The Homecoming at Last!

I finally made it to my ancestral motherland - Finland! The trip began with Turku, Finland.

I arrived after a peaceful boat ride with a toasty warm sauna and was greeted with such friendly smiling faces. The Finnish people are so helpful, friendly, English-knowing-and-speaking, and well-dressed.

Turku is the oldest city in Finland and was once the capital. As such, it is a special city. The city was well maintained, plenty of cobble stoned streets, and a beautiful old cathedral. To my delight, there were plenty of thrift stores and antique stores with fun little surprises inside and all priced very moderately. There were also many art galleries and good museums.

I was able to go to the Sibelius Museum, in honor of Finland's greatest composer, Jean Sibelius. There was great information about his life and I was able to watch old videos depicting his funeral and his life. The museum also housed musical instruments. It was even hands-on! I was allowed to play a harpsichord from the 1700s. This, to me, is one of the greatest things a museum could allow. When I went into the basement of the museum, there was a collection of keyboards from the 1960s-current. This excited me even more. It is about time musical instrument museums started curating some forms of electronic music.

Later I went into market square and ate some delicious food that I have been deprived of for several months. The karelian pie is my favorite treat that I only seem to get at Christmas time back home. You can be sure I loaded up on plenty of these pies to last me a while.