Hyvää Juhannusta!

So it was Juhannus last Saturday. Or as the Swedes would say: Midsommar. Which might be more familiar to all the IKEA shoppers out there. In Denmark and Norway it's called St. Hans. So well it's all the same in the end.

And it's the same tradition i would say in most of these countries. You light bonfires on the lakes, go to dances (mostly the older generations), spend time with family and friends at your summer cottage. Have lots of bbqed food and even more to drink, go to sauna (at least here in FIN) and just have a good free day.

Juhannus starts already Friday evening like all mayor holidays here so the shops were closed by Friday afternoon and the city almost completely empty by Friday evening. It is like the whole country is outside in the countryside and the cities are practically dead!

Speaking of dead, Juhannus is also a day were a lot of people die here, either because they drown since they are so drunk, burn because the are drunk while dealing with the Juhannus fires or just have other accidents because of alcohol abuse. Although this year the number of people who died on Juhannus was pretty low with 'just' 9 people. Last year there were 23!

That's why I'm happy that me and my friends don't drink so we had nothing to worry about. I was invited to go on Saturday afternoon which a bunch of friends to the mökki (cottage) of a befriended family. We had a wonderful time with playing games, eating good food and just enjoying the good company. Unfortunately the mosquitoes enjoyed my company as well. During the 4 hours we were outside I was bitten by around 40 mosquito and ants. I counted the bites afterwards! My legs really look like a crumb cake! So bad. But besides that It was a lot of fun.

Parental visit in May

So in May my parents and my sis were here in Finland for a week. After 5 days I managed to 'escape'. :D Well or something like that. But the time together wasn't as bad as i expected. It was nice not to be the 'evil' daughter for a change. ;) My sister hasn't been the nicest person since I moved out almost 7 years ago but since she moved out a month ago, she thinks she knows everything better. Yeah, sure!

Anyway, we went to Fiskars, a little village which is famous for it's knives and scissors. Then we haded to Hämeenlinna and Lahti on the second day. Spend a relaxing Sunday at the cottage and tried to find some weird submarine place somewhere at the southern coast on a very rainy Monday. We got lost of course and ended at a military base. Well that is so typical my parents no car atlas, no real travel guide just some vague description and then they think I should know everything. Jeah, because I drove with a car on every little street in Finland. Sure! Anyway, my sort of last full day with my family was spend in Porvoo, a gorgeous little town 40km east of Helsinki. On my b-day we went back to Turku, ate in the Viking restaurant Harald (but didn't get the funny Viking hats as friends of mine did a couple of days before us). Afterwards we had a little walk on beautiful Ruissalo, the island located right in front of the harbor of Turku. Then I got rid of my parents for 1 1/2 days until Friday, when they came after my last exam, to pick up most of my stuff to drive back to Germany. Since then I have white walls again, been sleeping in a sleeping bag and have practically no clothes to wear (not that it was much different before :P). So now I'm sort of counting the days till June 30th, when I go back to Germany.




And after that? Seriously I don't know, so please everybody stop asking me!


Enjoy the pics from my travels in May.