When we left the restaurant, we headed to do a few more things and then ended up on a drive through the countryside. We made it to Häijää (pronounce hi-yeah) which is a town in the country where my host mom used to spend her childhood summers at the kesämökki (summer cottage). The cottage is still in the family, and there are now cousins who have built their home across the street from it. We stopped the car and decided to explore the yard along with the shed buildings.
Most adult Finns have very fond memories of the kesämökki during their childhoods. Finns still flock to them in the summer. When we were exploring the yard and such, Anne was telling me stories about what used to be here, where the horses and cows were kept, where her cousin found a snake on the front steps, how the apple tree in the garden was older than her. These little stories could otherwise be nothing to somebody, but I couldn't help but try to recreate them in my head. It made for a pleasant walk around the garden.
One thing I missed from Finland: stopping everything you are doing to "hunt" for berries, as it would be translated in Finnish.
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| Pea pods too!
From there we were off again and on the way back to Nokia. After stopping for a few more roadside adventures of course.
  
Later in the day at around 5:30 we headed out again to first drop Eeti off at pesäpallo training (kind of like baseball) and then to IKEA. There's something so much better about going to IKEA in a Nordic country.
Sidenote: Last year when I was here, Anne and I went to the same IKEA in Tampere and while there I ran into Teppo Numminen of my city's hockey team, the Buffalo Sabres. He is originally from Tampere and he was home for the summer when I saw him. It's a very small world. It was probably one of the weirdest moments I can remember. The post about it from last summer's blog can be found here. We found the spot where we ran into him and recreated the picture! No Teppo this time.
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