Week 25: Karkunkylä

This was the week of Midsummer. This year the longest day of the year actually was right on Midsummer day, Saturday. We also had a small vacation from each other as we've lately been together all the time (literally). We chose quite a bit different ways of celebrating the Summer solstice. Mirje went to a heavy metal festival, I went to countryside where I spent a quiet, traditional St. John's day, juhannus, with my family.

Welcome to our weekly recap! This one's for June 19th-25th, which is week 25, 2014.

Workwise: Working at our parent's summer place has been a little confusing, because I've usually been here for vacation before. The place is the same, but the mindset totally different. Enjoying it very much though (well, the internet connection could be better..).

What did I learn: Finland is said to be a country of thousands of lakes, 187 888 to be exact, according to Wikipedia. I thought it was quite a lot until I heard that Canada has over three million lakes.

Food love: Summer is the time for barbecue. The traditional Finnish barbecue is mostly sausages in the end of a stick, on an open flame. Luckily, there's been some serious progress in the equipment and diversification in the food selection.

Surprise of the week: Everybody here is talking about how horrible the weather is. While the cold and rainy weather has indeed been surprising, what has surprised me even more, is that I didn't really mind.

Tip of the week: If you are looking for a spouse, you can take advantage of the Midsummer magic. The spells involve picking up flowers and putting them under your pillow or rolling over naked in a rye field. Most of the spells are traditionally for the ladies, but I guess that in these days of gender equality guys can do them too.

Random thought: It's also a tradition for the media to get headlines about how many casualties, especially people drown, there are midsummer weekend. This year there was apparently one drown, the "normal" being closer to ten. That, and violence, tend to be inversely correlated to the air temperature, especially in the Summer.

Most memorable moment: This was the coldest Midsummer ever (did I already mention the weather?). The weather is not that great every year, but I don't think I remember ever seeing a hailstorm before. I'm probably going to remember this as "the Midsummer when it was snowing". Or hopefully there's not going to be many more of these too soon. They said Helsinki had its coldest Midsummer in 30 years. (Mirje: And remember that Antti was staying in a house. I was camping in a forest for 3 nights. Woke up to a hailstorm one of the mornings... No matter how much clothes I wore (7 layers of shirts) and how much I drank (quite a few beers), a big bonfire would have been a welcome sight. Otherwise my midsummer was all good, filled with dear friends, stupid jokes and great gigs.)

Our summer getaway.