Roman ampitheatre in Arles
Originally uploaded by Greygriffin.

Arles is full of ancient buildings dating back to Roman times. Each time you turn a corner there’s a great photo just waiting to be taken.

Flamingoes in the Camargue
Originally uploaded by Greygriffin.

You’ll have to take my word for it until we get back home with the digital camera: this was taken with Eve’s camera-phone.

Pont du Gard
Originally uploaded by Greygriffin.

We’re on holiday in the south of France, and today we’re visiting the Pont du Gard, a Roman aqueduct over 2 millennia old. Very impressive. It’s sunny and about 32C – glorious but it makes walking thirsty work. Luckily there’s a café, and I’m drinking a cool beer as I type this 🙂

One of our favourite pubs, St Urho’s, is having ‘Sahtiviikot’ starting today and lasting as long as their stocks do. Sahti is a traditional beer brewed in the Finnish countryside, typically tasting rather banana-like and about 7%-10% alcohol. Here’s a typical example:

As you can see, it’s unfiltered and very thick. Some taste quite yeasty, others pretty much like banana bubblegum. But all get you rather drunk surprisingly quickly. Mike & I were gathering tasting notes:

So the ‘Muffloni’ sahti from Pub Beer Hunters in Pori was the least successful – stinky, and sweet & vinegary. The sahti from Ravintola Huvila in Savonlinna was a good one (coincidentally, Eve & I will be staying there in July when we go to the Savonlinna castle opera festival).

Yesterday Eve & I had a day trip to Kotka to visit Olga, Kari & their twins Aleksi & Anna. We stopped by Porvoo on the way there: it was clear and sunny weather, and Porvoo was very beautiful and not nearly as busy as during the summer months. Here’s the cathedral:

The whole wooden old town of Porvoo is very pretty, and Eve & I had a cup of tea and some cake at Café Helmi. We promised ourselves that we’ll return during the summer, ideally with some friends on the old steamship MS. J.L. Runeberg.

Then we drove on to Kotka: it was very nice to see Olga & Kari again, and to see their twins Aleksi & Anna for the first time:

We went for a long walk through Kotka to a harbourside café, then back along the shore of a rather pretty lake. And then our time was up, and we whizzed off back to Helsinki. All in all, much more fun than the quiet day in Helsinki which I’d have had if Eve hadn’t organised the trip. Thanks, Eve! (And Kari & Olga, of course!)

If you want to see all 10 photos from the trip, they’re here.

Yesterday evening we played board games again, this time at Michael & Kim’s place. There were eleven of us, though some arrived later or left earlier. At my table we played Carcassone: the Princess & the Dragon, then Alaska:

and finally Kim & I played Lost Cities. At the other table they started with Alaska, then played Atlantic Star:

and then Michael, Scott & Michael finished with a game of Bohnaparte, a Bohnanza expansion:

It was another successful evening, and the next is already planned: Tuesday 17th May at Scott & Séverine’s.

This weekend was Vappu (May Day) weekend, Finland’s wildest annual celebration. Originally Labour Day, it’s nowadays sort of Start Of Warm Weather Day (very loosely), and all the Finns get out in the streets and celebrate.

A group of us gathered at Marian Helmi pub beforehand (my downfall, as it turned out). Then we went together to the Havis Amanda statue, where at 6pm students are lowered by crane to place a hat on the female statue’s head, to much cheering and champagne cork popping by the thousands of Helsinki folk gathered in the square and all the nearby streets.

From there we went to the Senate Square, and then to Michael’s party. I had to leave at 10pm, somewhat ‘over-tired’, but I hear (and see from the photos) that it was a lot of fun.

Then on Sunday we gathered at Kaivopuisto park for the traditional champagne picnic, before retiring to Cindy’s place to escape the cold. All in all a rather fun time!

But don’t just take our word for it: see Flickr’s photo’s tagged with Helsinki and with Vappu to see what other people were up to.

One of the disappointing things about our new appartment was that I didn’t have a place for a desk. For a long time I’ve been telling Eve how I’d spend much more time thinking and writing in my journal, if only I had a suitable desk to sit at. Well now I do: we bought this Muurame desk last week, and put it by the bedroom window. So now there’s no excuse – and that goes for more frequent blogging too!

Last weekend I finally completed the trunk which I’d spent the previous two weeks of evenings and weekends working on. Here it is:

Although it was sometimes interesting to learn new things, like how to use my new jigsaw, I must say that most of the work was terribly boring and it’s a great relief to finally get it done. I now plan to take a few months’ break from this kind of project, and get on with the rest of my life :-).

Kiasma
Originally uploaded by Greygriffin.

I’m at the café of Kiasma, Helsinki’s modern art museum. This is my first time blogging from a café with wireless Internet – very cool! Unfortunately, there are only five cafés in Helsinki with free wireless Internet, and the charges for the paid services are more than double what you’d pay in USA.

In particular, two of my favourite cafés, Carusel and Kappeli, have these charged wireless Internet services. If one of them was free, I’d probably go there pretty often.

Luckily, I have a mobile phone that I can use to connect the laptop to the Internet. It’s not nearly as fast as wireless, but for most purposes it’s OK. I have to use the mobile phone to connect the laptop to the Internet at work, as the company wireless network won’t accept connections from private machines.