I'm back!

Airport Mojito

Sooo... Spring break is over. Here's a brief summary of my adventure mostly in pictures. 

I left Vancouver on Friday (April 24th) in the afternoon, flew over 9 hours to Frankfurth, Germany and a couple more hours to Helsinki, Finland, where I landed on Saturday afternoon and then rushed home to Porvoo to quickly change my clothes and slap on some make up and with absolutely no sleep and poor nutrition I hurried to a party. A birthday party. My birthday party. Well, mine and two of my friends'. It was also a theme party. A Super Hero party. It was pretty awesome. For what I remember... 

"Homework"

Right now this is the only picture I have from the party....

Got the cutest little "survial kit"

Gooooood morning..

Sunday morning around 4am I crawled home with a pizza, ate it, tried to sleep, failed, got out of bed around 10am and drove back to the party place for the after party -clean up and then back home to celebrate my birthday with my family. Monday morning at 4am I hopped in a taxi and drove back to the airport to catch a 6am flight to Spain.

So here come the pictures... 

By the time I got to Spain I was spewing phlegm and coughing my lungs out. Not too nice. The very first thing I did in Spain was shopping. A lot of shopping... At a mall called Habaneras. On Monday I also had my first attempt to get a tan. Did ot succeed. 

Torrrreviejaaaaaa

 Tuesday was my actual birthday. I went to the beach and strolling around the streets of Torrevieja.

 

3 beers + 1 wine = 4,10€

Wednesday, beach day

Freckles.

On Thursday I fell asleep on the rooftop and managed to sun-burn my ass... It still hurts.

Ok, so in Finland we have this thing called "Vappu" also known to some as "May day" as in the first of May, but basically Vappu is the Finnish Labour day. This means a lot of partying to us Finns. Secondary school graduates wear their white graduation hats and jug down sima and sparkling wine. Most Finns start the celebration on the evening of April 30th and continue all through to the next day. This year was the first time ever that I was out of Finland on April 30th but that didn't stop me from drinking.

But instead of Sima I had Sangria.

May 1st I was back in Finland having traditional Vappu -lunch with my family.

Me, mom and my cousin.

Got me some tax-free things...

 Saturday was a lot of sleeping and packing and on Sunday morning I started my journey back to Vancouver. Lemme just tell ya: over 13 hours in a plane with a sunburned ass and a cold is not fun. Not fun at all! 

So pretty!

Downtown Vancouver from the plane.

 Before I left I had this solid plan to document my trip, but I seem to have forgotten about this for the most part... Here's all I got:

Christmas in Finland

I left Vancouver exactly one week ago on Sunday and arrived in Finland on Monday. All the flights were on time and the whole trip went very well. Tomorrow I head back to Vancouver and if everything goes well I'll be there around 4PM on Monday. The week has been busy but also a hella lot of fun! Almost felt like no time had passed at all since I left. Except for the weather.                                                                                

The YVR Airport

Free wine on the plane!

 Felt strange to be back in my old room. Everything was exactly as I left it.

BTW Santa Claus you can retire now.. I've got this!

 On Tuesday morning me and my mom went shopping to Old Town Porvoo.

Porvoo Old town

Café Helmi

True.

 After we got home two of my best friends came over to help decorate our Christmas tree.

The lovely ladies Emma and Maria.

Working on our masterpiece.

Tadaaa!

And this gingerbread tree was made by Emma. Cute as fuck, eh!

 Christmas Eve

The jet lag hit me pretty hard and I did not get any sleep the night before Christmas eve so I was wide awake in the morning when Joulupukin kuumalinja (the Santa Claus hotline) started. It's a live broadcast where kids get to call Santa and talk to him on TV and it's something one just simply must watch every Christmas!

Santa!!!

 Like every Christmas we went to the cemetery to bring candles to those we have lost. Every year it's cold as balls and this time it even started snowing sideways. But the sight, as always was, beautiful!

Soldiers graves.

Photo by: mom

The Declaration of the Christmas Peace. And all the snow. Photo by mom.

 Because of the cold as balls and sideways-snow I skipped the Declaration of the Christmas peace and headed home to curl my hair and take too many selfies before the Christmas dinner.

#toomanyselfies

 The big dinner took place at my grandparents' house with the whole family. Me and my cousins (the picture on the left) started the night with a game of Cards against humanity. We figured since we've been pretty naughty all year long it wouldn't hurt. 

My grandma had prepared an amazing dinner with all the traditional Christmas foods. The first round is always fish. Salmon (smoked and gravlax), roe, potatoes and eggs. The second round is casseroles (carrot, potato, turnip etc) and the ham.

After the dinner we share the presents. One of us starts and puts on the Santa hat and randomly chooses a present, reads out loud who it's for and brings it to them. Then the one who got the present puts on the hat and picks a present etc. Only after we've gone through all the presents we start opening them.

 After the presents it was time for dessert and at midnight me and my cousins went to church. The midnight service was as beautiful as always and it never fails to make me feel like Christmas.

Christmas Day

On Christmas day we had dinner at my mom's with my grandparents. And then shit got real. A whole bunch of my favorite peeps came over for a pre-party. See, in Finland we spend the Christmas eve with our family, all formal, but on Christmas day we party. Hard. 

In my hometown there are two bar/nightclubs and we ended up having a heated debate on which one to go to. Most of us went to Amarillo because the line to Seurahovi was simply too long.

My lovelies!

 After a decent amount of karaoke and dancing we hopped on a taxi and drove to my dad's house where we spent the next day and night baking Karelian pies, eating, drinking, going to sauna and watching old episodes from a TV show called STAGE. Why? Because once upon 4 years ago we were on it.

"Nice and quiet" dinner with them crazies.

A very special Christmas present from Alaska! Stage-Kake!

We're on TV ya'll!

More pics of the good old times here.

#TB to the Stage

 Kinda crazy. 4 years ago we barely knew each other and now we live in different cities (and in some cases, different countries) but after the amazing experience that STAGE was we're still friends and have reunions and parties like we were never apart.

Home.

I had an absolutely amazing week here in Finland but I'm still excited to go back to Vancouver and start off a new year with the awesome people there. 

Iiris the cat.

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!