Probably The Most Iconic Sights Of #Helsinki, The #RockChurch And #SibeliusMonument

++++ Finland!

A few things I enjoy coming home to. For a change at least.

In general it's kind of nice to return to a country where I'm a citizen.. entitled to many things I've learnt to appreciate like health care for example. Friends and family come also handy as a safety net when everything just sucks big time. #imissyoutoo

Ice cream: better, cheaper and the selection of flavours waaay much wider.

Sauna

If you find a lake, river or whatever water system you can actually swim in it. 

Food: Carelian pies, devil's jam, salmiakki... yum, yum, yum! 

White nights in the summer time.

Life is so boring that I'll actually get some school stuff done #whatwasmyexcusebefore?

(Not my pic)

Being €uropean - the union and currency makes travelling so much easier.

I can get naked in women's locker room at the gym (at least at the gym I go here there are lockers insides of the lockers and if you don't use them people look at you like a crazy woman!)

Prices include the taxes.

Distances are shorter. 

No stranger, cashier or a salesman cares how I am - I can be as quiet and shy as I want!

On tv, commercials don't come in the middle of the scene, in the most inappropriate moment of all.

(Not my pic)

Online banking - seriously never had a need to go to bank this frequently. You can also draw cash from any ATM nevermind the bank you're actually using.

You can do all your shoppings in ONE store (food, cosmetics etc).

The products don't change places every week and if there's something really run out of stock it's something truly seasonal or something I can yell about to a poor staff as a customer :)

If you work on Sundays or on a holiday you'll get 2x hourly wage. 

Temperatures actually feel like what the thermometer shows... most of the times anyway. 

Houses are mice/rat free.

Tax system is easier.

Took my time going though the Coruna trip photos from last September. I saw so many beautiful places! These are from my first 2 days :) 

The perspective that wasn't mine yesterday

Somewhat continues from the post below..

But anyways news for those who haven't heard that I changed a job. Still in a video game industry but found  a better deal in a different company where I started  as a Linguistic tester a month ago. As much as I loved working at Babel, they couldn’t offer me anything else but functionality testing on call contract with evening shifts. Now with Enzyme Testing Labs I’ll actually get to do the linguistic stuff and have better pay, better working hours (no more evening shifts!) and the location is slightly closer to home too. 

This is actually the first time when my employer is making a contract of any fixed hours with me. I’ve always been on call and luckily the shifts, often more than I could actually do, have always come in. So I do feel like I’m being tied down a bit. Can’t do any big or (at least long term) travelling plans or anything cause the summer is high season for video game industry and naturally employees aren’t encouraged to take much time off then. And not that I would have money for travels anyway...But so far I’ve been more than happy to explore and discover the city of Mtl and that’s why haven’t traveled much in Québec/Canada so if this is the furthest I can go I’ll be fine with it. 

However, I did some travelling in April. 

Made a Easter voyage to the Québec’s capital, also named Québec which is over 200km from Montréal to north. It’s been one of my “must go” destinations for years and it was truly a fascinating and charming journey to see all those places where the history of not only Québec’s but also of Canada and North America took place. This is where it all began. The place where they established hospitals, schools, newspapers, museums and churches among others earlier than anywhere else in North America. The city was a battle ground for wars and battles that later came to define Canada and Québec.

Moi, en Québec finalement!

Today the city is known mostly for the most photographed hotel in the world Château Frontenac and for Vieux Québec, the old part of the city which is partly 400 years old and obviously a Unesco World Heritage Site. If my trip to Ottawa last fall was an eye opening experience in Canadian culture and history, this trip was exactly the same in la culture et l’histoire québécoise. I could seriously go on forever about history of this city... #historyfreak #quebecoise

I ain't wearing my winterboots in April anymore damnit!

But what we actually did in Québec: stroll around in the still empty streets of vieux Québec (no masses of tourists yet), did some shopping, ate well and visited the musée de la civilisation where the First Nations were represented respectively too. The more northern location was easily noticed in the chilly weather and the amounts of snow they had in the parks and the streets. The three days were seriously a good exercise too cause the city’s been built on hills and it seemed like there was nothing else but a staircase after another. Oh boy did my feet hurt on Monday after the trip! But it was vraiment québecois and there is no place where you could feel the political atmosphere (anglos against the francos) clearer than in Québec in my opinion. This is not a criticism just an observation. 

Moi sur les Plaines d'Abraham.

Weatherlike...Summer has finally kicked in! Had a few days of tropical +30 temperatures but otherwise it's been comfortably warm even thou spring was clearly late. In the beginning of May it was still quite grey and bald in naturelike but now everything has catched up. J'aime ça!

However, there is a one big down side in my life and year in Mtl. Room mates.. who I've had 15 in total by now and this doesn't include the new changes coming up at the flat within a few weeks. As much I love this appartment, the room and the location, it truly sucks that we don't have any saying about who's gonna move in. My landlord is great but he doesn't really care how we get along with each other as long as everybody pays their rents and don't seriously destroy anything...

Nothing major issues I guess but just stuff that truly bugs me. Having soirées late in the night during the week and not participating of the expences that we share together. Nobody cleans. It's also hard to have any kind of system with room mates that keep on changing this frequently. But oh well.. less than two months and these problems will be far away cause I'll be living with my mom again! And how much fun is that gonna be - NOT! 

Allrighty then, I think that was it for now.. thanks again for reading! :)

What you’ve done becomes the judge of what you’re going to do – especially in other people’s minds. When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.

William Least Heat Moon

I lived in the city of Montréal in French Canada for a year 2013-2014. Somewhat a month before my departure to back home I headed out to city’s Old Port at the crack of dawn to capture the morning light. This was before my Nikon time so these photos were taken with my regular Sony camera. 

This was the Sunday morning when Formula 1 event was in town within 8 million tourists and there was not a soul apart from me, my friend and a couple of fishermen.. 

Melendi - Tocado y hundido (Videoclip oficial)

Just discovered him #Melendi #UnAltimoMas :)

Bologna part II 

Some Braga stuff last week. The city didn’t impress me the way as Porto but it was worth of a day trip.

Took some shots of winter scenery when in home for Xmas. Finally I can appreciate the peace and quiet 

My positive review of ESC 2018

It’s been two weeks since the Eurovision 2018 Grand Final and I’ve been trying to cope with my PED (Post Eurovision Depression) and not only processing the results but also my very first experience in Eurovision. Here comes the positive part! The negative one will follow later..

First of all it was just amazing to be there in the same space where the actual magic happens, see what goes on at the stage during the postcards etc. The stage was gorgeous! For sure it is one hell of a big thing to cross on my “things to do before I die” check list. 

I also enjoyed tremendously watching every day how the event was built in front of where I work. The hype was all around and I was super glad and proud to be part of that. Loudly as my friends witnessed (sorry!).

Besides of my favorites I always hope for a diversed Final show with different genres, songs and performers. This year we had plenty and was super glad to see Slovenia (rap), Estonia (opera), Hungary (heavy metal) and Netherlands (rock country) going through even though not all of these were my top 10 favorites. 

I was so happy and relieved to see Denmark, Albania, Serbia, Finland and Lithuania qualifying! I was worried for all of them! Especially Albania’s success in the Final also was great thing to watch! Eugent is such an amazing singer and the song was soooo good! 

About Finland. Finnish media has done its traditional dance around Eurovision “coulda-woulda-shoulda” after the event and putting down the artist, the song, the entire process. But there were 43 countries taking part this year which we left quite many behind! Okay fine, the points were lower than what expected but our song and performed was loved by Eurovision community. I felt that love and I’m sure Saara felt it too. Besides we were in the freaking Final which we haven’t been for FOUR YEARS! She did a good job and we had a great song. Unfortunately this year’s competition was full of good songs! Someone has to go down. 

Also Italy was big fan favourite in the Final - the hype around the song wasn’t as strong as with France and Bulgaria for example so I did not expect fans to embrace the song the way they did. Especially after those jury votes...The guys had a good spot though performing last. With Denmark it was also the same thing! Televotes made the day! 

My ultimate favorite from Semifinal II Romania didn’t qualify but it improved a lot during the rehearsals and I saw many people changing their minds about the song! I will be listening to this song for a long time! 

Germany spoke to me this year! The song made me cry. And obviously I wasn’t the only. People reacted and this was the best result for Germany for many years. And totally deserved! 

We Finns often envy Swedes and make fun of them and especially in Eurovision. And I’m so sorry for putting this to my list of positive things in ESC but....Swedish entry wasn’t clearly the best track but it was still well produced and slick Swedish quality which I did expect to please the viewers. Also their performance, lights and visuals were memorable - even though maybe not as memorable as the juries thought across EU. However what a shocker that SWEDEN GOT LESS TELEVOTES THAN FINLAND! This is historical! Audience dropped them hard! 

As Israel kept on climbing towards the top Cyprus was getting its strength. The hype around Fuego was unexpected and sudden. However I was glad to see someone being strong enough to challenge Netta - it was beginning to be to obvious. Eleni did a grand job and her performance was perfect! Toy however did carry an important message and stands out pretty much anything else we’ve ever seen on ESC before. The right one won.