On this day, there was a carnival. A magician would do tricks for you.

Old and young lined up to win prizes at putting.

I don’t often ride the metro in Helsinki because it doesn’t run to the suburbs. In town, though, it’s quick, and I can charge the fare on my mobile phone to run down the prepayments that I accumulate every 6 months to keep my phone number active.

One stop west is Ruoholahti. This area is near the sea, on the southwest side of the city.

Across the street, the northwest, is a mall.

Across the street to the northeast is the Nokia Research Centre.

On this short visit, I had suggested that I might try some more traditional Finnish cuisine. Kolme Kruunua is a restaurant started in 1952, housed in a building that dates back to 1926, where the poet J. L. Runeberg had lived in the 1830s.

My hosts, Anssi and his wife Outi, suggested that I try the herring, reputed to be the best in the city.

Visits to Helsinki are a change in scenery to me, more than vacations. I like to observe everyday life, such as schoolchildren bundled up in snowsuits out for a walk.

I’ve seen the Kosmos restaurant listed in tour books since my first business trip to Helsinki in 1999. I’ve never had the reason or opportunity to go there.

Karlos hosted me for dinner, and was ordered more adventurously than me: he ordered the reindeer tartar.

I’ve been to Helsinki at least twice per year for the past five years, so I’m very comfortable in Finland. There’s still a few experiences that are new to me on every visit, and I look forward to them.

When I stay at Taina’s house, my schedule follows her commute pattern. Picking up Rulle from tennis lessons in Munkkiniemi puts us near warehouse shopping, so we stock up the pantry.

On weekends, there’s an opportunity to prepare a leisurely dinner. This time, at Taina’s house in Soukka, we decided to cook Chinese food — an improvement over the choices available in local restaurants.

With weekday schedules full, visiting people sometimes rolls into family time. I suggested to Saku that we could talk while taking the kids to the park. One was on a training bike, and the other was in the carriage, when we had tea at the cafe by the seashore at Matinlahti near his house.

I’ve been around Helsinki often enough to know the sights. Rick was visiting Stadia from his university in Illinois, so we scheduled a leisurely afternoon together. We went to the computer superstore in Ruoholahti looking for a cable for his laptop, but didn’t find what he needed. On the way back, we walked by the west harbour where there are shipyards.

Social networks can be funny. When I was a conference in Berkeley, California, in spring, I happened to meet Johan who is from Helsinki. It turns out that he’s good friends with Karlos, whom I know from HUT, and I see regularly. We took the opportunity to schedule a dinner at Tapiontori together to discuss research interests.

One office where I’ve often met is at Nokia House in Espoo. I happened to bring my camera this time. Here’s the front entry, with a glass bridge over to the parking garage.

I’ve often found the front lobby to be warm. It could be because it’s a greenhouse effect, or it could just be that Finns like their buildings warm.

Minna usually takes advantage of my frequent visit, so that I get to have face-to-face conversations with some of her colleagues. This time, I met Minnamaria.

The coffee bar is by a display of Nokia devices — I think that they use the layouts to plan some of their showrooms.

As much as I tend to live on the Internet, my travels to distant places gives me the opportunity to be in the physical world.