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 ;)