Linnanmäki at Night

On Friday my brother came to visit me and stayed over the weekend. It's my birthday today so it was a good time to come see me, and it meant he could bring me presents from home! Linnanmäki, the amusement park in Helsinki, was open at night time for a special week with the park illuminated, so we took the chance to visit.

No, I didn't ride it

I had been there back in the summer, but I hadn't actually been on any of the rides yet. We tried out the wooden roller coaster first, which is probably the best ride in the park and both looks and feels rather unsafe, adding to the thrill. Not all of the attractions were open, which was a bit dissappointing as the big vertical drop tower looked like a lot of fun, but perhaps it was too cold to ride comfortably.

The spooky-looking wooden coaster

It really was very cold, which is strange because the day before and after it was quite pleasant, so it must have been a freak cold-wave. I'm still awaiting the onset of the 'Finnish winter', but at present it's not particularly cold, it just rains a lot. Apparently snow will be with us by next month, so the temperatures will soon start dropping.

Have they never heard of health and safety?

There was a fairly impressive musical show with performers juggling and throwing all kinds of burning instruments. Not a bad way to stay warm! We later met up with some of the other exchange students and I was quite amused to find the Spanish had barricaded themselves in the cafe and refused to come out as it was 'Too EXPLETIVE cold!'

The view from the tall rides over Helsinki at night was quite impressive

The park is quite small so we didn't stay too long and headed back home so my brother could sleep off his jet lag. A 2 hour time difference is quite hard to cope with apparently!

We got up to a couple more things over the weekend so stay tuned...