There is a first time for everything

Since walking around in the house waiting for a baby to appear is rather nerve wrecking and tiresome, and since the whole family did need some sort of escape out of the city, we decided to go to Nådendal and the treasure for children that can be found there, Mumindalen or Muminworld as it appears to be called in English. Sophia was nothing but smiles and happiness for hours before our little roadtrip; she packed her own suitcase and said yes to basically everything I asked her to do. Quite soon after our departure she started asking where Mumindalen is and if we are there yet, I just tried to explain that it is 'långt, långt borta' and that she will probably not get to see Mumintrollen today since they will have gone to bed by the time we arrive. This was, of course, hard for her to grasp. We drove straight to Nådendal and walked to the gates of Mumindalen, they were closing, but luckily Sophia was happy with the 'we'll come back first thing tomorrow'. We drove to our resort, complained about our room, got an upgrade to an apartment, managed to get Sophia into bed and sat down knocked out after an intensive day, me being one week from due date and Hendrik just having started his holiday. Since this weekend was THE weekend, I had picked a hotel that I thought would deliver all we wanted in one go, how wrong I was. Breakfast, which is one of my favorite meals of the day was an insult to the hotel guests, an insult. The apple and orange juice tasted like water, there were no hard boiled or soft boiled eggs, just something that they called scrambled eggs, but it was scrambled NON-EDIBLE stuff! The fruit came straight from a can and even the yogurts were LOW quality, it was SAD, so SAD and it makes me angry that they have the nerve to serve this kind of "food", it really does feel like an insult, I ask myself 'are we Finns not worth a better breakfast than this?'....

Enough about that, Sophia was happy and we were on schedule. The drizzling started as we walked over the bridge to Mumindalen. Now, when the sun shines one does not think about rain, at least not I, so we had NOTHING to shield us with, only Sophia's stroller had its rain cover. Luckily Mumindalen did have shops and there we bought 3 raincoats to cover our already wet bodies. Mumindalen is an outdoor place so for pretty much 4 hours we walked around in the rain, trying hard to remain sane and happy, Sophia managed pretty well, for us adults it was harder, seriously!!! Now, unfortunately also here the food just really "pissed" us off, WHY only serve bad food choices, why??? Again, what an insult to the children and to their parents, Sophia wanted pizza, it was her day, so pizza it was OR should have been, it was horrible and disgusting!! Sophia did get to meet with Mumin mamman and pappan, as well as Mumin himself, and she was happy with that. But also the characters were a disappointment, the acting was half hearted and mainly in Finnish, although Mumindalen has visitors from all over the world. After 4 hours we had had enough and decided to leave. Most importantly though is that Sophia seemed happy, this was after all, her first visit to a theme park and regardless of the rain and the shitty food she had experienced something new, something that she had never done before. So had we of course, and I hope that our next experience as parents will be more pleasant. 

We stayed one more night in Kultaranta and today, Sunday, we headed for Helsinki. However, we wanted to go swimming somewhere nice first and ended up in Ekenäs, a first for both Hendrik and me. I picked what looked like a decent restaurant and waited about 30 minutes for a bad Feta Salad and Tomato Soup....30 minutes!!!!!!! Sophia was not in the best of moods so it was a rather quick operation once the food arrived. We did visit one of the best playgrounds so far, so Ekenäs receives a plus for that AND the beach was right smack there in the center of town and there Sophia had her very first proper swim in the sea with Hendrik. It was AMAZING to see them play in the water together, especially since Hendrik LOVES the beach and water, also amazing to fold your daughter into a warm towel and feel her shaking from the cold and excitement,  GULLIG!!! Would not mind going back to Ekenäs if there is a nice bed and breakfast around, seemed like a cozy place for a weekend trip.

All in all we had a nice mini holiday, we were together and Sophia got to see her Mumintroll. Oh, and yes, she also had serious candy for the first time and to nobody's surprise she is just as much of a candy monster as her mother. I am pretty sure that it was not a smart idea to open THIS pandora's box already now, but hey, what is done is done.

Finns are good at many things, but entertainment and food are not amongst those things, this needs to change, I hope it will, I hope there is a new generation out there who raises the bar for what is "normal".