Fun times in Finland

Hello people! Long time no see, huh? Blogging just hasn't been my biggest priority and I don't want to be posting one picture and be like "hey! Look, I am eating ice cream!", because trust me that's the main thing I have been doing lately. The combination of unemployed, summer and Finland is pretty boring. The only good thing about it is that I got to spend all my time with my boyfriend who came to see me for ten days.
Get ready to have a big dose of kissy-kissy pictures and cuddly moments. I never thought I would become one of those people who post pictures of their boy/girlfriend and are like "look how happy we are together!" but I must admit that I am turning into one of those people...sorry (or not so sorry after all)!

Either way! Here is a little peek of our ten days together. As you can tell it started well with the weather :D

(note: color difference)

I had to take him to Särkäniemi, but it turned out to be a bad idea since he was too sensitive to go to any of the rides. We should have stuck with the children's section.

Real men like Angry Birds...damn right!

Okay, he did come with me to a horrible ride. I was probably the only one screaming during the whole thing. I didn't know I could scream that loud...it turns out I can!

Our adventure didn't end there. My brother invited us to wash rugs with him and once again Lazaros got to experience some real Finnish culture.

The Finnish ass in the background...nice!

Our job was done there!

Showing off some muscle...or what is left of it. Swimming in the lake wasn't one of his favorite things, but he survived in the cold water.

I know, I know! I couldn't help it though...I had to put a cheesy picture on here.

So serious

 On the way to our summerhouse we had a stop in Lahti to have some coffee, because that's what Greeks do when they have a break. It turned out that in Finland if you order coffee five o'clock in the evening they look at you with a weird face. Also I guess Finnish people are not familiar with cold coffee! I can't say I was too happy to get a hot latte when I had asked for a cold one...-_-

Lazaros doesn't share his coke with anyone...okay maybe with me from time to time.

Personally, I am so addicted to the GPS that I don't know what I would do without it. One of my best friends.

I put him to work again. For a beginner he did an excellent job!

Being fashionable as always

It's hard to get back to my life without having him around for a while, but what can you do.

One step at a time :)

Have a nice day!

Karoliina

Unexpected

Phew, what a week! My mom had six days off so we decided to do a little roadtrip to Lapland to visit my sister who is about to give birth any time soon. Finally after all these rainy days we got to enjoy some real sunny and warm weather! Who thought that summer would actually arrive here? I am sure it wasn't just me who had lost faith for a while or was it?

Either way, we definitely took advantage of those sunny days and spent as much time as possible outside. The result was that we all got badly burned and by the end of the day we smelled like Greek yogurt (who needs aftersun when you can use yogurt, right? ). As any other typical week this wasn't any different...we ate a lot, walked a lot (okay, that's a lie), got eaten by mosquitos, swam into the freezing water, laughed to our stupid jokes, went to the sauna and watched some really aristic/bad movies. That's how I spend my time with my mom and sister and it never gets boring!

Well, actually there is slightly more to tell than just that about last week. The big news of the day is that I got a "job" as an aupair in a Dutch family in Amsterdam! I was kind of looking for a family in June but since I didn't get any responses I left it out of my mind for a while. To my surprise a family sent me a message that they wanted to have a skype call with me and within a week my plans for next year have totally changed! In August I am going to Holland and I couldn't be more scared/excited/freaked out! I am still trying to realize it...things happened too fast, but it's definitely going to be a challenge!

Once again life is full of surprises! I was planning other things for this year, but I am glad they didn't work out after all.

 

I guess I will need to pack my bags again soon!

 

Karoliina



In summary

A short post describing my last week:

• Had a pic nic in the rain and I wasn't too happy about that. Lesson learned: Never trust a sunny day in Finland!
• Went to a Finnish salsa party which was pretty okay let's say. As my sister said once for the Finnish dancing style it was like seeing anorectics wrestling with sumos. 
• Spent a lovely weekend with our family friends talking about good old times.
• Ate too much good food...

 

That's my life so far and guess what!? It's raining again...so lovely!

Happy July!

 

Karoliina

Joyful summer

Finnish summer  is probably the happiest day of the year. It comes and goes without you even noticing. After seeing all the drastic changes of the temperature I surely understand that statement. In some areas earlier this week it even snowed to be more precise. What a joy to be in Finland! I start to miss those summers I used to spend in Greece unable to move my little finger because I was too terrified to face the amount of sweat a simple body movement could cause. Not to mention the burning when I would put Greek yogurt to cool it down ( it actually helps by the way). God bless yogurt!

Even though I don’t like extremely hot weather summer still should be summers and winters, winters. I really cant feel the summer fever yet! I curse the day I didn’t pack more warm clothes with me. The coldest it got yesterday was 6 degrees which is like a Greek winter to me. Despite the bad weather though we still celebrated midsummer. This year our fire was significantly smaller than on previous years ( click here to see pictures from last summer's midsummer). It was more like a barbeque-type-of-thing which I found cosy enough. As long as there were enough sausages I was happy! A million mosquito bites later though I decided to give up and went inside to warm up.

the sun decided to come out for a second

 The trashy novels I read while on holidays. I am the kind of person who can't stand books with a big meaning that take me a week to figure out what it was actually about. This instead was quite the oposite...I probably should stop reading crap like this...oh well!

I think I will start wearing these more frequently if this rain doesn't stop! Don't they look stylish? :P I really hope this weather gets better...I really do!

Happy summer everybody! I hope I didn't totally destroy your mood :)

 

Karoliina

Quality time

Hola munchkins! It might be Friday the 13th but I haven't had any bad luck so far, phew! Not that I believe in that kind of stuff, but it's still a relief!

As to continue with my exciting life there isn't much to talk about unfortunately. I have been trying to find myself some hobbies or at least something to keep me busy so I came up with painting. I had some old paints somebody had given me ages ago so I thought to give it a try. Bellow you can see the result of my great inspiration. Before you start judging I haven't painted anything for the last 8 years, so I have the painting skills of a 12 year old (as you can probably notice). I got really excited when I finnished my moomi themed painting so I decided to show it to my mom and my sister. Immediately they told me why does nuuskamuikkunen (in English snufkin) have an amish beard? In case you wonder why he has an amish beard it's his hair!! Now I can't look at the painting the same way I did before...maybe I need to find another hobby after all :P

 To leave behind my painting I decided to go to the library and these babes came along with me.

Some trashy novels in English and Spanish to maintain my level in those languages and then some movies to kill my time.

Gladly I had the honor to have my mom visit me for a couple of days so we went to my grandfather's summerhouse to spend some quality time in the middle of nature. Even though we went there just for a day it was still relaxing and we were lucky enough to have awesome weather, yey!

Me passing out in the sun hoping to get a small tan. I think I have to accept it that that day will never come.  

Lazaros sent me this picture today so maybe it's about time to embrace my paleness.

It's bed time now!

Hopefully the rain will stop by tomorrow! Fingers crossed :)

 

Bye munchkins <3

 

Karoliina

 

Thanks for the lemonade









I am officially unemployed people! "Supposedly" I had a job interview to my old job yesterday, but it turned out that she just wanted to see me so she could tell me that she doesn't have a job for me (?@#*%!?????). The thing that makes me mad is that she let me wait all these months, when she could have told me from the beginning what's the situation.

 

Either way...after my little break down yesterday, I decided to pull myself together and find something else. Job hunting is on! Gladly I have amazing friends and lot's of chocolate to cheer me up! I can't say that being back to Finland started on the right foot, but things could be a lot worse I guess. On the bright side I can have some summer holidays if I don't find anything :P

 

 The person who has been cheering me up and sharing chocolate cake with me :D

Here is a lesson for me at least:

 

"You cannot tailor-make the situations in life but you can tailor-make the attitudes to fit those situations."

 

Will I ever learn??

 

 

 

Karoliina

Finlandia

The travelling never ends in my case. Yesterday night after 17 hours of travelling I landed to the country of Angry Birds, Sauna and Santa Claus (for those who didn't get the hint I meant Finland).

I am sure I have confused most people of where I have been going and what I have been doing. Don't worry though, I am more confused of my life right now than anybody else. Despite all the crazyness I feel more determined for my future. This year is going to be different as I have decided to settle down in one place for a while. Surprising, huh? I didn't think I would say this, but it's about time to stop the moving around.

I must admit that the biggest change though has been my mysterious man! He was a bit offended as I didn't write anything about him on my blog, but the truth is I hate people who post stuff about their relationships on facebook all the time. I don't like showing off and I guess that's the reason why I tried to avoid writing things about him on here. To be honest though, he is the best thing that has happened to me and I am so happy to have him in my life.

The only bad thing about him is that he looks way too young for his age which makes me look old :P

 On my last days in Greece my father took us one day to the mountain. Here they are laughing about something funny I suppose.

 I even got to go the the beach at least once before leaving!

 I was trying to take a picture of the sea, but couldn't see anything as the sun was too bright. Sexy knees it is then!

 mysterious man

Leaving Greece without having Greek food would have been a crime. On my last night we went out with my English teacher Denise.

 Gladly Akis and Marianna travelled with me to Finland as they got a job offer from there so I didn't need to travel alone. We got a super cheap flight with ryanair for 20 euros to Oslo and from there we changed the airport and got our flight to Finland. I have a love/hate relationship with ryanair as everything is so cheap but paying 30 euros for the bag was a shame. Gladly I didn't have any issues with my bag as it was exactly 20 kilos. I have become an expert after all these years ;)

 Akis and Marianna

 Finland!

 This is what it feels like being in Finland. Either I am too short or other people here are just too tall.

 On my first day back in Finland we went to see the Tove Jansson exhibition which would have been nice if I hadn't had the need to pee all the time. It kind of ruined the experience, meh!

 After the exhibition we came back and my sister taught me how to make filo pastry

 Spinach pies for dinner! Wohooo

Let's see how I will get any sleep tonight with this light!

It's strange to be back, but I will get used to it sooner or later!

 

Karoliina