Winds of change are blowing my way

Summer is almost gone (but never forgotten!), I'm eating ice cream and writing this blog post on my balcony. Life is pretty great at this moment. I have so much to tell you!

Where should I begin? The major news? Yes! Guys, I got into school! I've started to study Hospitality Management in Tampere University of Applied Sciences just two days ago! I'm really happy that I got in and my class is awesome. I've had lots of fun with them already and even though tonight I'm taking a day off of group activities, I'll catch up when I get back from NYC.

Summer went... well while working. So nothing new I guess.

And let's take a small throwback to last weekend. I spent the last weekend in Helsinki attending my dear friend Kipa's surprise baby shower! I baked a cake for her and kept her busy while the others went to her apartment and decorated it. At the same time we were looking out for possible shots for a baby bump photoshoot we were planning on doing. The party was successful and in the evening we left to Vallila to take some photos of the mom-to-be (and the dad-to-be). I stayed the night and on Sunday we continued with Kipa by heading off to Alppiruusupuisto (Rhododendron Park) to take some more pictures that turned out to be just gorgeous, even though the blooming season had been long gone.

So... New York City is waiting for me in only two days! Honestly I'm so excited and terrified at the same time. This will be the first trip I'm doing completely solo. I already have so much planned!

Let's just say that I have hop-on hop-off bus tour, new york city pass (with admission to 6 attractions), helicopter ride over manhattan, a course at magnolia bakery and the cherry on top: wicked on broadway. I've been planning a lot like what to do and what to see on each day, since the NYC pass has attractions that obviously will have queues (even though some give you the opportunity to skip them). So the plans kind of... live through the trip.

I'm also waiting for Monday's welcome party at my hostel and meeting all the new people. I'm hoping that everything will go well and I don't lose stuff (or forget to pack something essential with me).

Alright, so next time I'll write I'll probably be in New York already. So until then!

Life is sweet - enjoy the little things

 

This evening, around 10PM I took my dog out and got all the summery feels from the blooming bushes and trees outside. Then I sat for another half an hour at my balcony, eating a cone of ice cream and just appreciating how nice that felt. My home, my balcony, my life. How many people do that? Just sit down, feel what your feeling, appreciate that feeling and try to remember how that felt for the rest of your life? Because I do. I do remember those little moments, I think of them everytime I'm going through something or if I'm sad or angry. I try to remember those good moments that didn't necessarily take a lot. Maybe just the smell of flowers, warm summer night weather, staring at the partially cloudy sky and eating ice cream.

I've been jamming a lot to Justin Timberlake's "Can't Stop The Feeling", which I found out, is actually perfect song for summer in general. Makes me wanna dance whenever I hear it (and yes I've kinda done that in work, my colleagues will prove that).

I have a feeling that this summer is going to be great. 

Last Saturday I hosted my 2nd homewarming party. The first was on April 16th for my colleagues from work and this one was for all of my friends so there was about 25 people packed into my small apartment. We had lots of fun, watched hockey (sadly Finland won all the other games but the final so silver for us... once again) and eventually ended evening in a bar. Where I finally found my courage to sing karaoke.

 

And to other things. I actually got a new camera Canon EOS M, which is way smaller than my #1 camera. However, my Canon EOS 60D is actually so damn heavy to carry around everywhere to actually make it my everyday camera, I decided that it was time to get a second, smaller one but with the same kind of qualities (cause honestly me and pocket cameras are a disaster!). Now I've got it going with me to New York.

I also booked tickets to see WICKED ON BROADWAY. Guys, I'm so excited right now! I'm also gonna see Finding Neverland, but I haven't booked the tickets just yet. And of course I'm trying very hard to get tickets to see Jimmy Fallon bc he's my favorite talk show host ever. Aside from Ellen Degeneres. Oh there are so many things I would want to do and so little time. I booked my accommodation from a very nice hostel in Upper West Side in a dorm of 6 females. So this is really my first time for everything - first time traveling completely alone, first time in New York, first time in a dorm with 5 other people (or less, but we'll see). However, I'm becoming more and more excited about this everyday.

So yes, life is what you make it. I've always been a person who wants to live and explore, even if I've always been scared of doing it alone. But I'm really not. Not anymore. I might be carefree and I don't take life seriously (or like my mom tends to say; you have no clue how life works). Maybe I do, maybe I don't. But I will figure it out. Because after all it's my life and it's my world. And I'm trying to make the best of it everyday. Try it if you haven't. You might be surprised.

love,

Her name was New York

It feels so unreal. It was only about six months ago when I was planning a trip to Paris with my godson and his family but plans changed due to some miscommunication. So about half an hour ago I booked flights to New York! 

This trip is first of sorts for me. First of all, my first trip to New York. I fell in love with Los Angeles and I think the same will happen here. Second of all, this is my first trip alone. Or well, when I went to Ireland I went alone too but... not alone. I had support from other exchange students and I made some great friends while I was there too. But this time it will be just me, myself and I.

Seeing New York, just like seeing Los Angeles, is on my bucket list. Another thing on my bucket list: seeing a Wicked on Broadway. So yes, I'm going to do exactly that. And if I'm lucky enough, I'll be seeing Finding Neverland as well. I've been in love with that since I found out that Matthew Morrison is playing J.M. Barrie in the Broadway version. And while he isn't performing anymore, it is still a great play with great songs so I'm truly hoping that I am that lucky indeed.

For now, I don't really have any solid plans. For the first time I'm able to see what it is to actually travel alone and I'm half excited and half terrified about it. I'm a social person but also sort of shy. However, I don't have problem in opening my mouth if the situation needs it. But I know I'll be fine. Right now there's butterflies in my stomach.

Lately I've kind of thought about life and just decided to reach out for my dreams (well, those that are reachable). Seeing New York being one of them. Seeing Empire State Building, Broadway, Times Square, Madison Square Garden and the Statue of Liberty. And well, shopping of course. Money's just money, you work hard and you get it, but experiences are priceless. Seeing world is priceless. While I might not be a millionaire or rich, I save up and when I have enough, I go somewhere. I'd lose my head if I got stuck here at home for the whole summer.

So now, dear readers, I need tips! Tell me places that I need to see, shops I need to visit, how to work the NYC subway (and what kind of card to buy if I'm there for a week), how to get from Newark to Manhattan, where to get cheap(er) Broadway tickets etc. I literally want to hear about everything!

love,

Looks like home to me

A new post in a while. I apologize for being MIA, but my work schedule got crazy busy and I had no energy to do anything after work. Things are looking much sunnier right now - SPRING IS HERE.

Oh yeah I probably didn't mention - in the end of october I took my friend to a Scooter's gig in Helsinki after winning two tickets from a radio station competition. I actually called in to participate in this celebrity imitation game, where the hosts each imitate one celebrity and usually you have to have two out of three right to win the prize (usually a cd or something like that). It came as a total surprise that they had added Scooter tickets to that prize and this time I had to get all three of them right. Which made me nervous since I heard them practice their imitation earlier that morning but didn't really have a clue on the third. But then it hit me when I heard it the second time. And I won.

Scooter, oh Scooter. God I feel so old since I danced to their songs in school discos when I was in elementary school and so forth. Good memories, good memories.

But, back to the apartment!

Everything is in place and I should be able to move in in no time! The fact that this renovation has been going on for 9 months is ridiculous but two months are explained with waiting for my kitchen cupboards and everything and one month is explained when a water leakage from upstairs damaged my kitchen a bit so we had to take one cupboard off, let it dry and paint it over again plus add new tapestry. Now it's finally done, the only things lagging are the wall decals and paintings. I've been moving my belongings into my new home slowly, but now I've got most of my stuff in there and still some room in my cupboards/closet. Which is kind of odd considering how much clothes and other things I actually have...

Anyway, let's look at some photos (straight from my instagram so you might've seen this earlier):

My kitchen is probably the best room in my home. The first photo was taken a couple of days ago and the second one was taken before I had moved any stuff in. I have this lovely manual kitchen scale (on top of the digital one I have) from this lovely store in Vammala called Casa Rosalin. I also bought a lot of other stuff there. The bread tin is from Click Store in Ideapark (Jamie Oliver) and Smeg toaster is from Gigantti. I'm still missing my stand mixer but it's on its way! Cause you know what? I'm going to have KitchenAid Artisan mixer in pink and I can't wait to get that baby home!

My dog's at home in the chair though. Alright so living room. Sadly my mother had my couch and chair covered since my dog was there and her fur is everywhere. However, I've decide myself that those will come off and I'll just vacuum the chair and couch if she sheds. No big deal.

 

So my living room is green as you might see. My chair is more... purplish than my couch but they kind of fit together. Altogether I wanted to make this room kind of relaxing and energetic at the same time, hence the colors. All the cabinets are white though and all of them are from Laulumaa. The table is also from there. Couch is from Ikea and I was super lucky to get it! There were only two left in that particular color. I didn't want white or light colored couch cause I knew all dirt and hair would show up immediately in it (and well, having a dog that's not really good). So I went with cherry. The curtains are bunny curtains designed by Minna Parikka and I'm in love with them.

 

And then we have the bedroom, which is pink. My favorite color is pink and while I'm well aware that people rarely paint their walls pink or... well any other color but rather just leave them as white/light/with one wall different color than the others, I'm not really that kind of a girl. I love colors. I kinda tried to mix modern and vintage in my decorations in every room. Though my kitchen is more retro than vintage but I have tons of cute tins and everything in there. However, I went with a bit more romantic edge in my bedroom since I already had the crystal crown my grandmother gave me. The bed and side table is from Ikea, shelf is from Anttila. And well, I don't have much anything else in here. Except my clothes in the wardrobes. And my collection of Victoria's Secret body mists and beauty products.

Then the entrance which is kind of hard to get a photo of since it's very small. But I have a bench and a coat rack there, nothing more. The entrance is painted light purple.

And well I have bathroom too but somehow I've managed not to take photos of that but I will someday. It's kinda cute with owls on the walls.

Well, this is my home and I can't wait to move in!

xoxo,

Winter vacation!

Hello all my lovelies!

The blog has been a little bit slower once again due to work and the fact that I haven't had anything new to update really. Except my wisdom tooth surgery but that's not really a topic that would spark conversation.

Speaking of the surgery (both of my lower wisdom teeth were removed), I looked like a deranged blowfish and this picture pretty much proves it. A rare beauty eh? On the bright side I lost around 10kg in a week and a half when I ate my antibiotics. They were so icky I didn't really crave for ANY sweets. And well, of course I ate soft foods, sweet potato soup and so forth. And it was fine for like a day, but for god's sake I craved meat so badly. So nope, I will never become a vegetarian. Mostly because I also dislike lots of green stuff.

ON THE BRIGHT SIDE OF EVERYTHING. I'm going to Stockholm with my friend on Saturday. We'll take a ferry and stay in Stockholm for two nights. Including Valentine's Day. Honestly I've never spent Valentine's anywhere else so this is a really special thing and we'll definitely celebrate our friendship!

I'm very excited since I've been on a cruise to Stockholm, however I haven't been on land in ages. I was a little girl the last time I visited Stockholm. So it's about damn time already!

I swear I have more updates coming when I get to Stockholm and back. In the meanwhile - if anyone has any recommendations about what to do/where to go in Stockholm, please let me know!


sincerely,

Winter is here

So, winter has finally arrived as has the first post of 2016! Happy new year everyone! 

And winter did not come the way I expected at all. From nice, relatively warm degrees, mud and rain we went straight to -30°C, freezing wind and layers in clothing. I've never really liked winter as the season. Autumn has always been my season even if there's mud and rain and that phase where all leaves fall down and the trees look like skeletons.

But yes, in the last couple of days my facebook feed has filled with pictures of people having their hair or eyelashes or beard frozen due to the weather.

Anyway, I had bought this super cute winter coat earlier from modcloth.com.  And today I wore it the first time. It's really warm and comfy, which is why I decided to go fetch it from my apartment in Tampere and bring it with me back home. Right decision, cause after that I was totally like...

Oh well, it's supposed to warm up and rain again by the end of this week I think? 

Talking bout my apartment - I've been planning on making a huge post but that has been delayed due to the fact that there's water leak in my kitchen. Talk about bad luck yeah? So it has to be fixed, which hopefully won't take too long. It's not massive but it still requires us to take one cupboard of the wall, take the glass off and renew part of the Mickey Mouse wallpaper under it... sigh.  So I will postpone that until further notice.

Now I shall go get my warm woolen socks and go to bed. Night everyone!

Ahoy ahoy!

top & dress: modcloth shoes: sievi purse: michael kors

I spent the last weekend baking and visiting Helsinki. My godson celebrated his seventh birthday on Saturday and on Friday I baked a cake for his party. I've baked a cake since he was three or four I think. Last year it was Teddybear's Day Out, year before that it was Mickey Mouse and before that it was Cars. This year he requested a princess cake on the inside, him and the family dog as decorations. And I delivered. Now I'm not nearly as professional as some home bakers but I enjoy it and I think I'm getting better each time, especially since I usually tend to make cheesecakes and cupcakes. Cakes... well not so much. Sugarcrafting is also super fun and I enjoy it a lot, but I'm really hoping to take a course one day.

 

Even though it wasn't 100% what I wanted (like how the green cover wasn't smooth and non-wrinkled), I liked how the characters turned out to be. I was a bit nervous since I had never crafted humans before. In the end it turned out better than I expected really. And the only thing that mattered was the sparkling eyes and wide happy smile on my godson's face when he saw the cake. He was really adorable going all "look at my awesome cake" to the guests. Yeah I might've been a bit proud too, but it's still not perfect. Perfect doesn't even exist.

On Sunday I woke up in the morning and started driving towards Helsinki. I was meeting with Kipa there (you know, the blonde girl from London post ;)!)and attending Viini, ruoka & hyvä elämä (wine, food and good life) fair there. I was particularly interested in the cake decorating championship competition. The cakes were superb, and one of the two of my favorites won the whole competition. Such talent!

After walking around the fair we headed out to the city centre, visited Lush (which is like my ultimate downfall because of the pretty soaps and smells <3), Forum and Fazer before heading to Vapiano to eat. Vapiano has been kind of our tradition for such a long time. Good food, excellent company and oh god the desserts too! We both were so full before leaving towards her apartment where we spent a little while before I headed to my car and drove home.

Such a lovely weekend, I can't say anything else.

No place like London

Another trip behind me. My 3rd time in London. I love London. I also love Paris. Now I've been to both three times. I loved Los Angeles too though. And I hope to see it again one day. Plus about every city in America but well... Until I manage to snag myself a millionaire husband or win the freaking eurojackpot, that's not happening in a while either :D

London, oh my sweet city. I noticed a few mainly irrelevant things on my trip too. London underground smells less worse than Paris metro. London City airport has to be a busy one because we were sitting in Kensington Gardens at night and counted at least ten planes in the sky. Also I ate a bug there cause we were surrounded by some flying bugs. Plus they lock the parks at night. I didn't know this but now I do. No panic though, we made out way out. And the final thing: it's rather easy to take a daytrip from London to somewhere else but you need to book your bus tickets early.

Now, let's start then. London has always been one of my favorite cities cause it's easy to get to - it's actually rather cheap to fly there and back but everything else costs a lot. We had reserved the same hostel we had back in 2010 - Smart Hyde Park Inn. It's only a small walk from underground and it's affordable and it has done some improvements during the years! Last time we visited out private room was so small we could just about turn around in it and the wifi was working only in the lobby. This time the rooms were bigger, we also had ensuite rooms so we had our own toilet/shower. Also the wifi worked in rooms too. Though in our first room, the top floor (view was so great!) it was kind of going on and off all the time. The connection was better when we switched rooms after we were joined by Rosa.

I actually started my trip on Monday when I traveled to Helsinki and slept over Kipa's place cause it was easier to leave to the airport in the early morning. We had our morning coffee at Starbucks and then stepped to the plane. We made our way to Gatwick airport and took a bus to Victoria Station. I've only visited Gatwick shortly when we flew through it on our way to Los Angeles. And I can still say I prefer Gatwick over Stansted. After we got to our hostel, we took a short nap before heading out. I had made out some plans - as in what we'd do each day, with a flexible schedule of course. On our first day we went to check out Harrods and enjoy all the good things it gave us!

We spent a good 2,5 hours in Harrods, looking around and enjoying ice cream in Ice Cream Parlour. It was so big and so good even the two of us had some trouble consuming it all but we did it!

 Harrods Food Hall is absolutely one of my favorite places on earth. It's changed a bit during the years too but it's still so beautiful inside and out. I don't usually even drink tea but I would love to buy all the teas and chocolates and candies just to get the cute boxes and jars they're in. This time I bought quite a few candy jars (seen in the last picture) to my apartment cause I tend to have a knack for those.

After Harrods we walked to Leicester Square to Visit M&M's World and popped by at Fortnum & Mason at the same time. After that we headed back to out hostel and picked up snacks from the Sainsbury's store near to the Bayswater underground station.

Day two started in New Bond Street when we headed to Victoria's Secret Store. We had out morning coffees/breakfast at Starbucks before that (as you can see I use Cara as my name while I'm abroad; sometimes it's written with K, sometimes with C). So yes, our first two days consisted of shopping or well - at least strolling around the shopping streets and department stores. From VS we continued to Oxford/Regent Street where I found this amazing makeup store called Kiko. Sephora has always been and will always remain as my favorite but Kiko comes in as a good runner-up. The cosmetics were really good and affordable, which makes it even more tempting to buy every kind of lipstick and lip gloss - I rarely use any eyeshadows and I'm pretty set on my foundation too so I usually just skip to the lip department. I don't use mascara either cause I have lash extensions so that's quite enough. Funny enough, I have never really used much makeup but I've started to become obsessed of having lip glosses and lipsticks with me wherever I go. So I have a bunch of them and I hogged a couple of more from Kiko.

After shopping a while on Oxford Street and walking it from one end to another, we had our lovely lunch at Selfridges. I was surprised how much variety they had in food! Lebanese, pan-asian, burritos, pizza, rotisserie, salads, indian - everything you could imagine. Desserts too. I picked sweet and sour chicken from the pan-asian kitchen and my god that was the best sweet and sour chicken i've ever had!

 On thursday we were supposed to take a trip to Cardiff but unfortunately the ticket prices were hella high at the station so we decided to leave it. Luckily Rosa agreed to go with us and we reserved the trip for another day. So... time for a new plan then, right? We strolled back to the hostel so I could figure out a plan for the day and after I got it, we headed over to Portobello Road and strolled it for a bit before heading to Covent Garden. We found all the cute candy shops and I'm crazy about everything old and retro. That means I love all old candy jars and tins and I found my heaven in Hardy's. We also popped into this lovely candy store called Sugarsin and we were delighted to find some Finnish chocolate there! After that we headed to Covent Garden Market and ate a little dinner at Punch & Judy's. That's also where I discovered my new favorite cider: Old Mout Cider. Passionfruit & apple. Though I also tasted kiwi & lime and strawberry & pomegranate. I'm not a frequent drinker but I don't usually drink any ciders or beers so this was a nice surprise. We also shared a plate of little bites and that was actually really good!

On our fourth day, Friday, we took it easy and slept quite long before heading out to the Tower Bridge for our afternoon tea cruise. But before that we stopped to have our morning coffee and a little bite - which ended up to be a cupcake from the absolutely best bakery I know - Peggy Porschen cakes. If you don't know who Peggy Porschen is, you can check out the website. I strongly recommend that if you're traveling to London, please go enjoy a cupcake over Peggy's. I also bought one of Peggy's absolutely amazing books (and no this is not an advertisement, I just happen to love this place!) and I can't wait to start baking at my new apartment. The parlour itself is small, but very cosy and absolutely adorable - let's say it was pretty much how I imagined my personal heaven to look like.  We didn't want to eat too much so we'd be able to digest all the afternoon tea food so we had one cupcake each. 

I have been in London three times yet this was my first afternoon tea. There was breads, petit fours and scones. I was surprised that I actually found the scones more tasty than the petit fours but I liked all of them. There was some seafood/fish breads which I gladly gave to Kipa, since I don't eat fish or seafood in general. I took a leap of faith eating this unknown bread but apparently it had pickles so it wasn't that bad :D It looked more suspicious. We enjoyed the cruise in sunshine. Before the cruise we enjoyed the company of two very lovely Canadian ladies and chatted all the way to the boat. In the evening we stopped by Whiteleys mall, which was right next to our hostel and ate some yummy sushi (or inari sushi and teriyaki chicken since I don't eat fish). The desserts were really delicious too!

On saturday we prepared for Rosa's arrival and we visited Peggy Porschen once again since we wanted to welcome her with a cupcake. Then we took her to the hostel - we had already taken our baggage to our new room since we occupied twin room and had to switch for a four bed dorm. We also paid for one extra bed so we had the whole room to ourselves. We took a short break until we headed out to Leicester Square where we met her godmother and had some dinner at this Italian restaurant. After that we strolled along Green Park and ended up in Westminster Bridge at dark and then headed back to the hostel to get a goodnight sleep, because...

THE NEXT MORNING WE WERE OFF TO CARDIFF! We booked our tickets from Megabus, they were £26 return. Of course the ride took about 4 hours but it was worth it. I can now officially say that I've been in every part of the UK (well, excluding Northern Ireland). The landscapes were so beautiful. It kinda felt like I was in Ireland again and to be quite honest I got a bit "homesick" (for Ireland). When we finally got to Cardiff it rained hard and we made our way to a mall nearby, eating some breakfast at one of it's many cafes. 

We also did a little bit of shopping, I visited Primark and found a ton of cute t-shirts and other stuff (so naturally I had to buy it...). Then we headed to the Cardiff Castle where I also participated on the house tour. We took a quick look around and then finally I went to the tour while Kipa and Rosa continued their shenanigans on the premises. The house tour was super interesting too! The Winter Smoking Room with norse gods in windows, times of day in every corner of the room, zodiac signs in the roof, hidden cigar safes and when we left there was a demon over the doorway to make sure that no woman would ever step into the room (guess he failed the job, eh?).

The tour continued to the nursery all through the castle, to the roof garden and back downstairs to the Library which was used in Doctor Who episode 7x11: Journey to the Centre of the Tardis. I recognized it long before cause I have definitely seen Doctor Who a few times! 

After we had spent the whole day in the castle, we headed back to the centre for some food. We ended up in a pub near Castle Street and I got half roasted chicken while Kipa and Rosa got fish and chips. It was certainly good! After the lovely day we headed back to the bus stop and headed back to London.

On Monday we headed out to the Natural History Museum but the queue was so long we decided to figure out another plan. We headed to Camden, which I hadn't seen yet either. It was a very lovely place indeed, lots of alternative clothing stores (I love vintage/retro myself) and I found the cutest little hat from a store called Lily J. After that we headed for Harrods once again - I bought some macaroons to take home with me and I might've bought some other cute candy jars too. We had to do some packing so our evening was pretty much covered with that.

The day of departure came sooner than I thought. Before the trip I was kind of wondering if I'd find places to visit for a whole week since I had spent 6 days in London before and during that trip I was heading from a place to place in a very fast pace. But I did and I certainly would've loved to do some more day trips to Nottingham and Bath and Brighton, but I'll cover them later, I'm sure! On our departure day we took Rosa to see the Tower Bridge and took the Tower Bridge experience too. We saw the glass floor and the whole thing - wow! After that we headed to the Whiteleys Mall near our hostel, ate and sat at Yo! Sushi until it was time for me to leave to Victoria and from there to Gatwick Airport. I was sad to leave but I'm sure I'll be back... lots of times!

xoxo,