A not very White Christmas

So time for another distinctly non-white Christmas in Finland (I'm starting to have problems remembering the last white one...). The journey to Helsinki was a right pain – as they usually seem to be with Luftw… Lufthansa. Let’s just say that the delays in Frankfurt gave me the opportunity to familiarize myself with all the bars in terminal. Well, to cut a long story short, I eventually arrived at my parents’ flat at about 5 o’clock in the morning.



After an all-too-short night, my brother Janne and Katja picked me up, and off we went to Turku. After some express shopping from me (still hadn’t bought most of my Christmas pressies, I have to admit to my shame…), we met up with my parents and had a delicious (and actually very authentic) Italian meal at the Trattoria di Roma.





On Sunday, we celebrated my mum’s birthday. The whole gang was there – including both of my brothers with better halves and families as well as my grandma (still going strong in her 90s). The meal was, as always, delicious, and was followed by a Christmas sauna. Christmas eve involved the usual activities (eating and drinking like a pig and waiting for the xmas pressies like a little kid…). I got my fair share of pressies, including a chocolate monopoly (my family sure knows me…), a Nintendo DS (Mathilde sure knows me…) and a couple of DVD’s.



After waking at about noon, and having had a light-ish brunch (well, not light at all, actually, considering I had xmas dinner leftovers…), it was time to head back to Helsinki, where the plan was to have some xmas beers with some of my mates. We ended up in that bastion of Finnish-ness known as Zetor For those of you who don’t know this Helsinki institution, let’s just say it’s not the trendiest place in town (let me put it like this, there are even 2 tractors in there) – so we fit right in. We had a good time, with some beer-fuelled healthy debating, and of course catching up on “the good old days” ;-)

The flight the next day was very painful indeed – as I had only about 2 hours’ sleep before it. I’m getting too old for this s**t.