Restaurant Ravintola

"Heeeeere's Mooooooomin!"

I know. Not quite as scary as Jack Nicholson in The Shining. You simply cannot go to Finland without bringing one of these adoring creatures back. This cute little guy is soon going to be adopted by another cute little guy - my friend's son born on April 1st. I tend to be the one buying my friends' kids drum kits and WHITE plush toys. Very practical.

It took me THREE days to figure out why so many of the restaurants in Helsinki are called "Ravintola". Until the OBVIOUS struck me. It means RESTAURANT. Gaaah. The Finnish language is weird. Normally I am able to understand bits and pices of foreign languages because they have some similar words. Ohno. Not the Finnish, no. They speak IN CODE. Most of them do not say much, though. So it is not really a huge problem. Until they try to speak English. THEN things start to get really complicated. "Would you like some FISS for LUNS?"

And, not knowing the language here, you might suddenly find yourself in UTTER danger. But what sort of danger?

• Getting too drunk?
• Break-dancing?
• Dying?
• Doing the funky-chicken-dance?
• Or.. simply... falling?

Who knows. I tried to be careful, though.

My self-imposed shopping-ban sort of fell apart on Monday afternoon. Hm. Having a house to fill with new stuff, and a summer in sunny France coming up very soon, it just got too hard resisting the cute psychedelic summer dresses. And the Marimekko cushion covers with COWS on them. And the Iitalla glass plates that I have never seen back home. And - last but not least - the sauna hats. A MUST when we go to my "cabin-in-law" for Easter, right?

Today I will be working on my "please-I-know-I-have-at-least-one-piece-of-hand-luggage-too-many" smile for my airport check-in this afternoon. After all, supporting the local economy is the decent thing to do when travelling. Hm. And there was a mid-season sale at the local Marina Rinaldi. Irresistible.