Cheese salad with some fruit

It's Sunday, and pretty soon it's going to rain.

I'm sad. It's the last day of my vacation. Do I really have to wait another year to have this feeling of freedom again?

Why I can't be a child again, without responsibilities? to wait and not to remeber. Not trying to stop the time, but encouraging it to fly.

I have been reading some Finnish food and recipe blogs. Nice idea. I began to think that I could share one of my recipies as well. Cheese salad with some fruit - I make it quite often.

Cheese salad with some fruit (for 4 people)

-some lettuce

-some lollo rosso

-6 fresh plums

- 1 apple,

- 2 kiwi fruit

- 200 g blue cheese

- 200 g Finnish cream cheese (or gouda)

sauce: 0,75 dl olive oil, 0,25 dl vinegar, salt, pepper and sugar, oregano

Slice everything and pour the sauce on top.

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Hedelmäinen juustosalaatti (4 annosta)

1 ruukkusalaatti

1 ruukku lollo rosso -salaattia

6 tuoretta luumua

1 omena

2 kiiviä

200 g sinihomejuustoa

200 g kermajuustoa

Kastike:

· 0,75 dl ruokaöljyä

· 0,25 dl viinietikkaa

· suolaa, pippuria ja sokeria

· oreganoa

Jekku, will you shut up?

Sometimes it's quite annoying to have a Finnish Lapphund. This Finnish dog breed is in the top 10 list of the most favourite dogs in Finland. OK, it is CUTE, INTELLIGENT and FUNNY, but... it also has it's faults.

Like barking.

This reindeer herding dog surely knows how to bark and howl.

Jazz music

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Pori Jazz, some applauding.

Cottage in an island

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In Lohisaari. Bertie is a bit nervous about Jekku. Waiting for the rain to stop.

Driving somewhere in Finland

We ar on our way to Ruovesi, where Ilona and Eero have their summer home. Jekku sits on the back seat.

Eating in Kuu

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Having fun in restaurant Kuu. This Helsinki restaurant is specialised in Finnish food.

So many concerts and I never go

It's sort of funny to live in Helsinki and never go to any concerts. A 15-year-old me would be seriously angry to a current 30+ me.

Last weekend we had Metallica, Rolling Stones (August) and Gwen Stefani (October) are yet to come.

It would have been wonderful to see Metallica, but I couldn't imagine myself waiting for tickets in line for hours and hours.

Gwen Stefani would be a lovely girl-thing to do. You know, just us girls. Also Suzanne Vega (favourite from ages ago) is coming to town.

Instead, I am going to a concert in Pori Jazz festival. I am going to see Elvis Costello and Steely Dan. What an adult thing to do.

Lönnrot's house

Today we were having a nice day in the western Uusimaa / Nyland. We always have this urge to go to see some museums.

And so we did.

This time we drove to Nummi-Pusula and visited the dairy museum there. I was amazed to see a picture of my grandfather. Made 1957. Brilliant! We also saw a lot of other things - including these cheese making equipments.

The Finnish dairy company Valio restaured this old Saukkola dairy to a museum. Quite interesting.

From Saukkola we drove to Elias Lönnrot's birth cottage (Paikkarin torppa), but we couldn't visit it because they were having a open air play there. So instead we drove to Lammi house, which was Elias Lönnrot's last home. Both the birth cottage and the Lammi house are situated in the countryside of Sammatti, Finland.



The Lammi house was very isolated, because Elias wanted to do a lot of work like write a hymnbook and Swedish-Finnish dictionary. He didn't want to spend his time socializing with other people.


And if somebody doesn't know, it was Lönnrot who made/collected our national epos Kalevala.

Links:
Elias Lönnrot in Wikipedia (English)
More about Lammi house (English)
Lammin talo, Elias Lönnrotin viimeinen asuinpaikka (Finnish)
Search Sammatti in Finnish maps, Map of Finland

Hillfort in Helme

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We are on our way from Setomaa to Halliste where our friend Andres lives. The photo is from Helme hillfort. After this it started to rain a lot.

Staying over in Setomaa

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Today we are in Setomaa, Estonia. We are staying the next 3 nights in this house. The weather has been sunny. We have been hiking.

Sangaste

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Sangaste castle in the Southern Estonia.

Pyhäjärvi spa

Today we are near Otepää in Pyhäjärvi spa. We have been enjoying ourselves. Yesterday we were in Tartu and visited the botanical garden (very nice!), the museum of art and the Jaani church.

In the afternoon we drove to Otepää and Pyhäjärvi spa by the Pyhäjärvi lake. We visited an ancient hillfort in Otepää, relaxed by the lake and had a nice walk. We also followed triathlon competition.

Today we are going to have a lava stone massage and later in the afternoon we are going to visit Sangaste manor house. Tomorrow we shall continue our journey to Võru.

Tartu

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It's Sunday. We are in Tartu. Sun is shining and we are having some salad by the townhall.