Last week we rode our bikes to the island of Hirvensalo to pick blueberries (as one does in Finnish Summer). We made a slight detour to show the girls what we had been calling the "Alice in Wonderland house." It's a very unusual-looking house, especially for Finland. Being foreigners, we were unable to suppress our nosiness and walked up their driveway a short way to look at the house (and garlic bulb-shaped sauna!) a little better.
Well, the owners of the house themselves saw us gawking and came out to say hello! It turns out we'd stumbled onto a famous house and architect without even realizing it (we are not just foreigners, but non-artistic ones). Jan-Erik Andersson himself told us about the house he designed and a little of the story behind it, and gave us a book about it as well. He said people often drive by slowly to look, but not many people come up the driveway like we did - and when someone does, it's almost always a foreigner. That's us!
You can read about the house in The New York Times and see tons of pictures on the website.
After a nice conversation, we rode our bikes away from the house to resume our hunt for blueberries. But I couldn't stop smiling - what a strange, lucky thing to have experienced! It sometimes pays to be a nosy foreigner, ignorant of social norms. It got us a lovely conversation with some interesting people and a little more knowledge about this place we live. Such fun.
