One Weekend: Family Reunion, Engagement Party, Mothers' Day and Sunshine

This gorgeous summer weather already in May (yes, up in these latitudes it’s a rarety that May is warm and sunny, usually we can expect snow any minute) is making me nuts! I’m so happy, I feel like a balloon that’s too full of helium on the brink of exploding. Any moment I might just jump up from my work chair and start climbing the walls and laugh uncontrollably without any proper reason. Just because I feel like it and it’s this woooonderful warmth and sunshine that is doing it to me!

Last week I traveled home to Turku on the first morning boat. I was sooo tired and as always also quite grumpy. Before 10AM is just too early to be expected to be jolly about anything. But sitting there on the view deck at the front of the ship, watching the sun rise from the East and two swans flying diagonally past the front of the ship no matter how tired and grumpy, I smiled to myself.

On Thursday morning me and my brother and his girlfriend drove to the Turku Archipelago to a family reunion. My mum’s family is mostly Swedish-Finnish and they come from Nauvo. It is a wide family, since my mum's grandmother had altogether 15 children and was rewarded by the President for such an achievement. So my mum has a lot of cousins, but we don't keep in touch with them really. Some of them don’t speak any Finnish, especially the ones who live in and had traveled from Sweden. Even though we didn’t get much closer to our relations the day was absolutely beautiful and there is nothing so pretty as Turku Archipelago on a sunny day. Friday was a regular working day but is there any better place for home office than our summer house’s terrace in the sunshine? No there isn’t.

We had the little hairballs over for the weekend again, as usually. And since it was a nice day me and mum decided to walk the 5-6km to the city center to see the international market that is organized yearly by the river side of the Aura river. Mum was afraid of one of the dogs going nuts because there are always a lot of dogs in these happenings and usually he barks at other dogs. But both dogs behaved so well, it was rather the Chihuahuas and French bulldogs that were behaving like headless chicken trying to bite everybody’s heads off. We stopped for a cider on a terrace and the dogs got a lot of attention from passers-by.

On Saturday evening I met my best friend for some drinks because she just got engaged. It’s always so great to see her! We got a bit touristy and instead of going to the river boats for a drink (life doesn’t get much better than that!) we opted for the little ferry, Jakke Jokilautta, that drives back and forth the river. They also serve drinks, just like the river boats and on Saturday they had some sausages and potato salad as well. Instead of running to the bar all the time we ordered a long tube filled with lime lonkero (long drink, very Finnish, kind of like cider but much sweeter). The river banks full of people enjoying the warmth looked so different from the river than if you’re standing on the bank looking to the other side. And once again it was proven; Turku is the bestest and most beautiful summer city in the whole wide world. Unlikely maybe, but go see if you don’t believe me!

Samiksiii

Sunday was Mothers’ Day all over the world and we spent it by going for a brunch in Ruissalo, a very beautiful area by the sea with Botanical gardens and beaches. It’s also where they organize one of the biggest music festivals in the Nordic countries every July: Ruisrock. We had a brunch in the Ruissalo Spa Hotel and as every year, it didn’t disappoint. Unfortunately we didn’t stay there long because there was an ice hockey game starting after 4pm (Finland-Germany), and even though it’s not one of the most interesting games, it’s the World Championships so everybody wanted to be home early enough to see it. At 7 I had to catch my bus to Helsinki and took the last boat to Tallinn, arriving home just before 1am.

This weekend was absolutely wonderful. I was able to throw everything else from my mind except the fact that I was home and weather was good. I totally enjoyed myself! I even got to dress up twice because two events coincided with this trip: family reunion and Mothers’ Day. How happy am I! But as gorgeous as Turku is right now and as wonderful a time as I had it was nice to come home. Tallinn is lovely at this time of year as well and my home here is such a base for me that I didn’t feel at all that I would’ve needed couple more days in Turku. Especially since now that I live in Tallinn I can go there basically whenever.