Quick post-xmas visit in Finland

After a Christmas spent in La Rochelle, I still had enough holidays to briefly pop over to Finland, which I was happy to do. As I was only staying for 3 days and a bit, the program was going to be rather tight, as I was trying to squeeze in meeting as many people as possible.

We started off with a post-Christmas meal at Tomi's place back at Haravakuja. It was great, as always, great to see everybody, including Nanna, Tomppa, their kids and Julia, my dear niece. I naturally ate way too much...

The next day, I was planning to meet Janne, Tomi and my dad in Kallio, where we were planning on having lunch in Oiva, a traditional Kallio haunt located on Porthaniankatu. I decided to walk down to the restaurant with dad - I really love walking around Helsinki. It was particularly nice on a cold, sunny winter day we were lucky enough to experience. A pity there wasn't any snow, though...

Our panoramic stroll took us by the railroad station, through Kaisanniemi park (with the botanical gardens), past Hakaniemen Tori, up Kolmas Linja to the restaurant. Lovely little stroll! The meal itself was your typical Finnish luncheon restaurant buffet deal - pretty good quality. I liked the place - unpretentious, with a retro feel, with a nice mixed clientèle of Kallio hipsters, local old-timers and office workers having their lunch there.

The next day, I had the foolish idea to go for yet another Christmas swim. Clearly, the La Rochelle experience wasn't enough... My dad was foolish enough to join me. We decided to head to Löyly, a fancy new seaside sauna opened a couple of years ago, a pretty trendy place these days, apparently. It's a place I've wanted to check out for some time. It felt like a pretty good plan, since it would've allowed us to combine a nice hot sauna bath with the rather wintery dip in the Baltic. 

Alas, though, Löyly was closed, so we only went for the icy dip in the Baltic part of the plan. Still, a lovely experience - the views from the sea are pretty lovely, and the sunny weather actually made the experience significantly more enjoyable than my swim in La Rochelle. 

The mandatory foolish swim bit done, I decided to walk to Kallio again, where I was meeting Janne, Katja, Yang and Rasse for some escape room action. The walk was lovely, as it was the day before - this time taking me through Eira, past Johanneskirkko, Esplanaadi, the Senate Square and so forth. Each time I walk around Helsinki, I get quite nostalgic and a bit regretful about not living there (the feeling of regret is usually quickly dispelled when I compare the Finnish weather to the Cote d'Azur weather between September and April....).

We did better in the Escape Room than last year (when I had a go at it with Janne and Katja) - we managed to escape with minutes to spare! Yoppii! After a nice lunch in my favourite Middle Eeastern restaurant in Kallio, Sandro, we headed off to Janne and Katja's place, where we had one of our nerdy, and very enjoyably board game nights. 

And then, alas, the next day, it was time to fly back to France. It was short, but oh so sweet!