Finally we had the chance to continue with our tour of museums. My friend Johanna is the communications manager at Ateneum, so for the past weeks she’s obviously filled her social media feed with information about the new Auguste Rodin exhibition, so that’s what I was yearning for.

We got up bright and early on Sunday morning and headed for Helsinki to check out Rodin. I brought the camera along, just in case, but the restrictions on photography in museums are the same all over the world. Rather sad in this time of social media activism. Live streaming of music has also rocketed the sale of music, so why wouldn’t a few million Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest posts get the cash registers at museums ringing? Isn’t art meant too be spread and seen by as many people as possible?

After seeing The thinker and a few other reputable pieces, we decided to take a quick look at the Japanomania in the Nordic countries exhibition.  Even if the Japanomania exhibition is meant to highlight the influence of Japanese art on Nordic art, putting 18th and 19th century Japanese and European art next to each other, really highlights the difference in techniques and use of colours.

Inspired by a Pekka Halonen painting in the Japanomania section, I decided to do my own study. My opinion is that the original painting looks like the artist and a few of his mates had a late night, and the next day he just decided to paint what was left on the kitchen table. So when we got home this is what I staged, since obviously we only have clean dishes in the morning.

After the Ateneum Art Museum, he hopped on the tram and zapped of to our second destination, the Sinebrychoff Art Museum where the new exhibition Russian masters from Aivazovsky to Repin just opened.

We saw wonderful paintings, with incredible detail. If you think photos and videos bring out the worst in you, painters can absolutely bring out those exact same details in portraits. Others sort of photoshop you for future reference. Obviously your choice of artist when you’re commissioning your next portrait.

After these two museums, we decided is was time for some contemporary social activities. The aspiring barista has been drinking coffee for about a year now, so it was time to check out Starbucks that started its invasion of Finland in 2012. Having read quite a few articles on the chain and its global success, I had some doubts about it fitting into my idea of a cozy small coffee shop.

Starbucks Helsinki is centrally situated in one corner of the Academic bookstore, and the decor is quite ok. The cakes looked appetising, so we decided to try a slice chocolate cake and cheese cake.

The cakes or coffees weren’t bad, but I don’t think we got value for money. Since I don’t drink overly flavoured fancy lattes, it will definitely be a long while before we set our feet in another Starbucks. Sorry.

We had another lovely touristy day, and now it’s time to prepare for another week of work before our next adventures.