Hey! I'm home

Cathedral Downtown in front of Senate Square
My beautiful hair after a very head tossing amusement park ride. I had to take Tylenol after that one.
On my way out to the Sea Fortress.

I’m home! It feels so good to be back home. The Lord blessed me in so many ways on my trip but perhaps the biggest blessing was wanting to come back to Krasnodar feeling ready for another year.
I’ll try to be brief here and give you a glimpse of my trip to the wonderful town of Helsinki, Finland. Before I do let me say a few words about Finland. It is a beautiful country. The people are friendly. Pedestrians have the right away, very different from Russia. Everybody follows the rules and therefore there is a lot of trust and freedom. Hello and Goodbye are the same word: Hey! That never ceased to seem strange to me. After a hey I expected to see a good friend speaking English but there was a perfect stranger speaking Finish. Not to worry. All I had to do was say one word in English and they instantly switched to English! Have I mentioned that Finland is a remarkable, wonderful, beautiful country?
July 7: Flew to Moscow and got on an overnight train to Finland. I was blessed to be traveling with team mates. I was also blessed to be in a female only compartment on the train.
July 8: Arrived in Helsinki around noon and made my way to the hotel by another blessing. I got on the right tram, though I wasn’t sure, I sat in front of a lady from America. She had her map out and I heard her speaking English. She ended up directing me to the right stop. I spent the rest of the day exploring downtown Helsinki.
July 9: Went to the Russian embassy to apply for a visa. After waiting in the rain for over an hour I finally got in and they accepted my paperwork; which is why I am now able to be back in Russia. I spent the afternoon at a mall and then the evening with friends exploring more of downtown.
July 10: More exploring to be done: The cathedral, Senate Square, Market Square, and some other sites.
July 11: I went to an aquarium and an amusement park with friends. The day started out raining but the sun poked through a few times and we had a nice day.
July 12: My favorite day by far. I went to the sea fortress. There is a history that I could write a rather large blog entry on. For now I will just say it is a beautiful old fort on an island. There are old barracks, tunnels, and canons to explore. It was a beautiful day and I enjoyed climbing on the rocks at the edge of the island and watching the waves. I will have to write more about this day another time.
July 13: Well in all honesty the highlight of this day for me was seeing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Helsinki has some enormous theaters. I saw it in a 1,000 seat theater, sold out. The screen was by far the biggest I have ever seen.
July 14: I spent this day just wandering downtown and relaxing at the hotel.
July 15: I went to a church that is built into a huge rock. They have an English service so I decided to combine site seeing with church. It was a wonderful place to worship. Then I met with some friends and went to their campground out of town and spent the evening with them. It was relaxing to get out in nature.
July 16: I went to the water park with friends. I got thoroughly banged up and tossed around by the currents and slides. I had a great time.
July 17: My last day in Helsinki. I relaxed most of the day and then headed for the train station that night. I was blessed again to be in an all women’s compartment.
July 18: Spent the day in Moscow. Was able to welcome our new missionaries! It was great to see them.
July 19: Here I am back home and thankful to be here.