A few days of Christmas

Happy Holidays everyone!

I managed to haul much crap that are my material possessions over to my parent's house in Saarijärvi (a quiet 10,000 people town in central Finland) earlier this week. Now I'm staying here until I hop on that plane and soar over to London. Time to relax, take a breather, go on quiet walks in the nature (if no snow appears) and watch actual TV. (And be bored.)

We (mom & dad & I) had a very traditional Finnish Christmas. When I was younger I thought Christmas was pointless; it was just another day spent at home without the option to go out and see friends because they're all stuck at home too with their families. Oh, have I grown since then! It took me moving away from home to live on my own to learn to appreciate this holiday. It also helped when I started liking Christmas food. Sure, I've liked ham but didn't care too much for the casserole dishes (carrot, potato and swede). Now I was craving Christmas dinner for weeks! In addition to the food mentioned before we also had smoked salmon, cold smoked salmon tartare, rainbow trout roe and herring rolls. And the best gravy in the world! Made from the pig fat from the ham. Simple but oh so damn lovely! And of course the lovely Finnish Christmas bread - "joululimppu". Store bought, obviously, although that url will take you to a recipe. Only things we prepared ourselves were the potato casserole, herring rolls, cold smoked salmon tartare, smoked salmon, ham (which set the smoke alarm off, twice. No fire brigade was needed so no biggie!) and the gravy. And mom made mustard like every year. It's soooo good with the ham!

Omnomnomnom!

Not to mention gingerbread cookies, crackers and grapes with a cheese platter for "dessert" accompanied by Scandinavian mulled wine. Blue cheese is pretty much the only thing gingerbread is good with (apart from an android phone). I'm a cheese lover, have been since I was a little kid. My taste has since evolved but there were signs that I'd grow up to like cheesy things.

And repeat on Christmas Day! It'll take a few weeks to slim back down to my usual size...

Presents were pretty much absent this year. Dad tranferred some money to my account and I got them a DVD. I also got one gift in the mail from Maria, it turned out to be a tube scarf she knitted herself. Thank you! My one present was placed next to a plastic flower that almost looks like a poinsettia! There's really no room for an actual christmas tree here.

Everyone have a sparkling New Year's Eve! I'll be spending the night at work feeding the hungry drunken folk. I have 28 days until take-off and only 6 more shifts at work!

Don't do today what you can leave for tomorrow

Procrastination is what I do best. Everything in my life gets done in the very last panic of "this needs to be taken care of yesterday!"

I have to clear out my apartment on Monday. I sincerely intended to start packing today but watching Criminal Minds just seems much more important right now. Then I'll crash at my parents' for a month before boarding the plane! I've gotten rid of my bed and my bedside table mainly because I had friends come over and take them with them. So now I'm camping on my floor sleeping on a mattress and every knickknack that was piled on the table is now all over my floor. This is pretty much the state I'm currently in:

No worries, I have until Monday!


On another note: almost all paperwork is now done! Almost all school work is also now done! There's one essay still waiting to be written. I even bought a travel insurance and figured out how to handle money stuffs. So I've actually done lots. I still need to get a new passport and fill out a form for KELA and some summer school papers but then all official stuff will be taken care of. These can wait until January.

On Monday I'm leaving Jyväskylä behind and then I'll just kick back and enjoy Christmas. I will not spare one fraction of a thought to any learning diaries, essays or exams for at least seven months! I'll be working over New Years which is a bit of a bummer but it is what it is. I'll save some party-energy for next year then!

I've also had "Yay, I'm leaving" (or "Go away!") dinners with my friends; last Saturday I went out with a bunch of people and yesterday with two friends from elementary, middle and high school. Both times were much fun and the food was good! So I've kinda said goodbye to people already.

A lot of people have asked me if I'm nervous or getting scared. I'm not. Of course I'm excited but I'm not stressed or worried. Things work out, they always do. No, I don't have a room yet and I probably won't even find one before I'm already in the country but I can't worry about it now, I don't even know how to. I'll find a place eventually, until then I'll just have to make do.

Wknd of leisure

It's contact free week now, fall break if you will. I don't actually get a whole week off but I had a full weekend of fun. I went to visit my friend Maria in Porvoo and took my mind off all of this school/interning chaos.

Friday was awesome! We went to Britney's show, both of us old school Britney fans. Crossed that off my bucket list! It was great, really. I've read quite a few reviews where they criticized her performing playback. Of course she's gonna use playback! That's what she's always done and always will. Going to her show and expecting live music and live singing is just delusional and stupid. She always sings little bits live and has the playback supporting her and that was the case now too.

SOON! At this point we were shaking of anticipation

It was a show, I'll say that. There were exceptional dancers, costume changes, elaborate props and everything. One thing I was a bit disappointed with was her dancing; it was a bit lazy and unfocused. Otherwise it was exactly what anyone could have expected, if they'd actually ever paid any attention to how her shows are constructed. After the show we headed back to Porvoo and stopped at a locad Irish pub for a drink. There was an Oktoberfest weekend going on, people were dressed up and singing German drinking songs (or so I suspect, I didn't understand any of it). Fun night.

On Saturday we went shopping. I had no money to spend but I made myself useful as a consultant when Maria was trying on clothes. We also stopped for a coffee and cake. I had ana amazing and amazingly huge slice of Tiramisu. Then we took the doggy for a walk, had an awesome meal and started getting ready for the night. She had Singstar she'd never played before so we took advantage of that and practiced for our future pop-stardom.

On the left: Our dinner - karelian hot pot and yellow turnip mash. On the right: Tiramisu in the front, After Eight cake and quark cake in the back.

Maria's cutesy giant shetland sheepdog Tito ready to conquer the fields of their back yard

After we started losing our voices we transferred our presence to a local nightclub. It's been ages since I've been to a proper dance club. The one I always go to is more indie/rock kind of a place with a dancefloor. I didn't really recognize many of the songs until at the end of the night when the DJ played some old school hiphop. That was so fun! We were sweating like little piggies after bouncing around like idiots for the duration of maybe seven songs.

Sunday was relaxing day. We watched the newest episodes of Gossip Girl and Fresh Meat, ate some chips and just lounged on the couch until I had to leave to catch my ride back to JKL.

Now it's time to get back to my life of filling out loads of paperwork.