The party is over...

Hey!

The party is over now! My graduation was a success and now I am heading for new adventures. This might be the end of school, but this is just the beginning! I am looking forward to see what is going to happen this year!

On Friday we were just getting ready for the next day. I started baking at nine 9 am and I finished my cakes at 11 pm. A lot of hard work, but it payed off! Who knew that cakes took so much time and effort but I am a perffectionist and I am not satisfied until everything is perffect. I guess I took that from my mom who is even worse than I am. I was hoping that the weather on Saturday would have been nice and sunny...but instead it was raining and the temperature was quite low. JUST MY LUCK! That didn't stop us from having a good time,  at least I had a great time! I was so happy to see friends and family that I haven't seen in ages, even my parents came from Greece to take part to this big event! The party was a success :)

Here are some pictures of the big day!
I am so proud of my cakes as you can see! hehe :D

Congratulations to all graduates! :)


Karoliina

Hurry hurry hurry!

Hey!

These days have been a bit hectic! We are getting ready for my graduation on Saturday and the house is full of stuff...plus the fact that four women (me, mom, gradmom and sister ) and one man ( my grandfather ) live in one small house can be also very nerve racking. I don't know how we are going to fit into this small space when my father and my brother with his wife and their baby are going to come here for the weekend. Also I am going to make all the cakes for my graduation ( 4 cakes ) which I am not so sure about, but I started making them today so I guess everything will be ready by Saturday. But I have to admit that the right word to describe my feelings right now is HELP! I am sure I will forget something and run to do everything the last minute. I am glad that I have my family to help me out with this mess :D

My mom made these two hats for my cakes and I made the flowers as a decoration also for the cakes. We have been working really hard as a team! 

Me and my sister

Ufff! Got to go now!

Karoliina

Ulalaaaa eurovision!

Hello!

I don't know if anybody else watched eurovision last night! It's a tradition to watch at least the finals every year even though I don't take it too seriously, but it's fun to see who is going to win. I remember when Greece won in 2005 and the next year Finland won, we were like what the heck is going on? I don't know which country to support, but usually to be honest Greece has better songs than Finland. This year Finland didn't even make it to the finals and the song of Greece really sucked! So I voted for Serbia which came third...not bad! :)

Oh well, congratulations to Sweden! The song wasn't too bad, but I didn't really get those kung fu moves she was doing...looked a bit stupid to me. The russian old ladies were quite good actually...they had the guts to go on that stage and they nailed it! In case you didn't watch eurovision last night here are the three songs that europe voted as the best songs.

Okay, enough about eurovision! Last night everybody's facebook status was about eurovision so I'm not going to say anything else about it!
And now something embarrassing that happened to me. So as I have made pretty clear my graduation party is in a week so I wanted to try this self-tan thingy because I am very pale...whiter than snow white, I am "sparkling white" as they used to say when I visited Skiathos with my friends two years ago. Anyway...I put the self-tan last night before I went to bed and today when I woke up....SURPRISE! My legs were sooo brown that I freaked out! I look like Snooki D:D:  Thank God I just put that on my legs! Maybe I will just stay pale for the rest of my life....there is nothing wrong with that! The good news is that the self-tanner worked, so thumbs up for that hehe! :D
In case you want to try this self-tan don't put too much of it, unless you really want to look like Snooki! :P
Okay,  I guess that was it of my embarrassing moments. These things always happen to me...hehe

Anyway my mom is coming tomorrow and I need to organize this place a little!
Have a great day everybody! :)

Karoliina

Pulla on hyvää!

Hei!

I decided to make korvapuusti for a change! I don't even remember when was the last time I made these, but they are really good! We eat these in Finland a lot and my friends in Greece who have tried them they liked them very much so I decided to put the recipe on my blog, because I am too lazy to send it to each one separately :P I think these are similar to cinnamon rolls, but I have never tried them so I don't know if the taste is the same.

Here is what you are going to need:

5 dl milk

2 packets of dry yeast (if that's even a word )

2 dl sugar

1½ spoons of cardamom

2 teaspoons of salt

1 egg

200 gr melted butter

about 15 dl of flour 

The oven 200 degrees

 
Start by warming up the milk. Don't boil it though! It just needs to be a bit warm and then add the dry yeast.

In the milk with the yeast mix the egg, the salt, the sugar and the cardamom. Add about 11 dl of flour.
( I don't know if you can find cardamom, but it looks something like this. I am sure you can make it without it, but the taste is quite different. )
Melt the butter and add it in the mixture. Add the rest of the flour in the end. To mix it you are going to use your hands...it get's quite messy I am warning you!  Voilá your dough is ready! Just leave it to rise for 30-45 minutes under a towel. 

When the dough has risen cut it in half and roll out one half of the dough. 

Spread a thin layer of butter, then a layer of sugar and cinnamon. 


Roll it and cut it into small triangles...or if we want to be mathematically correct into small trapezoids or trapeziums ( no idea which word is the right one ) :P
To make the shape of the korvapuusti just push it with your finger in the middle. 
Whisp an egg and lubricate the korvapuusti.  In Finland we add raesokeria which is some kind of sugar on the top, but I don't know if you can find it abroad...at least in Greece they don't sell it. 

 

Do the same thing with the other half of the dough. Leave them in the oven for about 15 to 20 minutes...till they get this golden brown color :)

So this is the way I make these. If you want you can leave your korvapuusti to rise under a towel for 15 minutes before you put them in the oven.

Good luck with the recipe! :)

Karoliina

Got to love Jazz!

Hello!

What do you think of the new look on my blog?? I'm still not giving up of the green, but I have wanted to make a change for a while now and yesterday I finally had the courage to change it a bit. If you haven't noticed I have this section on the right that says labels to make things easier in case you want to search a recipe that I put on here or something else. I am trying to update my blog and make it easier for you and for me. Now I have actually learned how to use this thing! It just took me five months to learn but what the heck! :D

I don't know if I have ever told you this and I guess you might have noticed that I love Jazz! I have been searching all these different songs and the best that I have found are from the forties and fifties. They really knew how to make the best jazz ever back then! It's a pity that I haven't found any good contemporary jazz artists. If you are a jazz fan as I am and you have any good links on youtube please leave a comment! My friends don't really get my passion for jazz and we all have very different taste in music...the only songs that we can listen together are the ones by Abba! On the other hand I am not the kind of person who listens to only one genre. One day I can listen to Scorpions or Nightwish and the next day to Enrique Iglesias for example. I am open to listen to almost everything, but that doesn't mean that I am going to enjoy it :P

Here are some of my favourite jazz songs! Not sure if all of them are quite jazzy maybe they have a twist of blues or gypsy jazz.  (the deluxe one is a bit random, but a friend of mine sent it to me and I have been listening to it since then )

Okay, I guess that's enough for today! :P I have no idea why those videos can't go the way I want them...ugh -_-
The sun is shining so I am heading out and enjoying this lovely weather now that I still can! :)

Karoliina

One step at a time

Moi!

Today is my name day! I almost forgot about it, but it's good that I own a calendar. I had an awesome time with my dear friend Essi and finally I bought my ylioppilaslakki for my graduation...isn't it gorgeous? :D It looks like a sailor's hat, I'm in love with it! hehe

 

I am so nervous and excited the same time for this big event! This is the end of school and 13 years of torture. Okay, I have to admit that school in Finland was awesome! I loved going to school here because most of the teacher's were really nice and I don't know why Finnish students complain about everything, but I guess they haven't seen how schools are in Greece! This year has been the best so far and I really feel good that I made the decision to move to Finland and finish high school here. I will never regret this decision even though I went through some rough times at the beginning, but that's life! You have to take risks and see what happens...if you are too afraid to do anything then you are just playing safe all the time. To be honest I used to hate Finland when I first moved here, but now for the first time I am happy to be here and just take it easy. I am a big dreamer and I live in my own little world sometimes...all this time I have wanted for time to pass by fast so I can move to Spain and do something different, but that's not the right way to live your life. You have to enjoy this day, this moment, this minute...not live in the future. It is good to make plans, but sometimes those plans take over and you end up hating the life you live now...or at least that's what happened to me. 

Enough of my big speach! Here are some pictures that I took today. The weather has been so great and the temperature is getting warmer and warmer every day wohoo! :D Everyhing is so green and fresh again...ahhh! :)

Have a great day! :)

Karoliina

Yeah! :D

Hey!

These past few days have gone by pretty smoothly hehe! It's already Friday...I have no idea how time pasts so fast! Yesterday Hanna and Essi came to my house to celebrate the fact that it's now official that we are all going to graduate because the final results came! Also our names were on the local newspaper on the list of the graduates of 2012 so it's all goooood! :D
Actually, yesterday was pretty exciting as I didn't have work and then we went for a "small" walk with Hanna and Essi which ended up lasting more than an hour and it was about 5 km long. At least we got to be out in the nature and fight with those evil ants that were all around us :P

So after they left me all alone I was so bored that I decided to make a new video! I have to be honest that I am not a good video maker and the quality of my video again was pretty low, next time I have to zoom it better or something. I don't understand how actors can work in front of the camera all the time, because personally I don't know how to act normal in front of my own little camera! Also about my video on the second verse I didn't remember the lyrics so I made up my own words hehe...got to be creative! Okay, that's about it! I don't think I will ever be totally satisfied with any of my videos, but I guess I will have to live with that.  Hope you can hear me better this time :)

Karoliina