Incredible Finland

These pictures are about a place where sooner or later I would live for a long time. They are about a specific region of Finland called Karelia. Karelia is divided between Finland and Russia. The Finnish Karelia is in the north-east part of the country and it is just a lovely, non touristic place. The capital city is Joensuu, a town of about 70,000 inhabitants, which was founded in 1848.
Joensuu is a lively student city with over 15,000 students enrolled at the University of Eastern Finland.
I went there for the first time in 2008. I was granted a scholarship by the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to conduct research on ICT for rural development. I fell in love with the Joensuu almost immediately, and I can say I also fell in love with all the people I met there.
Erkki Sutinen, my fantastic supervisor and Dean of the Computer Science Department at the time, has been - and still is - one of the most inspiring person of all my life. He is the best professor ever. He takes care of his students in an incredible unique way. His house is open to everyone. His lovely wife Paivi and his 4 children (Martti, Tuuli, Laura and Anton) are sometimes around and it is great fun to be with them...
I will always be thankful for having met the Sutinen family and having had the opportunity to learn so much from Erkki. I can t wait to be back to Finland. Erkki is now working in Mozambique, so I will first go the to Mozambique (on the 1st of April 2011) and then to Finland.
Here are some pics finally (they were taken last year, at that time I was not running a blog...but I think it's time to post them now).

1. Erkki's sauna at his summer cottage near Koli

2. Lake Pielinen

3. Picking berries and potatoes with some international researchers (which is definitely more fun than writing scientific papers)

4. ERKKI AND HIS NEW BOAT

5. The most beautiful view from a countryside house

6. THE MOST BEAUTIFUL CUP OF TEA

THIS IS SO MUCH FINNISH/NORDIC STYLE!!

I have so many good pictures of Finland (in spring, summer, autum and winter time) that from time to time I ll post them all.