Tag: spring

Loma

Kevät alkaa olla jo aika pitkällä ja ihanat valkoiset kukat kukkivat puissa. Silmua pukkaa joka paikkaan ja meidänkin pihalla kasvaa ainakin kolmenlaisia kukkia. Tänään pyöräilin töistä kotiin ilman hanskoja eikä palellut yhtään.

Jäin juuri lomalle. Seuraavan reilun viikon ajan aion:

  • Viettää laatuaikaa rakkaani kanssa, koska päiviimme tulee vihdoin mahtumaan muutakin kuin remonttia ja stressiä.
  • Syödä mm. pääsiäismunia, sushia, tavallista herkullisempaa aamiaista ja juoda kuplivaa.
  • Rentoutua oikein olan takaa.
  • Olla ajattelematta ja/tai ajatella mukavia asioita.
  • Lukea kirjaa.
  • Pelata.
  • Käydä kävelyllä, elokuvissa, ehkä myös katsomassa eläimiä.
  • Tehdä uudelleenjärjestelyä kotona.
  • Olla hiljaa ja/tai yksin silloin kun huvittaa.
  • Nauttia elämästä.

Voi olla, että teen jotain muutakin, tai ehkä jotain jää tekemättä. Aivan sama. Just nyt en jaksa olla vastuussa mistään, eikä onneksi tarvikaan.

All the Amusement

I have a long, serious post waiting in the wings for the right time to finish it, but yesterday deserves a post of its own. I was feeling pretty threadbare by the time Thursday came along, but it sure kickstarted my four-day mini-holiday in the most perfect way possible. We had decided that if the weather was favourable, we’d spend the day at Tivoli Friheden, since we got season cards (for free entry and some discounts) and one-time-use wristbands that give access to all the rides as a Christmas present from M’s parents. The day dawned with sun shining from a clear sky, and as all weather forecasts pretty much said that the day would be beautiful aside for some small showers in the afternoon, we headed to the fairground as soon as it opened.

None of the attractions were open quite yet, so we took a walk around the whole park to see what they had and what we definitely wanted to try. I knew from my visit to the Finnish tivoli last summer that my stomach doesn’t handle the wild rides quite as well as it used to, so I’d have to pace myself, and so the plan was to do one fast thing at a time and then do slower things until I’d feel up for another fast one, and this was fine with M. We chose Cobra as the first ride, and while it was way too short, we both enjoyed it immensely. It reminded me a great deal of the Demon in Copenhagen’s Tivoli, which I fell completely in love with on my visit there a few years ago. (Demon was better, but still.) After that we headed to the Haunted House, where we got to shoot up some zombies, and M got the second best score of the day. (My gun was broken, so it refused to shoot 3/4 of the time, which was really sad.)

On our walk around the park, M had remarked that on his last visit there some 10 years ago, he’d loved the Pegasus the most, so that’s where we headed next. It was one of the two attractions I was pretty sure would mess up my stomach because it rotates in all directions, but it also looked like a blast, so I definitely wanted to try it. The ride turned out to be absolutely squeal-worthy, but also perhaps just a tad too long, and by the time we got our feet back on the ground, I felt like a break was in order. Amusingly the plan was to hit the Ferris Wheel afterwards to calm us down, but that turned out to be a huge mistake. By the time we got to the top of the wheel, I felt more nauseous than I had after either of the fast rides, and M felt the same! I don’t quite know what caused it, but I think it was the fact that the little cabin we sat in kept swinging back and forth just a little bit, and somehow that was really causing motion sickness. Defeated by the Ferris Wheel… Didn’t see that coming!

By the time we got off the ride, we’d been in the park for some 1,5 hours and I felt like maybe some food was in order as that might settle my stomach a bit, so we went to eat chicken paninis for lunch. Generally amusement park food is overpriced and not particularly good quality, but the paninis were actually really big and tasty, so while the price was high, we at least didn’t feel cheated. The break did us good, too, so once we were done with eating, we were ready for some more amusement. We both still felt that we weren’t feeling quite as stable as when we started in the morning, so we decided to start slow, and hit the Illusions Factory. Which in hindsight wasn’t the best choice, as it’s all about optical illusions and such to mess with your head, and some of it was pretty effective, too. Nonetheless, fun was had, and once we were through, we felt up to giving the Wave Swinger a try. After some initial difficulties (including M banging me in the head with a metal bar and almost sliding off his side of the chair), we enjoyed it a lot, although it was one more thing to make our heads spin.

It was time to stay at ground level for a bit, so we headed for the fairly long queue for the Bumper Cars, as I figured the waiting time would be enough for my head to stop spinning. There was a short discussion about whether we should sit in the same car, but we both wanted the wheel (of course), so separate cars it was! I had a lot of fun chasing M around the arena, and he got a few good bumps in, too. Afterwards we figured we were up for another fast ride, so it was clearly time for the roller coaster. While we were queuing, we noticed there were some clouds gathering in the sky, and by the time The Hurricane took off, the first drops started falling. We enjoyed the ride, but afterwards it was time to find some shelter, as it started to rain a little harder.

We found a café that still had seats left, and opted for some Belgian waffles with ice cream and chocolate sauce with our coffee. The price was again pretty extravagant, but once we got the waffles, we had to admit they were worth it. They were warm, delicious and quite filling, and the ice cream on top was heaped so high I was seriously worried I wouldn’t be able to finish mine. By the time we were done with them, we were both so full it was pretty evident we wouldn’t be able to stomach another fast ride, and as it still kept raining, we decided to head home, all tired and happy.

The rest of the day was pretty lazy, and all in all I have to say it was just glorious. I felt more recharged than I have in weeks, and I still have three days left of my holiday! Today is all about cleaning the apartment and practicing for my upcoming Danish placement test, which is on Monday. Tomorrow we have some friends coming over, so I’m planning to bake pulla in the morning, and on Sunday I’m rather hoping we get to go and see the new Mad Max movie. Next week my dear friend S is coming to spend an extended weekend with us, which I’m really looking forward to, and we plan to watch the Eurovision Song Contest finale together, which I expect to be good fun.


I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the Danish spring so far. It all kicked off with a sudden realisation that there are these white, blooming trees everywhere in April even though nothing else had even leaves yet. We had a bunch of them just outside our living room window, and you could spot them all around the city. They dropped their flowers as suddenly as they got them, after which the first trees began sprouting green leaves, and little flowers began popping up here and there on the grassy spots. The weather has become steadily warmer since, and while it’s not quite summery yet, we’ve had a few days when sandals were definitely appropriate.

Lighter

I’m somewhat annoyed by the “weekly digest” format my posts have taken. Of course, currently the only likely alternative is to not write at all, but even so, I hope to eventually reach a point where actual themes emerge. Until then I suppose digests will have to do.


This week was pretty much as average a week as it gets. Work was busy but mostly quite successful, and the language course went well. The combination of work and studies left me really tired by the time we got to Thursday, but this, too, is entirely normal. I had Thursday evening free of all responsibilities, which gave me a bit of a reprieve (and the opportunity to make tiramisu, which I had planned for the Easter break but then postponed due to being sick), and on Friday I hit the gym after work.

We spent Saturday doing things that needed doing, such as packing away winterwear, washing laundry and doing other chores, and then had a lovely date night as counterbalance. Today it’s been even more laundry, M continuing to try to fix a laptop as a favour to a relative, and in the afternoon we’ve been invited for some coffee with a few of his friends I’ll be meeting for the first time. The normalcy of it all has been a relief after all the time spent being sick.

The common theme for the past nine months seems to be “no time”. Always in a hurry, always tired. Being sick so much has just exacerbated the issue, because it is such a horrible time sink. Everything has to be put on hold, be it work, language course, chores, or even the nice, relaxing things, because you don’t even have energy for those. Eventually even the nice things become a part of a giant, neverending To Do List. It’s only recently that I feel like life is less about crossing things off the list and more about actually living, and it feels awfully good. I think the ever-advancing spring has a lot to do with it, because it’s not like my life has substantially changed recently.


Lately I’ve been diving into my comic collection a lot, starting from re-reading Jeff Smith’s entire Bone saga (including Rose), the entire Sandman collection by Neil Gaiman, the first three volumes of Brian K. Vaughan’s Saga, and now all the Elfquests I own, which isn’t quite the entire collection, but a huge chunk of it, anyway. I’m planning on continuing to Joe Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza (which I haven’t actually read before), and then it would be nice to take a crack at the Valhalla series, since I got the first two volumes of the Den Samlede Saga editions in Danish as birthday presents this year. Good language practice, I’m sure! Beyond that, it just feels good to be reading again.

Getting Back on Track

I ended up being sick for my entire Easter holiday. M recovered a few days before I did, so he got a few not-quite-so-crappy days at the end of it, but I was sniffling and exhausted all the way until work started again. Needless to say, I was not happy, nor did I take it particularly gracefully. My misery was somewhat alleviated by a generous amount of chocolate eggs, but even those were just a band-aid. Nothing could replace the plans we had had, or the wasted beautiful sunny days during which we stayed indoors out of necessity. I was grumpy all through the next work week as well, since we started the month swamped and understaffed, but my mood got slightly better towards the weekend, and yesterday was already very enjoyable. I won’t get another stab at a proper holiday until July, but at least there are some extra days off sprinkled here and there in April and May, so that’ll help a bit.

Yesterday was the only day I could vote in the Finnish parliamentary elections, so as soon as the Honorary Consulate of Finland opened their doors for voters, we made our way there. After a successful (and blessedly short) voting experience, we headed to the city centre for a delicious sushi lunch and some yummy ice cream. We’d been invited for dinner at M’s parents’ place in the evening, so we spent several enjoyable hours there, after which we came home and pretty much went straight to bed.

Today was mostly about catching up with chores, so I finished the work-related translation assignment I started yesterday, after which we cleaned up the apartment, I did my Danish homework, and finally got to spend some quality leisure time by finishing Tomb Raider, which I really enjoyed. It’s also the only AAA single-player game I’ve managed to finish in several years… Dragon Age: Inquisition is currently gathering (proverbial) dust, as I lost interest fairly early on. There’s a number of other titles installed on my hard drive that I’ve either started but not finished or never even started, so hopefully this will be the start of a new era of being able to focus on a single game long enough to finish it.

It’s been a successful weekend, both in terms of having a good time and getting necessary things done, and I think I’ve finally purged the disappointment of the missed Easter holiday from my system. We’ve also made some (hopefully long-lasting and beneficial) changes in our diet and added some vitamin D supplements into the mix, so hopefully there will be less illness in the future. I’m really looking forward to being able to rely on my normal routines without being constantly interrupted by one calamity after another. Also, the weather seems to be getting warmer all the time, so I think it’s fair to say that spring is finally here and summer may be just around the corner! Can’t wait :)

Spring, Chocolate Eggs, Music!

Like I mentioned in the previous post, this week has been insanely hectic. A part of it was the training of a new colleague at work while still trying to make the end-of-the-month project deadline, which meant I was more tired than usually after workdays. Add in the language course evenings and a couple of other lengthy errands I had to run during the week, and suddenly my days were very long indeed. M was gone the entirety of Monday and Tuesday, and the previous weekend didn’t include much together-time, either, since he was embroiled in a forum update project that took the entire weekend (and wasn’t even completely successful, so it will take even more time in the future). By Friday I was pretty much a wreck.

I decided early on in the week that the weekend would be all about relaxing, and what better way to start it than using the Christmas gift card for champagne brunch for two (from M’s uncle and aunt) in an Italian restaurant on a beautiful Saturday morning! The weather was sunny and gorgeous, so I wore a skirt and a pair of high heels to celebrate spring. The food was delightful, and we had a terrific time. Afterwards we shopped for some Easter eggs for next week, and while my collection isn’t nearly complete yet, we did make a few good discoveries. I fully plan to sample all the different chocolate/marzipan eggs they have here to see which ones I like the best.

The rest of the day went by with both of us lazing about. I played some Guild Wars 2, we watched last week’s episode of Vikings and later a movie (Whiplash). It was just what I needed to let go of the week. Today I might even consider doing something useful… I still have one or two days of work next week, but the rest of it is definitely off, and the language course is also on a break for a week and a half. I’m so looking forward to a little spring break!

In other, completely unrelated news, I’ve been listening to Von Hertzen Brothers’ new album New Day Rising on Spotify. I liked their first album quite a bit, but after that (and especially following one really unimpressive festival gig that left me completely cold) I sort of lost interest in the band altogether. I was really surprised to discover I like the new album a lot. For now it has completely replaced my other recent favourite (Say Lou Lou’s Lucid Dreaming), which continues my current trend of falling in love with female Nordic electro-pop artists for reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me, but hey, if it works.

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