Hello
there! I’ve been silent for quite some time, much longer than I expected.
Moving away from the big country house was a true ordeal but we made it and have recovered.
I always knew it is very easy for me to forget any kinds of hardships and the stressful
removal was no exception. What I didn’t anticipate was how quickly we would
feel totally at home in the new surroundings.
The
country house was an ideal place to live as long as we drove to the office daily.
Each night you felt like you were returning to the peace and quiet of your
holiday home. But when we no longer had a job we started to grow increasingly reluctant to
spend the three quarters of an hour to get to downtown Helsinki where all the action was. Now, it will take us three quarters
of a minute to get from our apartment to the street level and we are in downtown
Turku. That’s what I call progress!
And
how about the town itself? Turku is the oldest town in Finland founded almost 800 years ago. It is the cradle of our civilisation and the site of many
important historical events. Turku Cathedral, tho oldest church in our country believed to be inaugurated in 1300, is the seat of the Archbishop. Turku is a lovely and lively university town by the sea divided by the
river Aura, a town big enough to satisfy your cultural appetite in plenty but
small enough for you to explore most of the places on foot. We are loving it!
We moved here two months ago and we’ve already attended a concert in the Turku Castle – also dating from the 13th
century – and another one in a brewery restaurant that used to be a school building,
found a film club showing quality movies, gone to the theatre, visited several
exhibitions, not to mention the many free concerts and other events we’ve either known about
beforehand or happened to pass by. There are lots of interesting things going
on here all the time.
The
river flows just two blocks away from where we live. In the summer season, it is like
a magnet drawing people to the many terrace and boat restaurants by the
riverside or simply to have a seat or to enjoy a picnic on the riverbank. We
couldn’t keep ourselves away from there even if we tried although many of our
daily promenades take us to the walkways and paths a bit further away from the
paved riverfront.
We’ve
watched cherry trees blooming, tulips budding and nature slowly turning green. Proper
summer with higher temperatures hasn’t reached us yet but we are getting
there. We’ll be witnessing each moment from our new base only three quarters of
a minute away from many of the things we’ve found ourselves longing for at this stage
in life. There is all the time in the world to fine-tune the apartment later.
