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So we went to Finland on this rainy morning in June. We just had Belgian parliament elections, which gave us enough talks on the train to Brussels. With some delay in Riga we finally ended in Helsinki. Two days to explore the city. My first impression was the emptiness of the city. This doesn´t look like a European capital at all, cause I´m used to busy Western capitals like Brussels, London and Paris. Streets are so broad here, there are so many open spaces and traffic is so little. I was trying to imagine how it would look like in winter, when there is snow everywhere and even more isolation. The city looks very comfortable to live in, but I'm sure I couldn´t cope with the temperatures. We walked and walked... exploring everything. Of course one of our first visits was the Kiasma- Museum of Contemporary Art. What a perfect building- being beautiful, without taking too much attention out of the art pieces. One of the interesting works is of Johanna Lecklinin, who went into several cities in Europe to put up a story- cafe. People were invited to tell a story and got a free cup of coffee instead. The artist was surprised that soo many people wanted to be involved. Aha, after all that art we earned a Belgian beer, but my Goddddd, look at the prices. This is amazing. 3 Times the price of the beer in Belgium. Hm, I must consider opening a beer pub over here. That night we were completly overtook by the light. At 3 o´clock in the morning the sun was up and shining again. Did I already talked about the design? Finnish really know how to make desig- stuff. I also like the way they renovate their beautiful old buildings into something contemporary without taking the spirit out of the building.

Then, on day 3 we took the bus to Forssa. I found the public transport in Finland very efficient and comfortable, but also expensive. I will talk about the Forssa trip later in another blog entry.