Kuukausi: lokakuu 2019

Book fair(y) and other things

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I’ve got two friends named Kristiina, it was a very popular name in the late 60’s and my cousin is also Kristina, the Swedish version. These two Kristiina-friends I met when I was studying to become a library assistant in the early 90’s and we used to call them the tall Kristiina and the short Kristiina. Yesterday I met with short Kristiina at the Helsinki book fair like we do every fall.

Of course the book fair is not the only happening but there is also the Food and vine fairs at the same time. This time we were sneaky and did the Food-part first. Kristiina wanted to buy some chocolate from a certain chocolatier and asfter some time we found it. The examples were awesome and I bought a little bag too.

Then we went to the book fair and mostly just walked around. Since we both work in library it’s not so important for us to examine every book there. Earlier this fall I had asked an acquaintance from the City library (he has a small publishing company) if he had a book I wanted and now I bought it from him and I also got a small notebook as a thank you since I was their first customer that day.

Then we did some small shopping, Kristiina bought Christmas cards from her fave artist and just as I was collecting my coat I saw one of our class mates from the library assistant studies. I’ve seen her every now and then, we go to concerts sometimes but it’s been couple of years now since I last saw her. I went to her to say hello and we hugged and then she said that she was also leaving and I asked her to join us for late lunch but she said she was so tired as they had a very hard meeting last night concerning her son’s treatment (he is suffering of schizophrenia). I was so sad to hear that.

Well, I and Kristiina had late lunch at the just-opened new Tripla mall at the Pasila railway station. The food and dessert were very good and I had a mocktail which was delicious too. The service was good and waitresses really nice but the delivering took forever. They had probably too little staff in the kitchen because it’s only been a week since the opening and as we were leaving we noticed the other part of the restaurant was almost empty since they filled first the ’outside’ looking side. We were glad we had been early there since the queue was pretty long at the time we left.

Hubby came to get me from the train and we did grocery shopping and then I remembered my hula hoop had arrived via post so we collected that too. I tried it already yesterday and it was so much fun.

Some news of family too. On Thursday Middlest one had the Army hearings as here in Finland all males aged 18 to 35(?) must go to the Army or Civil service and for females it’s voluntary.  Middlest son wants to go to Air forces but his basic training begins at Parola Armoured brigade in next July. His girlfriend has enrolled and applied to Air forces too which I find both endearing and amusing, it be fun if they were there at the same time.

Youngest son had baked cinnamon buns at the home economics class and they were so good! He said that the teacher had appointed him and three other boys to bake them since all the other kids just mostly sit there. What a waste! I and hubby liked HE and so did the elder sons too.

Well, now I’m going to do some hula hooping and then sit in front of the telly with the cat for the rest of the evening.

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Visiting Stockholm

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By request I’m updating about our trip to Stockholm. Stockholm is a nice city, Sweden’s capitol. Stockholm and Helsinki have nice ferry cruises between them and on the cruise you can buy tax free shopping so it’s very popular in both countries I think. Finns buy cheap alcohol and Swedes the other things. The ship leaves on the evening, arrives to destination in the morning and leaves again in the evening so one has about 6 hours to visit the capitol cities at each end.

We usually make the cruise every spring and fall and use the VikingLine since hubby does some IT-things for them in the company he’s working. In Stockholm VikingLine is located a walking distance from the city centre and the shopping streets which is nice. The Stockholm Fotografiska is also on the route from the dock to city if it interests you. If you are a walking-kind of person the SiljaLine is also on easy walking distance but the underground trains are also easy from their dock.

This time we took a small ferry from Viking’s dock to Djurgården since it’s easier to travel between the small islands and walking to Djurgården takes almost an hour. Djurgården has many places to visit, i.e. the ABBA museum, Gröna Lund’s amusement park, Junibacken for everything Astrid Lindgren, Skansen’s outdoor museum and other things (i.e. Christmas market), Nordiska Museum and the Vasa Museum which we wanted to visit this time.

The Vasa museum consists of the ship Vasa which sank on it’s maiden voyage about 500 metres after leaving the dock. It was found in the late 60’s and now it’s been under conservation about 50 years. I’ve visited the Vasa first time in 1982 when it was still sort of outdoors experience, there was only a light shelter around it.

This time we spent few hours in the museum and then walked to the Old town which dates back to 13th century. I just adore it but it’s choked up with tourists (I don’t blame them). It has many nice little shops and cafeterias and it also hosts my favorite shop in Stockholm: The Sci-fi Bookshop. It’s a must for me since I can find books, films and tv-series there which are not available in Helsinki. There’s also lots of role playing games and things for them and anime and so on.

Finland and Sweden share a common history since Finland used to the Sweden’s dependency until Sweden gave it to Russia and that is probably why Finns feel a sort of envious towards Swedes. Sweden has also managed to avoid wars the last two hundred years unlike Finland.

Last December I spent some nights in Stockholm with my friend Mareetta. We were going to see BoyGeorge perform since Mareetta is a huge fan of his but the concert was cancelled. Mareetta got us invited to the shadow-Nobel literature price evening as she is a great fan of Alexandra Pascalidou, a Swedish columnist, television hostess and author, and we’ve been to watch a theater programme by her in Gothenburg.

Mareetta introduced me to a wonderful cafe called Mr. Cake in Stockholm and now also in Gothenburg. If you want to enjoy really great cakes and light lunch go there! We had cake overdose with Mareetta one night when we bought cakes to go so be careful. The ’Mr. Cakes’ themselves are Roy Fares who has made several cake books and is a cousin to film director Fares Fares and Mattias Ljungberg, several times awarded confectioner.

One other nice cafe is located in the Old town and it’s called Sten Sture, who was a real nobleman in the 15th century and the Lord Regent. The cafe is next to the Nobel Museum and it’s in the basement floor of the house. It used to be a prison in the 18th century. Unfortunately this time we couldn’t visit it since they were under construction, maybe next time will be better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’m alive

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I just haven’t been very active (anywhere).

Last week I took youngest one to Jyväskylä which is a city in Central Finland, about 60 km north from our summer cottage. My cousin lives there and some of my friends too so it was nice to go and see them.

Jyväskylä is quite an active city due to a long history as a University town and it also has a very lively artistic side, i.e. the Finnish Handicrafts Society’s Museum is located there (they have awesome things in their shop). There’s also a blacksmith and yarn shop in an old house near my cousins place.

The neighbouring city of Vaajakoski hosts one of Finland’s candy factories called Panda. (Yes, like the black and white bear from China.) My cousin drove us there and we shopped chocolate and liqorice and chocolate liqorice. In fact we have now a lot of candy since bought quite a lot from the trip to Stockholm too.

We also did an empiric study of the local cafés with youngest son. We didn’t even get into all of them since there are so many! Our favourite was a place called Miriam’s, it’s a family owned small place where the owner and her brother do the cakes them selves and they are so good!

One night we went to movies with youngest one, we watched The Joker which was pretty awesome. I had my suspicions about it but it was good.

On Sunday we took a train back home. It was so nice to see my cousin and her little son but it’s also very nice to be at home. My cousin’s son has a genetic disorder which is very rare, he is one of three boys to suffer of it. The pain made him a bit cranky in the evenings which is understandable but my cousin said it was like a holiday for her too to see us and I said to youngest son that he’ll get an inkling now what it is to be a big brother.

On Monday morning I went for a swim before getting to work and it was nice. I bought hand paddles some weeks ago and they are wonderful except my left shoulder was pretty painful the whole week. I couldn’t even laugh because of the pain. Tuesday I went for my Pilates lesson which I absolutely adore and it did good for the shoulder too.

In the evenings I’ve been watching Netflix and knitting. I’m soon finishing a scarf I had to unravel during summer, now it’s much better. I still need to do the buttonhole strip for the  Scull and Roses-cardi, it’s been much too warm to knit it.

I also visited the workplace-doctor one day since I think my thyroid has grown and it needs to be checked with ultrasound. This is the third year it’ll be checked. Last year there was a very grumpy doctor doing the ultrasound, he told me that I can’t possibly feel the thyroid grown 0.2mm and that it’d be left alone. Well, I think it’s grown again and so I’m going to the ultrasound again. I hope it’s not him again doing the check-up, the doctor writing the cover letter was a very nice lady who took my concern for real. I also gave blood samples since I’m sweating like a pig on and off and if it’s not thyroid it’s the menopausal heatwaves. Yeah, nice being a woman.

Oh well, I’m trying to get some sewing done during weekend and I’ll try to visit a friend who got her toes operated last week. Now I’m going to knit and watch telly with the cat.

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Overwhelmed

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This week has been quite a long one. I feel like I’m thrown to the deep end and I’m quite tired.

Firstly thete was the sword attack in the vocational school in Kuopio where a friend of mine lives so it came quite near.

Then youngest one had some trouble at school, it seems one of his teachers complains a lot about him so tpday I wrote an e-mail to the headmistress and that teacher and his own class teacher. I just need to know the teacher’s side of the story too but because we’ve had trouble before caused by a teacher I want yo be in the clear.

And now my cousin’s little boy, not yet three years old, has a very rsre bone condition in which the bones get brittle and break easily. There’s nothing to be done except physiotherapy and making sure he doesn’t suffer. He was born with bad heart, the left side of the heart is not fully developed and needs to be operated (if he lives). He is also waiting for liver transplant so my cousin and her son have already been through so much.

I’m just devastated. We are going there with youngest one in mid-October.

Overwhelmed

julkaissut Nokisuu

This week has been quite a long one. I feel like I’m thrown to the deep end and I’m quite tired.

Firstly thete was the sword attack in the vocational school in Kuopio where a friend of mine lives so it came quite near.

Then youngest one had some trouble at school, it seems one of his teachers complains a lot about him so tpday I wrote an e-mail to the headmistress and that teacher and his own class teacher. I just need to know the teacher’s side of the story too but because we’ve had trouble before caused by a teacher I want to be in the clear.

And now my cousin’s little boy, not yet three years old, has a very rare bone condition in which the bones get brittle and break easily. There’s nothing to be done except physiotherapy and making sure he doesn’t suffer. He was born with bad heart, the left side of the heart is not fully developed and needs to be operated (if he lives). He is also waiting for liver transplant so my cousin and her son have already been through so much.

I’m just devastated. We are going there with youngest one in mid-October.