Ok, so its about time that I update my blog again:)
The weekend of Oct. 8th I decided to have a Thanksgiving dinner. Well, it was more difficult then I thought it would be because I still can't figure out what everything is. Some of the stuff like poultry seasoning they don't have....and turkeys are few and far between and the ones that I did find were 7 euros a kilo and BIG BUCKS!!!! I finally broke down and bought one though :) Vesa took me out on Thursday night to buy everything, so I didn't have to carry it all around...I think everything turned out pretty good. There were 9 people at dinner and no one really complained and I don't think anyone was sick afterwards:) It would have been nice to have an apple pie or something, but they don't have bloody pies here anywhere....not even pie shells, and it would have been too much work to make one that probably won't turn out anyways. Oh yea, and I thought finding a turkey was hard! Finding a pan to cook it in was another thing. I bought small aluminum ones and cut them and attached them together with like a roll of tin foil. Yea, it was kind of messy....
The next week (Oct 13), I went to the movies with Teemu. It was 5 euro night on Thursday :) We saw "The 40 Year-Old Virgin" which was retardly funny. Then on Friday, I left work at 4pm and went to the cottage with Teemu and a bunch of his friends. I have no idea where it even was, but it was somewhere in central Finland. It was such a long drive. The scenery was nice, pretty much the same as home though...trees and lakes. All the leaves are changing colour, so Fall is definately here! I read my UK edition of Cosmo from back to front....quite an interesting read. We stopped at a groccery store on the way there and picked up some groceries...which took forever, by the way, because there was 5 of us...and 4 of us were Finns and are EXTREMELY SLOW. Anyways, when we got there food was already made for us by a mom:) Mom's are great aren't they ??? The cottage was more like a cabin. It was small, but had a loft with lots of beds in it, so luckily I did not have to sleep on the floor...It was also heated, and hotter then a dirty rig on a Saturday night! The first night, the guys went fishing and I tried sauna. On Sat., we went fishing all day. It was bloody cold out. I had on three pairs of socks, long johns, jeans, a long sleeve sweater, my cord jacket, Azadeh's winter coat, 2 toques....yes 2!!!, a pair of gloves, scarf, and coveralls, and I was still cold:) GEESH I should be used to this....At least, we caught 4 rainbow trout. The dad smoked them for us and they were pretty good...even though I don't eat fish that often. That night, all that we did was sit around and talk. I, of course, was extremely bored because none of this was in English. I think I began to study/memorize my Cosmo as this is now my second time through it. It is like 6 pm on a Saturday night and I'm sleeping!!!! I think I developed an imaginary friend or another personality from talking to myself so much. I made the mistake of drinking a lot of beer that night....maybe to satisfy my alter ego....but instead it ran right through me and I had to get up like 3 times to pee....yep, they can have a sauna in the house, but not a bathroom...I had to walk outside in the cold...down the very long driveway in my skivvies to pee:(
Sunday, it was extremely windy out, so we did not go fishing. Eveyrone was lazy and woke up at like 11 am. I had some weird horse meat for breakfast and then we sat around waitng for 4 Finns to make up their mind what the hell they were going to do. I, of course, had no idea what they were talking about. But finally, after 4 hours!!!!!, we decided to go for a walk...and of course there was 5 of us and there was just enough room on the trail for 4 across, so I walked ahead with my alter ego. I think Kathy (the other part of my brain) likes to walk fast because when I turned around all the Finns were like 1 km behind....no I think they are just slow:) but at least I got to talk to Kathy a little bit. After we did a short jaunt....it seemed like we were gone for 5 minutes....we were finnished our walk!!!! Kathy and I could have went for at least an hour. Kathy got really angry too because no one was talking to her--poor Teemu. He had to deal with the wrath of Kathy. We left at about 3 pm for our long ride home. Kathy and I slept most of it. But we stopped at some locks on the way home. It was very pretty.
Well nothing really new and exciting happened to me this week. On Sat. morning (Oct. 22), I went to the Science Centre (Heureka) with Vesa. All the exhibits were pretty kiddish, but I did see a IMAX like film. It wasn't exactly like IMAX but close enough. It was on Chimpanzees....Jane Goodall one....Of course she narrated it, but since the Science Centre is for kids, and kids are dumb and can't read sub-titles :), they dubbed it over in bloody Finnish. They gave me an interpretor like ear piece, which only went in one ear, so I could hear both languages at the same time. It was quite an interesting experience, but I enjoyed the film anyways. After the Science centre, Vesa made me lunch and then I went shopping with Azadeh. She bought a sweater and I bought some little souvenirs. We then went to happy hour and met Teemu and had some 90 cent wine:) After that, it was nachos at Santa Fe (this Mexican joint). Yesterday, was laundry day. I keep meaning to go do a walking tour of Helsinki, but the last 2 days it has been raining, so when I got to the city centre, I didn't really feel like walking in that kind of weather, so I went to a fancy little coffee shop and had a really good muffin and some hot chocolate with Teemu....it still doesn't compare to Tim Hortens though :) We picked up some grocceries and made steak and potatoes last night and then watched Deuce Bigelow European Gígelow which was kind of retarded...
Today, it is 0 C out. Good thing, I finally broke down and bought a coat. I went and got it wrapped for tax free shopping, and they put like 2 pieces of tape on the bag because your not allowed to use it or open in while in Finland to get the tax break. I was like oh this is a cinch....I got three pieces of tape off no prob...and the last one on the end was a bit more tricky...so I thought I could just leave it and sneak the coat out....but I RIPPED IT!!!! BASTARDS:....oh well, it was worth a try! It was only 17 euros that I would get back in tax, but its like free money so it was worth a try:)
I haven't heard from Kathy in awhile....
Anyways, thats all for now!
XOXOXO
Krissy
Monday, October 24, 2005
Monday, October 03, 2005
Hellooooooooooooooooooo all! I'm finally back from my vacation and I somewhat feel worse then before I left.....I'm broke, tired, sore, my shoes smell funny, and I have a shit load of laundry to do. Hmmmm hardly relaxing...
I left for Copenhagen Thursday night and stayed in a real hole--actually could have guessed by their slogan which read "We don't have a jaccuzzi, but you can fart in the tub all you want." Anyways getting there was a bit tricky the directions of which bus etc. to take from the airpirt was good, but the driver never told me when to get off, so I missed it and had to walk a million miles back to it with my huge backpack. Copenhagen was a nice city. I met up with Azadeh on Friday with no problems because I went to the bus stop and waited for her so she knew where to get off. We then walked around Copenhagen. It was a very nice day out and we saw some churches and walked a long the Stoget, the shopping street. We checked the buses to Aalborg and ended up missing them...we were thinking of hitchhiking but decided it was probably not a good idea. We went and searched and searched for a hotel for friday night and it was very difficult as everything was booked up, but we ended up finding a really nice hostel for pretty cheap. Saturday, we walked around a lot and saw the changing of the guards and we even posed with one in their funny hat :) and went to the castle a few churches, saw the little mermaid statue, and some monuments etc. We went to Our Lady Savior Church which was a really neat church because the tower that we climbed was outside. We then took a train around the city and there was this creepy guy on it (yes, like in Eurotrip) that was sitting like 6 seats behind...and as I was talking to Azadeh I said "I swear he is getting closer" and she is like "no way he is still way back there." Anyways by the end of the train ride, he was practically in our laps so it was quite creepy, and as he got off the train he was like "Thanks." We also thought this was kind of weird. Thanks for what???? After the train ride, all I could smelll were these roasted almonds and I wanted some so badly. I finally found some and it was also a creepy guy selling them....ewwww his hands were all over them when he scopped them into a bag and he handed them to me and said "They were made with love" ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww...... but I still ate them....they were damn good :) Bacteria, we will worry about you later :) There was this English guy performing acts and stuff on the street so we stayed to cheer him on (and were the only ones to do so :)). He was on a unicycle juggling burning torches.
Saturday night, we were not so lucky finding a place to stay everything was booked. We were in the central terminal phoning places and guess who we saw....the creepy train guy again!!!!! He was waving at us and calling us over, but we pretended we didn't hear him:) After being unsuccessful in finding a place to stay, we decided to go to Hard Rock Cafe. We stayed in Hard Rock Cafe for as long as humanly possible. We drank some irish coffees and listened to the musci they got up on the bar and danced to the Grease remix hahahahahaha.... I got gypped in the french fry department and my burger was raw, but I was so hungry that I ate it anyways. Again maybe the bacteria from the almonds counteracted the bacteria from the raw burger. We then went to the airport and I slept on Azadeh's lap next, but the damn floor cleaner was so loud, I had to put in some ear plugs which still did not work. And plus, now, I'm feeling the bacteria.
Rome was the biggest armpit in the world. It smelled like a dirty toilet, people were really rude, and it was really really dirty. Second day there, I got robbed, so I have no identification, or money or anything here now!!!!!! I was so careful too :(. My purse was in front of me the hole time and I had no maps or cameras out, so I did not look like a tourist...besides the fact that I'm white and speak English. Anyways, it happened in the metro, I was pushed and looked down and everything was still zippered, so I thought i was fine. I went out and sat down in line at the Vatican and noticed some threads....HOLY SHIT! They cut the bottom of my purse open with a knife. I remember exactly who it was too--6'2" 200lbs, dark greasy medium length hair, 35ish, in a black fancy suit...I looked at him and saw a paper in his hand (which was probably wrapped around the jack knife) what an asshole. It would have been worth it if I at least got to kick him in the balls. I phoned "emergency" visa card place..and yep it took 5-10 business days for an "emergency" visa...those fuckers.....so I had absolutely no money on me. I phoned mom and told her that Teemu gave me 10 euros, so she was kind of worried....but he put everything on his visa for me which was really nice:) So, now I owe him big. When, we took the metro again I guarded him like a hawk and was suspicious of eveyrone...even the sweet old ladies.
Our hotel the first three nights in Rome was kind of ghetto. There were springs coming out of my bed and 4 species of insects in the washroom. I could not identify them down to species though as I did not have an entomological key with me....but there were some arachnids....which should eat the other three species....another species was really dominant as there were more then one present. They really liked drains and kind of looked millipeedy....only with less pairs of legs...
Anyways, enough with the bugs....Having my wallet stolen sucks ass....after this happened I drank a lot of wine. We did try and make the best of our trip and walked around and saw some churches, monuments, fountains, and cool old buildings. We went to the Colosseum and Palantine one day and saw some fat hairy Romans that were dressed as Gladiators....I wanted to pose with them but then realized that you had to pay to take their picture and they weren't at all good looking, so it was not worth it. Plus I had to really stretch that 10 euros that I had.... There was another crazy cat lady feeding all the stray kitties at the Colosseum. Trisha's furture profession:) The next day we went to the Vatican...I really liked their idea of "security" when we went all the scanners were closed. hmmmmmmmmmm I don't think they had the lunch break at rotating times. I think they must be like Fred Flinstone....Its quitting time!!!! and just all leave their post at the same time. We went to the cathedral and then to the crypt to see some exicitng tombs....There was only one way through it and once we got down there, I thought I was nevrer coming back up. The Pope's tomb was there and everyone was taking their sweet ass time. We then went and sw lots of art and scultures and stuff. We saw the Sistine Chapel. It was pretty nice, but not as awe-inspiring ass I thought it would be. Two naked guys touching fingers seems kind of gay.... We also did this cheesy 3D ride called the Time Elevator. It was on the history of Rome--American style.
We looked at some T-shirts but they were of poor quality and didn't want to pay the full price for them...the salesman was quite rude and proceeded to tell us where the Gucci store was...What a dick.
It was hard to eat well there as they eat at strange times. Most restaurants close at about 3 pm and open back up at 7 or 8 pm....so with only having a small snack for lunch...I'm always so starving...we have to settle for big shitholes.
We then went to get our train ticket to Flurence. Ok, customer service sucks ass. We went to information previously and was told it was around an hour and 20 euros....when we got there the ticket was more like 30 euros and took 2 hours...so we thought he was selling us the wrong one. We wanted him to switch tellers so we could make sure, because this guy did not speak any Englishh, so we did not was to buy the ticket until we were absolutely sure. He would not refund the ticket and said he couldn't, there was a line, and all this shit in Italian which we could not understand. Finally he refunded the ticket after about 10 min. We later realized that we can buy the ticket at these automatic machines, and we bought the same ticket that we originally had but through the machine as there was an English option.
So, we finaly arrived in Flourence. Some lady greeted us at the train station. She was like Are you looking for accomodation? We were like..maybe why??? and she got my sap story about loosing the wallet, so we got a good deal on an apartment. It was a very nice apartment, with our own bathroom and no uninvited guests. We walked around Flournece, saw some churches, monuments, fountains....pretty standard things. We ate at a pretty snazzy place one night. We ordered this steak for two. It was the size of Barney. Anywyas, I wanted it well done, but they only do medium, so we were like oh ok thats fine. It comes to us like 5 cm thick and "Medium" is actually straight from the freezer. It was sooo raw. I hope I don't get worms or something. I had a litre of wine to rise it down with though and some icecream for dessert :). The next night in Flourence we switched rooms to a hotel... It was also pretty nice:) We then left and bought our train ticket (through the automatic teller machine) to Milan. We got to Milan and looked for a hotel. We found onein the Lonely Planet that said Rcok Bottom Rooms, so we were a little bit leary on taking it. We asked to see the room first and it was all rennovated. It was the nicest spot we stayed at...clean, no bugs, it was so new we couldn't figure out how to work the electricity. We had to go and ask the lady... she laughed at us...we had to put our card key in the slot....
In Milan, we walked around yet again saw the standard things, monuments, fountains, churches. We went and looked at a few shops...we went in the Ferrrarri store and realized that I was out of my league when I couldn't even afford an umbrella. I bought a new wallet at a leather store. Oh, and I did not find any shoes in Italy either. My feet are just too big and nothing suits my taste....oh well I will be home soon. It's just I only have one pair of running shoes,that smell really bad...so everyone around me also thinks I should buy a new pair of shoes. Saturday night we flew to Tallinn and stayed in the airport till 7 am and took the bus to the city centre. We did a little bit of shopping and had a snack while we were waiting for the ferry to leave for Helsinki. Well, there was a little misdirection with the time. The ferry actually left at 12:30 pm not 12:45 so we missed that one, and took the next one over 2 1/2 hours later. We were pretty tired. We were laying on a disgusting bar couch for the hole ferry over and it smelled like cigarettes and there was some creepy guy looking at me. Teemu left his jean jacket somewhere so he had a cold walk to the metro when we got in.
So I have been back for a week now, I finally have got through all my laundry and now I have another load to do. It just doesn't stop!!!! This weekend I cooked a turkey dinner for everyone here. It was so hard to find all the stuff, and we invented our own turkey pan with lots of aluminum foil and cut open disposable caserole dishes.... but it was cooked and turned out well, at least I thought it did.
Anyways,
I think that is about it!!!
XOXOOXO
Krissy
I left for Copenhagen Thursday night and stayed in a real hole--actually could have guessed by their slogan which read "We don't have a jaccuzzi, but you can fart in the tub all you want." Anyways getting there was a bit tricky the directions of which bus etc. to take from the airpirt was good, but the driver never told me when to get off, so I missed it and had to walk a million miles back to it with my huge backpack. Copenhagen was a nice city. I met up with Azadeh on Friday with no problems because I went to the bus stop and waited for her so she knew where to get off. We then walked around Copenhagen. It was a very nice day out and we saw some churches and walked a long the Stoget, the shopping street. We checked the buses to Aalborg and ended up missing them...we were thinking of hitchhiking but decided it was probably not a good idea. We went and searched and searched for a hotel for friday night and it was very difficult as everything was booked up, but we ended up finding a really nice hostel for pretty cheap. Saturday, we walked around a lot and saw the changing of the guards and we even posed with one in their funny hat :) and went to the castle a few churches, saw the little mermaid statue, and some monuments etc. We went to Our Lady Savior Church which was a really neat church because the tower that we climbed was outside. We then took a train around the city and there was this creepy guy on it (yes, like in Eurotrip) that was sitting like 6 seats behind...and as I was talking to Azadeh I said "I swear he is getting closer" and she is like "no way he is still way back there." Anyways by the end of the train ride, he was practically in our laps so it was quite creepy, and as he got off the train he was like "Thanks." We also thought this was kind of weird. Thanks for what???? After the train ride, all I could smelll were these roasted almonds and I wanted some so badly. I finally found some and it was also a creepy guy selling them....ewwww his hands were all over them when he scopped them into a bag and he handed them to me and said "They were made with love" ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww...... but I still ate them....they were damn good :) Bacteria, we will worry about you later :) There was this English guy performing acts and stuff on the street so we stayed to cheer him on (and were the only ones to do so :)). He was on a unicycle juggling burning torches.
Saturday night, we were not so lucky finding a place to stay everything was booked. We were in the central terminal phoning places and guess who we saw....the creepy train guy again!!!!! He was waving at us and calling us over, but we pretended we didn't hear him:) After being unsuccessful in finding a place to stay, we decided to go to Hard Rock Cafe. We stayed in Hard Rock Cafe for as long as humanly possible. We drank some irish coffees and listened to the musci they got up on the bar and danced to the Grease remix hahahahahaha.... I got gypped in the french fry department and my burger was raw, but I was so hungry that I ate it anyways. Again maybe the bacteria from the almonds counteracted the bacteria from the raw burger. We then went to the airport and I slept on Azadeh's lap next, but the damn floor cleaner was so loud, I had to put in some ear plugs which still did not work. And plus, now, I'm feeling the bacteria.
Rome was the biggest armpit in the world. It smelled like a dirty toilet, people were really rude, and it was really really dirty. Second day there, I got robbed, so I have no identification, or money or anything here now!!!!!! I was so careful too :(. My purse was in front of me the hole time and I had no maps or cameras out, so I did not look like a tourist...besides the fact that I'm white and speak English. Anyways, it happened in the metro, I was pushed and looked down and everything was still zippered, so I thought i was fine. I went out and sat down in line at the Vatican and noticed some threads....HOLY SHIT! They cut the bottom of my purse open with a knife. I remember exactly who it was too--6'2" 200lbs, dark greasy medium length hair, 35ish, in a black fancy suit...I looked at him and saw a paper in his hand (which was probably wrapped around the jack knife) what an asshole. It would have been worth it if I at least got to kick him in the balls. I phoned "emergency" visa card place..and yep it took 5-10 business days for an "emergency" visa...those fuckers.....so I had absolutely no money on me. I phoned mom and told her that Teemu gave me 10 euros, so she was kind of worried....but he put everything on his visa for me which was really nice:) So, now I owe him big. When, we took the metro again I guarded him like a hawk and was suspicious of eveyrone...even the sweet old ladies.
Our hotel the first three nights in Rome was kind of ghetto. There were springs coming out of my bed and 4 species of insects in the washroom. I could not identify them down to species though as I did not have an entomological key with me....but there were some arachnids....which should eat the other three species....another species was really dominant as there were more then one present. They really liked drains and kind of looked millipeedy....only with less pairs of legs...
Anyways, enough with the bugs....Having my wallet stolen sucks ass....after this happened I drank a lot of wine. We did try and make the best of our trip and walked around and saw some churches, monuments, fountains, and cool old buildings. We went to the Colosseum and Palantine one day and saw some fat hairy Romans that were dressed as Gladiators....I wanted to pose with them but then realized that you had to pay to take their picture and they weren't at all good looking, so it was not worth it. Plus I had to really stretch that 10 euros that I had.... There was another crazy cat lady feeding all the stray kitties at the Colosseum. Trisha's furture profession:) The next day we went to the Vatican...I really liked their idea of "security" when we went all the scanners were closed. hmmmmmmmmmm I don't think they had the lunch break at rotating times. I think they must be like Fred Flinstone....Its quitting time!!!! and just all leave their post at the same time. We went to the cathedral and then to the crypt to see some exicitng tombs....There was only one way through it and once we got down there, I thought I was nevrer coming back up. The Pope's tomb was there and everyone was taking their sweet ass time. We then went and sw lots of art and scultures and stuff. We saw the Sistine Chapel. It was pretty nice, but not as awe-inspiring ass I thought it would be. Two naked guys touching fingers seems kind of gay.... We also did this cheesy 3D ride called the Time Elevator. It was on the history of Rome--American style.
We looked at some T-shirts but they were of poor quality and didn't want to pay the full price for them...the salesman was quite rude and proceeded to tell us where the Gucci store was...What a dick.
It was hard to eat well there as they eat at strange times. Most restaurants close at about 3 pm and open back up at 7 or 8 pm....so with only having a small snack for lunch...I'm always so starving...we have to settle for big shitholes.
We then went to get our train ticket to Flurence. Ok, customer service sucks ass. We went to information previously and was told it was around an hour and 20 euros....when we got there the ticket was more like 30 euros and took 2 hours...so we thought he was selling us the wrong one. We wanted him to switch tellers so we could make sure, because this guy did not speak any Englishh, so we did not was to buy the ticket until we were absolutely sure. He would not refund the ticket and said he couldn't, there was a line, and all this shit in Italian which we could not understand. Finally he refunded the ticket after about 10 min. We later realized that we can buy the ticket at these automatic machines, and we bought the same ticket that we originally had but through the machine as there was an English option.
So, we finaly arrived in Flourence. Some lady greeted us at the train station. She was like Are you looking for accomodation? We were like..maybe why??? and she got my sap story about loosing the wallet, so we got a good deal on an apartment. It was a very nice apartment, with our own bathroom and no uninvited guests. We walked around Flournece, saw some churches, monuments, fountains....pretty standard things. We ate at a pretty snazzy place one night. We ordered this steak for two. It was the size of Barney. Anywyas, I wanted it well done, but they only do medium, so we were like oh ok thats fine. It comes to us like 5 cm thick and "Medium" is actually straight from the freezer. It was sooo raw. I hope I don't get worms or something. I had a litre of wine to rise it down with though and some icecream for dessert :). The next night in Flourence we switched rooms to a hotel... It was also pretty nice:) We then left and bought our train ticket (through the automatic teller machine) to Milan. We got to Milan and looked for a hotel. We found onein the Lonely Planet that said Rcok Bottom Rooms, so we were a little bit leary on taking it. We asked to see the room first and it was all rennovated. It was the nicest spot we stayed at...clean, no bugs, it was so new we couldn't figure out how to work the electricity. We had to go and ask the lady... she laughed at us...we had to put our card key in the slot....
In Milan, we walked around yet again saw the standard things, monuments, fountains, churches. We went and looked at a few shops...we went in the Ferrrarri store and realized that I was out of my league when I couldn't even afford an umbrella. I bought a new wallet at a leather store. Oh, and I did not find any shoes in Italy either. My feet are just too big and nothing suits my taste....oh well I will be home soon. It's just I only have one pair of running shoes,that smell really bad...so everyone around me also thinks I should buy a new pair of shoes. Saturday night we flew to Tallinn and stayed in the airport till 7 am and took the bus to the city centre. We did a little bit of shopping and had a snack while we were waiting for the ferry to leave for Helsinki. Well, there was a little misdirection with the time. The ferry actually left at 12:30 pm not 12:45 so we missed that one, and took the next one over 2 1/2 hours later. We were pretty tired. We were laying on a disgusting bar couch for the hole ferry over and it smelled like cigarettes and there was some creepy guy looking at me. Teemu left his jean jacket somewhere so he had a cold walk to the metro when we got in.
So I have been back for a week now, I finally have got through all my laundry and now I have another load to do. It just doesn't stop!!!! This weekend I cooked a turkey dinner for everyone here. It was so hard to find all the stuff, and we invented our own turkey pan with lots of aluminum foil and cut open disposable caserole dishes.... but it was cooked and turned out well, at least I thought it did.
Anyways,
I think that is about it!!!
XOXOOXO
Krissy
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