Fingers sticky with cotton candy, heads swirling with blinking lights and excitement, little feet and hands aching from running, jumping, and gripping. The air is filled with dust, screams, colors, smell of hot dogs and grease from creaky rides.

Carnival is here.

Three in a pumpkin.

It finally arrived last Friday. Efficient advertising had caught the eye of the firstborn two weeks prior. Incessant begging, persuasive pleading, constant questioning - can we please go, when can we go, is it here yet???

On the ferris wheel, the Oulu river meeting the sea in the background.

Despite all the fun rides, the best experience was - still - the bouncy castle.

A linguistically somewhat related conversation was had a couple of weeks earlier in the car, when driving home with the 5-year-old:

'Mama, do cannivals still exist?'

'Mmmm... what are they??' (with a hopefully innocent enough tone)

'Well, they have horns on their head, spiky tails, they have swords and shiny eyes and they eat people!'

Silence... while I'm trying not to laugh... and feverishly try to think up the right answer..

'Oh.. you must mean CANNIBALS. Well.. they are actually people who have eaten other people.. but that was a long time ago.. and they live VERY far away... and it doesn't really happen anymore' (a little white lie).

I'm not sure I handled that one very well.

(This one required a bit of translation, for you Finns, the word used was 'kannevaali' ;-)