Pint and burger: Finnish Vappu (May Day)

Hello my friends (both of you). I decided to change language to English, maybe not forever though. Why? Well, I felt like I have nothing to offer to Finnish beer scene or to Finns. I’m just plain ordinary guy here. But in other hand it could be possible that people from other countries find Finnish normal life maybe funny, interesting, horrible .. you name it. Main goal, of course, is learn some English while killing time by writing nonsense. I’m that generation guy who didn’t need to use English ever, so my school based English skills got very rusty and it is strangely hard to try get those skills back. I’m trying though.

Well, let’s talk about Vappu, or May Day. May Day eve is here in Finland very popular festival (you can read my two other English blog writings here— http://pintandburger.blogspot.fi/2017/05/a-short-guide-to-may-day-in-finland.html (this one is about Vappu) and here— http://pintandburger.blogspot.fi/2016/12/collection-of-greatest-pints-and.html).

Quality over quantity is my new motto. I’ve got my blood test results to that stage by eating healthy that even my doctor said that I should continue with diet I’m having now. I has taken a lot of effort though. By the way, complaining—  and telling negative things are very Finnish way to say things. Positive things and specially telling something good about yourself are considered as bragging. Maybe this fact will explain something about my writings.

Back to Vappu. I spent it again in my hometown, Lahti. To keep things healthy, instead of pizza etc, I usually eat salad buffet at local cafeteria. That cafeteria was closed, of course, because of Vappu. It is a working day, but as I said, many people are not working. That seemed to be situation at the whole cafeteria personnel. Me and my colleague went to Royal Sushi that was a very pleasant surprise. At under 10€ all you can eat sushi /oriental buffet with coffee and soup. Sushi is one of my favourite healthy foods.

Next stop was a local brewpub Teerenpeli. I have complicated relationship with this place, their beers are not top quality, but I’ve learned to like those. I don’t know, I wouldn’t choose Teerenpeli in Helsinki or Tampere, but I guess it’s the best that Lahti has to offer.
I’m not a regular visitor by any means there, but we have a favourite table there, like those guys have in Friends, we are always sitting there with my colleague, if possible. This time colleague had bad feeling in his stomach and he couldn’t drink beer, so he opted for cider. Cider is for ladies, if you ask me, but who I’m to judge (I’m judging anyway). Problem was that there was so many ciders that celection prosess took so long that couple of goth women took our table, even we were first customers. I blame that dandy cider.
The drama wasn’t over, colleague couldn’t drink first cider and came back with near liter bottle of French cider. Nice. Now we had the drinks sorted and bartender put the music on. Before this one of the goths had sung a slot machine theme loudly… weird. And they drank coffee… at pub!! A— sacrilege!! Ok, actually it wasn’t me who said that… cider makes you rant.
We soon got over the cider drama and slot machine songs and the good old times and other classic topics were discussed over drinks.
It’s always a risk take new beer that you haven’t tasted yet. Specially if you don’t drink that much, think about it, if you drink only one pint in month, if that is new brand and is revealed that it is shitty tasting mud water, that is one month ruined. So I am usually taking old and safe beers. Now there was delicious looking chili cocoa stout… Teerenpeli’s own and as you propably guessed, I took one of those.

The chili cocoa stuff

It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t good either. Chili was too noticeable, cocoa was not. Without chili it would have been much better, now it was one curiosity among others. It didn’t ruin my May Day though.

After a few pints I was bicycling home. This is almost everytime the best time of the evening, couple beers are making you happy, relaxed and waiting feeling. And as usual at home I ate too much, this time Raclette burgers, you know, melted cheese, a burger patty over the toast, potato salad… yes, it’s good, but it so easy to overdose those foods. Lame old guys May Day eve. Well, nobody asked you read this far, don’t complain to me.