hezma

Yesterday we made a little road trip and visited Ikea in Haaparanta.

Here we are still on this side of the border. Stopped to eat in Tornio and had some tasty (and large!) kebabs there at Turkinpippuri.

The reason for the trip was that I'm still in need of those CD shelves and was looking for an inspiration... Maybe Bestå is the answer? By adding five more shelves to the unit there's room for ~530 CD's in the shelf unit (meaning I need a few of those). Only problem is that to prevent them from falling (depth is only 20 cm) these shelves must be fixed to the wall and we don't want to drill any holes to the walls. Well, hmmm...

Since we were in Sweden already we decided to drive a little bit further and visited the small town of Kalix just out of cusiosity.

So... The second part of our summer vacation was spent mostly in Barcelona where we stayed for 8 nights. The town looked beautiful, the weather was fine, and we met some nice people there too.

I'll post mostly pictures here, but if you want to read more detailed version of our trip see Jari's journal.

A view from Plaça de la Carbonera.

Somewhere near Plaça del Portal de la Pau. Don't know what the building is but I like the palm trees, they don't have those here except small ones in flower pots.

Plaça de Catalunya.

Casa Milà.

Barri Gòtic.

Fundació Joan Miró.

Torre Telefónica.

A view from Montjuïc to Espanya.

Arc de Triomf.

Parc de la Ciutadella.

Posing with the mammoth at Parc de la Ciutadella.

The zoo near Parc de la Ciutadella was cool. Here's dolphin.

A tired bear.

Some crocodiles with nice grins.

An exhibition at Torre Agbar.

At Parc de Güell. Thanks to Xavi, Eduard and Alex for showing us around. Oh and thanks for the dinner too!

More Parc de Güell.

And yet some Parc de Güell.

On Saturday we took the train to visit Sitges which is quite near, some 35 km southwest of Barcelona. This picture was taken somewhere between.

Sitges beach.

More Sitges beach.

On Sunday we and Xavi (gorkabear) visited Chuck (ursine1) and his partner Ruben who offered us a very delicious lunch and some drinks too. Nice! Thank you guys!

Here's our favorite café opposite to our hotel.

The souvenirs I bought were mostly presented on the previous post ;)

Visited Turkansaari open-air museum:

On friday we returned to Finland to visit some friends in Helsinki. On saturday we participated to Helsinki Pride 2009.

At noon people are starting to gather to The Senate Square (Senaatintori).

Bought that bear flag from Copenhagen.

After the parade at the Hakasalmi park.

People at the park.

Some video from the Pride. Our 1 second of fame at 1:40 mins ;)

Was nice. More pics and some words in Finnish here.

Flew back home yesterday.

It's the first part of our summer vacation. Last monday we took the flight to Copenhagen. The weather was just right and the city looked nice. Mostly we walked around the city centre and looked for sights.

One day we took a canal tour which was cool.

The hippie city Christiania was a bit disappointment.

Took only one short trip with metro.

Of course I had to buy some Danish music so I finally bought me the first eight Savage Rose albums (spanning the years 1968-1973). They didn't cost that much either, which was nice.

We also visited couple of gay bars of which Jailhouse felt most comfortable.

In Prague:

* people mostly look the same as in Finland
* surprisingly few speak/understand English
* Visa is not commonly accepted, you need cash (luckily there were lots of Bankomats around)
* they still have telephone booths
* they smoke a lot (you can't escape the scent of smoke neither outside nor inside)
* they all wear the same perfume
* public transport works well (except that Můstek and Muzeum stations are confusing with too many exits), but you can just as easily walk around the city centre, the distances are not that bad
* buildings are beautiful compared to lame Finnish architecture

A view from our hotel window.

A view from Málesův most.

A view from Charles Bridge.

A view from Václavské náměstí.

Národní muzeum.

Vaasa:

The prison of Vaasa was just around the corner by the waterside.

Some oldish building.

The sea.

Lots of boats there, just like in Turku, only a little bit smaller.

Went to see the Vaasa Housing Fair.

The ruins of the Sankta Maria church at Gamla Vasa ("Old Vaasa").

Also:

* Visited the Ostrobothnian Museum and Terranova Kvarken Nature Centre, which was cool.

Vaasa was nice too. Lots of Swedish speaking people there. Quite small city. More than ten different brands of Jesus but no gay bars.