Kristinestad

Friday we went off to Kristiinankaupunki, Kristinestad. This town is at the west coast of Finland and the people speak here Swedish. As you may know Finland is a bilangual country. Both Swedish and Finnish are the official language.

Anyway, the journey is 350 km. The five of us, Bart, Sebastian, Janna, Ian and I, were packet in a Fiat Bravo. Our first stop was at Sebastian's Grandma's place. Her house is really impressive. It used to be a restaurant and a casino for a while. Now there is a woman of 93 living there all by her self. Which is as impressive as the house itself. After saying hi we went to Sebastian's town house to get the cottage keys. From the town to the cottage is 7km on a sandy road through the woods.

Being in the car for more more than 3 hours, even the knowledge that you've almost reached destiny can't easy the pain of your knees, ass or neck. When you look through the windows you'll be staring at a line of trees, which were situated along the 350 and 7 km road. The moment this curtain of trees opened a panoramic view appeared. My cheeck was almost touching my knees, which were suddenly free of pain. We drove onto a small grass field, which led to a lake. There was the cottage situated, facing the water.

Bart, Ian and I started fishing. In the beginning it resulted in a major loss of gear. Our clumsiness prevented us of catching the first fish which took the bite. The fish started to notice that we are kinda fishing fools, so they started to tease us. As a result that Ian's line got bitten off, so that we lost another fishing plug. In the end we caught a fish. It luckely took my bait, Sebastian brought us some tools to get it out. Ian was enjoying the killing and Bart documented the scene.

In the evening we went into the sauna. 90 degrees is a nice temperature.......for a few minutes. Luckily the lake brings enough cooling. Swiming after the sauna gives a strange feeling. Your skin and some muscels hurt by the cold water, meanwhile you don't feel cold. A relaxed feeling took over me, but that might also have been the beer. Afterwards some 'Colin McRay' guy took us to town, to the Wild Wild West square. According to Sebastian Gipsies 'own' the place. Sorry Sabby, but there is nothing to own.

The moment we entered a bar, Bart got seduced by a woman of over 40. The moment we left the bar I got threaten because of my trousers. It was around 1:30 when we entered the club (the only one in town). Deserted, that's what the place and the club is. How would you describe a bar with only drunken old men/women which try stay on there feet, they all induvidually stagger around and once in a while they accidentally bumb into eachother. 90 % change that even then they won't have any conversation. But there is also a group of young people, like us. These people just end up in a club like this because there are no other options.

The next day started with some fishing exersizing. This time nothing got lost, no teasing and no fish. In the afternoon we checked out the cultural herritage of the town. Which includes a church from the 18th century, a church from the 19th century and a beuatifull house.

Everything on the church is original, except for the roof. Check out the pictures and pay attention to the wood connection. This church is the only one in whole Finland with this kind of wood construction.

After the keykeeper guided us through the church, we went to Sebastian's girlfriend's, Jannah's, parents to have dinner. After 40 minutes driving, we stopped at a white, kind of concrete house. Having tree 3 bedrooms, open staircase with void, a jacuzzi, sauna, fitness room and area for a bar, the house can be considered as pretty big. Bart and I were a little bit dazzled by the style of the house. It is a mixture between a house of the bad guy within James Bond (Sean Connory) movies and the Thunderbird mansion.

They have this huge garage in which they prepare their 'thunderbird' cars. Jannah's dad used to be the fastes guy in the country. Which means that he won the drag racing championships back in the 80's. The Camaro is still standing in front of the house, but downtuned.

We actually started with the dinner. It was delicious and I haven't, like the most of us, eaten so much in years. Not because we were starving and rudessly emptying all the pans on the table, but because there was so much variety in dishes. When offered it is proper to accept rather than decline the food. Shrimp cocktail, fish, grilled meat, boiled meat, boiled potatos, fried potatos, some sort of rice, salad, strawberries dipped in chocolate, frozen cream with special berries, cookies and we ended with "pistace nuts".

With totally filled stomaches we returned home to have a Sauna. It took a while before the sauna was heaten up, but around 11:30 pm it was ready.... After the sauna and swimming we took some Finnish sausage with mustard.

On sunday we went for mushroom hunting. I've never seen so many different and big sized mushrooms, but they tasted together with the fish delicious!