28 February 2002: Kalevala day

Today is Kalevala day which honours the Finnish national epic. Kalevala was written in 1835 by Elias Lönnrot and is based on ancient oral poetry which he collected from around Finland. It was expanded in 1849 and has since been translated to over 50 languages (more than any other work of Finnish literature). Kalevala has also inspired a popular range of Finnish jewelry, Kalevalakoru. If you want to know more about Kalevala, you can find a number of good sites in the Google Directory of Kalevala. Elke bought the English translation just before we came to Finland last year, but we haven't read it yet...

24 February 2002: A nice day for a walk in the park...

Today was a really nice day for a walk in the park. It snowed yesterday and it is sunny today. The trees are snow-covered and glistening in the sun. Elina walked a pretty long way holding on to Elke's hand. She loved crawling around in the fresh snow :-) We saw kids flying down the hills on toboggans and snow racers, people cross country skiing and the ever increasing numbers of nordic walkers. It looks wierd at first, but according to the marketing fluff it is "40% more efficient than walking without poles". Does that mean it uses 40% less energy to get from A to B or what? Anyway, I guess it must be good, because there are heaps of people doing it these days. What do you think of nordic walking?

10 February 2002: Elina's name day

Today it was Elina's name day...

9 February 2002: Another slumber party at Emilia's house

Elina: Emilia invited me around for another slumber party at her house. This time her mamma and däddä went out with my mamma and däddä. Emilia and I looked after Piia's cousin Petra and her friend Terhe. They were playing nicely so we left them to watch DVDs while Emilia and I hit the sack...

3 February 2002: The Zoo!!!!

Elina: Today we went to the Helsinki Zoo. It's on the island of Korkeasaari just out of Helsinki. There's a bridge so we walked from the train station. There were heaps of monkeys, camels, birds, tigers and lions. The monkeys were my favourite. I've never seen a real monkey before. I' ve got a few toy monkeys, but the real thing is heaps better. They're really fast, jumping from branch to branch then chewing their food. On the map we saw that there should be some kangaroos but we think it was a bit too cold for the roos, so they were probably lying in a solarium somewhere.