January always seems the time to deal with all different kinds of stuff, and to make all the decisions .. all the more I'm grateful that someone helps me keep in mind that I do not want to let this blog go to waste and of course I've already got a handful of brand new stories to tell you about! :)
First of all - brace yourselves, winter has come to Finland these last days. A lot of ice, snow and thermometres waaay beyond the freezing point. And once again it has turned the rainy autumn sky into a beautiful open horizon above what the finnish natives themselves call the 'land of snow and sorrow' ;P
One amazing fact is that wherever you may live up here, you always got some forest and lakes within shortest walking distance and no matter what day or time you choose, you'll always find yourself in the middle of legendary landscapes. don't believe me? - take a look for yourself ;)
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During these last days my host family also decided to take a week of holidays in Thailand, so I had one week off, including a free cruise ride with Carina, one of my friends studying in Joensuu :D we had a lot of fun, since she already visited me some days before departure to check out Tampere and let me take her to ice swimming (cold as fuck but the Finns do know well to compensate it with 120° C sauna so that by time you're glad to cool down again outside at -16° C )
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So then Friday came and we entered Silja Serenade in Helsinki to take us to the west! Since being a finnish ship, of course it was hosting some sauna area as well, including awesome whirlpools - no question we had to try that out! :D
It was the second time for me to travel to Stockholm with that boat and the 5th time to go there all in all - just gotta love Sweden's capital!
Also, we finally fulfilled our plan of getting ourselves a 'fika', though it was awfully expensive around the city centre >.<
Time and time again it becomes quite interesting to observe the silent, introvert, sometimes grumpy finnish personality to change all over to the complete opposite in a way that you can only experience when watching them at sea xD Finns do not go to Stockholm to visit the city (if so then only for some shopping), they go there for the sake of the ship itself - tax-free alcohol, entertainment, buffets and 32 hours of partying with equal thinking individuals. Though, those who manage to get up in the morning usually go to the city. Then again it's a funny phenomenon how they crowd up when leaving the harbour and coming back by the time the ship is preparing to leave xD
However, this time we decided to do the same and just enjoy some shopping while walking around. We came to end up in a Viking Shop in the heart of the Old Town district, which was pretty cool. ;)
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Another nice surprise is that there's two of my friends, Sarka from Czech Republic and Lara from Spain, that were once living in Finland with me as volunteers, then went back home and now decided to return .. :) Lara already arrived to Turku and Sarka will soon be in Helsinki. It's great to see some of those again that were sharing the same experiences together with me and then moving so far away from each other, as it is funny to realize that we actually learned each other's name automatically by adding the country of origin to it xD
