The coup of the week.

This is what I did on Monday.

About 8 pm: I decided to go to meet two friends of mine at the railway station at midnight. They were coming from a holiday trip - Rodos for a week.

About 9 pm: I started to make a poster. I had this one meter long piece of paper and lots of crayons and markers.

And one and half an hour later: Take a look at my creation.

It says welcome in Finnish. And the idea is that my friends are standing on the island with the palm tree, under the bright shining sun. They took a plane to Sweden and came by boat to Finland, city called Turku. And the last vehicle they used was a train on their journey between Turku and Jyväskylä. And at the destination it's cold, dark and wet. So welcome back!

22.36 pm: I tried to get some sleep before I got to go to the railway station.

22.38 pm: I realized that I was not that tired that I'd be able to fall asleep. So, I started to read a book.

23.10 pm: My eyes didn't stay open anymore, I thought I could sleep for awhile.

23.20 pm: My alarm clock rang. Luckily I remembered to set it ring at the right time..

23.25 pm: I said to myself: "If you were, like seriously, gonna go to the railway station to meet them, you'd better get up now!" And that's what I did.

23.37 pm: I left home and headed to the station. And waited for the train. It was few minutes late. And then ten minutes late. And then twenty minutes late.

23.57 pm: They arrived!! And the athmosphere was cheerful! And the common tiredness made it to be increased further :)

00.10 am: Home again. Surprised about that I really did it! I didn't expect me to have enough determination to wake up at midnight when I had just fallen asleep, to meet my friends at the railway station :) But I'm glad I did have it and I did it!

Fall Photography.

Fall colours are here! I can almost here all the maple trees, chokeberry bushes, birches, willows and Virginia creepers calling out my name. They just gotta get photographed. We had a very nice photographing walk with one friend of mine named Hanna one day. Think we looked quite much like tourists - in our very own hometown, haha! But that was so awesome! The sun was shining and it was a beautiful fall day. Take a look :)

Nice, eh! And that's definitely not gonna be the last one walk like that of ours! We planned some themes for the coming walks. Like all the statues in Jyväskylä, different front doors of houses, cars and night photography. It's great to have a friend who loves photographing as much as I do - we share common visions of it :)

And about the pictures. I've got some sad news. I have an external hard disk for my laptop. Few days ago there was a little accident and because of that the hard disk fell to the floor. And it broke. But the most fortunate thing is that almost all of my pictures (except Canada, Lapland and new ones) were on that hard disk and I lost them. But. There is a tiny possibility to get them back so I'm hanging on to that! Luckily I've got my positive attitude - I can live with that too if I lost them forever :)

So, I've been working as a teacher's aid in our Christian Elementary School for one and half week and I really do enjoy my new job!! I'm feeling myself very welcomed and comfortable. The principal said one day that it feels like I'd have always been there :) Even though I'd rather like to stay in my bed much longer in the morning, it's nice to go to school! And there was already some need for my picture taking skills. I took some pics of kinda paintings children made in arts.

Updates.

Marttakerho. We have established a club with

few friends of mine. And just by accident we all wore white shirts and dark coloured pants at the first meeting :) In Finnish our club's name is Marttakerho. I don't know what'd that be in English. But well, in Finland clubs named like that are usually for middle-aged or even elderly ladies who gather together and do some crafts like tatting, crocheting and knitting and have a nice little talk (A.K.A. gossiping) and a cup of coffee, of course. I can's explain this as hilariously as it is in Finnish, haha! But our Marttakerho is very youthful and so very marvelous! We have had two club meetings and everyone of us has worked toward different projects like knitting socks, scrappbooking, covering a binder with fabric and making a painting. It's really nice to have a club like that with friends, cause I love to do every kind of crafts, especially with friends :) And it's easier to fulfill all the visions and accomplish the undone projects together than alone. We meet each other every Friday, it's a good ending for weeks of studying and working. Waiting our club meeting gives a lot strength and joy what you really need sometimes during the week!

Spinny. I think it was almost the first day in Jyväskylä after my exchange trip when I noticed one commercial on my way to somewhere. It was about a new product of one of Finland's most well-known coffee and bakery shops - Arnold's Donuts. I think I could compare that to Tim Horton's. But about the commercial. It said that The Real American Cinnamon Rolls are gonna arrive in Finland on the 28th August (and its name is Spinny)! I laughed (internally, cause I was walking alone on a street..) and thought about that I was told that many things come from Europe to Canada (or even North America), but I still think that it's conversely, mostly :) Well, I had to go and buy one Finnish "Real American Cinnamon Roll", of course. And I gotta admit that it was not a real one. Real American - or should I say Canadian ones are way much better! No doubt about it! The Finnish one was good, but it was just an ordinary cinnamon bun. Okay, it was a huge one. But I expected more than I got. But. If we'd talk about the donuts what you can get from Arnold's Donuts, they'd be potential competitors for Tim Horton's donuts!

Wedding. Last Saturday (the 13th Sept) I was at the wedding of a couple of my friends. And the bride was the one whose wedding dress was made by me. That was one of the sweeties, loveliest and most touching wedding I've ever been at! Wow! Everything was so beautiful and well-organized and all the people who were giving a speech or some different kind of presentation gave so much out of themselves. You know that kind of day that you just can't do anything else but smile and be sooo happy :) And it was really nice to see the wedding dress I made, cause I gotta say that it's beautiful!

Sunday Supper. We've actually established another club with my friends. Well, actually it's not a club, but kind of. We gather together on Sundays and make supper together. We've shared cooking turns like that on certain Sunday, certain persons make the food. One person cooks the main course and another cooks the dessert. And others are just hanging around, watching and commenting, haha! Yesterday it was my turn to cook the main course and we had tomato-onion soup and croissants on the menu. That was so much fun because I didn't tell what I was gonna make, and the other girls were wondering all kind of possibilities what I might have had on my mind :) And for the dessert we had banana-grape curd, yum!

Lapland.

Oh, that was an amazing week! For those who don't know what I'm talking about I was on a hiking trip with my Dad and the second oldest brother in Lapland (North Finland) for a week. Rationally that doesn't make any sense to go on a trip like that: we drove like over 1000 kilometres to get to Lapland, and at the destination we drove about 35 more kilometres (maybe the worst road ever!) to get in the middle of the woods (= in the middle of nowhere), we took our huge&heavy backpacks (ok, mine was the lightest: only 14 kgs) with us and walked 80 kilometres in 5 days just to get back to our car and drive back home! Haha! But the reasons we got there were not to get something rationally reasonable out of it. You know the reason if you've done something like that. The experience of living in the wilderness for few days is just so different than our busy, ordinary daily life. Only things you gotta do is walk forward or have a break if you feel so, watch the beautiful scenery around you (and in my case: take pictures), eat when you're hungry, talk or be just quiet, find the place to camp in the evening and settle down and reload your batteries for the next day by having some sleep. And in the morning you start all over again. That's just so good to forget all the duties and hurries - you know, even those undone and should-have-been-done-a week-ago ones. And when you haven't got much to be worry about you've got plenty of time to think about things what really matter! Like life in its entirety :) You're able to get some important aha-experiences. Usually you're too busy to get them. That's what I call a real vacation! Well, physically that was quite hard, but mentally sooo refreshing! And I gotta admit that I've got loooot of stuff at home. My new room is so small that I don't have places for all my belongings yet. And during the hike I was carrying all what I need in a backpack (all right, my Dad was carrying our foods and the tent and my brother had a primus cooker in hi backpack, but you know what I mean).. The things what really matter can't be the belongings, I realized it again.

So, we were hiking in Urho Kekkonen National Park (Urho Kekkonen was Finland's president back in the day). That 80 kilometres we walked contained many kind of things and I'm gonna tell you about few of them.

Weather conditions. This was maybe one of the most fascinating things of our trip! The weather was really unstable. There was like every kind of weather within a couple of hours during the first two days. It was raining and sleeting, snowing and hailing - together and separated. And every once in a while the sun was shining. Sunshiny moments were really warm, but the cloudy ones were definitely fall. One day we were climbing up to the top of a tunturi (well, there is no word for our "mountains" in English, compared to Real mountains, they are just hills, but they are bigger than our hills, so I'll use the Finnish word, tunturi) called Ukselmapää (I would like to here you trying to pronounce that, haha!). At the foot of that tunturi it was like something between summer and fall,

Directly translated this place is called Paradise Valley

but at the top there was snow and the weather was like in winter. That was pretty fun :) Imagine a beautiful winter day with bright sunshine.

On the very top.

We took some pictures at the very top and then continued walking. And suddenly it was like a blizzard! I took a picture of that but it doesn't tell the whole truth

The Blizzard

It just came out of nowhere. We had to hurry to get down from there, cause you never know how bad the bad weather would get at the mountains. So, we got down and after 10 mins the sun was shining again and there was no sign of any blizzard.

Wildlife. A loooot of Beautiful scenery - and some great shots of it :)

And some reindeers of course!

I talked to them in English :) I thought they'd understand that better than Finnish, cause a LOT of tourists especially from Germany visit Lapland. I think reindeers hear English more than Finnish. What a pity that I can't speak any German.. Hahaha!!

And mosquitos. And buffalo gnats (we don't even have buffalos here in Finland, so what are their gnats doing here!?). And some tiny little bugs called polttiainen in Finnish. And guess who's a bit allergic to all kind of bugs - I mean their bites.. But those bugs are part of the experience! They belong there. It was weird, cause the first two days we didn't see like any mosquitos at all, cause we were at the tunturis, but then we came down to bog areas and that's were the bugs rule.

Camping. We spent three nights out of four in a tent and the last one in a wilderness hut (those are kind of cabins by hiking trials and they are available to anyone). Usually when I sleep in a tent (I don't do that very often, but when I do) it's summer - warm and hopefully dry weather. Well, this time it was like few degrees below and raining or snowing or hailing every night we spent in the tent. The last night, when we were sleeping in the wilderness hut, was dry and warm :) By the way, if you don't realize how comfy your own bed is, go and sleep in a tent few nights. You'll value your bed so much more!

Oh, and the same thing with a washroom.. The weather was so cold during the hike, that we were not willing to wash up in ice-cold water what comes straight from tunturis. Somehow that's nice cause you don't have to pay so much attention to your appearance. And actually when your hair is enough dirty, you can make every kind of hairstyles without any styling mousse or stuff like that. Like this one for example :D

My hiking hairstyle, haha!

But I still value the feeling called fresh&clean! So, our washroom is definitely fine - I love it!

Nevertheless, I really like camping with a tent - or should I say tenting :) The best part of it is the atmosphere at the campfire. There is something so special in it! I didn't light any of our fires, but the feeling when some wet wood finally catch fire and start to heat you is really nice. And if your socks had got wet during the day, you can hang them near by the fire to dry them. Well, my hiking boots were not really waterproof so I did that a lot :D Oh, and camp pancakes! Yum!

River crossing. This could have been part of wildlife or camping, but I wanted to have a new chapter for this. As I told the water in the rivers and creeks was ice-cold. We did get across many rivers and creeks - most of cases we were able to have our shoes on without getting them wet while crossing but four times we had to take our shoes off and wrap the legs of our pants and wade across the river. Wow, that was COLD! *shivering* Imagine that cold water that it hurts when you stand more than 20 seconds in there. And then some possibly slippery rocks and a huge backpack to your back :) That was awesome! That really does hurt, but when you get to the other side of the river you are so proud of yourself - full of zip and pep! And afterwards your feet feel really good too :)

Lapland. I really love the North part of our country! Somehow it feels like you'd be abroad, because of the loooong ride and different scenery and just because it's so different compared to normal city-life. And at the same time kind of pure patriot love and pride surface: this beautiness is part of my fatherland! I think our patriotism is not so visible, but somewhere down in our hearts we just love our country!

And. Finally I found a place from Finland where people wouldn't laugh at a cowboy hat (if I would have bought one from Canada)! Well Lappish hats are NOT cowboy hats, but they look like kind of same. Take a look.

The Finnish one...

...and the Canadian one :)

And! WLC campers, didn't we tell you that Santa Claus lives here in Finland - in Lapland! Hahahaha!

Direction sign on the highway.

The sign says:
"Welcome.
Santa Claus can be met
at his office every single
day of the year."

Santa Claus Office

So, that was something about my great adventure in Lapland! I've got some more to tell to the coming posterities! "Listen, my children, when your granny was young..." Haha!

Now I'm back from the wilderness, getting used to civilization again :)

The Day of Joy :)

Or maybe I should write about last few days. As I told, I lost my job as a teacher's aid. That was on last Wednesday. On this Monday I called to our employment agency to inform that I lost my job. The lady gave me two phone numbers to principals who are in charge of two jobs like that one I was supposed to get. And on Tuesday I tried to catch up the another one of those principals. He was not available. I decided to call again tomorrow, and that means on Wednesday. But Tuesday evening there happened something really nice. I'm kind of volunteer helper in the ecumenical children's choir in our chruch. I just try to keep those kids quiet when we are not singing and try to make them sing nicely when they are supposed to sing.

This is my choir helper's "uniform" :)

And there is one lady who is actually same kind of helper in the choir, but in working life she is a teacher in Jyväskylä's Christian Elementary School! We talked and I explained my situation to her and she said like "please do come visit our school tomorrow, we are crying for a good one teacher's aid!". And on Wednesday I went there and talked with the principal and after 15 minutes I got hired!! That's so awesome! I knew that God had some plans for me, but this is so much better what I could have even wished!!

Well, I still gotta wait till 15th September, but it's all right cause I know that there is such a great job like that waiting for me! And I'm going to go hiking to Lapland, North Finland, for a week on Sunday with my dad and the second oldest brother, Olli. I'm really exited about that! I'm sure that's gonna be so much fun, great time and plenty of beautiful Finnish scenery. Our "mountains" are actually just hills compared to Rocky Mountains, but still I love them!

Finland issues.

I was not able to hold my fingers off my laptop, so I decided to wrote a note :)

So, I've been here in Finland a bit over a week, actually 10 days. I left Canada on the 15th August. The flight was okay, quite long one. I changed the plane in London at the Heathrow Airport. Wow, what a HUGE airport!! Finally my flight landed on the 16th August to Helsinki. I met my parents and little brother at the airport :) It was really good to see them!! And it felt soooo weird to speak Finnish after so many weeks! But I hadn't forgotten my native language, haha! On the next day I arrived to my on home in Jyväskylä.

And now I'm gonna tell few things about my comeback in Finland.

1. This is something what was waiting for me when I got to my new flat.




Yeah, that's my room :) I moved into here just a couple of days before I came to Canada. So, all my things and belongings were in those boxes and bags and baskets waiting for me when I came back. And there was like no room to take more than two paces in my room.. Well, it was quite well organized, until the next day when dug into all those boxes.. This is how did it look after few hours "work".




The name for the feeling when I took this picture is hopelessness.. But now, after a week, it's getting better! I did some redecoration (like painted the walls of my room) with my flatmate and I'm almost done with the organizing :) Almost. I think it's gonna look like a cosy room for awhile. Except the view from my window. Cause there is no view! The window of my room has a plastic cover because of the redecoration of the facade of our apartment building.. And I don't know how long it's gonna take. Hope the workers will get their job done soon.

2. It was quite hard to settle down here in Finland. I had forgotten some big differences between our cultures. And most of those things I'd rather forget forever. Many little things like smiling and talking to strangers - we don't do that in Finland. Or if you do, people think you're weird.. Well, that sounds maybe a bit worse than it really is.. But unfortunately that's not very far from the truth! Anyway, don't worry - I'm not gonna stop smiling!

And the other reason what made my settling down more difficult was the Longing. I can't say enough how much I miss all you guys whom I got to meet during my trip in Canada!! Somehow it was so easy to be just myself with you! Even easier than here. I think it's because my friends and family and the other people around me here have got a certain picture of me. And that's why they expect me to act and behave in a certain way. And sometimes that picture is not right, but it's really hard to try to break and change that picture. I felt myself totally accepted and loved in spite of any conditions! Thank you so much for that! So, I'll do my best to be just myself here in Finland!

3. I've lost my job as a teacher's aid.. This is shortly what happened a week ago: I went to see my employer, the principal of our elementary school, to confirm the plans concerning my job. I talked to him and said like "I just wanted to come to say hi and I would like to ask are the plans still the same?" and he said "actually no, I gave your job to another lady". That was Really hard to believe, cause last time we talked he gave his promise for me to get that job. So, I was sad, like broken-hearted-sad.

4. I've decided to have a Positive Attitude! It rocks! I've learnt so many things during this process what's going on here. The first day here in my own home was actually horrible. I just thought that "why on earth am I here?! I don't wanna be here! I wanna go back to Canada! There is no purpose for my life here in Finland!". Then I decided to be reasonable and try to find some positive things in that situation. I don't actually know what happened, but I started to feel better! I've noticed that you can get so much more out of life being positive instead of stressing and rolling in the self-pity like saying "poor me". There are some thing you can't change, but I think there are even more things you CAN change by changing your attitude! Having a Positive Attitude :)

So, luckily this decision was made before I lost my job, cause that helped me to get out of that sorrow. In fact, what was surprising for me in that situation was that meanwhile I was Really sad, this thought jumped into my head "well, then there is something else and even better for me!" And I was really hopeful for the future! I believe that there is God who's got his plans for my life and I'm just waiting for those become true :)

The Very Beginning.

Here we go. I have a blog. In English. The purpose of this blog is to give you glimpses into my life. I find life interesting, so hope you enjoy the journey with me! And in addition, I promise that there will be plenty of grammatical errors in my notes. So, perfect people - please don't get embarrased! That's not necessary, cause I'm not gonna be that either :) And the reason of writing in English, is especially you my Dear International Friends outside the borders of Finland!

This first note is just a notice this blog exists, but I'm gonna write something more interesting as soon as I've got enough time. Hope that's sooner than later :)