Finnish summer in Paris

Yep! That is exactly what I had today. A finnish summer day. Except that I didn't grill any sausages...

Well, since you really don't get so much exercise here in Paris with the metro, we decided already in april with Liss that we would go and drive some bicycle in Bois de Vincennes, the biggest park in Paris. And today we finally went there! First it took us a while to find the place you could rent the bikes, but once we found it, it turned out to be by a beautiful, small lake. You were also able to rent boats and canoes, but we decided to stick to the bikes after all. And then we drove around in the park for almost two hours. But the thing is, the park isn't at all like a normal park with all the planted flowers and so on. This was more like... I don't know... Like the green areas in Finland. When we got tired of driving on the bigger roads, we for example found this cute, small path:

Can you imagine this in Paris? At least I have a hard time doing that...

It actually reminded me of Virkkala. This one, fine summerday, I think the last summer I still lived with my parents, it was warm and sunny, just like today here in Paris, and I just decided to take my bike and go somewhere. And I ended up driving around in Virkkala and around for hours. I went to several different beaches next to Lake Lohja, found wonderful paths in the forest and beautiful countryside roads with fields and small houses. It was a really nice day. It was everything summer should be. A relaxing day in the sun, far away from all the hurry in the city. Maybe a small swim in the lake. And then an ice cream with frech berries or fruits on top. Perfect. And grilling some sausages around a camp-fire in the evening while the sun is setting over the water wouldn't actually be that bad either...

And that's what today made me think about. So I guess today was pretty nice too. I mean, nothing compared to Virkkala, but still ok ;)

Université Paris Sorbonne - Paris IV

I don't like one of my professors. Everyone who knows me knows that I'm not a morning person and that I like sleeping a lot. So that's why I don't like to have lessons early in the morning. On fridays I usually should have a lesson at 8 a.m. about the history of Paris between 1660 and 1789 so each friday I have to get up at 6.30 to get to Sorbonne in time. And so I did this morning too. Just to wait in the classroom with the other students a half an hour till we gave up and accepted the fact that the teacher wasn't coming this morning. And this is not the first time this has happened! I think this is like at least the third time! It's so annoying and rude that I'm actually not sure I'll get up for the lesson anymore. I've already done everything I have to for this cours, so I would only go there for my own interest. Because it is interesting once we have lessons since we walk around in the city, looking at the buildnings from that time period and listening to people having presentations about them. But it is not fun to get up early for nothing! Especially when nothing is open that time in the morning. The library doesn't open until 9 and most of the shops, museums and even the computer classroom at Sorbonne open at 10 or 11. So then you just sit around doing nothing and waiting for your next lesson starting at 12.

And what makes it all worse is the fact that the walls in the building I live in are so f*ucking thin! So if my neighbour is home and awake, I can't sleep either. Like yesterday when she had a friend over till midnight and then continued listening to music at least one more hour. Seriously, I can hear her talk through the wall, not the word, but almost. And when she plays music, it's always so loud I can actually hear what they're singing. God, it's driving me mad! Thank goodness it's less than 3 weeks left till I'm back in my own, quiet apartement in Helsinki!

But but... since I was talking about Sorbonne, I could as well show you some pictures. Or a lot of them. And oh yeah, that's the official name of the university you see in the title. Or the last bit just indicates which part of the university I'm studying at, i.e. the best part since it's in the main bulding ;)

This is the main buildning and as you can see it's huge. It's the whole beige building. And this is only one side of it, the main entrance is actually on the other side. And on the inside, it's a real labyrinth! It once took me almost one hour to find one classroom! They have this weird system with different staircases and different floors, but it's not logical at all! For examle, floor F is the third floor of the buildning but even though there also is a staircase F, it doesn't necessarily lead to floor F, it might as well lead to floor E or something. I don't actually remember. Once I've found one way to go to a classroom, I always walk the same way even though I know there's a shortcut somewhere because I don't want to get lost in this huge building :)

And this is the inner court, right next to the Chapelle de la Sorbonne, that unfortunately is under restauration at the moment so you can't get inside. This inner court is where you end up after entering the buildning by the main entrance. Whichever enrance you choose, you still have to show your studentscard to the guards and then they also check your bag. Nobody is allowed to enter without a studentcard. I asked one girl if it has always been like this, but apparently it started after the 911 terroristattack. It's not that bad, but still a bit annoying when you always have to look for your card and open your bag. And then I can't show the building from the inside to the people visiting me. So these pictures are actually the only chanse you have of getting a sneakpeak to the inside ;)

And this is the main lobby that you enter after the inner court. The stairs leads up to the library of Sorbonne and on every side of the lobby you also find most of the amphitheaters, i.e. the big lecture rooms. Like this one, for example:

This one is called Amphitheatre Guizot and here I have a lesson about the medieval ages every tuesday :) ...with an old professor who mumbles a lot so usually I don't understand a thing he's saying. I don't have problems with most of the other teachers but this one is just impossible...

And this is the staircase leading up to the history department. Nice, isn't it? :) I especially like the old wallpaper that for some reason is left on the wall. Actually reminds me a bit of the old wallpapers I found in the rooms in the attic of Mustio Mannor. It's a shame the attic is closed for public because the rooms up there has this special athmostphere... I really liked it.

Last but not least, my new best friend:

These coffee-machines they have at Sorbonne are just so great!!! There's, as you can see, a lot of different hot drinks you can choose from and they all cost ony 60 cents. You would think they tast horrible, but actually quite the contrary! I adore the hot chocolate from this machine! I buy one almost every time I have to hang around at Sorbonne between my lessons. And you know what the greatest thing about it is? It actually encourages recycling! Because if you bring back your plastic cup and but it in the recycling part of the machine, it gives you back 10 cents, so this means you do not only help nature, you also get a discount of your coffee! :D

I like!

Yesterday was a really positive day :) And I was very active too! Yay!

...And now I don't know where to start! *lol* But anyway... I had a few lessons, including one exam in italian which was really easy. And in the evening I had, I think, the most interesting lesson so far over here in Paris. The cours is about France of Louis XIV, i.e. the Sun King, and this time the porfessor talked about the nobles and the court including why and how they built castles, their hobbies and amusements and also their clothing. And I love the professor! He's not stiff at all, but very relaxed and even makes jokes and tells us funny stories related to the historical facts he's lecturing about. Really a great personality!

Then I also spent some time in the library looking for - believe it or not - a subject for my pro gradu! I know! It's crazy! I don't know where it came from, but I suddently decided I want to get it over with so I started thinking about possible subjects I could write about. And I did find one very interesting book that I've been reading a bit. I hope I find something in it.

There, in the middle of all this studying I also had time to go for lunch to the university restaurant with Sophie. And we ended up comparing the UniCafé in Helsinki and the one over here, and we both agreed on that this one is almost better. You always get loads of vegetables and then you can compose your dinner almost however you want! If you want, you can for example take a dessert or a fruit with the main meal. So I guess that's one thing I'm almost going to miss when I get back home :)

Then me and Liss also went to explore a whole new part of Paris, the 17th arrondissement. It wasn't that special, actually, but it was still fun. We did find an interesting church and some nice parks like this one:

I also realized how many roses they have here in Paris. I mean, you find roses in almost every park! And in every different colour you can imagine! Oh, I love them! They're so very beautiful! I think I've already taken too many stupid pictures of beautiful roses I've seen while walking around in the city :D But I mean, look at it!

This photo is taken on the Promenade Plantée that I told you about earlier. This was the third time I went there and it looks different every time when more and more flowers start blooming. This time I actually walked the whole promenade, all the way to Bois de Vincennes.

On the way to the metro after my last lesson yesterday I also walked by a shop that had displayed in their window almost the exact summerdress I've been looking for this whole spring here in Paris! Finally! I was already almost sure I wouldn't find anything. I didn't by it yet, though, since it was getting so late, but I guess I have to stop by there tomorrow... And hope that the price isn't too high :)

What else? Oh yeah, maybe the best part. I also discovered a new finnish band with such lovely music! Sometimes Facebook is really good for something since it was there I found the link to this page where you can listen to some of their songs: http://profile.myspace.com/happygoluckyband
And I just love the name they've chosen for the band! Happy-Go-Lucky! How great isn't that?! :D And the music! So... positive! It makes me feel happy :) And that's what's important in music for me. To make you feel something. Especially to make you feel good. You know, I even have engraved on my iPod the following quote: "Music is what feelings sound like". It really is. Don't you think? And perhaps that's also the answer to the question why so many people love music and listen to it all the time. I mean, everyone do that! It's amazing. Not a single speach could capture the attention of people as well as music can. I'm so fascinated. Really. Wow.

Happy Birthday to Me! :D

Bloody hell, it's been hot here in Paris these two last days! Yesterday it was about +27° and today around 30! Gaah! I don't know what to wear! Everything's too hot! The only place in the city that is ok is by the river because there there's always a small, cool breeze. And since it's too hot to do anything touristic, you just have to chill around. Which suits me very well ;)

Yesterday it was exactly one month after Liss' birthday and exactly one month before my birthday, so already in february we had decided to go and celebrate that by eating at Häagen-Dazs. We had seen that they served a chocolate fondue with fruits and small scoops of different flavoured ice cream, and it looked just so wonderful in the picture that we didn't mind the high price.

But before that, I enjoyed the sunshine by walking in to the city center and then chilled in Jardin de Luxembourg while reading a new book and waiting for Liss to come. Then we went to the Häagen-Dazs restaurant, all ready for the ice cream experience. But then it turned out that they had the fondue only during the winter season!!! NOOOO!!! In four long months we had been waiting for this day to come just to be able to eat it, and then tehy don't have it on the menu anymore! But ok, then we chose something other from the menu and I have to admit that even though I was a bit dissapointed not to be able to eat the chocolate fondue, the ice cream I had was till super! Mmm! Chocolate ice cream with pieces of brownie and some chocolate sause :P Not bad at all, huh?

Afterwards we took a small walk even though it was very hot outside. We actually went to see the statue of liberty here in Paris. So now I don't have to go to New York anymore ;)

Then in the evening we gathered up with some others for a picknick in Jardin de Luxembourg, but since the parks here in Paris aren't like the parks in Helsinki, that is open 24/7, we have to continue to another place when they closed it at 21.00. I find this a bit weird, but in the same time it's a good thing. The parks are cleaner and in better condition when nobody gets to them during the night.

After wandering here and there in the city, and seeing the Louvre by night, we eventually found ourselves on Pont des Arts again. And there we sat till around midnight :) So not at all a bad pre-birthday!

The green area in front of Louvre is by the way where the inverse pyramid underground is located. You know, very famous from the movie Da Vinci Code ;)

As I already said, it was even hotter today, so I didn't do so much. I did walk in to the city again, following the Seine, and ten I met up with a friend who's as an exchange student in Reims this spring. He had come to Paris already yesterday with some friends. And with him I went again, for the third time within 24 hour, to Jardin du Luxembourg (that you can see a small part of on the picture below) just to chill in the sun drinking some white wine and eating a baguette for lunch. And then I burned my skin. *sigh* But not very badly, though. Hopefully it'll turn to brown within a few days :)

La Défence

Even though Paris is a lot about the history with the whole, big old town and its beautiful, old houses and gardens, there is a modern part of the city too. It's called La Défence and is located in the north-west of Paris. Yesterday me and Liss went to explore it and I have to say I really loved it. It's so different from the rest of the city! And since the whole of the main area is only for pedestrians, it's also so very calm. You don't hear nor see any traffic. But in the same time, you can gaze at the Eiffeltower, the Arc de Triomphe and a lot of other sights of Paris. They're so close but still if feels like they're so far away. Like they're a scenery in the horrizon while you're sitting in a whole another part of the world. We actually sat for a long time on the stairs of the arch in this part of the city, eating ice cream and enjoying the warmth and the view. And being amazed by the silence.

This is a modern piece of art and as you can see, there's a straight view to the Arc de Triomphe.

And in the other direction you see the Grande Arche of La Défence. There's a straight line between these two, and it actually continues in the other direction too. On the other side of Arc de Triomphe, in front of Louvre, there's a third, much smaller arch called Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of that. I guess I have to go there and take one before I come back home :)

Here's another piece of art I found in La Défence. I don't know how many of you have seen the Disney move "Wall-E" (those of you who haven't, go and check it out, it lovely! He's soooo sweet!!) but in that movie this other robot, Eva, finds a plant on the otherwise dead Earth and this plant is the future hope of recovery for the planet. And this statue looks just like that plant! :)

In the evening we were invited to a picknick by the Seine, on the promenade by the water that I've shown you a few pictures from. This is another part of Paris where people gather around to hang out with friends. Our group actually ended up quite big as more and more people joined it. Most of them were italians, though, since the organiser was italian and therefor the discussion was very lively and loud :) But it was a very nice way of spending a friday evening! It really felt like summer. And I love summer.

Dubble personality

Wow! The strike finally ended! After almost four months! The french students will go on till the end of june, but I shouldn't have anything left after next week. After that it's just summer holidays for the last 2,5 weeks :)

It's weird, even though I've gotten a lot to do this week with finishing my last projects for my studies here, the time has passed by very, very slowly. It feels like ages ago when I realised that I only have 4 weeks left now. But that was only a few days ago. I guess that now that the end is getting so close, I'm way too excited about it. I think about it too much and therefor, the time passed by so slowly. It's weird. Because so far I think the time has passed by very fast. February feels almost like yesterday.

I don't really know what to tell you since nothing much has happened. But we did have, for the first time this year, a picknick on Pont des Arts. It's a bridge over the Seine near Louvre reserved only for pedestrians so every night, lots of young people gather there to have a small picknick. And while we sat there talking while drinking some wine and eating baguettes, there was suddenly some touristes who walked by and took a photo of us! :P Quite ironic, isn't it? Tourists taking pictures of other tourists that they mistake for real parisians.

The building you see in the end of Pont des Arts is the Institut de France. Don't know what it's good for, though...

But I've actually developed a dubble personality over here. Sometimes I'm a tourist, sometimes almost a parisian (still quite far away from a real one, but you know what I mean) so as soon as the weekend comes and the city is filled with tourists, I go crazy! It's so irritating when they just stand there in the middle of the road with their big maps taking photos and makeing it really hard to walk on the sidewalks. But then a few minutes later I found myself too taking a photo of something nice I haven't seen before :)

Like this, for exemple:

It's a medieval garden I found behind the medieval museum right next to Sorbonne. It's in the heart of one of the touristic areas in Paris, but still almost nobody finds it. So it was very nice and calm there. I sat down on a bench next to the small rosegarden, reading a book and smelling the lovely perfume of roses. And I didn't even freak out when I saw a wasp! *proud*

Place de Finlande!

Yay! Look what I found in Paris today! :D

It's Place de Finlande! Hihi! At first I was like "What? Why is there a finnish square in Paris?!", but then I saw that the Finnish Ambassad is right here. It's good to know that now when I'm soon getting back home from here! :P

And you know what's funny? This was just by the river Saine, and on the other side of the bridge that crosses the river right here, me and Liss found Place du Canada! What a coinsidence! :)

That was all for today. Just couldn't wait to tell you guys :)

In the footsteps of Amélie Poulain

One of my hobbies here in Paris has been to visit some of the places where scenes of the movie Amélie takes place. Because I just looooove that movie :) So these are the places I've been to:

Most of the movie-scenes are filmed in Montmartre since it's there where Amélie lives. Here's the square next to the church Sacré-Coeur where Amélie gives the photo-album back to Nino...

...who's got his lastnamn from this street: Quincampoix.

These are the stairs Amélie makes him follow to find the next clue in search of the photoalbum.

And this is the metro-station that Amélie uses a lot in the movie. It's called Abbesses.

This should be the canal lock on Canal Saint-Martin where Amélie skips stones in the beginning of the movie.

This metro-station is called Lamarck-Caulaincourt where Amélie leaves the blind man after walking with him on rue Caulaincourt and explaining to him all the things she sees around her.

And do you recognise this? It's the lamp that stands on her bedside table! :) It may now be seen in the café where she worked, Café des Deux Moulins, where I've been for coffee (or actually hot chocolate) already two times :)

There's still plenty of more places to visit, but some of them are outside Paris, and I have to admit that I'm a bit too lazy for that :) Just to visit all these places was enough! Now I'm just looking forward to be able to watch the movie again once I get back home, because then I can be like "Hey! I know that place! I've been there! Yay!" like all the time! Hihi.

Rain, rain and... summer!!

Gaaah! As I've already told you, I've been looking at a lot of Friends lately. The only problem with that is that they have subtitles in spanish... Usually, that wouldn't be a problem at all, because it's only good practise for me to read them. I've forgotten almost all of my spanish since I haven't studied it after I started at the university, but now it's all starting to come back to me. And that's a problem!!! Because it's my sixth language in the head! And that is waaaaay too much for me to handle! :D I've tried not to read the subtitles and only listen to the english spoken, but it's hard, well almost impossible! I'm too used to reading subtitles so I can't just shut them out.

But what else can I do besides hanging out with Friends on YouTube? It's been raining every day for over a week now, so it's not like I feel like going out for a walk. So in stead I sit inside by my computer... or go home to Liss to watch a movie while drinking hot chocolate... :)

...although I did finally visit the church Église de Madelaine and Invalides with the tomb of Napoleon and a huge war-museum. And then, when I was out for a short walk between the rain showers, I found this:

It's called Promenade Plantée and it's a kind of a sidewalk with a lot of trees, bushes and flowers. But what makes it special is that it's not a normal sidewalk beside the street, it's actually high up in the air on a sort of a bridge! The part of the houses you see on the picture is actually something like the third floor of them! So you don't hear almost anything of the traffic even though you're walking right in the middle of the city. It startes at Bastille and goes all the way to Bois de Vincennes.

And here's a proof the summer has almost come to Paris:

The roses have started blooming! :) Yay! I like roses a lot! And you know what? The weather forcast promises that the summer will start on wednesday with up to 25 degrees warm or more! Yippiii! But actually, it feels almost like summer already. Because even though it's raining, it's not at all too cold outside. It's like these really warm summer rains. Lovely! And we even had some thunder here in Paris too! That was cool. You can see a lot of lightnings up here from the sixth (or seventh) floor.

But now I have to get back to my studies... Not much to do, but still a bit. But if everything goes well, my summer holidays should start... around next friday. ...or perhaps I should say that my Christmas holiday finally will change it's name for summer holidays in stead. Because let's face it, that's practically what this is all about ;)

Unbelievable!

Look at this!

This is what the corridors of Sorbonne looked like yesterday, and today the whole building is totally blocked so yo can't get inside! Not even to visit the library, which is a bit stupid since most of the students still would need to go there! Gees! How can they still go on with this? It's been more than three months already! You think they would get tired of striking soon... But apparently not. And I don't even understand what they think they will gain by continuing this strike. If no change to the situation has come during the past three months, do they really think it will come now? I think they're just making their own life much more complicated... and ours too! We exchange students really need our credits for this semester...

But talking about the library. Perhaps you remember that I earlier told you about the library and how lovely I think it is? Well, even though it's forbidden, I took a sneaky-peaky photo of it yesterday while I was sitting there reading.

Isn't it beautiful? :) But very old fashioned. The drawers you see behind the tables is the old cathalogues. They still haven't put all their books in a computer-system, so if you look for a very old book, you have to go through the small cards in the drawers. And then make your demand at one of the counters. And then wait for a half an hour when they fetch your book. Just to realize that the title was misleading so that the book wasn't at all what you were looking for. Welcome to the modern France! :)

Travel journal, part eight: Lyon

Before coming back to Paris after my week in Bourgogne I actually went to visit a friend who's in Lyon this spring as an exchange student. And that was the southest I've been so far during my stay here in Paris.

This too was a beautiful city with two rivers, Rhône and Saône, floathing through it and a cosy, small old town. On the picture you can also see the top of the fake Eiffel tower of Lyon. Don't know why they have one :) In the old town there were actually these very cool hidden passages going through the houses from one quartier to another. They were for example used as escaping routes during the world wars. Now it was really cool to walk through them, but I guess it most have been quite scary during the war when there actually was a real danger outside.

The thing that perhaps impressed me the most, though, was the Basilic Notre-Dame de Fourvière. The interior was really splendid! Filled with beautiful, golden details and not at all like most of the other churches I've seen. I think this was more like an orthodox church than a catholic.

In the evening we actually had a party with some of Ulrika's friends over there in her residence and that was fun. I talked to a lot of people and then we went out dancing, which I haven't done for a very long time. Even though the club got so crouwded in the end that people (including us) danced on the tables and benches too :)

Travel journal, part seven: Bourgogne

Last week I spent in the french countryside, more preciesly in the southern part of the region of Bourgogne. And it was LOVELY! I hadn't realized before how sick of this big city with the traffic, the crowded streets and the metro I am. It felt so damn good to get away to a place that looked like this:

Vineyards wherever you looked, mountains in the horizon (I even saw Mont Blanc!), small, cosy villages here and there. And the best of all was that I went there to meet my penpal so I lived with her and her family. I got to sleep in a soft bed with a real blanket and a real pillow! Oh, heavanly! And they took me to a lot of placed in the nearby region and I experiensed so many amazing things. It was just so relaxing. I felt like a totally new person when I got back. And actually, I didn't at all want to get back to Paris. I could have stayed in the countryside for much longer!

...lovely family, by the way. They all called me Moomin since Malin apparently was too hard to pronounce. Isn't that sweet? :P

Over there, I stayed at this cute, small village called Clessé in the middle of the vineyards and some mountains. From there we took the car or the train to the cities of Dijon, Mâcon et Louhans, among others, but this would however be a very long post if I told you about every single little city or town I visited, because I visited quite many. Everyone interested can in stead come and visit me in Helsinki once I get back to Finland and I'll show you all the pictures I took ;)

But among the thing's I did was this:


I ate frogs! :D And it tasted good! Really! Like a mix between fish and chicken, actually. And the persley-butter was delicious! I was in fact very french and used my bread to get it all up from my plate :P

Then I also visited a prehistoric cave and climbed up a small mountain. The view was magnificent from up there, eventhough it was mostly vineyards and small towns there too :)

But now I'm back in Paris. The first afternoon here was still ok, but yesterday it rained the whole day and today when I walked to Sorbonne, there were so many people on the streets that I almost went crazy! Gaaaah!!! I like to keep my privacy, thank you!

Vappu in Paris!

I survived! I though it would be really horrible to spend my favourite celebration away from Finland and all my friends.. I though I would be so HAJO... But it was actually pretty nice :)

I mean... it was still nothing compared to Vappu in Finland, it didn't even feel like Vappu because there wasn't this special Vappu-feeling. People don't celebrate the 1st of May over here so there was no partying. And people just looked very strangely at me and Sophie when we walked around with our student's caps on.

Yes, we had our student's caps on the whole Vappu :) We started by listening to the Studensången here at five in the afternoon and then watched a video on YouTube of when they put the student's cap on Havis Amanda in Helsinki last year. And of course we also opened a bottle of really cheap champagne :P

Then we started to prepare for the evening because we arranged a finnish evening for some of our friends over here where we let them taste different traditional things from Finland (or the swedish-speaking area in Finland...). Well, obviously we couldn't make any gourmet-food here without the right ingredienses and my only one hot plate, so it was actually more like a... I don't know... sillis or midsummer-feast. Here's the things we made:

We had Maltlimpa (dark bread) with banana, Jälkiuunileipä (rye bread) with cold-smoked salmon, boiled egg-halfs with a salmon-mishmash on top (we thought roe was too expensive here), potato-salad, meatballs (that were ironically enough bought in Ikea *lol*), two differents flavours of herring and then Karelian pasties with "eggbutter". And for dessert vanilla ice-cream with cloudberry-jam. And of course some Fazer's chocolate and Sisu-salmiak. And I seriously think most of the poeple liked the food. Perhaps not their favourite food, but still :)

Some of the stuff my parents and Sophies husband had brought us, but we actually found a finnish shop here in Paris too! It's close to where Sophie lives and is called "Kiva". But it's very, very expensive, so we actually only bought the cloudberry-jam over there and some more Karelian pasties. For example one 33cl can of the beer Koff was someting like 2,20€ in the shop... So I guess you get the picture now!

With the food we of course also had some snaps. But since we didn't find finnish vodka, we took polish in stead :D Sophie had her Historicus songbook with here, so we tried to teach some swedish drinking-songs to the others but it didn't go so well *lol* But we still sung five different songs. Later we moved on to Salmari and even though the samiak-candy it self wasn't such a success, the salmiak-vodka was considered much better. Yay!

The next morning I actually got up a bit earlier just to listen to some of the springsong sung by the choir in the park of Kajsaniemi that I happened to have on my computer. Then I went to meet the others for a picknick in Parc des Buttes Chaumont, a very beautiful park in north-eastern Paris. We sat there all together someting like five hours eating and drinking champagne, me and Sophie with our student's caps on and surrounded by colourful streamers. Although Sophie had to leave early to catch a train. But the rest of us stayed till the afternoon. And it was so warm outside! So perhaps that was also a reason why it didn't feel like Vappu, because it's never so warm in Finland on the 1st of May! This was more like... Midsummer! Or even later on during the summer.


So, as you can see, we really tried to make it a good Vappu for us. And as I said, it wasn't bad at all :)