Weekend waffle...

I'm still here guys and girls. Many apologies for my lack of posting over the weekend; however I was busy living it large in Helsinki, and by 'living it large,' I mean actually being rather sensible and civilised... Yes, I'm really capable of such behaviour. Scott and I had been toying with the idea of getting away over the weekend and on Friday evening, after a Mimosa or five, we decided to book a hotel for Saturday evening and team a night out at our favourite cocktail bar with a spot of shopping. Clearly I hate both of these things so I put up a great fight...  Once we arrived at Helsinki, we promptly ditched our belongings and parked our backsides in the hotel's, 'Summer terrace' which Scott sold to me as a roof-top, fancy bar area. By roof-top he obviously meant on a slight incline just adjacent to the hotel entrance, but hey, they served alcoholic beverages so I didn't have much cause to complain. After Scott had developed a nice burgundy glow, we decided to have a little wander around town before heading back to the hotel for napping purposes and to get ready for the night ahead. 

If I'm not mistaken, there are three Radisson hotels in Helsinki, but don't quote me on this! We usually stay in the Radisson Blu Plaza, right in the centre of town; however on this occasion, we booked the Radisson Royal, solely based on the stunning 'roof-top' terrace. Don't be fooled by the, 'Royal' name as it was anything but... Don't get me wrong, it was okay. It just wasn't the nicest place we've stayed so if you're going to book a Radisson hotel close to the centre of Helsinki, book the Plaza!! Seriously.  As it turns out, the world and his dog were in Helsinki this weekend and we woke up post nappage to messages inviting us to meet up with a few guys from Scott's work. Being the anti-social bastards that we are, we turned them down with the cringey excuse that we wanted some, 'couple time.' Feel free to be a little bit disgusted by that. Anyway, as it turns out, we rocked up at the cocktail bar and bumped into everyone anyway, so we managed to sneak in a few sociable drinks before they headed out for the night. Scott and I stayed behind and quite possibly drank A21 cocktail bar out of every spirit and mixer that they had; but who's judging right? I will refrain from going into my usual swooning chat about how amazing the bar is as you can read about the last time I was there, here: A21 Cocktail Bar review. It's my absolute favourite place in Helsinki to get a drink and if you're ever in town, you really should try it out! 

Moving on, the next day we woke up feeling less than fresh and didn't actually manage to drag ourselves out of bed until lunchtime. Shocking, I know. We had a pitiful attempt at shopping however I did happen to stumble across this amazing little cosmetics shop! Now, I may be way out of the loop here and so it's probably a little bit embarrassing but the stuff I bought was by a company called Inglot. I'd never heard of them but I couldn't help but take a peek and ended up walking out with an eyeshadow palette and a lipstick. I'm planning on writing a review soonish about what I picked up so watch this space. It's fair to say I'm pretty impressed. 

Thrown in somewhere over the course of Sunday afternoon was a little trip to the cathedral in the centre of Helsinki. 

We've walked past this place loads of times and taken pictures, but yesterday Scott suggested that we scaled the steps and have a nosey around. Now, I should point out that I'm not a complete lover of heights, and whilst I mustered up a certain level of bravery to climb the steps, there was no chance I was going back down them again. I'd only realised, once at the top, that the steps were in fact extremely steep and pretty high up. I ignored the fact that there were small children making the descent without a care in the world, and after a brief drop in to the organ concert in the cathedral, (yes, really) I dragged Scott round the side of the building to the 'baby' steps and took the chicken's route back down to the square. 

Window shopping

At some point over the weekend I drank ice tea and remembered how much I love it. It was the lemon kind with loads of ice cubes in it. Perfect in the blazing hot weather! Also, I ate chips and feta cheese whilst drunk. It was a new experience, although one I probably won't repeat. It seems that chips and cheese isn't a common cuisine in Helsinki as I've always had far too much difficulty trying to order them. We also found haggis in a tin, in a little shop that stocked loads of products imported from the UK and America. Ah-mazing. So Sunday dinner consisted of Haggis, neeps and tatties. The joys of having a Scottish fiance. If you don't know what haggis is, don't google it because it's properly disgusting. It just tastes so, SO good. I live in blissful unawareness and I'm comfortable with that.

Scott's plateful

And that's about it. You're fully up to date with everything that has been going on over the last few days. I apologise for the waffly nature of today's post and hope that I can come back tomorrow with something a little bit more exciting. No pressure. Hope everyone had a great weekend and if you did anything fun, pop it in a comment below. I'm also going to put it out there that if you want to keep up with what I'm doing, you can follow me on Twitter (link) and Instagram (link) Shameless bit of self-promotion right there but it's Monday and that's a good a reason as any. Hope you're all having a great start to the week! Lots of love...