a weekend off with the BFF

Last weekend was awesome! After working for 2 busy months, I was desperately in need of some time off. So, I booked a room from a hotel I've always wanted to stay in, and invited my best friend Silje to join me for a real Girls' Spa Weekend ❤ Actually, we had quite a lot to celebrate:

• my Anti-Graduation party
• Silje's recent engagement, and most of all
• our friendship!

 You might wonder what I mean by anti-graduation. Well, simply this: I've been studying in university for 5 years, and next fall I'm going to resign, because I just... hate all of it (I'm not going to repeat all I've written about the subject earlier, no worries). So, I'm quitting, but not graduating. BUT in my opinion, after surviving 5 years in university, I deserved a party, whether I graduated or not -- Losers need parties too! So yeah, I wanted to give myself a closure to this whole university thing, and what would have been a better way than celebrating my decision with my best friend - she's the one with whom I started my academic studies in the first place, back in A.D. 2006.

Our hotel was the castle hotel Grand Hôtel Cascade (in Finnish: Valtionhotelli) in Imatra. I've been kind of obsessed about the place for ages, and this was the very first time I actually stayed there for a night. It was brilliant! The hotel was built in 1903, and its history is more than just a little interesting -- including everything from tragic suicides to Russian aristocrates, and from miserable artists to forbidden love. It even served as a military hospital during the first World War. Well, yes, I do find all the unpleasant deaths interesting. With all the amazing ghost stories I've heard ever since I was a kid, of course we had our own little ghost hunt, but sadly (or maybe "luckily"!) we didn't encounter anything supernatural, not even the famous Grey Lady (although we're pretty sure she tried to call our hotel room in the morning - our hotel room phone kept on ringing and when I answered, someone just said "heeellooo" on the other end and nothing more... hmph).

Anyway, even without ghosts, our weekend was a success - enjoying the spa, having a few drinks in the garden, and most of all - just enjoying each others company, gossiping and making new plans. Once again, I was reminded why Silje truly is my best friend - it's just so easy, nice, funny, and relaxing to hang out with her <3  lovely, lovely, lovely. Here's some photos...

artsy photo of our hotel

you can see our balcony - it's on the 2nd floor, right next to the tower!

Vuoksi Rapid; right next to our hotel (a popular suicide place in early 1900s..)

enjoying the evening by the rapid

good times... good times.

"who you gonna call..." GHOSTBUSTERS! :DD (in the middle of our hunt)

...it was pretty creepy

seriously - I had to try and sit in every cool chair in the hotel! xD

Ghostbusters, part II

And in the end... you know how people have their own photos framed in the livingroom or something, like "this was taken when I graduated from there-and-there..."? Well, I got this brilliant idea to make my anti-graduation celebrations perfect, and asked Silje to take my anti-graduation photos. Next I'm seriously going to get one of these photos framed, and then I'm going to tell everyone "This was taken when I did NOT graduate from university!" Maybe it's just my weird sense of humour, but it sounds AWESOME to me! ;-)

Yeah, my short vacation in Imatra was great, and hanging out with Silje was so nice<3 Hopefully we'll meet soon again (ohh, maybe another spa weekend during the winter or something?)

Take care & enjoy the summer,
yours truly-

ps. so, from now on the university is officially a CLOSED CASE! Yippee!!

Luumäki state of mind

Here I am - back in my summer life. Back in South Karelia, back in Luumäki, back living with my parents for the next four months, and back working at the cemetery, too. Life is easy, slow and overall predictable.

So, Luumäki is a small agricultural town in South Karelia, and the place where I lived the first 18 years of my life. The name means Bonehill, by the way. It's the greatest joke ever, like "Hey, my name is Sanna, I live at Worm Bay Drive in Bonehill, and I work at the cemetery" - like I'm from some frigging Tim Burton movie! Erm, anyway... with around 5,000 people living in Luumäki, all scattered around in their farm houses and separated by forests and fields, life is exactly like it is in any other place like this all over the globe. There's one grocery store and a small library which is open three days a week. Pretty much everyone knows everyone by name, and it comes with its pros and cons. Some serious apple pie life, I tell you! As a teenager I hated all this and couldn't wait to move away ASAP, but after years living elsewhere, I've learnt Luumäki isn't that bad. Or more likely, it not any better or worse than any other place.

My life here during the summers is simple as hell, and it goes like this:

• Get up 6AM
• Go to work 7AM - 3PM
• On your way home, go to the grocery store (and library if you feel like)
• Come home, cook, take a shower (or sauna, if it has been a chilly day)
• Be online or watch TV series for the rest of the evening
• Go to sleep 9 PM
• (REPEAT)

Honestly, my weekdays are this predictable, and I'm okay with it. It's hard to explain, but it feels like... like when you don't need to concentrate on what to do each day, you get time to think everything else. Random thoughts you usually push away thinking "I'll get back to this as soon as I've sorted out all this daily stuff". It feels like my head is full of ideas 24/7, everything from little internet projects to bigger future plans and everything in-between, you know. It's a wonderful feeling! For example, recently I've started updating my mp3 collection, returned to my Modern American Classics reading project, and started a new scrapbook - not to mention I've got some pretty neat ideas of what I want to do next fall as well! :-)

I have my own room in my parents' apartment (not the same house I grew up in, btw), and I actually love it. It's quite different than my own apartment in Joensuu, but I still feel equally "home" here. I've got my books and DVDs, and an internet connection - I'm happy.

Home sweet Home - everything I brought with me for the summer!

my Luumäki room

I've also been "living" Supernatural pretty much 24/7 recently. You know how it is when I get a new obsession... I've been reading a lot of fanfiction, and I'm especially in love with Hoodie_Time - there will never be enough awesome whump!Dean for me. I've also found the world of audiofics recently. At first it was a little awkward - listening to fics instead of reading them - but now that I've got used to it, it's great! Especially since I've started getting headaches from reading too long (damn I need new glasses!), with audiofics I can just close my eyes and let go... yeah, sweet. Of course I've also been watching SPN, recently started with the 7th season. Aaaaand since I'm also a collector by nature, I started collecting those Official Supernatural Magazines. I recently subscribed to OSM, but now I'm searching the net to buy the issues I've missed - haha, I've always loved the feeling you get when you're hunting for the pieces you're missing from your collection! So far I have issues #24, #25, #27, #28, #29, #31 and #32 (which is the newest issue, btw). I made a deal with myself - everytime I have a bad day, I'm allowed to order another issue ;-)

my SPN collection so far

lovely box I found for my SPN treasures! :-)

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Well, that was a surprisingly long entry since I didn't have anything special to write about! Now I'm off to read The Sunflower Forest by Torey Hayden, and then early to bed again. Abby just called and said she won't be coming to work because of a flu, and frankly, I'm not too sad about it. Why does it feel I need to take some distance to her, eventhough all there has been for the whole winter, is distance? I confuse myself sometimes, dammit!

Yours Truly-

the curious case of Lubbock, TX

Because the state of Texas is so huge, and driving through it takes so long, we ended up staying one night in a random city called Lubbock, in northwestern Texas. And after one night, I can honestly say it is the scariest place I've ever visited!

Main street, early afternoon on Monday.

THERE WAS NO PEOPLE IN LUBBOCK.

We arrived in Lubbock some time in the afternoon, and soon headed out to the city to find some dinner. It soon became clear that there was something seriously wrong with Lubbock.

IN STERILIZED BOTTLES! ;-D

We walked through the whole downtown area, but didn't see anybody. All the shops, bars, and restaurants were closed, even it was a weekday and early afternoon. All the cars you can see in the photos, were parked. Wikipedia told us there should have been around 270,000 people living in Lubbock, but we didn't see any of them. There's no better way to tell you how it felt - it was EERIE.

While we were walking, we started speculating why was it that there was no people...

• it was a Transvestite Monday, and all the people of Lubbock were underground celebrating it (we saw at least 3 wig shops in the city, and "Transvestite Monday" was pretty catchy expression)
• some terrible virus had killed/mutilated everyone
• there was an insane sniper (or some other killer) loose in the city
• there was something supernatural going on, and next we would see a black Chevy Impala parked somewhere
• there was a human sacrificing cult in Lubbock, and if you went out after 4PM, you got tortured/sacrificed
• there was only ONE bar open somewhere, and everyone would be there

No need to worry about getting ran over by a car!

Our motel - just as creepy as everything else in Lubbock.

Fully expected running into Sam or Dean at the vending machines...

...well, I obviously survived to tell a story of my scary night, and in the end we actually did solve the Curious Case of Lubbock, TX. I'm not going to tell you what was wrong with this weird city (go there and see yourself, I dare you!) but... not going back there, never-ever again! :-S


yours truly-

souvenir from new orleans!

We had a day off in New Orleans today, and I went to a tattoo studio with Caroline, YAY! Tattoos are the best souvenirs -- in 10 or 20 years I'll be my own scrapbook! ;-) And about the picture... I've wanted this one for a long time, and I love it.

Yours truly-

PS: I'm actually happy we're leaving for Texas tomorrow -- it's the spring break, so New Orleans is FULL of drunken students, ugh (and yes, the spring break actually is exactly how it looks in TV and movies... L0L crazy americans)

welcome to my silly life

I'm in such a good mood that I decided to write just a little something-something. I had a wonderful (and lazy!) Wednesday at home, I even had time for five o'clock tea! It is a well-known fact that I'm a coffee person to the bone, but a few years ago when I had a crush on Patrick Jane, I finally learnt to like tea too. So, today I enjoyed a cup of Prince of Wales and spent some time remembering summer -04 which I spent in South England. Back then I hated tea, and those daily (host) family meetings with tea were practically torture to me! Funny how things change.

I also dyed my hair today :-) I didn't really like the previous (red-based) colour eventhough my hairdresser said it brought up the colour of my eyes. Meh, no one sees my eyes anyway because I'm always wearing glasses, so I'm more than happy to be back  in dark brown.

That's it, that's pretty much all I've done today! =D Oh well, and listened to P!nk. Honestly, I had always thought I don't like female singers, and most of all, I had always thought P!nk is something... different than I learnt it actually is. I have a feeling she will be my soundtrack artist this spring. Like all the best music discoveries, this one happened to me accidentally. I was killing time in Youtube last night, and came across some Supernatural fanvids, and... well, I heard this one song, and I immetedly fell in love with its attidute. Another funny thing/confession which has to do with the following video: at first, I didn't like Castiel in Supernatural, not at all, but now I suddenly think... that maybe I'll learn to like him too (I'm halfway through season 5 at the moment). Funny little things. Like the title says, welcome to my silly life. The song is Fucking Perfect by P!nk

 

Now it's around 9pm, and I'll enjoy my lazy Wednesday till the end by watching something and reading. I finished reading Geisha's Memoirs last night, and started Steinbeck's Travels with Charley. I've only read the first 20 pages so far, but already I dare to say I love it! From the first page, when Steinbeck started to explain his wanderlust, I was like "that's exactly how I feel!" Too bad my current (library) copy is in Finnish, if it was in English I would have quoted some of my favorite parts for you. But fear not, the next time I'm shopping in Amazon, I will definitely order a copy of this great travel journal and then you'll see what I'm talking about :-)

This was one random Wednesday in my life. I hope you had a nice day too xxo

Yours truly-