Torni

I'm posting this as a backblip as I was too weary last night to do any photo-editing. We've had a whirlwind 24 hours, coinciding with L's visit to Helsinki, en route to Budapest. For me, this is an n=1, leaving me feeling wasted after just 24 hours. For L it's just one part of a typically complex and exhausting itinerary, which took him to Bali last weekend for a rugby 10s tournament, followed by a few days by the beach with his girlfriend, then back to Singapore to change planes so that he could get here and she could go to London. Coming here was a way of then pivoting onwards using Finnair, to get to Budapest where he has more family business. Then it's back to Singapore on Sunday evening/Monday morning, again pivoting via Helsinki to change planes. Ah well, such is the life of the young cosmopolitan.

So I had an early start to get the Finnair bus to the airport, in order to meet him off his flight. I could have left later, in retrospect, as I ended up hanging around for a while as the flight landed slightly later than it does normally (I've been checking) and he also took quite a while to collect his luggage. Back here, we breakfasted and headed off into town on a gloriously sunny day. We pottered around Eira and then the centre of town, enjoying the bright sunshine and taking in various sights. Lunch was at Kappelli, and then afterwards we had a couple of beers at Torni, where the views from the Ateljee bar were wonderful. It was particularly intriguing as an unexpected shower passed over just as we went up there, and on one side there was sunshine and on the other side rain (I've added an extra to illustrate that point). The blip I've chosen shows our area of the city (Taivallahti bay, basically), with the power station we can see from our building (see on the skyline here) prominent in the picture.

Back in our 'hood, we visited the Sibelius Monument, and Regatta (of course!). Then later, we trekked back into town for dinner at Ragu, which was good, but not as stunning as other meals we've had recently. And home!

A good day, of course, and it was great to see L whom I haven't seen since my dad's funeral. Shame it couldn't be for longer, but I think that the description in the first sentence will give you a flavour of his current peripatetic existence. At least we'll be seeing him again quite soon, in his own 'hood.