Train, Turku and More Family

I reach the monumental train station in time to buy a ticket from the machine and find my train on a track outside of the hall. I am really impressed by this train. It’s called intercity train, has two stories and very comfortable seats.

At the end of each cart there is a phone booth – not one with a phone in it, of course, but if you wish to talk on your mobile you should do it in there in order not to disturb others. Nice thought. Fitting with my idea of Finns being a people that values quietness. I am even more astonished when I see the speed on the screen overhead, 140 km/h or more and it moves so smoothly through the winter landscape of rural Northern Europe that I can make some notes and my handwriting looks no different from usual, no involuntary scribbles or erratic lines. Maybe this is also due to the fact that as a former part of the Russian Empire Finish trains run on broad gauge railways. The two hours to Turku pass by easily with some writing and enjoying the view. Sometimes there are rough stone walls close to the railway which must be covered with water trickling down in many places in warmer times, now icy covers hang across it. Unfortunately I can’t take pictures of it so close to the window. I take photos of the landscape instead, it’s definitely wide enough. Even though there is some sea in between, I think the change in landscape from Lithuania through Latvia and Estonia to Finland is quite gradual. The main new aspect here seems to be that everything is wider, the houses further apart, longer stretches of the same, fields, forest. I don’t know if Southern Finland actually is even less densely populated than the Baltics, it looks like that to me.

 

My host brother picks me up at the station in Turku. We haven’t met for several years, but I don’t feel that at all. A brother stays a brother. Before we go home, he takes me to the cathedral which is still the main church of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and the seat of its achibishop. This is a remainder of the times when Turku was the Finnish capital. The church is an impressive building with columns so high they make the whole room look light and elegant although it is built from massive and quite big stones. For some reason I didn’t take pictures, but you can see some on wikipedia.

After a 15 minutes drive outside of town we reach Juho’s home. He and his fiancée, their little son and a huge St. Bernhard’s dog live in a serial house close to a forest. We spend family time playing with my active little nephew, do some shopping at the mall and a quick sightseeing tour around Turku (including the castle, the port and the hospital where Juho and Annika work) and a lot of delicious Finnish food. Apart from reindeer with cranberry jam I get to know something new: Karelian pie. It is rice porridge baked inside a thin layer of rye dough and you eat it with a mix of boiled eggs and butter. Writing this down I can relate to Juho saying it sounds really strange when you describe it like that. But that’s what it is and we like it. And so do I. Before I leave on the next day Juho and I take a little walk with Reino in his buggy and the huge dog. The sun is shining and I understand I could have used sunglasses, at this time of the year the sun is blinding if you see it, of course, as it never rises very high. I see there are even sunglasses for babies, Reino is not a big fan, but he goes along with it.