Christmas
So the reason I missed my regular Sunday updates is because we trotted off to Finland for the holidays and I forgot my Dreamwidth password. I figured it was a sign, and just let it be, concentrating on offline fun for the week.
In previous years we've spent both the Christmas and New Year in Finland, but this time I decided that I wanted to see what the New Year's festivities in London are like, so we only stayed for the week.
For once there was no terrible wake-up call at dark thirty - instead, we had a nice evening flight. We enjoyed a lazy morning, packed our stuff and then headed to town. On our way to the airport, we stopped in the city centre to have lunch with E and J, a Finnish couple that we know here in London. J had received a job in Finland, so it was our last chance to see her before she was off for good.
Our flight on the 19th (Thursday) was supposed to leave at 18.45 but, being a Norwegian flight (the company, not the nationality), it was naturally delayed by half an hour. Say what you want about Ryanair, at least they're efficient. We didn't get the Finland until after midnight (local time), so it was pretty much directly to bed for us.
Last year we stayed in the guest room, but this year N's mom had given us her ginormous bed and took the rickety thing in the guest bedroom. Oh my god, the bed was so comfortable! It's like 2 metres wide and really firm and basically heaven compared to ours. We tried to argue that since she was already putting us up and feeding us, we couldn't possibly take her bed too, but the guest one was 1-person-only, so nothing much we could do. Not that we complained too much...
So we woke her up at 1 in the morning, took her bed, and then dashed out the first thing in the morning to go visit my mother in the home where she lives. We're such great guests.
And we didn't even come back afterwards. My dad took us to the station, and we hopped on a train to Lahti, where S had moved to be close to her leech of a boyfriend. S had looked up restaurants to take us to, when she made the mistake of mentioning a viking-themed restaurant called Harald. There was no holding us back after that, so longboat tables, earthenware and lamb neck it was.
We stayed the night on the Friday, then S drove us back to Vantaa, where we went to see the semi-detached house they're building for her and her brother. It sits on the same plot where her parents' house is, so it's a tad weird, and I'm not terribly surprised that she's not that enthused about moving in. It's shaping up to be a gorgeous house, though, and she is torn. It's got three bedrooms, a sauna... I wanted to move in.
From there, S gave us a lift back to N's mom's house, where we finally got to spend some time with her before rushing off to see L and his wife M. It was their last day in Finland before travelling to Germany to spend the Christmas with M's parents.
Then on Saturday we visited A and M, who'd just returned from a month-long trip to New Zealand, Hong Kong and Fidji. We watched a lot of photos and were not at all jealous. No, sir.
On Monday we finally saw L, when she came to visit us. We watched Crank and enjoyed a lovely vegetarian meal N's mom put together for us.
Tuesday was finally Christmas Eve, the big night. N drove me home, where I found my father already drunk as a skunk at 2 in the afternoon. So that was fun. The taxi dropped of my mom a little later, and we set about making Christmas dinner (i.e. putting store-bought stuff in the oven. It was pretty good, though. At least it wasn't a microwave meal?
Presents were an interesting experience. Usually mom buys me tons of really random stuff, this year I got nothing. Her mind works in strange ways these days. Dad gave me a gift card to a department store, as I'd requested after I couldn't come up with anything else.
My gift to mom was a total cop-out this year - I couldn't think of anything else, so I just got her (another) teddy bear. Well, she liked it at least. Dad's wasn't much better; he got a hat, gloves, and socks. So imaginative!
After the taxi had collected mom, I gave dad a lift to what I assume is his girlfriend's house. Whenever I talk to him or see him, that's where he is, was, or is on his way to. He always just says "a friend's place", and I've never asked for more (Finnish doesn't have convenient gendered pronouns). My parents are very much still married but with mum being the way she is for the past decade, it's not like I blame him.
The weather this year was pretty much the exact opposite to the snowbanks in 2012. I was 5 degrees Celsius and rained the entire week. So naturally it was pouring down and pitch black when I had to drive myself back to N's mom's house. That was a fun journey, let me tell you.
Earlier this year N's parent paid for most of our new sofa as a Christmas gift to us, so there wasn't much of an opening frenzy when I got in. N gave me tickets to Wicked (yay!) and I got him a lock-picking set and some practice locks. It turned out to be a big hit, and he played with it pretty much daily for the rest of the holiday. N gave his dad a bottle of whisky and we promised to take his mom out to lunch as our Christmas gift to her.
Christmas Day was spent just lounging around the house and watching Grand Designs (our guilty pleasure in Finland), finally spending some proper time with N's mom (and N's sister's dog). On Boxing Day we visited L again for Crank 2 and some quality gabbing time. Nothing was open yet, so we got pizza for dinner.
I visited my mom again on Friday, while N took the day to go over to A's place again and talk their coding project. That evening we made good of our promise to wine and dine N's mom, and we all met at a (new?) steak restaurant in Helsinki, where all the serving staff seemed to be Estonian. The steaks were amazing, and I almost didn't even cry when it came the time to take care of the bill. At least in Finland you have to pay real salary to your serving staff, so customer aren't expected to tip.
Sadly our return flight was one of those early morning deals, and we had to get up at five to get to the airport. Thankfully N's dad gave us a lift, and we didn't have to spend more than 20 minutes on the trip. Having lived in London for over two years, that's laughable. In London you get to the next bus stop in 20 minutes, if that.
Which were forcibly reminded of when we arrived at Gatwick and learned that there were no trains to anywhere that week. Who the fucks schedules engineering work for Christmas and New Year?? Isn't that peak traffic time?
We had to take a coach to Bumfuck, Nowhere (also knows as East Grinstead, apparently), which took an hour. This was followed by a train ride to Victoria station (another hour), and the discovery that our tube line also wasn't operating that weekend, so we had to take two different tubes to get home. By the time we got there, we'd been travelling for nine hours. Of which the flight was three!
I'd almost fallen asleep on the plain, coach, and train, but by the time we got to our flat that had been standing empty for a week and was, as a result, freezing, I wasn't feeling all the sleepy anymore.
Which was good, because I was seeing
christycorr later that night :) We met for some more steak at Le Relais de Venise, a strange Venice-themed restaurant in Marylebone. Not that the restaurant was strange, just the fact that it's a Venice-themed French restaurant. They also only serve one kind of starter and steak, and the only thing you get to decide how well cooked and what you're drinking with it. You don't even get to choose the side dishes! It's French fries all the way.
I'm not really complaining, though, because they're clearly concentrating on what they do best. The food was amazing, and I was amused by the bill that only said "Meal x 2". Keep it simple indeed. After dinner we though about going somewhere else but pretty much only bars were open and I don't really care to spend time in those, so we ended up at our place again.
We had so much fun that I didn't realise the time, and it was half past eleven before
christycorr happened to take a look at her mobile and was reminded that it would probably be best to start heading back to her hotel.
The next day N's sister arrived, but that's another story that I'll probably post on next Sunday.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth. You can also comment there using OpenID.
In previous years we've spent both the Christmas and New Year in Finland, but this time I decided that I wanted to see what the New Year's festivities in London are like, so we only stayed for the week.
For once there was no terrible wake-up call at dark thirty - instead, we had a nice evening flight. We enjoyed a lazy morning, packed our stuff and then headed to town. On our way to the airport, we stopped in the city centre to have lunch with E and J, a Finnish couple that we know here in London. J had received a job in Finland, so it was our last chance to see her before she was off for good.
Our flight on the 19th (Thursday) was supposed to leave at 18.45 but, being a Norwegian flight (the company, not the nationality), it was naturally delayed by half an hour. Say what you want about Ryanair, at least they're efficient. We didn't get the Finland until after midnight (local time), so it was pretty much directly to bed for us.
Last year we stayed in the guest room, but this year N's mom had given us her ginormous bed and took the rickety thing in the guest bedroom. Oh my god, the bed was so comfortable! It's like 2 metres wide and really firm and basically heaven compared to ours. We tried to argue that since she was already putting us up and feeding us, we couldn't possibly take her bed too, but the guest one was 1-person-only, so nothing much we could do. Not that we complained too much...
So we woke her up at 1 in the morning, took her bed, and then dashed out the first thing in the morning to go visit my mother in the home where she lives. We're such great guests.
And we didn't even come back afterwards. My dad took us to the station, and we hopped on a train to Lahti, where S had moved to be close to her leech of a boyfriend. S had looked up restaurants to take us to, when she made the mistake of mentioning a viking-themed restaurant called Harald. There was no holding us back after that, so longboat tables, earthenware and lamb neck it was.
We stayed the night on the Friday, then S drove us back to Vantaa, where we went to see the semi-detached house they're building for her and her brother. It sits on the same plot where her parents' house is, so it's a tad weird, and I'm not terribly surprised that she's not that enthused about moving in. It's shaping up to be a gorgeous house, though, and she is torn. It's got three bedrooms, a sauna... I wanted to move in.
From there, S gave us a lift back to N's mom's house, where we finally got to spend some time with her before rushing off to see L and his wife M. It was their last day in Finland before travelling to Germany to spend the Christmas with M's parents.
Then on Saturday we visited A and M, who'd just returned from a month-long trip to New Zealand, Hong Kong and Fidji. We watched a lot of photos and were not at all jealous. No, sir.
On Monday we finally saw L, when she came to visit us. We watched Crank and enjoyed a lovely vegetarian meal N's mom put together for us.
Tuesday was finally Christmas Eve, the big night. N drove me home, where I found my father already drunk as a skunk at 2 in the afternoon. So that was fun. The taxi dropped of my mom a little later, and we set about making Christmas dinner (i.e. putting store-bought stuff in the oven. It was pretty good, though. At least it wasn't a microwave meal?
Presents were an interesting experience. Usually mom buys me tons of really random stuff, this year I got nothing. Her mind works in strange ways these days. Dad gave me a gift card to a department store, as I'd requested after I couldn't come up with anything else.
My gift to mom was a total cop-out this year - I couldn't think of anything else, so I just got her (another) teddy bear. Well, she liked it at least. Dad's wasn't much better; he got a hat, gloves, and socks. So imaginative!
After the taxi had collected mom, I gave dad a lift to what I assume is his girlfriend's house. Whenever I talk to him or see him, that's where he is, was, or is on his way to. He always just says "a friend's place", and I've never asked for more (Finnish doesn't have convenient gendered pronouns). My parents are very much still married but with mum being the way she is for the past decade, it's not like I blame him.
The weather this year was pretty much the exact opposite to the snowbanks in 2012. I was 5 degrees Celsius and rained the entire week. So naturally it was pouring down and pitch black when I had to drive myself back to N's mom's house. That was a fun journey, let me tell you.
Earlier this year N's parent paid for most of our new sofa as a Christmas gift to us, so there wasn't much of an opening frenzy when I got in. N gave me tickets to Wicked (yay!) and I got him a lock-picking set and some practice locks. It turned out to be a big hit, and he played with it pretty much daily for the rest of the holiday. N gave his dad a bottle of whisky and we promised to take his mom out to lunch as our Christmas gift to her.
Christmas Day was spent just lounging around the house and watching Grand Designs (our guilty pleasure in Finland), finally spending some proper time with N's mom (and N's sister's dog). On Boxing Day we visited L again for Crank 2 and some quality gabbing time. Nothing was open yet, so we got pizza for dinner.
I visited my mom again on Friday, while N took the day to go over to A's place again and talk their coding project. That evening we made good of our promise to wine and dine N's mom, and we all met at a (new?) steak restaurant in Helsinki, where all the serving staff seemed to be Estonian. The steaks were amazing, and I almost didn't even cry when it came the time to take care of the bill. At least in Finland you have to pay real salary to your serving staff, so customer aren't expected to tip.
Sadly our return flight was one of those early morning deals, and we had to get up at five to get to the airport. Thankfully N's dad gave us a lift, and we didn't have to spend more than 20 minutes on the trip. Having lived in London for over two years, that's laughable. In London you get to the next bus stop in 20 minutes, if that.
Which were forcibly reminded of when we arrived at Gatwick and learned that there were no trains to anywhere that week. Who the fucks schedules engineering work for Christmas and New Year?? Isn't that peak traffic time?
We had to take a coach to Bumfuck, Nowhere (also knows as East Grinstead, apparently), which took an hour. This was followed by a train ride to Victoria station (another hour), and the discovery that our tube line also wasn't operating that weekend, so we had to take two different tubes to get home. By the time we got there, we'd been travelling for nine hours. Of which the flight was three!
I'd almost fallen asleep on the plain, coach, and train, but by the time we got to our flat that had been standing empty for a week and was, as a result, freezing, I wasn't feeling all the sleepy anymore.
Which was good, because I was seeing
christycorr later that night :) We met for some more steak at Le Relais de Venise, a strange Venice-themed restaurant in Marylebone. Not that the restaurant was strange, just the fact that it's a Venice-themed French restaurant. They also only serve one kind of starter and steak, and the only thing you get to decide how well cooked and what you're drinking with it. You don't even get to choose the side dishes! It's French fries all the way.
I'm not really complaining, though, because they're clearly concentrating on what they do best. The food was amazing, and I was amused by the bill that only said "Meal x 2". Keep it simple indeed. After dinner we though about going somewhere else but pretty much only bars were open and I don't really care to spend time in those, so we ended up at our place again.
We had so much fun that I didn't realise the time, and it was half past eleven before
christycorr happened to take a look at her mobile and was reminded that it would probably be best to start heading back to her hotel.
The next day N's sister arrived, but that's another story that I'll probably post on next Sunday.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth. You can also comment there using OpenID.