A week in Finland

Time to enjoy a bit of Finnish summer! This year, I only had time to head over for about a week, so it turned out to be a rather intensive affair.

I started my trip in Helsinki, where I stayed for a couple of days. I had a nice walk around Helsinki, as always, to check out what's new in the capital of Finland. Unfortunately, as the weather was rahter dodgy, Helsinki was not at its finest.

I met up with my cousin Jukkis and dad for lunch in Mei Lin, which is probably the best Chinese restaurant in Helsinki (well, at least the best one I've been to - and my cousin Rasse's Chinese wife seems to agree with the assessment as well). What's great about Mei Lin is that the food really is authentically Chinese - which means very hot in this case (as Mei Lin's cuisine hails from Szechuan).

In the evening, I headed off to Katja's and Janne's place, where we enjoyed a game of Brass - one of the best board games around. The afore-mentioned Rasse came along as well. Predictably enough, Janne won. All in all, a great nerdy way to spend an evening!

The next day, I headed off to Turku with dad. The plan was to meet Jani and Jocke for a "couple of beers". I arrived in Turku a bit ahead of schedule, so decided to have a walk around. Thankfully, the weather had turned very nice, and Turku certainly looks at its best in summertime, when the weather is nice. I checked out all the main landmarks, which aren't that numerous actually.

I met up with the lads at one of my favourite Turku drinking establishments, Koulu. It's a microbrewery located in an old school building (Koulu means School in Finnish). As expected, lively debates were had with Jani in particular over the recent Brexit (I suppose the conclusion was that we agreed to disagree on the matter). We headed over for a burger lunch at nearby Shamrock (an Irish pub), after which me and Jani headed off to Parainen by taxi, to spend the night.

Normally, I would of course stay at Rågard, our summer house, but this time around it wasn't possible, since there was no running water. So I ended up heading over to Kyrkäng instead, to Berit's place, where my dad was also staying. No problem with that - it's a lovely place. There is a nice sauna, and one can swim in the sea just down the road. What else does one need from a Finnish summer cottage ? I even had a morning run before catching the bus back to Helsinki the next day!

The plan for Wednesday was to chill out with Aki and Riku in Kirkkonummi, and then meet up with Jocke and Jonas for some beers in the evening. Before that, I managed to squeeze in an improvised lunch with Pete (a friend of us who used to live on the Cote d'Azur, but who's since relocated to Singapore). Good to catch up with him!

After my brief excursion to Kirkkonummi to meet up with the "brothers", I sped back to Helsinki, where I met up with Jocke and Jonas at the BrewDog pub in Punavuori. I really liked the place, it's a bit of a craft beer's mecca, so just my kind of place. After hanging out and catching up for a bit, we headed over to Sports Academy to check out the 1st EURO 2016 semi-finals, between Portugal and Wales. My heart felt strongly for Wales, but alas, Portugal proved the stronger (I'm afraid my somewhat illogical dislike of Ronaldo means I can't bring myself to hope for Portugal to win!).

Next day was my last day in Finland before flying to Paris - wow how quickly did that week go!? Again, I had a busy schedule. Things kicked off with me heading over to Sörnäinen, towards the east of Helsinki, a place I'm not at all familiar with. It's a suburb with a working-class past, which is being gentrified rapidly, in the wake of nearby trendy Kallio (much of the area resembled a big construction site). I met up my colleagues Jose and Jean-Luc for lunch in Teurastamo, the old meat handling/butcher site of Helsinki, which has been transformed into a rather attractive collection of restaurants. Good to catch up with them, even if the context was a bit sad. Microsoft had recently announced the termination of their mobile phones business, which they had acquired from my former employer Nokia. This effectively meant the end of mobile phones RnD in Finland.... Anyway, the food was good, that's what's most important ;-)

For the evening, I wend to a rather cool event called Monsters of Rock - a concert, as the name implies. The line up was impressive (if one liked metal, that is...): Amorphis, Opeth and last but certainly not least: BLACK SABBATH (on their farewell tour). Amorphis and Opeth were great (the Opeth lead singer is one of the funniest musicians I've seen live!). But of course most people were there to see Black Sabbath. And they did not disappoint - even if Ozzy's age is starting to tell... 

That brought an end to a short, but sweet visit to Finland!

A rather sad Christmas...

After my wild night out @ Guildford it was time to catch my flight to Finland. It was all a bit hard going since not only did I have a bit of a headache, I'd also been foolish enough to do a fitness trail two days ago during lunch time, which meant all the muscles in my body were aching. Thankfully, I was able to haul my luggage into the plane and board in spite of these inconveniences...

Dad was kind enough to pick me up at the airport, from where we sped off to spend Christmas eve at my brother Tomi's place. I was quite happy to see that Helsinki was snow-covered for once (the last couple of Christmases have been depressingly snowless), and the air was refreshingly cold as well... We had a very nice Christmas eve indeed at Tomi's place, with his kids and grand-kids (wow, we sure are getting old) livening things up. And of course great food - including a proper bûche de Noël to give proceedings a bit of a French touch.

After making our way back home, I got all crazy and decided to head out into the Helsinki night to do a bit of night-time photography. Helsinki is, after all, rather beautiful when covered by snow, even at night-time. Sort of strange thing to be doing on Christmas eve, I suppose, but there you go...

The next day, I headed over to Parainen with my dad, the plan was to try out the new fireplace and then have another Christmas meal at Estrid's place. Now, if a snow-covered Helsinki looks beautiful, then our summer house (which these days is habitable also during winter) at Parainen covered with snow looks absolutely magical. And what's best, the sun was out as well. This is what the Finnish winter should be like!

We were enjoying a very nice meal at Essi's place with Gunnveig, Berit, Maria and her kids when we got the call. My dear cousin Maikki, who has been very ill for quite some time, had been taken to hospital. So we jumped in the car and made our way back to Helsinki, where we spent two days with her, which turned out to be the last ones in her life... Some Christmas present. Possibly the two hardest days in my life. I do my best to keep the tone of this blog upbeat, so I will write no more about that. 

Our plan had actually been to have a kind of family lunch at Mei Lin (one of Maikki's favourite restaurants) on Saturday, and in the end we decided to go, in spite of the terrible news the day before. And I think in the end, it was a good idea to enjoy some fantastic food, all together. Mei Lin is definitely the best Chinese restaurant I've been to in Finland - possibly in Europe. Real authentic Chinese cuisine is not easy to find, but Mei Lin serves it up. 

I spent the afternoon walking around Helsinki, taking in the beautiful snow-covered views. I walked through Eira past a snow-covered Johanneksen kirkko down to Merisatama, from where I crossed through a beautifully white Kaivopoistu park, making my way up to the observatory, from where I enjoyed the panorama. I then made my way down to Kauppatori, where the Christmas market was in full swing. 

Then it was time to catch the train to Kauniainen, where I met up with Jani and Jonas for dinner at the rather aptly named MOMS (which means Value Added Tax!) - I say aptly since Kauniainen has a bit of a reputation as a town for rich kids (to call it the Beverley Hills of Finland would perhaps be a bit of an exaggeration, but you get the picture...). I finished off a rather busy day at Angleterre, a rather excellent English pub near my dad's flat, where I met up with Jani, Sari, Janne and Katja. Cheers!

I started the next day, my last one in Finland for this trip, by having a rather ungastronomic lunch at McDonald's with Aki and his two sons. Oh well, I make a point of going  to McDonald's at least once a year, just to check whether the quality has improved (it hasn't). But anyway, it was great to catch up with Aki!

Aki then dropped me off at Janne and Katja's place over in Pitäjänmäki, where we enjoyed our customary board games session - Rasse also came over with Yang and little Filip. It was all good fun as usual - even if I didn't win. 

Now, the climax of my trip was supposed to be the early "Vain elämää" concert.
Vain elämää is a Finnish reality TV show, where a bunch of famous musicians get together and sing each others songs. So the concert is a kind of farewell party they throw at the end of the year to mark the end of the season. It's actually a pretty cool concept. For me it's also a great way to get a bit of an idea about what's going on at the Finnish music scene...

Now, the thing about the concert is that my cousin Maikki organized it, so given the recent events, we didn't really know how to feel about the whole thing. But Maikki wanted us to attend the concert, so we did. And I think in the end it was good that we did. It gave us all the chance to spend a bit of time together in a, let's say, uplifting setting. Actually, "Vain elämää" means "Just life" in English, sort of appropriate in a way I guess.

So that brought an end to a rather sad Christmas... But in the end, I'm glad I was there in Finland during those difficult days.

Lunch at Cagnes and a concert at Valbonne

Today wrapped up a simply abysmally dismal week (not sure that's a valid expression) weather-wise for Janne and Katja (of course, the weather would turn great just after they left). Since the weather continued on the rainy trend today, we decided to invite them and dad over for lunch.

Mathilde had prepared a very tasty Kitsch for us, whereas I got all creative and make a crumble (well, to be honest, making a crumble doesn't require all that much creativity...). It all seemed to go down pretty well, I'm happy to report. And then it was time for Janne & Katja to head off to the airport. It was nice to have them over, hopefully the weather will be better next time...

For the evening, the plan for us was to go and see a concert in Valbonne (a nice little village near Sophia-Antipolis, where me and Mathilde both work). Jim Yamouridis was playing at the cinema - for free ! It was pretty good fun, the guy's music could best be described (this is obviously copied from the internet rather than an opinion I formed myself ;) as a mixture of Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave. All in all, a pretty nice way to spend a Saturday evening.

Gaëtan Roussel @ Monaco

I was quite happy to find out Mathilde surprised me with some concert tickets this particular Friday night. A kind of French rocker legend - Gaëtan Roussel  - was playing at Monaco.

Before the concert, we decided to have a stroll around nearby Port de Fontvieille, near the football stadium, to find a nice restaurant. We ended up in Amici Miei, a relatively authentic Italian restaurant. Apart from the Monegasque prices (= expensive, in case you didn't guess...), the place was  rather nice, with tasty enough food and good service.

The concert itself was pretty cool. Gaëtan Roussel was the front man of the rock group Louise Attaque, which had its heyday during the 90's (their debut album is the best-selling Rock album ever in France, and the fifth most sold album ever in France).

The fact that I recognize some of their songs is for sure the ultimate proof for their continuing popularity (Louise Attaque tends to get played during moments of nostalgia at French parties and weddings by people around my age... ;). Gaëtan put up quite an energetic show, mixing up old classics but also stuff from his latest album, which I can even recall hearing on the radio - again the ultimate proof that he still has a following. (put it like this - I am absolutely useless at answering music questions at pub quizzes).

All in all, a fantastic Friday night out in Monaco. Merci ma cherie pour le surprise! ;-)

Tami in Nice, Thomas Fersen in Antibes

This weekend, there was a rather famous Finn visiting Nice, to promote his new book. None other than Juhani Tamminen, a.k.a Don Tami (well, that's the title of his new book anyway). Tami is one of the most famous sports personalities in Finland. Ex hockey player (one of the best of his generation), globe-trotting coach (he's coached the national teams of Switzerland and France, and his next project is apparently to coach South Korea of all countries!!??) and most entertaining and opinionated TV commentator.

So, as I said, Tami was here to promote his new book together with his mate Juha Rantasila, another hockey legend (the award for best defence-man in the Finnish league carries his name). Juha, who lives here in Nice, I've met a few times while attending the local team's games.

The other reason to check out this book signing session was to meet up with Aki & Henna (and little Emil, of course!). So off I went then, to Giuseppe & Pepino at Place Garibaldi (Mathilde went shopping meanwhile ;-). Anyways, it was a pretty interesting & entertaining talk these two gentlemen gave, an interesting mix of anecdotes involving some rather legendary Finnish hockey people, and genuine insight into what modern sport is all about. And what's important, there was also free food & drink ;) After the book signings, Mathilde joined us as we headed off to have coffee and cake at a nearby cafe. Great to catch up with Aki & Henna again, and to see little Emil growing up! Juhana, his girlfriend as well as their baby also came along, good to see them as well, it's been a while...

Whilst the other Finns headed off to watch the local hockey game, we sped off to Antibes for a concert. This time the star was Thomas Fersen, a rather original musician/poet or whatever you want to call him. It was a great concert - I have to say I was positively surprised! I do like his offbeat music, but can't call myself a fan exactly, but Mr. Fersen is a grest entertainer! Certainly we enjoyed it better than our last visit at this venue (when we saw a rather dreadful Romeo & Juliet adaptation). And of course - we ran into Aurelien and Julie, with whom we had a couple of drinks with!

Muse live @ Nikaia

I'm not what one would call an avid music fan - my knowledge of modern music of any genre is appalling - I'm not one to drag to a pub quiz for the music round questions, that's for sure. But one of the "contemporary" bands I like is Muse, so when Mathilde pointed out they were in Nice, she had little trouble convincing me to go along to the concert.

This being the Cote d'Azur, and the traffic being pretty appalling at the best of times, but being particularly bad this time of the year (early summer = French people still at work but foreign tourists starting to show up). So with a band of Muse's stature playing at Nikaia, we feared the worst traffic-wise. As a de-risking exercise, we decided that I leave the car back at home after work, and take a train or bike to the concert. In spite of this excellent plan, we nearly missed the start of the concert. Just getting home from the office just took ridiculously long (like 1h15 minutes instead of the normal 15 minutes). We then struggled to find a free parking station for our rental bikes. But, thankfully, we made it in time, although we missed the warm-up act...

The gig itself was fantastic. Muse, apparently, have an excellent reputation as a live band, and with good reason. Really professional show, and pretty impressive special effects too (a bit more subtle than AC/DC that I saw a year earlier... ;-). So all in all, very well spent Euros!

Guns 'n Roses @ Toulon

When I was a teenager, Guns ‘n Roses was one of THE bands I was listening to (although if I’d have to pick one band from those innocent years of youth it would surely have to be Metallica). So I was quite excited to hear they were playing a gig in Toulon. Sure, there isn’t much left of the original band apart from Axl Rose, but still… I had seen Slash play a couple of years ago, as warm-up act for AC/DC, and they did play quite a few Guns ‘n Roses songs then as well, but the songs just didn’t sound quite right without Axl’s crooning…

So, me and Mikko got tickets for the gig, and booked a hotel in Toulon, and off we went, on the train. After checking in at the hotel, we quickly made our way to the Zenith Omega center, where the gig was taking place. The warm-up act was kind of lame (perhaps it reflects the fact that the star of Guns ‘n Roses is kind of fading?). Thankfully, Axl didn’t do his “make the audience wait 2 hours for me” act, and showed up with relatively little delay.

The gig was actually really great, almost to my surprise. Axl was on great form - the guy is definitely a pro, and has loads of charisma as well. And his crooning was much the same as I can remember – and it’s definitely true that you need Mr. Rose to sing those songs. I think most of the audience was like me and Mikko – nostalgia fans – since the crowd reaction was quite something when some of the old classics were played, whereas the new songs from the Chinese Democracy album incited little reaction from the crowd (although the songs were pretty good actually).

After the gig, we had a couple of beers in a nightly Toulon, and then hit the sack. The next morning, we had a couple of hours before catching our train back, so we had a walk around the historic center of Toulon and the port area. Toulon sometimes gets bad press (there’s a big military presence here due, Toulon being the main French naval base on the Mediterranean), but is actually a pretty nice town. After a rather good-value lunch at a nice pedestrian square, we made our way back to the train station.

Yann Tiersen @ Nice

My parents were visiting Cagnes-sur-Mer together with Karita (who’s been visiting my parents for the past couple of weeks) and Tutta, so we figured it’d be a good opportunity to invite them over for a coffee. Of course, having a coffee the “Finnish way” also inevitable involves something to eat as well –heh. The fondant au chocolat I made last weekend was rather tasty, and easy to make, so we decided to try that again. Or rather, Mathilde made it while I went voting (parliamentary elections coming up in Finland…). I think the fondant went down quite well with our Finnish guests…

Barely had we said bye to our guests after a pleasant afternoon, that it was time to head off to Nice, where we had a concert to go to. The venue was in L’Ariane, the real banlieue of Nice (you know, those places you read about in the papers where they do horrible stuff like burn cars), at the Lino Ventura Theatre.

The artist was Yann Tiersen – he’s not very well known abroad, perhaps apart from the fact that he’s behind the music in that rather popular French movie Amelie. The guy is, it has to be said, a bit of a genius. He’s incredible versatile, apparently capable of playing just about any instrument you hand to him (during this concert, he played mostly guitar and violin). The music style is quite varied and versatile as well, rock with influences of classical and folk music I suppose you could call it if you really wanted to put it into some kind of category.

We loved it anyway, great gig! Much to our relief, the car was still at the parking, un-burnt ;-)

German Reggae and How To Eat a Rabbit

We haven’t been to Nikaia for any concerts since my double concert-whammy of AC/DC – Cranberries last summer. Well, in my case, 3 concerts in 6 months is actually quite a lot ;-).

This time the plan was to see Patrice – the German-Sierra Leonean reggae dude. A good crowd had showed up; we decided to sit back in the stands (let’s say because I’m an old fart ? ;-) ). Patrice put up a pretty good show, and the atmosphere was great all around (maybe a bit too good where we were sitting, the teenage brats behind us were getting a bit annoying at times – another sign of me getting old perhaps?). We were pretty impressed with the good French he spoke as well.

The following day, we had the folks over for dinner – an early father’s day dinner, let’s say father’s day in Finland is the following Sunday). We decided to prepare a real French classic for them, a bit of rabbit stew (we found a free recipe in Carrefour Market, of all places!?). Having purchased all the necessary ingredients (at the local market, of course!), we got cookin’. For starters, we prepared a pumpkin soup, and for main course, as already mentioned, a good honest rabbit stew, with some mashed potatoes. With a bottle of Chianti Classico as wine (the bottle we acquired during our trip to Tuscany last summer).

For dessert, we still had the Kouign-aman we’d purchased in Brittany during our recent visit. Kouign-aman is a Brittany recipe, which basically means the only ingredients are flour, butter and sugar. Yummie, my kind of cuisine ;-). I think the dinner was a success – especially the rabbit – my dad had several helpings. And if I may say so, it was rather delicious. Not bad either, the Kouign-aman. The glasses I purchased for a recent 70's party proved a great success too (check out the photo!). A nice end to a nice weekend :-)

Rock on the Riviera

Those of you who know me well, are aware, perhaps, of the fact that I’m not into music big time. Movies is more my thing. But, in my days of youth (which was absolute ages ago, it’s starting to feel…) I did go to a fair few concerts and music festivals back in my native Finland, and even bought the odd CD.

But when I read AC/DC were coming to play to Nice, I realized I just had to act. An opportunity to see these living legends simply couldn’t be missed. And it just so turned out that Mikko had a spare ticket for the concert.

So, this cloudy Tuesday, the day was upon us. We realized we’d have to head out to Nikaia pretty early, since we both absolutely wanted to see Slash, who was the supporting act. So I left the office way early, before 4, and headed from Nice (yet I already hit bad traffic!). A bus ride later, we arrived at Nikaia. After a nutritious dinner of beer, merguez and frites, as well as a fair bit of queuing, we very ready to rock.

After the first supporting act (have to admit I’ve forgotten the name of the band), Slash was on. This was pretty cool for both me and Mikko, me having been into Guns n’ Roses big time. And he didn’t disappoint. Same hat, same hair, same guitar, still cool as ever.

After a futile attempt to buy ourselves beer (it was harder work than getting a round in a pub on Leicester square on a Saturday evening; for f***s sake!), we could hear (hard to miss it with the volume they were playing at) the Aussies were on! AC / DC were every bit as good (or maybe even better) than I expected.

Brian and especially Angus were well on form (not sure which was my favourite moment, I suppose I can’t really say it was Angus’ striptease can I?). Great to hear some of the old classics live as well. Unbelievable the show they put up, and the amount of energy these guys have! We hardly noticed that it was absolutely p***ing it down for most of the concert (this was the same day when this happened not too far away). Well, I did notice it later at home when I took off my shoes (I think they took two days to dry…).

Great concert, although the arrangements and organization left a lot to be desired (especially the slow beer service – what an absolute disgrace that was!). It was pretty loud apparently, as friends as far as in Antibes could hear the old-yet-young-at-heart geezers playing away!



That wasn’t it for me music-wise this week, as Mikko actually had a spare ticket for the Cranberries as well. So we were back at Nikaia on Friday, this time joined by Ismael and Sarah, who also had tickets for the concert. This gig was indoors, which made it all a bit less spectacular, but more intimate. Great concert as well, although the music is maybe less to my taste than the Aussie lads’ one… On a positive note, it was a lot easier to get beer this time ;-)

Renaud concert

As a surprise for Mathilde, whose birthday is coming up, I decided to surprise her by getting some tickets to the Renaud concert, who was playing at Nikaia.

Renaud is a crusty old French protest singer (for lack of a better word)... A very famous geezer, who is a bit worse for wear these days because of having divorced his wife and drank way too much Pastis than what's good for you.... (which didn't do his voice a lot of good).



But in spite of this, the concert was absolutely brilliant! OK, so I didn't understand half of what the guy was saying (and even less of what he was singing), but the atmosphere was just great. One things for sure, this guy doesn't like the new French president... ;-) And he kept at it for more than 3 hours, not bad for an old geezer with 56 years on the meter...