Monday, December 15, 2003
Photo albums (now no sign-in required!)
Good photos (through August 2003)
Barcelona, October 2002
Helsinki, Fall 2002
Halloween 2002, I.S.H.
Helsinki, Winter 2003
Tallinn and the frozen sea, Winter 2003
Weekend fun February 2003
May 2003
June 2003
July 2003
France in July 2003
August 2003
September 2003
October 2003
Winter 2003-2004
Thursday, October 09, 2003
May: Trip to St. Petersburg for Cindy and friend Julie Weiman. Later in the month, Grandma's trip to the Turku archipelago: lambs at Stentorp, then on to Nauvo/Nagu to stay at farm
June: Last days of school, Linnanmaki! Visit from Emily, sailing trip in the Aland archiplago with John as skipper: Rodham, Degero, Kastleholm, Bomersund, Marianhamn.
July: Visit from Leila! Staying on farm in Tammisari area: horseback riding, trip to Kimito island and viking center and castles. Back to Helsinki and then a visit from Jeff and Althea.
August: Last days free hanging out along the holiday shores of Helsinki! Watching the bungee jumpers and ferry boats; free trampoline, bike rides to mini-golf (much too hard), ice cream stands, then school started mid-month. Jonah's birthday!
September: Gaga and Nono arrive! Celebrating Dad and Franklin's birthdays together. Lots of nice walks, dinners out and home, Suomenlinna, beautiful warm fall days.
October: The weather is changing slowly and the leaves are pretty! Baltic Herring Festival on the Marketplace; the boats are decorated with fall boughs.
Monday, April 14, 2003
Printed in The Guardian, London 14.February 2003.
Sunday, April 13, 2003
I just came across this article on Slate. It contains a slide show, a
small movie, and a panaroma inside the "Church of the Rock". These
images give a good feeling of how Helsinki really is...
Also click the previous "Day 7 Helsinki" link on the top map area.
--Cindy
Some of my other favorite Finland links below.
--Franklin
Country Profiles: Finland
Helsinki in English from A to Z
The Foreigner's Guide to Finland
Helsinki this Week (actually just documents about Finland)
Virtual Finland
Helsingin Sanomat in English (main newspaper)
Tourist Map of Helsinki
Facts about the Åland islands (John, this is where we are sailing!) and where we will sail for a week in June 2003.
Sauna-of-the-Month Club
Sunrise & Sunset in Helsinki
Finnish Aurora Observers Homepage
International School of Helsinki (Juliet & Jonah's school)
Just Say Nokia
Finnish culture lures foreign workers to Nokia Corp
Thursday, April 03, 2003
We have some nice photo albums online, but it is tricky to send them out. So here are the links:
Helsinki, Fall 2002
Barcelona, October 2002
Halloween 2002, I.S.H.
Helsinki, Winter 2003 11.Feb.2003
Weekend fun 20.Feb.2003
Tallinn and the Frozen Sea 20.Feb.2003
Thursday, October 24, 2002
Hi!
School is fun. we're learning the metric system.
from *juliet*
miss y'all!!!
from *juliet*
Friday, October 18, 2002
Check out http://www.fmi.fi/weather/local.html?kunta=Helsinki to see a chart of the daily temperature, updated every few minutes. Remember it's Celsius!
Brrrr...
Monday, October 14, 2002
It is getting darker every day...see this chart of daylight hours, and notice how much shorter it is between Oct. 10 and Oct. 20!
Thursday, October 10, 2002
our place is great. Here's a map (we live on Ullanlinnankatu 1 A):
5th floor of an old, beautiful building. Most of the downtown apartment buildings were built between 1915 and 1925, and this is on the later end of that. Old elevator with a manually operated gate and door...big sweeping staircase. And of course, the sauna, which is brand new, on the 6th floor. We have sauna time on Saturday afternoons and every other Tuesday night. A new ritual for the family!
Our place is near the Helsinki Observatory, in a big, beautiful park on top of the hill, overlooking the harbor. It's not used for astronomy now, as far as I can tell, because there are no domes on the towers, and I was noticing this morning in the dark (!) as I walked the dog that the park lights send light upwards as well as down--which would be terrible for astronomers!
Kids love school. We hop on the tram across the street, a few stops to downtown, into the Metro, 2 stops to the school area (right near the Nokia NRC buildings). Then a few minutes walk, over small footbridge crossing some water. Views of the sea, ships.
Here is a short video from the deck of the Katherina, a wooden schooner moored at the edge of the market. It is a cozy restaurant inside! The view is of the sunset reflected off the islands across from the market. (Should work in Quicktime 6):
Saturday, October 05, 2002
First snow today! It has been below freezing several nights, but this week promises to hit the teens farenheight by Thursday night... finally Finland weather is back on track, after an unusually warm summer and September, and even the first days of October. We'll post a picture soon!
Thursday, September 19, 2002
We love it here. It is an incredibly easy place to live. Our apartment is huge by Finnish standards, and actually pretty big by any standards--139 sq. m, which is about 1500 sq. ft. 3 really big rooms along the front (our BR the biggest and LR in middle have 2 windows, then Juliet's BR has one), a generous entry hall, a generous square kitchen between (no windows) then Jonah is in a narrow room behind the kitchen with windows into the courtyard. Write us at Ullanlinnankatu 1 A 22, 00130 Helsinki, Finland
I'm going to get a digital camera so we can post pictures here, but it will take a while to get it organized.
Moving was really a challenge; no real problems but a ton of work. Still installing light fixtures, a new cabinet in the bathroom (the one there is wide but not tall, so neither I nor the kids can see themselves!), sewing & hanging curtains. Finnish apartments come with NO light fixtures. Weird that you have to buy your own every time you move, if your previous ones don't fit. Or if you move from the US...
Cindy and kids are on their way to Stockholm tonight, ovenight on the Silja Line, one night there, then overnight home on Saturday. I can't take the next two days off; school is out for professional training or some such. They LOVE the school, a really fine International School. Both have made friends, and Juliet's Finnish is growing really fast.
Cindy signed up for intensive Finnish, 4x/week for 2 hours, with serious homework expectations. Overwhelming, but I think she'll manage. Our assigned Nokia "Buddy" is the mom of a family from Newton. They've been here 2 years, but she signed up for the class too--which was actually the first time they met in person. And they like each other a lot, so that's good. Many other interesting friendships budding through the school also. She won't have time to start painting for a few more weeks probably, but I'm looking forward to her work, which has been getting really interesting.
My job is SO intense. There's no way I can actually do everything, so I have to learn triage, and to prioritize better than I do. But I like it, am making good connections and good progress.
We love not having a car. Cindy dreads shopping in -30 C weather (but I don't think they actually have much of it in Helsinki--too near the sea). She bought a "babushka" cart so she can drag stuff home in any weather, and a good S-Market is just 2 blocks away. Sammy is getting used to city life, although I think he'd like to be able to run outside anytime as he could in Newton.
We just booked our tix home for 3 weeks in Dec/Jan, so will be around a good chunk of time. I'm working on talking the family out of coming back next summer. We really only have one whole summer in Europe, so should explore it here, right?
I don't mean to make you all even more jealous ;-) In a couple of days we'll all have 12 hours of light and dark, but then we plunge into darkness at an incredibly fast rate. So check in with us in a couple of months and see how the moods have swung...
Wednesday, August 28, 2002
hi peeps!!! i miss you guys sooooooo much!!!!!!! oh-my-gosh!!! i have some really nice new friends! also, all of the boys are actually nice! keep me posted about school/social/anything else by email, but dont tell EVERY SINGLE PERSON YOU KNOW my e-mail address.g2g. bi!!! or in finnish moi-moi!!
Friday, August 23, 2002
On August 11, 2002 the Ryan-Davis family left Newton for a 2-year adventure in Helsinki, Finland. Franklin works for Nokia, and accepted a new job assignment, partly because it is an exciting opportunity but even more because the family is ready for an international adventure.
Cindy and Franklin lived in Basel, Swizerland in the mid 80s, and have always wanted to live in Europe again, especially since we had kids. Juliet (11) and Jonah (8) and Sammy (dog ;-) were excited too.
This log is a place we will post occasional stories, thoughts, photos, and whatever about our lives in Finland. We look forward to your responses, since we miss everyone!
