such a beautiful night here. we cycled into town just after ten – passing by töölönlahti and the biggest moon ive ever seen. the bay looked amazing. the centre was packed packed packed with everyone going to the south of the city to see this years fireworks competition.

the fireworks are fired off from the suomenlinna islands just off the bottom of helsinki. it was there 150years ago that the citizens of helsinki watched as the french and british bombared the fortress on the islands for three days and nights. apparently the citizenry of helsinki went to kaivopuito (a park) and watched the bombardment. well, same thing happened this evenign – except it was mostly teenagers and mostly slightly drunk ones at that. probably 100,000 people were out there looking at the competition amongst five different fireworks companies.

my favourite firework of the night was a part of the fourth teams entry, it was a simple firework that launched into the air – probably only 20metres into the air, then it started to fall – then it stopped and rose again for a few seconds before falling down into the harbour. an audible gasp went up around the audience. great stuff.