For the first time in weeks we had set an alarm for the morning, we needed to be awake unreasonably early to get to the airport for 6:30am. The first flight of the day out of Kemi would take us to Helsinki for a weekend of catching up with with friends & family. Gonzalo & Nora kindly gave up their Saturday morning sleep time to collect us from the airport. After a quick breakfast we were on the metro bound for the city centre. There was a cold wind blowing off the sea so we quickly retreated to a bar to decide the plan for the day...eating and drinking seemed to be the consences. Being quite an internationally orientated city, there are good options although booking a table can be hard. Lunch was at Cholo, a walk in Mexican Taqueria...it wasn't quite walk in though, this place has a great reputation and a queue out the door. It took a while to eventually get to the front of the queue but the burrito was well worth the wait. Gonzalo managed to book a table at Tokyo 55 for dinner in the evening, another very popular place with some great sushi and of course Asahi to wash it down.

We arranged to meet with Marjukka & Jukka for something to eat on Sunday while picking their brains about their time in South America. Sandro is a Morrocan restaurant that has become immensely popular following some recent media reviews - there is a 4 month waiting list for a table for Sunday brunch but fortunately we were having dinner and got a table. When the food was delivered, it looked like a small serving but turned out to be very filling and very, very tasty - a well deserved reputation.

We were overnighting with Maria's aunt and uncle, Sari & Omer, in Vantaa. Despite just having eaten dinner, we were presented with some cheese and wine to compliment the great conversation and the many games of football being shown on the television in background.
A late night led to a lazy Monday with nothing more energetic than a quick walk with the dog. Watching the football on Sunday night got David thinking about Rangers and the upcoming trip to Glasgow, was there going to be a game? As luck would have it, a Quarter Final Cup game at Ibrox, the home of Rangers, is on on the Sunday afternoon we are due to arrive...so tickets were duly purchased.

We were having an early dinner but it turned out not to allow us an early bedtime as we originally thought. Omer being Turkish decided to bring out the Raki and we were told that meant a 5 hour meal...they were kidding of course but it was still a good couple of hours and a huge dent was made in the bottle. After a post dinner football match on television it was time for bed, we have a 'red-eye' flight to Scotland via Oslo in the morning...