Hyvää joulua! In other words, Merry Christmas (in Finnish)! Our week in Vaasa est fini, and we would like to focus this piece as a round-up of all our adventures. Our time here was a picturesque Scandinavian experience, and we hope you enjoy Finland's beauty as much as we did! Please Note: Christmas Day is in a separate post. This focuses on our 7 days in Vaasa as a whole. A brief history of Vaasa (or Vasa in Swedish): It is a bilingual city with a population of around 66,000 people where 70% of the population speak Finnish and 30% speak Swedish. It was chartered into being in 1606 and derives its name from the Royal House of Vasa. Beci and I arrived in Vaasa after a quintessential train ride through the country on December 22. Veera and Sami (her boyfriend) picked us up from the train and proceeded to feed us (god bless her) gingersnap-style Finnish cookies and a traditional rice pie with egg butter (karjalanpiirakka). On the 23rd, we continued with the Christmas theme and made joulutorttu, Finnish pastries with plum in the middle! For the next few days, time lost all meaning, and as we commenced a two-day binge of all the Star Wars movies with intermixed moments of colouring books or reading real ones. As Beci likes to say: "Vaasa is called let's eat and sleep until 2pm." On December 27th, we made a collective decision to put on real clothes and adult-up. Hopping into the car (which was blessedly frozen over in common Nordic style), we headed to the Kvarken Archipelago, an island off the coast of Finland with a majority of Swedish speakers. "All the houses are dusty, brick red with white beams and brightly coloured doors," Beci describes. "I can’t even imagine how beautiful they all look covered in snow." On the island is UNESCO world heritage site Svedjehamn, where we climbed a wooden tower and caught a bird's eye view of the Finnish landscape! After fighting the cold for an hour (as true Canadians and Finns), we escaped back to the car and drove back to the Raippaluodon silta (a 3,428’ long and 271’ tall bridge connecting the island to the mainland) for the sunset and beautiful Beci photos (see below)! The rest of the evening continued in perfect "Girl's Night" fashion with a chick-flick, popcorn, and (accidental) garlic-bread hoarding from Sami. Sorry, but not sorry! After such a successful outing the day before, December 28th proved to be just as exciting! Although a late start (3pm to be exact), we went to the Meteoria Söderfjärden, a millions of years old meteor crater that is now farm land banked by forest. Next, we stopped at the old church ruins (St. Mary Church). Fun fact: a farmer fell asleep with a cigarette that ended up burning down the entire old town of Vaasa, leaving these church ruins. Moral of the story - don't smoke and sleep, people! As our last full day in Vaasa, we ended it off with one last top at the Björlin residence to see Veera's family and eat more food! We would like to thank everyone in Vaasa for such a spectacular holiday! Christmas away from home is never easy, but thanks to everyone it was the next best thing.
Minä rakastan sinua! - Jen Quote of the post: "The winter does not leave without a backward glance." - Finnish Proverb
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |