My relatives live in Lappeenranta, which is a couple hours outside the capitol. It is nothing less than beautiful there. Trees as far as the eye can see. The freeways wind through forests. Lakes are all over the place. If you look it up on Google Maps you can see how much water surrounds them. The air is so clean, I wasn’t really bothered with allergies. You can even drink straight from the tap and it tastes amazing. Like the best water I’ve ever had. So it was really, really nice.

Unfortunately, we happened to be there in the midst of the hottest summer ever, so the heat and humidity made us feel really worn out. And my feet and ankles were swelling like crazy. It might not have been so bad, but nobody has air conditioning. Even a lot of the restaurants and stores don’t have A/C. They don’t ever need it! And the stores were completely sold out of fans and portable units. My aunt and uncle had a little 12″ fan cooling the whole house, but it didn’t help much. Our only escape was to take a ride in the car. Otherwise, we just had to accept the fact that we were a bunch of sweaty fools. But at least everyone else was sweaty too.

We stayed at my aunt and uncle’s house and they took such good care of us. Here are some of the highlights of the trip:

– They fed us extremely well. Lots of breads, cheeses, fresh veggies, salads and potatoes.

– We spent a lot of time down by the Harbor. We had ice cream and meat pies, took a cruise down the Saimaa Canal, and saw the annual Sand Castle display and some nearby shops.

– Visited the house where my Mom grew up. It was a short walk from my aunt’s house and the people currently living there let us have a look around. There was even a playhouse still standing in the backyard that she used to play in! It was really cool to imagine my mom growing up there.

– Spent time at my Grandma’s house and of course she fed us all kinds of homemade yummies. We also looked at a bunch of old pictures and heard some stories of her youth. Seeing pictures of her at around age 14 was totally surreal because she looked exactly like my mom.

– Strawberries from the Farmer’s Market. Hubs ate so many I thought he’d poop a strawberry patch.

– While we were out walking the town, there was a pleasantly surprising rainstorm that lasted for about 3 minutes. It was one of the happiest moments of my life because it cooled things down for the first time! The raindrops were about the size of your head and the thunder and lightning were loud. It was great.

– Of course, one of the best things about going, was meeting and getting to know a lot of my extended family. I even met my Grandpa for the first time. I’m so glad I got the chance, because I would hate to look back knowing that we never talked or hugged once.

– My cousin’s wedding was beautiful. Everyone had so much fun.

– My pregnant belly made it’s first appearance. It was the first time I felt pregnant and not just bloated.

– Saw the sunrise… at 1am…

– Had a big family dinner at the local Greek restaurant. For dessert we ordered french toast, and it was definitely my husband’s favorite treat from the whole trip.

– Homemade Coke.

– We spent one morning touring Linnoitus (which translates to The Fort). It’s a really old part of town where most of the war was fought. It was really cool to walk through the trenches that the soldiers actually used!

– Tried the Finnish version of fast food. Of course they have McDonald’s (which sells mozzarella sticks) but to get something a little different, we went to Hesburgers. I think they put tarter sauce on their cheeseburgers. It was good though!

– Our suitcase got so destroyed on the way there, we had to jimmy-rig it on the inside with one of our camera tripods, just to get it to roll properly.

– On our last day, my husband and I took a train back to Helsinki. The train ride was a bit of an adventure in itself, but visiting the capitol was awesome. It was the perfect way to end our trip. It’s one of the coolest European cities we’ve been to.