Visiting Melanie's

Otettiin aamulla juna Amsterdamiin Jassun kanssa ja käppäiltiin ympäriinsä. Mentiin moikkaamaan Melanieta, mun kaveria, jonka tapasin ja jonka kanssa reissasin Ausseissa melkein kolme kuukautta :) Tehtiin vähän sushia ja tanssittiin huonojen biisien tahtiin. Yöllä muhun iski vieno oluen tuoma melankoolisuus ja jostain kummasta bongasin BACKSTREET BOYSien kokoelma levyn 8D Voin sanoa, että fiilailin aika paljon. Jäätiin Melanien ja Martyn luo yöks ja rakastuin niiden kämppään ! <3 p="">

perus postikorttimaisema

söpö !

little miss Melanie! <3 nbsp="" p="">

Jassu Melanien kattoterassilla, johon pääsee suoraan kiipemällä Melanien kämpän kattoluukusta ylös !

Yöllä mentiin kuvaamaan ja olin ihan fiilareissa !

From Shit to Super

Voiko saada parempaa vastaanottoa, kuin tälläistä? <3 p="">

Oikeesti !! JA mä olin vaan hartaasti toivonu, että oispa Jassu jo mua vastassa, koska se tuppaa aina oleen myöhässä... and what did I see ! SHE  WAS THERE _AND_  SHE HAD BOUGHT ME THIS SUPER CUTE BALLOON <3 ihana="" p="">

Otettii juna Utrechtii ja naureskeltiin, ku päädyttii vahingos siihen junaan, joka stoppaa joka asemalla.. Meil oli kiire kauppaan ostaan safkaa ja juomista ja Jassul oli sairas kusihätä...:D

KYLLÄ, MINÄ CON DARUDE!

Ja oikeesti, ku aamu on alkanu yläolevissa tunnelmissa (=DARRASSA) näyttäen kaikin mahdollisin merkein, että tää lähtö on huono idea (paniikkiherääminen kello kymmentä yli kaks [nukkumaan aamuviideltä - "en mä tartte herätyskelloo!"], speed packing, tajuuminen, että mulla ei salee oo ees puhtaita alkkareita/sukkia [oli :D], ei autokyytiä, kiire, hedari, nälkä, kämppä on läävä ja mun tiskivuori kohta homeessa ku en ehi tiskaa just nyt, täyden puolen litran vesilasin kaatuminen lattialle just ku oon lähössä ja mitä nyt näitä oli...) niin on ihan SUPERIA, että ilta kuitenki päätty näihin merkkeihin:

Oltii siis reiveis Jassun yhen frendin, Ingerin kaa ja hitttttttto mitä musaaaaaa. olin ihan eufoorias :]

Tutustuttii siisteihi tyyppeihin, käytii ostaa ranskalaisia mayolla (so dutch..) ja mentii hetkeks jatkoilemaan ennen ku otettii Jassunkaa cäbi takas kotii. 

Oon WhatsAppaillu ilmeisesti Heidille jotain hammastahnatuubista, johon oon saanu takas vastauksen, ett oho, ollaanpa sitä aikasin hereil.. No ei vaan itseasiassa vasta menossa nukkumaan (7am).

Jonku talon kyljessä oli tällänen viritelmä..! ihana! 

Ja Suomessa HOAS ei anna ees kuulema kiinittää nastoja seiniin : DDD

Himoitsin tota mättööö..jurrinälkä

Art everywhere (:

Warszaw, Poland

Oh how it feels good to be back in Poland! :)



Poland is like a second home to me (due to my roots), however, I don't consider myself to be a Pole at all - its only because of my blood that I could say I am half Polish.

I love this photo of Babcia :D

...Nevertheless, I usually come to Poland once a year because  have family and friends here. The last time I was in Warszaw, however, was five (!) years ago. I flew here for a couple of days before heading to see Red Hot Chili Peppers in Chorzow. And after that when I've come to Poland, it's the coast I've been windsurfing, not forgetting about last years Heineken Open'er -festival in Gdynia :)



So Warszaw, nice to meet you again. I was shocked to see that they had built a whole new terminal ! It was pretty modern and I even bumped into Halina there, this girl I used to go to Polish classes with in elementary School with (we hated each other back then but it was so nice to see her now!!). It was my couz Laura, who landed from Paris to the old terminal, the ghetto-ish terminal that was painted with a red winey color. :D



Babcia and Dziadek (Granma and Granpa) came to pick us up and it was so nice to see them! And it was so weird how it DIDN'T feel weird at all to see Laura! It was like we would've never left Australia and one of us would've only popped out of the room for a second and come back instead of not seeing each other for a year!



Melanie wasn't able to come because she would've been flying on stand-by and she can't afford to miss her class on Monday. We were a bit sad but we figured that we'd meet her somewhere else, the THREE of us :)

 Our dads in Pakistan trying to impress a girl

Although the terminal had been renovated, nothing had changed in Babcia's & Dziadek's appartment. The only thing that jumped in my eyes was a Mac -computer :D Dziadek told me they don't have Internet and that the computer is only for photo viewing (Dziadek does photography). Keeping up to date aren't we!



As we were watching through the photo albums, Dziadek pored me, Laura and himself an apparative of some berry vodka/liquor my Aunt Małgocia had made. It was really really really sweet/strong but good anyways. It was interesting looking at the photos from Babcia's & Dziadek's youth, our parent's childhood (also from the time when they lived in Pakistan) and our dads meeting our beautiful moms. It was the first time I saw these pictures... Dziadek also had pictures of him in Jakarta, Indonesia sometime in the late 70's (?) and he told me that he had photos from BALI in Małgocia's place and that we could view them later. I'm pretty thrilled seeing HOW MUCH Bali has changed (for the worse...).



What I love about Poland among the people is the food. AAAA Babcia had made us some tomato soup <3 And some Indian Chicken Curry (just like dad!). At this time Kondrad, out one year older cousin had joined us and it was just so nice to eat together and talk about random stuff. We were wondering with Laura, that how long was it from the last time our WHOLE family from dad's side saw each other (=my fam, laura's fam, kondrad's fam and babcia & dziadek)? Apparently some 15 odd years ago during Christmas... We think with Laura that we should gather up the family together for Christmas. It would be amazing...Of course that would mean that also I should start hanging around at home during Christmas instead of where-ever-in-the-world. But we NEVER see each other because all our family is so scattered around the world... Finland, Poland, Canada (not even talking about mom's side of the family)..



Later on Małgocia and with Maciej (my aunt's husband, I don't even know in Finnish what Maciej is to me.. is there a word? :D) and my cousin Adriana (how the hell is she already turning 18 ?!) came to get us and we left our bags at they're super cozy home that hadn't changed one bit <3 We had been making a grocery list with Małgocia because we wanted her to teach us some Polish specialties! (Of which I'll upload videos later)



After grocery shopping and us watching/filming what Małgocia was making in the kitchen, we drank a bit more of tea, ate bread with biały ser (white cheese) and talked about the culture differences in Poland vs. Finland/Canada. For instance, the power distance that you see here is incredible... You have call everyone "Pan" (=Sir) or "Pani" (= 'Lady'/Mrs.). If you fail to use this with a police man, you'll get fined. (Like dad once did when he got a bit frustrated :D) Adriana and Małgocia also told us, how you are not aloud to smoke even if you are in high school ! If they catch you smoking, they'll drag you once to a psychologist to figure out the reason for your lung-tormenting. And guess who pays for this appointment? The government... "What a waste of tax money", like Laura said.



Anyhoo, i'm gonna go wake Laura up now. How lovely it was to wake up here <3 Had my typical Polish breakfast: tea, bread with pasztet ("pâté") and yogurt (:



PS. Laura can kiss her "I'm not gonna gain weight during my exchange semester" goodbye after all the krówki, pączki and other pastries we will be consuming here :D

GATORADE ME, BITCH!

What made me happy today?

Texting my mates "Happy Valentine's Day" (note, in Finland Valentine's Day is "Friend's Day") including Milka, the lovely girl from Oulu, Finland I met&traveled with in Bali.

I was wondering whether I would be able to reach her, as I had no idea whether she still was in Bali (since she was supposed to fly to Malaysia around mid Feb) nor whether her Indo-prepaid would still work....But Milka replied in 5 seconds !!! I was sooo happy to hear from her :) Apparently I had been on her mind just a minute before as she had just been eating my "favourite local food" (=padang food), aww! 8) Love her and love her blog, please do check it out: http://milkaemilia.blogspot.com/

Ihana Milka <3

Also, do you guys wanna hear how I managed to "make" 140€?

Hang around with a bunch of male friends  of which one decides to get all silly and put your almost brand new (women's) winter coat on, making the zipper brake (not really his fault, just a faulty zipper) ! Decide you'll make a reclamation the next day, but notice when you get to school, that the suede, on those winter boots you purchased only 3 weeks earlier, has torn. Swear a bit and text mom in frustration. Later that day, go to the mall, return the broken items and hunt for new ones... Realize at the end of the day, that you now are an owner of much more comfier shoes and an amazingly warm winter jacket and... that you actually managed to save 140€ from the money you got back from the returned products! SCORE.

Today I also made randomly something randomly awesome for a very special person, my little bro:

GUESS FROM WHICH SHOW THIS LINE IS FROM?

PS.So thanks Lauri for breaking my jacket, I was happy to return it as I didn't like it anyways! And thanks karma, I HATED walking with those shoes! I mean, heals during winter? Who am I kidding..

Bought plane tickets

Me n Laura

I don't think i've told you guys this but I bought plane tickets only two days after arriving home from Bali. One of the first things my dad said to me after my parents came to fetch me from Helsinki-Vantaa, was that LOT was having a massive discount on plane tickets to Warszaw and that I should buy one. So no, I am not flying anywhere exotic - just to plane ol' Poland.

@Whitsundays

Actually all our family members are going to Poland - everyone's just going in separate times ;) I'm leaving first, a month later my brother's gonna visit the mates he made during his work placement and then in April my parents are going for a week (
PARTY @ OKOLO-KULAKSGATAN!111ei.)

..and la-la-luke

These 50€ return tickets could not have come any better time! We had been talking with my couz Laura that we should go visit babcia & dziadek (granma & granpa) together, now that she is doing her exchange in Paris and isn't situated on the other side of the world in Vancouver.

Three girls - one bed

So I scheduled my flight exactly just a month after my arrival, on the 17th of Feb. I'll be gone till the 23rd and seems like we will be staying at my aunt's house which i'm not complaining about (although would've been cool to rent a flat/or smthng) SINCE NO TENGO DINERO !!! hahahaaaaaaa. I have something around 100€.. woop woop. Oh well, we are experienced backpackers and spending nil is what we do best (as if).

Mel, Me, Dom & Laura @ some big az rock

AND you know what's sweet ? We will have the reunion of the DIRTY LITTLE HAMSTERS! Oh yes, little miss Melanie will be joining us too <3 We've been meaning to meet up, now that Laura's on the same continent, so when it happened that me and Laura bought our tickets, we just figured - why wouldn't Mel come and meet us too !  I can't wait for us three to be back together again.. It's been a year and a month since we saw all together the three of us  (Although I did stay at her place in Amsterdam during summer) :) Melanie is actually one of the reasons why I would've also preferred renting a flat - I can just imagine Melanie in the kitchen cooking for us three (and me and Laura doing the dishes :D) 8)

Ubud

9.1-13.1 Ubud



Woke up, had brekkie and packed. Jonas drove me and Milka to Jean’s work to get hammocks and we said bye to him. I knew I was gonna say bye to him soon but it came so quickly that luckily I had no time to get emotional :) Which is what always happens if I get attached to someone even slightly – be it a boy I like or a girl I become good friends with. Really doesn’t need a lot for me to make have to hold back my tears. I WEAR MY HEART ON MY SLEEVE – WHAT EVER!



We got Ticket to the Moon -hammocks from Jean for the price of cost ! WTF SO CHEAP. 200 000 rps/per every item we wanted to purchase. I got a king size hammock for my bro’s room (since he’s been talking about getting one now that Vipe is also moving in with us<3) and I had a hard time deciding whether I wanted the double of the kng size for myself. I decided to go with double since it is smaller (for my travels!) and they were available in cuter colors ;) haha. I’ll make my bro swear though that if I need his hammock, he’ll have to lend it to me! :D But yeah. Got them for a really good price 400 000 rps (Jean also threw in a Ticket to the Moon -bag for us) which is really sweet if you compare it to the price you get in Europe. Someone said they cost 40€ in Europe for a _single_ ? Sick.



We started driving to Ubud where I was to meet Jared ! Luckily when we asked ”Permisi, Dima na Ubud?” from a local in the traffic lights, she told us to follow her as she was going that ay anyways ! <3 I was just so happy to sit at the back of the bike and listen to my iPod. Had all these hangover realizations (yeah so.. karma strikes, didn’t have my hangover with everyone yesterday so i’ll just suffer today.. alone..). It was funny, when the woman fianlly pulled over to tell us where we’d have to drive, as she was about to go to the different direction, she told us ”If you want driving license, you come to DenPasar (etc).”  - THAT FUCKING LADY WAS A CIVILIAN POLIVE OFFICER AND I HAD BEEN SITTING ON MILKA’S BIKE THE WHOLE WAY WITHOUT A HELMET : DDDD Gotta love it.



When we finally saw the hotel Jared had booked for us it was 4pm. I was hoping he would be in his room so I could creep in and jump on him! But when I got of the bike and I was talking to the receptionist I turned around and saw someone – ”Sandra?” ”JARED!!!” I ran to hug and kiss Jared and was so happy yet confussed seeing him. Imagine meeting someone in Bali that you’ve seen the last time in Australia 14 months ago?



 

I was so stoked on my hammock that we hung it on one of the chill pads and got in with Jared in it. We just laid there talking and listening to the rain. It was so good.



That night we went to this small restaurant (only three tables!) and had yumm Indonesian food. I had this coconut curry thing, but was a bit dissapointed to find out it was a soup! I had been dreaming of my dad’s Indonesian coconut curry and was a bit bummed to notice i’d be eating another soup :D (I had a soup as an appetizer). Nevertheless it was good :)



The rest of the days went pretty similarly – Chilling and just eating. I felt a bit sick from all the Indonesian food (physically as well as mentally) so after the first night I just ate what Ubud was known for – for all its fucking delicious organic stuff!



My tummy had been feeling a bit off and I was actually getting a bit nauseous when ever I'd order Indonesian (lack of appetite) so I went on this no-Indo -diet and just ate all these delicious organic foods, freshly squeezed juices and healthy teas made from ginger and such. I felt amazing already after a couple days of this diet. :)



One day me an Milka went to see Ketut, you know, from the movie Eat, Pray, Love. It was Milka’s idea and I thought it would be a laugh to go get my palm read (”Sandra, I see no men in your palm – only 16 cats”) but once we got there I changed my mind. A poster of eat, pray, love, tourists and A WAITING NUMBER ?? How much touristier can it get. It was no suprise for me that it owuld be touristy, but when I heard the price (250 000 rps ?!?!) I told myself ”hell no”. I had a good time listening to Milka’s palm reading though (”veeery veery pretty”) although it seemed very superficial in my opinion and also like Ketut would have dementia (he kept repeating and asking a lot of the same questions). However, it was an experience (for Milka) and Ketut seemed like a sympathetic, cute old man who was missing most of his teeth.



I also went to the clinic because my burn on my leg had torn open and I had a hard time walking because it felt so nasty. Got all these cool pills (antibiotics and pain killers) and bandades and all this shit and I got told I had a second degree burn. Guess i’ll really have this Balinese Tattoo as a souvenier...



That first night that I was supposed to clean my burn with this liquid and put antiseptic cream on it, I just couldn't do it. I was so disgusted :D Instead I had a couple sips of the whisky Etcha and Paolo had given me, and let Jared do the honors!



Milka left to climb the volcano (UNFAIR i wanted to do that too ;/) and I stayed with Jared in Ubud. Jared was a babe and one day he bought as both massages! It was sooo good. Managed to drift to asleep at least seven times in that session :)

(Sorry for the possible sudden loss of appetite guys!)

  Yay! it's healing!

On the last morning that we left, I woke up with a massive hangover (kids, don’ rage drink Bintang on an empty stomach) and was GLAD to know I had heavy painkillers in my Toya Clinic –bag.

Late night drunken munchiez - gotta love Padang Food <3 (Note how i'm enjoying ;D)

As I was packing with this massive head ache, Jared went to pay for the room and when he came back, he has bought me a bracelet with thre turtles on it.. Aww! I had told him jockingly I wanted a bracelet from him so I could remember him (”because you are so forgetable”) but I had totally not seen it coming :D Thanks Jared <3



We got a taxi which drove Jared to the airport (”See you somewhere in the World”) and me to Canggu...