Those who know me know that I am no good at afternoon flights. I am always pushing my luck, I am usually spending more time negotiating a free upgrade instead of making my way to the gate and being a good little traveller, and they always have to page me because I am in the tax-free shops instead of at the boarding gate.

So I manage to work my way into business class on a comp upgrade, which is ALWAYS better when I am going home because I get drunk on the airline’s nickle/sheckle/kronor/whatever. The lounge is nice enough, but I almost miss my flight. I was too focused on nuts. Peanuts. They were really tasty. Of course, I was drunk within 10 minutes. On the flight I got more drunk. And now as I sit on the train writing this, I am surprised that I am this drunk. Well not really.

I have to say that Finland in the summer is growing on me. Last night I went out for drinks and dinner with my manager’s manager and his colleague. I realised that Finland is actually quite a nicely designed city, with the downtown areas quite well designed as a meeting point for friends, drinks, dinner, movies, shopping, etc. It also helps that my hotel is located right downtown and that I have easy access to everything.

In the past, I have never been able to make a summer trip to Helsinki. I usually have to come in the winter and that’s no fun. But visiting in the summer months has actually been quite nice in fact. I think that I shall plan to come back here on business again before September. Of course, it is already planned per order of my manager’s manager. It would be nice to get in a summer weekend here.

Oh yeah, and there was this mascot at breakfast with a smoker’s cough. All I could do was picture this kid-friendly mascot smoking a cigar. Breakfast was hilarious 😉