Tallinn!

This is Tallinn!  I thought I'd kick off the post with a nice shot from one of the lookouts at the top of the old city wall.  You can see the church with the copper roof and the Gulf of Finland in the distance.  Tallinn is a port city and also the capital of Estonia.

The airport in Jyväskylä.  We get to walk on the tarmac!  :)  I was the last one on the plane and then the first one off when we landed in Helsinki (it was a 30 min. flight).

New friends I made in the Helsinki airport.  We stopped in at the Moomin store.  They are very popular cartoon characters here in Finland.  Reetta, one of my classmates, gave me my first Moomin mug (just like the one I'm holding in my hand).  Niina, our post doc in the department, picked up a mug and shirt for our presenter.

Chocolate.  Tallinn chocolate.  :)  Minna said it tasted like old Russian chocolate during the Soviet period.

Minna Suni (left) and Niina Lilja (right) with their chocolate bars...on the city bus on our way to our hotel.  They look like they are in "Touched by an Angel".  They have been angels to me!  Mina taught me the phrase "paljon raha" (lots of money) and Niina was our kontrolli (leader) for the Tallinn trip.  Love these ladies!

This is one of the main streets in the old city.  It was raining Mon. night but we still walked around town for an hour between lectures and dinner.  Anu, another one of Sari's students who lives in Switzerland, is in the middle and Niina (Sari's former student and our dept's post doc) is on the right.

This is the church in the town square.  It's so beautifully lit!  We had dinner in a very nice restaurant that faces the square as well.  So we enjoyed the view of this magnificent building while rellishing elk steaks and pumpkin cheesecake.  Did I mention that it seems like all I do here is eat?!  :)

Minna!  She took me on a walking tour in the rain after dinner and showed me her favorite places.  She and her husband got engaged in the oldest cafe/restaurant in Tallinn (from the 1860s).  It's still standing and such a quaint little place.

This little city is so charming and you feel like you've been transported back in time.

Our 3M Network Team.  Remember how everyone in Finland is tall?  Yeah.  Kind of like how everyone in Texas is tall. 

We had three hours on Tuesday between lectures and when we had to leave for the airport.  I strolled around the old city and found this cute cafe that sells pottery they make on site. 

This is the cafe courtyard.  The pottery studio is to the right.

The old city wall.

More of the old city wall.  I walked past here at night and the door was closed.  When I walked by during the day, I saw that an artist keeps his paintings tucked inside the wall and brings them out during the day to sell.  Ingenious!

More of the town.

The shops have very small doors.  They had a stained glass and blown glass studio and shop.  Very cool place.  Unfortunately, no pictures could be taken inside.

I returned to Jyvaskyla and had a package waiting for me from South Africa!  One of the journal editors I met at a conference in Oslo, Norway, in June sent me one of the journal issues that pertains to my research interests. 

Eija invited me to lunch on Friday to celebrate the upcoming "holiday week" when all the kids are out of school and the university professors cancel class so they can be home with their kids.  So, it's kind of a de facto holiday week for university students as well.  My first pizza in Finland at AliBaba's.

The people may not be bigger in Finland, but the pizzas certainly are.  :)

I was asked to work with the Young Women at church (youth program for girls from ages 12-17).  Friday nights are the activity nights.  This Friday we worked on crocheting blankets for 3 new babies that have been/will be born this month.  The girls are radiant!

Fall time is definitely here.  It was -1 degrees Celsius this week.  Eija and I raked the leaves Saturday evening.  So great to be outside enjoying the crisp, clean air!

We used a tarp as our "dust pan" and then carried the leaves to the forest where we made one HUGE pile.  They consider that littering here in Finland, but since no one lives in the forest behind Eija's place, we figured no harm, no foul. 

The first fire of the season!  See the roses in the glass container to the right? Do they look familiar?...we made those kind of roses a few weeks ago. Eija started the fire with just one rose.

There was a very kind, older gentleman at church who helped me with my coat a few weeks back.  I thought, "Wow, that's so kind of him!"  Then I walked outside to bike home and a few moments later he and his wife came out.  These are their bikes.  They bike to/from church every Sunday.  They are probably in their mid 70s.  I bet they'd beat me in a bike race any day of the week.

The weekend wrapped up with a delicious dinner that Eija made for her sons Lauri and Tuomas (Lauri is on the left, Tuomas is on the right), Lauri's girlfriend Elle, and me.  We had lamb meatloaf with blue cheese and bell peppers.  The meatloaf was wrapped in bacon.  Yum!  The best part was spending time with Eija's family and laughing about all things Finnish.  Good times!  And now time to plan another adventurous week.  No classes this week...but a paper due on Friday.  So, we'll see what all we can pack in this coming week.  Hope you guys are all well!  Hugs from across the Atlantic!