It's Not a Fashion Statement, It's a Fucking Eagle.

My Chemical Romance got butchered this time. I'm so, so sorry.

At the Moment, I Have Nothing Against Eagles, But Wait Till I Finish My Cross-Stitching Project..

When my parents had also made it to Finland (with their botanical garden in the car boot), we got to play real tourists.
Our first trip was to Kotka, more specifically to the Meretaarium, which sort of displayed all the fishies that swim around the local waters.

Those things were sort of just... standing there Not moving. At all. My mom thought that they weren't real but unfortunately they were. Creepy as fuck, too...

Also, if you ever go there yourself, use the lift while switching between floors. Otherwise you are going to meet this guy in the staircase. And if he isn't just the most horrific thing you have seen.

Now... Let's play a little game I like to call "Find the fishy"

Also repeat after me: "Fish are friends, not food. Even if they look like this:"

Anyhow. When it comes to puistod (Or "parks" in the language of you, mere mortals), Kotka gets the award for "Most awesome and most mostest." Seriously. There were like 9 of them all sprinkled over the tiny island. The first one we happened onto, was right next to the meretaarium and it contained in it a waterfall.

Well... I never said it was a big one... No actually, I'm just screwing with you, it looked like this:

Man, there are about a million pictures I'd like to show you of those parks because they truly were absolutely gorgeous. But in the interest of sparing your computers (and fingers from having to scroll down all the time) I will try to pace myself and just remind you that you know where to find the rest of the pictures yourself.

Of course, I can't go without the mandatory Weird Picture of Kels aaaand here it is

I'm fucking awesome, petting iron seals and shit...

After that puisto, I managed to yell a city-map machine into submission and in doing that I acquired a map (Actually I didn't yell, the whole process was entirely civil.) We then proceeded to the Maritime Center or whatever the fuck it was. Basically it was a GINORMOUS (And I don't use that word lightly) museum about Everything Even Remotely To Do With The Sea.
It took as a long time and a lot of skimming but we managed to see it all... (I now have major knowledge about the ship St. Michael that sunk near Finnish coast.)

I'll refrain from commenting the next pictures, I'll let that be YOUR job...

I drew the line at trying on corsets. Which is exactly what my dad is about to suggest on the background.
(Yes, I was allowed to try those on, we didn't just bust an exhibit and go crazy all over it...)

By the way, guess who I found?

Our very own Jäälõhkuja Tarmo!!

Unfortunately we couldn't see it from the inside, it was closed for some reason. But no big deal! Have a sculpture of eagles instead (We were, after all, in Kotka)

Also as a quick funsection at the end of this post, these were the sleeping arrangements back in my sisters house:

The blanket is obviously the dog's and the crumpled sheet is where I was oh-so-graciously allowed to sleep. Fun times, kind of miss it.

-Kels

Porvoo by Toto.

Lol. This is getting ridiculous.

I Finally Meet My Idol (Or So I Thought Until I Learned That My Sister is a Shoop)

So Porvoo is this adorable little city that is apparently celebrating it's 666th birthday... I swear though, that's not the reason for our visit, just an awesome coincidence.

While walking around there, I decided to go mainstream and take one of those "oh god, look at me, I'm holding two boulders apart!" pictures. I did not, however, take into account that my sister would be the one taking the picture and the zoom on the new camera isn't exactly awesome. This is the result.

You have my permission to choke laughing.

You done now? Yeah, have this picture of me being all hipster to counter the terribleness of the last picture.

See, my sister is an idiot. She saw one sculpture of a man and started babbling about how it's the guy who created those awesome candies formerly called "Black man's kisses" (Now I think they're just Suukkoja).

That's me, unknowingly having myself photographed in front of a great Swedofinnish national poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg. As opposed to Lennart Brunberg who bought a bakery from A. W. Lindfors in 1928 and made it even more popular by introducing chocolate to its products.
But no harm done, Runeberg was, after all, the most famous and important person in Porvoo (Or so I gathered from the way absolutely EVERYTHING was named after him..)

The city itself was absolutely gorgeous, peppered with small green areas (or *parks*, but I find that classification to be too mainstream..)

In need on sustenance and not finding any fast food "restaurants", we stumbled upon a mexican sort of place (more like walked past the place 5 times and finally deciding to eat there.)

Spicy EVERYTHING. Too bad neither or us had instagram.... Anyhow, the food was awesomedeliciousohgodmoreplease and I got all the spicy stuff because my sister doesn't like it. Nom!!!

-Sassy and well-fed Kels over and out.

Rolling in the Potholes.

I'll let you figure out what song I'm thinking of now for yourselves...

And You Thought The Potholes on Your Homestreet Were Bad... 

Hiidekirnut. These great, big, masssive "potholes" (I'm not making this up, the infosigns there said that the things were potholes in english) in an awesome-looking forest thing. You get to see them at your own risk. If you fall in... Sucks to be you.

The skirt is adorable, the shoes are weird and the top is too long. I know. Loving the hair tho.
Also, I'm going to be a lazy ass and write about the pictures in the order fotoalbum is giving them to me. I don't know how I managed to get them fucked up but nuffing I can do about it now.

Forget what I said about the hair. Anyway this is a map of the hole thingies that you get to see after you've hiked through a trail of treachery that is just trying to slip you up at any second... (Yeah, I went there in a skirt. I could've done it in heels too, if I wanted. I'm awesome, brah.)

You can't really tell from this angle, but it's a giant rock with a giant awesome face. You can see the mouth and teeth but the eyes are sort of lost to overexposure.

I also hate stairs. Just my luck I guess..

What's with the overabundance of my fab face you ask? What ISN'T I counter.

And this is what we hiked all that way for:

Lol, just kidding, if that was all there was, the next picture would be of me trying to drown my sister in it for making me climb all those steps in the terrible horrible wet heat.

Now THAT'S a pothole. About a meter in diameter and 4 meters deep. Imagine finding this in front of your driveway.

Or in fact this:

Jättiläisen Kuhnepytty. 4,3 meters in diameter and a whopping 10 meters deep. I'm not bluffing!
I find it a very nice touch that they have propped a ladder into it. I wonder how many people "accidentally" fall in every year?

-Kels.

Through the Water and Grass

I'm trying to set up this elaborate thing where my last posts title was an adaption of "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin and this time I was inspired by "Through the Fire and Flames"  by DragonForce. Also, Kairi, I just realised where I got that idea from. Whoops.

Möllav Kosk, Ainus Mis Puudub on Sähvivad Tuled ja Muusika

I have a feeling that these are just going to get worse from now on but nevermind that. Myllykoski. 

You might notice an improvement in picture quality. That would be because my sister finally got herself a new camera (I sort of managed to break that pink potato. THROUGH NO FAULT OF MY OWN!!)

"Tall and tan and young and lovely, the girl from Impanema goes walking..."

All height-related comments will be frowned upon until they spontaneously combust.

Since our wanderlust for that day hadn't yet been satisfied by that short waterfall-ogling (Fine, my wanderlust) we also took a quick trip to Tuusula. At that point I had already pretty much gotten used to the Mac-Subway-Hes diet thing we had got going on.

I'm not sure if it was later that evening or whatever, but we rescued a toad from a water pipe thing place. I'd love to show you the whole story in amusing pictures but I have a feeling my sister would pee on all the things I love so here's just a picture of the toad.

You gotta agree, for a leaf-frog or whatever, that's one hell of a toad. 

Also! Daschund-butts!

-Kels 

Bikeride in heaven.

So I was lazy some weeks ago and stopped posting about my Awesome Finnish Adventures. Now I'm going to try and make up for that grave mistake by making a bunch of posts all at once. In order of how the events went down.

HEUREKA! The Theory of Gravitation is Just a Theory, After All!

Can you tell that I'm trying to make witty headings for my posts? Yeah, sorry about that.

Anyway, my sister took me to the Awesomest Coolest Most Heavenly Place Of All, Heureka. I'm not even exaggerating, it was absolutely awesometastic.

Of course perhaps we shouldn't have been allowed inside, seeing as we got lost trying to find the GINORMOUS BUILDING RIGHT BEHIND US that we couldn't see. I mean the arrows showing the way were far too inocent-looking, there's no way we could have taken their advice. No we had to run around like headless chicken. Khm.

Thankfully, after scratching our heads and circling around some big factory a couple of times, we managed to find the GINORMOUS BUILDING RIGHT BEHIND US.

Practically invisible, innit?

Standing in line for 20 minutes just to get tickets was already worth it when we entered the first exhibition about global warming.

Why yes, your eyes are not deceiving you, I'm in wellies because the entire exhibition was in water. And there was a giant melting ice cube there, too. (I'm linking some pictures as to not make my blog unbearably slow)

Having seen that awesome awesomeness (and already heard the first family speaking in Estonian) we barreled on to the world 20X0 (Awesome typo on the home page of heureka: "20X0 - reis tulevikku  8.10.2011-27.1.12012" An exhibition that lasts for 10,000 years? Fancy...)

Basically, there we found out how eco-friendly we were and how we would fare in the elusive futureee. I did pretty well, my sister would totally be kicked out, though.

Then I met some friendly(ish) dinosaurs.

Some of which were cleverly hidden from mere mortal's eyesight.

But all was well in the end, seeing as I got to try my hand out at paleontology (I'm following an archaeologist on my tumblr and GEESH, do they make a big deal out of the difference between archaeology and paleontology. I totally see where they're coming from but still...)

By the way, how awesome is the planetarium from outside? Sorry that I'm forcing you to do lots of clicking and opening links, but otherwise your computer wouldn't load my blog so I'm thinking I've got my priorities straight. 

I'm going to spare you the details of the main exhibition, because if you've ever been to either Heureka itself, Ahhaa or some similar exhibition place then you know exactly what the main part of it is about. However I'm just going to boast a bit:

That's how high the bikeride thing is. I'll let you judge the height of the thing for yourself, I'm really shit at this.

Oh yeah, that's me. And just to prove that I didn't chicken out at the last second:

Although that thing was built so that kids much tinyer than me could ride it too, so riding it was awkward as fuck. But what an adrenaline rush!

We also watched a 25-minute movie about the stars and planets around us. Basically laying down in the planetarium and having the screen be almost 360 degrees above and around you is an absolutely amazing (if a bit nauseating) experience. And hearing the audio double (the original in finnish and a special translation in the earbuds in english) wasn't even as annoying as I thought it would be. 

Also! I'm a midget:

And that thing in my hand is my souvenir from the gift shop. The awesome mug with dissappearing dinos.

That should happily conclude the Heureka tour, I hope. 

-Kels

5 times going for a walk in the forest was a really bad idea and 0 times it wasn't

So occasionally when the weather was not rainy or super hot, Kaja and I decided to make our evening walk with Katja a bit longer.
The first time we did this I had pretty much just gotten here and didn't really know better, so when Kaja suggested we walk through the forest and do this small circle.
I happily agreed and it was pretty nice until we came out of the forest and all went to hell in a hand basket.
You may have noticed that there were quite a few bugs out this summer. Specially before and after the solstice.
So the bugs were gathering and we were swatting and picking up speed and then Katja wanted to drink some water. And we had to stop and the horde of mosquitoes that had been steadily following us suddenly reached their feast.
Dear lord I thought I was gonna die of bloodloss right then and there but somehow we did manage to hop our way out and back home to liberally lather ourselves in hydrokortison.
The second time Kaja thought that hey she knows this great trail and it's not all that hot and /surely/ the bugs have mostly dissappeared by now.
I think you see where I'm going with this.
But no, it was worse.
The bugs were eating us and the trail kept getting smaller and smaller until it pretty much dissappeared. So in the end we had to hike through about a kilometer of waist-high grass and thorny stuff and fields and hope to god Katja knew where she was going.
So I just hung on for dear life to her leash and tried not to break my feet. Because obviously the ground wasn't exactly what you'd call flat. It was more like really tiny mountain ranges all put together and then concealed under even more grass.
All the while being eaten alive.
The third time it was supposedly not Kajas idea but Ken's. I'll leave deciding weather or not to believe her up to you. Anyway it was about a bajillion degrees out and we walked
and walked
and walked
and walked
and the mosquitoes... Mother of god, it's like they had been starving for a decade and we were the only food they were ever gonna get.
The whole reason behind going for that walk was so that we could stea... borrow some peas from the giant peafields. Or whatever the fuck. Anyhow as it turned out, they were far from ready and we had to turn all the way back and just walk through the heat and the bugs and the horrible heat again. Did I mention the bugs?
The fourth time Kaida was visiting. And we decided to go for a walk. And then Kaja says that it would be a great idea to go along this trail that she knows. It'd be this awesome long walk.
I was understandably wary but she promised that the trail would not disappear into nothingness this time and the bugs and mostly gone already.
And I was outnumbered two to one so we went.
In retrospect I can't really decide if it was worth it or not.
Basically along the sides of the road (which did at one point fade to this clearly-once-a-path-but-noone's-been-here-in-ages stage with it's trademark waist-high grass but it wasn't that bad this time) were these giant blueberries that were big as apples. Well more or less. So Kaja, Kaida and I ate ourselves sick stopping every couple of meters because we saw another buch comepletely covered in the sweet treats, Katja learned to eat them right off the bush and that I was most likely to offer mines to her followed closely by Kaida and that Kaja just showed her to pick her own. Lucky was completely agitated because he likes to walk and those stupid humans kept not walking and instead stuffing their faces with some weird blue stuff.
And then we had ventured low enough that suddenly there were giant puddles blocking our way. We got past the first couple and then we came to a big one. Okay, so we'll go off the trail until it gets dry again. Katja went first, followed by Kaja, me and then Kaida. I should have known something was up when Kaja said that it's getting a bit damp.
Before we knew it we were both ankle-deep in water with every step we took. Kaida had managed to save herself, turn back and try the other side of the puddle which was higher than the road and therefore was saved from having the practically swim. Statistically speaking one of us should have realised what the puddles in the drought and the giant blueberries and the still-growing cranberries and other stuff meant. That we were somewhere low enough to be classified almost a swamp.
But they say hindsight is 20/20 and they are probably right. So we were all making obscene wet sounds with ever step, save for Kaida who was mostly dry. Her victory was however quite short lived as after getting home she realised that her shoes had coloured her white socks almost completely blue. My shoes have long since stopped being connected to the soles and therefore the air conditioning is great. After about 20 minutes of walking I had finally stopped leaving medium sized puddles in my wake.
Anyway other than that and Katja suddenly getting very scared of a mushroom the walk was great. And the blueberries delish.
So perhaps that time wasn't that much of a horror after all.
The fifth time we went for a ride on the bikes. It was pretty okay until I felt something sitting on my shoulder. I made the mistake of swatting at it and holy fuck.
It was like it had sunk its giant fangs into me and then pulled out half my shoulder. Which it, whatever it was, esentially did. So i jumped off the bike looked over my shoulder (screaming) and only saw this one long hairy leg sticking out from under the sleeve of my t-shirt. so I swatted some more (screaming) until I reached Kaja who at that point was all but dying of laughter, so she could tell me that the thing, hairy legs included, had flown off with it's dinner.
That was last weekend. The whole thing still hurts like a bitch.
So let this sit here and serve as a reminder that Even though Kaja thinks her ideas are great, they really aren't.



-Kelly