Sun, party, classes

Hallo! Here I am once again after a small break of blogging. I have been so busy with all this exploring and cycling, plus the weather has been really good so I needed to take advantage of that now that I still can.

Last week was full of new and interesting things! Last Sunday my friend invited me to a techno festival and I wasn't quite sure whether I was going to totally fit in...those of you who know me in real life techno and me just don't really get along that well. To my surprise though I had a good time and most of it was thanks to my awesome company! Now I can check out "Going to a techno party" off my list.

 Talking with my super tall Dutch friend, Geert and getting blind with the sun in my eyes

Some happy faces!

I also had my first Dutch lesson last Monday (which means that today is my second class) and I must say that my pronunciation is quite crappy. The whole week I have been trying to learn all these new words and I still feel like I forget them immediately! It's so different from the languages I already speak that it's going to be quite a challenge, but what the hell, I will learn it eventually! At least my life might get a bit easier with my communication with the kids at home.

 I also had my first art class on Saturday at the Rietveld Academie. I had the interview on Friday where they selected people and I was one of the lucky ones. The interviewer kind of disliked my drawings but she liked me so she let me in. I must say that showing my art for the first time to someone with a lot more experience in the field, was a very vulnerable moment for me and getting kind of harshly criticized, wasn't my best moment of the week. I guess it's something that I need to get used to.

I am also lucky to have found another salsa lover Laura and we have been going dancing together the last couple of times. My body is now complaining because of all the dancing and my feet are definitely suffering a bit, but it's good to be back on the dance floor showing off my super sexy moves again.

exploring the city with Laura 

The family is now coming back from their trip in Oslo and I need to be creative and cook something...I'm out of ideas! D:

ps. One of the many strange things I discovered in Holland: Why do they sell only carbonated ice tea? Real ice tea has no bubbles!

And with that last strange fact I end my post. Have a nice evening and greetings from Amsterdam!

Karoliina

Weekend fun and apple mousse

 Ahoy! Here we are once again in beautiful Amsterdam! After a splendid weekend I started my week with a cold and chicken soup...yey!
 The weekend included sitting in vondelpark with the other aupair girls, walking around the city, eating, eating, eating, drinking beer and listening to jazz. The weather wasn't the best on Saturday but that didn't stop us from having a good time.

 Sitting in museumplein

 Some enthusiastic street musicians

Sitting by the canal! Another one of my shoe selfies...

I know that everytime you people wonder what I always take with me and my bags are so big all the time. First of all my camera takes a lot of space and second I'm a woman. I guess I don't need to explain myself further.

 It would be cool to try that sometime!

 Last but not least Jazzz!

 

Today I tried to impress the family with my baking skills and as it always happens the one time that you want things to go right everything goes wrong. I decided to make an apple pie and everything was going well until the pie got into the oven and the whole thing just turned into a strange apple mess. In the end we had to sieve the extra butter from the "pie" and ate it as apple mousse. The kids seemed to love it, but for me it was a total failure...

Funny fact is that I forgot to write on the recepy the flour and of course the whole thing fell apart without it! Maybe next time I remember that tiny little detail...

 

Time to rest!

Groetjes

 

Karoliina

Op de fiets

Hello lovely people!
The last week has been so hectic that I feel like I have missed days or something. Even though the beginning was quite difficult now things are getting better. On the weekend I also got to meet other aupair girls and it was good to be around people who understand your situation. Even though it feels kind of funny that we talked about how many children we "have". I understand now how difficult it is to raise children. Not an easy task I would say and I respect even more the hard work my parents had to do back then.

Like a proper tourist I had to get a picture with Iamsterdam

On Monday I also had my first proper day here which means that I stayed the whole day with the little one, picked the other two from school, bought groceries,cleaned and cooked. I feel like such a survivor! Also I know now that whenever the little one has a bad mood I put some music on and immediately the crying stops. God bless youtube!

From one thing to another I still need to get used to the cycling culture here. I see all this men with their business suits and the women with their 12 inch high heels cycling to work and it's a bit funny to look at. Here you are kind of a fool if you take the car because it's faster to go by bike and you don't need to wait in the traffic. Personally I still find it difficult to understand how bikes move here. What about the lights?? Which lights are for bikes? When it turns red for the cars do I need to stop or can I go with the green light which is for the pedestrians? And then there are seperate lights for bikes but they are not everywhere! Meeeh...I am confused! No big deal that I got almost hit by a car the other day...ooops! I don't know what I should be more afraid of, the cars or the bikes that come like crazy from every direction possible! Now I am trying to ride this monster they call bakfiets. Maybe by the end of the year I will know how to carry three children, groceries and maybe some extra children's bikes in there...or not!

Even thoug I like almost everything here there are two main things that kind of bother/surprise me:
1. No warm lunch during the day. Which means that basically they just have some sandwiches and then a big warm meal at 6 o'clock. The amount of bread they eat here is incredible. Breakfast: Bread, Lunch: Bread, Snack: Bread. There are so many wonderful things people can eat...why bread?
2. Paying for the toilets when you go to a bar. Yesterday I went salsa dancing and this lady started yelling at me because I didn't pay her for the toilet...which I didn't even use as I wanted to wash my hands. She wanted me to go tell her first what I wanted to do in the toilet and then asked for money which I refused to give. Does it cost more if I do something more than peeing? I don't get it. This system is just weird!

As promised I got a few pictures with my new pink bike! I was thinking to paint it something less bright but now that I think about it, a pink bike shall remain pink! Besides it stands out of the crowd. Especially the quote on the side "magic arrow" makes it even more magical haha



Have a nice day!

 

Karoliina

Nanny in action

Hallo!

It's been a while since the last time and so many things have been happening lately. Last week we celebrated my nephew's (who is the most beautiful baby in the world!) christening and almost a week later now I am in Amsterdam taking care of not one but three little ones.

I suppose there is always a first time for everything and as I was coming here my suitcase got lost in Copenhagen. Gladly I did get it a day later so I didn't need to go shopping for new clothes (even though that wouldn't have been so bad after all).

Once I arrived to meet my family I had three little ones jumping and running and being excited to see me which warmed my heart. I must say that I am lucky to have such a good family and they tried so hard to get me a bycicle since everything is designed for giants here. Now I am the proud owner of a bright pink bike and I couldn't be more happy to be able to move around. We went to so many bike shops and it started to get a bit frustrating, but one of the bike shop owners told me: " Don't worry you are going to find a bike out there that fits you". I guess finding the right bike is like looking for your soulmate :D

I am not going to lie that it isn't hard, but little by little I am getting to know new people and getting used to the routine of the family. The kids are very nice and I am glad that I found Mara from Italia who also works as an aupair close by so we can do things together with the children.

First step so far has been trying to find a Dutch course and I am looking forward to learn how to pronunciate all the khhaaa they use here.

So much to do but gladly I have a year to figure things out! Now I need to go cook something for the family and boy I am terrified that it will turn out to be a total mess! We shall see how it goes...

Groetjes,

Karoliina

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