Juhannus in pictures

In juhannus you can sit on the rock by the water also in the city. A mandatory bare foot picture.

The nature is close by, even in the city.

Not everybody were resting. I guess juhannus is good time to work for one-man-band entrepreneur.

Cars were gone so you could spot some wild strawberries by the parking lots.

Summer idyll meets high tech - only in Espoo.

I went to see the quiet city by kickbike. 

The city was really empty.

I kicked off the new biking lane Baana at the city center. It was nice.

On juhannus the daylight time lasts for 19 hours. Which means vacation for the street lamps. This one was apparently enjoying its vacation. 

Juhannus night was full of magic.

On Saturday morning forest was still under a spell.

Saturday night was so cold that one had to wear woolen socks.

But luckily good food compensated the cold weather.

Summer is state of mind. And menu.

 On Sunday there were mostly tourists in the city. And this funny bottle player.

Ten to twelve people were queuing to Stockmann sale. 

As a grande finale of juhannus we went into the brunch heaven of Kämp Brasserie. Probably the best brunch I've ever eaten. I especially loved the prawns skagen, black currant herring and ceasar salad. And roasted lamb. And sparkling wine.

More snow-how in traffic, please

Talvi yllätti autoilijat, indeed. Despite the humor built into the sentence there is nothing funny in a pile-up at the motorway. In the past two winters we've been proud about our snow-how: how we manage and organize our daily life despite the snow. Our snow-how may be world class what comes to bulldozing the snow out of the streets or finding innovative ways to store the excess snow in downtown, but snow-how in the traffic is our Achilles' heel.

A small survival dictionary/guide to winter traffic:

• Turvaväli - safety buffer. Do not drive right next to the bumper of the car in front of you. Don't. Icy roads are slippery and it takes quite a long way to really stop your car.

• Tilannenopeus - hmm, no idea of the English word related to this. You need to adjust your speed according the weather and surrounding traffic, no matter what the speed limit signs are saying.

• Talvirenkaat - winter tires. Either studded tires or friction tires. According to law you must have winter tires from November to Easter.

• Ajovalot - headlamps. When you're driving in a heavy snow storm, it's ok to adjust lamps of the car to improve the visibility - the clue is to have the lamps on, not switched off. Redirecting the headlamps, turning on the sumuvalot (the fog lamps?), or using the lyhyet valot (short distance mild lights) instead of pitkät valot (long distance bright lights) may help if the snow is blurring the visibility. But do not use the emergency blinkers unless you're in real emergency.