Week 31: Helsinki and Virrat

This week we spent a few more days in Helsinki, capturing the best the city offers in the summer. Events, food, nature, even beautiful abandoned buildings! The rest of the week we spent on a cottage with my family, going to sauna and having bbq's in the evenings and doing a few road trips.

Welcome to our weekly recap! This one's for July 31st - August 6th, which is week 31, 2014.

Memorable moment: Walking around Kruunuvuori, an area of abandoned villas in Helsinki. It's a hauntingly beautiful place, old glory taken over by nature and graffiti.

Food love: The World Bites festival at Teurastamo (Helsinki) offered a big variety of international food. We tried burgers, satay chicken skewers, thai chili con carne, and my personal favorite Rullas, vietnamese rolls with a twist.

Surprise of the week: Together with my sister's family we visited Flowpark in Ähtäri. It's an adventure park built high up in trees, offering different courses between them. We ended up bruised and with sore muscles, but it was definitely fun enough to be worth it. And what was the surprise part? Just the fact that I was able to do it!

Tip of the week: The Ateneum art museum is a must place to visit in Helsinki, especially if they have a good exhibition going on. And now they definitely do, with the comprehensice Tove Jansson 100th anniversary exhibition. Not only did she create the amazing Moomins, but she created plenty of other interestng art. - Haven't heard of Moomins? It's about time you check them out! And not the Japanese cartoon but the original books, or even better the comic strips. So good! Moominpappa & Moominmamma are my role models.

“Just think, never to be glad or disappointed. Never to like anyone and get cross at him and forgive him. Never to sleep or feel cold, never to make a mistake and have a stomach-ache and be cured from it, never to have a birthday party, drink beer, and have a bad conscience…
How terrible.” (Tove Jansson)

Workwise: Antti is still crazy busy with work, so I'm doing another Weekly Recap on the row. We are finishing couple of projects at the moment, and starting others, and all of them require our (though more of Antti's) time. Antti should be getting his life back in a week or two, when this transition period is over.

Random thought: I need new shoes, something that could take me from city streets to hiking paths, from a business meeting to a sightseeing tour. I'm not sure what to buy, so I keep staring at people's feet for inspiration.

What I've learned: It's good to do things differently once in a while. On Saturday we were at the Kallio Block Party, which took over the streets of the neighbourhood. Everything looks so different when you're sitting down in the middle of tram tracks and having a few beers.