It’s been quite a few months since my last post but please…

Whenever you think of Finnish nature, you’d think of lakes and ridiculous amount of sunshine while you enjoy a nice beverage of sorts that’ll make you happy post Sauna trip at a Summer Cottage. Well, that did not happen this time around during my trip last Summer. Somehow, the Finnish weather, particularly those involving ridiculous amounts of rain tends to follow me around. So if you’re visiting Finland this summer, make sure to bring your raincoats and all that jazz.

When we met up with the bestie, Marica, we were on the way to meet her Dad at the train station seeing as we were travelling straight from Helsinki and Marica was from another station, coming off directly from her workplace.

Took us a good 2 hours (i think) to go from the train station up to their Summer Cottage, which by the way, is awesome the last time I went during Winter. Luckily for us, the rain wasn’t as heavy as you’d expect so we got to see this out the window the entire way.  Even when it’s gloomy, the pop of green in the Finnish countryside is really beautiful.

We finally made it to the cottage in one piece! And dear lord it’s even more beautiful in the Summer time that it is during Winter. We managed to explore the area for a bit as soon as we arrived, particularly my aunt and uncle who were visiting Finland/Europe for the first time.

Early dinner with the Juvonens

With a round of exploring done, dinner was ready for us and bing bang boom! We sat at the dinner table for a finnish summertime dinner. We had salmon, wild mushrooms soup, potatoes and an assortment of other goodness to choose from for dinner. I especially liked the mushroom soup, seeing as I love mushrooms.

That salmon…ermahgerd..that salmon…so good….so good….Marica’s dad smoked it in his smokehouse and I’m all dead from how awesome it tasted. The Finns know how to do it right.

The vodka loving me, whom I suspect may have been of Eastern European or Russian descent in my past life, was given this by my hosts. I ugly cried on the inside because I have missed this. *cuddles with bottle* My own little pocket warmer. Koskenkorva makes me all warm and fuzzy on the inside.

To go with all that warm tummy goodness were these babies…I don’t usually eat that much sweet stuff. But I make an exception for when I go to Finland every time.

The Finnish Wilderness & Lakes

If you have a friend who own summer cottages, especially ones far away from the city area, then you’d be in for a treat! I love nature so me heading out to the Finnish wilderness is just like entering a momentary heaven.

They’ve got berries – strawberries, blueberries, cloudberries and them berry goodness out in the wild…and you can just eat or pick ’em as much as you can…Just in case no one has ever noticed, Me+Food = OTP. But i need to get fit so this ain’t happening. hahaha

My aunt lookin’ like a little kid happily picking blueberries in the bushes. Btw, they tasted heavenly. Woooooo

We eventually made it to the nearby lake. By Odin, the lake itself looked like something out of a postcard. How is the Finnish countryside this beautiful? HOW? It’s a crime i tell ya. A friggin crime.

As I was the designated photographer for my aunt, I took several photos of her at the lake.

The notorious butt photos are back for a bit. 

Funnily enough, on our way back up to the cottage, we found mushrooms…Chanterelle Mushrooms to be exact! I’m in Shroom land heaven!! There were quite a few growing by the side of the road. Marica’s dad told us that it we you find them out in the wild, you can eat them as is. Tastes like any other mushroom but with a little bit of sharp spicyness to it. Lucky for us, the mushrooms were in season.

My uncle and aunt went full on mushroom tasting. If you need to know how they tasted, their faces says it all.

      

If you find yourself lost in the wilderness, look the ground for some mushrooms. You might just spot them like we did below:

We even found strawberries! Apparently it’s hard to spot them but we were lucky enough to stumble upon them. Weee! Thank you, Finnish nature! You know i love ya. hehe I’ve never seen strawberries growing so this was definitely a treat for the eyes!

Walk back to the summer cottage for the next round of lake trippin’! Yaaassss Give me nature! 

Cause there were 6 of us and the lake was a bit further away, we stuffed Marica in the back. Hehehe but we still love you, baybeh!!

Eventually, we made it to the other lake in less than 20 minutes. I was practically giggling with Marica the entire way.

Perfect butt to background ratio for great butt photos. HAHAHAHAHAHA

We found this odd looking hut near the lake that looked something from back home. I mean, it would make sense for us back home but we were surprised at the similarities. Heck, it looked so cool with the background.

The lakes on this part of the area was better than the last. The water was literally see through. Not like what you see back home. Pollution ain’t got nothing on the water here. Apparently, you can even drink straight from the river itself. It was THAT clean.

By the time we got back to the cabin again, it was time for us to leave. The feels of leaving Finnish nature hits you right in the feels. But we had to leave since it was getting real late and we needed to get a train back to Helsinki.

On the way back, we saw several deers as we were driving to Espoo for our train back to Helsinki and for Marica to get home since she’s from the area. We stopped for a bit but my phone was dead so I couldn’t take any pictures of them. Oh well, at least they were cute.

And so..that ended that day….Will post up other stuff soon. ^_^