Loving the summer in Finland

biking in the forest

I have reached my definitively last stop on my trip; Dagsmark village on the West coast of Finland. Here the grass is actually greener, the sky is bluer, the air is cleaner, the flowers are more colorful and the silence is real. It is lovely to be in Finland during the summer when the sun is shining and the birds are singing until 2 am in the morning. Hey, you can actually still sunbath at 10 o'clock at night when the sun is still shining bright.

my cute nephew

The best part of visiting my family is getting to know my new 2 months old nephew. As the new auntie I am, I could sit and admire him all day long and be pretty content doing just about nothing else than that. I think I am in love... with a 29 year old younger man.... oh boy.

me and my Mum

Besides adoring the baby, I have been pretty busy visiting family, attending a biking event, having a yard sale at the annual fair in town (where I also sold some yummie waffles :), and now attending my 10 year high school reunion. But my main goal is to just relaaaaaaaaaaaaax and pick up the skill of doing nothing before I will have to start and do a-whole-lot-of-things aka work....lol!

Peace out and sending you all good summer vibes!

back in Europe, London :)

My five days in London went by fast. Got to crash at my lovely friends R&R's place down in Clapham Common and spent my last time sleeping on an air mattress..... thank God!

The weather in London was almost has hot as in DC with blue skies and sunshine, which is not something you see for 5 days straight in London ;) yohooooo!

So while the sun was shining I met up with a bunch of friends here and there and enjoyed the heat in Hyde Park while listing to music from the free World Music Festival. Nice! As it was the World Cup finals, the games were on everywhere. I am not a big big fan but I managed to watch the last game Spain vs Holland... but oh my it was event less... finally after 120 min or so into the game someone finally scored! (Spain won by the way if you have been hibernating).

London was fun but pretty busy and I was looking forward to go and really relax in Finland, so off I went with Ryanair early Monday morning to catch my flight home to Finland and to finally really end my trip and say aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh "It was a good one!" :)

Barbora (whom I met in Panama) and me in Hyde Park at the World Music Festival

Lots of love and an update will come about Finland....

Happy 4th July in D.C.

I have now officially celebrated (for the first time in my life) America's Independence day, 4th of July in the US of A :)

Me and my DC friends Margo and Dean went downtown to the Mall early on to attend one of the many demonstrations. I had conveniently chosen to take part of the Legalize weed rally :) I have never attended any demonstrations in my life and I thought this was a good one to start with. It was quite a small one but it was fun! The protesters met up at Lafayette Park and walked down to Lincoln Memorial where a reggae concert awaited us in the park. In the rally I also bumped into a lot of other Couchsurfers as DC had their annual Couch Crash all weekend.


We had a great time in the sun, dancing reggae and enjoying the breeze and the people. Later on in the evening we met up with even more CSers, had a picnic in the park and watched the fireworks from the Mall. Beautiful! Afterwards we ended up going to a house party that was part of the Couch Crash and wow there was tons of people from all around the world and $1 beers to buy :) As we had to catch the last metro at midnight we didn't stay for too long but that was all good as our legs felt like spaghetti after cruising around all day. We had such a great day!

Today, is my last day in D.C and sort of my last day on my backpacking trip. I am ending where I started; 7 months ago I flew into D.C in the cold cold winter and now I am leaving in the hot hot sun. But it is not all over just yet. I still have 5 more days of vacationing in London before I head home to Finland for the rest of the summer.

I have had a great last week here in DC with my friend Margo, which I met 5 years ago on another backpacking trip in Brasil. It is amazing the people you meet while backpacking and more amazing that we still keep in touch and visit one another now and then. :) So thanks Margo for letting me crash at your place and I had a good time! There has been a lot of BBQs and drinks, and not to forget our Entourage marathon. :) I hope to see you in Finland soon!

I better go and pack the backpack for almost the last time and see you over there in London!

Hasta Luego amigos!

B-day bash, Midsummer fest, Gay Pride, Brooklyn = NYC

I had a great time in New York with a lot of events and festivities!

Friday night was my former London roommate/Toronto classmate's birthday party in his apartment on East 50th street. A supergood location and fun people to have some drinks with. With a hangover in the morning I managed to wake up early and take myself over to Brooklyn, where I would couch crash for the rest of my weekend. I have been many times in New York but this was the first time I have really been to Brooklyn and it is a really nice place. If I would work in New York Brooklyn would be the place to live in. It is calmer and just so much cuter :)

Through Couchsurfing I happened to meet another Finnish-Swedish girl that also lived in Brooklyn and she invited me to Prospect Park in Brooklyn for a Midsummer's Day picnic with other Nordics, Scandinavians and the random American. We had a lovely afternoon eating Swedish meatballs from Ikea, ragbrod(!!), Finnish licorice, Wasa knackebrod and other yummy stuff while playing charades and enjoying the sun. :)

Sunday was all about the NY Gay Pride parade! I met up with two other couchsurfers outside the Empire States building and we managed to find a good spot in the crowds to check out the fab and crazy gay parade. Some had beautiful amazing costumes while others barely had no clothing what so ever. I loved it! Who would say no to watching naked hot men dancing on the streets?! ;-)

Since I stayed in Brooklyn I had to do the famous walk over Brooklyn bridge even though I had done it before. It is just such a nice walk even though it was 31'C warm. Hot, hot, hot! After the hot catwalk, I cruised around lower Manhattan; Chinatown, Little Italy, Soho and then met up with my new found friend Kwon in Chelsea. There she showed me the High Line, a new park that has been built on top of the old railway lane. It stretches out for 3-4 blocks and they plan to extend it for 10 more. It was a cool and refreshing park, very innovative and creative with flowers and trees planted on the railway. You can see pics of it in my pictures.

I had a very good time in New York and walked so much that my feet needed a foot massage or at least a gentle foot rub. But it is all happy days for my feet as they have been in flip flops now for 7 months, so they can't complain really.

Anyways, after my fun days in NY I jumped back on the double-decker megabus to DC to spend my last week in the States with the president (and yeah my friend Margo)!