📓📷 Last sauna for 198… oh wait 📺

📓📷 Leaving Bulgaria 🇧🇬 after a Christmas family visit. Early morning flight, long transfer ahead, but feeling fulfilled.

📓⚽️ Premier League is back! Skipped the Qatar World Cup, super hyped to watch some great games today!

📓 There are 2 types of people in this world - those who tell a hairstylist they don’t like the cut, and those who don’t. 💇🏻 I’m the latter.

📓🍿 Black Adam is just what I needed to unwind after a long week. Enjoying the silly humour. My favorite character might be Karim. 😀

📓🚇 Metro etiquette in rush hour - you move from aisle to window seat when the latter frees up. ☝️

📓 One day I’ll decide that the stress of the week before vacation is not worth it… And never go on vacation ever again 😂

📓📷 Visited Porvoo today. It’s a pretty town. The photo is a little misleading - the old town was bustling with people.

📓📷 My partner made themselves an early Christmas present - a new camera. And it’s paying off already on day 1. Starring Elli 🐶❄️

📓 Been sick over the last few days 🤧 It peaked on Sunday and today is the first day I feel my energy is coming back 💪 The feeling of ‘normal’ after enduring any sort of pain is a good reminder to be grateful for the simple things.

📓📷 Amazing gig yesterday by Finnish shoegaze band Ruissalo Amping! 🎵 Spotify/Apple Music

📓📷 On the way to public sauna 🧖 First day of snow ❄️

📓⚽️ In a first world fit of “my thoughts and prayers”, I’ve decided not to watch the football world championship in Qatar. The lack of actually meaningful action from the teams is also frustrating. A rainbow colored captain’s band is as useful as this post.

📓📷 Seen in Helsinki 🇺🇦

📓📷 A frosty Nordic morning on a doggie walk.

📓⚽️ Brighton - Chelsea vs. Liverpool - Leeds. A stark contrast in what a difference a goalie can make. And… what the heck did I just watch today 😳 Going to bed grumpy.

📓 Visited the Finnish Glass Museum today.

📓📷 Sunday mood 🐶

I’ve been waiting for a while now to take a long weekend. Finally, there was the perfect opportunity and I decided to make the most of it. Of course, this means making a list. I’ve checked the items below. I’m proud I managed to tick everything off, apart from ❌ taking a nap. Will catch up during the weekend 😉.

I decided to ✅ walk everywhere I go on Friday, to keep me active and, well, I enjoy walking a lot. My first destination in the morning was a cozy cafe, where I had a solid breakfast set. It was super chill, I was the only customer for the most of the hour I spent there.

After breakfast, on to ✅ Helsinki’s City Library Oodi. The Finnish library system is some sort of a welfare utopia, Oodi is the cherry on top of the cake. On the way, ✅ listened to a podcast, a panel discussion on the day in the life of game producers. At the library I ✅ finished the draft of a blog post, read some magazines, had some tea and overall was sucking in the unique atmosphere of Oodi.

Nothing relaxes me like ✅ a good sauna session. It was a bit early in the day, this was a bit of a challenge. Settled for Allas, which is in the heart of the city and combined it with some open air swimming (in a heated pool). There was also the option to dip in a pool of actual sea water, however the water temperature of 8 degrees Celsius, discouraged me… but not many of the other customers.

On the way to an early dinner, I made an improptu stop by one of my favorite beer pubs - Pien. This pint of Czech Pilsner brought to a spring to my step as I commuted to my next destination.

✅ Dinner at a lovely wine and tapas bar with my partner. Excellent food, drinks and, of course, company 🥰.

We had a nightcap on the way home in the tiniest of wine bars. Super atmospheric. By then, I was feeling the nice tinge of exhaustion from a long day well spent. 🙏