A special Sunday

We enjoyed our time at Sorenson's! We've had all 3 of our Sundays in different spots on our trip, and this one like our others was very special

Todd & Vicki are Christa's parents, whom we met with Annika on Aland.  Todd is Stefan's brother, that  we met in Stockholm.

I'm going to re-cap a bit from Saturday first, as I did that post without saying much about what we did.
 From the port, we hopped on the tram with Vicki and went to an area called Senaattori where we saw the United Buddy Bears, a display of 142 concrete bears, each depicting a different country, painted by an artist from that country.  These bears have been on display in several different cities on 5 continents over the past 5 years.  (Not North America, though.)  From there we went to a shopping mall where we met up with Kristal, the girl from Australia who had come to Vaasa last weekend when we were there.  We ate lunch there at Koti Pizza and then hopped on a tram to the old downtown area of Helsinki.  From there we took the tram to the open air market near the wharf and wandered through the booths of fruits/vegetables/flowers/crafts,fresh fish,etc.  Then we walked several blocks to Stockmann's, a huge department store. area.  From there we walked back to the shopping mall to retrieve our overnight bags we had put in a locker there, and then to the train station to catch the train out to Kyrkslatt where Sorensons live, about a 25 minute ride west of Helsinki.  Vicki made fajitas for supper and then we had a relaxing evening with music and games.

  We had a wonderful gathering on Sunday a.m. We did almost double the size of  their gathering...Kristal is the only other non-family member who is in this area to come here.

 And yes, you can tell which ones are the Americans by their shoes :P

Vicki fixed a delicious lunch of roast pork, potatoes, and salad.  Dessert was lamingtons, an Australian specialty that Kristal had made.  It's cake chunks rolled in a thin chocolate icing and then rolled in coconut flakes.

Just before lunch, Duong P. arrived.  She had ridden her bicycle 2 hours from Espoo!  She is from Vietnam and is going to university in Espoo, northwest of Helsinki, which is where Kristal is also living.  Duong has an interesting story.  When she was 17, she was an exchange student here in NE, and I had met her as she lived with a family in our area.   Laura had also met her that year here in NE.  Duong is now going to school in Finland, and got in contact with Laura, so they have now been able to get better acquainted over there.  She was delighted to see me, and a thrill for me to see her there in that setting!

It was another beautiful sunny day today, so after the lunch things were cleaned up, Vicki took us ladies on a 1.5 hour walk around Kyrkslatt.  After we got back here, we sang & had piano music, with Laura and Cohen on violin, and Davis on flute.  For supper we had karjalanpiirakka again, along with riisipuuro (rice porridge), ruusumarjakeitto (rose hip soup) served hot with manttelinappula (almond buttons) that you put in the soup, and then piparikakku (ginger snaps).

 Bicycle/walking path thru town that we took.  Fall is in the air, and it was beautiful here!

 This is a local "rug washing" spot in town.  A trough with faucets, then the picture above this is a "wringer" and then you hang them on the side fence areas and leave them to dry.  We didn't see any carpeting on the floors in the homes we visited, just large rugs on hardwood, or tile floors.

 But still flowers blooming!

 We walked around this beautiful old church & grave yard.

    Tomorrow (Monday morning) we leave  to drive back to the bach in Turku to get the rest of our things, and then to catch the ferry to Stockholm, which leaves Turku at 9pm.