Sitting in different places.

I've been busy and exhausted this week. So many new things! And also lots of sitting. I sit in the bus, in the bus stop, in my room, in all kinds of meetings, in the library car, in loaning and returning, in the restroom...

Things I like -> listening to music while working, being alone in the library, bus trips, Valintatalo in Kontiolahti, my colleagues, kind of freedom.

Things I don't like -> Being home at 21.30, thousands of new things sweeping over me all at once, sales agents, papers piling up on my desk.

But I guess first weeks are always the hardest and after that I get some kind of routines. At least I hope so! This weekend I'll just relax and eat organic apples and of course watch ski jumping, the last jumps of this winter! The sun is shining so brightly, it must be the sign of spring.

Puijo. Cards. Tea.

Puijo Ski Jumping World Cup took place in Puijo on Tuesday. It's my annual tradition to go there and this year was no exception. I love the atmosphere, people shouting and screaming, colourful flags, everything! And my grandparents live right next to the hill, so I always go there and drink tea between rounds ;) Finnish didn't do so well this year and the winner was a big surprise (Takanobu Okabe!). My favourite jumper is Matti Hautamäki, because he looks just like my brother (very rational reason to like some skijumper :D) and he was in same high school and took same classes with me.

After the competition we came to my mother's place, had sauna and played Shanghai (one of my favourite card games!). We also drank tea Liang brought with him :) He was very lucky in the card game - second time ever to play it and already a winner!



This morning I tried a new tea called Matcha. It's green tea powder from Japan and I had never found it from any shop in Finland until now I accidentally bumped in it in Kuopio's market hall. The taste was very strong, but I love strong tasting teas :)

The day was very sunny and I bought some yarn and a calendar from Kuopio before heading in the bus to Joensuu. I spent my time knitting and looking at the white fields. Now I'll just wait for tomorrow morning...First day as a library boss. Scary.

Kuopio.

These are my photos of Kuopio. First from the church, then some from the museums and in the end we visited Kuopio's market hall.






(I took this photo because this trilobite looks exactly like Babylon 5's shadow ships!!!)

5 km.

Today I wanted to save 3 euros and walked to the centre instead of taking a bus. Walkway goes in the middle of the forest and I took my camera with me and took a few photos. It took me 45 minutes to walk 5 kilometres.

Spring is coming, so trees don't have any snow on them anymore and it looks very grey. Also the roads are starting to be bare, but still I saw many crosscountry skiers and the tracks seemed to be in good condition :)



I signed my employment contract today, so it's officially true that I'm going to be working as a leader of the library until the end of this year. I'm most afraid of all kinds of meeting I need to participate...And writing strategies! I don't know anything about that. So I have so many things to learn this year.

Last but not the least, I finally finished my pair of socks! It took me 2 months to knit them both, but it was worth it. The colours are lovely, green and purple :)

Tomorrow I'm heading to Kuopio to watch Skijumping World Cup. I'm going to take Juha and Liang with me, so more tea ceremonies coming!

China in my mind

When I wait for the bus in the bus stop, I always have company -> birds. There's always lots of them flying around, stopping for a while and then flying, landing on some bushes and eating berries and then flying again.

Yesterday was an evening dedicated for China. I invited couple of friends to play Shanghai (one of my favourite card games!) and for my surprise, my chinese friend Liang brought some very special and expensive chinese green tea with him. His parents own teahouse in China and that's why also he knows so much about tea. We even had a true Kung Fu tea ceremony (without all the real "tools") and the taste of the tea was unearthly! The best tea I've ever tried! We drank the tea from small shot glasses, because I didn't have "real" small tea cups. Maybe because of the brilliant taste of tea, I didn't concentrate on playing and I lost all games...



I'm going to be too busy tomorrow, there are so many things I have to do and so many places to visit because I got the job. But before that, I want to wish everyone a good womens day with the photo below -> me between huge boobs! This snow woman can be found from Joensuu :)

Multiculture!

Last Saturday was the farewell party for Yuki. We had invited quite a lot of people and almost everyone came to our place :) The good thing when you invite many people is that people form groups and just talk with each other. There was Shanghai group (photo above), Korean drama group and Fallout 3 group :D The guests came from 10 different countries -> Finland, Poland, USA, Russia, Korea, China, Japan, Nepal, Iran and Vietnam. The person who says that people from different cultures can't get along is totally wrong! We baked Karjalanpiirakka again, I also made laskiaispulla and rye-lingonberry porridge to celebrate the Finnish culture day, which happened to be in the same day.





Thank you Yuki, Minhye, Hyejin, Sejin, Kitak, Anton, Shahram, Daniel, Marko, Teemu, Monika, Barun, Merja, Anh, Liang and Maho for coming! I hope we can have another evening soon :)

Koli and bye bye Yuki

Yesterday I went to Koli with my friends, because Yuki had never been there and it was her last day in Joensuu. The views were oh, so amazing! There was plenty of snow and the trees were completely white. We took the ice road there and because we had one Japanese looking girl with us, we could stop in the middle of the lake and act like tourists. Ice roads are very scary in my opinion, but this one was safe and when I saw other cars on the ice too, I knew that we're not going to sink either! So we jumped in joy! (featuring Yuki, Monika, Juha)




The day in Koli was also full of climbing, sliding and to our wonder we found something that we thought doesn't belong to Finnish nature...Pikachu! It was just sitting on a branch and of course we had to take a photo. We also saw more Pikachu's when we climbed up to Ukkokoli and there was also one Pikachu hiding under a tree with it's squirrel friend called Risu.



And today I had to say goodbye to Yuki. Last night we stayed up until 1 o'clock, just made Japanese food, played card games and went to sauna in a dim candlelight. I hope she got nice memories from Finland :) I feel like crying when I write this. Bye bye Yuki! (I'll write about work and Saturday's party later)