seikkailuminen

Think i'll take my -13 degrees over your +39 any day, though i'd definitely settle for a happy medium. Hard to imagine that it's almost 60 degrees warmer on the other side of the world.
So to try recap a fairly eventful week and a bit...
Caught the bus to Kuopio last tues 30/12 and headed straight to mäkipirtinkatu 16A. All the busses are still exactly the same, kuopio itself looks very much the same except for one new shopping centre next to my school that i think is probably what was being built when i was there last. It's handy when you need to find something in a hurry and it's right where you expect it to be. However the bus ride to mäkipirtinkatu that i have taken sooo many times was strangely unfamiliar.
I was in kuopio until sunday and was supposedly staying at mummolassa (= at the grandparents) but only stayed the night there the first night. Did go there nearly every day to eat though :P and give my finnish a workout! voi että se oli vaikeaa mut hyväkin. Was lovely to see mummo and ukki again and to visit my old home. It's changed a bit but not as much as i might have expected.
On the 31st i headed into town and after a fair bit of dillydallydisorganisation we made our way out to haminalahti where, thanks to Ere's super organisational skills, new years eve was to be spent in the company of many old friends and several new ones too, chatting, eating good food, drinking good drinks (including pear kopparberg helen! what a guess), gazing into the fire when the electrics all went out for maybe an hour or so then realising how much smoke was hanging around inside..., watching human pyramids be built and topple onto mattresses, singing and dancing and later discovering splinters in my foot from doing so, racing outside for long enough to burn our sparklers, pop the champagne bottle, wish one another a hyvää uutta vuotta then realise how cold it was and pile back indoors to head for the sauna!! Strangely enough the sauna (and the "spirit of the sauna - löylyn henki") was the only thing i remembered about haminalahti from the time i went there before, which apparently i did and there's photographic evidence to boot.
By the time all that had been accomplished it was close to 6am and well and truly time to hit the bunks for a few hours of what could barely pass as sleep. Got up at 11 to discover a beautiful blue sky to welcome in the new year with the few remaining beautiful people (some of whom had even had the foresight to bring something edible for breakfast - joghurt, a mandarin and oven fries it is!). Then a carload of us (minä,milka,maiju,annika,john/migreeinimies,juuso-tohishouse) made our way back to milka's mum's place in town where we sat around having a neverending picnic in the lounge for many hours. Milka's family arrived later on and milka's mum cooked us all delicious pasta to add to the picnic.
The next 60 hours or so consisted of spending a few hours at each of 4 places in a rather cyclic fashion with a cycle of similar people!
1/1/09: From milka's we went to mikko (milka's cousin) and hilla's lovely cosy abode that i managed to not get a single photo at much to my dismay. Then back to milka's to spend the night
2/1/09: From milka's back to mummolaan via a marimekko sale and a beautiful new top for me, thanks aunty rachel! Juuso-veli was also now in kuopio so hung out with him and mummo and ukki and their fridge for a few hours then back into town to find antti's place and a sauna full of finns. and a spaniard. and a youtube cat ninja. and a simply cool card game coloretto. then onto mikko and hilla's till the wee hours - tuning in and out of finnish conversation floating around me. back to milka's for the night.
3/1/09: M&H's again for some nerdily cool new card games (dominion was actually cool, race for the galaxy was mostly just confusing despite being on the winning team!). then mummolaan. then pack all my stuff real quick and race for the bus, dawdle to the next bus cos missed the first by seconds, back to antti's where folks were playing games again. then onto milka's where the games continued (dominion and citadels - played in your choice of swedish or bad indian accent) and were followed by far too long on youtube until only juuso, milka and i were left and eventually decided to go to bed in time to get 4 hours sleep before i had to be up to catch a bus back to ylämylly.
phew.
Mandatory update on the weather over this time period: mostly beautiful sunshiny days with a rough average temp of -10 (saw -8,-13 and -15 from memory). One grey snowy day on the saturday, experienced the snot-freezing-temps for the first time again, and snow is sooooo beautiful when it's this cold!! Every flake of it.
Arto, Marjo and Peppi (minus her 2 front teeth) picked me up from the bus on sunday (now -18) and it was straight onto lappeenranta, a 3 hour drive south, getting very close to the russian border (hence how i saw russia). Marjo's sister Arja lives in lappeenranta and the occasion was her daughter nina's 30th birthday. So hung out there for a couple of days, went for lunch at the greek restaurant that nina works at (very finnish greek if you ask me, the buffet lunch was anyway) and wandered around town a little (as much as arto ever could just wander!). Lappeenranta has a lovely town centre with an old church and graveyard and war memorial as well as an outdoor street mall area with a guy playing one of those wind up music boxes that really shoulda had a monkey playing miniature symbols. Sweated it out in their real wood fire sauna for a while and played some sing star and ate delicious food and drank some salmiakki cream liqueor that tasted much better mixed with some irish cream i decided. And now we're all back in ylämylly, kids are back at school, more beautiful crisp days to counter your sweltering ones! Got in from a walk well over an hour ago and my legs are still feeling a bit frosty. Phones actually work slower when it's this cold.