Hello homeland, hello homeland.

So I visited Finland again. A bit suddenly, for a bit too short a time, but that could not be helped - my grandma is doing poorly and it may have been a now or never situation, we do not know. She's almost 90 though, so I can't exactly say I could see her too often at this point anyway.

After visiting her I f.ex. went to my summer cottage where we pulled the water pump out of the lake for winter. If we don't it'll break when the lake ices over, but eurgh dragging that ice-cold lake-slimy hose full of water and therefore both heavy and spitting it out and on you at random - yeaaaah not my favourite thing to do. Regardless, we got it up, had a quick coffee and then headed back south.

Another panorama, this time the lake side. The water's pretty low at this part of the year - at summer it reaches that large stone on the right side.

Another, a bit clearer photo of just how far away the water has gone.

Sign of a doge. Another sign of it were occasional barks from somewhere between the trees.

Dad was following a shellfish's trail and managed to locate it and dug it out. We admired it for a while and then dutifully dug it back into the sand on the bottom of the lake. 

A pretty mushroom.

A pretty leaf. I take photos of pretty things yes.

My plan at trying on a bra - foiled!

Thanks Obama.

On the way back home from the cottage the sundown turned out exceptionally beautiful!

And now: the weather.

A random photo of a shop window in Helsinki. I used to love maps like this when I was a kid. Well ok I still love maps like this.

This is why Iceland has waterfalls...

...and Finland does not.

On the bus, going to the airport on Monday. I spotted this ad and giggled like a very mature person for a long time and then took a photo of it. It's difficult to translate, but each vehicle is making an apologetic comment on having accidentally let out a fart - only the car's fart is the largest, whereas the tram lets out barely a poof or carbon dioxide.

This is what I found at the tax free and technically speaking I don't have extra money to burn but this beautiful example of cultrulll approprisshun could not be ignored! Btw it's delicious too, sort of licorice-y with a touch of herbs. :3

To name it Valhalla is not yet enough to count for the CA  of course, because even though our native religion was not the same as with the Scandinavian countries we're still close enough to be counted among the same cultural group (iow the Nordics). It's not even rare to see people mistake Finland for a Scandinavian country. What does count as CA is this slightly decorated magic stave that's strictly of Icelandic tradition. 

It's a well-chosen one too, a vegvísir. It supposed to keep you always on the right tracks so that you'll never get lost, and I can only imagine that it'll come in handy for people whose drunken tours end them in strange towns, houses, beds or countries. I know some people like that.

 YEAAAAAH I mean hi.