Pastry Sweats

I realized I really, really value a quiet, contemplative coffee in the morning. The days in Iceland and in transit we gulped our coffee at the breakfast buffet or on the way to the airport and it was utilitarian, like medicine; the effect (waking up), and not the experience, was the point. At the house in Mikkeli we wake up and make a strong, viscous coffee in a stovetop espresso maker, and then we sit outside or in the sunroom and look at the lake and listen to the birds (there are *so many birds*), and when the cups are empty we make another pot. 

That's how we started today, and then I played the piano for a bit, and then we went into Mikkeli to visit Mikkelipuisto--the park--and the Kaupahalli (shopping hall). The park is cute, and it looks like it's about to bloom into something cuter once all the flowers come out. It has one good playground and one of those outdoor gyms that the kids spent nearly an hour on. It also has a sauna + restaurant, but we didn't go to those. 

The kids reluctantly left the park and we went to the Kaupahalli in search of pastries. Good news: we found some. We didn't find the Laskiaispulla I was looking for--a big dough ball, cut in half with whipped cream sandwiched inside--but we found other delicious options, including a kristallipullat (like a cinnamon but but the whole thing is rolled in sugar, like a sugar donut), a korvapuusti (even more like a cinnamon bun) and one with lemony quark in it, kinda like a danish. 

After fattening ourselves up, we came back to the house to sweat it out in the wood-fired sauna. It takes maybe 45 minutes to heat up fully from cold, but once it's hot, it's really hot. The kids and I attempted a cold plunge off the dock, but the water is very shallow and the bottom is super squishy so it's hard to jump in or run in. You just have to jump and then crouch to get your whole body wet, so that's what we did. It hailed while we were in the sauna, but it's also been 12 degrees celsius and sunny today, so don't feel too bad for us.