The fragrance of the tuomi or bird cherry trees with their nodding white clusters of flowers is highly intoxicating. I'm taking a walk with my friend, Tuija, and her poodle, Touho, on the almost white banks of Tourujoki, the Touru River. No – no snow any more, but so many bird cherry trees, so full of blooms that the whole area is blanketed snow white. This is the neighborhood where Robert and I would ride our bikes on Sundays to admire the old, wooden houses, built for working class families in the beginning of the century. There are none left, but Tourula is a popular family neighborhood, very close to downtown Jyväskylä. Nicely designed apartment buildings are set far enough apart to allow room for big yards and a lot of open space for the new Tourula dwellers.  Of course, the romantic feel of the run-down wooden houses is gone (No, I'll never learn – as you can see, my addiction to wooden fixer-uppers dates back many, many years!)

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                                      Happy campers, Tuija & Touho


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                                                            Tourujoki

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               Sirpa inhaling the frangrance of tuomi - bird cherry trees

Rafu sighed the other night, why can't it always be like this in Jyväskylä! It is pretty awesome and breathtaking. The campus boasts of bird cherries, daffodils, tulips and many other kinds of blooming bushes and little and big, short and tall flowers whose names escape me in any language. Yesterday, Tuija and I marveled our 'break room', as we stretched on a grassy area with tulips, right outside our offices. On my way home at lunch time, a group of music students and professors had set up their chairs in front of the Music Building on campus. They were playing eclectic tunes in the sunshine. A definite sign of spring!

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                                                                  Campus musicians

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                                           Sirpa & Tuija in their 'break room'

The light doesn't stop surprising us even though we should be used to it by now. We are now downtown dwellers for a month and taking full advantage of it. Last night we had a Tapas dinner in a Mediterranean restaurant, less than five minutes from our new home, and then walked another five minutes to catch the opening night of the new Indiana Jones film. - Oh, that Harrison Ford . . . I'm so glad he's aging along with me. He's perfect! What a man! And my husband does look like him, doesn't he!  

Now, back to the light! It's a long movie, and it was 10:45 PM when Rafu and I were walking home. It was still dusk as the sun had officially set at 10:30 PM. I finally caught Rafu on film in front of his high school, the oldest Finnish-speaking high school in Finland, Jyväskylän Lyseo, turning 150 this year. Lyseo has graduated many a famous Finn, such as the internationally acclaimed, functionalistically artistic architect and designer, Alvar Aalto, whose following quote is one of my favorites, Yes, of course you can and must fly, but it should be with one foot on the ground - or at least a big toe.
(http://virtual.finland.fi/netcomm/news/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=26966)

Also the inventor of our national sport, pesäpallo (Finnish style baseball), Lauri "Tahko" Pihkala. is a graduate of  Jyväskylän Lyseo. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pes%C3%A4pallo)
The beautiful building is described as Maurian-Tudor style, and it is said to have a "Genius Lycei" – The Spirit of the Lyceo, still strongly at present.

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                        Rafu at night (no fash used!) in front of his high school,
                                            the famed Jyväskylän Lyseo

I shot photos without a flash at 10:45, and a group of young people was sitting on the green slopes of Harju, the ridge, in the middle of Jyväskylä that our apartment building faces. This is the late spring in the north, which is along with the early summer something magical I wish you all could experience at least once!

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                                                   Pine trees at night on Harju, the Ridge

An official note: The sun rose today, May 26, at 3:53 AM. It will set at 10:37 PM. The dawn lasted 2 hours and 4 minutes and the dusk 31 minutes. That gives us 22 hours and 27 minutes of lightness. Talk about A loooong Incredible Lightness of Being!!!