New Year rush!

Helsinki, 3 degrees

These last couple of days have been exceptionally busy at the office - over 600 customers per day! That's great concerning that we are less people working now at the office than during e.g. the busiest time of year,  summertime that is. We are also waiting for one of our busiest seasons to begin during the winter half of the year - the time around New Year's Eve when we await over 300 000 visitors, especially from Russia, to Finland and a great deal of the amount to Helsinki!

This awakes also some media interest as we noticed today at the office when we had TV channel YLE visiting. I knew that I was going to be a part of the interview so I selected an outfit for today that I thought suited the occasion. The light blue circle I have on the shirt is a part of our work outfit, it's the logo for next year's big theme: World Design Capital Helsinki 2012.

The interview was actually concerning the fact that all permanent employees at the Helsinki Tourist Information Office are studying Russian once a week. This on a city level is quite an enormous investment in one language I think so I am proud about my workplace. Of course, I wish all permanent employees would learn Swedish as well, seeing as its my mother tongue, but the fact that they all at least try to speak even Swedish, keeps me happy.

For those of you readers who know Finnish, you can watch the complete interview here. 

Since I think the interview went well, I'm excited about going to work even tomorrow. I'm always a bit nervous about what material the journalists end up editing and putting on the news since it's national news. Tomorrow's my last day at work before New Year's Eve. After that I'll be off for four days, then work four days, and then be off for a complete 9 days! Who knows what I'll be up to during those days, I haven't had that many days off since June this year! I would call that a well deserved winter holiday!