Christmas land @ Saari

Traditional visit to the Saari "Christmas land" event.

Open Door Day at the local fire station

Fun, and also education for the whole family. Held annually, every November.

Local beers! :D

Had a chance to try out this trio - and they all tasted really good! (Well, to be honest, Metsän Henki was my least favourite and Amerikan Serkku was the best.)

Finnish Hot Air Balloon Championships 2013 in Mäntsälä

Gentlemen, warm up your balloons! Actually I think this event is really nice. And yet so distinctly Mäntsälä. :)

Sirkus Florentino in Mäntsälä

A circus came to town at the end of August. The show was quite allright, though the kids! :)

Rally time: Ouninpohja 2012 & Mäntsälä 2013

So here's one event from the past, and one from the very present. What's common for them both? Rally cars!

Last summer, in the beginning of August, we checked out the legendary Ouninpohja Special Stage at Neste Oil Rally Finland with my son. It was great. Some people criticize that WRC is more business than motorsport these days, and they're probably right. It was dreadfully expensive afternoon, but the event was well organized and a nice experience nevertheless.

Today we got to witness somewhat different level of rally experience. The national F-Cup's start-up rally, Ramirent Mäntsälä Ralli was held nearby. How convenient, particularly Special Stage 4 was run within a walking distance from our house, so we decided to check it out. The weather was cold outside (around -20c degrees of Celcius), but sunny, and the feeling was definitely there. The business aspect was conveniently toned down: just coffee, hot juice and warm sausages were available, and that was all we needed! :)

KohinaBaari

KohinaBaari was opened in the first half of 2012 in the Numminen village, and it may just be what this whole town (Mäntsälä) has been waiting for. It's about time Gasthaus Wäinölä gets some competition!

No - seriously - these bars are like 10 kilometers apart from each other, and both are kind of unique. But KohinaBaari was a really nice place to visit. It was rather quiet evening when I visited there, but I'm looking forward to another visit, and I'm sure it will be more lively the next time.

Citymarket - the first hypermarket in Mäntsälä!

Another landmark of modern civilization was finally opened this week. Mäntsälä got its' first hypermarket, the Citymarket. Though I will probably still be doing most of my daily grocery shopping at Lidl I'm really glad also this option, with wider selection, is now around!

I consider this to be the second biggest "cultural" event of the year for Mäntsälä (The biggest still being start-up of Rekolan Panimo). This is a huge step for this town on the evolution path towards becoming a real city.

Rekolan Panimo - a microbrewery in Mäntsälä!

This is like my dream come true. I've always been a fan of microbreweries, and today I got to taste Amerikan Serkku ("American Cousin") at the Maja kiosk terrace! The beer travelled like one kilometer from the brewery to the tap.. now that's what I call a local beer. :)

The brewery that makes the beer is called Rekolan Panimo. Rekola is actually a city district in Vantaa, but it seems it was worthwhile for them to come all the way to Mäntsälä to find optimal premises the brewery. Lucky us! You can read more of the story from their blog [in Finnish].

Personally, to me this is probably biggest cultural event of the year concerning Mäntsälä. Now I'm only waiting for bottles to appear for sale.

Next up: "The second biggest event of the year concerning Mäntsälä".

Cheers!

Crazy Drivers Stunt Show

Let's get started with June updates. Crazy Drivers Stunt Show visited Mäntsälä in early June. It wasn't cheap, but offered pretty good entertainment for the whole family!

Earth Hour

I know, it's been quiet on the blog for the couple of months though I'd probably have something to share still.. Well, spring is coming on strong and the days are getting longer. But for once, yesterday evening was pretty dark for a while without the street lights. Which was nice, since it was the Earth Hour of 2012. :)

A week apart

Sometimes one week is all that is needed for winter to finally arrive! :)

The first picture is from the last week of 2011 and the second one is from the first week of 2012. And that's what we've been seeing ever since, luckily, even though the temperature tends to hang around zero degrees during the daytime.

Happy New Year everybody!

Summer 2011 update 13/16: Neste Rally @ Koukunmaa

Wr-ooom! It was my first time as World Rally Championship event spectator, at Neste Rally Finland Special Stage 7 - Koukunmaa. As I didn't have previous experience I dediced to play it safe and we arrived on-site some three hours before the start.

In the end I feel it probably was a good decision to come early, as there was already some traffic packing on the road. But of course, arriving early with my son with me, and he was a little impatient at times. Luckily we had chosen a spot very close to the stage finish line, there was the Rally Shop and a plenty of helicopters landing and taking off to keep us entertained.

Later in the evening I went to see Lahti Historic Rally Special Stage 3 along the same route.

I'm not converted as a rally fan yet, but of course I can't say it would not have been interesting either.

Summer 2011 update 2/16: Midsummer @ Hirvihaara

Mäntsälä downtown was like a ghost town on Midsummer Eve. :) We had a nice time on a family event at Hirvihaara.

Season cleaning

I had a great little helper for getting my travelling partner clean for the summer season. :)

EDIT: By the way, here is one blog I'm following with great interest; Romulla Välimerelle. It's written in Finnish, but the idea in a nutshell is that a group of people have volunteered to buy old cars (max. price 500 euros) which they intend to drive across Europe in July. From Turku, Finland to Gibraltar in Spain. It's now 15 days till start. What a nice holiday trip that would be! :)

Mäntsälä Summer Street Opening event

Another nice summer event in the centre of Mäntsälä. Actually, chronologically thinking, this was already on Friday.

Museum Cars Gathering @ Mäntsälä

It was nice to check out old cars in the center of Mäntsälä on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Signs of summer 2011

It's starting to look (and feel) quite a lot like summer around here. :)

Let's call it spring

The trees seem to be getting the leaves a little earlier this year, which is certainly nice! :)

Jänkhägrilli?

A traditional sight in Finland - nakkikioski! (Let's see how this new hot dog stand fits in.. as you can see, there are already two pizza places in the picture.)