Finland on Thursday´s

Wow, today was a real barn burner. Our group started the day by receiving copies of the weekly publication the Keski-Häme, which is the city Lammi´s newspaper. The second page features a 3/4 page spread of our team followed by an article (all in Finnish of course) about our travels. It´s a great article that I will keep as a memento of our journey. The only dowside to the whole thing is the angle at which the picture was taken makes my head look 3X as large as the rest of the team members. It´s so large in fact that on the last pages there are ads for a motorcycle, 2 liter coke bottles that are on sale, a JVC boombox, and a pull behind car trailer that ALL would fit into the surface area of my mug shot.

We transferred cities again today. While I thought we were going to be headed further into the woods we actually came to a clearing known as Lahti. Let me tell you that this place is fantastic. The city itself sits on a large lake. The city has lofts built up around it and a dock/pier area that comes straight out of the city center. There is a board walk that goes right around the shore, and a marvelous concert hall known as the Sibelius Hall (check out the architecture section on the attached link, the page is in Finnish, but just click around and you will find it). It´s basically a massive piece of wooden/glass art. We went to the symphony there tonight and it was amazing!! The enitre auditorium is essentially a box. It is insulated by a meter thick wall of sand that keeps all outside noises out. There are doors that surround the auditorium that open and shut with small cuts in them that allow the hall to be ´tuned´for whatever type of show they are going to play. The performance was a Beethoven symphony. There was a piano piece that was played as the lead that was truly impressive (as I have no musical talent at all). You truly could hear every note, every step on stage, every cough from the audience, and at one point there was even someone´s cell phone to my left that VIBRATED and you could hear that too. Travel note: not the place to go if you are having digestion issues.

I am now on to yet another host family. This family is Finnish, but I think the children have spent more years in other countries than in Finland. They speak perfect English (which still puzzles me as the Finnish language is so unique). The father is a business consultant that does M&A work and turn around consulting (as well as plays badminton on Friday´s, god help me). The mom teaches english. Yet again, I find myself in a fortuitous situation in a strange land.... funny how life works out sometimes.