Back home!

I've been back home for a few days now. I had a fantastic holiday (apart from falling ill near to the end, and I still have an annoying cough :() and wouldn't have minded staying a bit longer. It was so good to see family and friends again, see familiar places, eat good food and just relax. I took tons of photos, too, have yet to upload a selection to my flickr.

I bought lots of postcards, too. The selection in Finland is AMAZING, no wonder postcrossing is so popular over there when it's so easy to get hold of nice postcards. The downside is, postcards are really expensive over there! One euro was a standard price, and apart from some discount buys at Kirjatori shops, the cheapest viewcards were around 50 cents. *shakes head*



I totally fell in love with this one postcard series I found in Helsinki. The cards are all panoramic I think, and show nice little details of Helsinki. They're a bit different from the usual touristic cards, which is probably why I like them so much.

The card above is from this series. On the left it shows the Helsinki market square (Kauppatori) at the end of Esplanadi, and on the right you can see a courtyard in Vallila (a suburb near the centre of Helsinki). I didn't go to Kauppatori this time, I much prefer the Hakaniemi market place. It feels more down to earth somehow and there are less tourists there. That, and the Hakaniemi Market Hall is amazing. Lots of cute little shops selling all kinds of goodies, including yummy foods and postcards. I even found a shop selling Nouvelles Images postcards there! The day before I left back to England I went to eat lunch there with mum and dad in this lovely little place called Soppakeittiö ('Soup Kitchen'). They only sell different soups, but it's all SO good, and the portions are very generous. I had a bowl of jerusalem artichoke and goats cheese soup, which was heavenly.

Hopefully next time I'll go back a bit sooner than in a year and a half... Me and Matt have been talking of going some time early next year/spring. We'll see...