Black or White Nights...?

C'mon guys, I know how the drill goes up here in Finland but could you please tell me what's going on as our guests left a short while ago and I'm wondering when shall it get dark. And it's now 2:30 am in the morning.

Yep, the Finn buddies reading this are thinking: "Mitä hittoa, kyllä sä nää hommat tiedät" and they are right - I just want to get you not-so-customed-to-Finnish-standards guys  a reminder what the white nights are all about.

Again;
Hyvää Juhannusta - Have a great Midsummer!

Juhannus - Midsummer, Fantastista - Fabulastic!!!

Juhannus, Midsummer can be either horror or fantastic, depending on how you make it happen - or how you take things as they are. We headed towards the market place down town Helsinki in the morning. We had three objectives; get a not-so-healthe-breakfast, get fantastic new season potatoes with some fresh peas and carrots, and as somewhat last minute idea from last night to meet a person who will be reading this.

The city was still quite busy waiting to die right after noon, the market place athmosphere was as usual in a busy day, potatoes were fan-fxxxing-tastic and both the carrots and peas were as great as expected. Niiiiice!!!

In few hours they will set the bonfire by the beach cafe - same as they will do in some thousands of places around Finland. The tiipii-shape thing at the back will be on fire in a short while...

As you can see we've had a pro photographer on the job.

If you are around the last minute (I believe family E is in the more popular place), Cafe Mermaid is the place to be.

For the day some setting up of the house after the move, cycling to the seaside cafe for the Midsummer moments, Finnhits music at home, fantastic sauna at home, bbq with overwhelming tastes and - should I say - the best company one can imagine!

Hyvää juhannusta - Have a fabulous Midsummer!!!

Sun, Sushi and Midsummer

Oh baby, please feel free to let the sun come here more often than occationally during the day. Today we've had mainly stormy weather with heavy rain, rainshowers, clowdy wind breezes as well as the few sunny moments. Temp around +15 C sounds quite ok but with the wind it is not what I would prefer.

Today it was a bit windy by the seaside but the windsurfers loved it.

On the other hand, it is hell of a lot better Midsummer weather than some years. We've had some Midsummers with sideways rain and temp between +5 and +10C...

On Tuesday was the longest day of the year, the solstice. In Helsinki that is in Southern Finland the sun came up at 4 am and went down at 11 pm. The time of a really dark time is around 1 hour so we are again in the times of getting back from the nightclub with a sunlight. Up in Lapland, in Utsjoki the white nights started on 18 May and the normal days will come back on 28th July. That's why also Santa is on summer holiday...

I've written about these also earlier, use the search word Lapland on the left side of the blog.

By the way, the last time I did it was a year ago when we have fantastic visitors from all over Europe - and that was a fabulous weekend!
Thanks guys!

Our new bedroom has got fairly small window, but the morning sun hits it. Surely we have curtains but I'd want a balance between light in the room and a good night sleep. Let's see if we'll look for some other alternative for the white night season. Well, sleeping is a waste of time anyway.

Today we Finns took off from the office towards Midsummer festives. Sooo many Finns headed towards summer cabins, but even though we have 180.000 lakes, 2.000.000 saunas and about half a million summer cabins - most of them at the lakesides - not all of us have one or are heading towards such. Many of us stay in the city and we are one of them.

Surely I hope and trust the weather will be better so that we get to enjoy outside more, but what ever it will be tomorrow will be bbq time!

But tonight it was not that traditional Finnish food - we had sushi. HYVÄÄ!!!
L&D,
I guess we are pretty laim for Finns as the sake bottle is still unfinished. There's not much left but still - it has been several years even if it's 1.5 liter bottle...

It's Midsummer eve tomorrow. That means most Finns get wasted and many of us on summer cabins. We'll start the day down town Helsinki having breakfast at the market place. At the same time we can get fresh season potatoes from the market place.

Then enjoying the day slowly towards evening bbq. Let's see what we'll figure out for the day time - if the weather is good, we could stroll down to the seaside cafe for some refreshments, seaside air, nature and perhaps they have for the eve some ball room dances coming up. But we'll have our bbq waiting so dances only on our patio.

Have a great Midsummer - Hauskaa Juhannusta!

PS I'm afraid there will be at least 10 people drowning during this Midsummer - too many of them with zippers open - and potentially another 10 on the road kills so please guys let's be careful and smart out there!!!

Horror Story - Part 14

OMG - KAMALAA TAVARAA!

This is something none of us was hoping for...

And I must say this one is also beyond anyone of us was able to imagine.

Compliments by seiska.fi and my apologies for being so perv to share these with you ;o)

Kilikolutusta tarvitaan - Languge training needed!

We Finns have been extremely supportive towards the Swedish language for a long time. There are historical reasons and laws that nowadays secure that swedish speaking minority of less than 5% gets all services in Swedish, all material is produced in two languages and even all road signs are in both Finnish and Swedish.

Just like in Belgium they produce everything in French and Dutch. Hah, of course I know it is officially Flemish and not Dutch, but let's face the facts: Flemish is a dialect of Dutch.

I visited Stockholm, Sweden and in the ferry terminal spotted a fantastic typo that is of course impossible to translate - but if I'd try it would be something along the lines of "Salt free sanding blinding" instead of "Salt free sanding try out"...

On aivan loistavaa että myös Ruotsissa on aloitettu avainpaikoissa suomen kielisten liikennemerkkien tuottaminen, mutta olisiko mitään ideaa vaikka kilauttaa kaverille ja tarkistaa tuliko tuo sokeilu juuri oikein kirjoitettua...?

Tourism & Hats off to young men - and ladies!

I was on Saturday at a middle school graduation event here in Finland. That means grades 7-9 with ages about 14-16 years. I was extremely impressed about the graduating 9th graders;

All the girls - or I perhaps should call them young ladies - were dressed nicely, mainly in a dress.
But the boys - or young men - wore a suit and a tie. Each and every one!

I salute you for being smart and brave enough to enjoy the event and celebrate yourselves also by dressing up to the event, well done!!!

The day continued with two graduation parties of high school students. In the first one the younger brother aged 14 was also wearing a suit and a tie, and a pink shirt. Hyvä Matti, I've always said myself too that I'm man enough to wear a pink shirt...

Into the second party came also several other graduates than the hosting one. Smart young ladies and men, but most of them with one bad habit. Smoking.

My 12 years old son wanted to say to them "You should go somewhere else to smoke as in here are civilized people who do not smoke" but he kept the thought to himself. Funny guy with smart thoughts...

During the weekend we also had the pleasure to host some guests from outside Finland, an American lady who lives in Brussels, Belgium with her family and a Dutch lady with her son living in Moscow, Russia. They didn't get to our sauna but otherwise I think they got a good taste of Finland. And the other of Estonia too.

I also go to enjoy the scenery and great moments with great people but I guess here would be a bit more useful stuff for you. Some of the things they did and enjoyed;

• Suomenlinna, the castle island
• Tower cafe of Hotel Torni, including the toilet with a view
• Helsinki market place
• Fiskars and Billns villages
• Restaurant Zetor
• EMMA museum at WeeGee, Espoo
• Ateneum museum
• Central park cycling
• Ice cream & cinnemon rolls at the Matinkylä and Mellsten beach cafes
• BBQ salmon, pickled herring and fresh season potatoes - with home made salmiakki vodka with the dessert
• etc...

How not surprising that I have written about these too.
I'm glad they enjoyed the trip - welcome again!!!

Lakkiaiset - Rippijuhlat - Synttärit - Bileet järjestettävänä // Making punch?

Tänä viikonloppuna moni miettii miten järjestää lakkiaisten ruoka/tarjoilupöydän, muistaako hän kaikki, pitäisikö ottaa jotain muuta huomioon jne. Joku toinen varmaan miettii minkälaista boolia teen valmistujaisiin. Ehkä näistä on apua.

Tässä on vähän Helsingin Sanomien tarjoamaa vinkkiä bileiden järjestämiseen ruokatarjoilun / asettelun osalta. Tuplaklikkaa kuvaa niin näet sen suurempana.

Mitä booliin tulee, opin aikanaan serkultani (kiitos L, on toiminut hyvin) simppelin boolireseptin joka on kylläkin aika tuhti. Jos haluat miedompaa, lisää limupuolta...

1 pullo = 0,5 litraa kossua
1 pullo = 0,75 litraa valkoviiniä (minä suosittelen kuivaa)
~2 pulloa á 1,5 litraa Spritea / 7Up

Väriä antamaan voit vaikka pakastaa mansikoita ja ananasta käyttäen niitä jääpaloina.

If you have a party coming up and you wish to make some punch, here is a simple recipe that I got from my cousin a while ago. This one works!
1 x 0,5 liter bottle of vodka
1 x 0,75 liter bottle of white wine (I'd recommend dry)
~2 x 1,5 liter bottles of Sprite / 7Up

To get some color, freeze some strawberries, pineapple or something colorful that work at the same time as ice cubes.

Hauskoja bileitä - Have a great party!!!

Let's see how the rest of the week will be after +8C yesterday morning. We should expect +25C for tomorrow and around +20C afterwards.

PS Moving is NOT fun - at least when you have moved the last two times with pro help doing everything - and on top your stuff and amount of furniture has increased a lot vs the house size... I am sooooo thankful to all my friends who helped us out. KIITOS!!!

Now we just need to get rid of some stuff and find a place for the rest. I've already thrown away shoes, slippers, sleeping bag, bath robe, cups, books and so on. Next ones are likely to be a perfectly working stereo set from early 80's. Then we have some stuff for sale like

• coffee table,
• book shelve,
• 2-seated antique school table for elementary school age kids,
• adjustable antique bed,
• drinks table with wheels
• cast iron coat rack etc etc.

If you are interested, gimme a call or drop an eMail!

This must be illegal on TV - Laittomuuksia TV:ssä ...or should I talk about moving?

I've been silent about us getting a new house and moving. The BIG move is tomorrow and I gotta tell you it feels BIG when I look at the amount of stuff. It's 1030 pm and I still gotta continue to finish off - and not least to uninstall this main PC... I've been positive about SIXT car rental before but today I saw their standard insurance deductiables - the amount I need to pay up to if something happens - and it was 4.000 Euros!!! Yep, it's a big van but still. If I would have wanted to get the amount to 0 Euros, I would have needed to pay about 50% of the rental amount. I didn't and plan to keep it uncrashed. And I will.

Perhaps some day I will take the time to talk about the house hunting process and feelings around it. Let's see but now before going back to finishing off the packing, here is some media porn from Finnish TV.
 ----
I think there is a law or in minimum some sort of policy against this color shock;

This is from main TV news in Finland on Friday 13th May 2011.

Mielestäni yllä olevaan väri-ilotulitukseen pitäisi olla EU sääntö joka moisen kieltäisi...! Toinen asia joka askarruttaa se että onko lähelläkään mielekästä suomen kieltä sanoa TV uutisten lopputervehdykseksi "Näkemiin silloin!" ? Minä sanon "ei kiitos!" sekä väri-ilotulitukselle sekä lopputervehdykselle.

The flag question from Tsupukka

A faithful reader Tsupukka asked me about what is my favorite flag from all the 107 countries. On top there are the 51 state flags in US and some other countries - not all of the visible though - but let's leave them out from this list.

Also Finland needs to be dropped out as it's too close to my heart.

These flags are my favorites, but I can't name a top one;
Isle of Man

Sri Lanka

Nepal

Gibraltar ... the only one from these that I have visited until now.

PS Pahoittelut että tuo kysymyksesi meni minulta ohi...!

The royal wedding was HOT - and the competition is on!

Many of us estimated the royal wedding would be hot and historical. Well, I guess the historical approach was not the one we can see below...

But I bet you didn't have a clue it was THIS hot...!

C'mon - look at the young flower girl, she has no idea what's happening but even she can't handle what's going on... I have said earlier that Prince D in Sweden is The Man but apparently these guys have the bet about who gets the hottest pic published.