Incidents just keep on happening - Part II

Are you ready for some more?
Never boring when I'm around, you should know that by now, right?
Here we go - again!

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PART II

Not so relaxing trip to summer cabin

These following events took place in Lapland, i.e. northern part of Finland, quite a long time ago. One of our family's summer cabins is in this small island in the middle of the lake. I used to manage a night club at that time so I always worked until 5 am. And since the sun doesn't go down in Lapland on summer time, we often drove to our summer cabin (2,5 hrs drive) after work (this was in August so the sun set only for a short moment before I got home from work).

This beautiful little river you pass by on your way to the shore..

It was about 7-8 am when we started to approach the area where the cabin is located..

It's not an easy road. At first you need to take the highway, for about 150 km then small country side roads for about 20 km and then the last 10 km to the beach it's barely a road, almost more likely a beaten path. You can only drive like 10 km/h so that you don't break your car.
Finally we made it to shore, where we had our little boat waiting for us. By the time we had packed everything to our boat I asked "where is that black bag of mine, with all the clothes?" What bag? The black one!!
Oops! I guess that is still in my living room as I didn't take it to the car, neither did my other half
Right. This means I'd be spending the next 3 days in this small log cabin without any other clothes than those I had on me... (let it be known that there is no electricity there, it really is basic fisherman's cabin that was built about 60 years ago but that is what's so fabulous about it, true primitive nature and living!)
Ok, I guess I'll survive...

On our second day we were driving around the lake with the motorized boat, just a fun ride, not even fishing, and... wait a minute, what just happened? The engine died. Something got broken!! That lake is really, really old. Before it turned into a lake, there were big hills there, hundreds, if not thousands of years ago. Now that it's a lake, there are rocks underneath the surface (long line of hill tops) that cannot be seen, you just need to know where they are. Then there are these extremely shallow areas wherein you could see the bottom. We had hit one of those hill peaks and we broke the cotter pin of the engine. Perfect. We had to row to the shore and drive to the nearest city (about one hour one way) to get a replacement.... right. Wasn't a fun ride after all.
Lesson learnt, drive that only route you know, where there aren't any rocks etc.

(In order for you to understand this story completely, you need to understand that since no electricity, no charging mobile phones, not that there was any connections either...)

On the following day it was time to go home. We were really tired and slept late and all of a sudden I hear, "It's one o'clock." from the radio (In Finnish that is "Kello on yksi.")
We had radio on basically all the time when inside the cabin and fell asleep it still on..

What?! 1 pm?
We needed to get up, start quickly washing dishes, cleaning up the cabin etc. as I was supposed to be at work at 6 pm and we had to drive home etc..
We didn't have time to heat up any water so I tried to wash the dishes in a cold lake water with not much success, only result was irritation. My partner in crime, so to speak, went to start the chain saw to cut more fire wood as it was unwritten rule that there needs to be dry wood in the cabin when you leave it. Well, with our luck, of course there was no gasoline left in the chain saw!
Lesson learnt: make sure you have enough gasoline with you!

It was a very stormy, windy day and further we got with cleaning up everything and packing up the things we had with us, the worse the weather got. Finally, we had done everything and sat down for "take of coffee/tea" as we called it. It's actually quite calming to have a cup of tea and listen to the radio when there's a storm outside.
Then we hear: It's 11(am) o'clock (in Finnish: Kello on yksitoista.)
Pardon? It was 1 o'clock (i.e. 1 pm) already ages ago?

---In Finnish---
1 o'clock = kello on yksi
11 o'clock = kello on yksitoista
9 o'clock = kello on yhdeksän
So, they all sound quite similar when pronounced quickly and if you don't hear it properly.

I had heard it all wrong! All that hassle for nothing. We got up hours too early. Right.

Since the weather was so bad we decided to leave anyway.

Easier said than done.
Namely, the island is surrounded by rocks and one needs to row for the first say 10 meters off shore in order to be able to start the engine without actually breaking it to rocks. Unfortunately, the stormy wind was so hard that no matter how much we kept rowing, we basically went backwards!

At this point I was getting desperate, is this a nightmare? I must be dreaming, all this can't be happening... so we actually had to slowly move (drag) the boat to the other side of the island (with my dear late dog, Ricky, shaking in it, as even it, poor thing, was scared due to the weather). Finally, we got to take off.
But now it's not just heavy winds, it starts pouring, we were soaking wet within minutes and we had about 15-20 min boat ride ahead of us in a lake with some major waves...
I was shaking it was so cold, luckily at least I had my dear dog to lean on, he kept me warm a little.

I was actually so soaking wet that even my undies were red because I had a red jacket on! And as you remember, I had no clothes to get changed... and we had that 2,5 hrs drive back home.

View from the summer cabin's window, on a beautiful day, may I add!
My absolute favorite place for relaxing.

What a trip, right? At least it's over, right?
Not quite.

On our way back to Rovaniemi (home back then), we ended up having a collision, namely a reindeer hit us when trying to run across the road! Our speed was about 90 km/hr, I was so sure that it's dead. No, it wasn't. It dropped a pile of stool on the road (that's what they do when they get really scared) and ran off! Unfortunately though, car was quite damaged. And in Finland reindeers are their farmers' property so if you hit one, you need to go to the nearest police station to report the incident so that the owner gets informed and they go to check out the area whether there is an injured reindeer somewhere... so to the police station we went once we finally got to the city. I can't even imagine what we looked like, soaking wet and tired - but at least still alive - I even questioned that at some point when in the middle of the storm in a small boat, or when we hit that poor animal...

For you who don't know what reindeers are like: they go in packs and walk (or run) around where ever they want to. If they see a car, you can't predict what that animal does next, is it going to run around like a headless chicken or is it going to jump on top of the car.
Sometimes they just speed up in front of the car, stay on your lane, don't even understand to jump into the woods, they just block the road and poor driver is forced to drive slowly as long as this beautiful (but, sorry, little stupid) animal gets it, the car can actually hit it! Even hunk doesn't do the trick!

Hurdle of reindeers just walking around in Saariselkä, in a hotel's parking lot.
Tthey just don't give a damn about anything or anyone. You got to respect that.

I still love that little summer cabin so much and have had amazing time there even after that trip but that one I'll never forget, not because it was so great but because it was so eventful!
My dear, late grandfather really was smart to leave that for us to use, but boy did he know how eventful trips to that place can be!


More bad news, oh, no, sorry I meant... weather

Somehow, some years ago I was well known for my bad luck with weather.

My friends and family started to even joke around at some point not to go with me anywhere as it was pretty sure that some kind of natural disaster will happen.

Mallorca

Once in Mallorca, I and tens of others were relaxing and sunbathing by the pool when all of a sudden the staff came out yelling at us something in Spanish, we didn't quite get them but understood that we have to get inside immediately. Only 5 minutes later this typhoon hit the area. Sun lounges, tables, chairs... they all flew in the air as if they weigh nothing - and boom, over the fence they went, to the ocean... the entire pool area looked as if a missile had hit it, all gone. It took about 15-20 minutes to destroy pretty much everything! I don't even want to think what had happened if we were still there. Good thing we got warned!


Once in Dominican Republic..

It was my second visit there and I, specifically, wanted to go there since it was so beautiful and the weather was perfect.
The island is beautiful, no denying.
But the weather, well... not so much this time.

On our second day we went for a walk and it was drizzling, which I found a bit annoying as it was, after all, only our 2nd day and, obviously, I preferred sunny weather, coming from Finland (wherein it was winter and way below zero, like around -15 C).

Pool area, drops coming down already, that's why it's totally empty...

We walked around and my frustration started to increase as I really missed the sun so I exclaimed:
Ok, that's it, since it has to rain, why not just let it all out! B-R-I-N-G IT ON!

Big mistake! On that same second the heavy rain started - and I don't think I've never been that wet within seconds! It was literally as if someone just dropped 10 buckets of water on me within seconds. You couldn't even see a thing in front of you.
Out of 9 days of our vacay, 6 of them was raining cats and dogs. I should have kept my mouth shot. (Which is NOT an easy task for me, I'm way too talkative and opinionated for that!)

Well, once again, lesson learnt - do not wish for more rain!

What a beautiful day our last day there was...

Canary Islands

Some years later we were in Canary Islands and since it was a rainy day, which we, this time, knew was coming, we decided to rent a car and drive to a big mall that was about 30 km away from our hotel.
We didn't have a GPS, only a map but the route was quite forward, we had 2 choice; the scenic ocean road or the highway, of course we chose the road by the ocean.
Mistake No. 1. It was a grey, rainy day, no proper views.

We passed one crossroads where there was a tunnel, and we saw a car there, floating! The tunnel was half full of water. We kept driving as our route didn't go that way.
Mistake No. 2. When you see places flooding, turn around!

We saw streams of water coming down from the mountains, and these streams turned into small rivers that went across the road we were on. We drove through the first one. Then the second one. It kept raining.
Once we saw a third one we realized that Mistake No. 3 was to go through even after we saw these streams turning into rivers. The third one was so wide that it has bits and pieces of buildings floating towards the ocean (and the actual road started to disappear), all that junk was probably from villages on the mountains.

At that point we realized that if the current was so strong that it moved pieces of small buildings, it would probably twitch our car along with it, straight to the ocean.
We started to freak out a little... (well, a lot) and quickly turned the car around.

By the time we got back to the second stream, it was almost as big as the other, we almost got trapped there - I don't even want to think about it as we had children on the back seat, so we pretend to keep calm but we were scared, I admit.

Sunset the day before the pouring rain,
you can see those dark clouds approaching...

Finally we managed to get to the highway, but that was really scary moment, close call I'd say.

On the following day, when the sun was out again, we had a chat with the diving instructor who told us there was no point in going snorkeling or diving because of the weather was so bad the day before.
Then I confessed that I was quite known for bringing bad weather with me. I told him about my trip to Mallorca and he says; No way! It was you? He was joking I guess, but then he told us that his friend lost his sail ship on that typhoon and that's why he remembers it so well.

For a moment I felt guilty, because I had bad luck with weather this poor guy had lost his boat.
What can I say? Oops, sorry, my bad!?

Besides, it's not my fault the weather gets bad sometimes and I just happen to be there at the same time, right?


Not working out!

As some of you probably know, English is not my first language and it causes sometimes strange, or maybe more correct word would be embarrassing situations.

There was this one (out of many) time I was in Australia and just chilling on the beach...

This day on the beach weather was quite windy and those of you who've been in Australia, know that when you're on the beach on a windy day, the sound of wind and waves crashing the shore can be loud.

On the background you can see Surfer's Paradise.
That's where all this happened.

So, I was waiting on my friends and this guy comes to me and I was having hard time hearing time because of the above mentioned reasons.
We did chat a little though and I heard him asking if I worked. I told him that, yeah, occasionally, so he asked "Where?" So I explained him that in this small, beautiful little Italian restaurant by the promenade.
I was a bit surprised as he quite soon just took off. Not that I minded as I wasn't interested in him but it was nice to have a chat with someone, I like meeting new people.

However, just later that day I realized the reason to his strange behavior. He had asked me whether I work OUT - not whether I work!

Oh, no! This crazy Finn had just made a complete fool out of herself!
I hoped I never see him again (I didn't) as that was so embarrassing! He must have thought; Wow, this chick is fit, but absolutely, insane. I did, after all, responded to his "work out" question that "I do, in a restaurant."
Not my brightest moment! ...and I consider(ed) myself relatively smart person.

Ok, maybe next time if I don't hear properly what someone's saying I keep repeating "Pardon me?" for as long as it takes so that I hear every single word.

Lesson learnt again: Listen, make sure you understood the question and just then respond!

(But no worries, I am totally able to laugh at myself and my mistakes, we all make them, why not just enjoy them then? We all need a good laugh at times and I get those more than enough with my eventful life, now that's for sure!)
***

Ok, let me tell you, this doesn't happen anymore, lately weather has been pretty good on my trips, so don't worry, you don't have to leave the destination just because I may be coming to same place!

To be honest though, I can't promise if you and I  travel together, that it's going to be happily boring trip where nothing happens, as things just seem to happen to me, but that's what makes life so wonderful, events, things, people, destinations, adventures that you can remember even years later!

- - -
Maybe not the most exotic adventures but not to worry, there's more to come!
Make sure you come back next week for Part III, more stories of my life that I live to the fullest...

I promise you my adventures are everything but boring - even the smallest of trips can turn into adventures when I'm around. Happy life! Let's live, not just dream of living!
- - -

...End of Part II - to be continued!

Incidents just keep on happening!

Dear Reader,

Do you know that feeling when you feel like the moment you're living is too weird to be true? As if it was a dream? Yes? Well, so do I and this is a story of such moments on my trips around the world.

As most of the events have been somewhat unfortunate, I don't have pictures of them, so I will post happy pictures of same trips instead, hope that doesn't disappoint you too much.

Although I'm a hospitality professional and many of you expect me to only write about hotels and hospitality, I feel that there is a wider audience out there if I write also about my experiences on my journeys, not just happy trips to wonderful hotels - not that I complain, there is nothing more relaxing than just kick your shoes off, find a proper sun lounge, get a good book and a cool drink and relax while an excellent guest service takes care of all your needs in a luxury hotel.
No worries my friends, I will introduce you wonderful hotels in October & November while on my Asia tour. Be patient, the luxury section is coming!

Yes, I understand that reading about luxury lifestyle may not be interesting to everyone, but that is part of my livelihood and I do like it, so bare with me - besides, of course I feel privileged and honored to stay at the amazing luxury hotel and write about it so no, I'm not complaining - far from it, please understand my point of you and don't complain either! Support me and I'll support you! Reciprocity, you know..?

Anyway... back to today's topic; sometimes things just happen - and some might say more to me than others.
Well, if I only stayed at home and do nothing, most likely nothing would happen. But due to eternal wanderlust I have the urge of leaving, going, seeing... need for living, not just for existing. And that's when things start to happen.

This post is not about just one trip. I will tell you about separate incidents I was involved with, one way or the other during my trips. Ok, I know some of my followers even feel sorry for me since for some those unexpected things ruin their trips, but hey, no need to be sorry, I happen to think that those are the moments you remember and laugh at afterwards... and, in my case, I get to share with others, too.
Besides, behind almost every unlucky event there is a lesson to be learnt - whether I learnt them or not, well, that's another question, remains to be seen!

Since there are so many stories to tell, I decided to spare you and not post them all at once but in 3 parts.

Part I is here below.
Part II will be published in one week,
Part III will be published in 2 weeks.

Get your soda and pop corn ready and feel free to entertain yourselves on my expense.
Feel free to have fun!
- - -

PART I

When Africa almost had it

I can't believe I'm saying this but it's true, this happened already over 20 yrs ago - yes, we are going that far, almost  ancient history.

I was at Helsinki airport, I had to wait for my flight for almost 6 hours. I was trying to figure out something to do as back in the days internet was no option. I had couple of books with me, however, unfortunately, I had taken part II instead of part II of this series I was reading to my carry on back and the part I was in my (checked-in) suitcase. So, I went back to the check-in desk and asked if it was still possible to get my luggage back since it was still quite many hours until my flight to Singapore (and then to Sydney and from Sydney to Coolangatta airport). Lady behind the counter told me she'd try. Quite soon I heard my name from the speakers and went back to the counter, to find that lady looking confused, I could tell that immediately. So I asked her if something was wrong.
So she carefully asks: Where exactly were you heading again? At this stages I must have looked confused, which I was. Of course she must know my destination, she has my ticket! I replied: To Australia, Coolangatta airport.
She says: Not according to you luggage tag.
It turned out that according to this tag, my bag was on its way to a small village in Africa!
Seriously?
So it turned out that it was actually an excellent thing that I ended up asking to get my luggage back for a moment, had I not done that, I might have ended up to Australia for 6 months without any of my belongings as I strongly doubt that my suitcase had ever found its way back to me.

After that I have very carefully checked out my luggage tags, or at least asked the airport/check-in officer to make sure that the code there is correct. In my case it was just one letter that made all the difference, letter G that was supposed to be C. That was a close call!

Scooter drive in Cyprus

Many years ago I was on holidays in Cyprus. We rented a scooter and were driving around, just having fun.

Well, it was fun until a bee decided that it wants to bump its head half way into my side! Yes, you read right! I guess we had so much speed that when the poor bee accidentally hit me, it literally lost its body and only the head got stuck to my side, right below my ribs. Did it hurt? Heck yeah!! And as if that wasn't enough, I burnt my foot with scooter's exhaust pipe, which made my skin literally smell like burning, fried stake. Oh man, that hurt!! The weather was really hot, almost +40 and I couldn't even go to the pool until 8 days later.. what a trip!

Just to clarify things, please know that I have, indeed, experienced many wonderful successful trips, these incidents are just small parts of my travels - not all of them are disasters!

Road trip in Florida

There was this one time I was on a road trip in Florida with my son, who was back then about 10 yrs. He has always been quite fluent in English so he was fun and easy travel companion.
I will always remember his reaction when I asked him one day at home if he wanted to go to Disney world sometimes. (As if any about 10 yr old would say No!!). He calmly said, yeah, why not. So I asked if next week would be ok? "Yeah, mom, right, good one." was pretty much his comment. I was silent for a moment and then said: No, I mean really, how about if we leave next Monday?

Then it started to get through to him that we might be going for real. It was as if the sun had shone all over his face (mid January, darkest time of the year in Finland, not a chance!) Of course he wanted to go, so we did, we went for a spontaneous road trip to Florida within 4 days warning. Fun!

On that trip I learnt that sometimes best things really happen when you get lost.

We rented this fun little yellow sports car and went to Fort Lauderdale for 2 days and then headed to Orlando. Naturally, as it was winter in Finland, one of the main reasons we chose Florida was its amazing weather, which it was in Fort Lauderdale, about +25 C and sunny.


On our 3rd day we made it to Orlando, Boardwalk hotel to be more exact.

I was kind of wandering why the valet guys had so much clothes on when they came to greet as in order to unpack and park our car. As soon as I stepped out of the car it hit me; It's cold! And I don't mean cold as if cool breeze and +20 C, I mean cold as if closer to zero degrees! What the heck? We are in Florida!
It turned out that it was the coldest weather in like a hundred years, it was basically nearly below zero, even the roads were frosty and all the flora were freezing hotel's gardeners were covering them up, there were warning signs on TV, basically on every channel, indicating that there may be ice on the roads and that people should stay home. For someone like me who has lived in Lapland and experiences over -40 C this shouldn't be a bid deal. However, it was as we only had summer clothing with us. But the lesson learnt of that part of the trip was: Always bring your jacket.

So, the first thing next morning we drove to the nearest mall to buy jackets and other warm clothes - c'mon, we're in Florida for Pete's sake!!
Thank God it only lasted for another day and then it was back to +25 C. All good, happy days!

Get lost...

...and we did (multiple times)!
At one time ended up seeing this weird looking house. It was all crooked and, at first we were wondering if it's us, but no, it was the house. It happened to be Ripley's
Believe it or Not museum. Amaziiing!! We didn't even know that there was one but we had seen the show on TV and loved it, so, since we were lost and couldn't find the water park we wanted, we ended up to the museum and we had so much fun!

After the museum we ended up to this grill restaurant, wherein we played cards while waiting for our food and we wanted to take funny photos so I was making these weird, funny facial expressions and my son was laughing literally tears in his eyes and eventually I started to question my comedian skills as I didn't think my face was that funny...
Well, guess what, it wasn't. The funny thing was, there was a waiter right next to me looking at me as if I was a total idiot... making such faces - grown a** woman!! And no, my son did not tell me he was there! How embarrassing.. Good heavens, he must have thought that I'm some loony toony woman... thanks son, no need to tell me that someone's watching! Haha, ok, I admit, now it is funny, but boy was it embarrassing back then! Me and my foolery... there is time and the place for it, but obviously, not whilst waiting for the food.
Lesson learnt: don't make funny faces or if you do, make sure that no one's watching!

Even more important lesson learnt was: Get lost and you shall find!

My first trip to Thailand

My first trip to Thailand was supposed to take place when the tsunami hit it. Because of the tsunami I had to cancel the trip as the entire village were our hotel located, was swept away by the tsunami wave.

Couple of years later we decided that it's now time to go to Thailand. However, we did book the trip from the eastern part of the country, just to be on the safe side.


Safely sunbathing

One day we were sunbathing by the pool in a very nice, 4 star hotel, palm trees hanging above us, providing us with a little bit of shade under the hot sun. We were reading books when all of a sudden my partner exclaimed: "Whoa!!! Did you see that???" I'm keeping my cool: No I didn't, what do you mean?
I can see that he is somewhat astonished but didn't know what was going on. He starts to explain: You see all those palm leaves on the ground? I was just reading my book and I thought just another palm leaf fell on my chest and when I looked at it, it was actually a snake!! Real, alive snake! We kept staring at each other, probably both being scared to death and wondering which one of us reacts first... I quickly swiped it away, into those bushes!"

Yea, right, I said. He keeps claiming that it was a snake and gets up to see if it's still there, and OMG, it was!! It was a green snake with alarmingly bright yellow pattern on its back. We actually even got a photo of it, unfortunately I can't find it now. But imagine that, what are the odds that a snake is trying to basically "jump" from one palm tree to another (I actually have no idea what it tried to do, and why it fell, but it really was crazy!) and fails and falls on you - ok, not on me, but nearly! Only on Mia's trips, some might say...
Guess if I have ever sunbathe under a palm tree after that?

There is the lovely "flying snake pool" :)

Trip to Koh Tao

On that same trip we ended up into a huge storm in the middle of the ocean on our way from Koh Tao back to Koh Samui. I have lived in Australia and been to Hawaii, Los Angeles, various islands in Asia and Europe, Caribbean etc. but I've never, ever in my life seen waves like that. The ferry/boat was basically on the bottom of the wave in one minute and meters and meters higher, on top of the wave the next. People were screaming and vomiting, holding on to their dear lives as they kept falling down, their belongings kept rolling away from them as the deck of the ferry (it was the type of ferry that can have passengers inside lower and upper floor and there was also lower and upper deck outside, and we were on the upper deck) was in 45 degree angle at times. Every single person was more or less scared and also sea sick. My partner was quite calm, lucky me!

View from our villa at Koh Tao

I held on to him the entire trip as I know that he is probably one of the best swimmers on that ship (and there were only life jackets to maybe 1/10 of us). For some reason I float really well so I even started to make plans on how to rescue ourselves if we don't make it. He can swim and I float until the rescue comes, if sharks don't eat us before it - then I realized that those waves were so high that no boat could pick us up!
I counted minutes in hopes of seeing some land somewhere and finally we did.
Because of that experience I still haven't gone back to Koh Tao, and I loved it there, it was so incredibly beautiful!




My trip to Athens to attend to ILHA summit

Last May I was in Athens, wherein I attended ILHA Summit in Ledra hotel. In most cases in try to fly with Finnair in order to collect frequent flyer points but unfortunately Finnair didn't have any direct flights to Athens by that time so I booked flights via KLM.

On my last day I get a text message from KLM indicating that my flight Athens-Amsterdam will be delayed at least by two hours. At first I was all cool, no worries, more time for me to sunbathe.

Wait, hold on!

What about my connecting flight? So I had to call to KLM's customer service and the guy tells me that there is no way I will make it to my connecting flight, i.e. Amsterdam-Helsinki as it was only 2 hr stopover. He starts to browse other flights and comes up with Air France flight from Athens to Paris and then with Finnair from Paris to Helsinki. Ok, that sounds good, let's do that.

Then he tells me that the flight departures 15.15. (that's 3.15 pm), and I confirm, that's fine. Then I ask the receptionist to call me a cab as I only have 1 h and 50 minutes to make the flight and the driving time to airport is about 45 min. So the hotel staff kindly explained the driver already on the phone that I'm in a hurry, which was very kind of them. I make it into the cab and it turns out that the driver can actually speak pretty good English. While we're chatting she asks me what time does my flight departure. I tell her that 3.15 (pm) and just then I realized, my watch is not moving, its battery is dead - whoa, wait a minute - WHAT TIME IS IT?

Turns out that I only have 50 minutes to make it to my flight!! That lady, she drove like there's no tomorrow!! Our own Finnish Formula 1 chamption Kimi Räikkönen would have admired that driving!
Pedestrians didn't dare to cross the streets when they saw her coming, she just kept honking and sh took all the small road routes to avoid traffic and, finally, drove to the airport only in about 25-30 min which should be basically impossible!

I got to the airport and was last one to check in and this lady, some airport officer kindly escorted me quickly to security check point, and at that point I hear an announcement, they are already calling me on the gate, which - of course - happened to be the last gate of that wing, boy did I run with my carry on bag! OMG! I made it! I was last one to enter the plane, had I arrived 1 minute later, they would have left without me.

Yet another lesson learnt: Make sure you check the time when making changes, always double check!


When Krabi put me on my knees

There was this time we were wandering around Krabi. It was our second day and like I said earlier, I'm known as a person who is quite active and when you do things, as a consequence, not so pleasant things may happen as well.

My partner wanted to go cycling in the morning. I told him that for me it may not be a good idea, too much traffic, with my luck some car knocks me over to the nearest ditch. He was a bit hesitant to leave me there (in the hotel area!) and I said, c'mon, I travel around the world by myself, I think I can manage to sunbathe an hour - two alone. So, off he went. I walked to the bar to get a diet coke, took some towels for sun lounge and then decided that I want to go to the further pool, to get some privacy. So no danger there.

I was, once again, wrong.

There was this concrete paved area there, just one step to get there.
(In the photo below, right behind the upper deck.)

I decided to be sporty girl and jump that step. Unfortunately sand underneath me gave in and I tricked over, all my stuff flew around, along with my hat, coke, bag, towels etc. and - of course - there were about ten people still enjoying their breakfast and I ended up being the entertaining clown who ended up falling down, all over the place.

I scraped my belongings along with my dignity of the ground and kept walking until I got behind the corner. Me knee was all wounded and bleeding. Yeah, right, what could happen?


I took a photo of my knee and sent it to my partner:
Nothing new here, how about there?







End of Part I

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Come back next weekend for more stories of unexpected stories of real life.
Trust me, it's worth it!

,,,yes, unexpected events have become familiar, but also happy events, and you'll get to read those stories too, once this 3-part blog post is done, so stay with me.

Little tip on what's to come: bugs and bad weather...

Happy times with good laughs are yet to come!

xoxo!

3 Women, 3 Cities, 3 Days - Fun in Finland!

This is a story of 3 women experiencing wild, fun 3 days together.
Women who had just met on social media couple of months earlier!

 ....How did it all get started? How did this fun ride begun? Well, I was born in...
Nah, just kidding. Let's not go That far... only few months back.

So, what happened? How did I end up hosting these amazing two women?

Well, I came across with this fun, versatile, interesting travel chat, namely #TRLT on Twitter, in April or May I think. The founder of said chat is Savannah Grace, this lovely, always smiling and happy looking Canadian young woman who nowadays lives in Amsterdam with her partner.

We started chatting and emailing with each other after I had attended to few of her #TRLT chats and quite soon noticed that we come along quite well.


At the end of this blog you find Savannah's bio 
Trust me, it's absolutely worth reading! This woman is a true adventurer, so far, she has visited 108 countries - and she is not even 30 yet!
#TRLT = The Road Less Traveled - indeed!
She has also written wonderful memoirs, which I briefly introduce too. Also, at the end of this blog, there are links to order one of her books to yourself if you wish - I can warmly recommend at least the first one, because I'm reading it! Amazing true story of an amazing trip!


So, back to our story:
TBEX, i.e. Travel Bloggers Expo was in Stockholm in July and Savannah attended that event - which I was actually supposed to do as well but wasn't able to after all. While she was planning her trip, I happened to post great photos of Finland to one of her travel chats. She was commenting on my photos something like:
"You have a sauna and you never even invited me for a sleepover!." - obviously she was joking. Little she knew, this crazy Finnish girl wasn't when I said: "Hey, you're welcome anytime!".
Things started to roll and only about 1-2 months later she decided take my offer and she and her mom came to Finland. And just like that, I had just made two new friends.

All of the following events took place in 3 cities; Helsinki, Espoo and Kirkkonummi, which are all in about 30-40 radius from Helsinki, the capital of Finland.

For your information: Most of photos presented here have been taken by Savannah Grace (as most of the times I was behind the wheel...). Thus rights for the photos are either hers or mine, no copying without permission is allowed.

It really, still, feels a bit unreal that I invited unknown people to my home and yet, was so excited about it! I get to show these women Finnish hospitality along with Finland's wonderful nature, since it will be their first trip to Finland. Now there is something that doesn't happen to me every day - well, actually, never before... There is a first for everything, right? Based on what I have planned, there might be many of those coming to us in the next couple of days... "first times" I mean.

Of course, I wanted to provide them with a visit to remember - and based on the feedback, so I did!

The first meeting

We decided that it's best if we meet in Helsinki, so that they can leave there car to my (free) city parking lot for a few days, and I'll drive them around and they can just relax and enjoy the ride.
So, on Monday morning, around 11 am I got the call - they are here!
I met them, finally! We had never seen each other before and yet, when we met we hugged each other as if we were old friends, and that really is how it felt.

We took their luggage, put them into my car and started our tour.

I had planned parts of the tour in advance, just in case if, for example, the weather gets bad - which is not that rare in Finland, even on summer time - we've even had snow during the summer sometimes - just a fair warning for you who plan a trip to Finland...

Before we took off, I gave them folders wherein they had small information package about the places were were going to see.

HELSINKI - Capital of Finland

Kaivopuisto

(http://helsinkithisweek.com/articles/kaivopuisto-park-seaside)

At first, we drove around the coast line, and on our way we saw the iconic, wonderful 
Kaivopuisto, which is a beautiful park by the ocean south from the center of Helsinki. Lots of boats and happy people strolling around... and yes, it's as idyllic as it sounds. Also, in Kaivopuisto area (or Kaivari as we locals call the place) has the most beautiful buildings wherein some lucky people get to live, with an amazing ocean view. I wanted to show them all this, just to show that our capital is more than just the busy city center. 



Uspeski Cathedral and COFFEE!

(http://www.sacred-destinations.com/finland/uspenski-orthodox-cathedral)

When I planned the "tour" I decided that I want to show them Uspeski Cathedral, as I knew that my guests wanted to see some architecture and I hadn't seen it from the inside either.
On our way to the cathedral I showed my guests "Kauppatori", marketplace by the ocean, wherein farmers and locals sell their products, very popular place, full of tourists during the summer. Opposite to Kauppatori is President's Castle (although, it's not an actual castle, it is actually relatively modest building). You can tell whether the President is there by checking out if there are guards standing by the gate, if they do, he is inside. He wasn't.

While we were driving there via harbors and getting to know each other and just chatting, all of a sudden Savannah says:
I really need my coffee!

What did she say? Coffee? It's almost noon...
Ok, why was I so surprised?
Yes, we do drink coffee in Finland - lots of it, actually (although, I don't). It's not that.

...it's just that they just came over to Finland from Sweden by cruise ship and one of the most enjoyable things while traveling across the ocean on those ships are their buffet breakfasts, wherein you certainly can have coffee among so many other things.

It turned out that they didn't have the breakfast on board, wish I had known this. We would have had picnic baskets with us! Ok, let's solve the problem: we drove to Katajanokka and I saw this very little kiosk/stall wherein they sell coffee, tea, ice cream and some sandwiches etc. I dropped them off there and went to park the car (which by the way is insanely difficult in Helsinki, especially during peak holiday season).

Savannah and her happy coffee &
Maggie, just happy

Once I got to the kiosk, wherein Savannah and Maggie were already sitting, I saw this girl who was basically glowing, she was so happy that, honestly, I don't know if I've ever seen anyone being so happy about something so small. She kept repeating: "This coffee is SO GOOD! The best coffee I've ever had!"
Now I get it. She REALLY needed her coffee!
Of course seeing my dear guest so happy made me happy, even when her happiness had nothing to do with anything I did - well, I did drive them there, but other than that...

Then she almost whispered: "Is this coffee something really special or is everything this expensive in Finland?" I totally forgot to warn them. I know Europeans aren't used to our price level. That small little cup of coffee was 4 eur.

So I had to tell them, yes, in Finland, everything is pretty expensive. Not the most expensive city in Europe, but on top 10 I'm sure, especially on tourist areas...
Thus, another fair warning for you who plan a trip to Finland, Helsinki is quite expensive. Smaller cities aren't quite that pricey but still, not even close to central Europe's relatively low price level.

Well, despite the price, she wanted to have another cup of that fabulous coffee, good for her! If you really like something, go for it! If it makes you happy, it's worth it!

Now that we got this out of the way, we walked up the hill to 
see the actual cathedral. And it was, indeed, absolutely beautiful! Unfortunately, its doors were closed, although it was supposed to be open. Well, typical, when you plan something, it never really goes quite as planned. But no worries there, we kept on going. Besides, best things happen when plans don't.

Senaatintori and Tuomiokirkko

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helsinki_Senate_Square
http://www.visithelsinki.fi/en/see-and-experience/sights-and-attractions/helsinki-cathedral

After taking some lovely photos we drove around the Helsinki city area.

Next stop was Senaatintori and Helsingin Tuomiokirkko. Didn't surprise me at all that I couldn't park anywhere. There are only few parking spots in city area (except for the ones under ground) that the only way for my guests to see these places was to jump off while I decided to drive around and then come back to pick them up a bit later.

Fair warning though, to those who come to Helsinki by car:

Traffic rules are insane even for a Finn around Tuomiokirkko and Senaatintori area, and every time you drive around it, you see police cars somewhere. In Finland, you get a ticket relatively easy, so I'd suggest that you park your car to the harbor (if you come here by boat), or near the railway station (there is a big underground parking space there, quite expensive though) and walk around. Everything is in walking distance anyway.

And again; be prepared for some showers. After all, you are in Scandinavia, not in hot tropic and here, weather can, or most likely, will surprise you at least once while you're here.

I drove around about 20 min, during which Savannah and Maggie got some great pics of Senaatintori and Tuomiokirkko, and also got to sit on Tuomiokirkko's steps, which pretty much every tourist does.

Lovely day, lovely people and lovely new friends. Couldn't ask for a better start for this unique visit. I was a bit nervous though, how would these two women, mother and a daughter who've seen over 100 countries feel about me, my country, my house, and would I be a good hostess for them or would they be totally bored here as after all, they've been in Africa, China etc.. and Finland isn't really THAT adventurous. I guess my fear was unnecessary. We all had a blast, oh, well, at least I did!



Next stop: Seurasaari 

(http://www.kansallismuseo.fi/en/seurasaari-openairmuseum)

After cruising around, showing places around Helsinki city area we decided to head to Seurasaari, which is an open-air museum, located on a beautiful, green island just a few kilometers from the heart of Helsinki. The island is a tranquil oasis in the midst of the city and at the museum the traditional Finnish way of life is displayed in the cottages, farmsteads and manors (of the past four centuries) that have been relocated from all around Finland.

There is a bridge from the mainland to the island and right after the bridge there were MANY Canadian geese, how convenient considering that my guests are Canadians (who just happen to live in Amsterdam). Lots of birds right there so if you are afraid of birds,  just walk straight through the bridge. It's not the same on the island, just the bridge area wherein people feed these birds.
 

I was quite thirsty once we got there so I bought a little box of juice - yes I asked if my guests wanted something but they didn't. 

I had fund when I saw Savannah getting so excited because of this tiny little, cute juice box, of which Savannah even wanted to take photo of, because it was "so cute".
Ok, maybe it is a bit cute - I just never looked at it that way....
For me it was just juice. But for people who travel a lot with open minds and hearts, even the smallest of things can bring great joy. And now that little juice box reminds me of them and their amazing attitudes forever. Love it!

We saw these cutest little cottages that we had to - of course - take photos of. They really were small, but people had actually lived in them! They had different kinds of purposes, the one on top of the pole was for the food, protection from wild animals on winter time.

Did I mention that Savannah and Maggie LOVE animals? They even have an howl as a pet! Yes, you read right. Based on photos that I've seen, it's actually really cute.

Anyway, I started to suspect that this girl is really an animal whisperer as then we saw this little squirrel. It looked right at Savannah as if they shared a secret or met before or something, it was quite fabulous. It really didn't look as if it was scared at all. Old friends, I guess...


The further we walked the more we saw more old huts/ cottages, and some of them were so small that we couldn't help wondering how an earth people were able to live in them back in the days (oldest were, I think, from 1700-1800 i.e. about 200-300 yrs old).

Here is a photo wherein Maggie and Savannah are in one of these cottages. The two women aren't giants, these cottages are really just small, and roofs low - which was a bit strange as after all, people are pretty much same size regardless of the century they live in.

Before my dear guests came to Finland, I had told them that I have separate guest bedrooms ready for them and explained that our house is pretty average Finnish house - didn't want them to expect too much, after all, it's no mansion, just a nice, normal house. Although, for someone who's never been in Finland, "normal Finnish" doesn't say much...             

I was playing with an idea (in my head) of telling my guests: Here is your bedroom (on the left) and here is the house (on the right) and see if they believe me and how stunned their looks had been.... Then I gave up the idea, maybe that would have been too bad? 

 

No, I think these women would have just laughed at it, they can take a joke, after all, we did joked around all the time while they were here! Love people with great, and similar sense of humor! That's probably why our time together was so full of joy. We had plain FUN.
After all, they didn't know me at all, for all they knew, I could have been some crazy Finn who is just about to hoax them. Lucky for them, I wasn't - on the contrary. 

But seriously, it was amazing and fascinating to think that people have, indeed, lived in these houses only few centuries ago. 

There were many places in Seurasaari that we just had to skip after being there for a few hours as we started to get hungry so it was time to get back to the car and start driving towards my home.

Maybe I should ask my guests what were their thoughts after seeing these houses on the island - were they afraid that I'll be accommodating them into some tiny little hut like these... poor women! Oh, perhaps that is, indeed, what they were afraid of, and that is why they seemed so happy when they actually saw our house - yay! It's a modern, proper house!  

While we were driving it started to rain, which luckily was just a shower... I guess my new friends brought the sunshine with them.

@ HOME!

Finally, at home! It's been an amazing day with wonderful women. Now the actual nerving part: Bringing them home. What if they hate it? Don't like it at all?

Oh, yes, I admit, I was a bit nervous because who knows what their expectations were... I hope they like everything, not for my sake, but for their own sake. After all it is their first visit in Finland and I want them to enjoy it and I personally feel like I failed as their hostess if their accommodation arrangements aren't good enough.

So, I gave my guests a tour around the house, showed them their rooms, restrooms, showers, back yard etc. Thank goodness they seemed happy with their little rooms!

 

Well, at least the house was a bit more modern than what they had just seen at Seurasaari!

Oh, maybe that's why they were so pleased with everything?! Smart move from my part to take them to the museum island first!

Our house must have looked very modern, comfy and nice after those shabby huts! What a smart woman I am! :)

Guests' rooms.
The other room has full sized window to back yard, and the other has a beautiful forest wall paper that makes you feel like you are actually in the woods, it looks so real. They also had their own toilet that they could use.

Savannah was relaxing outside on the sofa, in my summer pavilion, enjoying Finnish (mild) alcoholic refreshment called Lonkero aka long drink. It's a mixture of grapefruit soda and gin. Quite good if I may add! Excellent cooling drink on a warm day. 

Strangely enough, we all felt so relaxed and normal, as if we had known each other for a long time already - not just a few hours, really. 

It was time for me to start preparing our dinner.The dish is called Poronkäristys - free translation: reindeer stew and potatoes, often served with some jam, this time I served it with (hand picked!) lingonberries (some call them huckleberries) and also cranberry jam. For desert I made smoothies out of some Finnish berries and other secret ingredients, which I won't reveal here, it's my secret recipe, let's just say that it was Good.


This stew is very simple, very traditional Finnish dish. Just meat, butter, salt, pepper and some water and you let it simmer at least for an hour.

I'm originally from Lapland wherein people eat lots of reindeer, in many different forms. Reindeer is very common ingredient here. The meat is very healthy, rich in vitamins and low in fat. So, naturally, I know how to make an excellent Poronkäristys and I was, to be honest, pretty happy to be able to serve them that. 

After all, these women have had meals around the world; Mongolia, China, Peru.. and I managed to serve them something they never had before! Yay!

I also served them Finnish breads: Rieska and Saaristolaisleipä, which they both really loved - or they were just really hungry...
After the meal we all relaxed a little before our next little adventure...

EVENING ACTIVITIES

After relaxing after our meal I told my dear guests that it is time for a little adventure. 

I was almost a little ashamed to call it an adventure, after what they have seen during their travels around the world. But then I decided, I don't care. This is my home, my country and my plan, I will proudly show them what I had planned, whether they like it or not.

So, I told them to put on some proper clothes as we would be going to the woods. They looked a bit suspicious, I have to say, but being good sports they, of course, acted accordingly. Then I gave them hunting knives, I had one too.

If only you had seen their faces!
They seemed to be confused and also a bit scared... hey, we did have hunting knives!
They probably asked themselves at this point whether coming here was such a good idea after all...What does this crazy Finn have in mind? Woods, knives, string?

But, I didn't want to reveal immediately what it is that we were about to do, it would have ruined the surprise.
Now I lead the way, guided my guests to the woods behind our house. I can see Savannah and Maggie becoming more excited than scared.
They look curious! Good!
Although, they were walking directly behind my back... sure, I'll protect my dear guests from the monsters of woods! 

Crazy bunch - women with knives, in the woods...

While we walked through the bushes and flora, they asked me if there are any dangerous wild animals in Finland. So I told them: "Well, we do have bears etc. but not this close to houses. But we do have vipers and ticks, lots of them both actually."

Oh, and I didn't tell them that just some time before their arrival our neighbors found a huge viper right there where we walked... and by the way, it's illegal to kill them in Finland, so you can only imagine where that viper is now...

When we walked deeper into the woods, we really must have looked like a crazy bunch. 3 women with hunting knives - 2 of which look like they are ready to use them at any point as they had no idea what was going on...


Vihta vs. Vasta

I thought it's better to reveal them what it is that we are doing before they really start to question my mental status... So, I told them to relax, we are just hunting birch branches, preferably ones with lots of leafs. I showed them how to do it, and told them to get about 15-20 branches each and then we tied those two bunches (bundle) of branches together and that's it - they had just prepared their first "vihta" or "vasta". It depends on the area whether you call them "vihta" or "vasta" - which one is the right one? Well, that debate has been going on about tens of years and will go on probably as long as we have birches and we make vihtas...

So now they have bunch of branches tied up together and that is called vihta. Ok.

What do we do with it? You'll see...

I went to our sauna. I put in wood (small logs) into the fire pit, which is underneath the stoves, and about 30 minutes later sauna was ready for them, i.e. HOT!



Sauna

Another experience that they never had before - wooden heated sauna!  

I lid some candles for them and, as they felt a bit shy, I gave them separate towels for the sauna. For those who don't know: Finnish people go to sauna naked as that is the best way to get all the physical benefits of sauna.

However, we completely understand also that it's not for everyone. For Finns sauna is a substantial part of our culture. After all, there are about 5,5 million people here and about 1 million saunas! Sauna is a place to relax with friends, family, alone... place for total relaxation - both physical and mental.

For us, Finns, sauna is not a luxury thing, it's just another amenity in our houses. Few words for you who have not been to sauna: There are stones on top of "kiuas", certain type of stove we use to heat up the sauna and water is thrown on these very hot stones in order to get hot air and steam to spread around the sauna. This action and reaction is called "löyly".
You have to experience it to completely understand the 
sauna mentality!

So, to the sauna we went.
Someone might have said: Cool!
But that's one thing it is not - it's really hot!
Dope might be the word younger generation would use.

Now what?What do we do with "vihta"?
So this leafy, fragrant bough of birch is for beating/whipping ourselves. Yes, you read right! Really! If only you had seen my guests' faces when I explained this! I never forget the surprised looks they had. But being experienced travelers who love to try new things, they went for it, of course!

Especially when I explained that it has a relaxing effect on the muscles and also helps in calming down and it has nourishing, refreshing effect on the skin.
Naturally, I offered them cold drinks while ladies were in sauna. Savannah got to try Finnish apple sider and Maggie had some, not so Finnish Dr. Pepper soda, as she really likes that.

I know people who really dislike sauna, they consider it to be agonizing. But certainly not these women! They seemed genuinely love the sauna experience! (Or they were just being overly polite and told me so just to be nice...) I felt happy though, yay! Yet another Finnish thing that I managed to show my guests and they sincerely (seemed to) liked it.

There is no actual English word for a verb "saunoa" ("doing the sauna thing - being in there) meaning the time when people are in sauna and just doing their thing, i.e. some sitting, some lying, some whipping themselves with bundle of birch branches...
So let's just say that these well-traveled women really knew how to "saunoa" since they lasted there longer than I did! 
After the sauna and the shower, the first thing these two women with really red cheeks and big, big smiles asked:
"Can we please do this again tomorrow?"

Yes, of course we can! Anything to my amazing guests!
By the end of the first night they had already experienced things in Finland that most tourists never get a chance to do.

Day two of two women's adventure in Finland

The next day we wanted to see nature. However, we needed something from the supermarket so we drove to Kirkkonummi city first. Surprise! Everything was closed, which was strange considering it was about noon. We heard that the electric cable had been cut so all the stores had to close their doors and the power failure was supposed to last at least another hour... not very promising.

Since my guest needed to sort out some insurance matters, we decide to drive to Espoo, Iso-Omena shopping center. (http://www.isoomena.fi) which was all right, after all I got show them that too. They didn't get the answer they were looking for but at least they can now say that they visited Espoo too and I got to buy us some refreshments for our next adventure...
There would've been couple of interesting places to check out near by the Iso-Omena (Big Apple), however, my guests really wanted to go to Porkkalanniemi because I had told them that it's the real deal, pure, pristine nature with some wildlife etc..


Next stop: Porkkalanniemi

So we drove to Porkkalanniemi, which is a peninsula in the Gulf of FInland, located here, in Kirkkonummi. The coasts of the peninsula are popular bird watching areas so I wanted to take Savannah and Maggie there to climb up to the bird watching tower.

On our way there we saw some amazing Finnish country side, it really is so pretty there!

Once we got there, Savannah and I, funny girls that we are, noticed these carriages there. I happened to know that they have been used for transporting milk churns back in the old days, but now they were there so that hikers can take their gear to the woods with them. 

Of course we had to try them! It was so much fun! We were pulling each other around the place, Maggie was laughing, we were all having a good time, although, probably not what these two had expected to experience in Finland - heaps better, I bet!Ok, we probably looked like misbehaving kids, but who cares, that's perfectly fine at times to let loose! Finns aren't as stiff as some may think - well, at least I'm not! (I can be, but when I don't have to, I'd rather crack a joke and fool around, life is much more fun that way!)

Ok, sorry, back to the story:
We started to walk towards the woods, wherein the bird watching tower was supposed to locate.

On our way we saw these cutest little Finnish outhouses for campers/ hikers to use.
Can you believe that a toilet that is built of wood can actually be pretty?

Finnish woods are very rich in sources of food, lots of berries and mushrooms. I showed Savannah and Maggie blueberries an told them that in Finland it is allowed to pick and eat berries basically anywhere (as long as it's not in someone's yard.) So our walk wasn't the fastest as we had some blueberry delicacies on the way...

Finally we saw the tower, and it was a decent sized tower...

For me it was a small challenge having a fear of heights. On the other hand, it helped having these women with me, I almost forgot to be scared, except maybe on top it was little scary as the tower was slightly wobbly... 

Climbing all the way up was totally worth it! The view was spectacular! I think I forgot to mention this to my guests but it's only tens of kilometers from Estonian coast line.

I wonder whether it was the adrenal rush or just the company, but once again, we were having heaps fun! 
Here are the results of our photogenic moments: That's the best part having guests like these two women, everything is fun, nothing is too stiff and formal. We all were able to be as we were, no faking, just joking and having fun!

Ok, calm down crazy hair girls, it looks like it might rain soon, it's time to head back to the car...


Nature surprises!

As always, best things happen when you least expect (or plan) them.

The road to Porkkalanniemi is very curvy, you can't drive more than about 40-50 km/h there. And a little warning (again), if you decide to drive there, don't bypass other cars, it's not safe!
I was just explaining my guests that they should keep their eyes open while I'm driving as there's plenty of wild animals here, and right that moment, I hit the break - LOOK!!

And on the right side of the car, there it was, one of Finland's most majestic, largest animals (although this one was only about 1-2 yrs old, so not a grown up and That big yet), right there, looking at us. A MOOSE!!!!Windows open and let the cameras do the work - and they certainly did.

I was actually a bit surprised how happy seeing this animal made my guests, considering all the countries and animals they've seen. But, maybe it's different experience with each animal in each country.
And I do have to admit, it looked amazing!

I've seen them before but this one looked so wonderful, because it was in it's own area, in the woods. In Finland, hunters get to apply for permits in order to hunt moose. Why? If you hunt too much of them (because the meat is very good), there aren't enough of them soon. If you don't hunt them, there are too many of them and they cause lethal car accidents every year when they jump to the road and get hit by a car. Because the moose is so heavy, quite often the collision is as bad for the driver as it is for the moose...

We had to continue driving because the road is actually dangerous and cars are prohibited to stop there.

Right after take off I said, by the way there are also deers here and.. LOOK!!!

And again I hit the breaks. Right there, looking at us, was a deer, staring at us as if it was posing - and again, windows down, cameras out and lots of photos!

Am I the hostess to the mostess or what? 

I even arrange wild animals right next to the road to pose to my guests! Who else would do all that? Ok, maybe it wasn't me, stars were aligned or something, in any case the universe seems to agree that I need to show these women Finland's best sides. On the other hand, I had the animal whisperer, Savannah in the car so I wasn't even that surprised by all that.

On our way back we actually saw a motorcyclist in the ditch, couldn't probably handle the curvy road... (He wasn't hurt and there were people helping him already, so, no, we didn't just dump him there and continue finding the animals!)

The scenery is spectacular but not that much time to enjoy it while driving. Good thing my guests had a private chauffeur!

Next stop: Hvitträsk

(http://www.kansallismuseo.fi/en/hvittrask)

We had had quite an active day already, but I wanted to take Savannah and Maggie to one more place, namely Hvitträsk. Before they came to Finland, Savannah told me that they'd be interested in seeing architecture and nature, so I knew I want to show them this place as well before we head back home, besides, it's only about 5 km from home. 

This beautiful place called Hvitträsk was designed to be a studio home for a Finnish architecture firm, and it later became a private residence of Eliel Saarinen, perhaps the most famous Finnish architect. Building is named after the nearby lake, Viträsk, which literally means White lake. Nowadays places is a public museum. It's incredibly beautiful place, it's on top of a very high hill and the lake is on the bottom, so the view from the top is spectacular. 

    

To bee or not...

Savannah sat down under this window arch, absolutely beautiful - yes, both the arch and Savannah! And since we all love taking photos, we didn't miss the opportunity to use the amazing nature as a background...

So, here I am, trying to take a photo of her, and I'm looking at her as if she's gone mad as she is laughing, literally her ass off and I don't get why... I try to tell her to stay still as after all, I am trying to take photo of her, but she is just out of control, laughing insane and I'm confused... what???

Suddenly, I see something (flying) approaching me - fast! And, boldly, it sits on right on my eye lash! Seriously? Right before I'm about to shoo it away, I realized it's a bee! A bee!
In my eye?! C'mon, gimme a break!

I got so scared, I try to back off, and it just follows me!
I try to scream and run away, and what does the bee do? Yes, got that right, it just follows me! I run around like a headless chicken trying to get rid of the bee, and what does Savannah do? Helps me? Noup!
She is laughing so much, she can't even see, she's got eyes full of tears, poor thing! She is literally on her knees, she is about to loose it, it's so hilarious - in her opinion - but she isn't the one running for her dear life!

Finally I got rid of the bee, and at this point we are all laughing like lunatics, ok, I admit that must have looked hilarious!

Savannah tries to explain that she saw this bee flying around me but she can't say anything because she knew that I'd scare the bejesus out of me and I'm just telling her how to pose and keep still and I'm being completely clueless of the fact that this flying beast is trying to hunt me down! I can only imagine how it must have felt on her side; being so hysterical, I keep telling her to stay still for photos and at the same time I'm the one who should stay still as this bee is about to sting me...

Oh dear, what a day, and unbelievable but true, I have never considered bees fun, but this incident, it really was fun. Although, everyone was laughing at me! But who cares, my guests enjoyed it! A good hostess would do anything for her guests... - except gets stung by a bee!

I'm making a big deal out of nothing?

Well, have you ever had a bee sitting on your eye lash?
Can you imagine how scary that is?
What if it stung me?

I don't even want to think about that, but seriously, that creature felt as if it was a bit nuts... and guess what, I found out just a few days later that many people have been seriously attacked by bees in Finland, because the summer was so short and due to that the queen bee has died earlier and, therefore, the worker bees go crazy as their purpose has gone and for that reason they attack people!

The worst case I read from the news was when a girl was in the woods with her dog and they stepped on a bee nest on the ground and she got stung 30 times and her dog, poor thing, 40 times - and it would have been even worse if she didn't jump into the muddy ditch!
She barely managed to call 112, it took an hour before the rescue team found her and by that time she was in quite bad shape already as she was allergic to bees, but she made it, thank God. This wasn't the only case, there have been tens of similar cases. Good thing though, that I didn't know this then, I don't know what I had done, had I known that! Well I know someone would have laughed even more, since I probably would have jumped into the lake...!

Too bad I was running around the garden trying to lose that bee so I don't have any photos of Savannah rolling around laughing out loud... as, trust me, if I did, you'd see it here!
Oh, just realized, who knows, maybe that poor bee just thought that I was its mighty queen?!

Again, hostess with the mostess; job well done, guests are laughing and enjoying themselves!

Finally, we headed back home. I offered to make my famous chicken pasta when my guests humbly ask: Can we have that reindeer stew, there is still left some? It was soooo good!

Oh, goodness, of course you can! I was so happy to hear that as it really showed that they sincerely loved it.

I'm driving home when suddenly they ask: "What about our vihtas?"
Oh, yes, the vihtas!
So we drove to the Viträsk lake's beach and I climbed up to the hill to cut birch branches and made vihta for them while Savannah took some photos (cf. below). 
At least I think this looks like there was one happy girl here!

So, another traditional Finnish meal and sauna for the second night, which happened to be Tuesday night, when Savannah and some of here friends host that Twitter chat #TRLT (via which we actually met). So, if she thought that she can just sit down in her bed quarters and chat, she was totally wrong. 

The way we were chatting was: 
I set up nice lounge area for us to our living room: large pillows on the floor, bottle of Champagne and we zipped some Mimosas while chatting with chat guests - that's the way to do it!

Just a thought of me being able to make their trip to Finland unforgettable, fun and adventurous makes me so happy, mission accomplished!


All good things come an end

On the next day it was time to pack up and head back to Helsinki as they were ready to continue their trip to next country, namely Estonia. Their road trip consisted of 10 countries and 10 capitals. What a trip! I'm sure we get to read about that in Savannah's blog at some point!
I have to say that I have never in my life enjoyed so much hosting any guests. There are many chores to take care of before guests arrive and also during the visit, but this time, I didn't care, I felt so humbled, grateful and happy that they actually chose to come and visit me, even if they hadn't even met me before. And this visit was something that I will never forget and I sincerely feel that I have two new friends for life. It was unbelievable how natural it felt, right from the start.

All I can say is: Miss you so much! Hope to see you soon! Welcome back and I sincerely hope that you enjoyed even half as much as I did! It was an absolute pleasure and a privilege! 

Savannah Grace aka @Sihpromatum

Savannah Grace is a 26 year-old travel author and influencer, born and raised in Vancouver, Canada. She currently lives in The Netherlands and has visited 108 countries. She is the author of the bestselling travel series Sihpromatum, which includes
“I Grew My Boobs in China” and “Backpacks and Bra Straps”.

She runs the popular luxury/adventure website www.sihpromatum.com and has been actively documenting her travels for more than a decade. She is also the founder of #TRLT (The Road Less Travelled) Twitter chat, which now regularly ranks as one of the top travel chats in the world. 

Here's one random reader's comment on the book:"Sihpromatum: I Grew My Boobs in China" by Savannah Grace is an enjoyable memoir. Vividly written in colorful detail, Savannah's adventure is unparalleled by anything that could have been written in fiction. Sharing her emotions, along with her observations, the reader has an opportunity to watch Savannah mature and gain a great deal of depth to her character. It is also her journey of discovery from within. There are many lessons to be learned from Savannah's adventure. "  - Reader Views

  


You may order her books here:

I Grew My Boobs in China

Backpacks and Bra Straps