Catsmas

Please meet Irmeli, the curious cat, who found a hole in the wall and crawled in there. Too bad the hole was full of sawdust. The story ends in the shower.

Irmeli also liked to play with all kinds of things, especially with the string of my camera. My mother got so excited because of Irmeli that she said she's dreaming about owning a cat one day. Thank you Helena and Aliisa for bringing Irmeli to Kuopio with you!

And then meet Urpo, the huge cat, which spends a lot of time outside although it's extremely cold. When he wants to come inside, he just jumps on the door handle to make a sound and we open the door. My brother's family bought Urpo from local animal shelter and he has been a big part of their life ever since.

So my catsmas was fine and this is how a christmas tree looks like when you watch it through a glögi mug...Interesting. I met my friends, visited all relatives and ate vegan ham as well as casseroles and pizza. And chocolate. The most memorable moment must have been when I played Iskelmä (Finnish schlagers) board game against my mother and her husband. It's like Trivial Pursuit but all questions are about iskelmä music. It was so absurd, but in a weird way it was fun as well. Except when we had to listen to the music. TORTURE! (luckily the clips were less than 15 seconds!)

I also spent some time in the trunk of my brother's car with lots of bags and the greatest suitcase I borrowed from my grandmother. Sometimes you need to travel in challenging surroundings to appreciate the pure comfortableness of a basic car, bus or train seat.

Tomorrow it's going to be the last day of work. Kind of sad, kind of happy :) It takes time to get used to the fact that I don't have to wait for the (too often late) bus number 202 in the cold ever (?) again. Last week I also experienced how it feels like to be in a cold, dark bus for half an hour. The bus broke down on the road and the driver wanted to save battery (although the fault had nothing to do with it) and so he turned out the lights and heating (and of course it was -20 celsius outside). So it was me and 9 other people sitting in the dark bus in total silence...And I was thinking "this is all so Finnish" :D

2 weeks -> Korea.