to finland, to finland!

I leave for Finland tomorrow night!! I haven't been back since 2009, so this is very exciting.

When I get back to the states, I'll be sure to post photos of adventures, outfits, etc. For now, here's a list of what I'm looking forward to:

1) Seeing people I haven't seen in a long while. Well, DUH. This is the most important part of the trip but the least fun to read about on a list. My whole extended family, including my 89-year-old grandmother, will be there!

2) Food. Great salmon and potatoes, of course, but I have a huge sweet-tooth, so I get most excited about the candy and fruit! The best chocolate in the world, delicious wild berries, and my favorite pear-flavored ice cream - nowhere else have I found that delicious fake pear taste!

Fazer chocolate

Wild blueberries and cloudberries

Green pear - yum!

3) The midnight sun! We'll be there while the days are the longest. It gets dusky outside, but the sun never really goes down.

4) SAUNA!! Real sauna, wood-heated, dark, hot, steamy (I know what you're giggling at. Really - no funny business.) It's the best way to relax and get really clean.

 

Hitting your back with a bundle of birch leaves and twigs in the sauna supposedly improves circulation. And it smells good!

5) Juhannus - the midsummer holiday. I've never actually gotten to Finland early enough in the year to celebrate it. I can't wait! Bonfires, good food, and staying up late are involved - my kind of holiday.

6) Moomin paraphernalia! If you don't know about the moomins, here, go educate yourself : ) I've had the calendar every year for the past three years (funny that I waited until I was an adult and in college...), and I can't wait to get one for 2012 and see this stuff everywhere! The moomins are just so full of JOY.

7) Helsinki. We'll mostly be in the countryside, but we'll have a few days in the capital, and I can't wait to spot Hel Looks -worthy people and hopefully visit my favorite art museum, Kiasma.

There you have it! I'll post a bit more before I leave, and I promise lots of fun midnight sun pictures when I get back : )

check out this preposterous helsinki love connection.

Two separate looks from the coveted Hel-Looks.com, masterfully connected by super-creeper me:

Matti, May 2010, and Maria, May 2011.

TOO REAL.

(click to enlarge - you know you want to)

Maybe if we hug, your flower and my mermaid will merge together into one beautiful, magical brooch with the power to turn anyone into a timid, bowl-cutted, black-wearing hipster (??) with allegedly poor eyesight and a subtly proud grin.

Hel Looks is a street style blog from Helsinki, Finland. Look at it! It will provide you with hours - nay, months and years of JOY. It will not provide you with an accurate sense of what 99% of Finnish people look and dress like, and it might make you question humanity a little bit, or at least make you gag. But still, JOY. Joyous gagging at the ridiculous, gag-tastic clothing. Go! Go! Go!