Dave survived the weekend, kind of. I saw him and his wife at breakfast this morning. They informed me that Dave took a spill during the weekend in Helsinki and has either a severely sprained or broken ankle. He still made it to the Prius though, just with a heavy limp. One of our Finnish coworkers, Taisto, brought us in some Mämmi today. It's a traditional Finnish dessert mostly eaten around Easter, but you can find it all year. It's made from water, dark molasses, rye flour, rye malt, barley malt, salt and sour orange peel. You serve it cold with cream. Let me tell you, it tastes much better than it looks; Dave was less of a fan. An interesting fact from Wikipedia: Originally mämmi was eaten during lent; its laxative properties were associated with ... read more

After such a lazy Friday night I got up and wandered down to the lobby for breakfast. I just grabbed an apple, an orange and a carafe of coffee to take to my room. With coffee in hand I ended up making the morning very productive, catching up on emails, blogs, bills, etc. I finished up the chores and snuck out to Celtic House for a late lunch. They have a good club sandwich, but not so good a selection of English reading material. My buddy Jussi wasn't working when I got there, but showed up soon. He caught me reading the only English magazine they had which was something similar to Cosmo in America. After defending myself by stating it's the only English stuff they had he went out and bought me some new English ... read more

The only excitement today was Dave spotting a squirrel running up a tree on the way to eat our pea soup and pancakes at lunch today. This is our first legitimate wildlife sighting we've had, save for the pigeons back in Tampere. It was a dark brown squirrel with rather large and pointy ears. And it was sure hurrying to get up that tree; Finnish squirrel so maybe it has a sauna up there. You never know. After a wee bit of Googling, Dave has determined it was a Eurasian Red Squirrel. Sorry, we didn't get a picture, look it up. After work we did chow again at the Opera Bar and Brasserie, Holiday Inn. Same routine: Snails because they're amazing, grilled goat cheese salad because I'm addicted and for main course I mixed it up... ... read more

Today was Matti Day in Finland (technically Mattias). In English we call it Name Day, but it's not commonly practiced. According to Wikipedia: A name day is a tradition in many countries in Europe and Latin America of celebrating on a particular day of the year associated with the one's given name. The custom originated with the Catholic and Orthodox calendar of saints, where believers, named after a particular saint, would celebrate that saint's feast day. In many countries, however, there is no longer any explicit connection to Christianity… Today Finns celebrate their name days (or nimipäivä) according to their given name on the date given by the calendar published by the University of Helsinki Almanac Office (Almanakkatoimisto). Every day except New Year's Day, Christmas Day, and February 29 is a name day. For each day ... read more

Ah, another lazy Sunday. I had breakfast at the hotel, skipped the eggs though. I still need to experiment with them in the microwave. Other option is that the table where Dave and I usually sit has an electrical outlet near it so I could buy a hotplate and a skillet and just make my own eggs there. I did find out that the eggs are baked. They just crack a bunch of eggs into a big pan, add a little milk, salt and pepper and then throw them in the oven for not near long enough. I'm told it's very standard fare for Finnish hotel breakfasts, but not necessarily elsewhere. Liz says she loves these kind of eggs; more power to you! They're all you can eat so have your fill when you come visit ... read more