Helsinki Institute of Physics HIP has two traditional communal ways of welcoming summer – a grill party for the HIP CERN summer trainees at CERN and a summer trip for the HIP community in southern Finland.

This year the CERN grill party took place in the evening of Tuesday 11 June.

Tuija Karppinen and Taina Onnela from HIP’s CERN office make a great effort every year in taking care of the food and drinks and all the organisational matters. Their contribution for the success of the event is invaluable and highly appreciated!

The servings were abundant and diverse, as usual, containing various grill products, side dishes, salads, cheese, cookies, sweets… you name it!

The grill party took place in the picnic area on the CERN Prevessin site. The place is very nice and quiet small park. The tables were set under the roof due to the risk of rain. Fortunately, the risk did not come true with full force.

In my leisurely summer attire, I gave a short speech to welcome everyone to enjoy the evening, food, drinks, and each other’s company. A very important part of the event is to give the summer trainees, who typically start their work at the beginning of June, a chance to get to know each other and the Finnish community at CERN.

The game of Mölkky is always an integral part of the grill party.

---

Another HIP summer tradition is the summer trip usually somewhere in the southern Finland between late May and early June. This year we went to the Lahti region on 13 June.

The crowds are gathering in in front of the Physicum building in the Kumpula campus in Helsinki in the morning before the bus comes to pick us up.

The first stop was the Mukkula Manor in Lahti where we had coffee and filled croissants.

From Mukkula we headed to the other side of Lahti to the Teerenpeli Brewery and Distillery. We received an interesting and comprehensive guided tour of the brewery and the distillery and had a beer tasting in the end.

For lunch we headed to Vääksy which has a famous channel between lakes Vesijärvi and Päijänne.

After lunch we boarded a boat to Lahti. It had rained a bit in Vääksy but the weather was pleasing during the cruise.

At the exact moment when we arrived in Lahti it started pouring down.

Tuija Karppinen happened to be around and came to greet us at the Lahti Harbour.

Taina Hardén kept count so that everyone also got back from the trip.

I would like to give many thanks to everyone involved in organising these HIP summer traditions and to everyone who participated! I hope you all have had a relaxing summer and wish you all the best for the upcoming semester!

Antti Väihkönen
Research Coordinator
Vice Director, HIP