The Merry Month of May

It's blowing my mind a bit that it's already June. Since a month has now ended, the best month of them all I would argue, I figure it is long overdue for me to share some photos from the past 31 days. May was filled with sunshine and warm days, and plenty of smiles! The beginning of the month started out with a visit from Valeria's dad, Leif, and that was a really lovely visit. Communicating via an interpretor is pretty entertaining at times, but we managed alright and we all had a great time.

We had multiple barbecues!

And we visited the Helsinki Russian Orthodox church.

Sometimes I forget how cool it is that my city is on the Baltic Sea.

We also visited Suomenlinna, which until 1918 was known as Viapori, or Sveabor. It is an inhabited sea fortress built on six islands, which now form part of the city of Helsinki. It's considered a world heritage site, and while fun to take a ferry to an island, I admittedly find forts a tad boring, but thankfully the company was great!

I'm always setting fashion trends, duh!

Most of the month consisted of going to school, but thankfully there were some more interesting days of classes in May. We had the great pleasure, for example, of monitoring some air quality machines that two visiting professors from the United States were utilizing in Finland in order to run a cross comparison analysis, between the air quality in New York City, and in Lahti, Finland. It was a fun week of field experiments. 

Vilhelmiina and Valeria monitoring the machine.

Feeling pretty important in my vest, obviously.

Valeria and I also got the pleasure of monitoring these same air quality monitors overnight for a bit of money. Because these machines were running 24 hours a day, they required monitoring in order to assure that they were not tampered with, and needless to say I signed up for the job when I realized there was money involved. From midnight to 6am one day Valeria and I 'guarded' one of the air quality monitors. Aka, we watched 3 movies and got paid 11 euros an hour to entertain ourselves whilst camping under the stars. Cool.

Valeria is pointing at the already rising sun, it was probably only 2am when this was taken.

Another lovely day spent in Lahti for school, Valeria and I arrived a bit early, and we decided to sit by the lake for a bit. This massive swan decided to show off for us, it was quite amazing! I love animals and water, and when combined, well damn!

This guy.

Speaking of school, one of our teachers, who taught us about how to calculate algal cell concentrations using a fancy machine, has a killer moustache. I have been trying to capture a decent photo of mustachio for months now, and the other day I finally got one, and this wasn't just any ordinary mustache kind of day, this was a one side up, one side out kind of day. This dude's mustache is always impecable, and I appreciated the flare it received today. 

Scientist at work, watch out!

What else, well I know what.. Finns, are, CRAZY! Let me explain. Basically, Finns are constantly living for winter is what I have discovered, and this blows my little mind. I can only relate to people who are living for summer, and therefore find it absolutely mind blowing that these people live for winter time, and furthermore winter time activities. I guess I can kind of understand the logic, because when winter time is what you experience a majority of the year in these parts, it behooves one to just embrace it and, say, fall in love with cross-country skiing. Point being, some of these nerds, errr I mean Finns, resort to roller blading with 'skiis' and poles so as to be practicing their skiing technique year round. Behold the following image.. 

What the what??!!

This kind of dedication is pretty intense to me, but more power to them for having a passion I suppose. Anyways, I will stick with running, and they can have power blading.

So the city has also really been coming alive, now that the snow has finally melted, and I have been taking advantage of all of the activity! The first was where the city essentially had a huge yard sale (pihakirppis), and you could sell your things wherever you wanted!! Valeria was quick to jump to this, and set up 'shop' on the main Esplanade in downtown Helsinki. I was kind of an idiot to not do the same, and make a few euros, because in the end I only acquired new things, whoops! But it was a lot of fun!

Makin' paper

Two weekends ago now, was the Helsinki World Village Festival, and it was a lot of fun! There were so many interesting booths, and cool happenings from all over the world. My two favorite things that we saw were a talk from the head of the Russian LGBT non-profit that is feverishly fighting outdated, and cruel legislation. I admittedly knew very little about LGBT rights in other countries, let alone in Russia, so this was very interesting to listen to. I encourage people to read more about this Human Rights issue. 

Really thought provoking.

And then, on a more fun note, we stumbled upon an amazing band, Melech Mechaya! I had really been itching to see live music, and this fulfilled the need, at least temporarily! These dudes are a gypsy band from Portugal, and they had amazing energy, it was incredible! I have a lot of respect for musicians who can get a crowd to move and sing along, when admittedly almost no one had ever heard of them. It takes a lot of guts, and it was too fun! 

I need to learn how to play the fiddle, today!

Oh and I guess May is the month of my birthday as well, eh? Well it was a lovely day, filled with making skrilla, hey I have to eat too! But more importantly, I felt so much love from all of you, and it really meant a lot. Having a birthday far away from your friends and family can be kind of lonely, but no one let me feel lonely, not even for a minute! Thank you for the birthday love, presents, and letters, they meant the world! And I have to show off what Dave gave me, because I was too psyched on it to not share! 

Kuksa is the native Finnish (Sami) people's handmade drinking cup. I love these things, and had really been wanting one, and Dave is a good listener and got me one! :) He also made me a handmade spoon, so cool! Aaaaaand he got me a really nice, and legit knife! Opinel knives are so amazing! I kinda dig him! :)

I guess I can really go camping now!!!

So last weekend I went to Dave's and it was a really nice weekend, the last I'll ever spend in Kuru, because it's almost SUMMER BREAK!!!! In a mere 11 days I will be disappearing for 2.5 months! I can't wait! First I will go to Sweden, then to Norway, then to Iceland, from there to Spain, and lastly to England! Boom! I will be sure to take lots of photos and make multiple blog posts this autumn, but for now, that's all she wrote! I hope everyone has a lovely summer, and I'll surely do the same! 

Cheers to finishing my first year of grad school.. YEAH!

Someone was desperate for ketchup last weekend...

Have you ever seen a tractor that isn't bright yellow? What's up 80's?!

Helsinki City Run

This past weekend I ran my first half marathon, the Helsinki City Run, and I couldn't be happier with finally accomplishing this goal! The day was completely and utterly perfect, and I know I will look back on it fondly for years to come. The weather was somewhere in the 60s, with sunshine and not too much wind, but just enough to make it truly perfect running weather. The company I had was also perfect, and additionally it was really motivating and inspiring to run my first half marathon with Dave and my classmate Rene, running buddies are great! I have not run a formal race since the last cross-country meet I ran in high school, back in 2004, so it's been 9 years since I last did a formal race, and I forgot the high you get after participating in races. 

I have been telling myself since finishing high school, and subsequently my cross-country career, that I would start running marathons in order to never lose my motivation to be a runner, but as life happens sometimes things get pushed to the wayside. One of my New Year's Resolutions this year was to run a half marathon, and I'm so proud to be able to check that off this year! Signing up for the half marathon was truly one of the better things that I have ever done for myself, and I envision that I will run many more in the future, and ideally work my way up to being brave enough to run a full marathon. I am sold on the idea of running a spring mini marathon, by the way, because it forces you to run all winter in order to train for the spring race, and the winter is the hardest time to stay inspired to run. Having the inspiration to run in the winter, when it's so easy to sit indoors and be lazy and indulge in the darkness and cold temperatures was very important for me this year, and I am convinced that this is my cure-all for the winter blues! I have already been looking up other half and full marathons to find another one to keep my motivation up and spirits going, and I vow to never have another shit winter now that I know the joy of spring mini marathons. 

I had set an arbitrary goal of completing the half marathon in just under two hours, and would have been even beyond ecstatic with a time of 1:59.59, but I am sad to report that I didn't quite reach my goal, but rather came in at 2:02.42. Realistically, I can admit that this is a great time for my first half marathon, and I am truly grateful for having even completed the marathon, but I will just have to train a little harder to meet this goal next time. I had to stop to tie my shoe at one point, and I'm convinced that this is what did me in haha ;) Also, I mistakenly signed up for the slowest class of runners, not trusting in my running abilities, and therefore I literally spent the whole run passing people, which is great for my psyche, but slows you down a bit because people don't make it easy to pass them sometimes. This is just turning into runner jibberish that I know most of you don't care about, so I'll move on to pictures and say thank you to everyone for the congratulations and support, it meant so much! 

This lady was just playing it so cool, no stress for her while she waited for the start.

This is how Rene and I waited for the start...

And this is how we stretch.

It kind of turned into a photo shoot..

I'd like to draw your attention to my sparkly leggings.

I found this guy, and he was my leggings competition.. I was trying to take it to a ridiculous level, and not many other people were, so I appreciated this guy getting into it!

Dave stretches.

The pink group waiting for our start!

The nerves were starting to kick in. (Dave isn't with us because he was in a faster starter class, which left earlier).

They had balloons to correspond to each of the start groups, here is the beginning of the pink group, waiting for the horn to blow!

Action shot!

Running into the finish..

And there I am finishing!

I stole this photo from the marathon website, another action shot for you!

In the end, it was truly a great experience that will go down in the books as a perfect day. I finished 6,775 out of 17,000 runners, and if you only look at just the female runners, I finished 981 out of 3,185. I found it mind blowing that there were also 71 countries represented, damn! Afterwards we came back to my apartment and had a get together with some friends, and it was a truly perfect ending to a perfect day! A barbecue coupled with sauna is a perfect combination, I hope to do it more now that the weather is shaping up nicely! Oh, also, if you want to see a geeky video that they made of me, check out the following link..
http://results.ultimate.dk/events/2013/run/helsinkicityrun/video/flash/front/index.php?pid=18350

Irlanti - Ireland

A week before my spring break, my mom, dad and I took a lovely trip to Ireland for 10 days. My mom has been wanting to go to Ireland for some time now, and decided no time like the present! So my parents flew from Phoenix to Dublin, where I then met them for what was to be a beautiful 10 days! We immediately got in the rental car and started our journey north. We went to Belfast, then to Derry (or Londonderry), then Galway, the Dingle Peninsula, then Kilkenny, and finally back to Dublin. 

I admittedly knew very little about Northern Ireland, and the struggles it has gone through in its quest for freedom from British rule. It's crazy to think that in my life time so many bad things have happened to good people. It was humbling to see the memorials and street art in honor of those who lost their lives fighting for Northern Ireland. The IRA has a presence that can still be seen and felt in both Belfast and Derry. The Nationalists and the Unionists had some disgusting battles that have left their mark on these cities. Regardless of their war torn past, Northern Ireland was beautiful and we all really enjoyed our time here. 

Belfast street art

Belfast street art

Belfast street art

Abandoned buildings in Belfast

The wall separating east and west Belfast

Between Belfast and Derry we stopped at two sites, The Giant's Causeway and Bushmill's Distillery. The Giant's Causeway was a beautiful natural wonder, that was really incredible to see. The Giant's Causeway is an area of about 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcanic eruption. The tallest are about 12 metres high, and the solidified lava in the cliffs is 28 metres thick in places. These hexagonal rocks are really incredible and have become the subject of a really cute urban legend. 

According to legend, the columns are the remains of a causeway built by a giant. The story goes that the Irish giant Fionn mac Cumhaill was challenged to a fight by the Scottish giant Benandonner. Fionn accepted the challenge and built the causeway across the North Channel so that the two giants could meet. Fionn hides from Benandonner when he realizes that his foe is much bigger than him. Fionn's wife, Úna, disguises Fionn as a baby and tucks him in a cradle. When Benandonner sees the size of the 'baby', he reckons that its father, Fionn, must be a giant among giants. He flees back to Scotland in fright, destroying the causeway behind him so that Fionn could not follow.

Giant's Causeway

Looking back

So many hexagons, it was crazy!

I was into it! :)

After the Causeway, with some time to kill still, we decided to take a tour of the Bushmill's whiskey distillery. Basically if you've ever taken a beer tour it's the same kind of idea, except whiskey, obviously. The important parts are that Corvin made friends with the employees, per usual, and they gave him an honorary vest to wear during the tour. And then we shared in our complimentary samples, of which I'm the only one that really enjoyed them haha!

Corvin making friends wherever he goes, always.

A true bonding moment.

The next leg of our journey was in Derry, also known as Londonderry. This town was much smaller, but still just as lively. There were still many reminders of the tension between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, however it is quiet for now and therefore very pleasant to walk around in. The most iconic part of this town were its peace murals, they were beautiful and very humbling to see.

There were a lot of hints about how pleased the people are about Maggie being dead..

Pretty heavy. 

The 14 victims of Bloody Sunday

This rendition of the Wizard of Oz classic hit number one on the BBC charts

After leaving Derry, while venturing to Galway, we stumbled upon a beautiful bit of coastline. This coastline is someone's view from their back porch, and not just someone, whoever lives in this insane castle! I can't imagine living in such an epic structure, let alone having the view of the Irish coast as you sit and sip your tea! 

Is this real life?

I was so psyched on not needing a jacket!

And someone had their horses out here; they were super friendly!

Then we arrived to Galway. This beautiful, coastal town sure provided for a great stay. We stayed here two nights, but the first night my parents and I partook in separate activities. I went for a 12 mile run along the coast, to continue preparing for my half-marathon, that was 2 weeks away at the time. It was a beautiful run, and I'm so grateful that I was able to see the city in this way. But the second day we took a boat tour of the Aran Islands. These islands, which were cultivated some time ago, are made of stone, and therefore, in order to inhabit them the first settlers had to gather the rocks, and made elaborate fences out of them. Then to render the land cultivatable, they had to lay down seaweed and sand, and then they could finally grow some crops. Nowadays they have been connected to the mainland underwater, and import some things, but it's still a marvelous site to see. It's quite barren, and rather shocking, but still incredible to say the least. They also speak Gaelic here, and that was really fun to get to eavesdrop on. 

Insane the amount of work that must have gone into these fences!

We even got lucky to see some seals, they're the black blobs in the background :) 

Corvin was scared of the edge!

Flowers growing at the edge of the world! 

I think old gravestones are so beautiful!

Lobster fishing gear 

All smiles!

After Galway we stopped at the Cliffs of Moher on our way to the Dingle Peninsula. These infamous Cliffs are worthy of their fame, in my modest opinion. They were unbelievably beautiful and stunning to stay the least. Nature's wonders always have a way of blowing my mind, especially when coupled with sunshine and good company. The most incredible part of this natural wonder is that there is no fence along the edge, which while admittedly dangerous, is still really damn cool, because not having your view impeded by man's hand is always something I am grateful for. 

Cliffs of Moher!

The white specks in the crevices are all birds.. Corvin decided that this mustn't be too bad a place to be a bird! 

Thumbs up for the Cliffs of Moher!

So cool!

and again..

I adopted the touchdown Jesus pose for the trip, in case it hasn't become apparent ;)

The Dingle Peninsula was next, and yet again a truly beautiful landscape! This peninsula is full of magic, and showed us a really wonderful time. We took a 30 mile drive along the coast where we saw so many colors: greens, blues, white, and shades of gray. We stopped so many times to get out and stare at the beauty, and to obviously snap photos, because this coastline was truly amazing. I could see why people decided to set up their homes along these parts. The two nights spent in Dingle were very relaxing and scenic. We unfortunately didn't get a glimpse of the famed dolphin that lives in the area, but hey we're not complaining because the rain held out for us, and that mattered more! Not to mention, the hotel breakfast in Dingle was epic, maybe that's where my true biased opinion comes from ;)

The colors were unreal!! 

I reeeeally want a baby sheep! 

And this dude became my friend as well!

Old beehive shaped huts! How cool!

Some more beautiful coastline!!

Touchdown for the Dingle Peninsula!

After Dingle we ventured to Kilkenny for a night, but along the way we stopped to see the Rock of Cashel. Here's what wikipedia has to say about this site... 
According to local mythology, the Rock of Cashel originated in the Devil's Bit, a mountain 20 miles north of Cashel when St. Patrick banished Satan from a cave, resulting in the Rock's landing in Cashel. Cashel is reputed to be the site of the conversion of the King of Munster by St. Patrick in the 5th century.

The Rock of Cashel

The roof is missing...

The Rock of Cashel graveyard.

In Kilkenny we primarily came to see an impressive castle, but I neglected to take any photos of it. Instead I was more focused on the grounds, which I also didn't take any decent photos of, so instead you just have to trust that we went to Kilkenny, but if you want real proof, then this photo of an art exhibit I stumbled upon will have to do! How crazy that I stumbled upon an exhibit about Finland, whilst in Ireland!

It's a small world.

From Kilkenny we made our way to Dublin, the last destination of the trip. Dublin proved to be a good time, as expected! The weather was great, aka no rain, and the sun even shined most of the time! The city is very much alive, with people all about and everyone couldn't be friendlier if they tried! We had a good time roaming the streets, seeing the sights and eating good food! We stopped at Trinity College, supposedly it is one of the seven ancient universities of Britain and Ireland, as well as Ireland's oldest university. We also got to see the Book of Kells while we were here, it is an illuminated manuscript Gospel book in Latin, containing the four Gospels of the New Testament. It was created by Celtic monks ca. 800; it's crazy seeing things this old! We also stopped at the Kilmainham prison, it played an important part in Irish history, as many leaders of Irish rebellions were imprisoned and some executed in the prison by the British and in 1923 by the Irish Free State. And then we obviously ventured past many infamous cathedrals, like St. Patrick's Cathedral. Other then that, lots of roaming the streets, window shopping and occasionally purchasing a thing or two!

We stumbled upon an amazing restaurant, The Fumbally, and they had this perfect quote on the blackboard!

One of the numerous famine memorials.

Oregon maples on the lawn of Trinity College; it's so refreshing to see green!

The library at Trinity College, it's amazing!

Kilmainham prison

Kilmainham prison

The Dublin spire, it commemorates nothing...

All in all it was a lovely trip, and so great to get to spend time with my parents! I am very grateful for this time with them in such a beautiful place! I highly encourage anyone and everyone to venture to Ireland if the opportunity ever presents itself, you surely won't be disappointed! Lastly, I'll leave you with this epic bachelor party that we stumbled upon in the Temple Bar district, obviously Dublin's party area! :)

I'm convinced that Alex's groomsmen would have been wise to torture him in this way!