Between days of grading last week, there was a 3-day, 2-night ferry trip to Helsinki with all the regular personnel of Johannelund, about 17 people (which does not include very part-time teachers and staff). This was my first time to Finland. (Yea, one more country to add to my list of travels.)
There was some time spent in personnel and faculty meetings, including meeting staff at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Finland national office. However, most of the time was shared time together, with two nights spent on the ferry to and from Helsinki.
As we departed the ferry, there were several people with handcarts loaded with cases of duty free booze. These ferries actually have quite a business in selling alcohol and gambling, with a prominent casino on board (which I didn’t bother to visit, as gambling is taking from the poor to give to the rich).
Highlights include visiting Uspenski Cathedral, an ornate Eastern Orthodox church built in the 1860s.
We were let in past the barrier to the front of the church and had a special presentation from one of the monks.
The monk’s presentation was in Swedish, so I got the basics. Swedish is one of the official languages of Sweden, and all students are required to study it for 6 years. This was also one of my “Swedish Wednesdays,” so I plodded along with my not very good Swedish. Fortunately, my cabin-mate is very patient.
Some of us went to see one of the Lutheran churches, Temppeliaukio Church (which is one reminder of why I’m glad I’m not learning Finish with its plethora of vowels and verb tenses!)
Our 8 or so hours in Helsinki also included a walk through the fish market, farmer’s market, and tourist stalls on the waterfront. Travel on the street cars, a short visit to a mall with a famous Finnish designer’s store, marimekko. Finland is well regarded for some famous designers. Other colleagues went to an exhibit featuring one of the famous Finnish architects, Alvar Aalto. As academics, we are drawn to bookstores, and visited a couple very briefly. Others bought some things. The only thing that caught my eye was the new WIRED magazine, but I’m not going to pay 7.5 Euros for one copy when the annual subscription is $12.
At our last dinner at an Italian restaurant on the ferry, I did an Elness thing by turning over my paper place mat and started drawing a picture. I passed on the place mat and pen to my next table-mate. Over the evening, it made several rounds around the table as the story grew with creative flair. We soon were the “fun” table, and after dinner, others joined us. Several relayed that this was a great idea and the collaboration was perfect for spending time together. The place mat was carefully brought home by my cabin-mate. My days of Bible camp program director community building live on! (Unfortunately, it also revealed some lack of intentional community building–other than shared experience–during our time together.)
Anya was home doing fine (with a friend as a backup contact). Someday, she’d like to take a trip like this to add Finland to her list of countries and add it to the map I bought her for her birthday, where she scratches the coating off the map for each country visited. The ferry with its casino and duty free shop incentivized travel is cheaper than a plane ticket and hotel. However, with the noise and vibration (and less than pleasant odor in my room), it was not a good nights sleep. I returned home tired.
I still need to get some Tanzania highlights posted. I’ll be getting to this soon!
With blessings,
Beth
Marv and I took the same ferry in 1993 from Finland to Stockholm. Also didn’t sleep much since it was graduation weekend and high school kids were using it as their party place. And so fun to see the ‘Rock’ church. It was my privilege to preach there one Sunday on behalf of FELM or the other mission society, can’t remember which one.