THE HELSINKI TEMPLE AND MORE SNOW!

The Helsinki Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is in the town of Espoo...about 15 minutes from where we live.  It is very beautiful, especially in the snow!!!

 

Another view through the trees.On the property is a center that has apartments for Temple missionaries and also rooms for people to rent who come to the temple from Estonia, Russia, Latvia, and Lithuania. It has a lovely foyer.

There are two side by side kitchens for people to prepare food! The rooms have beds for 6 people, either families or youth groups, and 2 bathrooms per room.

The first week of January the center was full of people from St. Petersburg, Russia,  who were on holiday!

Now switching to the last week and SNOW!!!

This buried car was right outside our apartment door!  It is really fun to watch the efficient snow removal that goes on constantly.  When it is snowing, our sidewalks are plowed three times a day.  Eventually a truck comes to pick up all the piles of snow!

There's been a lot of snow to plow!!  But is has finally stopped!  We go for long walks, even in 20 degree weather to get out of our apartment and get some exercise.  Usually we head downtown but today we wanted to see the ice on the sea!

These floats in a ship lagoon are right by our apartment!

We can't tell how thick the ice is but it was pretty with the sun shining on it!

On our way to the open sea (10 blocks away) we passed by this car wash that costs $25 for a "quick wash".  We will do our own!!!

Now to the open sea!

The sea is not frozen solid...these circular shapes (called "pancake ice")  were all moving with the flow of the water.  Here's a close-up view!

Very strange and beautiful as was the ice that has formed on the rocks.

That's life in Helsinki in the winter.  We are so grateful that we now have very close underground parking by our apartment.  It is wonderful to find our car warm, dry, and not covered in snow and ice.  We did have to buy a shovel for when we park at the center and it is snowing.  We may have to dig out our car!  During the day we mostly walk...even in 20 degree weather.  Here's the happy news: we are gaining 3 minutes of daylight per day...that's 1 hour every 20 days..YIPPEE!!!  

Snow and Chocolate in Helsinki!

Yes, SNOW has arrived in Helsinki!  
We were so lucky to have no snow until 2012!  But it is here and the Finns are thrilled!  It does brighten up the dark days!

Here is the view from one of our windows...this is a day care next door!

And yes, the kids play in the snow for recess!!!

We even had icicles form on our window.

One thing that is impressive is the snow removal here.  At least 

3 times a day the small snow plows come down our sidewalk to 

clear the snow. They are more concerned with sidewalks than 

streets since so many people walk everywhere!

We had snow on our enclosed deck--the flakes were so tiny and 

were blowing in every direction so that they made it through the cracks

Now on to a happier subject...CHOCOLATE!!!

The most famous candy here is made by 

Fazer candy is everywhere and really is delicious!  The office staff scheduled a tour of the factory for the five of them, us, and 6 missionaries!

Although we were very disappointed that we didn't get to actually tour the factory to see candy made and wrapped we did do a lot of eating.  There were bowls of candy in the waiting room and suckers were handed to us as we went in to view films telling about the history and making of the chocolates!

Paul is standing by a display of cocoa beans.  They claim there

 are 3 cups of milk in every milk chocolate bar:

This is a blown up version of the most famous chocolate bar...

We do love Fazer chocolate and eat it every day!!!

At the end of the tour we could help ourselves to all the samples we could eat.  It was fun to try many different flavors and choose our favorites!

This definitely was the most fun part of the tour!!!

We gathered some of our wrappers for this last shot:

There was a factory store there so of course, to be polite, we 

had to purchase several chocolate bars (bigger than these)!!!

NEW YEARS IN HELSINKI!

HAPPY NEW YEARS TO ALL!!!!  We had an exciting New Year's Eve in Helsinki!  There was a Young Single Adult Conference with about 100 in attendance from all over Finland!  We were busy with that on the 30th shopping for and preparing 60 sack lunches for after the "Beach Party" themed dance and then served 40 more kids at a hotel who were from out of town.  The next morning we were responsible for the breakfast for 100 at the hotel and then the kids chose either sand volleyball at an indoor facility, pedicures, or a drama class.  We then helped serve the pizza lunch at the hotel.  Since all the afternoon activities would be in Finnish at a church building we decided we had fulfilled our assignments and didn't need to go so.... we left our home at 10:30 to walk to Senate Square in the center of Helsinki, at the National Cathedral to see the entertainment and fireworks there.  It was the first time we had ever been in a hugh crowd for New Years and it was quite exciting!!!

About every 15 minutes the light patterns were changed on the buildings around Senate Square.  This is the main building of the University of Helsinki!

Here is the National Cathedral!  There was a stage with entertainment and huge screens showing what was on the stage!

What you see here is the National Library of Finland.  
Behind us was the  National Palace:

It is very beautiful at night all lit up!!!  And then at midnight there was a short butSPECTACULAR  fireworks display in front of the cathedral

and on the roofs of the other buildings!!!

Since the Center was closed for the holidays we took time to see 

some of the beautiful sights!  

We walked along the waterfront to see the cathedral at a distance!

The parking lot by the ferry has booths and Old Market Hall which is filled with food booths with fish, meat, and produce:

Paul did have to sample some of the smoked salmon but...

we did not buy any caviar!  Nor did we buy any stawberries:

You'd have to REALLY want some strawberries to spend $12 a pound!!!

Yes, we finally got snow in 2012.  Saturday morning we woke up to 3 inches of snow and walked to the Temppeliaukio Church, better know as the "Rock Church" as it was blasted from the granite bedrock.

We had seen this church last summer when we were here on our 
Baltic Cruise!  The ceiling is made of copper and very beautiful!

Another day we hiked to Uspenski Cathedral, built in 1868.  It is the largest Orthodox church edifice in Western Europe.

The day we visited this church it was filled with Russians as they have holiday the first week in January and flock to Finland!  There were many busloads full of tourists!

We woke up on Sunday morning to 7 degrees! YIKES!!!  It is now back to a balmy 27 degrees!  We walk to many sights so we have learned to bundle up and enjoy the exercise since parking is a major hassle and we are within walking distance of most major places of interest!!!