Christmas in Helsinki

Christmas break was wonderful. The weather was pleasant, sunny, and the city quiet. The Christmas lights throughout the city and on the boats docked in the harbor lit up the dark northern winter.

I relaxed, wrote, and read. Emailed friends and received many nice emails from people. Thank you, all!

Christmas present from my student Jenni: From Finland With Love book, written by a German immigrant to Finland who writes about why he loves and hates Finland. Apparently a controversial figure in Finland. From Bookplus.fi: "Just thoroughly hilarious, yet very truthful look at the Finnish people, thair ways and their deep rooted love of their home land. Also, the common habit of Finns complaining about the politics even they live in the country of very little corruption. "

Christmas present from my parents: handmade wooden Christmas ornaments shaped like snowflakes, appropriate for this meteorologist, especially in this snow drought we're in now, and homemade Christmas cookies.

Kat sent me friendship soup mix and cookies, too. I think I'm stocked now for sweets. :-)

Yesterday and today, I went shopping for new clothes and a winter jacket and boots. Ended up spending about 600 euro by the time the damage was done on new clothes. I'm doing better to try to dress like a Finn: black and dark clothes. (You would think they would wear colorful clothes in the winter to brighten things up, but that doesn't appear to be the case.)

Saturday night I take an overnight ferry to Stockholm, Sweden, enjoy the city on the 31st, then ferry back on New Year's Eve.