päivä 15

Day 15 – A picture of something you want to do before you die and why

Ennenku kuolen, haluun kokea hetken, jollon voin täysin rehellisesti todeta olevani täysin onnellinen.

Koska se on mun mielestä elämän tarkotus.

(kaikki kuvat weheartit.com)

no imagination - no heading

This week I've started to write a few posts but I've never published them. On Tuesday our French teacher never showed up so I went to school for no reason in the evening. Not that I would have been sad we didn't have the classes - actually I was quite happy... On Wednesday, meaning yesterday, I had a good day. No, I don't have any specific reason for that but at the end of the day I could just honestly say that the day was good and I was happy. I guess it was because of the good weather and because I met and got to know quite a many new persons :-) And of course because FC Barcelona won the match against Valencia!

 
And today, some common features: good weather and new persons to get to know + in addition: good shopping tour. But I still don't have the same feeling as yesterday. Well I'm sure it's partly because I didn't sleep well last night, but it's weird that sometimes you can just so honestly say and feel that you're happy and sometimes you are not even though there were good conditions for that. Human mind is so complex. blah.

Well, one thing I'm surely happy about, is meeting all those new persons. Everyone has been so nice.
And about the shopping tour today... I was so bored after the morning classes (there are 6 hours between those and the evening classes..) that I decided to go for shopping shopping shopping. Always cheers me up.

my good old leather jacket (from Bershka, Barcelona) got a competitor today...

..because I found a black blazer from Stradivarius, discount over 50% (last size) and perfect for me!
(okay I also bought one black (knitted?) shirt.. but hey, discount 70%! i have the same shirt also in red)

a dark brown bag, discount 50% from el Corte Inglés (local Stockmann) :-D but I defend myself:
I was in need of a medium-sized bag, I took only one big and a few mini-sized ones with me from Finland!

and a mini wallet as my current one is too big for my little bags. and more invisible, I won't get robbed so easily :D
(yuck my nails, have to do something to them tomorrow..)

I also made one important purchase one day! As some of you know I'm always using mugs at home in Finland so it has been weird not having my Moomin mugs and FC Barcelona mug here with me. Last weeks here I've been using some disposable cups and normal drinking glasses for drinking but NOT ANYMORE! I finally found a mug for meeee!

Universitat de València -mug!

with university logos :-)

Enough for today! I really need to go to bed now, I have to wake up at 7.30... NOOO!

Edit: I finished the book I told you about! After a long time I got a book finished, yay for me! I think the book was quite good and nice to read but the ending? what?! weird. I hate books that don't have a proper ending. >:(
AND! I managed to load more money to my mobile (prepaid) in Spanish. I asked the woman at PhoneHouse if she spoke English but the answer was "NO". But I made it, alive!

ten little, but wonderful, things

we had a snow storm today here in Finland.. and this was just the morning, it went on the whole day!

Now that packing is almost done, I'm trying to relax a bit while J is cooking for us. I've been feeling quite complicated and confused, and I'm having very mixed and conflicting feelings. That's why I decided to do the task that I found from a blog that I'm following; so I have go here and pick ten little things that please me the most and that I find worth appreciating. While going those things through, I realized that one little thing really can make you feel better or cheer you up, at least a bit. Actually I went those through yesterday evening and I found many (a lot more than ten!) of them agreeable but I still try to pick just ten of them. Okay, here we go..

#1, this one isn't a surprise to anyone who knows me :-D

#2, I just yesterday told J I'm doing this :-)

#3, the main reason why I liked maths, the feeling of getting a completely correct solution!

#4, :----)

#5, for a change, usually I'm in a bad mood, just because...

#6, I never wear jeans etc if I'm home alone. sweatpants <3

#7, just because. this one made me miss one particular friend that I've known since we were kids.

#8, I just realized a few days ago that I enjoy this one, when J does it and at a hairdresser's!

#9, especially in the spring when the real hot weathers aren't there yet.

#10, at that moment I can feel that person really cares about me.

something that makes me happy

© From here

....Disney songs!! really, it's weird how they always make me smile, even if I was feeling bad. Disney was a big part of my childhood, and I still love the animated movies and especially the songs of the movies. Okay, I haven't seen ALL the Disney films (I'm mainly speaking about animated movies here), but my all time favorites are the Lion King (the second part is also good!), Sleeping Beauty, Lady and the Tramp, the Aristocats, Aladdin, Mulan and Tarzan. I've also seen a few quite good animated Disney movies (like Cars and Ratatouille) that are newer than those that I mentioned but for me they are not the same thing as older movies. I think that's because I have some kind of a special emotional connection to them as I loved them even as a child :-) And one thing I have to say about the songs - they are good in many many different languages! Mostly I listen to them in English but also in Finnish, Swedish and even in Spanish :-D

© From here

Here are some Disney songs that I like the most, enjoy!

The Lion King II - He lives in you

The Lion King - Circle of Life

The Lion King II - We are one

Tarzan - Son of man

Mulan - I'll make a man out of you

Pocahontas - Colors of the Wind

Aladdin - A whole new world

Hercules - I won't say I'm in love

And there are soooo many more!

9 days left!

Image: Sujin Jetkasettakorn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Just over a week left in Finland. Excitinggggg....!

During the last week here I still have some things to do. Besides the packing process, I have to get my apartment ready for my friend who's moving here, so that means I should go through all the stuff here - throw away all the useless stuff - and find a place to all the useful stuff (like clothes that I'm not gonna take with me). Luckily there is some free space in my storage closet downstairs - I think it enough for my stuff.

I also have to make an appointment to a hairdresser as I want to get rid of my root growth! I may want to have some highlighting in my hair too..

On Saturday, I'm having my farewell/send-off party. About 30 persons are participating, mainly my fellow students. Nice to see them all before leaving.

soon it's time to go to the airport again!

Next week I still have to see my relatives and try to spend some time with them. Last days I've spent almost all the time with J and I think we'll go on like this 'till I leave. Hopefully. I want to spend as much time as possible together with him now that we still can. I'm gonna miss him so much. Thank god he's coming to Spain in April, we have a vacation booked to Málaga for a week then :-) Looking forward to that!

Besides the vacation in Malaga, I'm having quite a lot of traveling ahead of me! In February there's an Erasmus (the exchange organization) trip to Andalucia, that consists of visiting Jaén, Granada, Sevilla and Córdoba. Sounds so attractive that I think I can't avoid participating. In March my sister is probably coming to Barcelona and I'm gonna meet her there. Yay for Barcelona, lovin' that city!

^ a few photos of my trip to Barcelona in 2009

The trip to Málaga with J is in April, and in May we have an Erasmus cruise to Ibiza! Whoa, a lot of things to see and experience! Can't wait! I almost forgot I have to study there too... :-D

Btw, now I supposedly have an apartment in Spain. I'm moving together with my friend from Finland (she has been there already for the first semester) and two other exchange students. They had found a nice and clean apartment with 4 rooms, situated in a good location. Better than fine for me! The rent is affordable and the apartment seemed very good (based on the pictures I saw). Hopefully we get the apartment - if everything goes as expected, the apartment will be ours from the beginning of February till the end of June. I hope more than anything that everything goes well!

That's how i feel right now about going to Spain :-)
Image: graur razvan ionut / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

new year 2012!

So as I've mentioned, I spent my new year's in Oulu, central Finland with my boyfriend. We stayed at his parents' house (= his childhood home) and I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else, or with anyone else. I enjoyed my time there and it felt so BLAH to come back home (I flew from Oulu to Helsinki yesterday).

As I didn't post anything while I was there, it's time for new year's wishes:

VERY HAPPY AND WONDERFUL NEW YEAR 2012! 

Personally I think this year is going to be different, amazing and memorable.

I decided that in this post I'm gonna tell about my trip to Oulu and I will post later about the year 2011 (like a summary or recap of the year). I call my boyfriend J here because it's easier to write.

Helsinki-Vantaa airport, where's the snow?

So I flew to Oulu on Thursday. It was just about two o'clock pm and it was already getting dark there (J's dad told me later that the bright time of the day lasts only about 2-4 hours during the winter months..) :D J was already at the airport by car to meet me. It was like I had come to another country - a lot of snow, darkness and it was a bit colder than in Helsinki.

During the first evening I met J's parents (and I can tell that I was nervous, it was the first time someone took me to meet his parents..!) and one of J's best friends with whom we went to J's brother's place to just hang around :) a lot of new, nice people! Later that evening we had a little incident - a little piece of J's tooth broke off and he doesn't - lightly expressed - LIKE dentists so he was a little distracted because of that. Luckily he got it taken care off already the next morning. On Friday after the dentist we went to Oulu's market hall for morning coffees. The market hall reminded the one in Helsinki (Hakaniemi market hall) - for example fresh fish, bakery products and some textiles/handwork products were sold there.

Later that day we saw a few of J's friends and went around some shops in Oulu with them. We also went to buy some wines and drinks and J and his brother made also jello shots (I hadn't tasted those before and now, no, can't call them delicious :D!) for the next day (NYE).

J's friends wanted to go for drinks and to a bar already on Friday but we didn't go along as we both were having a flu (as did J's parents too). I also wanted to save some energy for new years eve :-D

On Saturday we went to sauna, dressed up for party and went to J's brother's house to spend the evening. Eventually there were quite a lot of people and everyone was more or less drunk! in the night we left to another place to celebrate the midnight. 

We had some fireworks but not anything big (thank god, I'm afraid of them). The year turned to another by kissing and hugging with my own J and I wouldn't have wanted to be with anyone else :) happiness <3

We left the place after 2.30am, some people went to a bar but we went to J's brother's place with J to sleep and so on. In the morning a woke up to feel a terrible headache. okay I admit it was a hangover. At some point we went to J's parents' house just to spend the hangover-day by lying around and sleeping and eating and watching TV. That's how we spent Sunday.

On Monday we went to see the new Sherlock Holmes -movie with J's friend and his girlfriend. I liked the movie even though it was quite a long. After the movie we went to eat to an Indian restaurant (I hadn't tried before) and it was good, even though I wasn't that hungry after eating candies during the movie. On Tuesday we didn't do anything special except packing because I left in the afternoon. J drove me to the airport. I could have stayed longer because I had good time there and especially - good company! My flight was about half an hour late and my uncle came to pick me up from the airport. J stayed there for one night still, he comes home today by train. Now I'm just home trying to get rid of this stupid flu! >:(

snow!!

Just yesterday I wrote here that I don't think that we are going to have a white Christmas here in Finland - and what happened last night..? When I woke up today i saw something white outside! SNOW! Not much but enough to cheer up our supposed-to-be-black-Christmas. And there are still a few days before Christmas Eve so maybe we still get some more? I'm not sure if I mentioned it yesterday, but personally I don't like snow that much - I just don't want to have completely black Christmas.

I went to shopping today as I had time to spend. I bought myself a Christmas present - Canon Ixus 115HS Digital Camera! Yay! Now I can take some pictures in Spain too :) I also bought a BIG traveling bag because there are only about 4 weeks left in Finland - I should soon start thinking about packing. So now I have a new camera and a new suitcase - I'm happy!

Eventually, here you can see some Christmas mood from my home:

less than 5 weeks left in Finland... what?!

First I have to say it was soooo weird to realize a few days ago that I have only five weeks left here at home. I'm leaving on January 20th (Friday) and now there are just 4,5 weeks left! Not until now that it starts to hit me - I'm leaving my home (and the town Ive been living my whole life) and moving to another country for half an year. okay that's not so much, but for me the period feels like many years of being away from home. At least for now - I guess the time passes soon when I'm there, in Spain.

At least I'm now on my Christmas holiday. No stress because of school and not much stress because of work either. Its time to relax and take it easy... Well, of course I should start thinking about packing and the stuff I'm going to take with me and that I'm leaving here. My friend is going to move to my apartment for the spring, so I'm leaving all the big things here - my bed, my sofa, my table, my television etc.. so I don't have to find any place where I could take them. that's good. but I still have to find some place for the clothes that I'm not gonna take with me, for my books and all my personal stuff so that my friend gets some space for her things too. omg I'm sure the packing process will be so hard..!

the time when we still had a white Christmas here in Finland..

So last week, my school stress ended on Thursday when I got my last report returned. I was at work on Thursday and Friday and just hanging around with my boyfriend. On Saturday I had my last riding lesson (gonna miss ponies and riding during next spring!) and in the evening we went for a visit to my cousin's house with my bf. There were also my cousin's bf, my sister, my other cousin and her daughter, my aunt and my uncle. After the visit we went to celebrate my bf's friend's birthday and ended up to a nightclub in Helsinki. The evening was quite nice! On Sunday I just did a LOT of laundry.

Yesterday I felt like sleeping all day long..! I felt so so lazy and sleepy, but in the afternoon I had to do something about it. So, we went to look for some Christmas presents with my bf. I found what I was supposed to and we went to eat to a nice restaurant. I had delicious pasta with fresh tomato sauce, chili, basil and garlic (called pasta alla siciliana). After eating our stomachs full we came to my place and I just wrapped the c´Christmas presents I had bought and then we just watched TV and one movie. Nice, relaxing night :) Today I also felt so sleepy and lazy in the morning (depressing Finnish winter without snow - just rain and dark dark dark) but my bf got me off the bed because I had to accompany him to his train (via his home). He left to spend the Christmas with his relatives to western Finland :( We wont be seeing each other until next week's Thursday so there's over a week without seeing him - we haven't been away from each other for that long during the two months that we've been together. But maybe this is good considering the spring when we'll be apart for half an year (except the week that he will spend with me in Spain in the spring) :|

I don't even like snow that much but Christmas is not THE Christmas without it :(

Now my plan for the next days is just to clean up my home and see some friends that I haven't seen for a while. On Friday I'll go to my grandma's with my sister to make some preparations for Christmas. then I try to relax and enjoy the Christmas time and my last weeks in Finland! Next Thursday I'm leaving for Oulu to spend the New Year's there with my bf and his family :)