Ikea & Mont Faron

As the dedicated readers (if there are any?) of my blog may have noticed, we have been redoing our office for a bit. So naturally, refurbishment calls for new furniture, which inevitably means a visit to IKEA. Unfortunately (or, rather, thankfully), Ikea is quite far away in our case, over an hour’s drive away, in Toulon, so we don’t go there very often.

That does mean, though, that we tend to go a bit overboard with the shopping – Ikea just does that to you, doesn’t it? So, instead of the bookshelf we were mainly after, we left with a bathroom cupboard, a table for our balcony, some new shelves and drawers for our shelf downstairs, and plenty of other stuff. In fact, in the end, the bookshelf we were meant to buy in the 1st place didn’t fit… Oh, well ;-)

After the obligatory meatballs in the cafeteria, followed by the Daim cake that’s no longer called Daim cake, we decided to make our way over to nearby Mont Faron. We figured we might as well take advantage of the great weather and do a bit of hiking? We had a bit of trouble finding the road up to the mountain (might seem hard to believe, given that the hulk of a mountain overlooking Toulon is pretty hard to miss), but eventually made it. It was quite a scary road as well, definitely not for the faint-hearted. But we did make it, finally.

Mont Faron is, as I said, quite an imposing little mountain, towering up to 584 meters. The views from the top are stunning, with views over Toulon, and the surrounding beautiful scenery. As planned, we embarked upon the sentier des cretes, a nice walk, but disappointingly short (nothing like the 1 ½ hours our guidebook was talking about). Still, the views were well worth it!

There’s a fair bit of history associated with Mont Faron, mostly of the military kind. It was at Toulon where the liberation of Sout-eastern France started at the end of World War II, and there is a museum here that commemorates that. Plenty of interesting military fortifications to check out, as well…

The rest of the weekend was spent assembling Ikea furniture, oh bliss… ;-)

A weekend with Nick

Nick is one of our good friends from our beautiful years in the UK. A ski trip in the South of France had been on the cards for a while, so ‘twas sort of a case of now or never.

My parents had actually got us tickets for a spectacle at Monaco (yes, that would be the 3rd time in Monaco during a week – that is definitely a record for us!) for Friday night, so we made our way straight there, after picking up Nick at the train station (thankfully, he made his connection in Paris, rather than getting lost in the Louvre like last time ;) ). After a quick pizza in Monte Carlo, we made our way to the venue of the night – no less than Le Salle Empire. Le Salle Empire is normally used as a restaurant in the Hotel de Paris (the poshest hotel in Monaco, which is saying something…).

Tonight, the sumptuous hall was the venue for a tambourine quartet concert. It was a nice concert indeed – even if the quartet might’ve looked a bit more at home on the beach than at the Salle Empire… We finished off our bling-bling night with some drinks across the street, at the Café de Paris, with my parents and some other fellow Finns…

The next day, we got up real early, to hit the ski slopes. This being late march, we had to go for Isola 2000, rather than Greolieres-les-Neiges, where we normally do our skiing on the Cote d’Azur. After the 1 ½ hour, very scenic drive, we finally arrived – to a scene of glorious sunshine. After renting our gear, we hit the slopes. We really did have a splendid day – the sun was shining, the snow was good (considering the time of the year, at least!), and what’s best – the ski slopes were relatively empty.

That is the good thing about skiing at Isola compared to Greo – the fact that there are so many more ski lifts, means that one can actually concentrate on skiing, rather than queuing for ski lifts…

Maybe the only disappointment was that we didn’t “go to Italy” – there is actually a ski lift that takes skiers up to the Italian border – unfortunately it was closed today, though… (being on the south-facing slopes, so more exposed to the sun…). All in all, pretty much a perfect way to spend a nice early spring Saturday, then!

For the evening, we took Nick to one of the nice villages near Cagnes – Biot, to one of my favorite restaurants on the Cote d’Azur; Le Pierre a Four. I go there quite often for lunch, and find it good value for money, with good-sized portions and good service. However, I wouldn’t recommend the place for dinner, after the experience we had… Obviously the cheaper menus were not available, and the place was under-staffed. So it turned out to be quite a long meal – for the wrong reasons.

The next day, we decided ‘twas time for a bit of exercise. So, after having done our weekly visit to the local farmer’s market, and after a relaxed lunch, we jumped on the Velo Bleu, and made our way to Nice. Once there, we did the usual things we do in Nice after a bike ride – ie. got an ice cream at Amarino’s in Rue Massena. Yummie. After walking around for a bit, we made our way to the old town for a well-deserved drink. Naim joined us there – turns out he used to live in Luton, like Nick, so they spent a bit of time reminiscing on the “good old times”… We finished off a very pleasant weekend with a movie night – we saw Limits Control by Mr. Jim Jarmush.

Culture @ Monaco

Henna and Aki were kind enough to give me a pretty royal birthday present – tickets to the Princess Grace theatre at Monaco!

Before getting our boost of culture, time for something more important – food. We let Henna, who works in Monaco, do the organization; we ended up in what is apparently a bit of a Monaco institution – le Bistroquet. It’s a nice little eatery serving Italian grub, located just a stone’s throw away from the Casino, in Monte Carlo. We had a nice little meal, and the prices were quite reasonable, considering we were in Monte Carlo. Nice start to the evening!

We then made our way to the theatre. The play for the night was “Victor Hugo, mon amour”. The play traces Hugo’s romance to a lady called Juliette Drouet, through love letters the couple wrote to each other over the decades… All in all, even if the play is somewhat “static”, it was an enjoyable experience – I guess my French is reaching a level where I can begin to appreciate the subtleties of Hugo’s prose ;-).

Big thanks to Henna and Aki for a super birthday pressie!! ;-)

Monaco Run 2012

It’s been a while since my last “professional running competition” (har har), the Nice Sem-Marathon, which I took part in a couple of years back. I had big ambitions for running a marathon after that, but gave up on the project after doing my knees in during practice (yeah, convenient excuse, right?).

Well, some time ago, I decided it was time to get “back into it”. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) we’ll be in sunny California during this year’s Nice semi-marathon, so I decided to run the Monaco 10 kilometer run instead (there was actually also the option of doing a 23 km run from Ventimiglia to Monaco – but I opted against it after thinking about it for about 3 seconds).

So, there I was, 9 AM in the morning in the Port of Monaco, getting ready… It was pretty much perfect running conditions – a cloudy, but not rainy, day. The run took us through the tunnel under “the Rock”, around the football stadium at Fontvieille, back past the port and train station, past Grimaldi forum at the east end of Monaco, and back along the sea to the port. Monaco being a bit hilly, it wasn’t all flat running either, so I was pretty happy with my time of 52 minutes! Only two things annoy me somewhat – I wasn’t able to catch that Swede 1 kilometer before the end – and most of all – it seems I broke my chip, so I have no official time!

But Mathilde can testify to the fact that I did complete the race! And I have the photos to prove it! What’s next then? Apparently there is another 10 km race at Menton in May, perhaps I’ll go for that next?

Birthday celebrations...

That time of the year again. Saint Patrick’s Day, which is cool enough, but also my birthday, which is a bit less cool of an occasion these days ;-) But anyways, I firmly believe in the attitude of “any excuse for a party” – so decided to team up with my fellow Finn Henna to celebrate the occasion anyways on Friday.

Henna kindly took care of the organizational side of things, and booked a Japanese restaurant called Zen for the occasion. We didn’t get quite as good a turn-up as last year; but Mikko, Marianne did show up, as well as a few friends of Henna and Aki.

As for the evening, it was great. Excellent choice of venue, the place specializes in Teppanyaki (a type of cuisine where the food is cooked on an iron griddle) – I think the showmanship involved makes for a great dining experience with a large group, especially since the chef was well into the game. I have to say the food itself wasn’t quite up to the high standards we have, perhaps, after our holiday in Japan, but it’s pretty good value for money, anyways. I don’t think there’s a single Japanese person on the staff either, but hey, the most important thing is that we had an excellent time, right!

Afterwards, the youngsters made their way home, whereas the rest of us headed on for a last drink at Big Ben pub ; a pretty nice little place with a good beer selection (I went for Scottish Ale, it’s been a while since my last pint of McEwan’s !). Nice ending to a superb night out! Thanks to Henna again for sorting it all out!

Saturday was my actual birthday, then… After a rather lazy day at home, we made our way to Decathlon, where I got my birthday present from Mathilde – a mountain bike (I’ve been taking Stephane’s bike to work the last few days – so figured it was time to get my own one – a mountain bike seems fitting since my office is located on that darn hill…).

For the evening, we were meeting our parent’s in Antibes for yet another birthday celebration. After dodging various drunken St. Partick’s partiers, we made our way to the restaurant of choice, Vauban. Vauban is a kind of gastronomic venue with some Michelin star ambitions, I reckon, serving some rather excellent food for a price that’s quite reasonable, considering the quality, I would say. I have to say it’s definitely the best food I’ve had in Antibes. I do find the place a bit formal and stiff, somehow, and also the service is not quite up to the high standards set by the food. But all in all, a very nice dining experience, and great to catch up with the folks again!

A weekend in Paris

Paris, lovely Paris! I was really looking forward to spending a weekend here, it’s been a while since our last visit. I wasn’t even put off (too much, at least) by the fact that I waited about 45 minutes for my luggage. I did, after all, arrive at Charles de Gaulle airport – lost/delayed luggage is an essential part of the experience!

After an hour spent in the RER and the metro, I finally arrived at our hotel in Montparnasse, where I was reunited with Mathilde. Our hotel was quite a nice little establishment, with very friendly staff – our only complaint was the fact that our room seemed to be designed for dwarves – a bit of a problem for me...

We headed out to dine in one of the local eateries, “La cantine du Troquet” (it wasn’t an easy choice – Montparnasse is a fantastic place to eat out) – a very trendy place, apparently. We can confirm that – we had to wait 1 hour for a table (they don’t take reservations). Well, our wait at the bar, sipping wine and eating saucisse for apero, wasn’t any bother at all. The meal was a real delight – for starters we had a selection of starters, followed by some fish, pork and finally desert. Not bad for 32 euros, in Paris, I would say? Nice start for the weekend.

Saturday, we got up at reasonably early, and make our way to Muriel’s house – who lives just down the road from our hotel. After a relatively intensive 20 minutes of so (mostly thanks to Paul & Lucas – who have lost none of their considerable amount of energy – rather the opposite!), we took Alix with us and made our way towards Denfert-Rochereau, where we were planning to visit the famous catacombs of Paris. On a Saturday – you are kidding me right? After taking one look at the queue which made its way around the block, we decided to do something else.

After some deliberation, we decided to try the cinemateque, where they were hosting a Tim Burton art exhibition – we are both fans of Mr. Burton, so we were quite keen. Well, so was the rest of Paris, apparently – the queues were again totally ridiculous. What next? We were in Bercy, so we decided to cross the Seine and go to the National Library of France – the place intended to be a repository of all that is published in France.

The construction of the huge, modern structure was ordered by Francois Mitterrand. I guess it’s one of those buildings which will have its opponents and proponents – it’s a pretty uncompromising structure, that’s for sure. I have to say I like it – especially the big garden in the middle of it. We started our visit by checking out the “globes of the sun king”, the two globes both measuring 4 meters in diameter; one showing the earth as seen at the 17th century, the other one the sky (the reason the sky is represented as a globe is, of course, since the earth was considered to be at the center of the universe at the time). Quite impressive pieces of art… The rest of the museum was pretty impressive as well...

Our next stop was the Musée d'Orsay – the plan was to buy tickets in advance for the Gallen-Kallela exhibition we were planning to check out the next day. You’ve probably guessed already – the queues were absolutely ridiculous, so we decided to buy them at the FNAC instead… Instead, we crossed the Seine and headed through the Jardin des Tuileries, passed the Louvre, along the river towards the Town Hall (Paris is such a fantastic city to wander around that we actually really enjoyed our day, even though it might seem that we spent most of the time watching people queuing.

Our plan had been to check out an exhibition at the town hall as well, but I suppose I needn’t say that the queues were just ridiculous, so we decided to make our way back to the hotel instead. Anyway, I certainly don’t want to sound negative – we’d spent a fantastic day taking in the beautiful sights of Paris (even if the weather was pretty cloudy…).

After dropping off Alix at her mum’s, and resting a bit at the hotel room, we made our way to the Montparnasse train station, where we were planning to have dinner with some friends. The plan was to celebrate mine and Ollie’s birthday (both a bit in advance…), CoCo, Aniko, Isabelle and her new partner showed up for the occasion. For the venue, we had chosen Chez Bebert, a real institution of Moroccan cuisine, apparently. And it can’t be denied – the couscous was definitely a delight, and the dessert was nothing to frown upon either. They did seem to have some problems working out the bill though – but we eventually got there...



We continued next doors with a couple of beers – catching up with our friends. We also took the opportunity to start planning our trip to Hungary with Aniko (she’s from there, and we’re planning to visit in July)… Great to catch up with everybody again, great night out!



The next day, we had a proper lie-in, and really made the best of our buffet breakfast (which was better, and more filling, than hotel breakfasts in France tend to be). The plan was then to meet up with Muriel and the kids at the Orsay museum, for a bit of culture. We decided to go there a bit early, to check out the Gallen-Kallela exhibition, before the others came along (we did after all have a flight to catch in the evening as well!). It was really good, showing a good mixture of my fellow Finn’s famous works of art, and some more unusual works from private collections (I didn’t for example realize he’d spent quite some time in Africa).

After Muriel and the kids arrived, we explored the rest of the artistic treasures the Orsay has to offer. It must be one of my favorite museums, I really love the place – both architecturally speaking (it’s housed in an old train station) and content-wise. The kids seemed to be well impressed as well. Paul and Lucas must’ve been somewhat awed, they didn’t run around with quite the same energy as usually… ;-)

That brought an end to a fantastic weekend in Paris – as it was time for us to make our way to the airport. What can I say? Paris is just one of those magic places that just has so much to offer – hopefully we’ll be back before too long!

A few more days of Finnish winter

One more week of work to go in wintery Helsinki! I did miss sunny Nice, but on the other hand Finland is a very beautiful this time of the year, when the sun is shining over the snow-covered landscapes. Getting to the office was no problem either, what with the excellent bus services from Kamppi, just down the road from my parents’ place.

Monday night was quite a relaxed night out, met up with my colleague Sakari for dinner at Fransmanni, a Finnish attempt at French cuisine. It’s not the sort of place I would take French guests to, since the dishes are a bit fake-French, and the place has a bit of a chain restaurant feel (which it is, actually). But, can’t say the food was bad!

The next night, my parents had booked a table at the restaurant downstairs from their flat, Muru. Apparently it’s quite an in place these days, so advance booking is definitely required… Before our rendez-vous, I took the opportunity to go to the cinema – I saw “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”, the John Le Carré adaptation starring Gary Oldman. It’s an excellent movie, although probably a bit slow for some people. Gary Oldman is, as always, brilliant. But don’t expect the pace of a James Bond film ;-).

Muru was a real culinary treat. It’s a place run by a few young guys (including one Frenchman), who are obviously very passionate about what they do. They only have one menu per day – the dishes depending on what ingredients they can find on a given day. It’s quite reasonably priced as well – for a Helsinki restaurant anyway! And very friendly service. I most sincerely recommend this place should you find yourself in Helsinki.

Wednesday, after another hard day at the office, it was time to pay a visit at Jean-Luc’s (or Jallu, as he’s known by his Finnish coleagues, a French friend of ours who lives in Finland. He’s recently moved to Tonttumaki, which is a nice little part of Espoo – in the middle of the forest, one could say. (that’s the great thing about Finland – even in the midst of the 2nd biggest city of the country, you get proper woodlands ). It was good to catch up with him and his family. On the way back, I even ran into some madman who was skiing in the middle of the night. Only in Finland, eh!? (well, maybe Norway as well…)

Thursday was blini evening. It was the end of the Helsinki blini weeks, which take place in Lasipalatsi. So off we went there, then, the whole family (me, my parents, Janne, Katja, Tomi and Leena) for a bit of last-minute socializing, dining and drinking. We all went for the 6 fillings with blinis option, naturally, and what a treat it was. We washed down the delicious food with white wine, and a vodka shot, of course. Yummie.

After the meal, I headed to Kinopalatsi again, to check out Hugo, a film I’ve wanted to see for quite a while. It is, after all, by Scorsese. It’s a great movie, although a bit overly sentimental at times. It kind of reminded me of The Artist – talking about the “golden age” of cinema, but this movie had dialogue, of course ;-).

Friday was my last day in Finland. I met up with Jani for lunch in Ruoholahti, and then it was pretty quickly time to head to the airport, from where I was joining my darling in Paris...! :-)

A weekend in Helsinki

After catching the train to Helsinki from Tampere, I just had enough time to throw leave my bags at my parents' flat at Freda, before I had to rush off to my rendez-vous with Jocke, Janne & his wife at Cantina West. Cantina West being, of course, a real Finnish Tex-Mex institution (which, admittedly, might not amount to a lot in a global context ?). What was pretty cool was that we ran into Lifa, a friend of ours from high-school times, there. So me and Jocke ended up having quite a few beers more with him at Belge and then Bake's catching up on old times... (this time it really was old times, I've not seen Lifa for more than 10 years!).

I had a bit of a lazy Saturday morning, perhaps understandably (had a bit of sleep to catch up on...), which was quite fine since I was planning to spend Saturday with my family, and we are not known to get up at the crack of dawn, exactly ;). Our rendez-vous was at the Bravuria restaurant, where my niece Julia is working as a trainee. Since we were having a late lunch (or some might say early dinner?), at 3, I decided to have a walk around wintery Helsinki before meeting up with the others.

And it was a truly wonderful promenade indeed – it took me down Esplanaadi to Kauppatori, through Katajanokka and from there through Kruunuhaaka towards Kallio, then past the senate square, by the railway station, up to Kamppi, where the restaurant is located. I really fell in love with Helsinki again during this walk – surprising you might say given that the temperature was around -10 ? But Helsinki on a sunny winter day is just as beautiful in its own way as during a sunny summer day (it's the gray and miserable autumn days everybody hates). It goes without saying that I put my Canon SLR to good use during my walk...

The lunch was a really nice family reunion of sorts – pretty much everybody was there (mum, dad, Janne, Katja, Tomi, Leena, Sofia, Nanna & her boyfriend? Tomppa & his girlfriend, and even Jukkis, Maikki, Jarkko and little Aapo!). And of course my niece Julia was making pizzas in the kitchen. And what an excellent pizza it was – I suspect it just may have been the best pizza I've ever had in Finland ?Nice one, Julia ;)

Our stomachs properly filled up, we made our way to Studio Pasila, unsurprisingly located in Pasila, for a bit of Finnish stand-up comedy. 'twas all great fun – but what was kind of interesting was how international humour has become (or perhaps it's always been like that?). Couples going shopping to Ikea, the joys of having a young baby come into one's life – pretty universal concepts all in all. But be that as it may, we all had an excellent time!

On Sunday, I was invited over to Aki's and Maija's place for a bit of sauna and dinner (or, as seems to be the norm in Finland these days; combined lunch/dinner). Before making our way to Kauklahti where Aki and Maija live these days, we did naturally pop over at Tuomarila to check out Riku's and Tarita's young little girl. After a short visit (involving coffee and buns of course), and a bit of catching up with them, we carried on to Kauklahti. After some lasagna to fill our stomachs, me and Aki did the usual Finnish male bonding thing, meaning: sauna, beer, sauna, a real B-grade action movie (we watched what can only be described as a French hybrid version of Top Gun and a Steven Segal movie – and yes, it was about as weird as it sounds).

Pretty much the perfect way to end a rather nice weekend of Finnish winter, then ;)

A wintery Tampere

It's been a few months since my last visit to Finland, so in a way I was looking forward to spending a bit of time in my home country, catching up with friends and relatives. On the other hand, I'd been enjoying lunch in a tee-shirt on our balcony on Saturday, wheres the temperatures in Finland were approaching a respectably wintery -10, temperatures I'm not that used to anymore...

Anyway, a man's got to do what a man's gotta do for his company, so off I flew to Tampere, arriving rather late at Pirkkala airport, heading straight to the Holiday Inn to catch a bit of sleep before hitting the office, fresh and well rested.

We had quite an international showup from my team in Ulm: there was one German, two Romanians, a Mexican, an Englishman, an Iranian lady and one Finn in addition to me. This meant, naturally, that we had to take them to a real Tampere institution for dinner, just to kick off their initiation to Finnish culture. So how on earth did we end up in “Viking restaurant Haral”, then ? (as I am sure you, my dear educated reader, are aware, the Finns are not really Scandinavian and hence had little to do with the vikings). Well, never mind the details, the place is quite an entertaining place for a dinner (I had a dish with the rather imposing name “Saint Olav's Sword” - not as scary as it sounds, quite tasy actually!).

After taking the mandatory touristy pictures in front of the stuffed Elk at the entrance (ah, the touristy clichés, eh?), we made our way to a more traditional Finnish institution – Teireenpeli – a Finnish pub. A few beers, and plenty of gossiping (Scott, who used to work with me in Southwood, updated me on the latest activities over there...), later, we stumbled back along the ice-covered streets of Tampere back to the hotel.

Wednesday evening; I had been invited over to a good friend of mine, Pentti, for the mandatory Finnish sauna. Great to catch up with him as well – he pretty much updated me on the ongoings at Tampere... Unlike the last sauna evening with Pentti, I was in a quite coherent state when I got back to the hotel, which is a good thing, considering I did have some training to attend to the next day...

Thursday evening was the last night out in Tampere. Olli had organised an “Imaging meeting” with current and former colleagues of him from his time in Tampere. The proceedings started in a REALLY typical pub near our offices in Hermia. Quite a few familiar faces turned up, some of whom I've known “virtually” for quite some time, but never actually met for “real”. Strangely/sadly enough, the majority of them are working for Intel or Accenture these days. Oh well, such is life, I suppose...

We later continued into Tampere town centre, to Vanha Pankki and Henry's pub, where the beer flowed... I even got into an arm-wrestling contest with Petri – much to my shock I lost with my right arm (thankfully, I got my revenge by beating Petri with the left arm, phew...).


On friday, I had time to stroll around Tampere and take in the sights during daytime, before catching my train to Helsinki... The conditions were pretty much perfect for taking some nice scenic shots with the sun shining over sun-covered Helsinki...