The Professor and I spent Thanksgiving of 2011 in Helsinki.  He was teaching at the University of Helsinki and I was taking pictures and writing a blog.  Even though we had spent three months in the apartment in Paris, whenever I have thought of going to Europe this year, all I could see was the apartment on Liisankatu in Helsinki.

As you can see when you compare the two apartments, we had a large apartment with lots of advantages in Helsinki.  A large kitchen and dining room as well as two large bedrooms, a study and a comfortable living room.  These pictures were taken when the Fulbright grantees came to the apartment to celebrate Thanksgiving.

Elizabeth came to my rescue and came early to cook and get hot food ready for our guests.
She was in Finland doing a study of a species of butterfly.

The apartment in Helsinki had a WC (water closet) as does the apartment here in Paris.  However, as you can see the toilet room in Paris comes in a distant second.  So does the cluttered room in Paris that houses a tub with a shower and the laundry equipment when compared with the very modern shower/laundry room we enjoyed in Helsinki.  And there is no possible way to compare water and heat supplied by a geothermal source in Helsinki with an unheated bathroom here.  

I will get used to the apartment here at 41 avenue de la Motte Picquet and will probably miss it when we eventually go back to the United States.