make sure that Maxime has a fantabulously superrific first trip to Europe in August 2009!

Monday 10th. We left Karvia in the morning and my mother drove us to Tampere. But first we made stops at my sister’s flower nursery again and then we also visited Jämi, a (nature) activity centre in Jämijärvi.
In Tampere we quickly had dinner at a Chinese restaurant before hopping on the train to Helsinki, Juho came to see us off.
We got to Helsinki in the evening and met up with Laura. :) We took our stuff to her place and then explored some areas of the city before heading to bed. We had so much fun at one little playground, oh lord. :D

Tuesday 11th. Laura came to escort us to the harbour in the morning and Maxime and I got on the boat to Tallinn. We had about seven hours to spend in the Estonian capital city and we used those hours very well. We explored the old town thoroughly and saw many wonderful places, houses, towers and things. Our day in Tallinn was a really good one, we had very nice weather as well.
In the evening we got back to Helsinki.

Wednesday 12th. This was Laura’s day, but since the weather wasn’t very nice, we decided to start our activities later. So we got to sleep late, after which we made our way to the Finnish national museum. That place was very interesting, I hadn’t been there before. :) After some hours in the museum we headed to the centre of the city, visited one mall, had dinner at a restaurant, visited Laura’s work place and explored new areas. In the evening we went to the movies (Brüno) and after that we walked back to Laura’s place, Maxime sprinting like a half a kilometre ahead of us.

Thursday 13th. Sanna’s day in Helsinki, she met up with us around noon and we went to see the big tourist attractions that we couldn’t see the previous day with Laura because of the bad weather. After eyeing the places around Senaatintori and Kauppatori, we took a ferry to Suomenlinna. Suomenlinna is an old fortification on a little island on the coast and it’s a World Heritage Site. I hadn’t been there before and I truly enjoyed the place, as did Maxime. We walked around, found more cannons, explored tunnels and caves, admired the pretty scenery etc. Very impressive place. We happened to have wonderful weather, too.
Once we got back to the mainland we continued to explore some more new areas and we also had a bite to eat in a little sandwich bar. In the evening we said big thanks and bye to Sanna and headed to Laura’s place.
Maxime had a great time in Helsinki, he really loved that city. It was his favorite place. He even bought a “I ♥ Helsinki” T-shirt, heh.

This morning I travelled to the Helsinki-Vantaa airport with Maxime and we bid farewell around noon with smiles on our faces, no tears were shed this time. :) So he’s on his way back home as we speak, he might already have left New York (where he changed flights). You’ll be hearing from him in the following week, I bet!

I was granted the permission to mark this goal as achieved, I succeeded in being a good Finnish tour guide. Maxime had an awesome time here, we saw lots of different places, experienced tons, had fun. Max even said that the time he spent here might have been the best three weeks of his life. :) And that’s all I needed to hear; that he had enjoyed this trip. That makes me very happy.

We had a bit of a change of plans happening here while Maxime was in Jyväskylä; Juho and I schemed together and now we’re taking Maxime to see Turku and Naantali tomorrow! :) Maxime was fortunately very happy about this surprise. He’ll get to see one more significant Finnish city before he heads back home on Sunday.

So today was Max’s last day in Tampere. I whipped up some plans for us and we ended up exploring the indoor market place Kauppahalli, we visited the Moominvalley museum (and I’m glad that Max liked that place too, ‘cause I just love it there) and then we met up with Tiina and Antti and went walking around in Pispala, another part of the city. We had a fun day and the weather was great again.
This evening we’ve cooked at my place and went through tons and tons of photos. :P

Almost time for good-byes now! Uh-oh!
^{Didn’t have time this week to post about our adventures, but I’ll get back to you on that later, for sure.}

Maxime left to Jyväskylä with Tiina today and he’ll come back to Tampere on Thursday. I hope he’ll have a great time there. :) But I have no doubts about Tiina’s skills as an entertaining hostess.
^{In the meanwhile, I’ll have my bit of a (well-earned) holiday over here. I need to work out next semester’s curriculum, my course choices etc. I’ll try to write about last week’s adventures here at some point as well.}

‘Ello! At what time would everyone like to go to the amusement park Särkänniemi on Saturday? The park opens at 12 and closes at 20. Maybe we should go already at noon?
They’re predicting very nice weather for Saturday, as well. :) Looking forward to it already!

Yesterday we left Karvia and went to Jämijärvi, the town where I was born. My cousin Saana had her confirmation party and we spent most of the day there, in my childhood home (their family bought our old house when we had to let it go), surrounded by my family and cute animals. I was worried that Max wouldn’t have a nice time, because he didn’t know any people there etc, but everything went nicely and he enjoyed himself. :) And there were a lot of ‘first’s for him! He had never before seen sheep, now he has; he had never before seen a pig, now he has; he had never before petted a ferret, now he has; he had never before touched a horse, now he has; etc! :D Yes, my aunt’s family has a lot of animals. I had a great time there as well, I just love getting to spend time with my family. ♥
After the party we went to visit a little beach where I always swam at as a kid. From there we went to visit Uhrilähde, the Sacrifice Spring, where the sand bubbles underneath the surface of the water. It’s really cool and Maxime was excited about the phenomenon, determined to learn what causes it, heh.
And then Maxime and I rowed and walked to Lehtisaari, my family’s island. That’s one of my favorite places in the whole wide world and I was happy to hear that it was actually probably Maxime’s favorite place in Finland so far. That place really is magical and I’m so glad I got to show it to Maxime. People who visit Lehtisaari tend to fall in love with the place. :) We explored most of the island and also played a bit with the horses and the sheep.

When we got back to Karvia we had some dinner after having observed the drama between my mother, Jari and the grill (which ended up going into the trash bins, eh). I baked us a chocolate cake, it was Max’s belated birthday present. :)

Today we’re first heading back to Tampere, then to Helsinki and this week will be mostly spent in Helsinki and Tallinn!

^{Maxime insisted that we use this picture here as the main photo of the day. My mum gave us bananas in a park in Pori, took my camera and said “two little monkeys”, and Maxime did that. I think the look on my face is pretty expressive of the situation. :P}

To start off the tale of today, Maxime said that today was the most tiring day of the trip so far. That’s because we sat in the car a lot and it was really really warm today, too. We might have been sunburned a bit as well. We saw a lot of places, and even though we all got somewhat tired, we had fun too. Maxime’s favorite place was the city of Pori, he liked it a lot. It is a very beautiful city.
Before going to Pori, though, we first took a bit of a tour of Karvia’s centre and ran some errands. Then we started our road trip and visited Kankaanpää, Reposaari (♥), the beach Yyteri and then the city centre of Pori.
It’s a real shame that I couldn’t go swimming today, there were so many beautiful swimming places especially in Pori. But we’ll try to go swimming next week.

Yesterday we arrived in Karvia after a hectic morning (packing & doing the dishes in a hurry) and a ride on the completely full train, sitting on the floor. Luckily it only takes 37 minutes to get to Parkano by train.
My mum was meeting us in Parkano before 4pm and before heading home we went through some fleamarkets and shops in Parkano. Maxime seemed to like the nature and surroundings a lot. :) We got to Karvia, had a little bit to eat (tasting Finnish cheese!) and in the evening headed to the national park near here. We walked around the park on a path made of wood, a causeway, since the park is mostly a type of swamp. We picked some delicious blueberries, heard swans, took lots of nice photos and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. We’ve been walking a lot this week and our feet are getting stronger – Maxime didn’t even believe me when I said that we had walked for 5 kilometres in the park, he said it had seemed like just one km. :D
After about two hours of walking we drove back home from the park and had dinner around 10 o’clock. Maxime liked the traditional meal my mum had cooked, karjalanpaisti. He wants to take the recipe back with him to Quebec, heh.

And now we’ll head out to explore more of Karvia, Kankaanpää and Pori!

Apparently he can’t stay inside a church for more than 15 seconds. (But I stayed in for a bit, because I wanted to see the church from the inside. I’m not religious at all, but I like architecture.) :P

We had a bit of a slow morning today, Maxime was feeling the jetlag more than before. So we took our time getting ready, went to the food store and then headed to the city centre.
We went to the museum Vapriikki, because in the morning I noticed an ad for the Finnish Hockey Hall of Fame (in that museum) and I thought that he’d like it. And he did like it, especially the practice shot area. There were so many cool things in that museum, we got to explore the whole place! I hadn’t been there before and I’m really glad I saw it now. Got some cool photos as well. And there was a piece of the Berlin wall there, too! You’ll see some photos about everything later.
After the museum, we saw the rest of Hämeenkatu (that we didn’t have time for yesterday) and went to see the Metso library etc. Oh and we had a banana split in the library café, it was my first one I think. :)
We walked to Pyynikki, gazed at the pretty houses and climbed up to the observation tower. Our feet were pretty tired at this point, eh. Maxime said that the observation tower was one of his favorite places so far (but surely he likes the whole city). It is really pretty up there, you get to see most of the city, especially the city centre and the lakes. :)

After we climbed down from the high skies, we took a bus back home to my place and cooked dinner together (Maxime: “What did I do, I just cut carrots!” :D), did some laundry and shared fun music with each other. A quiet, nice evening.
Tomorrow we’re heading to my mum’s place! I probably won’t get to post so many photos while we’re there, since the internet is so much slower there.

Maxime said that if he’d win the lottery, he’d first get a big car collection and then buy a house in Finland. Yeah, I’m doing a good job, aren’t I? :D

Today was Maxime’s second whole day in Finland, which meant that I took him to the city centre of Tampere and we explored it quite a bit together! There was a lot of walking around but luckily Maxime’s feet are mostly fine! :D We saw most of the main attraction points; Koskipuisto (park), Hämeensilta (bridge), Hämeenkatu (main street), Keskustori (central market/square), Finlayson (old factory area) etc. We also spent quite a while going through the Spy Museum. (And now Maxime’s really paranoid about spies.) Then we went to have dinner at the viking restaurant Harald with Tiina and Antti, Juho joined us too. :) Maxime fell in love with his dinner sword and wanted to steal it, but didn’t have the guts to do so after all.
After dinner we continued walking, saw the other half of Hämeenkatu, the railway station, Tamperetalo (symphony house), Sorsapuisto (park, where the birds kept raping each other, it was disturbing), my university etc. Tiina spent the rest of the evening with us at the city centre, we had a lovely time. We had a really great day all in all, the sun kept shining, we had Smurf ice cream (amongst other things), we almost found the dodos. Oh and Maxime confessed on the bus that Finnish girls are really cute, heh. And most importantly, he had an awesome day. :)
I got so many nice photos today, yay! Must post them at some point. And must not forget to get more stamps for Maxime, he’s really obsessed about them! :D