Tuesday sightseeing in Vaasa

Today we 3 girls; Laura, Ruth and I headed out on our own for a day of sights around Vaasa!

It ended up being a very full and interesting day, A little chilly, but bright sunshine, and many beautiful and awesome sights--yes,  MANY more photo opportunities!  We visited the school that Laura attended, met her teacher, and as students went by and saw Laura, they joyfully greeted her with hugs.  We were very enthusiastically invited to stay for lunch, and did so ,we had a fish soup and bread with a fluffy dessert that had chunks of dark chocolate and various fruits.  It was all very good and we enjoyed a visit with some of the other students there. Gordon also has taken classes here. We've heard alot about all the education  here in Finland.  I have to say that I'm very amazed & impressed at their opportunities for all types of education, and all ages.

  Laura spent 9 months at this school from Aug '09 - May '10, 4 to 5 hours a day, with about 4 hours of daily homework, 5 days a week.  We hear Finnish is a much more difficult language to learn than Swedish.  Well, if you see how many letters make up a word, with a gazillion vowels in each word, and vowels with dots or circles above them, I can understand why it'd be so difficult!  (Well, Swedish has those strange vowels, too, but not so many duplicates in one word!)

A bit of Finnish history -- Sweden ruled Finland for several hundred years, from the 13th century to 1809, and during that time there were a lot of Swedes living in Finland, especially along the western coast.  In 1809 Finland was ceded to the Russian Empire, and then in 1917 Finland declared its independence.  Since then, the Finnish have been pushing the Swedish out, but there is still an area along the western coast that is strong Swedish.  So for the children here, there are separate Swedish and Finnish schools in these areas.  They both have to learn the other language, but they're not integrated.  And all the signs, everything, have to be in both languages.  So it's Vaasa in Finnish and Vasa in Swedish.

After lunch we walked along the water and around a little island and then went to the gift shop at the "Waterfront Hotel", which is actually the Vaasa prison, called that because it's on "beach" street.  Sorry, I don't have the Finnish name for the street, but I'm sure it would be long with a lot of vowels!

  After that we drove out to the Kvarken Archipelego, mainly to see the awesome bridge there that Meshayla saw last year and I had seen pictures of and wanted to see for real!  It is an awesome bridge, built in the 1990's.

  Then we came back to the house to get Laura's violin because in town we just happened to see a lady she had met while taking violin lessons last year, and both of them had also been in a small orchestra, and tonight was the first night of practice for this year, and Laura was asked if she'd like to join in tonight, so she wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to stay in touch with this lady and the others there.

We also visited some ruins from a fire in Old Vaasa--1852.  An interesting place.

  Back into town and to Stundars, which is an outdoor museum/group of buildings depicting an old-time Finnish settlement.  The buildings weren't open, but it was interesting to walk around and peek in the windows.  Then sandwiches to go from Hesburgers (kinda like McD's) to eat on the way to orchestra practice at 7pm.
 One of Laura's teachers, Kristina had invited us to come to her home at 9pm for tea so she could visit more with Laura.  We were there until about 10:30 and had a very nice visit.  (This is where the Finnish history came from!  Between Kristina & Mavis, We've heard alot, and thanks to Ruth who either remembers or writes it all down, then I get the benefit!)  Kristina says she finds it hard to describe herself...she's Swedish and was raised Swedish, but she's Finnish because Finland is her country and she loves it.

We enjoyed our day very much! Thanks Laura!