Sunday, we meet again
N and I visited Finland last weekend. Not our folks this time, but a couple of friends for a long weekend.
We got ridiculously cheap tickets (£92 for the whole thing for two people - that's less than train tickets to Bristol and back) but because it was an early flight, not only did we have to get up a 4:45 on Friday morning, we had to get a taxi to the train station and then a train to the airport, which ended up costing us almost as much.
It was a great trip, though. N's friend A came to pick us up at the airport, and we both stayed the first night as his place. Which is massive for a bachelor, by the way. Three bedrooms, sauna, garden, the works.
Saturday morning I got a lift to the station, and hopped on a train to go stay with an ex-coworker of mine who lives in the middle of nowhere outside the city. She and her husband have built a house there a while ago, and while it was indeed amazing, they're now some €270k in debt and only the husband is currently working.
It was great seeing her again but man, the kids. They have a 2-year-old girl and a boy of 4 moths, and everyone who knows me knows how comfortable I'm with kids. Fortunately this particular ex-coworker knows me very well, and she didn't even offer to let me hold the baby or play with the older one. Still, it was exhausting just watching the madhouse that's a two-kid family.
Fortunately her husband was on holiday, so we had some time to just us two to go to the sauna and even clothes shopping (yes, I'm still the weirdo who lives in London and still goes abroad to shop).
I stayed the night, got woken up by the kids around 7 in the morning, and spent the Sunday just lying about and chatting. The husband is a fireman but he and a few friends are planning on starting a company that makes educational apps games for schools, so he grilled me on developer salaries and processes.
Sunday afternoon I took a train back to A's place. The boys came to pick me up from the train station and we got Chinese. They'd been building a flying drone while I was away but right then they were in the middle of a Civilization V match. I whipped out my iPad and well all drank tea in companionable silence.
A sadly had to go to work on Monday, so we took a taxi back to the airport around noon. I really love flying west, because with the 2-hour time difference, it's like you land after only an hour, and have plenty of day left.
Unfortunately on Tuesday I discovered that my boss, who was supposed to look after all the HR stuff while I was gone, had also been away for the two days, so I spent the rest of the week on catching up on emails. It wasn't until Friday morning that I started to work on stuff that had actually appreared in my inbox that same day...
Originally posted at Dreamwidth. You can also comment there using OpenID.
We got ridiculously cheap tickets (£92 for the whole thing for two people - that's less than train tickets to Bristol and back) but because it was an early flight, not only did we have to get up a 4:45 on Friday morning, we had to get a taxi to the train station and then a train to the airport, which ended up costing us almost as much.
It was a great trip, though. N's friend A came to pick us up at the airport, and we both stayed the first night as his place. Which is massive for a bachelor, by the way. Three bedrooms, sauna, garden, the works.
Saturday morning I got a lift to the station, and hopped on a train to go stay with an ex-coworker of mine who lives in the middle of nowhere outside the city. She and her husband have built a house there a while ago, and while it was indeed amazing, they're now some €270k in debt and only the husband is currently working.
It was great seeing her again but man, the kids. They have a 2-year-old girl and a boy of 4 moths, and everyone who knows me knows how comfortable I'm with kids. Fortunately this particular ex-coworker knows me very well, and she didn't even offer to let me hold the baby or play with the older one. Still, it was exhausting just watching the madhouse that's a two-kid family.
Fortunately her husband was on holiday, so we had some time to just us two to go to the sauna and even clothes shopping (yes, I'm still the weirdo who lives in London and still goes abroad to shop).
I stayed the night, got woken up by the kids around 7 in the morning, and spent the Sunday just lying about and chatting. The husband is a fireman but he and a few friends are planning on starting a company that makes educational apps games for schools, so he grilled me on developer salaries and processes.
Sunday afternoon I took a train back to A's place. The boys came to pick me up from the train station and we got Chinese. They'd been building a flying drone while I was away but right then they were in the middle of a Civilization V match. I whipped out my iPad and well all drank tea in companionable silence.
A sadly had to go to work on Monday, so we took a taxi back to the airport around noon. I really love flying west, because with the 2-hour time difference, it's like you land after only an hour, and have plenty of day left.
Unfortunately on Tuesday I discovered that my boss, who was supposed to look after all the HR stuff while I was gone, had also been away for the two days, so I spent the rest of the week on catching up on emails. It wasn't until Friday morning that I started to work on stuff that had actually appreared in my inbox that same day...
Originally posted at Dreamwidth. You can also comment there using OpenID.