Thoughts about the challenging parts....

Cia sent me this link the other day; Buttermilkbisquits. It is written by a Finnish girl living in Holland with her half-Dutch half-asiatic boyfriend and she is talking about what is most difficult or most challenging in a multicultural relationship. She came to the conclusion that the most challenging was the fact that they did not share memories from the same culture. She found it difficult to share with her boyfriend memories from her childhood, like how a smoke sauna smells and how it feels when the snow gets stuck under your skies in winter.

For me, personally, this has never been difficult. Stefan has already tried to ski and I hope that one day I can share with him the experience of a lovely old smoke sauna. The same way I enjoy listening, experiencing and learning about his culture. The more important is that we value the same things in life.

Here two pictures of the different environments we grew up in;

Liljendal lake


Alicante and the Mediterranean

For us the most challenging part, I think we both agree, is the language. Since the start we have communicated in english which is none of our mother tongue. Sometimes that is difficult, especially when talking about feelings sometimes you prefer to use the language that you know best to express yourself better. On the other hand I think we are doing pretty well, a lot of material thing are called by us "thingy" and we still always understand each other. ( at least most of the time ;-) ) Also othertimes whenI cannot think of the right word Stefan is finnishing my sentences. Same with me for him I think.

The learning of swedish for Stefan and for me spanish is still in the process, but hopefully one day we will be able to communicate somehow with these languages. At the moment speaking Swedish or Spanish with each other is not going so well...mostly because we forget we should practise and when we try it is so frustrating since the communication is suddenly so sloooow. It can be a pain for someone who likes to talk as much as Stefan and for someone who is as unpatient as me;-)

But as John Mayer puts it "Say what you need to say"

Paprika and Chili

Oh, a little little thing made me happy today:-)

My paprika plant is blooming! This one I have planted from a little seed in a bell paprika:


I just wanted to see what happens, if it grows at all. I'm so proud of it :-) (must mean we have taken care of it well, hehe)

Pics of the little one;


Maybe I should try to buy a chiliplant again....last time I had one it died pretty quickly though. Perhaps I need more practise :-P

That would be cool to be able to pic your own chilis for dinner. Yammiiiii!

We also had basilica in a pot for a while but it got pretty miserable after some time. This is not ours but fresh basilica with tomato and mozzarella cheese, who can resist it?




This is our orange plant, that I planted from some orange seeds, it's super small still and doesn't bloom :-S I'm scared it's not gonna last long anymore;


Any spice, vegetable or fruit you have tried to grow? succeeded?

Hot Stone Massage

Today I've been on a hot stone massage, so now I feel super relaxed.

It was a good day for going for massage too because today we got some nervwracking news at work. But well, one day at a time and we will see what happens next.

Why can't the financial depression be over yet?

Short update

Since last time I wrote my office has moved. I am now working in the headquarters. Good thing with that is that the office is nicer and we have good lunch restaurants to go to and even a coffee place. Bad things are that I cannot walk to work any longer, instead I'm sitting in a bus for about 40 minutes. Or acctually two different buses for about 20 minutes each because there's no direct connection. Also I was much more comfortable working in the little office with not so much people. But I guess I'll get used to it.

We've also been to an annual ball again even though we are not students any more:-P But it was fun, I loved my hair-do made by my friend Pernilla;

Dressed-up;

This weekend me and Cia have been exercising and gone to a Ashtanga yoga course. It's quite nice exercise and I can feel it is good for me since I never really done any stretching when I was younger and did orienteering as the main sport.



One day I want to be able to do this properly;




However, I do realize I will never become a ballerina anymore, but to enjoy and admire those who can do it we bought tickets to "Rock the Ballet".

Shrove Sunday

I know it is almost a month since it was Shrove Sunday (22:nd February) but I thought I would write about it anyway.

In Finland it is tradition to go sledging on shrove sunday, or shrove tuesday for that matter. Afterwards you eat peasoup;



and these yammi things for dessert, called laskiaispulla or fastlagsbulle in swedish;

We also decided to go sledging and we ate the laskiaispulla and some hot choclate to warm up but afterwars we decided to go for pizza. (Tip; To make the warm choclate warm you up faster you can add some mint liqueur or baileys ;-) )




It was a bit crowded in the hill with all the kids so you had to be careful not to crash into someone...also the cameraman was in danger :-P




After trying out the little hill for some time it was time for the big and scary one.

Little hill;

Big Hill;


First Cia and Stefan tried it out;





Then it was time for me and Nalle to take the challange. It was impossible to see anything going down cause you got a lot of snow in the face and my back was hurting a lot afterwards.





But you have to try out everything once in your life ;-)

To continue on the subject of skiing and winterssports. We also went to do some slalom with stefan some weeks ago. Mostly to train our skills for Easter. We will go to Kuusamo and Ruka in north of Finland to skii in some better slopes:-P Hopefully we will also have time to visit the indoor waterpark in Kuusamo.

Ice Sculptures

Some weekends ago we went to see Art Meets Ice. Stefan really wanted to see the sculptures of ice. It was cool, but unfortunetly they had not completed anything when we were there, even though they had been working for hours. We would have stayed longer but it was quite freezing that day.

There were teams from all over the world; Kenya, Russia, Mongola, UK, Netherlands, Germany, Finland of course, Estonia and probably more I don't remember right now :-)


People working;

My favorite from the Mongolia team, the iguana;

The ape;


The Shell;

And a lion and a girl?

Dogsitting

We've been dogsitting my collegues dog for a week when they have been on holiday. It's been great but at times also a bit frustrating. It's a bit difficult to dogsit a dog you don't know from before so she tested us a bit at times. In general she was good but she tried to beg for food when we were eating and bit our pillows a bit when she wanted to play. Also she needed lot's of attention otherwise she would start "crying". I think a week also opened our eyes a bit onto what a commitment a dog really is. I still want a dog though...at some point ;-)

The first 15 minutes Kaz bit her new toys to bits;





















but it helped her forget that her family just dropped her off at our place, and she stopped crying.

The rest of the week we've been playing, sleeping, biting and cuddling. And walking, a lot, she had endless energy, a dog is defenitely a good idea if you want to get in shape ;-)







Sunday morning she was allowed in bed....a bit spoilt:-D

Ooops, we fell asleep on the couch.