Kat still in Turku

The second half of the week also brought with it very beautiful weather. There hadn't been any rain before either, but now also the fog and clouds had dissapeared. During the day Victor still had to work, but Petra had lots of time to entertain me and go out on a very busy day. :P Thursday morning started by sleeping in long, taking the bus from Vs place to the city centre and meeting up with P to go to Ruissalo. This is one islands of the archipelago where you can go for nature walks and this is just what we did. As it was december, we had counted the time to arrive after a 6 km walk just on time near the sea to see the sunset over the water and the surrounding islands. Very beautiful. ^^
Back in the city we went to see "Joulutarina", a finnish Christmas film and then headed for a swim at Carribia. To end the day Petra and I went to have dinner at a nice restaurant and then we had planned to go out to Onnela, but by 12 we were both half asleep after quite a tiring day...

Friday was then spent by meeting up with some more people again, buying the last cards and Christmas presents and saying goodbye to the city centre. I had some very finnish thick porridge at the university restaurant and at night pancakes followed and more cookies at Heidis place, so it wasn't exactly a healthy day...

Then, around 1:30 in the night, Victor and I decided it was about time to go and pack our stuff as we were leaving Turku the upcoming morning. This resulted in a night of sleep of aproximately one and a half hour, as we had to get up already at 4. Not much later we were out on the frozen streets, in the dark on our way to the first bus going to the airport...

Kat in Turku once more

The belgian railways were not in favour of it, but strike or no strike, I did get to the airport in time to catch my flight to Helsinki. First time with Finnair for me and apart from the price I can definitely recommend them. I was even served a Christmas special for lunch and received chocolates filled with alcohol on the connecting flight to Turku. ^^

After 2 and a half years, I finally saw Victor again, waiting behind the glass wall in the arrival hall of the airport. It was really incredibly great to meet him again and it felt as if no time had passed since the day we said goodbye in Turku in 2005. Outside Petra was awaiting us in the car to drive us over to Victors place, where we immediatelly went to have tea and glöggi with Heidi, another old friend from those days back then, so it was a very warm welcome indeed. :) The end of the evening we spent at a small party with friends of Victor and eating and chatting with people.

The first half of the week was mainly very dark and foggy outside, no snow, neither rain. Both V and P had exams to study for but luckily they could make some time free to go out to the city centre with me, have lunches and dinners together and just do normal stuff as going for a walk or to the supermarket. Maybe my trips to Turku don't sounds very spectacular, but for me they are always some kind of coming home. ^^

V studying, I found some snow!, Christmas Turku

As last year, I also managed to put my skates in my bags to go to the ice rink with Petra. Victor is not a huge fan of anything that can be done on ice, so he decided not to join us. :P My skates need some sharpening but this time I practised a bit on turning backwards, I am sure I will be a full pro in about 50 years, seeing that I only skate once a year. :P

She's a better skater. :P

On wednesday both their exams were finished, so to celebrate this I first went out to eat giant muffins with Petra. The cafe where they served them didn't exist yet when I lived there and that was probably for the best as all their cakes are huuuge and quite cheap even. In the night I went over again to Victor, to prepare a Venezuelan - Finnish - Belgian home cooked dinner. The rest of the week follows in the next post. ;)

It's alive

After too many complaints, I also realise that it's been ages since I wrote here and that I have too many things to recap.

So... I'll start where I left of which was the week of Grants visit and my spanish exam. The exam was a big succes as most of you know, so I won't brag much more about it here. ;) Grants stay here was also really cool, even though he finished my new Wii game before I could... The days when I was free from work I joined my sister and him on some touristic excursions to Ghent and the Antwerp city centre. Otherwise we mainly watched movies, played Wii and introduced him to all kinds of scary foreign food. ;) It was his first solo trip and I do think we took good care of him. :) Something we almost never did, was make pictures, so it's pretty hard to post any here... The only one I got is the following one, but we both look a little bit weird on it to be honest... But the sun was shining and we were having fun. ^^

When Grant left my free days of that week weren't all over yet, as Charlotte was back in the country for a while and I had planned a full day together. Starting with a fancy brunch near the river in Antwerp, followed by a couple of hours of sauna and gossip. That same evening I had a goodbye party from a colleague in a karaoke bar (stupid pics exist of me singing, haven't got them just yet. ;P) and the next day a movie night followed with Charlotte and other friend Hannah. It's useless to say I did not get much sleep that weekend...

I can't really recall much more of the two next weeks, probably cause I just spent them at work and looking forward to my holidays. ^^ And they finally arrived around noon of December 14th, when I left work to go home and start packing or attempting to do so.