Predated Letter - 6 7 79.23.

July 5, 1979

Dear Family,

Thank you very much for the letter I received quite a time ago.  Almost half of the summer holidays are over and I haven't yet paid any of those short visits to my friends and relatives that I usually do every summer.

But I went to London for a week.  It was a package tour including the flights and accommodation.  I didn't take part in the many tours and excursions arranged by the travel agency as I thought I would be able to see the sights on my own.  It's sixteen years since I last was in London and England and now I thought I could afford a trip.  I think it was a success, I got as much as I had expected.

Many of the places I had seen before but it was interesting to see them again after so many years.  Westminster Abbey, the Tower and St. Paul's Cathedral were of course the 'musts'.  I went to a marvellous concert (the London Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall) and to the theatre.  And then I just looked around me a lot.  I bought a go-as-you-please ticket which enabled me to travel on all London transport buses and underground trains and I really made use of the ticket.  So I saw quite a bit of suburbs too.

London really is a big place and Tampere now looks like a tiny village.  In two respects, I think, the city had changed.  One was that sixteen years ago there were no tower blocks and office skyscrapers but now there were.  And the other was that today there are far more coloured people in London than there used to be.

I timed my trip to take place in the Midsummer week.  You see, Midsummer Day and Midsummer Eve are very big festivals here in Finland (and in the other Nordic countries as well) and I still haven't got any lady friend so I escaped the whole thing.

The Saturday was an ordinary weekday in London with nothing special in it.  On the Sunday I went to church in Kensington and there the theme of the day was John the Baptist anyway.

On the return flight one of the stewardesses happened to be a former pupil of mine and I got special service.  Yes, we flew on scheduled flights.

So far there have been no greater difficulties in seeing Marko.  Tomorrow he'll come to me for four days and nights and we'll be going to Paimio, near the south coast where one of my sisters will spend her holiday with her family.  One of the two daughters is nearly the same age as Marko, so they'll certainly have a good time.  And my brother in-law has a brand new motor launch so I hope the weather will be so good that we can make a trip to the islands in the sea.

The weather was very good for holidaymakers in June, though it was too dry for farmers.  The water in lakes was pretty warm so I could go to the beach here many times before I went to London.  But now it has been pretty cool and rainy for one week already so the beaches are empty now.

Next week Risto and I will go to my friends' summer cottage on the sea as we did last summer too.  I hope the weather will be fine.

Sure the long summer holiday is the best thing in a teacher's life and I think I can enjoy it more this year than the last four summers.  I've been going to dances and seeing around me a bit.

I hear a lot has happened to you during this last year, both good and bad, and I hope you will be able to make the best of your holidays.

Love to everybody,
Mikko