unconventianal wedding

We'd been planning to get married for a while, but we were lazy to set a date. We were not in hurry. But when I got pregnant, we decided that we want to do it before the baby is born. I didn't want to wait till I get a big belly, so we Misi chose Friday, June 6, 2008 (06.06 - easy to remember).

The easiest and most convienient was to get married here in Finland. I only needed a paper from the Romanian embassy and the rest was done at the local registry office here in Tampere. We had to fill out a form that we want to get married, sign it and they checked if the marriage is possible. We received the confirmation one later.

We booked an appointment at the office and now the rest of the preparations could begin.

Guests: The golden rule was: as little stress as possible. There are so many stories I had heard about preparations being made over a period of several months with the bride stressing over the flower arrangements, the guests list, the dress, the menu, the location, the church etc. I wanted as little stress as possible. Small, simple wedding with two witnesses. My father was absolutely fine with him not being here. For him the most important thing is that I'm happy. The only family we had was Misi's brother as his witness. My witness was a friend, Marika, who I met thanks to Edo - just as I met Misi thanks to Edo. Marika now lives just a couple of hours away from Tampere and she was very touched I had asked her to be my witness. The "guest list" was complete.

Wedding dress: I didn't feel like wearing a traditional wedding dress. Not only I wouldn't have felt comfortable in it, I didn't see the point of it. After all the ceremony itself would be short. Very short... However, I did want to be elegant. So after a few trips in numerous shops, I ended up with a white blouse, white trousers - both good to wear on other occasions as well. And as we were strolling through the shops, I saw the hat stand. Hat! Not a bad idea, I thought. I don't usually wear a hat, so this would be special. I have short hair, not much to do with it for a wedding, so a hat seemed like an excellent idea. I found a white hat that reminded me of Queen Elizabeth's hats :) White sandals, white bag, necklace and I was set. We ordered a bouquet from the flower shop around the corner from where we live.

"Church": I am a catholic, but not a fan of the catholic church any more. Misi was not baptized. So a catholic church wedding was not something I wanted to do. But I would have liked something spiritual. And as it happens, thanks to Edo again, we know a couple, both Lutheran priests, who we do meet occasionally as friends - we either visit them or they visit us. We asked them if they would bless us and they happily agreed to it. However, they were not sure if they could make it on the day we set. But we discussed that we could arrange something later on if they couldn't make it.

"Party": we booked a lakeside cottage to spend the weekend at with our two witnesses.

The ceremony at the registry office was at 4 PM. At 11 AM we were shopping in a super market for groceries for the cottage weekend. There I suddenly had the idea of looking for a wedding cake. We looked at a few cakes, but we couldn't quite agree on one, so we ended up buying ice-cream as a substitute. I thought the situation was hilarious and I was having so much fun :)

We got home, got dressed and we headed for the arboretum to take some pictures. The weather was gorgeous, sunshine, warm but not too hot, and the lilacs just blooming. It was perfect. After the arboretum we went to the registry office and the whole ceremony was over in less than two minutes. We didn't even have to sign any papers. As it turned out we had signed when we filled out the form that we wanted to get married. Those were valid, there was no need for new signatures. Only our witnesses got to sign a paper on our wedding day :D

It was time to have something to eat. Originally we thought we could have the wedding meal in a very elegant restaurant in a tower whose top is rotating so you can actually literally look around while you are eating. It is probably the most expensive restaurant in Tampere. But when I checked the menu beforehand, I realized that there was nothing that really appealed to me. So we dropped the idea. Instead we ended up deciding on the spot to go to a Thai restaurant - small and elegant, but not expensive and where we knew the food was delicious.

After the meal we got home, packed what we needed and after one hour drive we made it to the cottage.

The Monday before the wedding our priest friends, Maritta and Antero told us they would be able to make it to the cottage on Saturday afternoon at five. So on Saturday we just relaxed. Had some barbeque, played some games... Everyone had a swim in the lake except me - the water was too cold for my taste. So when Maritta and Antero arrived they found us in this sweet relaxed state of doing nothing important. We got changed into our wedding outfits and had a small, but lovely ceremony of about ten minutes on the pier. Again, the weather was perfect, the surrounding was gorgeous - lake and trees and blue sky with the sunshine. We couldn't have asked for anything more.

I asked Marika not to let me down and try to catch the bouquet ;) She didn't have any competition, so it wasn't too difficult :)

Popped an alcohol free champagne and we were just chatting away, the six of us there on the pier. An absolute state of relaxation preceeded by no stress or worries whatsoever. We had something to eat, nothing fancy, after all we were in a cottage, had our wedding icecream and then Maritta and Antero had a sauna and swam in the lake.

I absolutely loved this day. And even though this was not originally planned as the main wedding day - I thought the registry office one would be the main one - this day will stay in my memory as our main wedding day.

looking back at 2007

Had a very busy 2007.

I had decided to sell my flat in Bucharest, so in April I went to Romania for a week and started organizing everything that goes with a sale. In June I went again. For days I was going through all the stuff that I had there, trying to decide what I wanted to keep and what could go into the bin. I had so much stuff to throw out, that I hired a 7 cubic meter garbage container. It wouldn't had been enough if it wasn't for people in the area who just carried away stuff that they wanted. Mostly old furniture that was not worth transporting to my father's new house in Transylvania. We didn't think anyone would want it or need it, so my father brought a chain saw because it was easier to carry it down from the 7th floor to the garbage in small pieces. After a few hours people discovered the furniture pieces and started carrying them away – I assume they wanted to use them as firewood for the winter. It was a blessing that they took so much stuff away. We had very tough three days at the end of which the flat was standing empty. When I had tried to imagine this moment before, I thought I would get emotional. After all, I had lived there for nearly 25 years. I grew up, went to kindergarten, school, high school, university from here. I had happy moments, sad moments. And yet, as I walked around the empty flat I felt nothing...

Then, back in Finland, at the very end of August I fell in love with a flat that I found on the internet. It was love at first sight, even before we got to see it off line.

The practice in Finland is as follows: there is a specialized web site where real estates are presented with pictures and all kinds of details (address, size, price etc.) Here there's also a date and a time when people can actually go to see it without having to contact anyone, or having to explain anything to anyone. The door is open, so you walk like into a museum, just say hi to the real estate agent and that's it. If you want you can walk out right away, or ask questions. So once you decide you want to move, you can just start by familiarizing yourself with the market by visiting real estates. That's what we did until we found this one. Now, the downside of going to such a public viewing is that even if you decide you want the flat, someone else might get it instead of you if it's a good place. So when I fell in love on the internet with this flat on a Thursday evening, I wanted it so badly, I called the real estate agent the next morning and asked for a private viewing before Sunday, the first public viewing. To make a long story short: five weeks later we moved in. What happened in these five weeks? Well, we prepared our own small flat for sale – worked hard a full week to make it really nice and cosy. Thanks to Irene, my Norwegian colleague who is into interior design, the flat was so different, our friends didn't even recognize it when they saw it on the net. But hard work paid off. The flat made it to the net on Friday morning, the same day someone booked a private viewing for the next day, and it was sold! Yes, in a day! Before the first public viewing. The same way we bought our new flat. Of course, part of the attraction was the lake and forest view on one side of the building, and yet, close to shops, banks, medical centre etc.

We also had a few exciting days waiting for the bank to make a decision about giving us the credit, but it's a happy ending and we've been living in the new flat since October and we absolutely love it! :)

MTV Generation

When I was a teenager I did watch MTV. It was fun to watch the music videos. Since then I grew out of it and I never watch it nowadays. Except for when it’s on at the gym. As far as I have noticed they don’t really play music on it any more. They have all kinds of programs. One of them really shocked me. It’s a contest between two persons and they are encouraged and cheered by their friends. The point is to insult each other… “Your house is so cheap, the paint holds it together.” But the most frequent insults are about mothers… How sick is that! “Your mother is this and that, so and so…” And what I don’t get is that many times these insulted mothers are actually in the cheering crowd… Why is this considered fun???

Hockey

I have never been interested in hockey. Somehow in Romania is not as popular as football, and although I had friends who played hockey, I never went to see a game. Finland is a different story. In winter ice rinks are free of charge for everyone to enjoy and they are all over the place. And there are always guys playing hockey. It feels as if Finns were born with skates on their feet. So seeing this frenzy, it made me curious. I wanted to go and see a hockey game. Misi knew this and one afternoon he surprised me. He came to pick me up from work. I thought we were going home, but instead we ended up at the local ice hall. I had no idea who was playing, or what the name of the local team was, but very soon I became a Tappara fan J I am not quite sure how it happened, but at their third goal I found myself jumping up and cheering with the crowd…

winter

December has the shortest days up north. At 8 am it's still dark, at 4 pm it's already dark. I find it very hard to wake up in the morning. It's just so nice and cosy under the blanket, and it's dark outside, you just want to behave like bears and hybernate... Luckily for me I have the flexibility of starting work at 10 am the latest. And since I live just about 5 minutes walk away from the office, it gives me quite some time to sleep in the morning, unless, of course, I have plans in the early afternoon, in which case I need to start work as early as possible to work off my seven and a half hours. This past December was particularly bad because we didn't have much snow. Snow usually lightens up the scene a bit. Anyway, it's February now and winter has finally kicked in. We have snow, we have temperatures weeeeell below freezing and days are getting longer.

Talking about freezing temperatures. When all the lakes freeze, people actually drive on the frozen lake with their cars, and there are clearly designated paths for cars. What I didn't find out yet: how do people know when the ice is strong enough to venture onto the ice with their cars... I'm sure there are some rules, I just don't know what those rules are. I guess something like the thickness of the ice, a certain temperature over a given period of time and so on... Maybe I'll try it one day ;)

I have just learnt a new Enlgish word: mittens - the gloves that have the thumbs only, not the five finger glove. Well, I just bought a pair of mittens. I thought I had proper gloves, but at temperatures of nearly -30 C (-22 F) I soon had to experience that my hands were very cold in my gloves even on my short walk to work. So I went and bought a pair of mittens, because they actually keep your hands warmer. I'm very happy with them and they DO keep my hands nice and warm :)

Christmas

Misi flew to Hungary on the 21st of December and I followed him on the 23rd. I had quite a long and eventful journey. I was flying from Helsinki, so I took the 3 am bus from Tampere to Helsinki. Since had woken up at 6 am the previous morning, I thought I would sleep on the bus thus making the trip seem shorter. And I did, for about an hour. Half way into the journey this little 3 year old girl started crying. And she didn't stop for the next hour until we arrived to Helsinki... In Helsinki I couldn't believe my eyes when I realized how long the queue for the check-in was. I counted at least five different destinations in the same queue. I don't quite understand what was the logistic behind this. Every now and then a woman would come and shout out a destination and a departure time, and those who were travelling at those times would go in front, otherwise they would have missed their flights. After one and half hours I managed to check-in. Upon arrival I had the unpleasant experience of my phone not booting up. Luckily I had another one with me as well with a Hungarian number in it, so I was able to get in touch with Misi to let him know onto which Wien-Gyor train I made it. By the time I arrived, I had been up for 36 hours with less than two hours of sleep which I got on the bus and on the plane. I was dead tired, but didn't go to sleep for a while because I didn't want to mess up my rythm completely. I only went to bed around 5 pm and slept for three hours and was up for two, than went to bed again at 10 pm and had a long, lovely, refreshing sleep until 9 am the next morning. For two days we spent time with Misi's family and visited some friends. You can imagine that two days fly away quickly and on the morning of 26th of December I was in Wien again waiting for my flight back to Finland...

Guardian angels

Recently an Indian woman from our company's Mumbai office came to Finland for a couple of months. Two weeks later a few of us went to see a movie. I drove us there and promised her I would give her a ride back to her hotel. I had no idea where her hotel was. She mentioned two landmarks which were very far from each other, so she completely confused me. She knew the street name, but that didn't help me. I am terrible with street names, I always only know the main ones... So there I was, driving in Tampere without an exact plan in mind and listening to her trying to help me. I soon realized that what I was doing was not very safe: I wasn't concentrating on the driving, I was listening to her and trying to think of a way to get her home. So I decided to park somewhere to avoid causing an accident and think of a plan. Just when we stopped, my colleague looked out and said: "It's here!" She got out of the car to double check and indeed, we were parked 100 m away from her hotel!... I am not sure if it was mine or hers, but it certainly felt like an angel guided us there... :)

Finnish winter

At the end of October we all thought we just saw the beginning of a long winter. We had a huge snowfall, over 20 cm in 24 hours, which messed up the entire city. We also got stuck in the snow in the parking lot. Buses were stuck, everything seemed to be in chaos. And then a heat wave came maybe a couple of weeks later and for days on end the temperature would not go below +4C. The snow started melting, and then it started raining and by the end of November there was absolutely no sign of any snow whatsoever. Which is quite unusual for Finland. The next snow came the Monday before christmas - around 1 cm... In proper winter Finns go cross country skiing in the woods or on the frozen lakes, go skating on the free skating rinks all over the place, they even drive their cars on the frozen lakes. I don't think anyone ventured with their cars onto the lakes this winter, unless it was on a ferry... Apparently there is hardly any snow in Lapland, too. Which is utterly unpleasant for all the tourists who were hoping to see some real snow while visiting Joulupukki (Santa) in Rovaniemi. I guess the global warming really kicked in... :(

Greek island hopping

We started with Santorini.



Beautiful, charming, and (unfortunately) full of tourists. What an ironic thing to say, huh? Yeah, we were all over the place. We had decided that we would get engaged here, so we started ring-hunting. Greece is absolutely packed with jewelry shops and we eventually found something that we both liked :) of course, they needed some time to make them our size. We actually picked them up towards the end of our trip, when we returned to Santorini after visiting Paros and Naxos (two nights on each island)

In Paros we stayed at a very charming little hotel, San Antonio.



The managers, a Greek couple, were extremely welcoming and it felt like home. Piso Livadi, the town where the hotel was located in, was a quiet place, and since September is not really peak season, it was very relaxing, with only a few people on the beaches
This is where we decided to give scuba diving a try. We love water. so the idea really appealed to us. on the greek island of paros it was only a question which diving company to chose. after we made our choice, we walked for nearly an hour till we got to the golden beach. we first got some theoretical training. it started sounding slightly dangerous. there were some papers that we had to sign that stated we release the instructors of any responsibility in case of an accident and that we are aware one can die. anyway, we went ahead with it. we put on our wetsuits and oxygen tanks and we walked down to the beach. we started the practical training in shallow water where you can stand with your head above the surface. at this point i have learnt something more about my body/brain. for 31 years if i put my head under water, i knew i was not supposed to breath. this knowledge is more of a reflex, i guess. now, all of a sudden, i had to teach my brain that is actually ok to breath under water after all. it was not easy. there is something unnatural about it. i now understood why in the form we had to fill in one of the questions was about the possible history of panic attacks. under water i realized that indeed, it is very easy to get a panic attack. luckily for me, we had a brilliant diving instructor, Misi and i were the only clients, and for Misi this was actually the second time he was diving, so while he was doing brilliantly, our italian instructor lady was able to give me her undivided attention. she was great. she took my hand and looked me in the eye. we were under water, so we cold not speak. but there was so much peace in her eyes, it just made me relax. I couldn't see her mouth, it was behind the breathing thingy, but I could see the smile in her eyes. They were like angel's eyes, especially that I was scared. Anyway, soon i started to get the hang of it. however, one thing i couldn't really master properly was to refrain from breathing out through my nose. this makes water go into your mask. luckily there is a technique how to get it out. anyway, what i did most of the time was to pinch my nose with my fingers, so problem was solved. after all this practice we started swimming in deeper. and the underwater wonder began. one of the first things i noticed was the shape of a star in the sand. so i pointed it to the instructor. she gently shook her hand above it thus making the water move the sand and reveal the sea star :) we stayed and watched how the star slowly dug itself under the sand again. later on the instructor showed us a bunch of dead shells. she gently moved a couple of them. it took me some time, but i finally noticed that there was an octopus hiding in this whole covering up with the shells. we also saw sponges. while in the sea they are actually covered in a black hard cover. we didn't touch them, we were told not to touch anything in order not to harm any creatures. we also saw sea hedgehogs. a cuttle fish, funny looking little creature. a flat fish amazingly hiding in the sand and quickly swimming off.

It was a fantastic experience.



Greek people are generally friendly, but I did come across a couple of not so nice people. We went to an internet cafe, I wanted to check my bank account. There were many guys playing games, but there were also many free computers. The guy in charge assigned me to a computer between to gamers. I asked him: "Could you please give me another computer, I want to check my bank account." His answer: "So what?" "I would like some privacy, it's my bank account.". "So what??" he asked again. I wasn't in the mood for any more explanation, so I firmly asked: "OK, can you give me another computer or not?" He didn't argue any more. He gave me another computer...

One day I went to a photo shop. My digital camera's memory card was full, so I wanted to put all my pictures on a cd. I thought it was polite if I didn't assume everyone speaks English, so I asked: "Do you speak English?" The guy answered something in Greek. I stood for a couple of seconds trying to figure out what to do with an answer that wasn't neither YES nor NO . Then he finally said in English with an arrogant look on his face: "Sometimes." I guess he must had been fed up with all the tourists. I explained what I needed, he told me to go back in 15 minutes. I didn't. I thought I'd better give him a break from another tourist. And our ship was leaving anyway... We were on our way to Naxos.

The hotel in Naxos was not too nice. After we arrived, we had a little lie down. When I woke up, got off my bad and discovered the hard way, that there were two nails sticking out the side of the bed... Got a nasty scratch on the back of my leg. Not a serious injury, but I was bleeding nonetheless. I went down to the reception. This hotel was a family run business. There was this teenager guy playing a computer game with his friend. Explained I wanted another bed. We got another room. In the evening, after we had been to the beach, obviously, I wanted to have a shower before we went out to have dinner in town. Misi had a shower with cold water. I was a bit angry: it's a seaside hotel, hot water is the least I expect from a hotel, irrespective of the number of stars. I won't bore you with details, but it took about half an hour to finally have hot water. Hm...
On Naxos we rented this thing, it's called a buggy.

They are quite popular in Greece, along with other kinds of motorbikes. It is cool and convenient, however, at times I was a bit afraid being exposed. I am not a motorbike type, I prefer the safety of our Volvo ;) The buggies can go with 60 km/h. At one point it broke down and we were stuck for about an hour or so, until the company where we rented it from, found us and we got another one to continue our journey with. But at least we were able to check a few beaches and we finished the day buy snorkeling in a very nice place.
Back in Santorini we picked up our rings and sat down on a nice terrace overlooking the town with all the lights on. This is where we got engaged. We wanted to have a cocktail, so the waiter convinced us into a... cactus cocktail :) Funny choice for an engagement drink, but we didn't tell the waiter our plans. Misi called my father to ask for his permission. Just when he was on the phone with him there were fireworks somewhere on the island. We took it as a blessing, not just from my father, but from fate as well :)

One of the best things about coming back to Finland from Greece? We can finally throw the toilet paper into the toilet again!!! Yep, in Greece you are not supposed to do that. There is a bin provided for that purpose. Apparently the pipes are so small, that whenever a few tourists forget to use the bin, all hell brakes loose. We were told: "You don't want to know what it is like when that happens..." :-/ I wouldn't want to be a cleaning lady in Greece... Yuk. In one place we saw a sign: "Don't you dare throw anything into the toilet unless you have eaten it first."

London Stansted humanity

Security at the airport is taken very seriously, indeed. After checking in our suitcases, we queued to get through security. My small backpack turned out to be too big and they sent me back to check it in. When I asked the woman if I could carry my wallet in my hand, she said no. I still don't understand why, I mean if you can carry a small bag, why couldn't you carry a wallet? However shocked I was, they are the security, and I see no point in arguing with them. So I took out my credit card and driving license from the wallet and put it into my passport and checked in my backpack. After I passed through security I realized that I had forgotten something in the wallet: my residence permit... Now, this might mean some complications when trying to enter Finland, because luggage recovery is AFTER passport control... At this point there was nothing I could do. I was just hoping that the Finnish customs have my record in the system that shows I do have a residence permit.

The boarding was not done through those tunnels that lead you directly to the plane door, but we had to walk to the plane and climb the stairs. And all of a sudden I had an idea: I walked up to one of the guys who was about to start loading the luggages onto the plane and explained to him that I desperately needed my wallet. I gave him my bag's check in number, explained what the bag looked like and he brought it to me. He didn't let me have it back, because it was checked in, I guess it's the procedure, but he let me take out my wallet, thus saving me some trouble. I am still moved by his kindness.

Luckily, I was also able to take my camera out, otherwise I couldn't have shared this moonrise with you.

Lion King show in London West End

I don't specialize in writing theatre reviews, so I’ll keep this very short. The show was absolutely brilliant. The costumes, the music, the choreography. Everything full of colour, of good ideas. We really enjoyed it.

Entering the UK

Upon arriving to London, the custom officer lady asked if I had ever been refused a visa to the UK. And why. And what was the flight number I flew by. I had no idea what was the answer to the last question. It turned out that the reason I was asked about my flight number was because it appears in their system that I had been refused a visa and they have to ask me all kinds of additional questions. Is it always going to be like this from now on? No. Only for a few more times and then it will disappear from the system that I was refused a visa. How comforting, huh? Anyway, I shouldn't complain, it didn't take too long. My colleague from Pakistan who we had met at the airport in Finland by chance and travelled together, spent 15 minutes answering questions...