A wonderful warm summer night with sunshine and one of my favourite bands performing.

Very difficult conditions to get any good pictures, especially since I didn’t dare to take the big camera. Enjoyed it a lot, Mike Patton rules.

In 2001 I started to keep track of my cycling kilometers in Excel, and today marked the first lap around the globe (the equatorial circumference is 40075 km).

It took 1464 days with cycling, averaging 27.4 km a day, to finish the first lap. The yearly average is around 5000, which is all I can do with work and social life taking it’s share and the Finnish winter months keeping me off the bike a few months every year.

If every kilometer on the bike burns 20 calories, it has been about 150 kg of chocolate burned away.

Hope next lap is faster.

This weekend was a good example of how much fun it is possible to have in only 2.5 days time.

On Friday we had a great Indian dinner at Asna’s place, on Saturday the Zoological Museum with my father and Jarkko’s birthday dinner at Raku Ya. Sunday crowned it all with smoke sauna and ice swimming in Kuusijärvi with CS friends. Here’s some photographic evidence.

We did other things than partying during this visit to Oslo too. A nice winter walk from Frognerseteren via Ullevålseter to Sognsvann was one of the highlights. Pics, pics and more pics.

So, for the second year in a row it was time for a CouchSurfing new year at Aarvoll in Oslo. The party was, if possible, even better than the previous year, much thanks to the fantastic arrangements. Here’s the best captures from my camera.

Before Christmas we went for a walk in Nuuksio with Mikie, Ria and the dogs. It is one of the best times to see the national park with quite a few people out walking and the wonders of the arriving winter.

In the beginning of December, we had a great Nordic CS Ambassadors meeting in Helsinki, with awesome guests from around Europe. Here’s some moments from the parties and happenings.

We were happy to host our dear friends Ricard and Lucy, what a happy time it was to meet again!

Janna and Marc-Olivier arranged a great Christmas party, with lots of the regular CouchSurfing crowd in Helsinki. The party was continued at the rather “local” Pub 21 at Helsinginkatu, where our favorite star Duke had a gig.

So okay, I’ve been a bit lazy updating the blog lately. Or rather busy, actually.

These are, in my view, the hardest months of the year, when the days go shorter and shorter and the weather generally is lousyish in wait for the real winter to fall in. Anyways, this is usually one of the most partyfilled and social seasons too, and that gives the spark to just push through until the snow comes and the days begin to be longer.

Here’s a little album of photos from the previous months.

I saved a week of summer vacation to make another trip to Portugal in the end of September. The previous visit was during Easter, so my two seasons this year was spring and fall.

We spent most of the time around Lisbon, but also made a two day visit to Ellie’s uncle’s farm in Oliviera de Hospital some 250 kilometers north of Lisbon. Here’s a few pics from this vacation in Portugal.