A brief visit at Riga

So after just a couple of hours of sleep, it was time to catch my flight to Paris. One thing I'd noticed though, was that I had a 6 hours stop-over in Riga. So since I've never been to Riga, I figured I might as well take the opportunity to pay the capital of Latvia a short visit...

It wasn't an easy decision to take, as the weather was rather poor, with rain pouring down. And I did have a bit of a headache as well, after last night's adventures and the rather inadequate amount of sleep I'd had... But, after some quick deliberation, I took my decision and jumped on the bus into town!

In spite of the poor weather, I rather liked my walk around the old town. Riga reminds me a bit of Tallinn, perhaps a bit less picturesque, but also less touristy. The lack of tourists could of course be down to the poor weather ;-). Unfortunately, pretty much everything was shut, even visiting the churches was a bit tricky since mess seemed to be on just when I wanted to visit. But anyways, I had a rather nice couple of hours walking around the cobble-stoned streets of the old town.

I ended my brief visit of Riga with a nice little lunch at an eatery serving traditional Latvian food - I had a rather tasty steak with truffles sauce. Yummie! By the time I finished my lunch, it was time to jump on the bus back to the airport. A short but sweet visit, as they say!

Christmas in Finland

This year, me and Mathilde were unfortunately spending Christmas apart, as I was heading over to Finland, while Mathilde was spending it with her dad and Francoise in Angers. After a not-very eventful flight, I arrived safely in Helsinki.

Celebrations kicked off a bit prematurely with my mum's birthday, which is on the 23rd of December. It was a nice and intimate affair, with Janne & Katja joining me, mum and dad for a nice dinner and just chilling out. A great occasion to catch up with everybody...

We started Christmas eve with a nice dinner at my parents place (Janne & Katja joined us again) - all the traditional Finnish specialities were on the table, with the foie gras I'd brought along from France adding a bit of a French touch to the proceedings. Our stomachs filled, we headed off to my other brother Tomi's place in Espoo for the distribution of pressies! (not before eating a bit more, of course!). It was a great occasion to meet Theo & Jimi (Nanna's and Jesse's young sons) as well. As for the pressies ? Well, let's just say I'll be pretty busy reading over the next few weeks - which is just fine by me ;-)

We finished off a great Christmas eve playing board games back at mum and dad's place! (Ticket to Ride: European edition as well as the latest version of Trivial Pursuit). I really liked Ticket to Ride, but wasn't too impressed with the latest respin of Trivial Pursuit (if you ask me, they should've just stuck to the original rules...). As tradition has it, we went to bed at something like 4 in the morning....

On Thursday, I made my way out to

Sundsberg, Kirkkonummi, for a sauna session at Aki's place. And of course I got to meet Aki's and Maija's young son Eetu as well! To finish off a great sauna session, Aki poured us each a nice glass of 21-year old Balvenie - now that's what I call class! From Sundsberg, I then jumped on the train and headed over to Kauniainen, to catch up with my good mates Jani and Jocke. After drinking a couple of cold ones at Jocke's place, we jumped on the train and headed off to Helsinki town centre to finish off the night - in Molly Malone's where else? (Jonas joined us over there). Good intensive day of catching up!

On Friday, it was board game time again, this time at Katja and Janne's place (our cousin Rasmus joined us as well). And quite a marathon it turned out to be - about 12 hours of non-stop board gaming (well, we did interrupt the session to eat some fajitas). We went through quite a few classics: Twilight Struggle, Puerto Rico, 7 Wonders, Dominion and Caylus. Quite a nice little nerdy session, I have to say, brought back nice memories from my days of long-gone youth... ;-)



Saturday was my last day in Finland, sadly. Well, not sadly, I was rather looking forward to be reunited with Mathilde! :-) Anyways, for the last night in Helsinki, my cousin Maikki had organized tickets for a pretty cool event, "Vain Elämää" (only life). Vain Elämää was a reality show that united a bunch of famous Finnish musicians - and this concert reunited them, basically. it's a 2 hour show where they basically sing each others songs. For me, it was a pretty cool nostalgia trip (since Ilkka Alanko and Pauli Hanhiniemi were amongst the artists - rather legendary figures of my youth), and also exposed me to the some of the more contemporary stars. But most importantly, the event was kind of a meetup between cousins from my dad's side of the famliy - Mikko, Maikki, Eeva, Jukkis were all there as well as Janne (with partners) - and Maikki had even organised a nice VIP booth for us with a buffet dinner and drinks. Fantastic job, Maikki! We finished off a superb night out in Zetor (where else?).

Just a few hours after hitting the bed, it was time for me to catch my Paris-bound flight (with a stopover in Riga)! It had been a very nice week indeed - thanks for mum and dad for putting me up, and great to see everybody!

Christmas is almost here

Christmas is approaching! Which means plenty of Christmas meals, and other Christmas-related activities!

Things kicked off on Wednesday night at my Italian class, with the traditional Tombolata from Naples. It's normally played by Italian families from Christmas eve to Epiphany - we decided to spice up the game by giving the winners Christmas pressies (the tombolata itself is most assuredly very traditionally Napoletan, dating back to 1734). The Tombolata is a bit like an Italian version of bingo, except that the various numbers have themes/stories from Naples associated with them (which means that the playing board has some nice piccies on it). It was all rather good fun - and to boot I won some nice noughat to bring home as well!

The next day, we had our team Christmas meal. We went to the usual team meal restaurant, that is to say the Provencal Golf, which is just down the road from the office. It's a nice enough place for a meal, although nothing to write home about. I do like their desert buffet ;) Nice to have a bit of a get-together before heading off on holidays though - and sadly an occasion to say bye to some of the sub-contractors who won't be coming back in 2014... (cost-cutting, that's the name of the day these days...).

In the evening, I was quite looking forward to seeing Romeo & Juliet at the new theatre in Antibes. Was quite looking forward to seeing Julie and Aurelien as well. Things started off promisingly enough with an aperitif and light meal at the theatre restaurant. The play however, was what could be referred to as a disaster. I'm a big fan of Shakespeare, and while I don't mind modern versions of his plays (I quite liked the Baz Luhrman adaptation of this very same play, for example), but when it's modernized like this, no thanks... I think Shakespeare is of course best enjoyed in English, but translating the bard's text into French slang is not a good idea, if you ask me... Not only that, but we actually found the actors poor as well. So to cut a long story short, we made the unanimous decision to bugger off before the end of the play. That's a first one for me. What shocked us was that the play actually had pretty good (if mixed) reviews on the internet. Am I becoming an old fart ? That's something to ponder over the Christmas holidays...

Sushi time in Nice!

If you're one of the luck few regular readers of this blog, you may have noticed me and Mathilde have developed a bit of a passion (or perhaps even obsession?) with Japan. We've even started to study Japanese! So, this particular Saturday, we decided to head into Nice and try out what is supposedly the best Sushi bar in Nice (or, according to some, in all of France!).

We started off, though, by checking out La Coulée verte, a rather big urban project that involved transforming a rather uninspiring part of Nice (located next to the old town) into a 12 hectar zone of greenlands and water, reaching from the modern art museum down to the sea. In spite of the unsurprising delays, the end result is rather pleasing, I must say! (and judging from the number of people walking around the Coulee Verte, quite a few people seem to agree).

And now, to the essentials, meaning Yuzu sushi bar. The place itself is rather unassuming, with a rather simple decor (which is quite appropriate for a Japanese restaurant). The famous sushi magician, Keiji Sakaguchi, prepares the sushi behind the bar. Apparently Mr. Sakaguchi is quite a famous chef - he worked at the first "real" Japanese restaurant in France, apparently, already in the 70's.

So how was it ? I would say the sushi were just as good as anything I've had in Japan, which is about as much praise as one can give, I suppose. A bit pricier over here in France, though... But no complaints about that, we absolutely loved this place. I highly recommend this place over the plentiful rather non-Japanese  sushi bars that are popping up around Nice...

Hike around Cap-Ferrat

Winter on the Cote d'Azur is some
thing altogether different from what a Finn like me is used to... It's during those winter months that you really reflect on how good life can be on the Cote d'Azur. One of the nicest ways to spend a nice, sunny winter day on the Cote d'Azur is one of the plenty coastal hikes that dot the coastline (it's surprising, how good the hiking is, considering how much of the coastline is built up).

Those coastal hikes really let you appreciate that bright, clear wintery sky, lit up by the Mediterranean sun (the sky gets a bit hazy in the summer, typically...). And of course there is the beautiful Mediterranean itself, in it's azure splendour! We've not been doing that many hikes this year (we must be getting old or something?) but this Saturday, we decided to give it a go!

We picked on of our favourite coastal walks, that we've not done for a while; the one around Cap Ferrat. All the three Caps on the Riviera (Cap-Ferrat, Cap d'Antibes and Cap-Martin) are great to walk around, but Cap-Ferrat is our favourite, I reckon. The walk up to the cap itself, along the Baie de Villefranche, is fantastic in its own right, with splendid views whichever way you look. And Cap-Ferrat itself is perhaps the least built-up of the Caps (but you do get a glimpse of the magnificent villas behind the high fences here and there...).

We walked all the way from Villefranche-sur-Mer train station, around Cap-Ferrat, all the way to Beaulieu-sur-Mer train station. Quite a fabulous way to spend a Saturday afternoon, I must say!

Cabaret Burlesque

One good thing about working in France is that you get pretty good perks aside from the salary. My current employer, STMicroelectronics, is quite a traditional French company (or rather, Franco-Italian), and so the perks are particularly good, with plenty of activities available. And there is the Christmas party!

We did the one for adults, obviously (there is one for kids too) - which involved a meal, some semi-nude ladies dancing for us, a magician and a stand-up comedian/voice imitator. Sounds good, eh? (the name of the place - Cabaret Burlesque, sounded rather promising too!)

Things didn't start out too promisingly - the place was hidden away off the beaten path in Saint-Laurent-du-Var, near the motorway exit, the welcome cocktail seemed rather woefully short of alcohol, and the meal was probably heated up in a microwave oven. However, as we had a few glasses of wine, and the show started, we got kind of pulled in by it.

Yes, the voice over comedian guy's jokes were well tacky - but we were pretty impressed with his selection of voice imitations (80's seems to be his speciality). And of course, no complaints from me about lovely young ladies dressing up as nurses  and dancing for us. The magician was pretty good too - mixing humour with some genuinely impressive tricks! And then there was, strangely, a huge lion's head in the car park - no idea who had the idea to put that there!?

We didn't stick around for the dancing, which apparently lasted until 2:30 in the morning - but walked away rather positively surprised and happy!

A busy weekend on the Cote d'Azur

We kicked off our weekend with a visit to one of our favourite Japanese restaurants on the Cote d'Azur, and currently our local favourite in Cagnes-sur-Mer, Yoko. We just love this place - it's authentically Japanese, reasonably priced (for a Japanese restaurant, that is...), and the food is absolutely delicious. And the waitress-chef is just lovely as well. As always, we really enjoyed our meal here this night.We'll be back, that's for sure!

The next day, we'd been invited over for dinner to Claire and Antoine's place over in Carros. The usual suspects were present, that is to say Claire, Antoine, the kids, Julie, Aurelien and Sarah. Me and Mathilde had spent quite a lot of the afternoon preparing home-made crisps from various suitable vegetables I managed to find at the farmer's market (potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, beetroot...). Quite a lot of effort for something that was a little bit disappointing, I have to say. I think I'll just buy my crisps at the super-market the next time... ;) The meal itself was delicious, as always. This time around, sauercrout & sausages were on the menu - yummie... Great to catch up with everybody as well!

On Sunday, it was time for the crazy Finn to take part in the yearly Cagnes-sur-Mer Christmas swim. Well, the temperature was a rather humane 16.5, so not that much craziness was required, really. Good fun, all in all, it got pretty crowded on the beach, with 300 participants (ranging from an age of 12 months to 93 years!).

And I even got the shake the mayor's hand, as he handed me the certificate! I think I might just do another winter swim a bit later on, it was pretty refreshing!