Narpes

Liz and I took off for the long trip to Narpes early in the morning. This would have to be by car, so we rent a car and took off. The trip itself was 5 hours total but there was a small stop that we made in Tampere, at there Mall for lunch. It was a surprisingly big mall

After making our stop in Tampere which was a little over a two hour drive from Helsinki, we took of and left for Narpes. We arrive in Narpes at around 5pm, although you wouldn't have thought that we arrived that early because at least an hour earlier the Sun had gone down and the city itself was very dark and you could tell that it was night there.

I found the hotel, that we stayed at to be incredible, the workers were kind and super interested in the fact that we were from America. They also loved that our family was originally from the town. On top of that they were super helpful, and made sure that we found the church made it everywhere safely. The food was also incredible, I had a steak with carrot bacon, which is a great idea. Carrots and Bacon, are two of the best things ever so combining the two is such a good idea. The steak sauce that was used tasted just like Grandma's Chicken Supreme, and I felt like I was in heaven. It made me so happy to taste something that reminded me of home and one of my favorite meals. My dad says it is because of cumin that they used, but I say it was because Grandma knew how to cook, and so did these people.

Now for more reminisces of back, apparently my Great Grandpa, would always say that the north shore reminded him of home, and I agree. Narpes reminded me of home and Duluth. The snow covered trees. snow basically everywhere, and the general feel that you get from the town it feels like Minnesota. I can tell why Minnesota, is filled with Scandinavians now they felt like home being there and it looked like home.

So Liz and I decided to walk to see the main attraction in Narpes the Church

It was a beautiful building although you could see and feel the Lutheran design of the church going on. It was relaxed, and subdued, but it was a building that was beautiful in its own special way.  

Liz and I then went to walk around to see the Cemetery, I made an attempt to find some Portfors, and other relatives but it was too dark to see and the cemetery was too big to search the entire cemetery at night. Although we did find something interesting.

It is hard to see, in fact I'd say its impossible to see, but this is a memorial to those Narpes citizens that died abroad after emigrating to other countries. This is basically a memorial to my family and specifically Great Grandpa Gunner. That would end the day in Narpes. 

After waking up too late the next day and almost missing breakfast, we had what Liz called the best Breakfast that we had. From there we went back to the church to see the inside. 

  There is the church in the day light which I think does it more justice, also the road is frozen solid so just walking here to take the picture was a task.

Now for the inside of the Church.

The Altar

The Organ.

The place where the Priest stands I think, to be honest I have no idea what this is called. but the paintings on the outside I thought were really cool. 

So sort of log of the town or maybe the Church itself, its hard to read what they wrote also some of the words when I was trying to translate it either don't exist according to google translate, or don't make sense when translated. 

Well from the old homelands Liz and I made the long journey back to Helsinki, this time we took the fast route along the coast instead of the scenic route through the country side. and made it back to Helsinki around noon. Which gave us enough time to rest quickly, and then get ready for the walking tour that we were going to do.

The tour was awesome, our guide Casper, made up amazingly for the fact that our last guide got hurt the day before our original tour. He did an awesome job telling us the stories of the area, and explaining to us why things were like they were, and the background information about Helsinki. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures on this tour, I was thinking why take more pictures of stuff I had already seen. it was a mistake. If I find any pictures that I did take I will upload them in whatever post I am working on at the time.

For our next stop I will take you on a tour of the city of Stockholm and the islands that make up the city.   

Helsinki

Alright time to start the Liz and I's trip around the old homeland, in Scandinavia. Liz landed in Amsterdam really early, as our flight out of Amsterdam was at 10 am, I also had to get to the airport early. So for both of us is was an early morning, but Liz especially. Anyways after making an easy flight from Amsterdam towards Helsinki we arrive to a beautiful scene in the afternoon. We arrived in the middle of a snowfall leaving the city truly a winter wonderland. It reminded me of home walking around that day in the snow, while it was kind of cold it didn't matter because it wasn't much worse than anything back home. The first thing that we see is the picture that you see above, it is a memorial to the poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg, he is quite possibly the most famous poet in Finnish History. He is famous for writing the Finnish National Anthem, ironically he originally wrote it in Swedish not Finnish. He did in fact help bring about a revival in the Finish language, and helped bring about national pride for the Finish people. After stopping to see the statue Liz and I made our way to have lunch at the small little Food Market called Vanha Kauppahali, a local market with some pretty cool restaurants, and one pretty amazing little shop

  Robert's Coffee. Liz and I stopped at a soup shop and some really good warm soup. After walking back to the hotel to get some things ready and grab some warmer clothes. 

From there Liz and I walked around the city to get acquainted with the city, our first stop was walking past the Market as we attempt to go the Lutheran Church in Helsinki, and the Senate Square.

 This Church was originally Built in 1852 (it was Renovated in the 1980s) and is one the Biggest Lutheran Church in Finland. It is a beautiful building One of the more interesting things about the Statue is that there are 12 statues around the top, they are for the 12 apostles, and they are the all made of zinc, making them the largest Zinc Statues in the world.

  This is the Senate Square and if it looks like I am in Russia right now, that is the point, these building were built when the Russians were in charge of Finland. So the Russian Government commissioned the City of Helsinki to become the new capital of Finland because the old capital Vaasa was to close the Russian historical rival the Swedes. So the Russians had the Senate square built and it was built to look similar to St. Petersburg. 

The Finns for the most part saw their occupiers in a positive light not a negative one, and this is shown by not only the architecture in the city, but with statues.

This statue is of Tsar Alexander II, the Finns remember him fondly because he granted the Finns many freedoms, as well as coming to Helsinki to give a speech to the Finns. Alexander is remembered by history as a fairly benevolent ruler the nickname he was given was the Liberator, as he was the Tsar that finally freed the serfs in Russia. That action would inevitably get him killed, but is still a good thing that he did, and helped the Russian move forward. 

Liz and I next took a stop inside of the Lutheran Church, a church that is a typical Lutheran Church it is very reserved, outside of the Altar

 And the organ 

and the three statues the first of Martin Luther who of course is the founder of the Lutheran Church. 

The second Statue is of Mikael Agricola who is credited with bringing the reformation to Finland.

 And the Final statue is of Philip Melanchthon, who was the teacher of Agricola, as well as one of the leading intellectuals of the reformation. 

The next stop on the day is to the Upsenki Cathedral, which is the Orthodox Christian Church in Helsinki. The Cathedral was finished in 1868, and is the biggest Orthodox Church in Finland. It is sustainably more extravagant, just on the outside

With the gold tops to the building, and the fancy architecture. Sadly the Cathedral isn't open on Mondays and we were there on a Monday so we couldn't go inside, but just looking at the Cathedral on the outside was enough to get the Awe inspiring nature of the Church.

That was our last major stop of the day, in the picture it may look late but it was actually around 5:00 when the last pictures at Upsenki were taking, Finland in the winter only gets a few hours of sunlight and the sun usually goes down around 4/4:30 in Helsinki.

I'm going to lump in Day two here because well day one was short, and day two doesn't have many pictures because the museums we went to frowned on pictures being taken.

Day two started with some great breakfast in at our hotel, I mean who doesn't love croissants. Sadly that was the only good thing to happen in the morning, as we got news that our guide for the day had broken his ankle the night before and wouldn't be able to show us around the city. So we had to think quickly, that night we had a hockey game to be to, so we had to decide what the plan was for the day. So we decide to make our way to the Finish Natural History Museum. Which was underwhelming to say the least, there were some part of the Museum that were very cool and I enjoyed, the majority of the Museum wasn't very original. That said it did lead to our next stop the Rock Church. Temppeliaukio church was built into to a rock and is a beautiful church, it is crazy to think that the entire church was built into a rock.

It is an incredible building, and it really makes you think what people in Minnesota are doing with our boring looking churches in comparison. This church was completed in and opened to the public in 1969.

After leaving the Church of the Rock we took off towards the Finnish National History Museum, and holy cow, this Museum was amazing (again no pictures here). This Museum took you on a trip through Finnish History, starting with the ancient founding of the country, and then moving on to the their time under control by the two major powers in their area Sweden and Russia. I don't think that I could do it justice, but it had everything, from rooms on how the ancient up until the Swedish occupation people lived what they would have eaten, and what their houses would have looked like. The next area was a look at the Duchy of Finland under control of the Swedes and how the Finns were conquered via a Crusade bringing Christianity to Finland violently (who would have guessed). To how their culture, population, and cities developed under Swedish rule, the next part was on the Change over to Russian Rule, and how much the Finns respect and admire Alexander the 2nd and hated Alexander the 3rd. Also my personal favorite part, a historical telling of the History through maps, most of the maps being originally being from the time period that they were showing. It was super cool and I would highly recommend going to the Museum to anyone in Finland it was the best Museum in Finland and up there for the best Museum on my Trip with Liz. Sadly our time in the time in the Museum was cut short because we had to get to the Helsinki Ice Hall to watch HIFK play Ilves.

The game itself was dull the best player on either team Miro Heiskanen was scratched for the game I'm not entirely sure why because there was no English reasoning behind it. The final score was 3-0 HIFK. Oh and now that I'm remembering it this was the team with Joe Finely on it, sadly he didn't play either and I couldn't find a reason for it. For those of you wondering who Joe Finely is watch this video he is the guy on UND who pulls the gopher player out of the Handshake line Joe Finely.

I know both of the teams that we saw were bottom of the pack it still wasn't a very good game, and It makes me wonder how good the top teams in Finland actually are.

Next we make our way to Narpes, to see where my ancestors are from.

The Hague

The next stop on my journey was to the Hague a smaller city compared to Rotterdam or Amsterdam, but the home to the Dutch government, and the initial home of the Dutch royal family the Orange family. Its quite a beautiful city with the central area, and main building are built around a pound called the Hofvijver. If you ignore the outer ring of the city which isn't that scenic the inner quarter of the city surrounding the pond is amazing.

Now that I have the introduction out of the way I arrived in the city after an early morning train ride at 9 am. I took the 20 minute walk towards Standbeeld Haagse Harry in the Groke Markt. 

Harry is basically the people of the Hague making fun of themselves. 

Anyways the weather on this day was quite nice although a bit cold but it was do able as it wasn't much colder than what was going on back home. After I arrived at the statue I waited for my guide to arrive so walked around the Groke Markt to see a bit of what was going on. 

An hour after I arrived at 10 my tour guide arrived, Els a local who was incredibly kind and I think did a great job telling the three others on the tour and I about the city. 

We started our tour by walking towards the old district but first making a pit stop by the new church.

This church was built in 1656 and was one of the few things in the this district, which during World War Two was used as a Jewish sector by the Nazis, that wasn't destroyed during by both the Dutch and Nazis during and after the War. The Church was under construction so we weren't able to go into the church and see what was going on inside. The next stop on the tour was in that very Jewish sector right next to the new the church was a monument to the children, of the school that was there, who were sent to camps.

This monument was built in what would have been the park of this school with the names of the Jewish students who were killed by the Nazis during the second world war.

Next on my journey we walked closer to the center, where we stopped at one of the newer buildings in the city (unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of it). This was the build was where the filmed the opening scene of Oceans 12. The building itself many locals find to be very ugly and it kind of ruins the aesthetic of  city being an old town.

From there we went on to see the parliament office buildings

and a monument for the Netherlands constitution. The monument was a basically a place to sit and that is it. I kid you not the monument that the Dutch have created for their constitution is a glorified bench. Els commented on the fact that in many other countries they have created elaborate statues and ways of remembering there constitution and other important things from their countries history and the Dutch have a bench. Anyways as we made our final stop before arriving at the Hofvijer we stopped to see the worlds smallest park

its a park to attempt to remind people subtly about climate change and the drastic affects that I will have on the country of the Netherlands (being that the country is almost entirely under sea level has made most people in the Netherlands quite worried about clime change).

Finally after a few more unimportant stops that I don't really remember we arrived at the heart of the city the pond. This is where most of the cool buildings are and where I spent most of my time in the city as it was where the museums were and is was the most beautiful part of the city. 

The first thing that wasn't the pond that caught my attention was the statue above, it is the statue of King Willem I of Orange, the founder of the Netherlands and their first king. He's a pretty interesting guy, he was one of the main leaders in the revolution of the Northern Dutch States (Modern Day Netherlands against the Spanish/Austrian Empire under the Hapsburgs. So basically this guy helped lead a small nation that with no real history of military strength against at the time the most powerful country not only militarily but in almost every facet of society at that time in the Spanish Hapsburgs.

The next thing stop on the lake was a walk to the old hangman's square

This square is right next to the old the prison which is where I am going to take you next. This was separate from the tour from Els I stopped here separately later. Its called the Prison gate museum, this museum was also connected to an art museum called Prins Willem the V art Gallery.

Unfortunately the art gallery didn't allow pictures so I wasn't able to take anything for this or for my memory. But I know that the art was paints that had been bought by the Prince during the 18th century, at auctions and through commission. While the gallery didn't have all of the painting that he had it had most of them and then filled in the rest with pieces that fit into the era. This was the first museum that I went to on the day and it was in my opinion probably the best museum in the city center that I went to. The art was awesome and well I have always been a fan of older art because it is a great look into the history of that region and that time period. The paintings are also quite awe inspiring to thing that somehow someone painted such beautiful pieces.

Now that the Gallery is done on to the Prison Gate Museum, this is called the prison gate museum because it was literally built into the gate of the wall around the center. It was originally built in response to the government of the Netherlands forming and moving the political capital to the home city of the Hague. There was no prison in the city prior to this time and was needed to be built to house prisoners specifically for political prisoners. The prison was an interesting walk around it was interesting to look at the cells, specifically the poor prisoner housing cell. The cell was incredibly small for the number of prisoners that I would hold, it would hold about 15 prisoners, and was maybe 10 square feet. On top of the fact that it was small the cell was would have been freezing and dark as there was no light and the window was just bars nothing to keep the cold air out. The cell for the wealthy prisoners was basically a normal room, but you couldn't leave it during your wait for sentencing. That is one of the things that it is important to know about this prison and many other similarly aged prisons were that they were just holding cells and not used for punishment. the sentences would be done separately and holding people in cells wasn't a sentence almost ever. 

Now that the trip through the prison is over time to move across to the other side of the pond to see the working palace for the royal Dutch family. 

Compared to other palaces I have seen it is very calm and not super extravagant. The family doesn't really live there they mainly use it to entertain guest. 

The next stop was the Hague historical museum which was underwhelming and had nothing really of note out side of the dollhouses that they had in on the top floor. 

they maybe hard to see but I had to use my phone to take the picture because well I kind of broke the museum rules and took a picture.

Final stop along the way was the parliament building which is the a really cool looking building and used to be used by the royal family and be apart of the palace.

Now for some miscellaneous photos.

This is Johan von Oldenburg he is considered one of the founding fathers of the Dutch state. In fact he is considered the second founding father behind Willem of Orange.

The royal crest of Holland.

 all of the photos above are of different torture items that were used in the prison to coercive a confession out of the prisoner.

Final note Class started on Monday of the week that this came out so I'm not sure how long it will take me to get the next one out but the next post will be about my first stop on Liz and I's Scandinavian tour, Helsinki.