Today Claire and Susan are leaving again, but this time to visit some long-time friends who are missionaries in Tampere. We awoke early and made the drive in fairly good time (about 3 hours). We left early enough to avoid rush hour in Helsinki and were in Tampere in time for lunch. We have known the couple that we visited, Tom and Linda, since 1994, when they were on forlough in the Sacramento area and their youngest daughter, Liisa, was in Susan's class at Victory Christian High School.

We spent several hours catching up with them and looking at family photos (particularly those of their two daughters' weddings) before starting a load of laundry (oh, what a joy that was!!) and hitting the town. We went out for lunch where Claire and Susan ordered some traditional Finnish food which we shared (reindeer stew and meatballs). Then we saw the city (and had some great donuts) before returning to their house to hang out some more. We asked Linda for recipes for some of the great dishes we've had, including Russian Bliniy and Finnish Rice Pies (with egg butter). We had a great dinner followed by tea and sweets (and yodeling... the "Zillertaler Schurzenjager" - Tom's favorite group!). We left in the evening and, after our long drive, made it back to the cottage around midnight.

We sorted our belongings and packed as much as we could in anticipation of an early departure tomorrow.

Labels: Europe 2008, Finland