice weather we started our day with a little bike tour through Turku. We drove to the open air pavilion and the mill they have here. When coming back to the river we saw that there was a market along it. Walking over the pedestrians’ bridge you could see a lot of nice planted jonquils (Osterglocken) and there were plenty of people on the street. The market was really nice and nearly half of the booths sold fish, pastries or honey. So we had lunch there, sitting outside and enjoying the day. In the afternoon we saw a lot of kids playing football, families collecting “Weidenkätzchen” and people running along the river…
It was so nice to experience this day. Finland seems to be a totally different country again.
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Apr 11
14
Brunch at Logomo
Today we had brunch at Logomo, the central exhibition for the cultural year. This was also our first bike tour 🙂 Basically all exchange students were invited by the Turku 2011 Foundation and the City of Turku to join in on a brunch and visit the exhibitions afterwards. We were greeted by the CEO of the foundation as well as the International Manager from the mayor’s office. Brunch was croissants, cake, tea, etc.
Afterwards there were free guided tours to the “Fire! Fire!” exhibition as well as free access to the other exhibitions. As we had already visited Fire & Fire we played some XBox 360 again and went to the other exhibitions after they had opened. We have to say, some was nice, but sometimes the sense in arts is just hard to grasp. Anyway, now we have seen all of Logomo and had a nice bike ride too 🙂
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Apr 11
12
Got Bikes
As we will do a bike tour at the end of our stay here in Finland we were thinking of buying used bikes and using them already now instead of renting some from the tourist office just for the tour. After one week of searching we finally got two today. They are probably not the best but definitely good enough for getting around.
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Apr 11
12
Last lecture in Finland
We are just back from our last lesson in Uni here in Finland. We will have an exam tomorrow and 2 in May. Furthermore we still have to do a few assignments. But aside we are finished with our studies here. I guess with all the traveling we have planned for the next weeks time will pass quite quick.
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