the beloved lands of Mañana

Back in Catalonia, my dear Barcelona. We woke up to sunrise and thought about Sevilla, then "whatever" and just went to another hostel in Barcelona because it would be cheaper during the next two nights.

The first thing we did after changing hostel and having a cup of coffee was trying to get tickets for the rest of our stay in Spain. 

I pressed the button for the inter city journeys that departure after today and got a ticket with the beautiful sentence "no service" written on it. And yes indeed, on this sunny Saturday you could buy any tickets except the ones I needed. After some expolring I had also learned that you can't reserve seats on the ticket machines and that I have to wait until Monday. That's the day we were supposed to be in Madrid. I tried to book seats via telephone and succeded. There I sat half an hour at least and booked seats for 4-5 trains in Spanish only failing to spell my email adress correctly (I forgot a letter) so I never got them sent there. I would have to get early enough to the train station on Monday and get the tickets printed from a machine. My little inner Finn is suffering from severe nerve- related problems

It was a good idea to stay in Barcelona for three nights. We had time to walk around, wash clothes and get lost in Barri Gotic. My friend wanted to find a Primark, but on Saturday it was so full of people that it wasn't worth it and on Sunday it was closed, even if their webpage said it would be open 12-22, even on Sundays. Well. 

We basically spent the reat of the Saturday walking along the beach, having an ice cream at sunset and walking around in Barri Gotic. We even found a vegan café-restaurant there! The funny thing with this partnof Barcelona is that it's hard to navigate. You have to find things accidentally or search for them for an hour. We walked through the same squares, past the same shops and crossed the same lanes all over again but it felt like we were always walking forewards. And still we found new places all the time. The joke of the weekend was "Hey let's go back to that place in Barti Gotic that we found yesterday/two hours ago!". Good luck. Barri Gotic relly is wonderful, don't get me wrong, it's beautiful, you can get lost without really getting lost and you can find anything there, also a lot of tourists. 

One of the most heart warming things was the weather. It really was. The sun was shining and it was +10/13, it was warm. I had so much fun watching the locals reactions seeing me in a t-shirt, long sleeced shirt and a summer jacket while they walked around in heavy winter jackets and what not. 

Everything became even better when we get to experience cheap food again, palmtrees and happy peo - no, actually, many were sad an grumpy. I don't now if it's the stereotypes not matching reality, the political situation or me trying to communicate in Spanish in Catalunya. Some imedialtely switched to English. I don't know if they didn't trust my skills in Spanish or if they just didn't like the language. Hard to say. 

The only annoying thing with the city itself was the metro maps. There barely were any in the stations or in the passages. The only thing was the maps of the lines, like a list of the stations, but it was so hard to find a map of the whole city with the metro lines. Maybe we are just spoiled by Paris but it usually helps a lot to navigate if you can see the street names and the metro routes on the same map.

The Sunday was spent in Barri Gotic mainly. And as far as I know I have all my belongings left.

How to get out of France

It was Christmas Day, 25.12 and we were leaving Paris. Honestly, we had had enough of France, but were still going via Lyon for one night. Our plan was to escape to Valencia, to +18 degrees and cheap hostels. We couldn't simply afford to stay in France, a train seat reservation costs 18€ and the hostels at least 20€ Per night... 

We had had enough of Paris too so we spent our last hours on Paris Gare de Lyon. You know, we didn't feel like walking around with our backpacks or to pay at least 10€ for keeping them in some lockers.

Paris was a pretty cold but beautiful and an expensive experience. It had been raining almost all the time, most of the places were closed due to holidays, there were tourists and pick pockets everywhere, it was difficult to find a calm authentical place and the people went cold when they realized that we actually don't speak French. But we saw beautiful places and met really nice people. It was time to go to South.

Gare de Lyon was a cold place, it's partly outdoors. When I waited for my coffee at Starbucks a shady man came to me and said something in French, and the worker who was making my coffee shouted to him (I only understood the word "respect") and then the shady man went away. Thank you. 

(And they spelled my name right on my cup)

To spend some time I went to reserve seats for the train from Lyon to Valencia. There were 26 persons before me in the queue and 4 desks open. After an hour it was finally my turn.

At this point I want to remind you that there are only 12 seats for passengers with Interrail/Eurail passes per French highspeed train, one reservation costs 18€ and it's obligatory. But what about the regional trains, which do not require reservation? Haha, we had forgotten them.

-Hi, I'd like to reserve two seats from Lyon to Valencia for tomorrow please

Full 

- To Barcelona?

Full

- From Toulouse to Barcelona?

Full

- To anywhere in Spain from southern France?

Full

Challenge accepted.

I reserved seats for the train Lyon -> Toulouse. First I got tickets from Paris Gare de Lyon to Toulouse because of a misunderstanding, but thanks to my habit to double check, I fixed the problem and got the right tickets.

Still having more than an hour left we had time to look for an alternative way to get to Spain. With a restricted amount of internet we booked bus tickets. First the booking site had a million errors but then we tried the mobile version and it worked. The mobile version excisted only in French, because the bud depatured from France. Sigh. But we succeded. 

The bus Toulouse - Barcelona would leave at 16:30 and arrive 23. We wouldn't have made it to Toulouse in time by using regional trains. Bu the time we had booked a hostel in Barcelona too we were pretty frustrated. 

Kids, book your French high speed train like a week in advance or just simply use the regional trains.

Lyon was really nice, we arrived pretty late but had time to walk around. The center of the city reminded me of both Turku and Saint Petersburg. 

Our hotel was interesting. Hotel Iris. Perfectly in the heart of the city. We were the last guests to arrive and we saw no one else (but we did hear them sometimes). The rooms were behind another front door than the reception and couldn't be locked. Then you walked up some stairs in the backyard, opened another door that couldn't be locked and entered the corridoor with the rooms. The door of the room could be locked. I'm so happy we only stayed there for one night, it was pretty scary. There was nothing really that could have been done about it and we were to tired to start looking for another hotel/hostel, that would not have been a lot more expensive (we payed 35€ for this night, each).

We were supposed to have five hours to spend in Toulouse. Hahahah.

After falafel (the waiter didn't know wether to call me madame or monseur and I never gave him any answer) and some happy walking around in the sun we went to a bar to have a coffee (almost every place was either closed or expensive). Here the magical internet told me to book tickets for Spanish trains two weeks in advance if travelling during Christmas. And we had been thinking of continuing to Sevilla the following day. Haha. 

So I called Renfe and guess what, there were no seats left. And I should have had to booked 24h in advance, not 23h as I was doing at the moment. Well excuse me. And when I half an hour later tried to call again concerning the tickets of the rest of the trip I didn't even get through. 

At this point we had a situation of having all the hostels booked for the rest of the trip all over in Spain (except Sevilla) but no tickets and they really seamed to be sold out. What had I been thinking? That no one would travel around Christmas and New Year? We would be stuck in Barcelona. It wouldn't have been a problem if my freind's plane wouldn't have left from Madrid 30.12 and my other friend's plane wouldn't arrive to Madrid 29.12. But as we couldn't reach Renfe by phone and you can't reserve tickets via internet, our only option was to believe in Mañana.

Did I say that the bus to Barcelona should have left at 16:30. Haha. Forget it, we're talking about Southern Europe. The bus came 17:30 and we left at 18. It was difficult for the inner Finnish me to accept this. 

I don't like the fact that you have to reserve everything in such advance and then everything is always late (our every single train and bus in France has been late). What if you might miss your connecting train, that you booked a month in advance, and then you're stuck because all the seats in the later trains are sold out? Ok interrailers might be the only ones facing this problem because of The 12 Seats. I at least don't want to pay 35-60€ for a normal ticket if SNCF fails and not me. No tight connections and run at the station is the answer I guess.

Anyways, we arrived only half an hour later than estimated to Barcelona. I don't know how but I apreciated it. 

Finally in Spain.

a backpacker's Christmas in Paris

The subway was so full you couldn't move. Two shady men were starring at my friends backpack. It's 5pm. 

Welcome to Paris.

We found our way to the hostel easily and to our surprise the whole staff spoke perfect English. Aw yeah. Our intention was to go to sleep early, but instead we walked around in the neighbourhood and then had a beer at the hostel with some other really nice travellers

until late.

The sun was shining on Christmas morning 24. It was so warm that I had to take of my jacket. I have understood that there is snow and -10 degrees in Southern Finland. 

When we arrived at the Eiffel tower we had some croissants and cheap white wine with us. It was absolutely wonderful to feel the sun warming my face. We had no wine glasses, nothing, no glasses at all. Shady people asked for money and other shady people tried to sell shady souvenirs. All the lawns were closed. 

I wish you all great holidays!

Instead of paying for queuing we continued to Montemartre. The view from the top was amazing, fantastic, the sun rays were still pushing through the gathering dark clouds. Also here shady people tried to sell shady souvenirs, and after a couple of "no"'s we promised them behind their backs to either shout NO and swear in Finnish or to make an American drama-scene the next time someone of them would try again. But no one did.

There was a moment in the subway when both had forgotten where we were supposed to get of. Oh well.

After looking at the L'arc de Triumf we walked down Champes Elysè , half of it was a big horrible over-priced Christmas market, to Louvre. And we of course visited the Disney-store. 

Louvre was besutiful on the outside but we didn't care about going inside. We were super hungry at this point and it took a pretty long time to find a place to eat that was open, not to expensive, not a McDonalds and not a bar (they were also closed anyway). Eventually we found a small restaurant and everything was alright. Otherwise we just would have bought something from a grocery store. 

At this point we could relax after some hours in the pickpocket risk zone.

The doors of Notre Dame were open even if there was a mass going on. It was interesting to listen to it (even though the pope spoke only French), and we go so close that we could see the pope. He sang beautifully. I've never attended a Catholic event before. This was impressive, the atmosphere was strong, the singing beautiful and the songs too, the cathedral of Notre Dame massive, candels were lit everywhere and the corridors on higher floors on the sides of the big hall bathed in violet light and the audience was all scilent.

The Seine was beautifully lit too, and it was now even harder to find a bar that wasn't closed. We were'nt surprised, but it had been raining for some hours now and we were freezing. Eventually we found a happy gay-bar, but got thrown out immediately as it was only for men. Luckily another bar across the street was open and we had a glass of wine and wrote some postcards. 

Luckily the hostel offered Christmas dinner, so we didn't have to worry about food in the evening. We got to know more travellers and actually went to sleep early. And I called my family.

Happy holidays

the road to Paris

One of the first things that happened just moments after we left Luxemburg (I'll write about that later) was that a couple of police officers entered and checked the ID of some passengers. But they didn't care about us.

We're at the moment sitting on a train to Paris Est and it's the second (and last) train for today. And on both trains someone has been playkng music out loud from their phones or whatever. In the Lux -> Metz is was an older man palying rock and some acoustic guitarr music, and on the train to Paris someone played house. Me and my friend have felt really tempted to go and these persons a pair of headphones. 

And now I want to be a little kid and brag about that we actually got some food when we used our "skills" in "French" at the cafeteria on Metz railwaystation. I've never studied French and my friend did it for a month. Aw yeah.

And the first thing we found on that station was a book shop. 

The landscapes today have once again been wonderful, but all our videos and pictures are terrible because the train windows are so dirty. 

I think we are in Paris already. 

Berlin

The thing I loved the most with our visit to Berlin the last couple of days has been the distance to the huge tourist attractions.

I've heard a lot of stories about cheap food and lovely falafel. I approve both. You get a delicious falafel for 2,5€ in Berlin and in Turku you get one bus ticket for 3€. Think about that. 

I loved the local alternative bars in south east Berlin, the riverside and how easy it was to use the local transport and of course the impressive graffiti when found. We stayed at my friends apartment and without him we would have been so lost, whoa. 

To calm the professional Tourists down, yes, we saw Brandenburger Tor, twice. From a bus. 

Actually, if you want to see the center of Berlin in less than an hour and it's raining/hailing, I recommend to take the S-bahn 41/42 from eg. East to West and the bus nr 100 across the center back to where you came from.

At the Alexanderplatz market 

We visited a couple of Christmas markets, the first one after our s-bahn+bus tour and another further away. The later one had a Nordic theme and there were Finns selling honey and muikkuja, and other things like that. But really there were manily Germans.

The absolute highlight was when we went a ride with the Merry-go-round. It was one of those with seats hanging from chains! Hih

We also ate some Austrian pancake-thingy's with apple sauce. (Please don't ask me the name)

Another very impressive thing was a concert that we spontaniously went to see. The orchestra played some classical music for a couple of hours and it was fantastic.

Classical music is way too underestimated.

(And I'm a person who listens to rock, alternative, hip-hop, rap, pop etcetc)

The only main tourist attraction that I got a closer look on was Checkpoint Charlie. It's funny because I've been starring at a postcard of it in our history class the last four months.  But nothing I've ever seen in my life has made history as real as Checkpoint Charlie did. 

It was almost midnight when we came up on the roof of a parking lot of a mall. You could see the lights pf Berlin so well, it was so beautiful. Nowadays there's also a bar but they were about to close in an hour so we didn't bother to go, and to pay for entrence.

I was also impressed by that I didn't get lost a single time, even if it was so damn hard to remeber street and station names (they all sounded like shshshsh to me). I'm so lucky that the human kind has invented pens and paper.

the pattern

We've noticed a pattern.

First, on the ferry, the half of the Swedish speaking staff spoke Finland-Swedish.

In Stockholm everyone spoke the Swedish dialect (no problem whatsoever)

The staff on the train to Malmö spoke the lovely but tricky Southern Swedish dialect, it was a bit hard to understand when they announced something in the loudspeakers.

In Copenhagen we still understood the written Danish but nothing when a guy from Greenpeace tried to talk with us.

In Germany...

In Germany we actually understood a lot more than we thought we'd do, thanks to the Swedish language. People have been saying that Swedish is a big help when trying to learn German, that a lot of the words would be similar, but I haven't really believen that.. Until now. Whoa like so much is similar! Ok, everything spoken sounds like shshshshsh to me but the written language is alright. And I actually learned some German. 

After Berlin we are going to Prague. 

Hahah. Haha. Haha. 

There was some effort made to get from Stockholm. After a short stop in Malmö we went to Copenhagen by the Öresundståg. In the capital city of Denmark we had some time to walk around. 

The most interesting occurred on the Copenhagen-Hamburg train. Not only was it the first journey where someone actually cared about our interrail tickets and seat reservations, but we alsos uddenly found ourselves on a ferry. Yes, that's right. There was this moment when I had been reserving seats for a French train on the phone and suddenly we were told to get out but to leave our big bags. Not having been following the situation I was really confused when I found myself on a ferry's cold bottom floor.

It was around 4pm and i was also surprised when it was't pitch dark yet.

The Baltic Sea was not calm.

We arrived to Hamburg and were 40  minutes late because we missed the first ferry due to human failure. So we ran to the next platform (we had a few minutes) just to get to know that the train to Berlin would arrive 5 minutes late.

When we arrived to Berlin at 21pm we had been on the road since 6am. 

F

Sweden coast to coast

Houston we got a problem.

We won so much sweets on the ferry that we have to carry an extra bag with us. 

We have too much sweets. 

Excuse me but how can this be a problem we should be in heaven but we really have too much candy to carry. This is the worst First World Problem I've ever faced. Too much sweets. You see, we already had quite a lot with us from Finland. This means there is a heavy sugar diet and Share to everone around us - policy coming up.

After posting my last post I participated in a movie quiz and as we were only three I also got a prize ...

More sweets

And a coupon with which I got a coffee and a piece of cake for free. 

In Stockholm we stayed at a hostel named ACCO, in Zinkesdamm. It was a really interesting place. The reception is open just a few hours a day, so everything is pretty much about door codes and helping yourself. 

"Check out is expressed by packing and leaving"

And there were like five guests including us or so, and I really appreciated that, as the facilities were pretty tight. And me and my friend were the only ones in our room.

Some might think that this sounds horrible but as we didn't even stay for 12h in Stockholm, it was really alright. We didn't need the hostel for anything but actually sleeping.

Basically the only thing we did was that we went out for dinner to a steakhouse, where we both ate a vegetarian dish. 

And about the supermarkets in Sweden, they are places where I understand how far and forgotten in the northeast corner of Europe Finland really is. There is no ecological Coca Cola in Finland!

As I'm wirting this we are sitting on a train to the southwest coast, to Malmö. This train left at 6am. 

It's still pitch dark outside. My point is that I can't see a thing except some random lights. But there was a moment when the rails went some over ground and you saw black + the lights of the suburbs. And everything was scilent, except a mechanical humming. It was just like in a space movie, eg. Interstellar, we just float through lights in scilence. 

And I love the Southern Swedish accent!

It's 19.12 with destination Berlin

F

here we go!

After working my butt of in the summer I'm finally leaving for my first interrail trip that i have been waiting for so long

Or actually we left already this morning and we will arrive in Stockholm 5 hours. 

We are going to travel in Western and Central Europe by train, visiting friends, relatives and just relaxing and enjoying Europe. For three weeks. 

I'm so excited!!!

This is going to be a wonderful escape to the southern Europe and the sun (and rain, lots of rain), to a winter climate that is the same as Finnish summer weather. 

And no, I'm not alone, a good friend of mine is with me! :--)

Our first destination is Stockholm, Sweden. The ferry left at 8am from Turku.  This time I will try to blog more during the trip, I should have enough internet access.  I'll try to post some photos too, even though they'll be taken with my phone. Proper photo posts will come later on. 

The sunrise in the Finnish archipelago was amazing!

Here on the ferry we participated in a free bingo, and we both won sweets!! 

My friend got a pack of Trivial pursuit (travel edition) from a friend of ours. I won. 

Even though we sit here for something like eleven hours, it's actually nice. After a year full of school, events, exams and work and after running around like an idiot, sitting on a ferry eating sweets and taking it easy feels really really good. You can't go anywhere. And, as it is not weekend yet and a day ferry, here barely are any other passengers. So we have mostly been in one of the bars/nightclubs. It's closed even though the doors are open. They've been playing legendary hits and too long mixes of bad songs. Here we have couches of our own and food and absolutely no one is bothering us.

As I finish this post we still have 3 hours left, after resetting our clocks to Swedish time.

Stay tuned/wired/whatever

Here we go!

~F

a happy book release

It had been raining the whole day, I was pretty cold and hungry, I had been outside almost the whole day. The wind broke my umbrella and my backpack was heavy. I was tired. And I was going to an address I only vaguely knew where it might could be. 

But I found the address by looking at a picture of a map, by travelling two tram stops and by walking as far as the tram had taken me. Well, Villa Kivi should not be hard to find, but I've learned to prepare for the worst when it comes to navigating, especially navigating to places that are "easily found". 

To my surprise I was the first guest to arrive. The event was the release of three books.

Maria Turtschaninoff: Maresi
Henrika Andersson: En skärva av själen
Lena Frölander-Ulf: En sann historia.

Lena, Henrika & Maria

                                       

When stepping inside the beautiful tree house, I left the world of a sad and rainy Helsinki Monday and entered the world of happy authors with new releases. It was wonderful. Not only was it fantastic to celebrate the new books, but to also meet friends and to talk no new people. And there was good food. 

What I find the most interesting in such occasions, is that you get to hear background stories, feelings and opinions. It is always interesting to hear why the author chose to read that part aloud for the guests. 

I would like to tell you in with my own words what these books are about, but I have to admit that I haven't read them yet. And I don't feel like repeating the back of the book. I'm sure you can look that up yourselves. But I can asure you that we are talking about secrets, fantasy and adventures.

I left the party happy and relieved. I actually was relieved, and actually because Maria, Henrika and Lena were so relieved. I can only imagine how it feels like to finally get your book written and released, to just give it, leave it to the world and start with something totally new. To just turn the page. Fantastic. And yet I haven't achieved it myself, but i will. 

pride

I have been waiting for this day for a long time. 

A couple of hours before the first proper Pride parade in Turku me and some friends sat (/laid) down and wrote some awesome signs.

We finished them just in time

The demonstration walk started from the Turku Museum of Art

It was time for the people of this habour city to show their power. Together.

The whole parade made me so happy and we just smiled the whole way to the Kupittaa park. There was this feeling everywhere that we are here all together. And that we're all awesome as we are. Absolutely no shame.

Proud of ourselves and our signs

We had so much fun waving our signs so that everyone around us in the city could see them. It was surpsrisingly heavy to keep a sign up in the air for an hour. I saw only three haters during the demonstration, two old men with small A4 sized signs with some random biblical refrences about the cities Gomorra and Soloman (?). The third man had a Finnish flag and a sign that tried to convince us that marrige between a man and a woman is blessed by God and shall by that not be changed. 

Give me a break. 

But Turku I'm proud of you overall for being so tolerant!

According to Turku Pride's instagram the number of participants was around 3500. That's a lot for a small city like Turku! And for being the first proper Pride parade here! 

After the demonstration live music and nice hangaround was arranged in Kupittaa. 

               ~ love

love is love and nothing else

This habour city has shown it's power and pride

May the equality be with you

(Hahah see my refrence)

tj 101

When I entered one of our school buildings this morning the first fellow student I met was my relevant from the first year people. I stopped him and took my lipstick from my pocket and only wrote ABI on his forehead, as someone else already had painted hearts on his cheeks. 

Abi, abiturient, senior

To celebrate the start of the last 100 days of school the seniors of our school have the tradition to write and paint with mostly lipsticks and such things on the faces if the rest of the students (which is rather common in Finland overall I suppose). Common things to be written are "ABI", hearts, uni brows, the year of graduation (for us 2015) and so on. Some get one heart and one "ABI" and some are red all over the face/body, the closer friend, the worse. Mostly. And on this day we, the seniors, wear as ugly clothes as possible to look as funny as possible (which is not rather common I suppose). 

me and my friends (taken with polaroid camera)

Today we exceptionally celebrated the start of the last 101 days, because tomorrow the school photography takes place. I think you understand. 

(Excuse me but how is it possible to time these two event this badly?)

(And yes, that's correct, our last day of school is in mid February)

We also celebrated this countdown by eating pizza in the nice sun on the schoolyard. The order was so big (one pizza each), that we called the company one day on beforehand. The other students ate the normal school lunch in the noisy cafeteria, I heard some kind of soup was served.

You can only imagine how entertained the elementary school kids were and how weird and worried looks the 7-9 grade teens gave. And we just laughed. 

Note that we didn't paint on any of the 1-9 grade people or the teachers. Only high school students. 

(I heard the real 100 days countdown starts next Wednesday, but as Friday is a much nicer day, the "official" date was changed to 5.9)

Despite all the celebrations we had an ordinary day at school with a small math test and other nice things. I think this day succeeded, every single senior had dressed up, every single other student had a nicely painted face and I succeeded to paint on my sister's, my cousin's and an other relative's face. 

Seriously, some seniors had so funny clothing that I laughed and one girl wore roller skates the whole day. We're talking about wearing outfits of too small sun glasses, 80's shirts, sport socks in sandals, glittering shorts, huge fur hats and anything that can be found in an attic, with a tasteless mix of striped stockings or socks or both. All crazy, all worn with pride. 

We are fabulous.

the plastic challenge

(yes I know, it's the first day of fall woho, colors, school, life changes, so excited, cliche and sarcasm level infinity please give me a break)

To way more interesting and important matter,
it's the first day of the  "A plastic-free September" campaign and feel free to, like me, start today and keep on going the rest of our lives. This is a challenge to quit using plastic bags, disposable forks, cups and plates, you name it. Or at least reduce your consumption. It's not a difficult challenge, it's often just about what we're used to do.

use textile bags instead of plastic when grocery shopping
.. or anytime when shopping
use boxes instead of plastic bags when packing snacks with you
reuse disposable cups, spoons etc
try to choose products with as little plastic packaging material as possible
don't get me started on buying plastic accessories
recycle plastic bottles

don't be stupid
be creative.

The mother earth thanks you and so do I

these are easy steps towards a better future (=better life)

 at least I don't like to swim among plastic waste and neither do you

now after two months

now after two months, or more like one and a half months after the opening of our art exhibition (my blog post about it) at Kirjakahvila, which includes my and Katarina's photo collection, I'm still not used to the though of having my own art on an exhibition.
It's just too crazy
I'm also a bit confused, because the exhibition was supposed to last until the end of June, but oh, there it's still keeping on existing. Not that I would mind, but it's just a little confusing.

Well, how do I feel?
Amazing.

I remember talking with a co-worker in the buss a month ago about something I just can't recall anymore, and we got to a part where I was able to say, that "Hey and by the way, some of my pics are at an exhibition at the moment!"

I've also been dragging my friends down to the cafe and been as excited as any kid who wants to show off their new awesome blinking shoes. But I've actually been trying to hide it a bit.

I'm thinking of making an effort to create something else for another exhibition. But at the moment I have absolutely no time or any ideas of what I could do, how and when. 

Or actually, I do. 

But feel free to give me ideas.

....


After a moment of thinking while writing this post a self evident thought came up in my head. A self evident thought that my brain was to slow to remember.
Of course you can be an artist even if you've never have had anything in public to be seen. Or how to say it widely enough. I didn't make it clear earlier I think, that for me this just was a big step forward, from nothing to something little. That I finally finished some artsy project that I started and as big bonus I got it on a exhibition. For me it was a green light to start calling myself an artist.
whoa
that actually maybe was the first project I've actually ever finished.
whoa
ok, back to where I was,
I hope that nobody thought that I think that artists only are people that are lucky enough to get their art in public, because that's not true
that's definitely not true


Hope that this post is not too messy

I wonder how many grammatical and spelling mistakes these posts have
I don't want to know
I apologize for them
And also if something's written in a really odd way
Because many of these are written late at night when I am really tired

No wonder I feel like a real artist now
I finished what I started
I think I just focused on the wrong detail in the story, that I got our pictures on a wall
because that was exciting as shit (and still is)
I wonder how many misunderstandings occurred.

I should not be too lazy to not be back soon

Have a good July

a dream come true

I've been interested of photography for a long time and that's what I've been doing since I don't know when. In the last semester in school i took a photography course and the main project was to make this photo collection within the themes live or/and dreams.
I made this project with my friend, and then another friend of mine did the make-up and acted the main character.
And surprise, surprise, we made a story, a dream, that was more like a nightmare.
After a lot of intensive work, schedule-fails, stressful timetables and hours gone waste to waiting and messing around, we finished the collection in approx. two and a half weeks. Never again, please. But we were satisfied, we had done a great job, and our little movie with Intro by Alt-j (album: An awesome wave) as soundtrack got really positive feedback from the other students and our principal at our school.
I had done pretty much everything I could have done to make it good, and the result was what it was supposed to be.

Well, you know, as a photographer I've been (like many others) dreaming of getting my photos to an exhibition. But it's so expensive, plus the expenses in only getting the pictures printed, so it has remained as a dream. I haven't really had real collections before this either, (only travel pictures), and they rarely were good or special enough to be noticed either. And I'm still so young that I haven't had time to really concentrate on photography, as I've been in school, you know. But it would be so awesome to one day get my pictures in a gallery, open for the public, and be called and artist, a photographer.

 my account on flickr

Nowadays I'm a volunteer at a cafe called Kirjakahvila in Turku (all the workers are volunteers except the chef and the office-guy basically). Different artists exhibit their art there for a month at a time (for a low cost). Suddenly the artist, who should have come in June cancelled, so the ones responsible for the art part of the cafe started asking the workers, if someone wanted to (for free) bring their art for a month long exhibition. I though it would have been a great opportunity, but oh wait, I didn't have any collection, or at least anything worth putting on the walls of Kirjakahvila. So annoying. Greatest chance ever but I din't have anything worth a spot on an exhibition. I still want to keep my pride.
There was an evening when I talked with some fellow volunteers about different topics within culture, and I mentioned our project in school. This was around a week before the deadline. They all looked at me and said: "You should participate in the exhibition in June!"
I stopped for a second
I felt stupid because I hadn't realize that I actually had a collection going on
Then I felt like "yeah, maybe, actually yeah why not.."
Somehow I was so surprised of the opportunity
And happy as shit
So I went and talked to one of the volunteers responsible for the exhibitions, who happened to be there too.
I talked with my project team.
Green light.

It all happened so fast, we finished the collection with a hooray and big smiles, I got a final green light from the gallery people and then last week I went to a photo shop and printed 21 photos, the best from the collection.
AND I AM SO EXCITED I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO SAY

Today we hang the pictures up on two of the walls, and it took almost 3 hours.

It was hard work, and the result wasn't maybe the most symmetrical possible, but now the art is on the wall, among art of other volunteers.
It's said that symmetry is a sign of madness.

The official opening is on Wednesday 4th of June at 7pm, and the art is on the walls until the end of this month.

You have no idea of how excited I am!!!
I just can't believe that my dream came true already! That it came true at all!

WOOHOO

Escape from my subconsciousness by Fanny Mäkelä & Katarina Jokinen
with a little help from Cia Jönsson and a lot of help from Alexandra Wärn.

You have no idea how difficult it was to come up with a good name. And names are very very important to me. I hope that I'll be satisfied with it until the end of June at least, it's not the best possible, but it was the best we could come up with.

Welcome! :)

up and down, all the way back home

After a very nice and interesting but short trip to Norway we left in the morning from Vennesla, and our flight adventures began at Kristiansand airport.

Can you people imagine, that we had to fly Kristiansand --> Copenhagen --> Stockholm --> Åbo
I have no idea why we had to fly via Denmark
(ok yes I do, the budget)
But still, we basically flew through all the Nordic countries except Iceland (well that would have been weird).

This time we traveled all the way alone, we Finns, and at the airport in Kristiansand we realized that we hadn't said goodbye to almost anyone of the others, that we hadn't had a clear ending for this project, where we would have said goodbye to everyone. Everything just happened and we had gone with the confusing flow. And it made us sad, but there was really nothing to do about it. It's really strange that we didn't have any closing event. I have to admit that the whole schedule had been unclear and messy, but what can you do.

(note that Nord IT is an annual project)

We had just a little time between the flights and a problem related to that. My friend had hit her toe really badly the day before and it was all blue and the foot was swollen. She could barely walk.
No, I'm not kidding.
So our solution in Copenhagen was to take one of the wheelchairs that just stood the corridors and pushed her though the airport.
No, I'm not kidding.
It was very convenient, fast and time saving. We wouldn't have made it in time to the next flight without the wheelchair.
Plus points to Copenhagen airport for having wheelchairs for public use!

My friend said that when she sat in the wheelchair, people avoided to look at her, they turned their heads away, like they didn't want to be rude starring at her or something like that. I also noticed (I was the one pushing the wheelchair) that some people looked at us or her with pity in their eyes.
I don't think that many would have guessed that she only had hit her toe.
What do you think has happened when you see someone in a wheelchair?

When we arrived in Stockholm, we noticed that there really weren't any wheelchairs lying around here, there and everywhere, so we asked for one. The lady said that we should have asked for one (some amount of time) on beforehand.
Like anyone could plan an injury on beforehand.
But we got one after some waiting, and a worker to push it.

Later we saw strollers for public use.
I don't know if it is just me, but I think that wheelchairs are more needed than strollers, because surprise injuries happen more often that surprise births. And families have their own strollers with them if they need one. I'm not saying that it's a bad idea, I mean, it's great to be able to borrow one for free if your stroller broke at some point during your trip or something like that. But if you have strollers, why not have wheelchairs?

Well, we didn't miss a single flight thanks to the material help at the airports.

Remember the Swedes and their luggage? I think that eventually everyone got their stuff back, which is really awesome.
Guess what had happened during our trip home.
My friend with the blue toe never got her luggage at Turku airport.
Copenhagen airport strikes again.
And while there had been a worker in Kristiansand helping the Swedes to get their luggage back, there was only a red mailbox and a form to fill in in Turku, even if these two airports are equally small.

But she got her luggage back too, eventually.
So there was a happy ending after all.

I'm developing this hate-love relationship with Copenhagen airport. It has Starbucks, wheelchairs for public use and so on, but your luggage disappear so easily.

I learned and experienced a lot of new things. I want to thank you all for an awesome trip! It was kjempe gøj! (= lot of fun)
(I don't know how to spell that correctly, I just guessed)

Have a good day

syttene mai - for the 200th time

It was a lovely sunny morning and even if we got late according to the schedule we were perfectly almost an hour before anything happened.

And what was about to happen?

This was a Saturday, THE Saturday of 17 of May, which is the Norwegian national/independence day. The special thing this year was that it was now exactly 200 years since Norway got it's first own constitution. 17.5 is "syttene mai" (17th of May) in Norwegian and it's also a common nickname for this day. I was really excited to get to celebrate this unique day with some locals!

As I stepped out in the at least +20 and sunshine at 9am I thought to myself: I'm gonna be red as a lobster before lunch
I was wrong,
it wasn't until after lunch, maybe around 15-16 o'clock
and I wasn't even that badly burned
only my back suffered

Yeah, so, the first happening of the day for us was to watch a children's parade through the town. I had never seen a real parade before (live) and this was a kind of parade that I had no expectations for, because I didn't know what to expect.

there'll be a lot of photos in this post
just saying
and I actually just picked the best and the most interesting and so on

the children's parade:

The seniors of the high school in town, called Russe (Abi in Finland)

Eventually we joined the parade ourselves with the rest

The parade ended at the sports center, with nice grass pitches. We left to one of the teacher's house, so I don't know what kind of program there was held. For the next hours we ate hot dogs and ice cream and talked. The whole day was basically a lot of chilling and talking.

As can be seen on some of the pictures, a lot of people walked around in these national costumes, called bunad in Norwegian. Different regions have different kinds of costumes/dresses. The fantastic thing about this is that so many people wore bunads, children, teenagers, adults and old people. Here it's cool to have one and to wear it, and many families have such clothes. This phenomenon has not really been seen in Finland, and it's a petty. Or I haven't at least not seen people walking around the whole day with any national dress. I think it's a petty, because these kind of clothes use to be beautiful.

The most surprising thing for me was that we were encouraged by the Norwegians to bring our countries flags with us and to wave them around just like the others. First it felt really strange, but then I got over it and thought, "well, if people have always been waving around with other flags than the Norwegian and still haven't got hurt, then why not?"
Until it was time, at the children's parade.
I just wasn't able to hold the Finnish flag in my hand among all the bunads and the hundreds of Norwegian flags on their 200th independence day. So I put it in my backpack, but it was too small so the flag stuck out anyway. But no one cared. And no one minded the Swedish flags either, but I heard that someone had looked down at some Danish flags (Norway was a part Denmark before it got independent).
I actually felt stupid walking around with a Finnish flag. You know, I was there celebrating Norway and not Finland.
I can only imagine what would happen to the poor souls waving a Russian (or Swedish) flag when Finland turns 100. Or maybe it's just me I don't know.
That was an interesting cultural shock.
It's funny how I suddenly cared so much about flags and nationalities.

After all the pølse og is (sausage and ice cream) it was time to join the big parade of the day. 

the Red Cross

I never though that such a small town would have so many football/soccer players

Welcome to Norway

In the big parade there were all the soccer teams, the car collectors with their cars, all the people from all the organisations and such groups and also more cars with Russes, who still had their water guns and who still missed me (I think I have to thank my camera at least partly for that, only idiots shoot water on persons holding cameras) and some of them ran into the audience and attacked their friends. our Abis also drive around, in February after their last day of school, but they trow candy to the audience.
And we joined this parade too, with the same destination as last time, but this time we stayed. The mayor held a speech, there were some performances and the Russe president held a touching speech to the memory of a student who just recently passed away. After the speech balloons were released in the air and they flew high up in the sky.

We foreigners didn't really know what was about to happen later that day, or why we sat there for around two hours, we were all kind of confused. And the plans changed all the time, or at least it felt like that.

After the speeches and performances there was this race...

... and I didn't get the idea, but it seemed like some kind of annual thing and it also seemed like they had a lot of fun.
The water guns were seriously everywhere.
And so many had burned themselves, it was like any day i July and no one had apparently prepared themselves. It must have been hot to wear those woolen bunads, or so I heard.

Eventually the new plans were sorted out and we left and had dinner, and this time we ate tacos, not hot dogs (that more or less seems to be an unofficial national dish and don't forget the ice cream).

We had a great time the whole evening, I got to know new people and got some great new friends!
I don't know what to say, it was very interesting and fun to celebrate an other country's independence day, especially when it was a special year to celebrate it!
When I at some point went to sleep, I fell asleep immediately, with my Justin Bieber sheets.

I have no idea why, but these a pretty much the only pictures of the actual environment, of which three of them are taken after the sun had set. I thought I was good travel photographer. I was wrong. It's funny how I've complimented the nature but don't have any pictures of it. Well, here are some, hope they in some way are enough.

This just means that I have to go back.
That'd be really great actually