Photos of our time in Jyvaskyla so far! You can see the development of summer in the photos as we move from coats to t-shirts, and the trees move from bare branches to leaves - and today they had blossom on them!! It is amazing how quickly they change. In the three weeks we have been here we have walked past nearly each day a bed of tulips - from just leaves, to buds, to flowers that are now dying off, all so rapidly!
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Jyväskylä
Ok so here we are almost at the end of our first week in Jyvaskyla. So where are we? About four hours north of Helsinki- well by train at least - this train map shows the route we took via Tampere. Tarja Nikula collected us from the station and took us to our home for the next four weeks. Apartment with large living area and kitchen, bedroom and bathroom, so much space compared to JoBurg and warm all the time! Tarja had kindly left breakfast essentials so no need to explore that first evening - even though it was still daylight at 10pm it felt like evening anyway!
Cold and Daylight are the first two impressions of the town. Even though it is spring it is cold enough for jumpers and coats, (and gloves that we bought on our second day here!) For most of the week it has been sunny which has meant the weird experience of watching people sitting outside in the sun eating lunch while we are wrapped in coats and gloves etc:-) Today Saturday is grey and gloomy and drizzly, just like those dreary Saturday afternoons I remember from Melbourne childhood winters.
And of course because we are so far north it is daylight almost all the time! Today's weather information includes: Sun rises 4:42 and sets 21:47. Length of day is 17 h 5 min. This is harder to get used to than the cold I think! Going to bed at 10pm when well, the sun isn't actually shining, but it is still light, is very hard to get used to.
Photos and the town and University next post!
Cold and Daylight are the first two impressions of the town. Even though it is spring it is cold enough for jumpers and coats, (and gloves that we bought on our second day here!) For most of the week it has been sunny which has meant the weird experience of watching people sitting outside in the sun eating lunch while we are wrapped in coats and gloves etc:-) Today Saturday is grey and gloomy and drizzly, just like those dreary Saturday afternoons I remember from Melbourne childhood winters.
And of course because we are so far north it is daylight almost all the time! Today's weather information includes: Sun rises 4:42 and sets 21:47. Length of day is 17 h 5 min. This is harder to get used to than the cold I think! Going to bed at 10pm when well, the sun isn't actually shining, but it is still light, is very hard to get used to.
Photos and the town and University next post!
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Madrid
And then to Madrid! First time in Spain for me and I loved it. It was warm and sunny and calm and reasonably friendly and reasonably cheap. The hotel was great - large room in a terrific location and a real bargain at bit over AUD400 for three nights. I\ll put a slide show up of photos. Day One we arrived and after waiting for an hour! at the airport for bags caught cab to hotel and they had a room for us ready even though it was only 8am. Coffee and croissants then out for a stroll around the block, back to room for a nap and then our first of three nights eating at the Plaza Santa Ana I'm sure very touristy but certainly not as bad as the La Plaza Mayor which was overpriced with restaurant staff doing their best Lygon Street tout impressions! So each night we tried a different restaurant, two lots of tapas and a real dinner another night. The food was ok nothing to rave about but very cheap and the wine even cheaper!
On Friday we bought two days worth of tickets on the tourist bus only to discover that on Saturday they were not running because of a "demonstration". We did the rounds on the bus a couple of times and then hopped off at La Plaza Mayor for lunch and a stroll around the outside of the Royal Palace -inside free exhibition on Spanish archeology which at least gave us some idea of Spanish history.
We thought we would save La Prada til Saturday as the buses were not running and that would be our big museum experience with maybe a side trip to the Matisse exhibition at Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum.
Of course we realised on Saturday that it was May Day, huge parade - I'd say 100s of thousands of people but no judge of crowd size - it was fantastic experience - sandy took photos of hammer and sickle flags which we don't often see in Oz, we wandered through the army headquarters which seemed to be open specially for the occasion. Unfortunately what was NOT open was La Prada - or any other museums either. Very disappointed to have missed it and then found out later that the museum that holds the most famous Spanish painting of all, Picasso´s "Guernica", was just around the corner from our hotel and that was also closed!! S
So not much "culture| but lots of excuses to go back - and I would any day - don't know what the rest of Spain is like but I loved Madrid!
On Friday we bought two days worth of tickets on the tourist bus only to discover that on Saturday they were not running because of a "demonstration". We did the rounds on the bus a couple of times and then hopped off at La Plaza Mayor for lunch and a stroll around the outside of the Royal Palace -inside free exhibition on Spanish archeology which at least gave us some idea of Spanish history.
We thought we would save La Prada til Saturday as the buses were not running and that would be our big museum experience with maybe a side trip to the Matisse exhibition at Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum.
Of course we realised on Saturday that it was May Day, huge parade - I'd say 100s of thousands of people but no judge of crowd size - it was fantastic experience - sandy took photos of hammer and sickle flags which we don't often see in Oz, we wandered through the army headquarters which seemed to be open specially for the occasion. Unfortunately what was NOT open was La Prada - or any other museums either. Very disappointed to have missed it and then found out later that the museum that holds the most famous Spanish painting of all, Picasso´s "Guernica", was just around the corner from our hotel and that was also closed!! S
So not much "culture| but lots of excuses to go back - and I would any day - don't know what the rest of Spain is like but I loved Madrid!
South Africa or Northern Victoria?
Pilanesberg
It feels like months since we left South Africa but only one week today! So now I am online at work and at home in Jyvaskyla I will go back and retrace what we have done so far. So Pilanesberg and the Ivory Tree Game Lodge!! The park is beautiful, the animals amazing, the lodge mmmm not 5 star by any means. I've written a full review on TripAdvisor so will see if it gets published. Yes it was cold and wet but you can see we are both still smiling. I will restrain myself to just one animal photo yes that is our vehicle's windscreen in front of the rhino!
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