Hyvää Juhannusta! Happy Midsummer!

It is again time for the midsummer festivities aka Juhannus! Apparently, the weather is according to that as well: rainy, stormy winds and super cold. Perfect weather indeed to go sailing for the weekend! As it says on the wall of our boat:

Sailing, the art of getting wet and becoming ill while slowly going nowhere at great expense.

I have to agree with the other points except the last one. Nemo is an old lady and starts to be closer to antique than sporty new boat.. And going with a motor boat is definitely more expensive compared to the natural wind power that we are using. Anyhow, this weekend the "getting wet" part is especially going to happen. But to be honest, I don't care! It is a fact that the weather at Juhannus is often very crappy so it is more like with whom you are spending it and what you are doing. In my case we are just going to eat a lot and hang around. And my man is coming over for the weekend just for me, so I'll be happyhappyhappy and will stay warm. <3

So, Hyvää Juhannusta!

Longest day of the year

Today is the longest day of the year. Not because it was so boring but it was the summer solstice. Sun was up 03:38 and set at 23:01. This makes altogether 19h 22min daylight, pretty impressive! However, there was not much sun to enjoy today, mostly just the lightnings were brightening up the sky.

And obviously, because it was raining it is a perfect day to work! Yeah, in your dreams...
Inspiration level: 0
Work done: 0
Hours spent in Internet: Too much!

As I was lacking the inspiration, I decided to go to the local library. Still no inspiration for this specific article for work but I got heaps of other reading for rainy days:

- 45 Uskomatonta elämystä Aasiassa (Karvinen & Väre,     2001)
- Hymyilevä kameli (Saastamoinen, 2006)
- Tämä on Afrikka (Paloheimo, 2007)
- Kahvia ja Guruja eli kolme vuotta Intiassa (Rommi, 2009)
-Saagojen kutsu, avoveneellä Islantiin (Piri, 1996)

The books represent adventures and experiences by Finnish people. All of them are from different places, cultures and points of view; There is a woman who have moved into Saudi-Arabia, a man living in Africa, a woman in India teaching yoga and two men taking a boat journey to Iceland. Can't wait to get through with all these! And I will be having terrible travel fever after this as well. One of the books is kind of out of "theme" as it "just" introduces 45 experiences from Asia. I think I'll start with that: enough pictures.

Navigare necesse est

And it is. Yesterday we finally had time to go actually sailing. Nemo has been on water for about a week now and since now, we didn't even have enough time or crew to pull up the sails. Well, it's not that big boat but I'm just a beginner still and I have hard time managing all the maneuvers by myself... Anyway, at last we had a change to test the sails and everything went amazingly smoothly and professionally! Scarily smoothly to be honest. Usually there is something at least that crashes, breaks down or just falls off. Just waiting the catastrophe next time.

However, the first sailing trip for almost three years was success! There was just a light wind, enough to take us forward though and even had the spinnaker successfully up (down too!). The whole trip was so enjoyable, even though in the beginning I was a bit skeptic about how it will end up as neither of us have sailed for years now. Will all the ropes be tangled or upside down? Is there going to be too much wind? But no, everything went more than fine, this skill must be in the spine. Actually, the best moment in my opinion is when the sails
are all up and trimmed, the motor have been turned off and just the little ripple comes behind you. Perfection.

<3

Tyttö joka luki ja luki

Sen jälkeen kun sain koulun vihdoinkin pois päiväjärjestyksestä, aikaa on vihdoinkin alkanut löytyä myös muidenkin kuin koulukirjojen lukemiseen. Tuloksena on se, että en osaa taas lopettaa. No, ei kai se nyt niin vaarallista ole :) Viimeksi kun olin matkalla Norjaan, tajusin vasta matkalla Helsinkiin, ettei mulla ole mitään tekemistä lentomatkalle! Ei kirjaa, sudokua tai sukkapuikkoja (jälkimmäisestä addiktiosta lisää ehkä tuonnempana). Ja Oslon kenttä, jossa pitää vaihtaa matkalla Stavangeriin, ei todellakaan ole mikään Puuhamaa. Siinä sitä sitten istutaan peukaloita pyöritellen pari tuntia jäähtyneen 5 euron kahvin kanssa. Tältä skenaariolta minut onneksi pelasti se, että ennen lähtöä ehdin piipahtaa tuttavallani, joka on todellinen lukutoukka. Pyysin häntä suosittelemaan jotakin matkalukemista ja hän antoi mukaani ruotsalaisen Stieg Larssonin ensimmäisen osan Millenium-trilogiasta - Miehet jotka vihaavat naisia. Ahmaisin melkein 600-sivuisen kirjan hetkessä. Palatessani parin viikon päästä Suomeen, olin jo varannut seuraavat osat, Tyttö joka leikki tulella ja Pilvilinna joka romahti, välittömälle lukulistalleni. Eivätkä ne todellakaan osoittautuneet pettymyksiksi.

Larssonin kerronta on niin mukaansatempaavaa, että monet yöt vietin valvoen pitkälle aamuyöhön, kun en vaan osannut lopettaa. Koko sarja oli täynnä uskomattomia ja yllättäviä käänteitä, erityisesti rakastin viimeistä osaa. Välillä luin jännityksestä henkeä pidätellen, toisaalta taas raivon tai ihmetyksen vallassa. Kaikki se seksuaalinen väkivalta, poliittinen kieroilu, ihmiskauppa - onko tällaisia ihmisiä oikeasti olemassa? Vaikka kirjat eivät mihinkään tositapahtumaan perustu, valitettavasti kaikki ei taida olla pelkkää fiktiota tässä hyvinkin raa'assa maailmassa. Hyvin tunteita herättävää luettavaa. Sinälläänhän tarinan juoni on melko synkkä ja siitä kumpuaa selkeä inho juonittelua ja väkivaltaa naisia kohtaan. Kolmen kirjan aikana sitä ehtii myös melko hyvin tutustua sarjan päähenkilöihin ja tuntuu jotenkin oudolta ja tyhjältä kun tietää, että Lisbeth Salanderin ja Mikael "Kalle" Blomkvistin tarina loppuu tähän. Selvästikin Larssonilla oli enemmänkin sanottavaa, mitä ei vaan koskaan ehtinyt kirjoittaa ennen sydänkohtaustaan vuonna 2004 niihin kymmeneen osaan, mitä alunperin oli tarkoitus julkaista. Kunpa hän tietäisi, mitä on saanut aikaiseksi. Niin minussa kuin monessa muussakin. Seuraavaksi täytyy katsoa leffat ja käydä Millenium-kierroksella kun ehdin Tukholmaan, tai toteuttaa se omatoimisesti ainakin.

Universal Packing List

Isn't packing such a pain in the ass sometimes? At least I'm trying to avoid packing until to the very end and when the moment comes that i can't push it to any later, I just randomly throw something to the backpack - just to realize in the end that actually I have nothing to wear! But finally I've found something that might save my packing sessions:

The Universal Packing List!

You can choose all the necessary factors for your trip and the machine makes the list for you! everything from your underwear to the vaccinations, perfect! I guess I will be testing it this weekend when we go sailing. Very keen on seeing what I should be packing ;)

Story of finding Nemo begins

Now it has started. The sailing season! The episode of putting the boats on water almost took the whole day though. Luckily both of the boats were floating and motors were working and so on. So we were just in time in the harbor before the massive thunder storm. Obviously, nothing always goes as planned when it comes to sailing. When going to the harbor and parking on our place, there was not enough water! The keel hit the bottom before you could hop on shore :D Luckily we could change the place with Dahlia and managed to get enough water under Nemo's keel.

But the warm weather is also gone with the thunder. On the other hand it's nice because now I can breathe and sleep again. There is something majestic about thunder storms. Even though they can be scary if they really hit your route, some kind of weird way I like them. First you wait and wait and wait, the nature is quiet, then the storm suddenly hits. The moment when the storm comes to you is fascinating. You can see the wall of wind and rain coming closer and basically you can do nothing. Afterwards the air is clear again.
  

Two days ago I got a job offer. And I turned it down. I felt such a terrible person, but finally today I really realized that it was definitely the right option! Organizing the flat or staying at someone's sofa for 1,5 months would have been pointless, but the worst thing would have been spending the whole summer in a city. Would have gone mad in this hot weather! I'm more than happy with my part-time writer job and I can set up my office basically anywhere I want. Today it was at the shore of Lake Päijänne. It's also the only place at the moment where I can actually breathe, I'm Finnish, +30C is too much for a northern girl like me! The good thing is that the water temperature is getting warmer too. Today it was actually possible to have a real swim! The water was already +18C which is amazingly warm considering that it is only the beginning of June. Maybe I can have a morning swim tomorrow :)

Nemo is also getting fit for the summer. The sides are now polished (what a work!), motor, solar panel and other stuff are where they should be. Everyting looks working fine now, but I'm sure that when she is finally on the water and we pull up the sails, there is massive hole eaten by mice in the main sail or something similar at least. Waiting for that. But now I'll be just dreaming about smoothly sailing Päijänne in a nice sunny weather, like couple of years ago:

Nemo

Joys of Finnish summer

I've been away from Finnish summer for couple of years now so my memories were already starting to get golden edges. Even though I'm really enjoying the Finnish summer, in some cases the reality already hit me:


1. Mosquitoes. These little suckers can eat you alive in one evening. I don't know what's wrong with this summer but they are heaps and they are massive. And this summer's breed even seems to have some kind of supernatural powers to survive my attempts to kill them! Conclusion: Buy way more mosquito repellent.

2. Wasps. As mosquitoes, also wasps seem to be everywhere where I go this summer. I'm definitely not a fan of these things either (read: I'm terrified) and need to start running in panic if I meet one. Bumblebees don't count though because they don't look as evil and mean as wasps. My last meeting with a wasp was today and as always, didn't go so smoothly. I was peacefully sitting in an outhouse when this evil creature decides to attack me! Obviously I ended up running around the yard my pants still down.

Luckily I've spent almost all my day inside in the cool garage waxing Nemo. In this weather it has been quite nice and relaxing. And the result is super good, she is going to blind everybody in the harbour with her shiny sides and decks! Can't wait to get sailing!    

Our lovely neighbour

Last weekend it was time for the first trip of the summer - to our lovely neighbour Sweden! I was very excited as I haven't been on Helsinki-Stockholm ferry (or in Stockholm) for a long time except just for passing by with a car. Most of my trips have also been in autumn when the weather is not so great and the trip usually requires heaps of pills for the sea sickness.. However, this time it was time to enjoy.

Weekend was perfect and warm, it almost felt like being somewhere in Southern Europe. In fact, the atmosphere was like straight from the Canary Islands: hot, sunny and full of tanned Swedes. Stockholm is interesting city but you always tend to visit the same attractions that you've seen so many times already. This time we decided to see also areas that were not so familiar to us and headed to Södermalm first. Earlier Södermalm was known as working-class district or even as a slum. However, nowadays it has become the district for the privileged and has a bohemian and alternative culture reputation. There are a lot of shops, bars and restaurants on this area. It is also known for its second-hand shops which I wanted to visit. For my bad, they were all still closed because we arrived so early on Saturday morning. I just needed to settle for window-shopping this time. Well, better for my wallet. Even though most of the shops were still closed you could still notice that the atmosphere was different to the central Stockholm, and way less tourists, too!

Colourful houses of Hornsgatan in Södermalm

Second-hand shop on Hornsgatan

Most of the day we just spent wandering around the city and enjoying the beautiful day and atmosphere in the Kungträdgård. And a bit of shopping too, obviously. The grass still seems to be greener on Sweden's side as we still don't have all the same clothes shop chains.. 

The sun and warm weather were really pampering us.

Also a way to do a sightseeing... I would take a bike though.

Also found a climbing wall in the middle of Stockholm!

When you walk around the wandering mode on, you might bump into most interesting things, too. For me it was accidentally stumbling upon this outside climbing wall just in the middle of Stockholm! Maybe some day I'll be there too ;) All in all the trip was fun and both Stockholm and the Baltic Sea were presenting their best. On the ship, the entertainment, music and tax-free were pretty much the same that I remember from my visits during the last 20 years, but the view from the top floor nightclub is just something to remember for the next 20.

Dancing the night away on the ship around 2am

Stepping on the road

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to."


Näin Bilbo Reppuli varoittaa Frodoa siitä, miten uudet seikkailut voivat alkaa jo kotiovelta. Siksi se tuntuukin luonnolliselta lauseelta aloittaa myös tämä blogi, koska olen jotenkin aina tuntenut sen myös omaksi motokseni. Jalat ovat kuljettaneet sinne sun tänne, välillä yllättäviinkiin suuntiin, ja seuraavat seikkailuni haluan jakaa tässä blogissa.