Thursday 28 June 2012

A Medieval assault on the senses

It's time again for the Medieval Market in Turku. I love this market... It encompasses the historic atmosphere of the city all in one long weekend. From Thursday to Sunday, at the beginning of July each Summer, the are around the Old Town Square, the Cathedral School and Aboa Vetus/Ars Nova is transformed into a Medieval Market. All the stalls are carefully selected to reflect the era and all the stallholders, and many others, are in traditional costume. There is also a wonderful area in the park devoted to the Artisans of years gone by and as well as selling their wares, they demonstrate their traditional crafts. There are a potter's wheel; people boiling huges pots to make soap and dyes; blacksmiths; weavers; horn carvers; felters.... and lots more, too. I even met a Druid from Yorkshire, who lives in Rovaniemi (where Father Christmas lives) and sells incense and infusions!

Glass Jewellery designed and made by my friend, Sirkku.


Brass work - Mouse was fascinated by the bells. It was the cross/anchor/heart door knocker that originally caught my eye

One side of the Old Town Square - so glad we weren't pushing a buggy over the cobbles this year...
an ex-piggy!

Would you believe the lady in the middle is tanning fish leather?
Felting




Estonian Felt
...and today the sun was shining; it was lovely and warm; not too hot! 

We sat for a while and listening to some musicians - one lady who sang & played a "jouhikko" or stringed bowed lyre and a Swedish trio of ladies called KRABAT who played and sang. One of their instruments was a keyed fiddle! Wonderful sounds to accompany the tempting scents... not the soap I must admit... but the food cooking all around the market; salmon, pork, sausages, pancakes, candy apples, sugared/spiced almonds.. all yummy! And the smoke from various fires... the blacksmith, the dyers, soap-makers. The horses from the jousting arena added their own aromas, too!

Tuesday 26 June 2012

Namedays & Pizza!

Several European countries, including Finland, and some Latin American countries, too, celebrate namedays. At this time of year, three of the four of us have our name days and as they are not celebrated in UK, I thought I'd mention them today!

Originally, they were celebrated on Saints' Days and if you were named after a saint or a martyr, then you celebrated your name on their festival day. Today, the Almanac Office at the University of Helsinki hold the rights to the nameday calendar in Finland, which includes both Finnish and Swedish names. Every 5-10 years, the list is updated to add new popular names and remove old names that have fallen out of favour. 

Our most recent family nameday was celebrated with really good Italian pizza! A new place has opened up in town and I've been there a few times with my school friends. Their bases are made with imported Italian flour. The chef is a real Italian, married to a lovely Finnish lady; they met in Rome - how romantic! 

The restaurant is PIZZARIUM in Kultatalo, 3rd floor of Hansa just by the Market Square in Turku. I HIGHLY recommend it!

The pizzas are delicious and the bases are deep and light and full of bubbles with a crispy bottom. All the ingredients are fresh, not canned, and the menu is not fixed but is based on what is available fresh. 







Nyt, minä puhun vähän Suomea!


In a recent post I mentioned my Fresh New Start. Well, that was three months ago and, yes, it was a fresh new start.

I has not been easy to get up in the mornings but the fabulous (and very patient) J has been driving me to "school" every morning. This has meant the whole family getting up & dressed in time to get me there and this has not been easy. Monkey & Mouse take after me and are not morning people, so poor J has three grumpy, tired folk to deal with! 

He really has been a saint... on top of the morning shenanigans, he has become a full time Dad. He does the school run for Monkey and has Mouse all morning and then both children all afternoon. I often have busy evenings, too, with homework and other obligations and so he really has been full-time Daddy.


I love him for that (amongst other things, of course!) 


I am a very social person and starting a full time course has meant a whole new social circle for me, as well as building the knowledge and confidence to start communicating in Finnish, I have made some good new friends and as well as learning, I'm also having fun! I think if I weren't having fun, then I wouldn't be learning... 


We are all together in a class named "Nopea Suomi" which means Fast Finnish. It is the first time such a course has been run at this level. None of us are beginners but we are at various learning levels. Some have a high level of grammar but struggle with vocabulary; others have much vocab but less grammar. I started with a bit of each but had not put them together and used them at all.  


One aim of the course is integration. As foreigners, we must learn about living in Finland. As well as the language, we also learn about everyday life - including the Education System, the Health Service and naturally the job market. We also learn about Finnish festivities! We had a picnic for Vappu (MayDay) and we regularly have "kevyt iltapäivät" or light afternoons when we go bowling or to play billiards or something similar; all the Finnish Language classes together - arranged and supervised by the school. 

These social events actually have helped us to bond as a group and has certainly lead to a greater level of understanding and support in the class. We are not in competition with each other but normally help each other out. In classes that are being taught almost exclusively in the language we are learning, we often don't all understand what the teacher is saying... but we feel comfortable enough to ask our class mates what is happening? what did he/she mean? was it this or that?


As a native English speaker I have noticed particular advantages & disadvantages. Everyone in this class (although not all classes) speaks English, so I am able to communicate with all my class mates BUT... I am the only member of the class who does not have a second language! I learned French at school and even took a few modules at University but since I started learning Finnish, I found I was confusing the two and have been trying to file away all my French. I now realise this may have been a mistake; having no knowledge of another language puts me at a disadvantage in a class which includes bilingual and multilingual people - even some translators & interpreters!  



Billiards
Playing Mölkky at the Vappu picnic
Kielioppi/Grammar - just to prove we do some work, too!
The Finnish Language is not easy but I am getting there... recent tests proved to me that, on paper, I am definitely improving. This weekend was Midsummer, spent with J's family, so I put my new found confidence to the test and had whole conversations with my mother-in-law & sisters-in-law. This was, for me, a far more realistic test of my speaking & listening skills - and far more successful, too!


Now we have a week off, so I have a chance to catch up with the rest of my life and maybe find my desk... and catch up with my blog.... 


... this has been fun... I really should do it more regularly!



Random Culture Returns...

Turku may not still be the European City of Culture but that doesn't mean we have no culture... Along the riverside, new bits & pieces are still there to be discovered.

 
 Monkeys on the rubbish bins!



Not by the river but... an Finnish-Australian Celtic harpist! I met him on the bus and joined him in the market square. A lovely sound.

Riverside Markets

Every April & October in Turku, we are treated to a riverside market.  In April it is the Saaristomarkkinat and October is Silakkamarkkinat. Saaristo is the Archipelago so everything has a link to the local islands. Silakka are herring... so October is the fish market. In theory each has it's own speciality but in fact we often see the same stalls at both; but we enjoy it, anyway. 

Monkey took some of these pictures... learning about photography! They are from April's market.