Dutchies on a visit! Part one - boyfriend edition

Last weekend the time had finally come, my boyfriend was coming to Finland!

I was so excited to show him where I live now, what Finland and Turku is like and to see what he would think of everything here. 

We played for tourist in Helsinki, I showed him around in Turku and brought him to all of my favorite spots here. Seeing him in my new hometown and watching him get amazed by all of the things that Turku is offering and typical Finnish stuff, was like seeing myself on my first days here in Finland. 

For this post I thought it would be fun to let him write a little, to get a look at what he thinks about Finland and his feelings about me living in this city.

Today is the day I finally fly to Finland to see my girlfriend after a period of two months. This is what I have been looking forward to for so long, it is finally time to see her again. She has already told me so much about Finland and shows a lot of pictures so I know quite a lot about the country itself, about what I can expect and about what it looks like. She talks almost as much about Finland, things she does and Finnish habits as she talks about food,so that is a lot!!

After a nice flight of over two hours from Amsterdam to Helsinki, I finally arrived. I walked out of the airport to my bus stop and the first thing I thought was 'fuck it's cold' we are not used to warm weather in the Netherlands but this was a big difference. After waiting a few minutes for my bus, it arrived, and it was time to travel by bus to Turku. Aniek had already told me that few people spoke English, and now it was time to experience this for myself. I asked the driver if we had a bus switch, to which I received the answer in Finnish.. Of course I did not understand this at all, so I just sat down while waiting to see if we had to switch busses. After a few minutes of driving the bus stopped, luckily there was a Finnish woman who spoke English and told me that I had to switch busses to Turku. After a ride of 3 hours I finally arrived in Turku. Aniek told me that she was still on the internship at that time, but when I got off the bus she was waiting there for me, this was a such pleasant surprise and I was kinda confused but so happy to see her! After walking a few minutes we arrived at our hotel near the city center, the hotel and our room were very nice. In the evening we ate italian in an Italian restaurant, the food was delicious, after which we went back to the hotel with a feeling of satisfaction. The next day (Saturday) we went to Helsinki for a day, Helsinki is one of the most beautiful cities I have seen, especially the buildings were very beautiful. She took me to the Senate Square in Helsinki which was super nice, then we went to the food hall (Hietalahden Kaupahalli) where we ate typical Finnish delicacies, ‘Korvapuusti’ what a cinnamon roll is, and another sweet bun, this was so delicious! After this we enjoyed the city, after which we closed the day with pizza, of course.

On Sunday we went to her favorite place in Turku, a beautiful lake with a lot of view, Littoistenjärvi. I understand very well why this is her favorite spot, it is so beautiful and soothing. Hereafter she showed me the center of Turku, which was also very beautiful with beautiful old buildings. In the evening we ate a kind of tapas at Pincho Nation, which was very tasty but very expensive. Fortunately, after this we went with a satisfied feeling to the hotel, where we could enjoy together to finish the weekend, the day after I unfortunately went home again. Finland was a very nice and fun experience, Aniek and Finland, thanks for this!

Aniek, Kaipaan sinua ja rakastan sinua.

Nähdään!

Niels