Pieces of Everyday

Hello everyone,

I'm posting from Serbia, I came home because I don't have many lectures in March (the regular semester in Germany hasn't started yet). The weather here is beautiful, I'm enjoying my mum's cuisine and looking forward to going to Belgrade on Friday, where I'll see my friends... the ones that haven't moved to other countries. (Yet?)

Here are the Instagram photos from January and February - another reminder of dear and beautiful Finland. It's been almost three weeks in Germany now, but I still listen to Finnish radio. I love hearing Finnish... even hough most of the time I have no idea what they're talking about. I hope my German skills will be better in six months' time!

The first picture from above is from my hometown. It was taken on my last day here in January and I had no idea when I would be back - but it turns out it was only less than three months! The "new in" photos show new make up I got in January and my supercool ceramics jewellery, the latter from a wonderful place in Belgrade called Gallery 1250. And the text in Cyrilics is a birthday invitation dating back to 2007, when a friend of mine turned 18. Wow we're getting old!

The laptop selfie was made at Budapest airport while I was waiting to get boarded onto my Helsinki flight. The same day I got to enjoy the wonderful perks of Finnish railway - coffee and free wifi! The right bottom photo is my interpretation of Christmas dinner. Even though I'm not religious, it's a custom in my family to eat fish on Christmas Eve. So I ate salmon and shrimps :)

Jonesuu landscapes in January. Fog, snow and early sunsets.

My first Ben & Jerry's ever. Definitely not the last! Other tasty things. If you're into oatmeal, try this trick I've stolen from my Finnish flatmates: add some frozen berries! It's soooo delicious!! I've done it with raspberries and blueberries, sometimes I would add a teaspoon of peanut butter. A real treat!

Bits of Norway! Yes I visited it in February, Tromsø, the city in the far north, the one with excellent master's and PhD programs in linguistics at the uni, for which I never wanted to apply because of the cold. Well, to tell you the truth, it's not much colder than Joensuu, if at all! No separate blog post because I forgot to bring my camera. That was stupid.

Little sis' visit in February. Treats, again. Helsinki cathedral, again. God I love that building!

Mr Walrus lives in the girl's bathroom at the University of Eastern Finland in Joensuu campus. The Tales of Beedle the Bard were bought in Berlin in September and I love not only the tales, but the sophisticated looks of the book so that's why it is also a decoration detail in my room. And so are the bookmark and the little mirror - gifts of my two friends, one of them living in London. I'm gonna see them both soon and I'm really looking forward to it! As for the Elle & tulips photo, people from Serbia will recognize Plazma biscuits - the rest of you, it's like THE biscuit of Serbia. It's really plain, no chocolate, no cream, but it's something we all miss when we move abroad. :) And it was brought to me to Finland by my sis, of course.

The old couple on the fridge will also be recognized by people from Serbia, and all the former Yugoslav countries, actually - it's president Tito with his wife. The fridge belongs to a lovely Finn Anna-Erica, who hosted me and my sis for a night in Helsinki, and who is the first foreign Serbian language graduate I have ever met. Anna-Erica speaks excellent Serbian, her room is full of novels in Serbian, she spent a year in Belgrade as an exchange student and when I asked her if she listened to any Serbian music, she laughed and said "Well... I know it's bad music, but...". So Anna-Erica listens to shitty Serbian music, but she's basically the only person I don't judge for that, because hey, she's a Finn!

In February we still had loads of snow, but days became longer and that was suuuch a relief! The first sunset photo is taken at about 4 PM, the second one I think around 6!

Oh, but then we got some really nice weather - I mentioned that already, it was even above 0 degrees - and the snow started to melt. And it was black. And ugly. But I found a bunny in the snow :) the bunny is also th first #happy photo in my #100happydays challenge. The three dogs (dogs?) are a #throwbackthursday or #tbt street art photo from Norway. The sauna is also a happy photo. Oh, sauna, how I miss you! The pink balloons and shoes photo is from a window shop in Helsinki, taken around Valentine's - I think it's perfect because we may not be in love, but we're definitely in love with our shoes! 

My last weekend in Finland was spent in a cottage in the nature. It was awesome - thank you once again, guys! The first photo was taken in the car on the way there, I was actually blogging because I knew I wouldn't have time for that once we get there. The second one is not a beautiful one, but the food - grilled salmon and veggies - was absolutely amazing. The foggy photo shows the frozen lake covered in snow - and I'm standing in the middle of it. We not only stood there, but drilled the hole in the ice to try and ice fish... we didn't catch anything, though. :) 

Another late sunset! And more Muumi mugs. You might remember that I bought the pink one last fall after a month's wondering whether it would be the right thing to do, as it was too expensive... this February I realized I spend money anyway, so I better spend it on something good. The Jokipojat-Vantaa ticket is an ice-hockey match ticket I got from my friend, who is by the way the goalie coach of the team :) he teased me by stating that the tickets are for "Tihana Suomalainen", my new Facebook name - I changed the surname during my last week in Finland. It's a Finnish surname but it also means "Finn" in Finnish. Imagine how embarrassing it was to ask for the tickets with a Finnish surname - in English. But he informed the ticket lady I actually spoke (only) English (even though he only told me that later). Nevertheless, the match was great and the local team, Jokipojat, won. So this was the last Finland instagram photo. And two days later I took the first one in Germany - the beer one. I was so sad to leave Finland, but on the other hand, Germany is a land of beer. Of excellent and cheap beer. I can handle that. I'm sure I can. ;)

I hope you're enjoying the spring! Talk to you soon

T.