hiidenkonttibeta

Visited petcemeteries of both Turku and Helsinki. The one in Turku is unkept: it’s a corner of a hill, a forest with a lot of grass and all kinds of plants growing tall everywhere. People make graves wherever there’s a free spot. The one in Helsinki is a complete opposite: the graves are well defined, go in (mostly) straight rows and the area is maintained, at least somewhat. By counting the crosses it’s also easy to see that there’s a lot less christian pets in Helsinki than in Turku. Now try guessing the city:

I usually don’t take photos of the gravestones, unless they’re really special in form or decoration, but this one I just had to shoot just for the innovative naming of a herd of cats:

(for those who don’t speak Finnish, “Vasen” means ひだり and “Oikea” is みぎ)

In Keskuspuisto (in Helsinki) they had different kind of art pieces in the forest. This is one of the Tree Spirits:

Too bad I never saw the ballet dancer in action with her chainsaw.

As I told earlier, the oak forest of Ruissalo was a wonderful place. Oaks are rare in here, a tree or two in parks and such. Most of the lone oaks grow wide and low, but in Ruissalo they were tall. There was a dead, thick trunk, which was partially open on one side and empty inside, and I was easily able to step inside. Just walking beneath the trees is an expecience.

Finally made it to the Viking restaurant Harald in Turku, too. It has more stuffed animals on walls than the one in Tampere:

I selected cinnamon beer and “riistamiekka”, which looks like this:

The first sips of cinnamon beer tasted wonderful. A very special beer indeed. Then, halfway to my glass, it started to feel much too sweet, and after I had finished it I didn’t want more of the same. It’s really great and I’d drink it again, but in small quantities.

The castle of Turku was a bit boring because the passageways that seemed most interesting were blocked, and several rooms had modern furniture. But there were nice parts, too – like a view to a courtyard through an old glass window. How did the place look like in 1400′s?

And the real turnoff was the modern part of the museum collection. I tend to agree that the National Museum can display stuff from the ancient 1980′s, but He-Man and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles absolutely have no place in an old castle!

After arriving in Turku I wandered around the city center trying to figure out where exactly I was. Started walking by Aurajoki, seemed the easiest way to get somewhere. Encountered a construction site or something with a wall around it, and the wall was covered in paintings:

Further along the river there was a pharmacy museum. I popped in to look around and to buy some rintasokeri for my sweetie, who has a sweet tooth and has told me about such stuff. Inside I found out that they had quite a lot of stuff from an old pharmacy in Oulu! They had several rooms, mostly workshops. Didn’t open the boxes:

I snapped quite a lot more photos in July than I had time to upload here, so I’m going through them now. First we go back to beautiful Aulanko park in Hämeenlinna, right to the top of the sightseeing tower featured earlier:

And then a bit to the right of the place the photographer is standing, and down, down the stairs (I don’t remember how many). On the bottom there’s a statue of playful bears:

Vietin viikonlopun Tervolassa, ja keksin käydä poimimassa sieniä. Tervolassa asuessa sitä tuli tehtyä toisinaan, mutta eipä täällä kaupungista tule sienestämään lähdettyä, vaikka metsiä löytyisikin muutamien kilometrien päästä.

Kiertelin lähinnä vanhoja, tuttuja paikkoja. Kun olin pieni, äiti lähetti minut usein syksyisin hakemaan näytteitä pitämiään sienikursseja varten, joten tiesin silloin varsin hyvin mistä yleisimpiä sieniä löytyy – tosin sitä kokoelmaa ei auttanut kipata pannuun, sillä se sisälsi yleisimpien ruokasienien lisäksi myöskin yleisimmät myrkkysienet. Se ei siis ollut kurssi, jolla opetettiin kokkaamaan sieniä, vaan tunnistuksen tarpeelliseen taitoon johdatteleva.

Ensin menin tutulle lampaankääpäapajalle, ja sieltä täyttyikin kori hetkessä. Myöhempi tarkempi syyni tosin osoitti että monet noista olivat turhan vanhoja syötäväksi ja saalis pieneni reippaasti. Herkkutatteja ei näkynyt tavallisissa paikoissa, mutta sain vinkin yhdestä paikasta (josta löytyikin muutama) ja oma metsässä harhailunikin tuotti lisää tulosta, mutta kori ei aivan täyttynyt vaikka poimin pari terhakkaa nuorta punikkitattiakin joukkoon:

Voitatteja ei näkynyt yhtään missään, ja kaikki kangastatit olivat liian syötyjä. Ei ollut kovin hyvä tattivuosi, ainakaan vielä, ainakaan siellä.