Alko, pizza and fried fish

I guess that I haven't written anything for a while. Mainly it's because I've been moving house, but there is a bit of laziness involved too... But anyway, apologies for my laziness and thanks to Johnny and Krista for at least writing something from time to time.

But we have moved house and it has used up pretty much 4 solid weeks of my life in painting, moving, packing and unpacking or other house moving related activities. Although I should at this stage point out that Ulriikka did significantly more work than I did!

We've moved to a slightly more residential part of the city centre. So even though we're on the ground floor we haven't heard the same amount of noise as we did in the city centre (although even there it was never too bad). We are right next door to the Alko store which means that we will never be struggling for high-percentage alcohol as long as we buy it before 6pm. We can also see a Kotipizza from the kitchen window, which might make it hard to decide to eat something healthy though. Nearby is Tammelantori where the main market is, so we can get our fried fish in the mornings.

We reserved our sauna slot for Friday evening so spent last Friday tidying away the last of the unpacked things then relaxing in the sauna. Well kind of relaxing. We have the 7-8pm slot and we were a bit late and went there at about 7:15. We didn't take a watch with us so we didn't know what time it was. After a bit we decided we'd had enough and though we should leave before the next people came banging on the door. When we got back we found that we had been away for 15 minutes. Maybe we can take it a bit easier next time.

Living in a block of flats leaves us with quite a few odd little things that we can use. We have a space in a cold storage room (which currently has paint in it) and some storage space in the attic. There are also some drying rooms which are a little bit spooky. There is also a bike storage facility but it takes about two days to walk through the maze of corridors in the cellar to get to it - where it exits out onto a different street than we live on.

But otherwise it's all weddings over here. I was in Helsinki about three weeks ago to see the UK consulate. I was made to swear on the bible that Ulriikka wasn't my sister or anything else on a list of about 30 different relations. It was all very bizarre. I had to leave all my belongings in the security lodge, taking "only the papers you need" with me. This meant that I left my cash in my bag and had to go back to get it - I suppose that would have come under the "papers I need" section of my belongings so it's my own fault. I also had my suit with me (I was at a christening the next day) so in the end I left quite a bit of stuff in the security lodge, some of which I needed. Apart from getting my first attempt at the form wrong, including writing my age down wrong, and getting my address wrong (I wrote "road" instead of "street") it all went smoothly and I should hear in the next few days whether or not I am free to get married. Or rather I am free to ask the Finnish authorites if I can get married. It's all very complicated this international romance thing you know.