For the past four years we've spent our year end holidays in Finland. It is hard to imagine a gloomier place on Earth than Southwestern Finland in late December. It is raining endlessly and the sun makes only brief passes over the horizon each day. Moon and stars hide behind the clouds. Only streetlights reflect from the puddles. The only place you can find snow from are old childhood photographs. It is the time again to get extremely stressed and to prepare for the darkest feast of the year: Christmas!
Joulutorttu, or a "Christmas Shuriken" as my wife calls them, is a Finnish pastry.
In those parts of the world that celebrate Christmas, people get joyful, charitable, generous and kind. Not in Finland. In Finland, Christmas is a serious matter. People get even more sombre and quiet than usually. We visit graves, enjoy the darkness listening to sad songs and eat dishes that were considered special only when people still literally starved to death. The most popular Finnish Christmas songs could easily pass as funeral music elsewhere. My own taste is rather conservative, I like the classics like Sylvian joululaulu and the heartbreaking Varpunen jouluaamuna. It is interesting to compare Finland with our beloved and a tad arrogant neighbours in the west, who dance merrily around the Christmas tree. You couldn't find a bigger contrast than between Finland and Sweden. As an example, a Finnish supermarket chain caused a minor uproar last year by using the royal family of Sweden in their commercials, so naturally they repeated the controversy this year. Hejsan, hoppsan fallerallera!
My sister and her husband have kindly arranged us a family Christmas each year and this year was no exception. We enjoyed local Christmas dishes like ham, various casseroles (that I refuse to eat) and rice porridge (in Japan, people eat rice porridge when they get ill. In Finland, people eat rice porridge as an exquisite annual speciality) and after that we waited for Santa Claus to arrive. As usual, we happened to be outdoors just when Santa had visited, so the kids avoided having to sing to him and they got straight to the fun part (yes, there is even a brief moment of joy too!) of the eve: unwrapping the gifts. Turns out that even I had been a good boy: I got a super cool #29 Patrik Laine t-shirt! Big thanks Santa-san! It's just a huge bummer that my nephews don't get to enjoy the white Christmases that I had in my childhood.
After the holidays we took a bus from my home town back to the airport. The bus driver's shift ended so a new driver came to replace him. The new guy was already ready to depart, when the previous driver turned back and knocked the bus window: "sorry, I forgot my sunglasses!". Finnish humour.
Merry Christmas!
I don't like to post people pictures, but this is me, my sister and my nephew, who spotted Santa's sleigh tracks in the snow. Can you find them too?
A drone shot of Halikko, my old home village, basking in the midwinter sun. It was a brilliant idea to lug a drone along: I saw the sun three times in total during the whole trip, plus the barren fields look just stunning without any snow... *sigh*
Halikko Church. It was fun to sit on my parents' front yard and fly around the old neighbourhoods. The operating range of Mavic Pro is quite impressive for such a small toy.
I think I was born to be a surveillance drone operator. Please hire me!
One of the many benefits of living in Finland is that you really, really don't need no sunscreen.
Feeling merry and Christmassy the Finnish way.
We had our wedding photo taken in front of that.
My father goes through the same hoops every year. He cannot decide whether or not to get a Christmas tree. He procrastinates until the last moment, and decides to get one anyway when all the "nice but cheap" ones are already sold out. This year the tree was short but surprisingly pretty.
This is the world famous munkki of Pyynikin Näkötorni. We spent most of the vacation by doing nothing at all (in Japanese "goro-goro shimashita"), but we did do one day trip to Tampere. It was fun to see old friends again, thanks guys! And my wife did some tax-free shopping as well so it was a good day.
An old steam locomotive, Hr1 1009, visited Salo and took locals for a ride. It may have arrived just as badly late as the modern Pendolinos, but at least these machines were mechanically reliable.
Air pump of the steam engine.
VR Class Hr1, better known as Ukko-Pekka, was the largest passenger express steam locomotive built in Finland (designed by a company called Lokomo - we Finns are very creative when it comes to naming).
Back in Switzerland. Frohen Dreikönigstag!