travelling – Nokisuu

Quick one

31.10.202231.10.2022 julkaissut Nokisuu

This is just a quick post because I realized that October is ending and I haven’t written anything since mid-September.

I have been busy at work but as the school’s here have a so-called Fall leave in mid-October and my workplace is a school so I took the week off.

As DH didn’t have leave I went to summer cottage with eldest and youngest son. We managed to get the cottage warm even thou I forgot to take newspapers with us. We had nice time, went to sauna on both nights and managed to do the couple of things we were meant to; turn the row boat upside down and put locks on the barn doors.

Me and DH need to drive there once more since I forgot to close the fireplace dampers… Don’t ask how.

Then I took youngest son to Stockholm by ferry and it was nice. We had good food, ate breakfast at Mr Cake and visited our fave shop Scifi bokhandeln in the Old city. We also visited the Stockholm City public library’s main building which is very pretty.

About Mr Cake, if you’re familiar with the name Josef Fares or Fares Fares, Swedish actor and director brothers, Mr Cake’s owner Roy Fares is their cousin. I must say the Fares’ brothers movies are quite funny and I think Fares Fares was in the Westworld too.

Now we’ve turned the clocks towards wintertime and darkness approaches in other ways too.

I wonder what will happen with Twitter so I made myself an account on mastodon.social. You’ll find me there by this alias too, as I’m everywhere with it.

Here’s a pic from last night. My friend and I did a short roadtrip to seaside and Tammisaari and enjoyed the views.

Gothenburg in fall

20.11.2021 julkaissut Nokisuu

So far I’ve been to Gothenburg twice. The earlier trip was a theater visit in February 2017 when we met a Swedish media person Alexandra Pascalidou. She is a lovely lady and a great fan of public libraries. Mareetta knows her and so I’ve met her couple of times too.

Back to Gothenburg. It’s the second largest city in Sweden and a very nice one. It feels different to Stockholm and has lovely old city and city centre.

On Friday we landed around noon and then took the airport bus to our hotel near the Central station, found our room and relaxed for a while. Then we took a walk, visited a local mini library and continued to the Mr Cake cafe and had late lunch which was very good. We had first thought only to eat a light lunch there and go to dinner later but afterwards we decided to skip dinner all together.

View from our room to the central station

We walked a bit on the shore side and went back to the hotel via grocery shop and bought something to the hotel room. Had a little lie down at the hotel and then left for the Scandinavium which was packed, there was 11 000 people. The crowds were quickly inside the arena and we found our places on the floor and the concert begun right on time. The Swedes are awesome in sing-alongs so it was great to be part of that. We were back at the hotel before midnight and watched a bit of tv before turning in.

On Saturday we slept a bit later, bought day tickets to the public transport system and took a tram to Mr Cake for breakfast but they didn’t have any so we ate a lunch, I had a lovely warm beetroot salad with goat cheese and as dessert I had a red velvet croissant. With our bellies full we took a tram to a record shop Mareetta wanted to visit. We got there and noticed people gathering around the walls in the shop floor but didn’t think much of it. Mareetta went on a hunt mode and I found two unwrapped Prince dvd’s (Purple rain and Graffiti bridge, I only have PR copied from a library dvd) and bought those. The people were queuing for a signing, a Swedish musician Thåström was there to sign his newest album and the masses queued around the block when we got out of the store.

We took a tram to the city centre and went to Science Fiction bokhandeln (bookshop) which I love, I always visit it in Stockholm and here they had better collection than in Stockholm month ago so I found a lot of books but bought only three from there. Tough choices had to be done.. Afterwards we were getting pretty tired so we decided to go to the shopping mall.

There we did a cursory round around the clothes shops but then went to the grocery store again and bought things to eat at the hotel room. We wanted to watch the Swedish music programme ’So much better’ (in Finland it’s called Just life and I absolutely loath it) and not move a muscle. It was good plan and we almost peed our pants when I tried to make us coffee with the Nespresso machine, I managed it in the end luckily.

On Sunday we had breakfast at the hotel and packed our things and then bought another day ticket and took trams to different parts of the city. One tram took us to the south to Mölndal and we found a big supermarket and did some gift shopping there.We bought some sweet buns and cake from Mr Cake to take home too. On the way back to hotel we had dinner and found another bookshop where I bought one book and Mareetta bought Christmas cards.

We managed to get most of our stuff into our bags and then took a taxi to the airport where we were in really good time. We had late flight and then my electronic boarding pass didn’t load so we had to wait on the counter to get it fixed before going through the security check. Afterwards we had coffee in the mostly shut down airport and I bought a pair of Dala häst ear rings from the gift shop as on the last visit I had not bought them and regretted it since.

We were back in Helsinki around midnight and Darling Hubby was waiting for us. I was happy to be at home.

Day trippin’

29.6.2020 julkaissut Nokisuu

We did a short day trip today to a nearby old ironworks factory called Ruotsinpyhtää or Strömfors in Swedish. The village was chosen for ’the Village of the year’ in 2018. The factory dates back to 18th century and is an idyllic place to visit. There is a smith show on Wednesdays which is nice imo.

The old church has an altarpiece painted by Helene Shjerfbeck but unfortunately the church was closed when we visited. There were some interesting looking fir trees outside and the WWII soldier’s cemetery is always nice to browse and meditate for a bit. You can spot them in every village and city you visit here in Finland.

There was some art exhibition in the old stables and some of the pieces were really nice but I haven’t yet won the lottery so had to leave them there. Afterwards we walked to a lunch restaurant which served a really good lunch and then headed home.

One night in London

27.1.202027.1.2020 julkaissut Nokisuu

and the world’s your oyster.

See what I did there? A terrible earworm but wrong city. So our trip to London was quick but very efficient.

On Friday we landed at 9 am to Heathrow and then took the tube to our hotel near Tottenham Court Road. A lovely hotel I might add. We got our room right away and took a little respite to think about what to do.

Since my friend M wanted to go shopping music we took the tube to Shepherd’s Bush and found HMV in Westfield shopping centre. Oh my. I’ve never seen such a huge shopping centre and believe me I’ve seen some pretty huge ones in USA too. I was awed. It was beautiful and nice and there wasn’t the horrible background music everywhere (or at least I didn’t hear it).

In HMV I left M roam free the cd’s and browsed some BR’s and other stuff. I found Doctor Who 11th season and Prince collector’s CD box and when I had paid for them I also found the book about Prince I’ve been looking for.

After HMV was searched through we went for late lunch and then did a quick round in H&M and M&S since they were close by. On our way back to the tube we bought some nice supply of delicacies to our hotel room to eat before the theater. We had thought about meeting some other fans (R) but decided not to and rested instead.

After the play we came back to the hotel and collapsed. In the morning we had a wonderful breakfast (I’ve never had such beautiful breakfast in any hotel). Then we went shopping to Foyles and Forbidden Planet and Primark. I bought (only) six books and found some nice t-shirts and we had nice coffee break too. On our way to hotel we found another music shop and I bought two movies. Afterwards we had some fun times trying to fit all our shopping into our bags..

We had nice late lunch at TAS next to our hotel and then collected our bags and left to Heathrow. In the tube we got so sleepy we tried to find the owls in the ad (below).

We had just enough time to do some quick airport shopping and sit a while until boarding and arrived to Helsinki around midnight. Hubby was waiting for us and we drove my friend M to her parents house and then came home and I went straight to bed.

A nice little trip to London, it felt like I had been there longer and I’m quite happy now. I’ve always loved London, when I was 17 and visited it for the first time I felt like coming home.

Halfway

19.1.202019.1.2020 julkaissut Nokisuu

through January already. I feel like time is going faster but it might be because I’ve had busy times again.

At my work the courses have begun again and so we’ve got lectures and classes in the library almost every day too. Also finally on Tuesday they called me from the University Hospital about my thyroid and I had an appointment on Thursday with the surgeon. She said they’d like to operate it during this spring and I said that suits me well. Then the nurse interviewed me and I told I’m available for cancelled times so it may be I’ll get the operation quickly but latest in June. She praised me for having filled the pre-questionnaire very effectively and when she asked my BP I had it ready on my journal since I’ve been trying to keep track of it and she was so happy. It was funny. The trip to the hospital isn’t funny because it’s on the other side of the metropolitan area and it takes about one hour and a quarter to get there by public transport but luckily now I can at least take the underground train half of the journey.

On Friday I had two meetings at work, first was for all of our full-time employees and later I took part to the Union reps meeting where I signed the papers to be available in the reps elections. I had thought not to take part but otoh I find it interesting so I said yes when they asked. After the meeting I met my friend Heidi in the city centre and we had nice coffee and cake.

On the next Friday I’ll be in London to see Uncle Vanya. I’m already so excited that I try not to think about it so I can sleep during the night. My friend said just the same today as we talked about the trip. We’ll be in London only one night but it’s nice to have a mini-holiday. I already have plans for doing a bookshop-run and also some clothesshopping.

I’m knitting a pair of socks to give to Toby Jones, I really liked him in Marvel movies. I have already knit a pair for RA and he has said he doesn’t want them anymore which I can well understand. He only has two feet after all. I’m thinking about buying a copy of Uncle Vanya in Finnish and take it with me to London and get RA’s signature on it, it’d be nice since I have his signature on my The Crucible too.

I’m watching Money Heist while knitting, it’s very good. Only I don’t like they’ve dubbed it in English because their faces don’t match the sentences and it bothers me. We are having dinner soon, I’m so glad middlest son and hubby are cooking because I don’t have the energy right now and middlest wanted to do chicken curry which is his fave dish to cook and he does it well.

Visiting Stockholm

26.10.201926.10.2019 julkaissut Nokisuu

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 should

11.5.201911.5.2019 julkaissut Nokisuu

There’s quite a list I should be doing but instead I’m just sitting here and staring at the net. I’m so tired. It was my first full week back to work since during wintertime I work only four days per week due to the indoors air problems I have. Since it’s been colder outdoors we must keep the rooms warmer and so I get more symptoms again, just like in the fall when the heating period begins.

Yesterday I met my good friend after work and we had coffee at one of the oldest bookstores in Helsinki. It’s one of our fave cafes and I love their tuna salad. There’s also the great thing of browsing books before and after coffee.

Before I met my friend I visited a fabric shop nearby and bought some cloth for swimming suit. I have a good tankini pattern with which I made one tankini for myself last spring but I need to check if it still fits me and besides it’s not an awful thought to have two tankini’s for Hawaii right?

I checked some other fabrics too and took a pic of one which had horrible pattern on it. My friend said it’d look like an ad for STD if one were to sew trousers of it (I had the same thought).

At work one of our head teachers is leaving for another job, he got headmaster’s place from a private adult education school nearby ours. I’m glad he leaves, he is a bit narcisstic so everything that doesn’t go like he wanted is wrong. It’s quite annoying and it sucks all positive energy out. When one talks with him it’s always about him, never about you or what you’d like. So tiring.

Middlest son’s gf is coming with us to Hawaii and we asked if her parents would like to come for a coffee or something to our house to see that we are not a pair of serial killers and she laughed and said they won’t since they are so introverted. I looked at hubby who looked back at me and we both heaved a huge sigh because we are both terrible introverts.

I had my dentist appointment earlier this week. It was nice since I like him a lot (still). I used to have a huge crush on him and he looked like Karl Urban’s brother which wasn’t bad thing. Of course now we are both older but he’s very nice man still. Before I found him I was terrified of dentists but he helped me to conquer that fear just by being kind and telling and showing what he was doing and why and took my fear for real.

I’m rewatching Broadchurch and now I’m on season 2. It’s good the weather has stayed cold since I’m knitting my cardi and it gets really hot with all that wool on my lap and the cat on my side.

2019-05-11 16.12.44 - Copy — One third of the colourwork ready.

On my to-do-list I have also letters to write, art journaling to do, beginning a new quilt for which I’ve had all stuff ready the whole winter..

Well.. there’s time. I’m off to Broadchurch now.