Today I went ice skating with two good friends of mine, Katriina and Anna. I do own a pair of skates, but I probably hadn’t had them on be the past five years or so. Skating is fun and all, but I never really find the proper company for it and end up forgetting the whole thing.

That’s me in the white jacket. Anna didn’t have any skates, but she was happy to join us on the ice anyway. Afterwards we went and bought some groceries, then we returned to Katriina’s apartment and made some gyoza and then some chocolate banana muffins for dessert, yum!

On my way back to my apartment I met a classmate of mine, Miikka, who was also heading back to his place in the opposite direction. We stopped and started to chat some close to a railroad/traffic crossing, and while we were standing there two Chinese guys appeared carrying a bed. They then left the bed at the side of the crossing, pretty close to the railroad track and started to walk away. If this wasn’t strange enough they soon appeared again with a second bed, leaving it on top of the first one, and then left the scene again. While both me and Miikka found this rather peculiar we didn’t think much of it, until we suddenly saw the aforementioned Chinese dudes a bit further away from us sitting on a third bed. All of this combined with a dark and silent Sunday evening in Vaasa, where it had been snowing lightly the whole day. Are the furniture stores of Vaasa being targeted by the Chinese mafia or what?

Reminds me, I was supposed to check out the movie nostalgia critic. This better be good Miikka!

Here’s a Runeberg’s tart Renato told me to draw. He was supposed to draw a penguin on vacation in Egypt, but he totally bailed out on me, lame!

“ Runeberg’s tart (Finnish: Runebergintorttu, Swedish: Runebergstårta) is a Finnish pastry that is seasoned with almonds and rum and it usually weighs about 100 grams. There is usually raspberry jam in a sugar ring on the tart.

The tart got its name from the Finnish poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg (1804–1877) who, according to the legend, enjoyed the tart with punsch on every breakfast. Runeberg’s tarts are typically eaten only in Finland and are generally available from the beginning of January to Runeberg’s birthday on February 5. ”

No, I’m not talking about bras. Pervs.

So a bit less than two weeks ago I started doing push ups to increase my upper body strength and gain some muscle mass. Needless to say my initial test gave pretty pathetic numbers, seven push ups and I was out. Now I’m already doing fifteen (and I’m sure I could manage more, but I follow the set program pretty closely, so no overdoing it).

If anyone wants to join me, do an initial test to see how many push ups you can do, then choose your column accordingly. You train three days a week. Always rest a day in between the training, eg. you train Mon – Wed – Fri.

Since I’m already done with week 1 and 2 here’s both at once. I’ll post week three on Monday.

Keep reading…

The time has come to make room on my shoe rack for a new generation, heartbreaking I know. But as Ivana Trump would say, it is what it is. I figured I’d get the most money out of them if I auctioned them off online, so now you can check ‘em out (and possibly buy them?) on the Finnish equivalent of eBay, Huuto.net. Click on the pictures below if you’re interested in any particular pair.

I spent ages on taking the photos and them editing them. I set the brown wedges at 10 euros, the black heels start at 15 euros, the sandals – as they are brand new – are yours for 20 euros and the white heels I actually wore on the day of my graduation start at just 10 euros. Hopefully someone will want to have them. I still have a pair of old boots that need to go, but I figured I’d start with these four and see how things go.

Alas, back to the kanji. Grocery shopping with mom tomorrow, wohoo!

A very simple bread with a light yet tasty filling (also suitable for vegans ^_–). You’ll need the following:

25 g yeast (fresh), 2,5 dl water, 6,5 dl wheat flour, 1 dl sun dried tomatoes, 2-3 cloves of garlic, 0,5 tsp salt and 1,5 tblsp olive oil. Olive oil and sesame seeds for garnishing.

Crumble the yeast into a bowl, add lukewarm water, mix the yeast and water and then add the flour. Knead the dough into a firm ball and let it rise until the dough has nearly doubled in size (30-40 minutes).

While you wait for the dough to rise make the filling. Chop about a deciliter of sun dried tomatoes and add the pressed garlic. Add salt and the olive oil and mix the filling well.

When the dough has risen cut it into two parts. Roll out each half into a square and divide the filling equally between the halves. Triple fold each half and cut the dough into triangular shapes and place onto a baking tin.

Heat your oven to 225°C. Let the pockets rise for about 20 minutes while the oven warms up. Before you put the pockets into the oven brush them with olive oil and garnish the pockets with sesame seeds. After 20-25 minutes in the oven your garlic and sun dried tomato pockets are done, enjoy!

Fresh garlic and sun dried tomato pockets, yum!

It’s one hour and 30 minutes into the movie and I’m just about ready to have a nervous fit and gauge my eyes out. Not because the movie sucks (Edit: Actually the second half sucked balls.), but because it’s only halfway through. Yes, you heard me, I’m talking about Avatar! Oh God, end you stupid movie, END. I might leave it on play while I go to the kitchen and bake some yummies, then I can say I have seen it (while technically only hearing the second half, and not paying proper attention to it anyway) without the actual visual and physical torture of sitting here for another one and a half hours.

Did some well-needed grocery shopping today, which I by all common standards of keeping-the-contents-of-your-fridge-at-a-more-edible-status should have done yesterday (or even Saturday) already. But you know, sometimes it’s just too much of an effort hauling your ass out of the apartment. I did buy a pair of shoes yesterday though, some lovely vintage Marc Jacobs boots for only $60.

Talking about shoes, today I also paid a visit to the local shoemaker/cobbler. Finally getting the zipper fixed on my winter boots and also getting more durable soles for the Jimmy Choo shoes I got a while ago. Ah, shoes ♥

So as I was cramming kanji into my brain I suddenly heard this song get played on TV (yes, I concentrate better with some background music sometimes). I did some research about the artist and apparently Owl City is a synthpop project by the American guy called Adam Young. I listened to some of his other songs, and while some felt way too corny (as far as lyrics go) I still like his overall style. Check out his website, where you can listen to his music, read more about the artist, and whatnot, or just watch the Youtube clip below featuring Owl City’s music video to the song “Fireflies”.

I’d like to make myself believe that planet earth turns slowly.
It’s hard to say that I’d rather stay awake when I’m asleep,
because my dreams are bursting at the seams.

Has anyone else given http://morph.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/ (“The Perception Laboratory’s Face Transformer”) a go? I stumbled upon it years back, but now I gave it another go, pretty amusing!

Old fart & azn pride!

Delicious Cinnamon Rolls

What better things to do in the middle of the night than bake a batch of delicious cinnamon rolls and possibly drive sleeping neighbors to the brink of insanity by the mouth watering scent slowly spreading through the corridors…

Here’s the recipe, very easy but quite time consuming:

5 dl milk, 1-2 eggs, 2 dl sugar, 1 tsp salt, 50 g yeast (fresh), about 1,5 l wheat flour and 200 g margarine.

Warm up the milk to body temperature (37°C). Crumble the yeast into a bowl. Add sugar, salt and the egg(s). Add the milk and stir until the sugar and salt have melted. Add the flour little by little. Finally add the margarine and work it into the dough. Let the dough rise in a warm and draft-free place (eg. inside a microwave oven) until it has nearly doubled in size. Create your rolls and allow them to rise a bit on the baking tin. Brush the rolls with a beaten egg and bake them in a oven at 225°C until the buns get a golden brown color.

Too tired to think, but I still need to find the energy to put most of the rolls into the freezer. These babies will bring my taste buds joy for months!