We visited friends in Geneva for a few days in July. The photos, as usual, in the Flickr set.
Geneva
Tag Archives: travel
The grand summer 2012 tour of Finland
For the first time in my life I took 4 straight weeks of holiday during the summer, and for most of that we stayed in Finland. We visited Porvoo, Nummi-Pusula, Parikkala and Nauvo, so one can say it was a grand tour of south, east and west of the country. The weather was mostly rainy, but it was still a great holiday. The pictures, as usual, in Flickr.
Turku
Visited Turku for a friend’s wedding, and the weather was excellent. The rest of the pictures here, a selection below.
Maybe Mexico is indeed quite misunderstood
A couple of European colleagues joined me in my last business trip to Mexico and they seemed genuinely surprised by what they saw. It was not as unsafe as they were led to believe, the people were more ethnically varied than they expected, it was not as poor (even though of course they did see a cross-section of Mexican society from wealthy city denizens to farm hands in the hills) and the food was better than they thought.
Also at some point I spent some time with a group of Finnish gentlemen who had a lot of questions about the country, which I did my best to answer in the little time we had together (personal favourite: why do all houses have water tanks in the roof?).
Maybe the place is indeed quite misunderstood as I’ve been saying all these years. I’m not saying it’s better or worse, it’s just not what people abroad without previous experience of the country think.
Rally Mexico
Spent a little over a week in Mexico for work. Visited Mexico City for a few days and then drove all the way to León, Guanajuato for the Rally Guanajuato Mexico. A picture summary below, the rest of the photos here.
Monaco
Spent a few days in Monaco for a business trip. The rest of the pictures here.
Mexico trip
We spent a great month in Mexico for our year-end holidays. A photo summary below but more pictures as usual in Flickr.
Mexico is child friendly
Compared to most of Europe, Mexico is quite child friendly in terms of free time amenities (the maternity/paternity leave system still sucks). Most restaurants and shopping malls will have no problem accepting even the youngest ones, and staff will make all they can to make you feel welcome. Furthermore, people will generally assist mothers or fathers traveling alone with a toddler even if traditionally child-rearing roles are female-specific.
Argentines 10 years ago, Russians and Brazilians now
My family has visited Cancún since the 1970’s. When I was a teenager I loved to hook-up with Argentine and Paraguayan girls my age who would be coming over as it was quite cheap for them back then (in the times of the convertible peso). Now, a quite easy visa regime and direct flights mean that in the Mexican off-season after January 6th it’s chock-full of Russian and Brazilian tourists besides a few Americans & locals. Wouldn’t be surprised if in a few years the Chinese start holidaying there too.
2011, what a year
- Became a father.
- Became a Finn.
- Became part of a huge project at work.
- Became an even more-frequent traveler: 31 trips between business and pleasure i.e. one every 1.6 weeks.
- Didn’t become insane.