Summer trip to Carelia. part 2

Добрый день!

Just in case you've missed one of my posts here are links to all the parts of the story of our Russian adventure: Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4.

Yesterday's post was about our journey from Helsinki to Karhumäki, but after that we still had quite a long way to go to get grandmother's place. So after waiting 5 hours in Karhumäki in the heat we took a minibus. You can't even book tickets online, you have to get them from the driver. We were quick (an advantage of being small) and got ourselves a good window seat. The trip was, well, an experience. Have you ever travelled 50 km on a rocky and dusty dirt road that is more potholes than road? Then you may have an idea of what it was like. At one point I was worried that Julius would fall out the window from all the bouncing up and down. But the kid just laughed, he thought it was hilarious, like a roller-coaster.

When we got to our destination grandmother was there waiting for us. She recognised us even though she thought Julius was a rat at first. She gave us tea and candy. Yum!

Here I am drinking tea from my favourite cup. Julius, the stupid kid, got some burns on his tail. Who climbs onto a hot samovar, anyway?

Then we shared a bowl of blackcurrants.

The next day we were ready to explore the place. We started with grandmothers old suitcases. I vaguely remember that she used to hide candy and money in them.

"Keep looking, Julius. There must be something here."

"Nope, only curtains, sheets, and other grandmother stuff." :(

We kept looking but all we found was a spider.

While we were desperately trying to find the hidden candy, grandmother was sitting on the porch eating peas. We were also invited. Eating peas isn't good for Julius' stomach. He... well, I'm not going to explain the details but it isn't pleasant...

Grandmother turns 90 soon, so she prefers to sit in the shade. I joined her.

Later I moved to a bench in the sun. Mmm fresh peas!

Of course Julius couldn't stay away from the peas...

We also said hello to my old friend Tim the Dog. I almost didn't recognise him – he's shedding his fur and that makes him look quite shabby and unkempt. But he was as friendly as always and told us all his best hunting stories.

Easy now, dog, I think you might be laying it on a little thick there.

After a while we got tired of the bragging dog and went inside again. I took some more selfies, my second favourite thing to do after eating candy.

Mirror, mirror on the wall...

When everybody in the house had gone to take an afternoon nap, we were really bored so we took the old guitar down from the wall and started play as loud as we could.

While I was playing Julius found an old sickle. He climbed up on it and started singing dirty chastushka songs. Where did he learn those?

Oops, looks like we woke up Kuzya the House Gnome. Back in the old days Russians believed in different types of gnomes and spirits. Julius and I still believe in them. How else can you explain that our candy mysteriously disappears in the middle of the night?

He was in a really bad mood so he through us out. We spent the rest of the evening on the old porch drinking kvass. It was nice in the heat.

Tomorrow you'll get even more pictures from Russia! Пока!