Paris, ah Paris

So Eric and I drove down to Paris on the 21st, arriving in the late afternoon. We stayed at an apartment on the Left Bank right near the Musée Cluny belonging to the parents of Claire, Eric's, umm, err, mistress? Girlfriend? Perhaps she or Eric can help clear the terminology here. Discretion being the better part of valor, combined with the fact that I had 28 hours in Paris, I didn't stay long there, and headed out to see the city.

I started out by walking a short way to theGardens of the Luxembourg Palace, a somewhat quintessential non-touristy part of Paris. Beautiful gardens.



I wandered over towards the Seine, and caught a glimpse of the
Hôtel de Ville:



Since I wasn't far from Notre Dame, I took a few pictures there too.



I strolled more along the Right Bank, not taking pictures of the Pompidou Centre, which is a marked contrast to the more historic views of Paris.

I did encounter a carousel, which I did not ride, but it did have a rabbit on it.



On the way towards the Louvre, I passed the French Culture Ministry building, which has some funky exterior art:



And, of course, the Louvre:



This being quite enough for a few hours (and it nearing the agreed-upon meeting time for dinner with Eric and Claire), I made my way back, and we went out for a very nice Indian dinner.

Ein kleines Familientreffen

Also, es gibt jetzt ein Eintrag auf Deutsch. Oder Englisch. Beide zusammengemixt? This is the family get-together, so everbody gets to read about in their favorite Sprache. For those not aware of the size of my brother's (step-)family, allow to mention six children (one deceased, alas) and 3.667 grandchildren. Of this brood 3 children showed (all now largely out on their own): Marie+0.667+boyfriend, Milan, Maura. Maja+3 and Moses couldn´t make it. And well, we all miss Moritz. Der Moritz is immer mit uns dabei. Na immerhin, es war beim Lampsheimersee (jemand bitte korrigieren ob ich das falsch geschrieben habe) getroffen. Kurze paar Fotos am ende des Besuches:
Maura:
Marie und Maura:
Left to right (von links) Maura, Eric, Marie, Stefan, Milan:

We met at a local lake.

We said our farewells (demanding pictures of the baby when it arrives, of course), and Eric and I headed over to his pad in Ludwigshafen. Wier haben uns voneinander verabschiedet, end Eric und Ich fuhren zusammen zu seiner Wohnung in Ludwigshafen.

Eric and I went into Mannheim that evening and saw Alles auf Zucker, a German comedy about brohers with somewhat different lifestyles and reactions to the reunification of Germany.

Really, we do get back to Germany

All right, I know it´s been a while since I last posted. But I did suggest that that would happen. So here I am in sunny, hot, and humid Barcelona, writing about Finland (and if any letter ´t´s are missing, blame the keyboard...).

So Eric and I had a little over 1/2 day in Tampere to kill before our flight. I used that morning to good effect (i.e. writing blog entries and uploading pictures). When it came time to leave the hotel, we trundled down to the train station, and waited where we thought an early bus would show. It didn´t. Apparently the bus I was looking for was a Ryanair special -- the early bus was not one of these, it was a regular intercity that stopped at the airport. Sigh. We sit in the train station alternating walking around. I take pictures of people bungee-jumping off a crane, and the Tampere Orthodox Cathedral:


We do eventually catch the Ryanair shuttlebus, get to the airport, where Eric is relieved of some silverware (forks and butter knives are SOOO dangerous) by security, and have an otherwise uneventful flight. We´re met by Moses, and return to Grünstadt for the night.

Canoe trip, day 4, and return to Tampere

Our last day of canoeing started off with a bit of a twist. The guy hired to transport us was at the agreed place about 20 minutes early (we were 30 minutes early), but his English was extremely limited. And we had a slight problem. Since we had not camped at Rasua, and were't meeting him there, but at the foot of the lake, we had left a bag at Rasua (containing things we didn't want to put in the canoe). He was supposed to have this bag, and didn't. So Eric whipped out the oh-so-handy Finnish-German dictionary, discovered the word for 'suitcase' (Koffer in German, and matkalaukku in Finnish), and convinced him to drive the 4km back to Rasua so we could pick the bag up (which was to be left in his van until he picked us up, and dropped us at the Jämsä train station).

Once this was out of the way, we got off to a reasonably good start, making it to Jämsä in time for a leisurely second breakfast. However, once we passed Jämsä, the winds picked up, and we realized we'd have to work to make it to the pickup point on time. But we did. No interesting pictures along this stretch -- it was all river, and generally either residential properties or farmland on the banks.

We had an uneventful train ride back to Tampere, punctuated only by surrendering in frustration to the automatic ticket seller that only offered Finnish and Swedish menus, and going to the counter where the nice lady spoke English.

Upon arrival in Tampere, we went immediately to the Hotelli Victoria where I had stayed the previous Friday, hoping to get a room there. They said "sorry all full, the festival is in town". Festival? Yikes. FESTIVAL. This is one of those travel-incognito nightmares. You arrive in town without accomodations, and are probably SOL without going for miles.

We rightly decide to hunker one of us down at the train station with the bags while the other goes to the tourist office in the probably vain hope of finding a room.

We get lucky. 75 euro for a room at the Ramada Hotel, of all places. They have meeting rooms that can be converted to sleeping chambers during heavy demand. Not luxury, but we weren't being picky. And they had a usable internet connection in an out-of-the-way place where I could post stuff.

Last post for a few days, I think. I may not get to post until either Paris or Barcelona (somewhere around the 23d).

Canoe trip, day 3

I forgot to mention in the previous post that Eric and I decided that conditions at the school were good for an exercise: canoe-tipping. Since neither of us has experienced this directly, we thought it might be a good idea.

All I'll say is I hope it doesn't happen, it'd be an incredible inconvenience, especially with 80 pounds of watertight bags clipped to the rails of the canoe (which we did not have in the exercise).

After saying our goodbyes to the fine folks with the bible camp at the Old Luomen School, we again took to the water. We passed onto a small but apparently deep lake, on which we caught sight for the second time of some loon:


This one was much more skittish than a whole family of them that we happily followed around for 30 minutes or more when we canoed in Minnesota. We never got within 50 feet of this one before he dove, and then eventually took off.

Late afternoon on this day found us back at Rasua Camping, with decisions to make. Do we camp at Rasua, or in free land further down the lake (which is increasingly built-up as you near Jämsänkoski)? Do we canoe further the next day, or make tracks for Tampere? In the end, we spent the rest of the afternoon canoeing around the lake, found a lovely free camp site on the far side.




We also decided to continue on the next day, doing the river portion of a route leg that ends with a large open lake traverse. This required negotiating transport with the Rasua folks, since one cannot canoe through Jämsänkoski due to the mill works.

Canoe trip, day 2, worth every penny

It's not often that there's something worth rising at 2AM for. But Eric and I hit the jackpot on the morning of July 13.




The place we had camped was on an island between two relatively narrow water flows (one of which was listed as a rapid in the route description, but wasn't really anything to write home about), with a smallish lake below. We basically circuited the island and the lake, taking in the twilight (it was too light for stars to show) and the mist-covered still lake. We probably spent 30-45 minutes on the water. After that we returned to camp, had breakfast and broke camp in time for some sunrise pictures.


The rest of the day's canoeing was somewhat anticlimactic -- we spent a fair amount of time on relatively large lakes that had a fairly stiff breeze kicking up some choppy conditions.

We spent the night on the grounds of the Old Luomen School (sorry no English page for that that I could find), a property managed by the town of Jämsänkoski. At our landing we were greeted by a friendly gentleman as a group of children played in the swimming area off the small dock. He explained that they were using the facilities for a short (3-4 day) bible camp, under the auspices of a local Presbyterian minister. The land however was available for camping, as were use of the bathrooms and sauna. So I had my first sauna. My first reaction was "interesting...". Eric's been doing them for a while, and seems to quite like them.

After eating our dinner (politely refusing the offer of leftover sausage soup from the kind folks), we observed the campers play some somewhat silly games, and then apparently get a preaching-to by a young woman. (It was hard to tell, even with our guide giving some translation assistance...) The silliest game involved 4 campers being spirited away, and a special table prepared, with three upside-down buckets on it. Bucket #1 contained pine cones (a plentiful object in Finland). Bucket #2 contained pencils. One by one the four campers were brought in to turn over the buckets in order and count the objects therein, with the apparent objective that the one doing it the fastest would win.

Some of you will note I haven't said what was under bucket #3. Well, imagine yourself going through this exercise of furiously counting things, and then turning over a bucket to find it containing the head of another camper! Like I said, the table was quite special, with room for one of the smaller boys to hide under.

Canoe tour, day 1

The canoe tour we are doing is called the Wanha Witonen route, and it was immortalized on the Finnish 5-markka bill before the euro was introduced. The markers showing the stopping points therefore look like this:


Very shortly (and I mean literally less than 10 minutes) after pushing off comes the first marker, denoting the stopping point for the Petäjävesi Old Church, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. My own pictures are somewhat lame, there seem to be better ones at the church site linked above.


After visiting the church, we proceeded onward. One thing that struck us both during the entire time in Finland was a notable absence of megafauna. We never saw deer, moose, bear, or other large mammals, and even only rarely small ones. We never saw any sort of large raptors (eagles, falcons, etc). Finns we asked about this said that more of that could probably be seen closer to the Russian border, or further north. So wildlife pictures will be in fairly short supply.

We camped at a stopping point called Lapinkoski. After a fairly uneventful evening, which included a visit to the camp by an extended family who lived upstream somewhere in a cabin, we went to bed fairly early. This is because we set the alarm for 2:00 AM.

Canoe tour final preparations

So Eric and I were last seen in a rest area in Jämsä (map). We called for a cab, and after a short wait were on our way to Rasua Camping in Jämsänkoski, the next town north of Jämsä ('koski' apparently means 'rapids' or 'falls' in Finnish), and the site of a fairly large paper mill. The campground was on the other side of town though, and actually very nicely situated on a peninsula sticking out into the lake (see the picture on the Rasua link). Here are some views from their beach:


We walked the 4km or so back into Jämsänkoski from the campground because we needed fuel. No, not more beer. Cooking fuel. We'd had no luck finding the stuff beforehand (the pressurized canisters aren't allowed on planes). We found a shop that had fishing supplies, and they had fuel canisters. Of the wrong type. So Eric is now also the proud owner of a stove that takes a different type of fuel than mine. We should be all set for the next expedition.

The next morning, at the cheery early hour of 10 AM, our ride to the put-in headed out for Petäjävesi, which is about 40km north of Jämsänkoski. (Editorial note to the Finns: please shorten your words and place names. Thanks.) Getting ready to row:



And we're off!

Nilsiä and Opera Cava

On Sunday July 10, I went for a bike ride to Nilsiä, about 10km from Tahkovuori. It's a sleepy town, and the only things open on Sunday morning were the local convenience store and a florist. And church, of course. I saw a number of well-dressed types frequenting the florist...
After another bout of Finnish dining at the hotel, I joined the orchestra (well, only half of it) on a bus to the Opera Cava festival site. The site is an old quarry:

I noticed that the quarry's acoustics weren't great -- everything is somewhat dead. Eric explained that the performance was amplified...I had thought the mikes on stage were just for recording purposes.
The orchestra played an all-Sibelius concert, including a wonderful performance of the Violin Concerto by a pretty impressive 18-year-old local talent, and the sprawling Kullervo Symphony, in which a young Sibelius seems to bite off more than he can chew, but was also instrumental (is that a pun?) in fanning the flames of Finnish nationalism.
Encores were well-done: Finlandia (the version with male choir), and Valse Triste, both favorites of probably not just me.

The morning after the concert, the orchestra bus took off for Tampere with me and Eric aboard. It stopped at a rest area in Jämsä for lunch, where Eric and I got off.