Kristinestad (Kristiinankaupunki) pictures

From bottom to top:

Pictures 1 and 2- Tiny pull out beds in one of the oldest houses in Kristinestad. (almost 300 years)

Picture 3- Walking through Kristinestad

Picture 4- Inside a 300 year old church that is still in use- and in high demand for weddings

All good things come to an end.

Tomorrow I will say good-bye to my team members as we head in different directions. The last four weeks have been unforgettable. I could not have asked for a better group of people with whom to share this GSE experience. It will be odd to spend the next 2 weeks of my travels without them. I'll be looking forward to hearing about everyones' adventures when we meet again at the conference in Winnipeg.

Myrna and Kim did an excellent job in preparing us for this trip. I feel their efforts paid off, but I guess you would have to ask the Finn's what they thought of our motley team of Canadians.

The Finnish Rotarian members were so welcoming and generous. I cannot thank them enough for everything they did to show case all aspects of their country, culture, and business. Before coming to Finland, everything I had read about Finns commented that they were tough, reserved and quiet. Though tough they may be, they are warm, open and generous beyond expectation.

Combined with the uniqueness of our differences, the similarities that Canadians and Finns share have created a wonderful and lasting impression on me. I am so thankful that District 1380 of Finland was the chosen destination of our exchange. I will take with me many lasting memories, friendships, and a hightened knowledge of what Finland represents. Most of all I will remember my host families who took me in and cared for me as one of their own. By welcoming me into their homes I saw a truer, genuine side of the Finnish culture. Without this opportunity I would have felt like a simple tourist passing through a foreign country. For their generosity I'm forever grateful. Thank you to Harold & Margot Finne of Jacobstad, Asko & Anu-Liisa Martikainen of Vaasa, Jyrvi & Kirsti Karppinen of Kauhava, and Heikki & Tuula Arkela of Kauhajoki.

Lastly, I will return to Canada and be able to say most definitely, despite popular belief, the Finnish people do smile,...and quite beautifully I might add.

Thank you Rotary International for affording me this opportunity to learn, grow and share.

Tampere

We spent the day in Tampere on Friday. What a beautful city! Population approx. 210,000.
In the morning we went to Sisu Deisel which is a client of Diemo (the company that Marty works for). It is an almost entirely automated factory that makes diesel engines for thing like tractors and combines. The degree of automation was unbelievable. There were cages and cages of large robots performing a bunch of tasks on components of the engines, and hardly any people around. There were even robots that drove around picking up heavy parts and moving them. Unfortunately photos were not allowed so you'll just have to believe it.
After the Sisu Diesel factory, we went downtown and shopped for a couple hours. Then we went for supper at the top of a large rotating building- 170 meters high. From the restaurant you can see all around Tampere which is encompassed by lakes and forest. Very beautiful. The meal was the most expensive I've ever had, but delicious. With just 2 days left on GSE it was a great way to end things off.
Today it is raining in Kauhajoki. Christina and Gailmarie went to watch a ballroom dancing competition in Vaasa. Marty is at the summer cottage at a 50th birthday party with his host family. Laurel and I were supposed to go hiking in the national park, but due to the rain we aren't. Tomorrow, Laurel and Marty are headning to Helsinki. Catherine, Gailmarie and Christina will be going out to a summer cottage on the ocean for the day, and heading to Vaasa on Monday. Marty will be flying home on Monday and the rest of us will be continuing our travels for another 1 to 2 weeks.

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)

Inbound Team on thier way

The inbound team are now somewhere over the ocean wending their way to Winnipeg. We have everything ready to start them on their travels in our vast District 5550. I hope they will have the time of their lives just liked all of you have experienced in Finland. I so enjoy reading your blog. Have a wonderful time. Love Myrna

In the words of Piglet "Oh D-d-d-dear"

Hi to all you folks out there in blogland.
Today was Jurva day. At breakfast Christina's host asked if we had been to visit any hospitals. To that point, we had briefly walked into one hospital but as events unfolded, that was about to change. The day started out like any other day. The sun was up before 5am, the air was crisp and clear and we met, at 9, at Logistia. Teppo, from Jurva, met us and we headed out for the day muttering our habitual Finnish styled English "Maybe let's go". Teppo guided us to his van and, as we were filing into the van, our "program" for the day took an unexpected twist. Gailmarie was putting her purse in the back door of the van when gravity took hold of the front door and unexpectedly closed it. Gailmarie calmly requested that Teppo open the front door so that she could remove her finger. Our strong and fearless (I was about to say tall but I wouldn't want to "stretch" the story too much) leader kept her composure and we did indeed have our first real visit to a Finnish hospital. As you can see Teppo and I were just hoping Gailmaire would pull through. After figuring out the insurance, etc. the team left Gailmarie in the hands of the medical staff and headed on to Jurva to continue our program.
Jurva, a town of 4,000, is known for woodworking production. Folks in the area are very self sufficient and will do whatever it takes to support their families through small Mom and Pop businesses which usually include 5 or fewer family members. As long as they can find some way to survive, they have no desire to work for someone else. The biggest wood furniture factory in town currently employs between 50 and 75 people. Woodworking has been a part of Jurva for over 200 years and the first woodworking school was founded in 1911. In the early days of Jurva, most folks were farmers but successive crop failures caused them to look for other ways to survive. In addition to woodworking, the Jurvaites turned to textile work and when that faded away in the 70's woodworking increased in popularity and more folks began to work with metal. The current economic climate is very difficult for woodworking and low cost countries are starting to take quite a bite out of the furniture industry. Times are tough but the people of Jurva are very resilient. I wonder what industry they will turn to next if woodworking experiences a long-term collapse like the textile industry did previously.
Upon arriving in Jurva, Teppo took us to a magnificent, large, 5 year old hall built to showcase Jurva's woodworking talents. The building structure is all wood as well as staircases, name plates, handrails, etc.. Later in the day, we met an artist who had carved one of the ornate decorative mirrors found in the great hall. He said a project of that scale takes 3 months from concept to completion. The building contains a theatre and we were treated to a video explaining how Jurva came to be known for it's woodworking and craftsmanship.
Here's where our brave and fearless leader rejoins the story. Gailmarie surprised us by walking into the building, finger bandaged up and stitches in place. By the way, for those of you who are keeping track, Gailmarie got 400 points for the whole finger in the door escapade. To put that in perspective, Christina's kayak 360 was only worth, you guessed it, 360 points.



















As you can see, Catherine is tired of working in relative obscurity as a civil engineer and now aims to create world peace and environmental sustainability through powerful and moving woodworking brilliance.
After lunch, we went on to tour the trade school which focuses on graphic, textile, and furniture design and, hmm... oh yeah, woodworking. What an amazing place to learn joining and decorative carving. The students are continuing an incredible tradition of creativity and excellence. It's a shame that the current economic circumstances make it so difficult for a crafts person to make a living.
From the school we went on to Laitala, a furniture factory which employs about 50 folks. They make traditional, high end furniture, using a mixture of computerized routers and delicate hand work. Laitala is not selling much furniture at this point, but that hasn't stopped them from producing. Wow, were they ever carrying a lot of inventory. Off to the lake for a snack and a walk after which we rest up and wait for tonight's Rotary meeting.
A few personal notes. The host family I am living with has three girls more or less the same age as my three girls. We went to navigation (orienteering?) class on Monday night and the two oldest girls insisted I join in all the activities. We had a great time despite the rain. I was embarrassed, but not at all surprised, to find out that I was not able to keep up with the nine year old as we ran up and down the mountain. In my defence, though, on Monday she participated in a track and field day, placing second among all the 9 year olds in the city at the 1km distance.
I even received a drink box as a reward for not having a heart attack.
Pasi and Anne-mari own a successful importing firm so once again I am able to learn about a type of business that is new to me. They have a beautiful house in the forest with a projector for watching the World Hockey Championship in the basement entertainment room. I had the dubious pleasure of watching Finland beat Canada at the World Hockey Championships. I took a bit of a ribbing at the Rotary meeting last night so I acquiesced and during my presentation led the group in a not so rousing rendition of Suomi Tekee Kohta Maalin. Very roughly translated the basic idea of the song indicates that Finland is the best and can score whenever they want and there's nothing Canada or anyone else can do about it. It's sung to the tune of Glory, Glory, Hallelujah.

















We just came back from a very pleasant evening spent with the Rotary Club in Jurva. I must say this for the Rotarians in Jurva, of all the clubs we've visited, Jurva wins the award for having the biggest smiles.

I can't believe it. Finland just lost and they're out. Our day had a rough start and Finnish. Everything in the middle was great. Hopefully we'll begin tomorrow less adventurously. Over and out.

Marty

Kuahajoki- Tuesday May 5th

Today we visited Logistia first thing in the morning for a few presentations on the company and other businesses. Logistia helps businesses that create automated systems with their organization and management issues. After that we went to Suupohja Vocational school. Students there are aged 15-18 and go there instead of high school to take things like welding, mechanics, media and broadcasting and many other things. They have so much great technology available to the students, and once they complete school after 3 years they can work in their profession, or go on to university or a technical school. At my host family, one of the daughters is studying nursing- she started at 15 and will be finished next year when she is 18. When she's done, she´ll have a diploma in nursing that would be similar to an LPN. (To be a registered nurse would be a couple more years at a university). It sounds like a pretty good system to me though.
We ate lunch at the high school and then we went on to Done Logistics. They create automated systems that are normally used within larger automated systems. Application are anywhere from LED signs to Optometry to Pulp and Paper Mills to Beer factories.
Later in the afternoon we visited the Finnish Parliament in Kauhajoki where the parliament was held in the late 30's and early 40's when Helsinki was unsafe because Finland was under attack by Russia. We learned a little more about Finnish history and it is finally starting to sink in!
In the evening we went to a Rotary Club meeting and gave our presentation about Canada. We actually had quite a few questions this time- it was nice! A quick message to all the Finns who may read this- congratulations on beating Canada in hockey yesterday- you can stop rubbing it in now!