Our friendly exchange partners, Yvonne and Björn picked us up at the Vaasa train station. After a quick drive, we arrived at their comfortable and stylish home. They showed us around a bit then served the most amazing Finnish meal. We had cheese, tomatoes grown in Yvonne’s home village, smoked reindeer, moose sausage, smoked white fish, smoked fish spread, butter, fresh rye bread, strawberries, and vanilla-raspberry crumbles. All served with champagne! Everything was delicious, fresh, local, and served with love. 

After dinner we went to the local brewery, Bocks. It is AWESOME! It was so cool I forgot to take pictures 😊 Don’t worry, we will be going back… Regularly. Many thanks to Yvonne and Björn for such a warm welcome to their lovely home! 

   
 

P.S. The picture above was taken just five minutes from our new home, at 1:30 am… That’s right, the Finnish sun never really sets in summer!!! Gulf of Bohemia/Baltic Sea. 

This morning we enjoyed a piano concert at Temppeliaukio Kirkko (Rock Church) then we went to Kiasma Museum of Modern Art… We’re so cultured😉

 

 
Now we’re headed to Vaasa! We had a quick lunch on the go- can’t miss our train! More continental breakfast fare: cheese sandwich, cucumbers, and red bell peppers. We stopped by a market and grabbed chips and a delicious soda, Pommac. It tastes like mildly sweet, grape, apple, pear soda. Yum!  

       

Not good. Not bad. Just edible. The watermelon was the best thing on the plate.  The eggs had weird crunchy bits in them- bits of dehydrated egg that didn’t get hydrated? The mini frankfurters weren’t bad, but the meatballs were terrible. The weird bread thing was a crispy bread wrapped around gooey rice… Strange. But hey, it was all free and I fixed another lunch with the other things on offer. I’m grateful. 😉

 

Another Helsinki brewery! We had delightful American Pale Ale style beers, a potato wedge basket with chorizo and bratwurst sausages, and an elk burger! The burger was really good- like a gamey Whopper😁 

  

  

 

Brew trail brewery number two- Teerenpeli. I had the lingonberry cider and Adam had the IPA. Both were excellent.  

 

We were walking around Helsinki and we happened upon a wonderful brew pub! We shared a beer flight and a pretzel with obatzda cheese spread. Yum!!! 

 

Many thanks to Elodie for showing me how to put a continental breakfast to work!!! 

For lunch, we had egg, cucumber, butter, and mustard sandwiches with red bell pepper- edible, not great, but free!!! 

We spent the afternoon at Ateneum, the Finnish National Gallery, enjoying spectacular works by Finnish and Norwegian artists like Edward Munch and Kittleson. We stopped in the cafe for coffee and our breakfast bounty. 

  

After a long night of travel, we needed a good, long rest. Thank goodness for our comfortable hotel! We barely made it to breakfast, but we managed to grab a few tasty bits- dark bread with delicious Finnish butter, pears, and a hard boiled egg. 

 

Sorry I wasn’t able to post more from London and Paris… The pace was too fast to keep up! We had a great trip and lots of great food… I will always remember it in my heart ☺️

Tonight, we have a quick layover in Latvia… Cool! I didn’t know I wanted to come here, but it’s nice! We’re enjoying cheap, delicious beer reminiscent of German Helles- light, refreshing, and slightly bitter. We had only a few minutes to grab a chicken salad sandwich from a kiosk. It was surprisingly good- fresh and flavorful. 

Helsinki here we come!!!!