6 August 2015

Always takes me a while to get adjusted to the 7 hour time difference in Finland. Woke up around 9:30AM and had breakfast, then posted my first pix to Facebook.

Went with Ernö, Maraike and Alex to run some errands. Stopped and explored a scenic shoreline, then to the Sale grocery store in the village of Klamila. Started to rain hard. Ernö needed to buy some new shirts, so our next stop was Hamina.

Shopped at S-market (yes, Ernö got some nice shirts!), had lunch at Hesburger and found some deals at Goodwill (I picked up some glassware, 5 glasses for 1 euro apiece 🙂 ). We all then took advantage of the free Wi-fi at the Hamina library.

Came back to Pihlaja and cooked one of my favorite dinners…honey marinated chicken and macaroni. Built a fire in the fireplace. Although the damper was open, I still had lots of smoke at first but it eventually cleared up.

The rain finally stopped in the evening. I had heard some noises earlier then finally confirmed my suspicions: we have a squirrel(or more likely a family of squirrels) living in the eaves of the cottage. Nice to have some nutty company 😉

My relatives came over in the evening for mountain pies and dice games. Terttu left early, but the rest stayed ’til around midnight. Good times 🙂