Today we started our morning off at our regular meeting place, Logistia. We learned more about Kauhajoki-Suupohja region. It was apparent that a great deal of thought was and continues to be, focused on developing the region. Furniture building, the food industry, and logistics are definitely the regions strong points. They even have a Kauhajoki Food Park which brings together so many aspects of this industry, including: food laboratory, process pilot plant, services for food companies, a business park and a visitors' centre, just to name a few. No matter what a person's opinion is regarding the European Union, one thing is for sure, it undeniably influences the rhythm of the country's economic and social pulse.

Following the presentation we ventured off to Kristiinankaupunki, a small, quaint city on the Baltic Sea. The city has a majority of Swedish speaking Finn's. The Swedish name is Kristinestad (CHRISTINA fonSTAD). And, another nice to know is that "Fon" when placed at the begining of a name means princess, or royalty, or something like that. The Rotary Club of Kauhajoki-Aro members safely got us to the new, "gianormous", (Marty, I'll let you use that word if you like), ABC Gas Station without anyone getting lost, wet or injured. We were greeted by hosts Mauri Paunikallio, Club President Paul Riisanen and his lovely wife Helen. They must have heard how we love the Finnish food because they kept trying to feed us all day and we were happy to oblige. With full bellies, we all boarded Mauri's motor home and rode in style to the centre of Kristiinankaupunki.

We visited the Culture House DUX. The old building has just finished renovations into a movie theatre and culture centre. It's so nice to see what can done by invigorating the old, instead of tearing down and building new. The Lebell Museum gave us an excellent chance to see how the rich and famous lived back in the day. The museum is the original house of the prominent Lebell family and it show cases the furniture and decor fashions of the different eras. It's interesting to note that the family prospered from a Polish prisoner of war being taken to Kokkola where he fell in love with a young lady (or her family's social power, depending on what you want to believe), changed his name to Lebell and moved to Kristiinankaupunki. The family flourished in the shipping business.

Rotarian Päavikki Piiroinen helped us to burn a few calories by leading us on a short walking tour of the" old city" part. It's hard to believe that some of the houses are over 200 years old and that people still live in them today. Päavikki herself lives in one such house and was kind enough to open her home to us as part our sight seeing. A few modern necessities added with some creativity and it's amazing what they look can like inside.

The Alma Cafe/Restaurant is nicely located on the shore line. Inside is a 1:8 scale replica of the Alma Kristiinankaupunki ship. The model itself is very intricate in detail, but the amazing part of it is that the ship was made first and the building was constructed around it.

The day coming to an end, we headed back to Kauhajoki for dinner and the Kauhajoki Rotary Club meeting. As we gave our last presentation of our GSE Finland trip, it sank in that our journey is coming to an end.

(Sorry, couldn't get the pictures downloaded so you'll have to wait a bit for those)