We’re in Lappeenranta now where we stay in my father’s flat for one night. Tomorrow we will travel to Helsinki in order to catch our flight back home.

The last day on Kylänieme had perfect weather. We went for another row in the morning and spent the whole afternoon sitting on the pier listening to music on Nadine’s iPad.

On the way to Lappeenranta we made a stop at Kattelussaari, another island on the Lake Saimaa where Arija and my father are planning to built their own Mökki next year. So maybe we will never return to Kyläniemi again…

Kyläniemi hasn’t always been an island – it was a peninsula until the Russians came up with the idea to shorten their waterway to Savonlinna. Although it is cut off from the mainland now, about ten families live on the island permanently. The rest of the houses sparesly distributed are summer residences or Mökkis.

A postal service is in existence, but letters aren’t dropped at doorsteps. With delivery stopping at the main roads, there are assemblys of various postboxes at many crossroads. If you live or stay further out, you are required to go there yourself and collect your mail.

Another interesting thing is how the houses are numbered in the small roads like Pieniniementie: We are number 40, which means our territory is about 400 meters away from the crossing to the next bigger road. Our neighbours got 26 and 76…

I guess there’s no need to explain that sauna is held in highest regard in Finland – there is one in or around almost every house. In Kyläniemi, the sauna is located in about  100 meters distance to the Mökki and close enough to the lake to jump in. We go there about every second day.

With awareness being one of the major parts of integrative oncology, sauna is a good way to improve that skill: it teaches you to keep an open eye towards your body, to find out what’s good for yourself  and when something becomes too much.

And it is a comforting experience to sit in the heat, look out of the window and watch the waves on the lake and the branches of trees swing in the wind.