Showing posts with label mariehamn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mariehamn. Show all posts

20 October, 2016

Random October Musings






Alexander Nevsky Cathedral in Tallinn
My dear daughter is traveling through Sweden, Finland, and Estonia right now.
In the rainy, starting to get chilly, Scandanavian October.

She landed in Stockholm, met up with some friends (the only way to travel!), and then took the ferry to the Aland Islands to visit her paternal family of second cousins in Mariehamn.

 
***She has now been designated the genealogy consultant of the family.***



She then ferried off to Helsinki and stayed with my host-sis - who had just gotten back from visiting me, here in Oregon.

Today, she is in Tallinn, Estonia. She is used to traveling alone and, frankly, it's easier in some ways, doing what you want to do and not having to endlessly debate going to yet another museum. She's been able to stay with people which helps with her travel budget and also grants access to local yokel sightseeing.


Helsinki








Mariehamn
No sewing going on. I'm working two solid weeks of serious overtime and even double time on two days.
Occasionally, I have time for some random pop-up thoughts, I thought I'd share.

1. Delirious that the ballots were delivered today. I can mail it in tomorrow and be done.
2. I'm sad about not being able to bike to work anymore. It's too  dark to be safe.
3. I must do a post about biking and doing something others think is too dangerous to even try.
4. My supervisor is off for two weeks, decreasing the toxicity at work by 74%.
5. I've made a new local acquaintance who sews pendleton too. Excited to get to know her better.

6. My schedule, barring any people being sick, allows for garage saling next Friday morning.
7. Creative Girl also has Friday morning off!
8. The new library opened recently and my first impression is echoing acoustics and gray.
9. Trying to coordinate dry weather with me being home in the daylight to get the yard straightened up.
10. I'm pretty sure I failed to finagle the weather gods last autumn.

11. I miss Rusty with his face pressed up to the door.
12. We have a teeny tiny mousey in the house who can run faster than me.
13. I did catch him under a mixing bowl but he managed to escape via the pour spout -- somehow.
14. This two weeks of 12-hr split shifts is very hard on my body.
15. I've got three more Christmas seasons to get through before I can retire.

16. I get way less political ravings on my IG feed. I am turning FB off for a few weeks.
17.  I live in a community with a significant latino population. I know many of them and they come see me because they know I treat them equally --the same as any other customer. I do not want a wall built. Most of my friends came to the US for a better life. And they are making their dreams come true.
18. I feel our rights as women to make decisions are very shaky. I don't want to go back to the days when a woman had to have a man co-sign a loan. She couldn't buy a car on her own. She couldn't make life decisions without someone's okay. No matter what you believe about anything affecting a woman, She is the one going through whatever and there isn't a blanket law that covers every situation. Be in control of your own life. Let others make the best decisions they can, at their particular moment of crisis. We don't always have to be right.
19. I want to go see the movie,  Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. I have not read the book and my library is taking holds but has not bought the book yet. The title just draws me in.
20. I'm watching Indian Summers (season 2) on PBS, as well as Poldark (season 2) via the internet.

21. Also binge-watching Ugly Betty - the entire four seasons is on abc.com.
22. I need to send some Halloween care packages. One less niece as she is studying abroad in Ireland and Berlin.
23. I've won two giveaways lately. One for a quilt book and another for a pattern that I've been eyeing enough that I thought I'd have a go at figuring it out myself. Now I can just use someone else's pattern.
24. I gave everyone Smarties today at work.


25. Off to bed. Goodnight. Sleep tight.

10 July, 2012

Pommern Tall Ship

Moored in the Mariehamn harbor since 1937, The Pommern was one of the last tall ships.
This ship would haul Australian wheat back to Europe.
It's now a floating museum.








Captain's quarters.
















Posted from Smarty Pants phone in July 2012.
Links Added 16 August, 2012.
More on the Pommern.

A little more about the ship.

And some Wiki.

My New Bag Pattern

This looks easy to make.





09 July, 2012

New Kitchen Curtains

Today we walked into the town center of Mariehamn. We take the 12:35 bus to Föglö to meet my Finnish-American society contact. Ingemar lives near Stockholm but his summer cottage is in the Föglö area of Åland.
Ingemar is hubby's cousin 14 times remove (?!).
We had time to spare to wander in &out of the stores. My unerring instincts found the fabric store.




Åland flag pillowcases for the patio swing.




Embroidered yellow flowers.







08 July, 2012

Random Interiors

We ran around the island yesterday with cousin Eila, seeing the sights. Lots of family photos that I prefer not to share here.
I can clean up my photo cache though. Here are some random interiors.
























07 July, 2012

Mariehamn

We arrived on the ferry from Stockholm, docking in Mariehamn in the early afternoon. Waiting to board & waiting to disembark caused me to break out in a full-on sweat. Hundreds of passengers pressed into tight corners all trying to get on/off at the same time.

The hotel I chose (still cannot manage hyperlinks on this smarty pants phone) was thankfully quite near the ferry termimal.
No sooner had we checked in and dumped our gear than our room phone jingled. It was hubby's 2nd cousin come to collect us and find more relatives.
Of course, I was that close to a shower that had to be aborted.

His grandparents were both born in and near Mariehamn. His grandfather was 6 out of 9 siblings. Some went to America, some came back, some stayed.
We met five second cousins today.


One who is a twin to hubby. He's actually the son of second cousin (numero uno) Eila.





Descendants (straight) from hubby's grandfathers' sister have lived in this house forever (1860's).


Next up: two sisters ( 2nd cousins to hubby) who never had children. When their mom died, the sisters sold the land, but kept the family home.




Pictures were brought out, stories told.



I finally got my shower at 6:30pm.

Eila will be here to pick us up at 10:30am sharp. (Sunday)
Gonna do some sightseeing.