A blessing in disguise

Ich fühle mich wie ich irgendwie was schreiben möchte aber weiss nicht genau was...

Die letzte paar Tage sind bei mir etwas seltsam gewesen. Das ist auf jeden Fall nicht zu bezweifeln. Vieles ist wohl passiert und jetzt weiss ich nicht genau wo ich stehe. Ich schreibe immer noch etwas kryptisch weil ich auch nicht möchte dass jeder die Einzelheiten weiss. Ich habe nämlich zwei Sachen gefühlt, die mehr oder weniger neu bei mir sind...die Beide sind sogar die extrem Gegenteile von einander!

Ich denke Ich glaube an Schicksal aber Ich will auch nicht zu viel zu bald sagen. Es ist komisch wie Sachen sich manchmal passieren, wie man überhaupt nicht erwartet. Und das Gefühl dass man nicht etwas haben kann, was man so gerne will. Das ist aber frustrierend. Könnte es die Chance des Lebens sein? oder ist es nur eine falsche Hoffnung? Ich habe mich aber entschieden, dafür zu kämpfen, da ich nichts zu verlieren habe. Ich soll meine Instinkte vertrauen.

Que sera, sera. Time will tell.

Petanque fun

Well, it was a case of the rookies v the pro's in yesterday's Petanque (Petankki in Finnish) competition. 2 teams from our workplace, Hermia, took part; COSS and Ubi-ladies! I was part of the latter ;) The vast majority of us had played maybe once before in our entire lives and so came with no expecations and had nothing to lose, lol!

Needless to say we came last and 2nd last respectively...haha. It was really fun though, us in our illuminous yellow Hermia vests and brand spanking new shiny boules ;) whereas all the others' boules were so old and very well used! Quite entertaining.

I have to say though, although we finished last, we certainly didn't make fools of ourselves and we definitely pulled some quite stunning shots out the bag ;) Good job guys!

24hrs behind bars

This week I went to jail in Sweden, how exciting! haha! well, no, I wasn't a bad girl really, it was all planned. I was there for a work conference with Kirsi and our hotel was a converted prison, last used as a prison in 1975, situated on one a Stockholm's many islands called Långholmen. It was actually really picturesque, there were beautiful gardens there with red tulips, Lily of the Valley, bluebells and all sorts, gorgeous!

We even spotted a Swedish dog-sitting service, it was hilarious, 3 humans and about 30 dogs of all shapes and sizes, just trotting along. I was amazed that they all got on so well and that there was no fighting. Although it seemed problematic when a different dog who wasn't part of their gang came along and threw a spanner in the works! haha!

Well, it was quite an intense stay in Långholmen prison, but worthwhile, I have loads of new contacts now and the project will hopefully go well. The food was excellent and the sparkling wine even better ;)

Vappu 08

So, Vappu in Finland is over! and well, it was special :) certainly very different for me because we don't have the same kinds of traditions in Scotland as there are here. In fact, we don't do anything. In Tampere the whole event mainly revolves around the "teekarit" : technical students from the TTY (Tampere Technical University).

On Vappu Eve I celebrated with the Aiesec guys at the sauna party in the city centre. It was really neat, very chilled and musical; we had to invent a song as a ransom in order to get the local committee's kidnapped mascot "Ernesti" back and I have to say, we did a great job, with Juhani playing guitar and a collection of different musical styles (rap, opera, metal and boy band!) the end-product was pretty cool and most heart-felt ;) !

Then some of us went along to the bridge in the city centre where at midnight every year the technical students crown one of the big statues with a white cap too! It was a bit of an anti-climax to be honest, not really all that exciting. The place was packed with people though, I've never seen Tampere so "alive". Good vibe but too crowded so we headed home!

On Vappu Day we had a picnic on the banks of the river rapids, whilst watching the fresher technical students go 10 by 10 into big cages, lifted by cranes and dipped into the cold water!! It was quite amusing to see, definitely a unique inauguration for them! Families, other students and randoms like us turned out to watch and it took about 4 hours (there were like 1000 students at least!). The weather was good but a little more chilly than the other days so we went for coffee to a nice little french-style cafe afterwards and then met up with some friends for a few drinks later! Not too wild and crazy but definitely enjoyable. It's useful not to be hungover today anyway...working from home though which is nice!