When the sun is setting, between dusk and darkness, there is a moment when the light turns blue. And the world stops for a heartbeat.
With a long weekend of Vappu celebrations and sun behind us, no one plans a trip to amusement park on the Sunday when the forecast promises rain.
Except us.
And it came together perfectly: the weather stayed clear, the rides were practically empty and, best of all, the girls had finally passed the next height limit, which opened up a whole host of new rides.
To use girls’ own words: ” Everything was the best!”.
We have a huge glass terrace at the back our our house. During summer, it is the most-used “room” we have. It is our dining room, living room and outside patio – all wrapped into one. In fact, it was one of the main reasons we bought the house to start with.
The glass roof is fairly flat and keeping it clean(ish) of leaves, pine needles, pollen and dust is no small task. Not that I am too pedantic about it… And a good thing too. About five minutes after completing my task, a gust of wind brought down a fresh rain of rubbish.
Oh well.
You probably noticed I am cheating a bit in my 365 challenge here. This picture was taken by Kiara, not me. I guess the ones below should be my official entries, but who cares.
Kiara got a cold last night and was running a high temperature, so we cancelled all our Vappu plans. It has been the warmest Vappu in 18 years, so lounging on the terrace wasn’t a bad alternative.
To make it a bit festive, our snacky lunch included all the traditional Vappu essentials: sima (kind of fermented lemon mead), strawberries, munkkis, potato salad and wiener sausages.
I even wore my matriculation hat, as tradition demands. Mine is a bit small, so I rarely wear it for long, even at Vappu. Otherwise it would not be in such pristine shape.
It is the one garment where stains are worn with pride.
I stepped out of the office today and realized I have forgotten the culmination of Vappu (May Day) in Helsinki: Mantan Lakitus.
It is a dramatized placing of a Finnish matriculation hat on Havis Amanda, the statue in Helsinki harbor, by one of the university student unions. So naturally, tens of thousands of people come every year to see it. This year, the weather was fine, so the event gathered 80,000 people to Market Square.
The last time I participated was when I was a student myself. So, as the time was almost right, I decided to go and take some photos.
I gave up before I even saw Havis Amanda in the distance.
Too crowded.
The overalls are the “official” party outfits for university students. Each student union has it’s own color and you are not, for example, allowed to use it after graduation. It may sound stupid, but it is one of the things I miss the most from my student days…
I have never been a big fan of vinegar. I remember when I was 16 and spending my exchange year in the UK, it didn’t matter how many times I emphasised in fish & chip shop that I want ‘absolutely no vinegar’, I still got too much. Every time.
In cooking, though, vinegar can make a dish sing. And (combined with a few other random ingredients) it is also surpringly effective at polishing copper. Emphasis on surprisingly.
So now, naturally, I need to polish this copper plate everywhere else
Train travel in Finland is incredibly comfortable and, in many instances, very convenient. But as it feels awkward to start taking photos in a train carriage, you’ll just have to take my word for it.
Instead, I took a few shots at the Helsinki railway station. At a first glance, it is a quite a modest building. In fact, as I never eat at the station, I passed through the building a hundred times before properly looking around. Especially the restaurants in the old section are gorgeous Art Nouveau. Not something you expect from such a small railway station.
The metro tunnel underneath, less so.
I travelled to Kokkola for work today. It’s a small town on the shores of the Gulf of Bothnia. In spring, before the nature awakens, there isn’t all that much to see. In summer, it can be nice (so I hear).
The old town of Kokkola has some beautiful wooden houses from the 18th and 19th centuries, with a few dating back to the 17th. They were definitely worth a walk.
With my siblings, good food, good drinks, and escape rooms tend to go hand in hand. That didn’t leave much time for any other sightseeing. With stormy, rainy weather, it hardly felt like a loss.
In between showers, I managed a few quick pictures around town and a short visit to Fotografiska – still my favourite photo museum in the city.
As said before, escape rooms are a thing in my family. The idea of going to Tallinn for an “escape trip” started off as a joke. But turning jokes into reality is also a thing in my family (e.g., annual the-most-useless-useful-Christmas-present competition).
One weekend, four rooms. Three of the rooms were actually hard, one was… an experience… We escaped three of the rooms, but are now trapped to a haunted orphanage for all eternity.
Luckily there was drinks after.
Tallinn is just a 2 hour ferry ride from Helsinki, which makes it a perfect weekend get-away with Stuart, my brother, sister, and brother-in-law.
Tallinn is an old Hansa city and the old town is just beautiful. As a tourist, one rarely wonders outside of the old town. However, one purpose for the trip was to solve a number of escape rooms – none of which are in the old town.
One down, three to go. And we got to see some of the modern Tallinn too.
Blue Moment 