It's almost 4 pm and it feels like the day has barely started. That's how midsummer always feels like. Doesn't help that the sun doesn't actually set.

Though calling it mid"summer" at this point is a stretch. It's 13°c outside and raining every now and then.

Anyway, I have been in Finland since the 9th of June. It has been great. I got an early start on packing and doing stuff like hair and waxing, so the night before was pretty relaxed. Which is great because it was my sister's birthday and we celebrated it with pizza and amazing cake at home. My flight was at 7:30 am so I had to call it a night pretty early as I had to wake up at 4 am. For once I didn't have to go through the stress of being with my parents at the airport since a coworker/friend of mine was going to France on an 8 am flight, so my father drove me to her place and we took a taxi from there. It was super nice, going through everything without worrying that my mother will hear the clerk mention Helsinki! The trip was pretty uneventful (except for that chick sitting next to me on the Finnair flight, whose family is Finnish but she lives in Texas, and who kept singing along to Carrie Underwood songs she was listening to on her Hello Kitty laptop ) and I arrived safely at around 4:15 pm. My suitcase didn't arrive safely, though. I had brought three bottles of Algerian wine with me and one of them exploded during the flight. The suitcase was drenched all the way through, it was kinda scary. The walk to Timo's car seemed very long while I was agonizing about the state of my things. Luckily, after opening it, it turned out that it was the white wine bottle that broke (there was a red and a rosé bottle in there too) so my clothes were wet but not damaged. YAY!

That evening we went to this "gastronomic" beer place in Helsinki and I had some yummy fish and chips with one glass of cider that was enough to make me stumble all the way to the car. I am such a light weight.

After that the rest of the week was pretty quiet and samey. We did a lot of shopping for gifts for my family, and clothes for me. We would spend most of our evenings at his friend Kalle's place to watch football, and would sleep in, hang around the house and cook in the morning. We tried several restaurants we had never been to before (because we have the bad habits to always go to the same places and wanted to break that habit) and for the first time in ten visits to Finland, we finally managed to go to the military fortress of Suomenlinna, on a bunch of islands off the coast of Helsinki. It was a pretty nice day, with lots of sun, which hasn't at all been the norm since I've come here. It's been quite cold and very rainy. But I don't mind at all.

Last Sunday we packed up and drove to his parents' place, but not before making a detour to the castle of Raseborg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raasepori It happened to be a lovely sunny day as well, and I really liked that the castle was pretty much abandoned. You just walk in and you're by yourself, except for a couple of other visitors and a bunch of noisy birds. It was very relaxing. I'll try to put up some pictures for the next blog.

Visiting the family has been lovely as ever. I just feel so comfortable around them. Timo's middle brother Tapani has stayed with us most of the time, so we watched the games together, among other things. We went to Turku with my mother-in-law and she dragged me to a jewelry store for which she had a gift card that she wanted to use on me. I ended up getting a pair of gold earrings, though the process was a bit embarrassing, with everyone urging me to pick something. But I'm glad all the same. We visited my brother-in-law Tommi and his fiancée Jaana a couple of times (second time for a very nice BBQ). Our niece Iina is growing up too quickly. She's a chubby, bouncy little thing with striking blue eyes and a solid temper. She doesn't like being held by anyone but Jaana and Tommi but I think I managed to get her to like me well enough because I held her once and she didn't start crying right away! She's just too cute. I'll get to see her again next Sunday, before we go back to Espoo.

So midsummer festivities have started. My in-laws went to their summer cottage yesterday, and Timo's friends arrived shortly after to stay with us until Sunday. It's been nice, mostly drinking, grilling meat, watching football, talking about the most random stuff and long sessions of Pauli playing the acoustic guitar while everyone sings along very badly. So far so good! Timo bought a blender and has been making me frozen strawberry daiquiris that taste awesome <3 I was quite drunk last evening and it took a while to wear off though I managed to talk to my sister when she called me without giving away my intoxication. Great success!

I should stop now. Time for more food and more alcohol! We've been experimenting with pina coladas using frozen pineapple!

Cheers!