Actually the part you see here is only half of it- they built a new one right next to it, but the idea is the same. Here's a view of the dock at sunset.

The entire experience was absolutely amazing, but tonight, I am far too tired and I've been on this computer way to long (responding to all the lovely emails, and waiting for the computer to stop hating me and freezing up) so I'll just show you some pictures. There's about a million more, though, but it's midnight....
Anything you daydream up from these pictures about my lovely time there is probably true, but not quite as lovely as it actually was.

This is Yoko, Sari's father. He'y my HERO and he's completely won the title of 'The Man'
in my book.

And here is Sari's mother, who spoke no English whatsoever but was convinced that I spoke Finnish, so we 'talked' a lot anyway.
Actually we understood eachother pretty well. For example, if she offered me to eat some Watermelon, she put it in my mouth.
There you go.

The first day we were there was Midsummer, a Finnish holiday celebrating the middle of summer (go figure!)
We picked flowers...

and made vihta out of birch branches to smack ourselves with in the sauna...


I became a man, too.

Not, really, but in a bat mitzvah kind of way.

I caught a fish!!!

(Esa said I couldn't do it. But he didn't know that I have dumb luck...)

And I chopped down a tree!


We visited our rich friend's cottage,


And I was a very happy person.

The end.

(I'm still waiting for the computer to stop hating me...)