Bewitched in Massachussets, July 8-10

Moving down from Maine, the last two days have been in Massachussets. We are staying in Lowell, at the U. of Mass. Conference Center, a very affordable and very nice place that also serves as a hotel. Lowell itself has also given a very good impression of itself - the place has an interesting history in American industrial life and its ups and downs. Also, there's a pink / violet / purple colored house on sale nearby and Annu has kind of set her eyes on that. The only obstacle is the million dollars we don't currently have...

Also worth mentioning is the cool and friendly Mr. Jalopeno restaurant on Merrick. The food was real Mexican, very good, and the margarita pitcher they brought to the table was... huge. Que the helpless giggles and next mornings omg's.

Yesterday was dedicated to Salem and its history of Puritan settlement and, of course, the witch trials of 1692-93. It was a beautiful day, the people were fab and the past was present, but... Us adults felt that modern-day Salem may have gone a bit overboard with the tourist industry thing. Everything came with a price tag, naturally, but on top of that everything was 101% neat, with a slight movie set feel. But hey, let's not be too picky: the town is obviously doing well and the lessons of the past have been heeded. Plus, the boys liked the place a lot :)

Today Annu will only have to drive for about two hours. Newport, Rhode Island is only a 100 miles south from Lowell, so we will be there in no time.

Burlington to Bangor, July 3-7

Burlington to Bangor

After the great time we had in Ottawa, it was with a touch of sadness we left the Canadian capital for the USA. At the border we were given unexpected and very useful Maine travel advice by the nicest border guard you'd ever meet, so our welcome to the US was very warm indeed.

But before Maine we spent some very warm days in the town of Burlington, Vermont. Beautiful place and nice people. Our arrival happened on July 3 so imagine our surprise when the fireworks began some ways away but visible from the hotel room window, nicely accompanied by a lightning storm on the other side of town!

Turned out Burlington had decided to celebrate the 4th on the 3rd because it was a Sunday! Initially disappointed for missing all the parades and hoopla, we were eventually glad to spend the fourth wandering the town in peace and quiet. And Make found a neat and ultra friendly Apple store where he got the iPad this is being written on - here's a good one for the great people at Small Dog Electronics!

Yesterday was Annu's big effort, driving from Burlington to Bangor, Maine where we now are. It took about eight hours in all (these low speed limits in the US are maddening) but she got us all here safely. And the scenery, the huge mountains in Vermont and New Hampshire, were just stunning.

Today has been Hot Times in Bangor Day: heat and more heat that finally broke in thunder and downpour. The town is not the prettiest around but the people are nice, the picnic at the riverfront was fun and WE SAW STEPHEN KING!!!

Make and Annu being King fans, it was a must to try and find the home of the master. With the kind help from a local, we dared the heat and made the pilgrimage. And when taking a few polite pics of his neat house, the man himself drove into the yard in an ordinary little car, got out, walked across the yard in deep thought and went in. We registered him in awed silence and walked away feeling somewhat blessed ;)

Tomorrow it's time for nature in the Acadia National Park, and the next day we'll be moving on to dive into witch hunt history in Salem, Massachussets... Can't wait for that one...

Cheers all!

Canada Day at Ottawa

When we booked our trip so that we would be in Ottawa for Canada Day, we had no idea William and Kate would be there on their first trip abroad as a royal married couple.

Make no mistake: Canadians have not severed the ties to the mother empire. If they had, we would not have been nearly smothered by about 300 000 loyalist Canadians who all braved the heat to get a glimpse of the rulers-to-be as they arrived on Parliament Hill with all the necessary pomp and circumstance (and about half of the Canadian Air Force).

Did we see them? Yes, on the giant screen - they passed us maybe only 20 meters away but the wall of humanity between us and HRHs effectively blocked the live view.

It was fun all the same, and as the day ended with a big concert and fireworks, we could not but notice the total absence of drunks and troublemakers in the vast crowd. Ottawa remains an elegant, friendly and warmhearted city that is as nice and cozy as a major capital can be. We will miss it when we leave on Sunday.

Toronto, day 3

Mostly sunny and very warm, cooler and cloudier towards evening.

Annu started the day with another early morning run. After breakfast a lovely visit to Fort York, Toronto's historical cradle, and then to Beaches for a picnic and yet another bout of comics shopping (Reko at it again).

Very nice in all, and if Jays hadn't sucked against Tigers it would have been almost too nice. *sigh*

Toronto, days 1 -2

After arriving late on Friday evening, we have spent 2 full days doing both necessary and not-exactly-obligatory things. Getting a prepaid local SIM to Annu's iphone was easier than expected, likewise getting Reko out of the Silver Snail with only two vintage comics editions. But spending a day in Toronto Island was almost a challenge, thanks to masses of mainly Chinese people come to celebrate the annual Dragon Boat Race weekend (yesterday was very Indian because of the Indian film industry award ceremonies). We did eventually make it to the island and enjoyed the day, dragon boats, 4-seater bikes and all.

As decent tourists, we have avoided public transport and have used our legs instead. Any Torotonian would say it's madness walking from Queen's Quay to Yorkville twice in the same day, but we never laid any claims to sanity, did we?

We'll close by noticing that Annu has now tested and approved TO`s streets and Queen's Park as suitable to running. The lady just won't stand still, not even on vacation... :)

Heading West

Hi everyone,

It's now one hour before we drive to the airport and prepare to board the plane that takes us first to Reykjavik, Iceland, and then to Toronto and adventures in both Canada and the USA.

These have naturally been hectic days but Annu has planned and packed for a few days now, using her famous organizational skills, and thanks to her there is practically no last minute panic (except for Make, of course...)

The spring was in many ways a trying one, and we very much look forward to six weeks of Something Completely Different. It's great to meet our far away friends again and we also eagerly anticipate visiting new places and seeing new sights in the northeastern corner of the USA.

That said, we declare the family blog re-opened and welcome everyone to follow our journeys (and inevitable blunders) along the roads and towns of the Western lands for the next six weeks! And here we go then...

Cheers,

Make, Annu, Reko & Atte

What we did on our vacation: The 2010 Edition

What - summer's over already?! Unfair!

Well, weatherwise summer still very much hangs around. It's been a record-shattering heatwave summer - Virginia heat last year was mild compared to what we've had - and tonight the Helsinki region got a cosmic whopper of a thunderstorm (it's a miracle we didn't lose the electricity). The was even something like a tornado that ripped a big branch off a tree in our yard - and threw it precisely on our car! Because this happened only about 45 minutes ago and it's still storming and very dark outside, the actual damage will become clear tomorrow :( This is very, very unusual for Finland, kind of creepy, really.

Anyway, Make's returning to work tomorrow, Annu has already been working for a few shifts, and the boys go back to school on Tuesday (Reko eagerly, Atte... less so). It will take a while to settle into the routine, because our summer has been a good mix of travel and plain lazing about (in the heat it was sometimes the only thing to do, too). During summer, this has happened:

• Travelled around in southwestern and central Finland, including a visit to Make's childhood and teenage years' summer regions in the islands, where Sterling visited in '86. The house is still there and someone seems to take care of it. *sigh*

• Got ourselves lost on a nature trail on said islands; Reko proved to have a bird's sense of direction and saved the day!
  

• Spent two days in amusement parks (Atte and Make: rides, Reko and Annu: general support, reading and relaxation).
  

• Spent time on beaches, with boys now swimming truly like fish. Reko likes to dive from a 3-meter board while Atte is more into distance swimming. We keep an eye on him, of course...
  

• Atte has been practicing his guitar a lot and very much looks forward to returning to his lessons.

• Annu was diagnosed with an overactive thyroid, which fully explained her often exhausted state, hideous heart rate and mood changes. She's been taking thyroid pills and beta blockers for about 2 months now, and they seem to be working nicely (the mood changes are not entirely gone, but that's life, eh?). They say it's not necessarily a for-life condition and it may actually go away for good with the medication, but we shall have to wait and see. Strangely enough, long distance driving seems to work as a therapy as well! In any case, by this time she's improved enough to plan running the 10 km Helsinki Midnight Run about a month from now.
  

• Make has been working with his current band and they're trying to get live gigs for the autumn.

• The whole family has watched the James Bond movies, in chronological order. We just arrived in the Timothy Dalton films and us adults wonder what we should do when we get to the latest, the Craig/Bond movies... The boys are immense 007 fans and they seem to know all about that stuff. We found a pile of Finnish 007 fan magazines for them and they've studied them as if they were sacred scriptures. It's just amazing how much useless information a young brain can process and hold ;-)

And to finish with, here's some visual evidence! Click on the picture to see it full-size.

Love,
The Latvanen Gang

The boys in the beginning of summer.


















All us guys in Särkänniemi, an amusement park in the city of Tampere.












Midsummer's picnic in the lakeside park in our home town of Järvenpää.












Annu and the boys reach a high point in the islands...












... and so does Make.


















Reko saves the family from the depths of the forest! Hooray! (Notice the humble "I just did my duty" smile on his face)











Safely back home, Annu found a farm selling organic "U Pick" strawberries.

















Return of the North Carolina Beach Bum!