We have arrived!

We set off from our hotel in Helsinki after breakfast and headed to see my teacher colleague Sari and her family in Mäntsälä for morning coffees. We have met up with Sari and her husband Petri to say hello for the past couple of years and we spent a really nice hour there, with Sandy and Olivia playing happily with their boys Alvar and Aleksi.

At Sari and Petri's house for coffees.

After leaving Sari's house, I realised that the drive to our cottage close to Parikkala was further than I had anticipated, so it suddenly became quite a rush to get there for the planned time of 3pm. In fact, as we were eating lunch south of Lapeenranta, with 2 hours still to drive, Anna's phone rang, and her sister announced that she and the rest of Anna's family were already there! So, we finally arrived at about 3.45pm and got ourselves settled in. The house seems fine, and we can see right across the lake to Russia, only about 1/2 km away from us! In fact, we can only row, or swim out about 100m from the shore, as then we'll be into Russian territory! Are there border guards spying on us? Who knows!


Looking back to the house.


Looking across to Russia!
After dinner, I lit the sauna by the lake and we enjoyed a session of dips in the lake after sweating it out in the heat!