August evening in the Finnish countryside

Time to leave Finland, it feels sad, although it will be good to see the rest of the family again. Me and Carlotta stayed here 9 days after Armando and Sofia had left and Daniele left earlier for Monaco and is now back home in Rome again.
Here are a few photos from the beautiful Finnish countryside a few evenings ago when I came home from the riding lesson. In some of them I have tested applying textures, others are just as they appeared straight out of the camera.

Week 33 - The whole family together again

This week there were so many photos and so much happening that it was difficult to choose only one photo - summer cottage, Helsinki marathon and trip to Tallinn. But the most important thing was that the whole family was together again, at least for a few days. Daniele's summer job was over and we went with my parents to the summer cottage in Virolahti where we had been three times already. We spent four days there with quite good weather. The first two days it was warm and sunny, then there was some rain and it got cooler and windier, but the water was so warm so we could have a swim every day and we also used the rowing boat every day.
This summer there aren't many photos of all three children together, but I managed to get one at the boat at least.

Week 32 - Day trip to Porvoo

Going to Porvoo had been on my to-do list of this summer, so when I happened to talk to my friend who was going there with her family, I decided to do a last minute trip there, too. It was a bit hard to activate the girls, especially the 13-year-old, who was more acttracted to the sofa and her messages on the phone. But in the end I succeeded and off we went.
The first shop we saw in Porvoo was Brunberg's chocolate factory shop where you could taste different kinds of chocolate and that convinced both girls that Porvoo was quite worth the 1 hour car drive after all. I love Porvoo, it's a beautiful little town with a little old town with cobble stone streets and cute shops and cafés. I tried to reach my friend when we had arrived, but her phone was out of range, so we decided to go to the beautiful café Helmi, where I always go when I visit Porvoo. Well, surprise, when we were having our coffee and cakes my friend Pia-Maria's family suddenly showed up at the same café. They had had the same idea.
We walked around in the old town, visited the cathedral of Porvoo and then we went chocolate shopping and started to drive home when Pia-Maria's family were going to have something to eat. It was another of the warm days this summer in Finland, so before going home we stopped to have a swim at Äijänniemi near our home.

Week 31 - Swimming in the lake

Almost every day here in Finland we have taken at least a little swim somewhere. This was one of them in a the lake of Huutjärvi together with the friends Kalle and Hilma.

Week 30 - Island trip

I still had a lot of work, but did most of it during the night so I would have time to do something nice with the girls during day time. The weather had been just lovely since we came to Finland, even a bit too warm. One of the things we did was going to an island outside Kotka. It's called Lehmäsaari and I think last time I went there was when I went to school. We used to go there each spring with the school.
We made this trip with my sister and her daughter who lives in Helsinki. She came there with her smallest kids, Liina and little Justus, who is my godson.
The boat trip to the island takes about half an hour. Once you get there you don't have to walk far away to find a sand beach, so we stopped there with our picnic food. There are barbeque places and tables, too, but they were occupied when we were there. We had our picnic lunch at the beach, went swimming ad spent a really nice day there.

Week 29 - Daniele's summer job

We came to Finland on week 29. This is one of the few photos I have of my son this summer. He has become very indipendent and, even if it feels a bit sad, at the same time I'm very happy about it. He got a summer job in a restaurant in Lovisa about 50 km from my parents' house. To be able to work there he has been staying with the family that found this job for him. They have become his second family in Finland.
When we came to Finland he had spent two weeks there already. We went to Lovisa on his day off and he took us for a little boat trip to a small islet. I had been working a lot in front of the computer and on this little boat trip I finally got a real summer feeling!

A ladies trip to Helsinki

One of the summer memories to look back at is definitely the two days that I spent in Helsinki with my mother and my daughters. As a birthday gift my mother had bought a facial treatment for me at a beautician in Helsinki. Once we arrived with the bus I went there and met up with my mother and the girls afterwards. It was very nice and relaxing. Then we had lunch at a nice little restaurant called American Deli. Me and my mother had a good salad and Sofia and Carlotta took bagels. Then we went to some shops till we all were tired and went to the hotel to rest a bit. We stayed at the same hotel where we had stayed this winter, Hotel Vaakuna right in the centre of Helsinki. So nice, because it's very central, the rooms are big and the breakfast is very good.

I wanted to go to the fortress island of Suomenlinna, but it already was a bit late, so we had a coffee in a street cafè at the Esplanadi and then went to the new Skywheel at Katajanokka.
Next day we first went to a camera shop near our hotel and I got myself a new used Nikon D7000 which I started using right away. It should be better than my Nikon D90 and the best one I could afford at the moment. My first photos had odd colours, I think they seemed a bit grey, but I guess and hope it depends on the settings. It takes some time to get to know a new camera.
Then we went to see Tove Jansson's 100 years exhibition. It was very interesting and good. Tove Jansson is famous as the author of the Moomin books, but she has painted and drawn lots of other things, too. The exhibition was big and Sofia got tired after a while. Carlotta would have continued even more, so she was really affascinated about it.

We had made a last minute appointment with my brother and his wife at the Kauppatori market place where we took the boat to Suomenlinna. So nice that they were able to come, too! It was a very warm day and quite a few other persons had had the same idea as we, to take a day trip to the island. There's a lot to see in Suomenlinna, but this time we didn't have much time or energy in the heat. We walked to an outdoor cafè with a beautiful view and sat there enjoying the sea breeze eating ice cream and drinking coffee. Lovely!

Then back to Helsinki in crowded boat full of people returning from the island. We had the bus at 18.10, so it was time to get our bags from the hotel and head to the bus station. We were tired, but happy. I had bought some new books that I started reading in the bus.