A visitor from home!

It's so much fun to be able to share our experience in Finland with someone from home. Rob's brother Mike (a SERIOUS world traveler who travels 4 months out of the year and has lived in Brazil, Tunisia, and Qatar to name just a few of the places he's been) came for a short visit on his way to visit friends in Italy and Denmark.

We had a blast sharing some of our favorite places in Helsinki and exploring a few new places as well.

And certainly, 4 days just isn't enough to see all of Helsinki, or enough time to share with family.

We stopped at the Kauppahalli for fish soup one day. The Kauppahalli is the long building right behind the water in this photo. It's a marketplace where you can get fish, produce, bread, sweets, reindeer products, souveneirs and my favorite fish SOUP!

So far, fish soup is my favorite Finnish food. It's loaded with salmon chunks, tiny shrimp and mussles. It's super fresh and they serve it with a side of fresh crusty bread with olive oil dipping sauce.

This photo isn't mine, because I was too busy slurping soup to snap a shot, but it looks pretty close to the soup I love.

The kids were really sad to see Uncle Mike leave--especially Lily. It gets pretty lonely during the day in these here parts!