Author: mikesylvia

Me olemme Jorma ja Mike.

Tämä on torppa ja piha

Tämä on saunamme. Se on 490 x 620 cm.

The first time in ten years of traveling to Finland, I experienced the longest days and nights in the same year.

With each flight over the Atlantic, I learned to relax and strive for comfort. Last Christmas, I hugged my mother-in-law wearing mustard yellow sweats and a worn flannel shirt. When I returned for her birthday six months later, I would break a long personal taboo and wear Crocs out in public – with socks no less!

As we made our way about 90 minutes northwest from Helsinki to the farmhouse, I looked forward to a long, hot sauna. It was my post-flight ritual. I couldn’t wait for a scrumptious shaving of my head using all my favorite Kiehl’s products from duty free. The whole event would take a couple of hours, fortified with long drinks from the Kyrö Distillery.

Our home away from home is in the heart of Finnish horse country, in Ypäjä, near Forssa. My father-in-law bought the log-walled house in the 1980s as a fixer-upper. Originally built in the 1930s, the farm has a small barn and a building with the sauna, with a room upstairs that was once a chicken coop. Hubby has put considerable work into it over the years: a new kitchen for mom, a new roof, new stairs and air conditioning, and a refurbished second floor. He’s been spending a lot more time there since his retirement from the NYPD in 2020.

The Christmas spirit grew over the next few days. We cut down and trimmed the Christmas tree. Then, we shared a holiday buffet with family in nearby Hameenlinna. While Jorma and his mother paid a visit to the cemetery near Vantaa, I went to the Christmas market in Helsinki . We met his cousins later at Troika, the oldest Russian restaurant in Helsinki.

And the food just kept coming.

The next day, we made our first ham in the wood burning oven in the heart of the farmhouse. Slow roasted for over 6-hours, Jorma wanted practice on one before making the big holiday meal. We watched my favorite Finnish Christmas special from the 1960s – Lumilinna (Snow Castle). It’s a trippy, jazzy, black-and-white, art cinema take on a magical fairy tale love story.

We picked up the rest of the food Jorma had ordered from a local restaurant in Forssa. It was all the traditional side dishes to go with the Christmas ham: rosolli, a beet and apple salad; herring salad, manageable in small doses; a turnip casserole and olives. Only he ordered a kilo of each – that’s a bit over 2 pounds!

The day before Christmas, I went out for a crisp walk in the clear air while the sun was as high as it could go. I returned to find Jorma and his mom busy making gingerbread cookies and pinwheel pastries. Soon, the sun went down and it was time for the Christmas Eve sauna. And after we warmed up, the table was set and Christmas dinner served.

A few days later we were flying north to New Year’s Arctic adventure. Jorma’s aunt and uncle have a reindeer ranch near Martti and his cousin runs Arctic safaris during the tourist season. We joined his uncle on the snowmobile rounds to feed the herd. After doing chores, he called me a real poromies – reindeer man. Later, we ventured into Savukoski for some authentic local souvenirs.

At the last minute, we decided to go to Rovaniemi for New Year’s. I had great luck with AirBnB, though we had to stay in a different place each night. First, was a tidy, modern apartment near the center of town. But the second night, we stayed at the Lauri Handicrafts & Guesthouse. Our host, Julia, is Sami and she created a place for traditional artisans to sell their wares and allow visitors to experience the rich culture of Lapland.

On New Year’s Eve, we made our way through the rutted, snowy streets along to the waterfront to watch the fireworks. We warmed ourselves with cocoa spiked with Minttu schnapps. As the show ended and the crowds ebbed, I was already looking forward to my next visit, only 6 months away.

Midsummer

In no time at all, I was cashing in a voucher I had bought in 2020 for a flight to Portugal to return to Finland. I really should have checked my passport when I booked my flight, because it would expire at the beginning of August. It caused no small panic attack on the cab ride to the airport when the Delta app wouldn’t allow me to check-in. But the ground staff waved me through to the TSA Pre-Check line and I was off to Helsinki via Amsterdam.

As with a lot of my midsummer visits, I brought the sunshine with me. Before I Ieft, the 10-day forecast for Ypaja was predicting rain and cool temperatures. Once we got to the farm we started the grill and sauna under a glorious late afternoon sky.

Hubby showed me the results of the hard work his mother and nephew helped with around the barn. The three of them spent weeks clearing it out and carted off 5 loads of stuff to the local reclamation center. The tidy firewood and organized yard tools impressed me. And the remaining treasures – a collection of old skis, reindeer antlers, and newly laid eggs in a bird’s nest – made for Instagrammable moments.

The next day, we made our way into Forssa for supplies. It was then my Crocs made their public debut at the local Prisma (a big box store akin to Walmart or Target). After stocking, I harvested rhubarb from the patch next to the barn and made a bottle of syrup. It was delicious with the Kyrö Pink Gin and club soda as we watched the full moon rise over the neighboring farm.

Soon though, we were packing up again. It was time for our road trip up to the Arctic, for my mother-in-law Eeva’s 80th birthday and family reunion. It was going to be about an 8 hour drive to Kemi, at the very top of the Bay of Bothnia. A seaside town famous for the icebreaker Sampo and their winter LumiLinna ice hotel, we spent the night at one of their seaside glass cottages overlooking the bay.

The next day we arrived at Eeva’s family farm where her sister lives with her husband. Jorma’s aunt and uncle from the reindeer farm arrived shortly after we did. We all sat down to a dinner of reindeer soup and dessert of homemade cardamom donuts and coffee. We hadn’t quite figured out the sleeping arrangements before we left, as it turned out it was either the mosquito-filled barn or an AirBnB.

Since it was the weekend before the big midsummer holiday – it was still considered the pre-season. We were pleasantly surprised to find the Aava Sky Village had a cabin available for our stay. It was a short drive away in the Aavasaksan Kruununpuisto national park. Famous for the views from the large granite promontory, it’s know as southernmost point in Finland where the sun never sets during the summer.

We had two birthday celebrations for Eeva – a small one for immediate family members, then a large family reunion with almost 50 people coming from all over Lapland. We toasted her with champagne and enjoyed a birthday cake of dreamy white cake with cloudberries and whipped cream frosting in our small gathering. It was a beautiful midsummer day to spend outside catching up with friends and family, playing games, and of course enjoying a large summer meal with traditional salmon soup, new potatoes and grilled makara (sausage).

Before we left, we brought Eeva and her sister up to the national park, then we visited the local cemetery to pay respects to long-departed family. When we returned to the farm, Eeva had found her traditional formal attire. She put on a little fashion show for us so we could take photos of her in all her finery. The drive back south seemed to go by more quickly than our trip north. We dropped Eeva off at home and got her settled in before returning to the farm for a couple days.

Eeva in all her finery.

For my final weekend in Finland, we visited lake country along the Russian border. The roads are usually packed for the midsummer holiday – like summer holidays in the States. But as we drove east, I noted the clear highways. Jorma said it was because Finns usually travel from the south to the north, from the larger cities of Helsinki, Espoo and Turku to their summer cottages.

We were traveling from west to east. With the border closed there was no traffic flowing back and forth to Saint Petersburg, only a couple hundred kilometers away. We spent two nights in Lappeenranta, the largest city near the border on the lake. Our hotel was converted from barracks on a former army base.

The next day, we set off to explore the border area. Our first stop was the town of Imatra, known for its large dam and beautiful ravine. It was Finland’s first tourist attraction, catering to day-trippers from czarist Russia. We took a short hike through the park and woods along the rapids south of the dam.

We took a scenic drive to get as close to Russia as we could without actually crossing the border. A few kilometers south of the dam, we followed a small local road parallel to the main border crossing. Sanctions closed the border after the war in Ukraine started. The crossing was devoid of cars and trains, and all the large box stores nearby were closed. It had to be a huge hit to the local economy.

Taking backroads, we decided to go for a dip in a lake directly on the border. There were only a few people – a family and a group of youths having midsummer beers. We jumped off the end of the dock and paddled around in the cool water.

I made sure to pee in the lake to protest the war.

That night in Lappeenranta, we strolled from our barracks hotel down to the harbor for a midsummer sunset cruise on Lake Saimaa. There were traditional bonfires small and large on the shores of the lake – with one that was particularly rowdy! The sun started setting over the lake around 10 PM.

Sipping spritzers on the top deck after dinner, we talked about the year we had seen together. There was always more for us to explore with each visit, but these trips were something special. Traveling the length and breadth of the country at the solstices, we celebrated the two holidays that tentpole the Finnish calendar. From the depths of frigid nights with the aurora overhead, to the warm days of summer that never ended, for the first time – Crocs and all – it felt like home.