Nilo

This is Nilo.  I hadn't been in Finland for more than forty-eight hours when I met him.  His dad, Bro. Lampinen, was the guy who drove by when Eija and I were standing outside the church building on my first Saturday here.  He rolled down his window and asked, "Are you Sarah Compton?"  Nilo was in the van with his dad.  He is only 9 but he is among the greatest teachers I know.  On Saturday, his little sister was baptized.  After the service, refreshments were served.  I was in the kitchen rinsing the dishes when Nilo came in and squeezed his way between me and the sink.  He motioned to me to roll up his sleeves, which I did, and he took the plate and cup from me and started rinsing.  He would then hand me the rinsed dishes to put up on the drying rack.  This went on for a good 10-12 minutes.  After a while, he tried to push his sister away from washing the dishes so he could have a go of it.  Nilo is such a sweet kid.  So full of love and eager to serve.  I hope to be like him when I grow up. 

The sisters from church threw a baby shower for Jessa, one of the sisters in our ward.  Such beautiful and awesome women!  They all got a good laugh out of me recounting my experience visiting the doctor in Finland.  AWKWARD!  :)  Katie Koivisto (pictured in the first picture) is also an American (I LOVE her, by the way!) and could totally appreciate my sentiments.  It's good to have another American backing me up when I try and convince the Finns that in the U.S. we view the body very differently from how they view it here.  That's perhaps the biggest "culture shock" I've experienced. 

These are how the blankets turned out that the Young Women made for the two (soon to be three) new babies in the ward.  They are just darling!

Joni (my Dutch friend and classmate) and I spent Tuesday in Tampere (a city two hours southeast of Jyväskylä).  One of Joni's friends connected us up with Marko who lives in Tampere and he was so very kind in giving us a guided tour of the city.  Totally awesome!  I felt like some sort of celebrity.  :)  This is the Tampere library that was built in the late 1800s.  I love the sculpture of the family reading together.

We learned that Tampere is home to many "firsts".  The first McDonald's in Finland...yep...you're looking at it.  Tampere is also home to the first ice hockey team, the first Subway restaurant, and some other firsts that I don't remember at the moment...

An old building in the town square that survived WWI and the Finnish Civil War.

City hall.  You can see the water fountain is covered.  It is common practice in Finland to enclose the fountains during the winter time.  It was really chilly on Tuesday.  We have been in the single digits all week.  Brrrr!

This is a common gathering place for the Deaf community in the summers.  You can't see it in this picture, but there are chess boards that are carved into the stone benches.  SO COOL!  I will definitely be coming back to Tampere in the summer time.

So glad Marko was with us to tell us what these locks are about.  It's tradition that when a man proposes and the woman accepts, they put a lock on the railing that lines the river that runs through the town.  How awesome is that?!  And many of the locks have the couple's initials and the date that he proposed.  I saw one that was even engraved (most of them were scratched into the lock).

This is a popular Tex-Mex restaurant in Jyväskylä.  I was excited to find it here as well.  This is the summer serving place as it's located in the courtyard between two old factory buildings.  I haven't been to see how the food measures up to "real" Tex-Mex.  Perhaps I'll stop by the Gringos Locos restaurant in Jyväskylä this week.

Timo, our waiter, at Frankly's Restaurant.  Joni had a travel guide (in Dutch) that had recommended this place for great authentic Finnish cuisine.  Timo was so great in recommending the best plates and desserts.  When we told him that we found the place in the travel guide, he didn't believe us.  So Joni showed him and he said, "This is the first time I've heard of us being showcased in a travel guide."  So, we just had to take a picture with him.  I'll definitely be back next time I'm in Tampere.  They had the best vegetable crepes (seriously delicious!!) I've ever tasted.  YUM!

The old factory buildings from the mid- to late 1800s.  Similar to the Quarry in San Antonio, the town has preserved the buildings and turned them into retail outlets.  The architecture inside is quite amazing.  Unfortunately, all the pics from inside were too dark to post.  We saw pictures from the late 1800s onward of this building in the Tampere City Museum.  It was awesome to see what life was like back then and to take a picture of the exact same place 120 years later.

First American diner I've seen in Finland.  They even had 50s American music playing. 

Country dancing?!?!  In Finland?!?!  I don't know.  The place wasn't open when we were there.  But I am seriously tempted to come back and see if they play country music and if anyone there knows how to two-step.  I MISS country dancing! (P.S. A-license means that they have passed inspection for cleanliness.  So, you don't have to worry about getting food poisoning there.)

This is in front of the police headquarters.  I told Joni and Marko since I've been introduced to the practices of the healthcare system in Finland and found them quite intriguing, I thought perhaps I should move on to learning more about the law enforcement procedures.  Marko didn't even laugh when I said that.  He just looked at me and shook his head.  But he still took the picture.  :)

The Tampere shield.  Every city has its own shield (crest?) and flag.

The Tampere City Museum.  Hands down the best museum I've been in.  Ever.  It had an exhibit on the Civil War in Finland. Tampere was where a lot of the fighting took place.  If I remember correctly, 38,000 people died in the war.  It was between those who wanted Finland to be free and those who wanted to remain under Russian rule.  This exhibit will tear at your heart.  The museum also has an ice hockey exhibit (the one and only in Finland..unfortunately no pictures are allowed...so you won't be seeing any of them).  But, they had an exhibit on the deaf ice hockey team here in Finland.  They also had an area blocked off with plexiglass where you can hit hockey pucks and suit up with ice hockey gear.  If there hadn't been a kid in there playing already, I would have loved to have tried my hand at the game.

No flash photography allowed in the museum (and Joni took pics of me with her camera and I took pics of her with mine...so that's why you get to see so much of her!  :) ).  They had this old fashioned bike (at first I thought it was a unicycle) that you could ride.  Totally reminded me of Brandon Peine.

I came around the corner and literally jumped back when I saw this display.  "I thought bugs were bigger in Texas, but Texas has nothin' on Finland when it comes to butterflies!!"  Then I got closer and read that this was a butterfly at 20x magnification.  I felt so dumb.  You can see the key to the locker on the case, just to give you an idea of how big it is.  Totally stopped my heart for a few seconds.

There is a river that runs through the city center.  The town reminds me so much of Easton, PA and Phillipsburg, NJ, where the other side of my mom's family is from.  Both places were established as industrial towns and today are tourist stops (Easton and Phillipsburg are home to the Crayola Factory and Tampere is home to museums, shops, and an awesome ice hockey team).  I totally feel at home here in Tampere.  If I didn't like Jyväskylä so much, I would seriously consider moving. 

Is that the Tower of the Americas in Tampere?!  Yep.  I hear the food is just as expensive and sub-par as it is in San Antonio.  Hmm...  I'm sure the view makes up for it, though.

We climbed an old brick observation tower that houses a donut shop at its base.  (The donuts are delicious!  Ok, so what Finnish food isn't delicious?  The seafood, of course.  Everything else, YUM!)  We got to the top and I was so happy that the tower is not enclosed (like the tower in Jyväskylä)!!

And this is the view at night.  The picture just doesn't do it justice.  The sign in Finnish Sign Language for Tampere is based on the handshape for the number 7 (the Finnish 7, not the ASL 7).  Marko asked us why we thought Tampere was given this sign.  Turns out, there are 7 smoke stacks in Tampere.  So that's how the city got its name sign.  Also, Marc was wondering about whether I'm teaching ASL.  I wish I were, but as long as I'm on scholarship, I'm not allowed to teach.  But, I do spend lots of time chatting with deaf students and they'll ask how to sign various concepts in ASL.  So, while I'm not teaching a formal class, I do get to teach some informally.  Last time I was at the Deaf Club, I felt like I finally was able to communicate in basic FSL.  I think the six-week mark is an important one in language development.  It seemed like something clicked and I could finally understand at least something.  :)