Home safe and sound and its good to be back

Well here i am, home safe and sound and back in 'En Zed'. I arrived at the airport and relatively quickly through customs with my reindeer antler bottle opener (!!) and there was Mum, Dad, Becky, good friend Anna and flatmate Sarah to meet me.We had a lovely afternoon tea and i managed to stay up till about 7.30pm. Pretty darned cold though and then as a special welcome home we had the heaviest frost in years...minus 6 this morning!! Yikes, beautiful clear sky though so the beast has already been for a drive in the country!! The mountains are absolutely gorgeous and it was a real treat to fly home over the alps, not a bad view after a marathon 40 hour journey home.
I feel extremely lucky and grateful for such a safe and wonderful journey and its great to be back home and i've very happy to be back in New Zealand and with lots of projects and activities to look forward to. Not least of these is the opportunity to host some friends as visitors and return some of the wonderful hospitality that i have recieved.
Thank you very very much to everyone who has helped me along the way,

Naomi

on my way home

iäm on my way home... at helsinki at moment. Bored, bored, bored and still have a couple of hours to go. Did I mention Iäm bored? I might go buy a reindeer skin...

Koli

Wow, its been a wonderful couple of days up here in Koli. Loads more photos to put up and much more to write but in short iäve been out rowing on the lake, walking in the forest and watching out for Bears, elk, wolves and lynx. If you think iäm exaggerating wait for the photo of the elk foot prints. I went to sleep last night listening to the female elks baying. Today we went up to the top of Koli and looked out on the whole of lake Pielinen. The second largest lake in europe, fantastic view. Iäve taken loads of photos, which unfortunately donät quite convey the sound of mosquitos buzzing in your ear or the horse fly which keeps flying into your hair. I love the country side in Finland, the views are amazing but i am quietly compiling a list of the wee nasties. ( the big nasties being the bears, wolves, lynz and elk) The wee ones are the horse flies, elk flies, mosquitoes, sand flies, ants (but they keep the snakes away apparently) apparently i can also catch mole fever. Great!! I havenät dare ask about the spiders!! Needless to say i can now see the merits of wearing socks wiht sandals!

This country truly is amazing though, land of 60,000 lakes. iäve jsut been down to check on the lake and i can see and hear the fish jumping its so quiet and peaceful. I think i managed to see the sun set/rise last night at about 3.00am. Now that they have had the longest day things are changing quickly though, apparently the nights are lengthening by about 20 mins every couple of days.

Finnish Family Fun

What a fab day, and its not over yet but IÄm taking a bit of time out to do some computer stuff. Fab sleep, wee Emma has lent me her bed and I slept fabulously. breakfast and then outside to play. After putting out the washing and doing some jobs we all got on the bikes and went for a bike ride. We rode first to the village and saw the childrenäs school, we saw the old blacksmiths house, then we had a glass of juice at the cousins house, then across the fields, pooh sticks across the bridge, we saaw the children's friendäs house and raced home. We had a lovely family dinner and relaxed for a bit, late afternoon we went to a lovely local stall in an old school house. some local ladies were wearing traditional dress and playing the traditional instruments,



there was a big bear skiin on the wall. We then set off to 'small koli' where we went for a walk through the forest (and we were on guard for bears - seriously!) at the top of the hill there was a gorgeous forest hut and we cooked sausages and had chocolate. Finnish picnic Ikkonen Circus family style. The views from the forest hill were great and you could almost see Koli. After we got home, we visited the Ikkonnens neighbours, he is a woodscraftsmen and i was given a traditional finnish wooden picnic cup. Its been such a special and lovely relaxed day. Its not over yet either, because its 9.45pm and the day light is about the same as 4.00pm!!

Helsinki to Joensuu

Good morning! And as I write this iäm looking out of the pine trees and silver birch and the piles of firewood ready for winter. Its a glorious day in Joensuu and weäre going to relax and enjoy it. Yay.
I'm loving being back in Suomi Finland again and its so different, its like a new country. Last time I was here it was winter, minus 25 degrees and dark nearly all the time. Now its summer, they celebrated midsummer festival last weekend, and the longest day. At the moment its aabout 9.30am and its 21 degrees. LAst night we wnet to bed at nearly 1.00am and it was still daylight. crazy.

Yesterday i woke after a great sleep and Christoph, Margaret and I had Margaret's home made muesli before heading off to the city centre to put me on the train. Christoph was pretty relaxed as its his first day of his 5 week holiday. we put my dreadful suitcase in the station leave luggage and went and quickly looked at the market and and the city centre. we wandered back past the big church in time for me to get on the train.
The train journey was fab as Iäd imagined it would be, nearly 6 hours to get to Joensuu but this time it wasnät dar and black trees and white snow but green pine treees and fields. As we got further north and more rural, the hosues became more traditional and painted red and with steep rooves for the snow.
At Joensuu the Ikkonen Circus was waiting for me, Annaliisa, Matti, Hannes, Emma and Leo and we picked up Mikael on the way home. Off course I accidentally tried to get in the wrong car door so there were a few giggles over that one. Everything is very green, if I was to try and explain what it looked like i would say Lake Rotoitia and St Arnaud is kind of similar. We had a wee tour of Joensuu and their village before heading home for a barbeque dinner and to meet the puppy and play baseball, we ahd the local poåpulation of mosquitos and fly things to keep us company so we later wenbt inside to watch the pink panther on DVD. So very very lucky to be staying here wiht family and relaxing. It really is an amanzing life style, triple glazing, water pumped up from the well and poptatoes stored aaway for winter. Even though it gets to sometimes minus 40 in winter, the newspaper has only missed delivery twice in the last two yearsa nd thats because the printing press broke down! Iäm never going to complain about the cold again!!

Helsinki

Iäm here and its so lovely. I was met at the airport by cousin Hannalena,her husband Christoph and baby Theo. we then got the tain+bus+tube home and have sat and chatted and had a yummy dinner and are just watching the sun set. Itäs 10.45pm!!

Ireland Day Two and a half

Great sleep, fab breakfast including of course black and white pudding.
off to catch the cork tourist bus, interstingly cork used to be the venice of the UK. You can still see the steps agoing up to the assembly rooms and the where the boats - gondolas were tied.

walked to the opera house and the art gallery beside it, and met Carrie and her husband Owen for a relaxing coffee. Crazy to think Carrie (from Tremough, Cornwall) was in Cork at the same time i was so very cool seeing each other again.
AFter that I mooched aorund some more and headed off to a genuine irish pub for a shandy before catching the airport bus with plenty of time to spare just in case!!
Flight fine,
standsted express fine
tube fine
bus to caths fine
walked to her house fine
arrived about 10.00 ish and was able to meet Nova's folks George and Carol briefly before heading upstairs to repack for Helsinki. Phew!!