This is Turku, my other home town. Yes, I figured out the question of home, a 12 hour flight there and another 12 hour flight back gave me plenty of time to think it over. It is possible to be from two different cities and countries, 5000 miles apart and to call them both home. Home is not a geographic location nor time spent in a place, home is where your heart is.
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I have never thought of moving back, but even if I'd had, this trip would had convinced me to change my mind. A jackpot in Mega Million would be my only chance to move to a country where the gas is $8 per gallon and a Big Mac Meal almost $14...
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During my 72 hour stay in Finland, there was very little time to go sightseeing. One of my musts was a stroll along the river in Turku. Little fishing boats, sailboats and big vessels give a distinctive atmosphere to the city.
I walked from the port all the way to The Cathedral, located in the heart of the city. To me The Cathedral represents eternity. People have been baptized, wed and buried for hundreds and hundreds of years under it's roof. It has stood in it's place for a thousand years before my time and it will stand another thousand years after I am gone.
Another important place for me to visit was my grandparents house, which has been empty for decades now. To anybody else these are just pictures of an old gray house, but to me this old gray house represents The Golden Childhood Years, when the sun was always shining and lollipops were gigantic. I remember Grandma baking bread in a big brick oven, chicken and sheep in the barn, apple trees and rhubarb growing in the garden and golden fields of oats.
Grandpa's plow is now sitting on a rock, like a monument to him and his hard life.
If you think the rocks look red, you are right. The rock is called the Red Granite of Vehmaa and it is exported around the world under the name of Balmoral Red.
The fall colors were amazing, I had forgotten how spectacular they can be.
And the birch, the white bark of the birch. Have you ever seen anything as beautiful?
If you think the rocks look red, you are right. The rock is called the Red Granite of Vehmaa and it is exported around the world under the name of Balmoral Red. The fall colors were amazing, I had forgotten how spectacular they can be.
And the birch, the white bark of the birch. Have you ever seen anything as beautiful?