Tänään koitti kauan kauhistuttanut muuttopäivä. Muuttoa on odoteltu kuukauden päivät ja yritetty henkisesti varautua tähän koitokseen. Aikuisiällä muiden elämäntragedioiden ohella muutto on kyllä varmasti monelle ultimate inhokkiasia. Minä en muista siinä suhteessa eroa. Vaikka kuinka yrittäisi tehdä asioita etukäteen, pakata, siivota ja järjestellä, niin ikinä ei vaan saa etukäteen tehtyä tarpeeksi.
Tämänpäiväinen muutto meni itseasiassa aika ok! Helpotti varmaan se, että vaikeita hommia oli tehty jo etukäteen (mm. hella siivottu) ja pari isointa huonekalua viety etukäteen erillisessä kuormassa. Plus auttajina oli itse muuttopäivänä yhteensä viisi ja ennen muuttoa oli myös tarjolla vähän apua.
Edes vaikeiden ja isojen huonekalujen kantaminen oo kyllä niin syvältä kuin 1. sen pikkuturhatilpehöörin kantaminen edestakaisin, siinä kokee sellaisia epätoivon hetkiä että miksi ihminen kerää kaikkea turhaa tavaraa ja tekis mieli vaan heittää laatikot armotta roskiin katsomatta niiden sisältöä ja 2. LOPPUSIIVOUS. Loppusiivouksessa kun tulee katsottua kaikki raot ja stressattua tahroista ja liasta josta ei normaalisi yhtään välittäisi.
Kun paku ja peräkärry oli saatu pakattua lähdettiin hidasta vauhtia köröttelemään kohti Pomarkkua minne heitettiin peräkärryn sisältämä roina.
Täällä sitten Joonaksen porukoilla grilliruokaa, saunaa ja pari alkoholia sisältävää sihijuomaa. Ihanaa arkista rentoutumista niin huomenna jaksaa loput kamoista (2/3 ;_;) roudaamaan Porin keskustaan viidennessä kerroksessa olevaa kerrostaloasuntoon. Vaikka postit onkin tänne tulleet koko viikon, huomenna kun suurin osa kamoista on Porin kämpillä voin taas virallisesti alkaa kutsumaan itseäni paljasjalkaiseksi Porilaiseksi!
Our mom had this sudden idea of a quick family beach trip during December and we booked a trip to Gran Canaria for January.
All six of us (me, my bf, my twinsister, her bf, my mom and my grandma) took the same flight from Helsinki to Las Palmas. We arrived quite late in the afternoon and the weather was really windy and cloudy. During the first day we just strolled around and had some dinner since it was so late.
The next day we walked to Maspalomas to visit a market. The walk took over an hour and it was pretty hot but it was nice to see the local surroundings. I was pretty much the only person in our family who bought anything. I haggled for a blue dummer dress, I was proud of myself for haggling hah!
After the market my mom and grandma stayed at the hotel and we went to the beach. It was lovely, except the sea water was ice cold! The waves were so big though that you didn’t have time to regret the decision of going to the water because you get wet in an instant when a wave hit your face.
During the evening we went to have some drinks with my mother’s friends and then dinner after that. Our drinks were so cool, they looked like kid’s drinks but boy did they taste like tequila!
After dinner grandma acted a little oddly. She was exhausted and had trouble speaking. We initially thought it was a heat stroke and she just went to bed. In the morning she was slightly better but still acted a little odd so my mom took her to the hospital. As it turned out she had had a minor stroke so she had to stay at the hospital. Luckily it was just a minor stroke and she managed to go to the hospital so everything turned out okay in the end! We couldn’t go visit her on the first days but after she switched wards we were able to.
So for the rest of the days, we just spent most of hung at the beach, the boardwalk and the local shopping centers. My sister and her bf went to Las Palmas during our last full day but me and Joonas decided to just stay at the beach whole day to enjoy the last moments of sun and warmth in months!
Our mom stayed behind with grandma because she needed an all clear from the doctor to be able to travel. She got out of the hospital the next day after we left and her insurance agency got her and mom a new hotel that was all inclusive with shows every night to see so in the end grandma was able to enjoy her holiday as well!
I had a great time, we didn’t explore or get around much but these kinds of relaxing holidays with your family are the best after stressful times!
Last week we spent quite a lot of time at Joonas’s parents house in Pomarkku. There was some work to be done, like washing the cars and doing wood work.
The days spent there really felt like spring, it really feels like it’s finally coming. I like to spend time in Pomarkku because it’s so quiet and rural but I always sleep so badly when I stay over. Come to think of it, I sleep badly whenever I stay in a rural area, especially when I’m in a detached house. City girl for life maybe?
This summer was pretty great! There were a lot of things going on. Work was pretty much nonexistent during the summer because of the music festival season. Right now I am suffering financially because of the summer because I had pretty much no income but well what can you do! I was going through pictures on my phone and I will just share a few random moments from the summer here.
I spent a lot of time in my hometown Pori this summer. Hung out a lot with friends and family, even Mitsu visited Pori at one point. I also worked at the local music festival Pori Jazz, which is a big deal in Pori. Managed to see a lot of interesting well known artists like Hurts, Pet Shop Boys, Kelis and James Blunt. Most of my team members were so fun to be around too, so work didn’t even feel like work half of the time! 🙂 Also the Football World Cup was something I remember about the summer. I don’t usually care about football but I was rooting for Holland so I had to watch the games when things started to get exciting. 😀
During July I was talking about Tinder with a bunch of my friends and decided half-jokingly I would join since I actually heard some good stories about it. It was honestly fun at first and most of the guys I matched with that talked to be pretty soon wanted to meet up and it was obviously just for sex but I talked to some genuinely nice people also! Some of the guys I came across were pure idiots, but it would happen in real life as well. I went on three “dates” with three different guys and it was very interesting! The first one was really different from his profile photos but a nice guy. The second one was pretty much exactly like I imagined him to be but he was kind of pushy and acted like he had read a flirting book or something because the way he acted seemed so thought out and not natural.
The third guy was my match in my hometown Pori on a Sunday evening in the beginning of August. I had just decided I’d quit Tinder for a while since the whole attraction by first sight kind of bothered me but we ended up sending a few messages on Monday. I went out with my friend Christa to a local bar and what do you know, I actually saw him outside the bar saying hello to his friend. His roommate had not paid the electricity bill so he had to go to bar right next to hours to charge his phone and he asked me if I wanted to keep him company when my friend left. I went to the bar he was in and we got along really well. We hung out every day of that week except Friday when I had to go to work in Helsinki and well… That guy is my boyfriend now. 😀 We’ve been dating 1,5 months and now it’s pretty much 2 months since we met! So I would recommend Tinder, of course if you’re bothered by the shallowness of it then it’s not for you. Most people, both male and female seem to be looking for sex but as I experienced, there are some genuinely nice people on there too!
Here are two profile pictures of some random dudes on there I just had to share:
During the beginning of August we celebrated my sister’s boyfriend’s birthday at our friend’s cottage. This is something we’ve done for years but honestly the weekend this summer was the best one ever! We had such a blast, I will probably remember this weekend as one of the best ones spent with friends ever.
During the weekend in mid-August me and Joonas (Tinder guy no.3 and currently (but not then!) my boyfriend) went to Weekend Festival together with my friend Kipsu. As it was sold out and situated in an area with bad reception to begin with I couldn’t get a hold of Kipsu on Friday so we ended up partying alone together with Joonas. But we had a great time nonetheless! On Saturday we met up with Kipsu outside the area so we wouldn’t get lost and it was so fun to party together with her. I really enjoyed the festival, too bad I was kind of drunk on Friday and I didn’t find the stage where the DJ I most wanted to see played at :’D
Here’s a random video clip Kipsu took when she was on Joonas’s shoulders: (her screaming starts when he begins to jump :D)
Will definitely go again next year!
The rest of August I hung out in Pori, hung out in Tampere with friends, worked in Helsinki, drank beer, ate junk food and went back to my old workplace in Tampere since I had so little work in Helsinki.
That’s pretty much my summer in a nutshell! I socialized a lot since I had little work so in that sense the summer was great. On the other hand, with socializing comes money spending and if you don’t have a lot of work, there is no income. Sooooo, like I said, I am having financial difficulties at the moment but hey it’s all part of being an adult and enjoying life I guess?
On our last day we enjoyed a great continental breakfast at our hotel after which we spent an hour or two by the hotel’s pool and jacuzzi. We were the only ones there aside of a middle-aged couple and no wonder, it was a little chilly and windy even though the sun was shining. But the water in the pool was warm so it was great nonetheless!
In the early afternoon we walked around the Redondo Beach Pier which was a quiet and quaint place! We grabbed a random restaurant at the pier for some lunch before we headed back to the hotel to get our stuff and car.
We stopped by a mall for some last minute clothes shopping before we headed to the airport to give back our car and check-in for our flights. Luckily our planes left at pretty much the same time so we got to spend a lot of time together on the last day before we had to head to the International Terminal for our flight back to Finland and Christa had to go to another terminal for her flight back to Santa Cruz.
At this point I was happy to go home but also happy about our trip! I had a great time, experienced a lot of new things and saw some pretty awesome places. This was my third time in America, with two previous trips concentrating on Florida and New York, so being on the West Coast and the West was so different. Next time I want to go visit the Southern states or some places that are not the typical touristy places to visit!
I think before that, I will try to visit atleast London later this year but we’ll see 🙂
A couple of weeks ago two of my best friends got married. The occassion was kept a secret from most of those belonging to our circle of friends and the party was disguised as a birthday party. The birthday party invitations told everyone to dress in fancy clothes and most dressed up in formal attire without knowing it would come in useful in the end! I was invited to visit Sonisphere Festival so I rushed over there in the morning and watched the first three bands and then rushed back to Tampere just in time for the wedding. I didn’t have any time or chance to dress up though, so I just attended in normal clothes.
The wedding ceremony was held at a special Wedding night event held in Tampere, which acts as a chance for couples who want a quiet ceremony to get married in a small church in a quick ceremony. Two couples are married at the same time and the ceremony takes about 15minutes. Honestly I prefered this a lot more than traditional Finnish weddings, the church and the ceremony is usually really tedious and boring for most people involved!
It was great to witness two very close friends finally tie the knot with other close friends! It was a very happy day.
The next day we all went to a local dance studio for cheer the newlyweds as they competed in a dancing competition! They came in fourth place, which they were kind of disappointed about but I thought they were incredible. I envied all the dancers, I’m sure it would take me three decades to be able to dance like that!
We started the day with our hotel checkout and some last minute Las Vegas shopping. We left Vegas a little after noon and it took us about 5 hours to get to the Grand Canyon National Park if I recall correctly. We stopped on the way for a short pitstop in a little town but other than that we just drove straight on so we could be at our destination at a reasonable hour.
We decided we want to see the Canyon during both daytime and when the sun sets so as we arrived at the Park we just rushed off to the nearest view point. The Grand Canyon is unbelievable, it stretches so far and it’s absolutely huge. But honestly, when you stand on the edge and view it, you don’t really realize you’re there. It feels like you are looking at a huge picture or a canvas is in front of you and not the real thing. It’s just so big and hard to comprehend. I could say it looks like a 2D scenery instead of a 3D scenery?? That’s how I would explain it! But it does look incredible in any case!
There were a lot of other people pretty much everywhere, so to those looking for a quiet picnic while viewing the canyon, it’s best to choose a more quieter viewing point and maybe not pick the first one you see. But for us it didn’t matter and we still managed to find a great quiet spot to watch the sun set.
We found a perfect spot right at the edge of the cliff where we had a picnic and had a nice time talking to a French-Canadian couple that were next to us. When the sun started to set it got really cold, I think the temperature dropped about 15 degrees celcius and I was freezing by the time it got dark!
After the sun set we drove back to the hotel, or more like a cottage sort of accommodation, and took our stuff to our room. The room was convenient and quaint. We then drove to another resort’s building to grab a late night dinner before heading to bed. Oh and I remember going outside for one last cigarette and just looking at the sky totally perplexed. Honestly I have never seen so many starts IN MY WHOLE LIFE. It was beautiful!
We all slept really badly because the air conditioning (which we used for heating because the room was COLD) was really really noisy 😦 In the morning the girls went on a hike down the twisty paths of the canyon but I stayed in sleeping some more and watching tv. The girls told me the view from the paths had been incredible and you could really experience how big the whole canyon was so in the end I was really disappointed that I didn’t go!
Again at about noon we checked out and started driving back to Los Angeles. I took over for half the trip because the drive was really long (about 8 hours of driving with 2 stops totaling to about 9 hours). Everything went pretty well, except for a few slow vehicles driving on the wrong side and a little accident when I accidentally pressed the break pedal when my instinct told me to push the clutch. Seriously automatic gears are easy to get used to and make driving very easy but having driven a manual geared car for years can cause some difficulty. You can’t just let go of your instict to push the clutch so I had to drive with my left foot jammed up almost under me for the whole trip so I wouldn’t accidentally push the break and potentially cause an accident!
We arrived at the hotel at about 10 p.m. and after checking in, crashed in our king size bed! It was a pity that our last full day got spent in the car but it couldn’t really be helped! And the drive was a fun experience yet again except for the last two hours when we approached L.A. and it was pitch black and cars everywhere. Ugh.
On Sunday we slept in since we came back to the hotel at about 5AM. At about noon we headed off to a nearby Factory Outlet, can’t remember which one it was. I was kind of bored since I’m not into brand stuff at all and that’s pretty much all there was :’D But I did buy a Michael Kors wallet that was on sale and literally screamed at me “I am just your style please buy me”.
We shopped until late in the afternoon and then went back to the hotel and got ready for our buffet dinner. The girls had researched all the famous buffets in Vegas and we chose to go to Bacchanal Buffet at Caesar’s Palace since it has been voted as the best one. Caesar’s Palace itself was absolutely beautiful! It was truly a pleasure to hang out at the pool area waiting for our table to be ready.
The buffet was pretty pricey at 55 dollars a head but the dish options were pretty much endless and all very high quality. I am very picky when it comes to food and a lot of the dishes they served didn’t really suit my taste or I didn’t even taste them but the girls loved everything. So I guess if you have regular eating habits this is a good place for pretty much everyone. Also the place had a lot of seafood and I don’t really eat seafood except salmon and prawns so my choices were a little more limited. The buffet was divided into different section and I got almost all of my food from the Chinese and Italian section but everything I ate from those was to die for! ;__; And the desserts, oh my, so much chocolate everywhere.
We stuffed our faces and then took our food babies out for a walk. The night air was nice and we we’re so full we decided to walk back to our hotel and just strolled around the strip, it was great! The Bellagio’s water fountain was pretty incredible to see, I could’ve spent hours just strolling around the strip, there was so much to see and the atmosphere is unlike anything else.
I really loved going to Vegas, I was hesitant about our plans at first but it turned out to be my favourite place out of all the places we went to! Would gladly go again.
The girls got up early in the morning for a run, while I, being the lazy ass that I am, stayed at the appartment and slept in. At noon we picked up some snacks from the nearby Walgreens and hopped in the car for our long awaited road trip to Vegas!
The whole drive took us about 4,5 hours with a half hour stop at a diner by the highway and the drive was very pleasant. I love to be in cars as a passenger and just drive around watching the surroundings. It gets really boring in Finland since I am so used to the sceneries next to the Finnish highways/main roads but of course the Nevada desert scenery is so much different! I didn’t get bored of the surroundings one bit during the whole drive and it was a quite a pleasant trip overall.
The diner we stopped at was such a quaint place which excellent customer service. I bet it’s been modified to suit tourists’ expectations of typical American diners but it was still a lovely place to have a pit stop and the ice cream and shake were great.
We arrived at our hotel late in the afternoon and it was huge. It’s not even one of the biggest hotels in Vegas, but it was big enough to impress me. And it had everything, from casinos to a dozen restaurants to its own theme park. Maybe the theme park was to blame for the amount of families with children that stayed at the same hotel, I would say most of the hotel guests were families and not couples or groups of friends. We didn’t expect it to be a party hotel, but I was still kinda susprised. Anyway, we had a quick rest before hitting some nearby shops for a little shopping. Then we started preparing for our night out! The view from our window would have been so great if it weren’t for the ugly construction of some hotel next to ours, but oh well. During night time we hardly saw it!
Our plan was to head off to Club XS at the Wynn/Encore hotel complex. My friend, who’s from LA suggested a few clubs to us, XS included, and Avicii was playing the night we wanted to go clubbing so XS was our first choice. The hotel was packed with people when we arrived and we had quite a difficult time finding the club, since on the official site it says that the club is part of Wynn but it was actually situated in Encore. So we had to back to Encore to get in.
The line to buy tickets wasn’t even that long, surprisingly enough! A guy approached us, can’t for the life of me remember his name anymore, and told us he wants to sell us his ticket since his wife felt ill and couldn’t come to the club. They’d just found out she was pregnant, what a bad timing for a clubbing weekend in Vegas but he seemed thrilled 😀 Anyway I offered to buy the ticket off him at a discount but I had to enter with him because the tickets were tied together so I got separated from the girls since the presale tickets had a separate entrance. We had an interesting talk with Mr. X while lining up to get inside the club, about sports, education, club policies and drinking habits! Once inside he was reluctant to leave me alone until I find the girls but I assured him I’d be able to find them. But boy was I wrong. After looking around the club’s pool area I realized I’d made a mistake. The club area was HUGE and at this stage, with the clock ticking close to midnight, it was pretty much full. My phone hardly had any service and it took me about half an hour with occassional panicking to find the girls who had entered the club at the complete other direction.
We partied near the DJ booth/stage pretty much the whole night and it was an awesome spot! We were right in the middle of all the action but we hardly got pushed or anything and this happened inside a lot because the club had thousands of people who all wanted to get to the inside area of the club rather than the pool areas. From the occassional drunk ass chicks to sleazy dudes we didn’t get bothered much and could concentrate on dancing and having fun. The only downside to being in the pit area of the inside of the club was having no access to the bar. So we opted out on drinks since we didn’t want to queue back inside but luckily some millionaire dude who had his entourage right next to Avicii’s stage just walked to us and handed my sister a biiiig bottle of champagne. Thanks mate! He also threw a big handful of 100 dollar bills into the audience, what a waste. Life just not fair is it? Anyway we had a great time and I could hardly walk while going back to the hotel, I was so tired. I highly recommend you visit XS if you visit Vegas! The place may not be suitable for you if you don’t like clubbing (duh though), spending atleast 50 bucks (the entrance was 35 and the drinks about 15) or honestly, if you feel awkward in a club full of attractive people who seem vain. :’D But for a true hip Vegas experience, I can’t imagine it can get better than this!
Here’s three small video clips from the night! Didn’t really spend that much time with my phone in my hand so it’s not much 😀
After Venice beach we strolled around the Venice canals. The area was so beautiful and some of the houses were so weird but after a while it got a little boring and repetitive. So we got in the car and drove to Santa Monica where we went to the Pier to get some dinner.
We spotted a Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. restaurant and we were sold. I’ve visited a restaurant of that franchise in New York and I loved it! This time didn’t disappoint either! Shrimps, yumm.
We hurried back to LA after dinner to visit the Griffith Observatory and see the sunset. When the sun started to set it became really cold, I guess March can still be pretty chilly in LA 😀
We then went back to our appartment and wondered what we’d do since we didn’t feel like going to sleep even though we had to leave for Vegas in the morning. We then decided to go to the Sunset strip for drinks and had a great time. Coming back to our car totally ruined our night though. We had parked our car in a residential area and didn’t see a small sign in the beginning of the street saying that from 7PM onwards you needed a resident’s permit to park there. We panicked when we saw our car was gone but then spotted a guy who was cursing and calling someone on his phone. Apparently his car had gotten towed and we called the tow place and they confirmed our car was there too. So we grabbed a taxi with him and tried to laugh about the whole situation along the way but is still sucked cause we knew it was going to be pricey. Atleast we split the tow payments in three unlike the guy with us who had to pay on his own. He was a marine on leave and had gone to LA just to see a concert for an hour, such bad luck 😀
It took almost an hour for us to get our car because we didn’t have our car rental agreement with us but we managed to get it in the end! At maybe 1:30 AM we were able to drive to the appartment and tried to brush the whole thing off joking we had just had the most expensive drinks of our lives! After that we triple checked every single sign when we parked, so I guess we learnt our lesson!
Before I change my mind. Or my mind changes me. 