Moi moi, Sami

Sami, the man from Karunki, has entertained us on the Cote d’Azur for the past 2+ years. But now, alas, it is time for him to move to new pastures – to Oulu. So time to say bye bye to the sunny weather, clear skies, beautiful mountains and the blue sea. And say hello to cold weather, no daylight and lots of trees. Well, actually Oulu is pretty nice, and at least the summers are great ;-). Still, I reckon Sami might suffer a bit of reverse cultural shock after 5 years over here...

So obviously we had to give ol’ Sami a proper send-off. Since Sami was too busy cleaning his flat all week with industrial strength detergents, and chasing his resident mouse, we decided we could start off with a nice meal in a proper, classy restaurant – the Luna Rossa. This time we booked a table, since our previous attempts to get a table without a booking had all failed... Pretty much all of the Finnish crowd showed up (Hannu, Pete, Mikko and of course Sami). We’d even made the effort to get a present – a proper “wilderness man’s Provence survival pack” (which includes such indispensible items as a bottle of Eau de vie, a bottle of Pastis, etc.).

The meal was really great (and not even that expensive – 40 euros a head including wine ain’t that bad), but the entertainment was even better. Namely Sami in this case, especially when he was making a rather humorous attempt at the Nagu dialect (“Skidu överraskning” – a phrase those at the table will not forget for a good while). I also chipped in by ordering my steak "a poil" (which means naked) instead of "a point" (which means medium).



We then headed back to Sami’s penthouse suite, overlooking Place Massena, all clean and tidy. The lads were kind enough to show us their entertaining home movie of their adventurous journey to watch the Finnish ice hockey team’s heroic campaign at the Turin winter Olympics (when we got made it to the finals, only to sadly be beaten by the damn Swedes...). Most entertaining - especially Mikko’s summary of the Czech game – his cold analysis only slightly hampered by the rather long and wet lunch... Things got even more entertaining when Sami took out his guitar and the Finns got all musical (we even danced, believe it or not...). Unfortunately we had to leave the chaps to it at about midnight, to catch the last train. What a great night out though – can’t remember the last time I’ve laughed so hard.

Turns out Sami isn’t leaving for another week though, so there is potential for “Sami’s leaving do – part II” ;-).