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!!