Sleepless in Suomi

helsinki, finland, september 15, 4:00 a.m.--

observations:

i may not be as afraid of flying as i think i am. Aside from a few moments during take off thinking, "This Bernoulli guy was just plain crazy"--mingled with fervent prayer--itäs not really too bad.

snakes on a plane are not nearly as dreadful as...


...trying to sleep on a plane.


i really, really like europe. not at all in the itäs-so-superior-to-the-u.s. kind of way. itäs just so cool! i forgot how great it is to be somewhere that has history, art, culture and tradition dated by millenia, not just mere centuries. i also love how international it is, too.


that said, i'm also bemused by the fact that here i am entire continents away and the hotel bathroom is tocked with dove cream wash, creammy body wash and shamppo. nearly everyone iäve encoutered speaks great english and there is was what finn refers to as the american embassy--the golden arches--on every block (not really--but almost).


love the abundance of trees and lakes here. for awhile i kept thinking we were crossing different points of the same lake. then i realized they were all different lakes. lakes in finland are like mormon churches in utah valley. there is one on every corner.




not so sure about all the mustard-yellow building and houses, but you gotta love a country that makes it look so easy being green (in both senses of the word), that believes in random acts of sculpture scattered everywhere, and that has a woman president--even if she does look like conan o'brien.


the dutch donät seem to bet he most patient of people. i was at more risk of a horrible accident in the airport being wheeled around on a cart (my knee went out a few weeks before i left) by a crazed and flustered dutch woman than i ever was flying through the air at 30,000 feet in a gazillion-ton tin can. i am quite sure we took a couple of corners on two wheels and we came within mere centimeters of takin out a priest and an indain woman with small children. there is a reason they call them the flying dutch.


people will pick their noses just about anywhere.


hooray for and god bless the finns for finally getting their own temple. one, itäs strikingly beautiful (and weäve only seen the outside). the steeple with the angel moroni is a sight to behold. it just sort of jumps out at you from nowhere--just like the portland temple--through the trees (in fact, Finland--hey hey I finally found the cap key on the Finnish keyboard--really reminds me of all i love about the pacific northwest]. coming from a place where we have so many temples within an hours drvie we take for granted--what a HUGE deal this is for these wonderful people to have on int heir own country. and its not just for the finns. this temple will serve countries speaking eight different languages--including russia--and when i was on my mission missionary work had not even been officially allowed yet in russia (i am old, but what iäm trying to see is that the spreading of the gospel has come a long way).



that is truly something wonderful to contemplate!


signing off now--scuze the typos and the lack of punctuation--i finally understand missionary e-mails now!

p.s. i was actually thinking i would love to live here--itäs truly heavenly. then i realized in a couple of months it will be 20 below celsius, be buried under six feet of ice and snow and have only three hours of daylight and i would likely not be nearly so charmed. right now, however, iäm loving it!