a quick trip to dublin--a favorite, i could definitely live there. not to mention it was a nice GREEN, SUNNY break from finland's snow. for more photos, see here and here.
during the same trip to pori with my landscapes class, we also visited the unesco world heritage site of rauma. it's an old medieval village with the crooked streets and everything (quite unusual for the young country of finland). i really liked the variety of colors throughout the streets. unfortunately, the church was locked (as seems to the standard here in finland), so i did not get to go inside.
pori provided a nice trip out of tampere for a change of (snowy) scenery. the trip was part of an excursion for my landscapes class. we visited villa mairea (one of aalto's most famous works--photos coming soon), pori for a site visit and urban landscape studies, and rauma for more of the same. unfortunately, this entailed walking around the city for 3 hours in the heavy wet snow.
a snowy pedestrian-only streetthe finns bike in all weather. the main church in town
sculpture on the river
they tell me there's a river under there somewhere