The Finland I was looking for

Mikko next to his school's library.

\For the past 5 days, we have been in Eastern Finland, in the Savo region, visiting our friend Mikko and his family Saiya, Assi and Ella. They live in Mikkeli. He was in the US in the fall, doing the same program that I am now.

The three DAT Americans in Finland, myself, Binh and Kate, as well as Eija, the other Finnish Fulbrighter last fall, were invited to visit schools in Mikkeli and do "Finnish Wintertime Activities." Mikko, his entire family and his community have been so welcoming, so gracious, so amazingly generous with their time, their houses, their ideas, their students, their food...I can't quite describe how fun it has been.

Marieka got to go to Ella and Assi's daycare, where they welcomed her with open arms, even though she doesn't speak a lick of Finnish and just wanted to play by herself with the Moomin characters; we were invited to a very elegant dinner at an historic farm, and served caviar and deer;Historic house and dinner. There is a lot of taxidermy in this country. Perhaps that should be my research?

and every school we were at spent lots of time explaining their approach to teaching and learning, allowed us to talk and interact with students and poke our noses into any nook and cranny we wanted to see or ask about. Library at the Vocational School
Boys learn to sew in Finland
I even got to help the LPN students in the Vocational Training School learn how to hold open the mouth of a person in a coma. I was a fabulous model.

We finished the week with avanto, which, for those of you who don't know Finnish, means "ice hole." And, we went in one. In swim suits. Outside. Pictures to come. Rob won the hard man award for actually backfloating in the water. Very impressive. We also went skiing on the amazing publicly maintained and lighted ski trails (in the dark, -20F...), walked on the frozen pond, ate reindeer at a local cafe (ok, I didn't, but everyone else did) and spent the weekend at Mikko's parent's house, 3 hours north of Mikkeli, next to a frozen lake. We snowshoed "over the hill" to his grandmother's house and had a sausage cookout on the outside fireplace. His grandmother, 92 years old, still lives in her own house overlooking acres of former strawberry fields. It was pretty magical.Maccarra *sausage* cookout at Mikko's grandmother's house.
Saiya on our snowshoe walk. The trees looked like they had been sprayed with snow.
View towards lake from Mikko's parents house.

We tried icefishing (I drilled the hole...avanto again...but no luck) and Rob went with Mikko and Binh to chop down a tree. There is 80cm of snow on the ground, and I can attest to it, after falling in to my waist a few times. The birch and pine trees are covered in thick layers of snow, and I think we saw a bear's nest.
We will sauna and ski tomorrow before heading "home" to Helsinki. Rotating restaurant we ate at at top. Just above ski jump site in Kuopio. Pretty amazing.

As I said, this is the Finland I have been looking for.

I promise pictures.