I’ve read a lot about on the news about the whiter-than usual winter in the South of Finland over the last few weeks. So I was actually looking forward to spending a few days in Helsinki, and experience some real winter (especially considering the fact that the last few wintry visits to Finland have been rather lacking when it comes to snow).
My parents were kind enough to pick me up at Helsinki-Vantaa airport, and we spent a nice Friday evening together catching up on things. I also took the opportunity to hand out souvenirs from our trip to Japan. After a good night’s sleep, I hit the shops of Helsinki – time for some winter clothes shopping (hard to find anything suitable, my size in France…). The session was rather fruitful and efficient, I ended up the happy owner of two pairs of jeans and a winter coat. I also took the advantage of checking out my favourites spots in Helsinki, covered with snow.
The programme for the day was rather packed. Proceedings started with a musical, followed by a combined lunch/dinner, with a birthday party to finish off the day. Having completed my shopping, I headed down to Svenska Teatern for the musical - PlayMe. It was all very light and entertaining, as musicals often are. The plot, as it were, is rather classical for a musical: your typical tale of a Machiavellian music producer trying to seduce and then corrupt the young, innocent starlet. But the musical numbers were well done and entertaining; and the guy playing the bad guy (a Norwegian chap) was very entertaining. A nice enough way to spend an afternoon then! And it was good fun to meet up with all the clan again (Tomi, Leena, Sofia, Julia, Tomppa, his girlfriend as well as Janne and Katja all made it for the show).
After the musical, we sped down for lunch/dinner (a la Turtiainen) at Tony’s Deli. Blinis were the order of the day, since the Helsinki blini weeks were on. We were also joined by Marja-Terttu, Jarkko and little Aapo who have recently relocated to the Helsinki region (well, I’m not actually sure Vihti counts, actually!). It was all good fun, catching up on the latest, and munching down a few tasty blinis. Afterwards, we carried on at my parents place (again the Finnish way, meaning coffee and cakes were involved). Ah, sometimes I do miss my homeland... :-)
After a couple of games of Hanafuda (I decided to give a deck of these very addictive Japanese flower cards to Janne, my brother, who’s definitely the card shark of the family…), it was time for me and Janne to hit the road again. The plan was to meet up with the boyz to celebrate Riku’s birthday. The selected venue was Gallow’s Bird, an Irish pub in Niittykumpu. Taking down the bus to good old Espoo (which is where I’m born and grew up), I found myself quite impressed by the Finnish public transport. Buses every 5 minutes, all on time in spite of the unusual amount of snow. The pub itself was pretty good, with an impressive selection of beers from various part of the world. Aki, Riku and Jani M. arrived and things developed as a night out with these lads usually does. Meaning that Jani got, let’s say, a bit negative, and was put in a taxi (after a couple of subtle hints from the bar staff). Next, the birthday hero Riku got a bad case of the hiccups (prompting another subtle hint from the staff – resulting in Aki and Riku taking the next taxi). A couple of pints and some brotherly bonding later, me and Janne also got in the taxi and made our way back home… Typical night out, then! :-)
Sunday morning was a bit of a lazy one for me (surely nothing to do with last night?)- until it was time to head for my lunch date with Aki and his lovely fiancée Maija. Aki kindly enough picked me up in Ruoholahti and drove me back to Espoo (picking up his brother Riku on the way). As a little aperitif, Aki treated us to a brief history lesson at Porkkala (professional hazard for Aki…). Porkkala (located in Kirkkonummi, west of Helsinki, near to where Aki and Maija live) is actually quite an interesting place historically. It was a very strategic location, since its coastal batteries covered more than half of the Gulf of Finland (so one could block access to the Baltic from St. Petersburgh if one was to also control Estonia). Hence, after our honourable defeat to the Soviets at the end of World War II, we had to hand over control of Porkkala to the Russians, a state of affair which lasted until 1955. Interesting historical anecdote, that… The lunch was very tasty indeed, creamy chicken being on the menu (followed by coffee and cakes, of course!). Later in the evening, I drove down to Viherlaakso in Espoo to pay a brief visit to Jani and Katja, and acquaint myself with the latest family members: the twins Robban and Nelly. Good to catch up with them as well, it’s been a while since we last met (they’ve been quite busy with the newly arrived twins, so our paths have not crossed during my recent visits to Finland).
That was the end of the weekend, then. Since I was spending half of the week working in the Helsinki area; I had a couple of evenings to spend doing two of my favourite activities: photography and cinema. On the cinema front, I was quite busy, managing to see: Arn - Riket vid vägens slut (not a bad film, a bit of Kingdom of Heaven inspiration visible, though), Tali-Ihantala 1944 (a somewhat disappointing Finnish war movie, even if it was quite interesting as a history lesson), Sherlock Holmes (quite a quirky take on the old detective; and Robert Downey Jr. was brilliant, I thought) and finally Luftslottet som sprängdes (a worthy ending to the well-made Millennium trilogy). As for the photography part, I had great fun photographing a snow-covered Helsinki by night. People must’ve found me quite entertaining; crawling about as I was in the snow, trying to find the optimal spot for my new SLR (purchased in Japan) for that long-exposure shot…
All in all, it was a great trip! But to be perfectly honest, 5 days of real winter was enough for me, so I felt quite happy to travel back to the relative warmth of the Cote d’Azur… ;-)
My parents were kind enough to pick me up at Helsinki-Vantaa airport, and we spent a nice Friday evening together catching up on things. I also took the opportunity to hand out souvenirs from our trip to Japan. After a good night’s sleep, I hit the shops of Helsinki – time for some winter clothes shopping (hard to find anything suitable, my size in France…). The session was rather fruitful and efficient, I ended up the happy owner of two pairs of jeans and a winter coat. I also took the advantage of checking out my favourites spots in Helsinki, covered with snow. The programme for the day was rather packed. Proceedings started with a musical, followed by a combined lunch/dinner, with a birthday party to finish off the day. Having completed my shopping, I headed down to Svenska Teatern for the musical - PlayMe. It was all very light and entertaining, as musicals often are. The plot, as it were, is rather classical for a musical: your typical tale of a Machiavellian music producer trying to seduce and then corrupt the young, innocent starlet. But the musical numbers were well done and entertaining; and the guy playing the bad guy (a Norwegian chap) was very entertaining. A nice enough way to spend an afternoon then! And it was good fun to meet up with all the clan again (Tomi, Leena, Sofia, Julia, Tomppa, his girlfriend as well as Janne and Katja all made it for the show).
After the musical, we sped down for lunch/dinner (a la Turtiainen) at Tony’s Deli. Blinis were the order of the day, since the Helsinki blini weeks were on. We were also joined by Marja-Terttu, Jarkko and little Aapo who have recently relocated to the Helsinki region (well, I’m not actually sure Vihti counts, actually!). It was all good fun, catching up on the latest, and munching down a few tasty blinis. Afterwards, we carried on at my parents place (again the Finnish way, meaning coffee and cakes were involved). Ah, sometimes I do miss my homeland... :-)
After a couple of games of Hanafuda (I decided to give a deck of these very addictive Japanese flower cards to Janne, my brother, who’s definitely the card shark of the family…), it was time for me and Janne to hit the road again. The plan was to meet up with the boyz to celebrate Riku’s birthday. The selected venue was Gallow’s Bird, an Irish pub in Niittykumpu. Taking down the bus to good old Espoo (which is where I’m born and grew up), I found myself quite impressed by the Finnish public transport. Buses every 5 minutes, all on time in spite of the unusual amount of snow. The pub itself was pretty good, with an impressive selection of beers from various part of the world. Aki, Riku and Jani M. arrived and things developed as a night out with these lads usually does. Meaning that Jani got, let’s say, a bit negative, and was put in a taxi (after a couple of subtle hints from the bar staff). Next, the birthday hero Riku got a bad case of the hiccups (prompting another subtle hint from the staff – resulting in Aki and Riku taking the next taxi). A couple of pints and some brotherly bonding later, me and Janne also got in the taxi and made our way back home… Typical night out, then! :-)
Sunday morning was a bit of a lazy one for me (surely nothing to do with last night?)- until it was time to head for my lunch date with Aki and his lovely fiancée Maija. Aki kindly enough picked me up in Ruoholahti and drove me back to Espoo (picking up his brother Riku on the way). As a little aperitif, Aki treated us to a brief history lesson at Porkkala (professional hazard for Aki…). Porkkala (located in Kirkkonummi, west of Helsinki, near to where Aki and Maija live) is actually quite an interesting place historically. It was a very strategic location, since its coastal batteries covered more than half of the Gulf of Finland (so one could block access to the Baltic from St. Petersburgh if one was to also control Estonia). Hence, after our honourable defeat to the Soviets at the end of World War II, we had to hand over control of Porkkala to the Russians, a state of affair which lasted until 1955. Interesting historical anecdote, that… The lunch was very tasty indeed, creamy chicken being on the menu (followed by coffee and cakes, of course!). Later in the evening, I drove down to Viherlaakso in Espoo to pay a brief visit to Jani and Katja, and acquaint myself with the latest family members: the twins Robban and Nelly. Good to catch up with them as well, it’s been a while since we last met (they’ve been quite busy with the newly arrived twins, so our paths have not crossed during my recent visits to Finland).
That was the end of the weekend, then. Since I was spending half of the week working in the Helsinki area; I had a couple of evenings to spend doing two of my favourite activities: photography and cinema. On the cinema front, I was quite busy, managing to see: Arn - Riket vid vägens slut (not a bad film, a bit of Kingdom of Heaven inspiration visible, though), Tali-Ihantala 1944 (a somewhat disappointing Finnish war movie, even if it was quite interesting as a history lesson), Sherlock Holmes (quite a quirky take on the old detective; and Robert Downey Jr. was brilliant, I thought) and finally Luftslottet som sprängdes (a worthy ending to the well-made Millennium trilogy). As for the photography part, I had great fun photographing a snow-covered Helsinki by night. People must’ve found me quite entertaining; crawling about as I was in the snow, trying to find the optimal spot for my new SLR (purchased in Japan) for that long-exposure shot…All in all, it was a great trip! But to be perfectly honest, 5 days of real winter was enough for me, so I felt quite happy to travel back to the relative warmth of the Cote d’Azur… ;-)
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