Strauch/Bruno Web Photo Album

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4/19-24&25-5/5/2024 Trip to NewYork for Kelsey's birthday and art show; then on to Finland for 10 days. Google Photos

New York log

Friday 4/19 - took the red eye from Portland and got to Kelsey's place in Brooklyn a little before 9am. Spend the day setting up Kelsey's solo art show at the Greenpoint Gallery with a rented UHaul van hauling all her paintings from the her studio to the gallery. We spent the night at her apartment.
Saturday 4/20 - set up all her paintings in the gallery and then we went to our airbnb in Bushwick area where we spent 3 nights. Very convenient because it was very close to the L subway so easy to get to Kelsey's and into town. Great solo art show with a lot of people including Ryan, Chris, Sam and Sarah with two bands performing.
Sunday 4/21 - Took the train up the Hudson in the morning to visit Eddie and Jeanne at their house in Briar Cliff Manor. Had a nice brunch at their favorite Italian restaurant. Took the train back to the city and our airbnb in the evening.
Monday 4/22 - Kelsey's birthday, had a great tour of Google New York office with one of Ryan and Kelsey's friend Anton who works there. Amazingly good and free food and lunch for all their employees. Anton got passes for the 4 of us so we got to enjoy the food there too. Even played ping pong in their game room. Quite the building and office. Stopped by Sam Hussein's luxury penthouse apartment to see Kelsey's moss wall on his patio in Hell's Kitchen. In the evening we went to Carnegie Hall for a concert by Ola Gjeilo, Composer-in-Residence. Excellent performance which we thoroughly enjoyed. After the concert we had dinner in the Russian Tea Room which is right next door with Anton and Chris.
Tuesday 4/23 - Rented another UHaul to take down Kelsey's paintings from the gallery taking them back to her studio after Daphne, her photographer, took photos of her show. Kelsey and I went for a bike ride using Citi Bikes across Williamsburg bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan.
Wednesday 4/24 - Got ready for our flight to Finland that evening.

Finland Log

Thursday 4/25 - few into to Helsinki from JFK and as we came into the airport there was snow all around with cold rain and wind but then the rest of the time the weather was perfect and got up to 70 degrees. Nice airport and easy passport control and we picked up our rental car to head to our airbnb in the old section of town. Our airbnb host suggested dinner at the Sea Horse which was a pretty fancy restaurant and we had the traditional Salmon Soup and Finnish meatballs dinner.
Friday 4/26 - very nice airbnb and friendly host Teukka. Got a day pass for trolleys and took them all around Helsinki visiting Helsinki Cathedral, National Library, took a ferry over to Suomenlinna Sea Fortress, new central library with its unique modern design, GIUSEPPE VERDI's Simon Boccanegra Oprea at the Helsinki's Opera House.
Saturday 4/27 - very interesting Temppeliaukion church (rock church), Sibelius Monument but it was under construction, Nuukslo National Park but too much snow to walk around, Haltia in the park where we had a nice buffet lunch, drove to our next airbnb in Porvoo (another very nice apartment), walked thru old town Porvoo and picked up quick dinners at the supermarket. Took our first sauna which are famous in Finland since we had a private one in our airbnb.
Sunday 4/28 - left Porvoo in the morning driving to Kotka visiting the Maritime Museum Merkeskus Vellamo. Excellent brand new museum with a lot of high tech displays and beautiful boats. Drove three hours to Saimaa Lakeland (Savononlinna) to our next Airbnb which has a nice cabin with wood burning stove and a sauna.
Monday 4/29 - visited the Olavinlinna Castle which was close by, drove an hour and half to Imatra and the Russian border near Svetogorsk, good lunch there at Rosso's, drove back to Savononlinna for ice cream at their local favorite spot downtown Lappakiosk and toured around seeing the cathedral and neat bird houses thru out the town which were replicas of their buildings.
Tuesday 4/30 - our airbnb host let me borrow their fat tire bike so both mornings I got to bike around town. All the towns have great bike paths. Now on to Mikkeli and Tempere. In Mikkeli we got a personal tour of the cathedral with someone who spoke no English. Almost everyone in Finland speaks English and we only had a few people say they could not speak it. We drove up to the town tower and I walked up to the top. Half way up there was an art photo exhibit where I got another personal tour of the exhibit. She, the artist, also wrote poems with each artistic photo. On to Lahti which is the town that trains their Olympic long ski jumpers. For lunch we had homemade soups at a soup restaurant in a market right off the town square. Tempere was our next airbnb right downtown and across from the cathedral. All the airbnbs were different but very nice. This is the second largest city in Finland and had a river with rapids running right thru downtown. It uses the river to generate hydro power and had the plant right there in downtown.
Wednesday 5/1 - today was Finland's Vappu holiday to celebrate the beginning of spring weather so when we planned to go to the Moomin and Art museums, but both were closed. All the college students dressed up in colorful jump suits and white hats for the spring celebration. Each university department had different colors and created small floats for a competition which they then paraded downtown. We did find a park tower on the hill at the highest point in town that was open with great views all around. Off to Rauma where more celebrations were happening. This town is on the west coast and Bay of Bothnia. Our airbnb was in the old historic part of town but still very nice. We drove to a good viewing point only a few miles and enjoyed the sunset looking over the bay and islands. It does not get dark here until 11pm and is light at 4:30am and it is only May 1st.
Thursday 5/2 - In Rauma we visited the ruins of the Holy Trinity Church that burned down in 1640 and some craft shops. Our next stop was Turku where we spent two days and was our last stop. We started with a good lunch at Market Hall of Finnish meatballs and cabbage rolls which seem to be the most popular Finnish dishes. Calle our last airbnb host met us at the apartment. Very nice apartment in a well-kept old apartment building with an old style elevator (we were on the 4thm floor) and Calle gave us tips on what to see in Turku.
Friday 5/3 - We got another all day bus pass and visited Turku Castle, the cathedral and Aboa Vetus which was an underground archaeology museum with medieval streets and imposing stone ruins of the old town. We did our usual breakfast in the airbnb of oatmeal then a good buffet lunch at the castle and for dinner an apple, cheese and crackers.
Saturday 5/4 - Checked out of last airbnb and hit our last museum Luostannmaki which is an old section of town that survived the 1827 fire with distinct wooden houses all over 200 years old. Then drove 2 hours back to Helsinki Airport, returned our rental car and flew back to New York arriving at 7pm.
Sunday 5/5 - Spent day with Kelsey and flew back to Oregon getting home a little after midnight. We used the Lonely Planet guide book for Finland and followed its itinerary for the Essential Suomi tour. It was a great itinerary and the book was a very good guide.