Sailing day trip!

After only 4 days in the country, my host family were very eager to show me their sailing boat. On sunday morning we drove to the Espoo Harbour and boarded the Silver Girl ready to spend the day sailing. The weather was beautiful, getting to around 24 degrees with blue skies in the afternoon. On board there was a small kitchen, a bathroom and two beds. We sailed for around 3 hours, drinking cups of tea and snacking on biscutis and finnish chips (which looked like pasta but tasted like patato) untill we reached our destination, a big island. 

When we got to the island we went straight for lunch at a restaurant right on the waters edge with a beautiful view. The only option to eat though was creamy salmon soup...

While we were eating a beautiful big swan came to say hello. This is Finlands national animal. 

After lunch we walked around the island as the island was having a special day and was displaying many traditional finnish things. We saw fish skinning, paint making and old houses filled with special types of chimneys used to grill fish.

We then walked for about 1km through forest to the centre of the island to a beautiful big lake. On the way there was many blueberry, raspberry, cranberry and strawberry bushes. My host sibblings just picked the berries of the bushes and ate them. I thought this was very strange but by the time we got to the lake all three of our mouths were blue from eating so many berries. They were the best berries I have ever tasted and I have decided Australia should follow Finland and have lots of wild berry trees everywhere that we can just eat from. 

When we got to the lake we went swiming. The water was freezing and my host family joked that now i have officially been baptised into Finnish culture.