Market Day

Mother Nature really pulled through this weekend. Clear skies and rising temperatures made for a pretty perfect market day. The first traditional fish market in Joensuu was held on Saturday where vendors sold fresh fish, homemade jams, wooden handicrafts and lots of other goodies. We sat outside eating our crucified salmon and all our winter woes were forgotten. There’s just something about outdoor markets that makes me smile. I don’t know if it’s the warm weather that generally accompanies them, the smell of freshly cooked food or the community feel to the whole event, but it sure makes for a solid afternoon.

Now, I don’t want to disappoint anyone by skipping over the weather report, so here it goes, today was hot. I know you’re thinking, you mean like you only had to wear one pair of wool socks kind of weather? Nope. Like shorts and sandals and sunbathing kind of weather. Seriously. The city was crawling with people soaking it all up. I’d say about 50% of the people we passed were carrying ice cream cones (including me). Every pier we passed on the way home was occupied by picnic-ers. We bought a fan. These are the signs of summer. I’m still a bit hesitant to leave the house without gloves and a jacket, I just feel naked without them, but I’m sure pretty soon I won’t be giving them a second thought.

Oh and the last, but definitely not the least, glorious thing to report, we ate barbecue today. I’m not talking about Finnish BBQ, which really just involves cooking anything over an open fire, I mean like a legit pulled pork sandwich. In the middle of downtown Joensuu, there is a man from Florida that cooks up some serious Texas-style barbecue. I was tempted to run around with my sandwich introducing everyone to the deliciousness of real BBQ so they could see what they’d been missing out on all this time. Instead, I sat in the scorching sun with BBQ sauce all over my face and for a moment I felt like I was back in Texas. Funny how food can do that to you (or is that just me?)