Haloo Helsinki!

Hey People,

I am sorry I did not update the blog for a while, I was busy studying economics... Seriously. Hmm and also other things, such as cleaning my appartement, e.g. picking up a broken bowl from the floor. The bowl was broken by a squirell, who came inside our appartment and was chased by the cat. Amazing, isn't it. This is because we keep the balcony door open all the time for to enjoy nice whether that is now in Helsinki. Today we plan to grill or do sth biking outside. 

Helsinki is such a cool place to live, I gotta admit. As we talked yesterday with my friend, you don't appreciate it until you go abroad and then say that in Helsinki people do cross country skiing all the time or go swim in the sea in May to get rid off winter fur'... These are not the things that people elesewhere normally do, but these are really cool things that I like to do. 

As you, as a foreigner start living in Helsinki, you notice that you take all these awesome green spaces for granted, although people in other capital cities often do not have such a luxury... I for example leave still in the are of Helsinki, but like 50 m from an awesome forest where one can cycle, walk, pick up berries in the summer (last year we found raspberries, blueberries and even wild strawberries!). 

There is also a really cool hill - Malminkartanonhuippu next to us, which is pretty high - 90 m above see level- and it is the highest point in Helsinki. It is a great place to walk, jog, slide or even learn how to parachute.

It is my absolute favourite place in the neighbourhood. I guess this is because I am a mountain girl :) It also gets pretty windy in there sometimes...

Other super nice places in Helsinki are parks. As I mentioned, there are many parks in here, so there is always somewhere to go for a picnic :) Here are some pics from one of the picnics. If I remember correctly it was in Töölönlahti. 

Dogs enjoy this park too. As you can see I also like dogs, beside cats :) Below two dogs of my friends: 

I love picnics. Everyone brings some good food and some (a lot of ;)) wine.

Some of my other favourite places include the island of Seurasaari. I only have few pics from there but there is much more fun to experience in that charming place. There is a cool museum and some middle-age happening...

Below is the night view to the sea.

The best spot in Seurasaari is this spooky restaurant tough... Outside:

And inside:

 

Of course one cannot forget about other cool islands. There are approx. 300 islands around Helsinki! Here is other big one - Suomenlinna. Some pictures from there:

The island is protected by UNESCO as it has some cool old fortresses... :)

 

Next, pictures from the city centre. 

Tuomiokirkko - I have a great pleasure to work just next to it.

And here is the church @ night

This is how the church looks like from the inside:

And two pics from the inside of Uspensky cathedral, an orthodox church:

 ad astra!

just love these details...

Finally, some pics from my favourite walk destinations. The harbour:

This bike represents people from Southern Ostrobothnia because it has these specific pattern, that had been used by The Dudesons - a famous stuntman group from Finland. It is also a JOPO (my dream brand of bike).

 Ah, I wish I could live in such a house one day... When I win in Lotto ;) I should play today! I have a good luck following me right now. I won 6 euros on one of those automates :P

There are some older boats in the harbour:

and some newer ones too:

View on Katajanokka, the fancy area in Helsinki and on Merihaka, the coolest block of flats ever.

Some enormous turbine: 

Now you may understand why I love Helsinki sooooooo much and do not wanna move anywhere. Not to Tampere, not to Warsaw. I wanna stay here.

Oh, I forgot the train station and these nice sculptures called stone men. I walk by them every day as I need to take a train to commute to work. 

These men are super popular in Finland as they appear in all of the commercials and advertisements of Finnish rail. 




Here is a pic of them in Linnanmäki, Helsinki's amusement park.

And a video on youtube (commercial): Kivimiehet

Hope you enjoyed my trip in Helsinki. Please feel free to join my adventures and come visit me if you are not from here. We could go have a beer in some nice park....

or go outside of the city and njoy the nearest National Park - Nuuksio :)

Cat(o)holic

As you probably already noticed - I am a cat person. I love dogs too, but for some reason cats had always been on my mind more than dogs. According to my father, I had always been a cat person, he recalled my childhood where I had been driving kittens in a stroller... No comments :D At home, in Zakopane, we always had cats. We had two dogs as well, but we had many cats as often they were run over by car or sth, as they went outside just by themselves :(

As and 'adult' I decided to have my own cat too. Did not want to listen to my Mom who said that now I won't be able to travel as much (which is very much true...). After I had one cat (Leo), I took another one. Again, did not listen to my Mom who said that two boys (we took Jesper who is a year younger than Leo) may not work out (of course she was right). To make a long story short - we had wonderful time altogether, until recently when the cats started to fight for real (Leo attacked the other male cat as felt very male) and we had to give Jesper away. He now lives in the country side at my Mother-in-Law home, has two other friends and kills some mouses.. So we can visit him sometimes :) But I really really miss him as he is my baby ;(

 

here is me & Jesper

 

 

Leo yawning :)

 

Leo when he was just a kitten

 

 

Jesper practising yoga 

Cute sleepy Jesper

 

 A long time ago we used to be friends...

 

 litte ball Leo

I do not however regret any moment spent with any of my cats. I learned a lot about cats for these three years and cats are not easy animals to deal with. Each of them has its own personality and sometimes it is impossible to change it. Some are more huggy and some are less. Some can jump high and some are super fast hunters. Cats are unique, just as people are. It is not true cats do not get attached to people, however they do get attached a lot to their environment. Cats like to play a lot, especially when they do not go outside, however some people tend to forget about it. 

So I am a Cat(o)holic and I admit it. People now buy me cat-stuff as birthday gifts and I like it :) Here are some of the stuffs I got. Believe me, there is much much more... :)

a) card for International Childrens' Day from a friend:

 

b) cute notebook from another friend:

 

c) cats in our bedroom (as now our real cats are separated, these seemed to get far away from each other too!): 

 

d) some self-made stuff: 

 

 e) cat earrings!

f) wild cat made by Zuuuu :)

g) wooden cats from Greece:

SO BEWARE OF THE CATS and stay tuned!

Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150968117069430&set=a.208444919429.130095.5872699429&type=1&theater

Travel memories

All this stuff I pictured here reminds me of some of recent beautiful travels... I wanna go somewhere nice again, but at this very moment I don't even have time to do this because of work, exams and sick cat ;( 

I hope that soon I will be able to go somewhere far away again so as to feed my travel monster. In the meantime, here are some pics of the stuff brought from my travels and then some pics of the places the stuff came from.

1. Cape Town

I wish I could be there now! So sunny and beautiful in the harbour! After a trip to Robben's Island, where Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners where kept, Me and my friend headed to a nearby shop. It was forbidden to take pics, but of course I did not notice that. The shop looked like this:

 And here are my souvenirs from that shop:


a) the most awesome pillow in the world

b) stuff for salads

c) some cool cheetah 

2. Greece

I miss Greece. And especially because as we went there for honeymoon on 2010, shortly after that my laptop broke and we lost ALL of the pics... Here are some that I managed to save elsewhere. 

Ah the island of Paros :)

 

And some souvenir from there too:

What is cool about Greece are cats. Cats everyone :) However some of them are homeless and unhappy. Fortunately these two seemed pretty content :)

 

 And this one:

And some more pic from Greece.I really like to take pictures of some details. These door handle is taken from one of the oldest Christian churches in the world (Athens). I think these birds are cool, or are these even birds?

Finally some old Greek art. Always classy :)

3. Munich 

I have been there only one day, but totally felt in love with it. Do not have any souvenirs from there (I only bought chocolates that were immediately consumed..) but have a lot of great pics. Will definitely come back to Munich!

As there were some cats, now it's time for rats ;)

  

There is nothing like a sunny day in Munich!

but shadow is appreciated too...

Here are some cool details that I managed to find on one of the main streets of Munich (note that I was there just before Oktoberfest!): 

a) an awesome colourful dress

 

b) lots of flowers. I just love the smell of flowers as you walk next to such a stand

 

c) some home decorations 

d) pretzel-earrings? lol

 

I hope you enjoyed this little trip with me. STAY TUNED!