Day 3 in Helsinki

I just realised I've been writing 'Day # in Helsinki', when I don't actually stay in Helsinki itself. I'm living in a town about 40minutes away from Helsinki, called Nummela. It's a nice, small town with schools, public library, supermarket and everything else. But the thing about most white people countries that I know of or been to, every town or district must have schools, police stations, hospitals, or other amenities; cos they used their brains when they plan their towns.

I woke up to an empty house today. The kids were in school, Jaakko was at work and Anu had to go to Pori, which is about 3hours away from here. Walked Eliel back home from school and saw some of his works he has done in school. Mostly artwork. It's the last week of school, so all students have to take their work back home for the summer. Eliel and Helmi's artworks did not only consist of drawings and colouring on art papers. There were hand puppets, wood blocks with nails and threads that weave into pictures, oil paintings, paper lanterns and pillow. Yea, a pillow. Eliel sewed patterns on a pillow cover. I thought that was so cool for a school assignment!

I wanted to go to Prisma, the local supermarket, to get a nail clipper cos my nails were starting to break again. I've asked Anu before when I had a nail emergency and she gave me a pair of small scissors. I thought, ok fine, since she doesn't have a clipper or a filer, I'll just use the scissors for now. But when I went to Prisma, I couldn't find a clipper too. They have filers and scissors, but no clipper. Really, what do they use to cut their nails? Filers are just too slow.

Ate at a Finnish burger fast food chain, Hesburger. Everything was in Finnish, so I just picked the cheapest one: Hampurilaisateria for €3,90. Basically, it means hamburger meal. Eemil translated that for me when I got home. The girl behind the counter did not seem to know how to speak English. I kept pointing to the picture and she kept looking at me blankly. Thankfully, it did not take that long for her to realise what I wanted to order. The old cashier lady at Prisma also spoke a bunch of Finnish to me when she took my money. I just went, 'sorry, I don't understand...' She pointed at the supermarket member card ad on the counter. 'Oh! No, =)' while shaking my head. The only word I could understand from her was 'kittos', which means thank you.

Karjalanpiiraka (Finnish rice pie)
Thin rye crust with rice filling

I brought home my fries and coke, and some karjalanpiirakka. I left Eliel alone at home (he said it was fine to leave him alone at home), I came home to find Eemil, Helmi and her friend, Charlotte. Oops, should've gotten more food. Thankfully, I had bought another loaf of bread when Eemil asked if there's any food. Lesson learned: make food for the kids in the afternoon; any food. The kids will eat. I wanna make blueberry muffins next. Let's see if I can find the recipe.

The kids are quite independent. They can walk or cycle to school, friend's and grandparents' house anytime they want, and they can pretty much do a lot of things by themselves. Helmi especially, cos she's always wanting to do what we adults are doing. She can make her own bread, boil water to make her own tea, knows where the garbage goes...she just can't reach for the candies.

Anu came home and made dinner straight away. When I asked what can I do, she showed me I could scrub the potatoes - with gloves meant for that purpose. Another way to scrub them is by using a brush, but since they couldn't find the brush, I had to use the gloves, which was sloooowww...and yea, work out for my fingers. But it's ok, I learned something new. You know it's the first crop of potatoes when the peel is easy to rub off with your fingers. And the people here usually knows their time and season very well, anyway. They know the potatoes available now is from elsewhere, the ones from Finland will come soon. Those apparently, are better potatoes.

Pickled herring with potatoes; just what I had,
minus the eggs, roe and sour cream

Dinner was grilled chicken breast, boiled potatoes, fresh salad, cucumber, pickled herring, and bread. The herring slices are soaked in jars in flavoured water; we had dill and spiced. It's traditional Finnish food you eat in summer with the first crop of potatoes with a dollop of margarine. Not too bad, but I'm really not a big fan of raw fish. Apparently, you eat it during summer and winter, around Christmas, and then you get sick of it, you don't eat it until the next summer. Funny the way they put it.

I took one fillet of chicken, some salad, potatoes and two slices of fish. Man, I was still hungry. But everyone else was full. How can? =( I ended up cleaning up the table leftovers; altogether 3 fillets of chicken, 2 serves of salad and the rest of the potatoes. I am filled up to the brim now, but I'm satisfied.

Goodnight, good people.