On Monday, June 24, I woke up excited to go to the city again. I woke up at about 10:30 again (still not on a good sleep schedule) and had a short breakfast before me, Niklas, and Johanna drove to the city center for lunch with Mika (Aleksi had floorball practice). The place we went to was amazing. The salmon I had was wonderful (like all the salmon I have had in Finland) but what I enjoyed the most was the design of the restaurant. It was an old brick building and they kept the brick wall and added really nice photos of Rome on the wall and had gave the place a very cozy coffee shop like feel (it's the Finnish version of Urban Standard for my friends back home). I hope I can go back there sometime with my friends who come to visit me.
More of the city center
Next, Johanna and I left for the tourist information office right across the street as Mika went back to work and Niklas headed to the track and field stadium for his, um, interesting last day of work for his summer job (I'll explain further on in this post). Johanna showed me around the tourist office (she knew a lot of the people there because of her summer job as a tour guide) and luckily it was their open house after their recent renovation. They had a some free books on Turku, which I was quite excited about, and great Rhubarb juice, biscuits, and strawberries which I enjoyed. At about 2:10 p.m. we left for my hair cut appointment. My hair dresser has actually actually my host family's hair dresser for the past 15 years and recently decided she would rather want to have her own hair salon rather. So, she moved into a beautiful apartment overlooking the river in the heart of the city and made one of the rooms her barber shop and the others her living quarters (which is pretty awesome because you can wake up 5 minutes before your first customer's appointment and still make it to work ahead of time). So, Johanna and I were on our way when it slowly started to drizzle. No big deal, we thought, it's rained almost every day and we're quite used to it by now. Wrong. In about 20 seconds the rain kept coming down harder and harder until it was pouring outside.
We quickly ran under the protruding edge of a roof of a house which was barely long enough for us to stand under but kept us dry enough. After about one minute of hurricane weather, the rain completely stopped, the sun came out, the birds started singing again, and everything was just like it had been before. Only a little wetter. After another 3 minutes of walking we arrived at the apartment building and were welcomed in by a very kind and fashionable lady who would be my hair dresser. She was very kind and asked me about life in the U.S. and how I liked Finland so far.
Her dog was also running around and he was very cute. An hour later I left with a lot less hair and I could finally see the world which made me very happy. Next, Johanna dropped me off at The Sibelius Museum while she ran some errands. I was quite excited to learn more about the famous Finnish composer Jean Sibelius and look at all of the old instruments that the museum has archived as I go to a school for the fine arts with a specialty in music. When I walked in, the museum was completely empty ( it was 30 minutes before closing time) and the lady at the front desk asked if I would like to sit in the concert hall at the heart of the museum and listen to Finlandia, the most famous musical piece of work written by Sibelius. After listening to Finlandia, I walked around half of the museum and looked at all of the old instruments. There weren't many things that had to do Sibelius (it is simply an archive of musical instruments from a nearby Swedish speaking university) but hey had an entire room dedicated to him and had his hat and cane on display as well as some other things. I didn't have much time to look at everything in detail but I got a quick glance of everything but the basement. I knew I would be coming back more than once because there is no admission fee for children under 17 (yes!) and the museum is quite easy to find. It's a very relaxing place and there is always classical or jazz music softly playing in the background.
I stayed inside until the museum closed, but Johanna picked me up soon after and we headed to the track and field stadium to see Niklas at work. On Wednesday, the Paavo Nurmi Games would be held. The Paavo Nurmi Games are is an international track and field competition but on Tuesday they had a small party for kids to get everyone excited for the games.
Niklas worked at a grocery store for his summer job so, because the store he worked for was sponsoring the games, he was asked to dress up as the store mascot and entertain the kids. It was certainly very funny (I will try to upload pictures of him once I get the photos from my host mother) to see him dressed up in a monkey costume but the kids loved him. In fact, as I was taking a picture with him, a little girl ran up to him and gave him a big hug and just stayed there for about a minute. It was the cutest photobomb ever. Johanna and I then went around to all of the tents to get all of the free food and stuff that we could get our hands on.
However, once it started to rain (again), we left and headed back home. I played some FIFA games with Aleksi when I got home but other than that I had a pretty relaxed evening. I had a great day and looked forward to go to the Paavo Nurmi Games tomorrow as Johanna was volunteering there and got free tickets for me and Niklas!
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