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! 

A weekend in Paris

Before starting our big Asian adventure (after the "small Asian adventure" of last autumn), we quite fancied one last weekend in Paris. So when our dear friend CoCo decided to organize here 40th birthday party in February, it was an easy enough decision to accept her invitation.

We arrived Saturday morning, after a rather pleasant journey on the night train (something we should do more often, really - taking the train is so much more relaxing than flying, even if it does take a bit of time - but that's not really an issue with a night train is it?)

We had all the day to us in Paris before heading off to the party in Montmartre, so we decided to make the best of it. We started off by checking out the Orsay museum, a place we'd both been to several times already. But hey, a museum like that merits several visits anyway! Besides, it's much less busy than the Louvre, for example.

The cultural bit (which really is mandatory in Paris) out of the way, we decided to head off for lunch. We ended up in a delightful little creperie not far from the museum, where we enjoyed some of the finest crepes I've had anywhere, including Brittany! Our appetites sated, we met up with Sarah, and ex-colleague of Mathilde's who's relocated to Paris. Great to catch up with her as well, especially since she had some great news to announce to us with the arrival of a baby!

We then made our way to our hotel, which was located in Montmartre, which truly is one of the most beautiful parts of Paris (which is to say in the world!), in spite of the tourist hordes who have invaded it, in no small part thanks to that wonderful movie called Amelie.

The party itself was, of course, fantastic fun! Most of Mathilde's friends from her Angers years were there, great to catch up with them.



One of the problems of "really growing up" is that as people have kids and stuff, it gets harder and harder to meet up for great "adults only" parties. Anyway, as can only be expected from a party celebrating CoCo, everybody had a fantastic time.

CoCo, of course, loved by all as she is, got loads of cool pressies (I wonder what she's gonna do with all those bags she was given, though?) Much to my surprise, we carried on to the wee hours of the morning. And I didn't even have such a bad headache in the morning. Is there still hope for me !?

We spent the next morning exploring Montmartre a bit more. We decided to check out the cemetery, one of the more famous ones in Paris, with quite a few famous Frenchmen and -women are buried (people like Alexander Dumas, Edgar Degas, and last but certainly not least, Dalida). Quite a peaceful place to wonder about, actually.

The next stop on our breakneck schedule was lunch with Isabelle. The plan was to meet at the outskirts of Paris, in a place called Suresnes. It's a pleasant enough place, quite green, in contrast to downtown Paris (there are nice views towards the Bois de Boulogne). Before lunch, we decided to check out the American military cemetery (wow, what's this about all them cemeteries today, eh!?)

The lunch, which we enjoyed in a rather fancy French bistrot called Pere Lapin, was unsurprisingly delicious. And of course, most importantly of all, it was great to catch up with Isabelle again!)

Felt a bit wistful to leave Paris, since we don't know when we'll be back next time. Soon enough, I hope! If not, we can always quote Bogie and say "we'll always have Paris" (not sure what that's got to do with anything, but there you go...)

Finnish birthday celebration!

Today, we'd been invited to Henna and Aki's place in Nice for yet more birthday celebrations. The birthday heroes were yours truly, and Henna.

Before making our way to the flat, we met up with Marie for a bit of a pre-celebration - Marie has a bit of a thing about cupcakes, and suggested we try out a cupcake place she'd discovered recently. I fully trust Marie's judgement when it comes to food, and sweet stuff in particular, so immediately agreed to her suggestion. And, as always, our trust was well-founded! The cupcakes were delicious, and so were the drinks!

We then made our way over to Henna and Aki's place, over at Rue de France. They had put up quite an impressive buffet meal, so it's a good thing I still had a bit of space left in my stomach. All the usual suspects were there: Henna, Aki and their two sons, as well as Marianne, Mikko and their son Aleksi.

As always, we had a fantastic time, catching up on the latest. And eating and drinking as well, naturally! And to top if all off, there was a birthday cake at the end of it all!

Great day out with good friends!

Birthday drinks at Cannes

So, seemingly all the pub crawling last weekend was enough - time to hit the pubs again! But of course I at least had a brilliant excuse, as the occasion was to celebrate my birthday. Not that I need yearly reminders of the fact that I'm no longer young - but at least it's an excuse to go and have a drink!

As my birthday happily coincides with that of Saint Patrick's, and also due to the fact that I'm quite partial to Irish pubs in general, we decided to go to Ma Nolan's - possibly the best Irish pub in Cannes. We were joined by our dear friend Julie and Aurelien, and had a predictably great time downing a couple of pints and enjoying a tasty pub meal.

Slainte!

Birthday meal at Mougins

Our dear friend Marie was celebrating her birthday this Saturday. So we were happy to accept her invitation to join her at one of our favourite restaurants on the Cote d'Azur, the Amandier in Mougins. L'Amandier is one of rather many restaurants on the Cote d'Azur that are "nearly Michelin starred" - the advantage of that status being that you basically get nearly Michelin-starred cuisine for a very reasonable price indeed.

Quite a big bunch joined up for the bash, mostly colleagues of Marie, but we also had a special guest start, Billy, from the US of A. As expected, we had a fantastic meal. I naturally had the Menu Plaisir, a bit on the pricey side (although I tend to think 45 Euros for a 4 course menu, with extra tasters in between, is very reasonable indeed), but very tasty indeed.

And, what's most important than the food, we had a great time, with a great bunch of people! Hopefully the meal was a nice introduction to French cuisine for our American guest Billy!

Party time at Saint-Andre de la Roche

We were very happy to accept Marianne's and Mikko's invitation for a dinner/BBQ at their lovely place in Saint-Andre De La Roche, at the outskirts of Nice. The occasion/excuse was to celebrate Mikko's birthday.

As usual, the food on offer was fantastic. The aperitif was something one would expect at a professionally organized cocktail party. And of course, the main course, BBQ a la Mikko - so predictably delicious. And some fantastic deserts (yes, that's in plural form) to finish it all off. I just loved those macarons! Needless to say, I had way too much to eat (and possible a bit too much to drink, too!).

Great to catch up with Mikko and Marianne, and Aki & Henna as well, who came along with their two sons. Joel, and Emil in particular, were definitely the stars of the evening. They seem infatigable! All in all, we had a great time, as we always do at Marianne and Mikko's parties...

Finnish birthday brunch in Nice

As an excuse to have a bit of a Finnish meetup in Nice, we decided to organize brunch in Nice to celebrate my and Henna's birthdays (our birthdays are within a few days, so...).

After some research on the internet (brunches are not something we generally do - in fact this was to be our first one in France!), we ended up finding what seemed like the perfect place, a little place called Killie's, not far away from Nice Etoile. Why perfect ? A franco-american, all you can eat brunch, what could possibly be better than that? ;-)

Aki, Henna and their two boys came along, as well as Mikko, Marianne and little Aleksi (actually he's not so little anymore, seems like he's grown by at least 10 or 20 centimeters - this either means he's a fast grower, or we don't meet up with Mikko and Marianne often enough! ;-). Probably he's a fast grower -judging by his more than healthy appetite ;-)

Gifts were exchanged, fun was had, and a lot of catching up was done. All in all then, great fun! We should do it more often ;). The food was what you'd expect form a place like this - quite honest and good quality for an all-you-can eat type of place!

A few days in Grenoble

Time for my yearly business trip to Grenoble! (there's been a trip per year during my career at STMicroelectronics so far - although there might more coming up this year, let's see...).

Me, and my two colleagues jumped into our rental car early Monday morning and sped down the motorway Northwards towards Grenoble, located about 5 hours drive from our office in Sophia-Antipolis. Rather than stopping for a quick lunch on the motorway, as we usually do, we decided to stop at Romans-sur-Isere for a proper lunch (as we were actually running a bit ahead of schedule). We struggled to find an open restaurant, but eventually found a nice little bistrot, nicely located by the Isere river, which flow
s through town.

What followed was a week of hard work! We had plenty to do, so the days were long at the office. But there was time for a bit of fun as well - especially as the 17th of March is, it may surprise you, not only Saint-Patrick's Day, but also my birthday. So this, naturally, called for a couple of pints of Guinness - and what better place in Grenoble to have a couple of pints of Guinness than O'Callaghan's? Well, turns out it was impossible to get in - due to the mad crowds celebrating Saint Paddy's in the pub, and even outside the pub in the square next to it. There were even some bagpipers livening things up (much to delight of our Scottish colleague, I suppose??). Anyway, it was all great fun - and if there's one thing I take away from Grenoble is that Saint Paddy's seems to be a lot more fun here than in Nice!

I did even manage to drag myself out of bed early one morning and do a bit of morning photography, even! Grenoble doesn't rank amongst the most beautiful cities in France, but it does have a nice enough historic centre, and is rather stunningly located on a flat plain, surrounded by very imposing mountains (this does lead to rather extreme heat and unpleasant air pollution at times). I decided to stroll along the Isere river, walking back through the town centre. Nice way to start the day!

Our workshop wrapped up Thursday lunch time. Before heading off, I decided on a bit of a detour. A good friend of ours, Christian, actually works in Grenoble. And it so happens that he's the vocalist of a local rock band, who were actually having their practice not far from our office. So we decided to gate-crash their practice! Good fun...

Before hitting the road back to Nice, we decided to make it up to Bastille also to check out the views over Grenoble and the surrounding mountains. There's actually a cable car that runs up there from the town centre, which is pretty cool, but we decided to drive up there. And the views from up there were certainly pretty amazing.

And that marked an end of our short but intensive stay - time to head back Southwards!

Myriam's birthday

September is probably the best time of the year to enjoy the Cote d'Azur. The weather is still fantastic, but not too hot, and most of the tourists have left (not that I have anything against tourists - I'm quite frequently an active tourist myself!). And today was pretty much a perfect September day - the sun was shining, the skies were blue and so forth.

So, obviously, we decided to grab a pair of Velo Bleus and go to Cap 3000 for some shopping (??). The shopping bit done, we made our way back towards Cagnes-sur-Mer, walking by the seaside. Our walked happened just so happened to take us past one of our favourite restaurants - Le Dame Nature, so we decided to have lunch there. And we were not disappointed - the food was just as delicious as we could remember from our previous visit. Good, local (often organic) ingredients, excellent fish, good service, everything was just spot on. Should you ever find yourselves in Saint-Laurent-du-Var, this is the place to go!

After that, we decided to just lie down on the beach - something we've not been doing too much this year. Just the perfect way to spend a Saturday afternoon this time of the year, yes indeed...

For the evening, 'twas off to Sophia Antipolis to celebrate Myriam's (Mathilde's ex-colleague) birthday. The venue indeed measured up to the occasion - Fabian organized the party at Air France's (where he works) party facilities. Pretty much everything needed for a good part was at our disposal - loads of food & booze, great people, music and even a table football!

I was quite a sight - our attire was supposed to include a "chic" or "chock" detail - since chic isn't really my style, I decided to wear my "charming" Jimmy hat (put it like this - last time I wore it was during Halloween!). I'm sure it made an impression on people (I shan't specify what kind of impression). Anyways, we really had a blast - merci Fabien et Myriam pour une super fete!

Birthday lunch for Mathilde

I had planned a traditional birthday surprise for my darling Mathilde this weekend, but unfortunately a sad family emergency forced me to travel to Finland this weekend.

Since I was flying out Saturday, we decided to celebrate with some fine lunching, though. We were quite happy to get a table at a new restaurant called La Place de Mougins, opened by Denis Fetisson, a chef of some repute (he's worked at several Michelin-starred restaurants, including the legendary Moulin de Mougins, which unfortunately has lost its luster over the last few years). The place is, as the name suggests, rather perfectly located by the main square of the medieval village Mougins, famous for its fancy restaurants (expectations were high then, since the place was ranked nr. 1 on Tripadvisor for Mougins).

And we certainly weren't disappointed. Everything was pretty much spot on - from the attentive yet informal service (nice to see the chef having a regular check on things as well), tastefully decorated tables, surprising, tasty, well-presented cuisine and of course the perfect company. The restaurant is located next to the medieval parish church, and there was a wedding going on as extra entertainment for us. (apparently a rather common-place occurrence on Saturdays!). Clearly, the place is trying to get its Michelin star. Not sure the experience quite merits a Michelin star though - or were our expectations a bit too high after my recent birthday present from Mathilde ?

Don't get me wrong - I still most certainly recommend the place! Happy birthday darling :)

Interview with Denis Fetisson

Denis Fétisson

Interview with Denis Fetisson

Denis Fétisson

Interview with Denis Fetisson

Denis Fétisson

Interview with Denis Fetisson

Denis Fétisson

Interview with Denis Fetisson

Denis Fétisson

Interview with Denis Fetisson

Denis Fétisson

Interview with Denis Fetisson

Denis Fétisson

Interview with Denis Fetisson

Denis Fétissonb

The Big 4-0

Big 40 coming up... :-( Anyway, I always say, any excuse for a party. So I decided to organize something for dear friends here in France, and overseas. Naturally, due to my disorganized nature, the organization was a bit last-minute. But to cut a long story short, I ended up renting a villa for a weekend, conveniently located in Haut-de-Cagnes (the medieval part of our hometown). And in the end, the turnout was quite good as well - about 20 participants in all.

Things started a bit badly, as somebody rather rudely decided to pirate my credit card just the day before the big party. So I had to make quite a large withdrawal to cover the deposit for the villa, cleaning charges, and not to mention all the grocery shopping. I took Friday afternoon off to get things organized - quite thankful to have some invaluable assistance from Isabelle, who arrived Friday afternoon (Isabelle, if you read this - BIG THANK YOU!). The rather busy afternoon involved picking up the keys from the villa, a visit to the bank to sort out my credit card mess, shopping, a quick visit to my aunt Tutta's place to have coffee and pick up my cousin Maikki and Jarkko, and a ride to the airport to pick up Flore. To make things easy on ourselves, we decided to have pizza for dinner...

On Saturday, things didn't start out brilliantly either. After a couple of weeks of typical sunny Cote d'Azur weather, mother nature decided to curse us with some torrential rainfall... In fact, enough rain to cut off the electricity for the garage (yep, it did indeed mean we were unable to get the car out of the garage - until we managed to get a hold of the owner who helped us with the manual override system)...

Due to the downpour, we rather quickly gave up on the original plan, which was to do some touristy stuff somewhere with our "overseas visitors" - and contented ourselves with lunch at one of the several nice restaurants located in Haut-de-Cagnes - Le Goutte d'Eau. Pretty nice & reasonably priced food, just what the doctor ordered.

No sign of the rain easing off, so the prospects of enjoying the superb garden the villa possessed were looking slimmer and slimmer. Thankfully, the villa was more than big enough to accommodate everybody. We had a great turnup; apart from the overseas visitors (including Nathalie & Patrick, who had arrived Saturday morning), quite a few local friends made it, we ended up with quite a nice mix of locals, Finns, and a couple of odd ones out (an Italian, a German...).

Everybody seemed to have a nice time, including (of course me!). I was treated to some pressies that can only be described as super: a Suunto sports watch (hint hint: somebody needs to do more sports?), quite a few bottles of alcohol (don't know where people got that idea from?), a wine "subscription" where I get 2 bottles of wine per month (everybody knows, of course, how sensitive my taste buds are to a fine bottle of wine) as well as three laps around a race track in a Ferrari (midlife crisis approaching, anyone !?). I was truly moved by the generosity of everybody (both people present and those who couldn't make it) - THANK YOU to those who happen to be reading... And thanks to Sarah, Aurelien and Antoine as well for the delicious cakes they prepared!

So as you've probably guessed, I at least had a brilliant time! The party carried on well into the morning hours (comforting to know that I'm still able to last past midnight! ;-) ), and a rather insistent headache (and quite a few empty bottles) reminded me that it must've been a good party!

The next day was rather chilled out, with most people heading off pretty early. We hanged out at the villa for a few hours more with Flore, Isabelle and Vincent (who had a rather long sleep, waking up around noon...), finally getting to enjoy a bit of sunshine.

All in all, a super weekend, makes it easier entering middle age...! A huge thanks to everybody who helped with organizing the party, for the present, and for your presence!

Birthday bash in Oslo

Jonas is a good friend of mine from my years in high scool, so I was very happy to receive a message from her sister Lotta, some time ago, inviting us to meet up in Oslo to surprise Jonas for his 40th birthday. Why Oslo ? Since Jonas lives near Ålesund, in western Norway... After a smooth flight with Norwegian, and an equally smooth train ride into town centre, I met up with Mathilde at our hotel (a surprisingly economical affair - considering this was Oslo - in a reception-less hotel just a couple of blocks away from the train station), who was joining me after a few days spent in Angers with her dad and Francoise.

After a good nights' sleep, we got up, eager to explore Oslo (a city I've not been to before). Since the weather was rather rainy (unsurprisingly - this is Norway after all!), we decided to start with a museum - the National Gallery.  A rather enjoyable museum. Apart from the mandatory paintings from Munch (including his master piece, the scream) there was plenty of other interesting art.  On the whole, it reminded me quite a lot of Finnish art from the same period. 

After this dose of culture, we made our way to a nice little self-service restaurant for lunch. We were a bit scared about the legendary high prices of Oslo, hence the choice of a self-service restaurant (the meal put as back by about 20 Euros in all, not completely unreasonable...). Our stomachs filled, we continued our tour of Oslo by heading to Bygdøy, a little peninsula located just outside Oslo centre. Our first stop was a Musem dedicated to the legendary ethnographer and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl -  named after the raft this mad Norwegian constructed from balsa wood, and used to travel from Peru to Polynesia. Quite an adventure indeed, lasting 101 days, especially considering him and his equally mad crewmembers basically had no experience of sailing... One of the other ships he'd constructed, the Ra 2 (a boat built from papyrus he used to cross the Atlantic...). Quite a guy, this Thor!

Our next stop was the Fram museum, which was dedicated to another bunch of crazy Norwegian explorers, namely Roald Amundsen, the man who named the north pole. The museum is basically constructed around Fram, the ship Amundsen used when he discovered the South Pole. A very interesting museum too - paying homage to a pretty impressive bunch of guys, who put their lives on the line to increase our knowledge about the world around us. I was particularly impressed with Fridtjof Nansen - a true renaissance man (polar explorer, humanitarian, politician, champion skier & skater, scientist, Nobel laureate).

Before leaving Bygdøy, we had a quick walk around the Norwegian Folk museum, a very nice little place, quite similar to Seurasaari in Helsinki. The concept is to basically show various countryside houses from different parts of Norway - including one of the famous Norwegian wooden churches. 

After a walk around the town centre, some shopping and a nice cappuccino, it was time to head back to the hotel and get ready for dinner. We'd picked a fish restaurant in Aker Brygge, in the port of Oslo. It's a trendy-looking area, with many of the old brick warehouses now housing fancy restaurants, including the place we'd picked. We had a very nice dinner indeed - and weren't even that shocked by the bill. 

Our stomachs filled, it was time to surprise the birthday hero at a bar near his hotel. We were joined by his sister Lotta, his husband as well as his parents, and later by Nicke. We had a very nice night out indeed, finishing the proceedings in a nice little whiskey bar not far from our Hotel. Certainly not the cheapest night out I've had - but the occasion was more than worth it!

The next day, we decided to do a bit more touristy stuff before joining the rest of the folks. Especially since, believe it or not, the sun was out! We decided to make our way to Vigelandsparken, a rather curious park located just outside Oslo town centre. The park houses a collection of statues made by Gustav Vigeland, a Norwegian sculpture. The statues depict rather strong emotions (of all kinds..), as well as portraying the relationships between parents and their children, and between couples. Very powerful stuff, highly recommended. 

Our next stop was the Oslo opera house, a rather fantastic building constructed back in 2007. It truly is a magnificent building, to me it's just as beautiful as the Sydney Opera house. It had a similar impact on us as the Guggenheim museum at Bilbao had, which we visited a couple of years ago. It's pure white shape sits very well in harmony next to the sea. I have to admit I'm no big fan of opera - but this building is well worth the visit for its visionary architecture.

The touristy stuff done for the time being, it was time to join the others, who were having a hike around Aker Brygge. We joined the gang there - I was quite happy to see quite a few old familiar faces (including my good friends Jani & Jocke, and Luther whom I've not seen for years and years). We ended up in a put near their hotel, drinking rather expensive beer and catching up on old times....

We still had a bit of time to kill before the dinner later in the evening, so we decided to have a walk around Akerhus Festning (the fortress of Akerhus). Quite a nice little place to walk around, a bit similar to Suomenlinna in Helsinki (with a somewhat less picturesque setting though).

Then it was time for the big dinner in honour of our good friend Jonas. Lotta had picked a nice fusion food restaurant in Grünerløkka for the occasion (Grünerløkka is an old working-class neighbourhood that's apparently rather trendy these days...). The food was pretty good - and rather reasonably priced actually, again. We spent quite a lot of time chatting to Jonas' mum and dad (Pata, Jonas' dad, actually speaks fluent French, having lived in Paris. We actually learnt that Jonas was born in Paris - a true Parisian then ;) ). 

After the excellent meal, we headed out on town, guided by one of the guests who has lived in Oslo and knows the place pretty well. After a couple of drinks there, we made our way to a Scottish pub in the town centre, where we downed a few more rather pricy pints. But all in all, a fantastic night out, great fun chatting to everybody. 

After getting up, somewhat surprised not to have a headache, we headed off for a bit of final Oslo exploration before catching our flight back to Nice. We decided to walk along the river that crosses Oslo - pretty nice walk actually. We particularly enjoyed an area by the river with some pretty cool graffiti that could hold its own against the best that the Mission District in San Francisco can offer. We ended our walk at the indoor food market, where we had a rather tasty fish lunch. And then, alas, 'twas time to catch the train to the airport.

So a rather intensive long weekend of partying and touristing then. A huge thanks to Lotta and everybody else for a memorably weekend - and in particular a big happy birthday to Jonas! As for Oslo - it was a real revelation to us. Yes - it is undeniably expensive, but on the other hand, I reckon you can easily spend as much money during a weekend in London or Paris... I think I prefer Oslo both to Stockholm and Copenhagen (naturally, it doesn't stand a chance against Helsinki ;-) ). One feels tempted to visit again!