My last few days in France - for now at least!

So, just a couple of days left on the Cote d'Azur, before it was time to head off to the land of the rising sun. It was all getting almost scary - but I kept reminding myself that living in Japan was something I'd been dreaming about for ages.

So, anyway, seeing as I just had a couple of days left on the, I decided to make the most of it. I started off with a lunch with Tutta, by aunt, who lives just next doors at Villeneuve-Loubet. We dedcided to go to Bistrot de La Marine, a place I've been wanted to try out for quite some time. A good choice - the food really was excellent. A bit pricey, but well worth it I thought. And great to see Tutta one more time before heading off!

Now, those of you who know me, know that I love going to the pub. It is true that my pub frequentation has much reduced since I've moved to France, which is probably for the better. I guess it would be an exaggeration to say I have my "regular" over here, but if I did have one, it would certainly be Ma Nolan's in Cannes (not really a local drinking establishment, agreed, but seeing as there's no proper pub in Cagnes, that's kind of inevitable...). So, anyways, off we went with the usual suspects, that is to sayAurelien, Julie and Julien (OK, "no show" Julien isn't really a regular, but I was happy to have him there anyway...). As always, we had a great time catching up - for the last time for a long time maybe ?

On my last night before catching my flight to Tokyo, we decided to make one last visit to Haut-de-Cagnes, the very picturesque old town of Cagnes. A place we used to visit quite frequently when we moved, but hardly ever go to these days... After a pleasant stroll around, we headed off for dinner at one of our favourite restaurants at Cagnes, Les Baux. The food was, as always, great.

That brought an end to my 10 years stay in France. I figure 10 years is long enough in one place, even one which we've loved as much as we've loved the French Riviera and Cagnes-sur-Mer. I think we'd both reached a point in our lives where we wanted a change, and Japan seemed to be the obvious choice.

But France, has been great to me, and who knows, we may well come back to live here before long. So, this may be an "A bientot", rather than an "Au Revoir"...

Cap d'Antibes, one more time!

Our good friend Adrian just so happened to be visiting the Cote d'Azur, just before my planned departure date for Japan. Funnily enough, Adrian was one of the first people to pay us a visit here (as he used to live and work here), and he shall also be one of the last to visit... Instead of usual clichee activities blokes tend to do when meeting up, we decided to do something a bit more healthy...

The original plan had been to go mountain biking, but we had to change plans since I actually sold my mountain bike. So we decided to go for a hike instead. And what better place for a leisurely hike than Cap d'Antibes. What's best, we could combine that with a lunch with Mathilde (who couldn't join us for the hike, since she was working). So after a pleasant hike near Cap d'Antibes, we started off.

We were rather busy chitting and chatting, so the 3 hours hike turned out to be more of a 4 hour one, due to a couple of bad turns on my part. (pretending to be the local, and all...). But anyway, Cap d'Antibes was, as always, a fantastic hike. That beautiful coastline, the Med, and the deep blue sky, that's something I sure will miss over in Japan...

Oh, and we did manage to get a beer in before I had my train to catch back to Cagnes-sur-Mer. Anyways, it was great to meet Adrian again!

Finnish birthday parties, and a leaving do, I suppose...

Both me and Henna have our birthdays in March. So, celebrating these two wonderful (?) events was a pretty good excuse to get together with the Riviera Finns and say good bye to them properly before heading off to Japan. Actually, celebrating our birthdays together has been a bit of a tradition the last few years. This time around, we offered to have the party at our place.

Thankfully, everybody could make it, that is to say: Mikko, Marianne and young Aleksi, and Aki, Henna, and their three boys. As always, I got some nice pressies (including a nice collection of craft ales). Plenty of good food was consumed, plenty of alcohol was drunk. Thingss were also considerably livened up by the young boys running around!

So all in all, a great evening. I'm gonna miss my fellow Finns, that's for sure. Mikko and Marianne are, I guess, the people we've known for the longest time here on the French Riviera. We haven't met up as often as I'd have liked to over the last couple few years (usually happens when the kids arrive - perfectly normal!), but whenever we've met up, we've had great fun. Hope they can make it to Japan to see us! 

Weekend in the Alps!

Last year, our good friend Flore (thanks to whom I actually met Mathilde, so just "good friend" is not really enough, I would say!) turned 40, and Christian decided to organize a surprise party for her (with about 10 months delay, a case of "better late than never" then, I suppose). We naturally accepted the invitation, especially as it would give us the chance to say bye to some of our old England gang, before heading off to Japan.

Unfortunately the turnup wasn't quite as good as I'd have hoped, in the end Nick (who always shows up, bless him!), Nathalie and Patrick (who also usually make it) showed up in addition to us. The initial plan had been to go skiing to Megeve, but due to a less-than promising weather forecast, Christian decided to organize the party at La Roche instead.

We arrived pretty late at Friday night, so no partying on the 1st night (getting too old for crazy stuff like that!), but we got up bright n' early on Saturday. After a quick visit at La Roche (which has a pretty charming historic center) to do some shopping, we prepared a nice courgette tartiflette for lunch. Highly unorthodox (a tartiflette without potato, what's that all about!?) , but just as delicious as a classic Savoyard tartiflette!

Since, as mentioned before the weather was too bad for skiing, we set Plan B in motion, which was to have a relaxing afternoon at a spa. And not just any spa, the plan was to head to the famous Les Thermes de Saint Gervais Mont Blanc (famous also for an avalanche that killed a lot of hotel guests). Anyway, Plan B turned out to be pretty much perfect in the end. A spa visit is actually a pretty cool way to hang out, and relax at the same time (there was also a Finnish sauna!). Not the sort of thing me and Mathilde do very often (Japanese onsen being the exception, of course!), but we very much enjoyed the experience!

For the evening, Christian had booked a table at a mad restaurant/night club sort of place. The idea was to have dinner there, and then stay and party all night. Unfortunately, perhaps predictably, things didn't quite work out as planned, as we were so nackered after the dinner than we decided to head back to the house (after all, we had spent so much energy during the day, ahem, resting in a spa!?). We really are old farts - long gone are the days when we could keep it up all day and all night as well!  ;-) Anyway, we had a very nice digestive at the house, and did manage to stay up until midnight I think ;)

On Sunday, we decided to head to Lac Leman, as Lake Geneva is called in France. It's a pretty gorgeous spot, with plenty of lovely little villages to visit, all in splendid scenery. We started in Yvoire, a very picturesque little town, pretty much perfectly located on the lake shore. A very nice place to stroll around.  We had a very nice lunch in a fish restaurant overlooking the lake.

We continued our exploration of Lac Leman at Nernier (I'm not quite sure about this bit, it's a bit of a wild guess, actually, but looking at google maps, I reckon Nernier might've been where we were!), another nice little village to walk around. There were a lot of quotes from writers to be found around the village, not sure whether they actually lived here. Wouldn't have blamed them if they did - this village (whatever it was called!) is a lovely place indeed.

And then, alas, it was time for us to catch our flight at Geneva. A great weekend, great to catch up with everybody again, as alwaays! Merci beaucoup Flore et Christian! 

Moonlight walk at Greolieres-les-Neiges

We have (or rather, had, since I left my employer!) a rather cool tradition at STMicroelectronics, where each winter, we do a moonlight walk at one of the local ski resorts. My ex-colleagues were kind enough to let me join them for  this year's walk, even if I was no longer employed at STM.

We (myself, Lionel, Eric and Alain) started off towards Greolieres-les-Neiges from Sophia-Antipolis, and arrived just before the sun was starting to set (the walk was a bit late in the year this time around, so it got dark later than usual), and we started our ascent. As usual, I had some technical difficulties - this time one of my walking poles was broken. Oh well, it happens every year to me, so I'm getting used to it. As usual, Alain galopped ahead of us, like a mountain goat (not quite sure how he could see anything, since he wasn't even wearing a frontal lamp??).

The snow coverage was a bit sparse, so we had to take off our snow shoes every now and then, when the snow cover got too sparse. We got a pretty decent full moon this time around, like last year, and had some pretty awesome views from the top. We made it all the way up to the of the Cheiron, from where we enjoyed the views, and more importantly, some of Mathilde's grand-dads inimitable Calvados. And then, time to head back down. All in all, a great way to spend a Monday evening, I would say!

More Finland, and a bit of Estonia!

My adventures in wintery Finland continued with - surprise, surprise, a cruise to Tallinn. Tallinn is the favorite destination for Finnish booze-cruisers, but it's actually also one of the most picturesque and well-preserved medieval cities in Europe. So off we went, me, dad, Janne and Katja, on the brand-new (the rather boldly named Megastar, if memory serves me).

The journey through the snow-covered Helsinki archipelago was quite a nice one, and we arrived in Tallinn just in time for lunch! After some quick research on tripadvisor, we decided to book a table at a place called Mekk. And boy, was it good... Tallinn is one of the best places in Europe to eat very sophisticated and tasty food for extremely reasonable prices. The food here was about as good as at Chef et Sommelier the day before yesterday, yet the prices were considerably easier on the wallet. OK, I know labour costs aren't the same, but for people coming from Helsinki, it's great!

The food bit done, we had our mandatory stroll around the beautiful historic centre. We checked out the main square, with the picturesque town hall, and visited the free pharmacy museum - quite an interesting little curiosity (and still an open pharmacy as well, actually!). We then made our way up to Toompea, or castle hill, and briefly checked out the nice views across the old town. We also paid a brief visit to the beautiful Orthodox cathedral - this one is even nicer than Uspenski cathedral in Helsinki, I would say.

The next stop was the (bear with me, a bit of a mouthful, this) Lennusadam seaplane harbour. It basically houses a huge seaplane hangar, which has been converted into a naval museum, which charts the small yet energetic nations naval history. The place is worth visiting just for the inventive building, and how it's used to showcase the boats (including a submarine!). The highlight here is no doubt the submarine, which can be visited on the inside, but there are also other interesting ships outside in the harbour that can be visited. A very interested place to visit, if miliary/seafaring history interests even a little.

And then, 'twas time to head back to Helsinki. We were nearly sober on arrival - are we getting old or what ? Nobody should get back sober from a Tallinn cruise...

On Thursday, I had a crazy plan to go and meet some ex-Nokia colleagues in Tampere. I actually managed to convince my young cousin Jukkis to drive me to Tampere with Jarkko's rather cool 5-series Beemer. We started our visit by checking out an ex-colleague's, Pentti's, startup called Nomicam. Quite an interesting setup they have, great to catch up with some ex-colleagues as well.

The plan was then to meet up with some more folks for dinner, but before that we had a bit of time to kill, so after a rather tasty burger meal at Friends n' Burgers (I say that without irony, their burgers are great!), we headed off to check out the Finnlayson factory complex, kind of for no particular reason, other than the fact that it's quite an interesting place to stroll around. We visited the Werstas industry museum, which was actually very interesting - and fantastic value for money as it's free! Tampere is sometimes called the Manchester of Finland thanks to its industrial heritage, and this museum pays great homage to this aspect of the city's past. I warmly recommend visiting should you happen to find yourself in Tampere.

The meal was great - we had loads of beer and ridiculously spicy chicken wings (I asked for suicide level sauce - you get what you ask for), and had quite a good turnout (Sami, Hannu & Rita, who used to live in Nice, Pentti and also Olli, my ex-colleague from Ulm). Great to catch up with everybody! We made it back in one piece, rather late at night, thanks to some sterling driving from young Jukkis.

Now, no wintery visit to Finland is complete without an "avantouinti" (Finnish for "winter swimming"). This time around, I wanted to try it out at a place called Löyly, a sort of fancy sauna in Helsinki, located in Hernesaari. It's a little bit pricey, but quite a wonderful place to visit. The architecture is great, and so are the saunas. There is even a "savusauna" (a smoke sauna). And of course, I got to do the winter swimming, even if the hole of the ice was rather tiny (not that winter swimming in my case really implies any actual swimming - it's more a case of "get in there, try to survive for about a minute, and get out").

After a booze filled night out with Aki and Jani, it was sadly time for me to head back to France on Saturday. All in all, yet another wonderful visit to my home country.  Hopefully it won't be too long until I can make my way back!

Wintery Finland

Of course, a visit to Finland was kind of mandatory before heading off to the land of the rising sun. As often, I had a pretty full program planned by the time I arrived, the basic idea being having the time to see as many people as possible in one week.

I arrived in Helsinki late Thursday, and spent Friday day just chilling out basically, and enjoying a not very wintery Helsinki. For the evening, I made my way over to Katja and Janne's place, where Rasmus and young Philip joined us for our traditional gaming night (it actually snowed on the way to their place, yippee!!). Let the nerdy times rule - we kept on playing Dominion until about 3 in the morning!).

The next day, I drove up to Turku with dad, where I was planning to meet up with the old gang from Pargas for a few beers. We started in Koulu (where else?), with Oski, Jocke, Tomppi, Jani and Jonas showing up. After some heavy debating about Brexit, Trump and so forth (with Jani being a bit outnumbered...), we carried on to Apteekki, another classic Turku drinking establishment. I ended up crashing at Jonas' place, where we wore off the hangover by watching Family guy and other intellectual stuff on Netflix...

On the way back, we stopped by to say hi to Tomi and his family, and check out Suvelan Kappeli (they chose quite an unexpected location for such an interesting architectural creation - after all, Suvela is a bit like the Bronx of Espoo ;-) ).

I spent Monday doing what I love doing in Helsinki, that is walking around and taking photos. The weather was not the best for it, as it was a bit cloudy, and VERY windy indeed. So it felt like a bit of a polar expedition at times, since I didn't have any gloves. But I was treated to some pretty nice views, especially towards Katajanokka from Tervasaari (a small island located in Pohjoissatama). I also checked out Uspenski cathedral (the orthodox cathedral, in my opinion the prettiest church in Helsinki), after which I headed off for my lunch date with Jocke in Bellevue. Bellevue is, in spite of the somewhat misleading name, actually the oldest Russian restaurant in Helsinki. The reason for this choice of venue was that I wanted to try blinis, and what better place than this to try this Russian delicacy?

On Tuesday, the plan was to celebrate Janne's 40th birthday (OK, a month or so too late, but better late than never, eh?). To mark this milestone, we decided to go to Chef and Sommelier. It's a place I've wanted to try for ages, since the sommelier, Johan, is actually a childhood friend of mine. And they do have a Michelin Star as well. So expectations were high. And Chef and Sommelier surely didn't disappoint! I love the concept - modern nordic cuisine, all made of locally sourced ingredients. There were some real surprises, like pine soup. What I like about the place too is the laid back atmosphere - this is not your typical Michelin starred restaurant at all. Hats off to Sasu and Johan for a great culinary experience!