My second family
Today I had my second graduation party, this time with my family in Finland, that is Carolina's family. Two weeks ago I had a party for my friends, celebrating my Software Engineering diploma and thanking them for their support. Now it was time to thank the people that have really helped me through these three years to achieve all I am today.
CaZ and I woke up early in the morning and went to the shop to buy all the necessary ingredients for the food. CaZ was also in charge of cooking everything and cleaning, whereas I was setting the table and checking everything was alright with her family. We had a very nice evening and I even got a present: a 50-liter backpack for my trip to Australia.
We ate some tapas and fajitas made by CaZ. Beer, wine and vodka were all around, and we had a great time discussing about my future trip to Australia, CaZ's graduation (hopefully in May 2010) and other issues.
Since I came to Finland, back in 2006, they have given me support in my studies, in my professional life, in my personal life, and they have loved me like just one more in the family. But this love didn't come with the time, I've been feeling just as another Mikander/Vitikainen from the very beginning of my stay in Finland, and thanks to them my professional path here in Finland has been eased in many ways.
Therefore, today I had the chance to thank them for all this, and tell them that they really are my second family. They don't only helped me with my life in Finland, but they also told me I am a child of them and that I can count on them for anything in my future, and that gives me a lot of certainty about the future. I know, in any way, that whatever happens, I will have them close to me, just as if they were my real family, so A BIG THANK TO MY SECOND FAMILY, especially to CaZ and her mother, Kirsi Vitikainen.
Trip to Lapland
Yesterday night we (Marc and me) came back from our trip to Lapland, the northern territory of Finland. In fact, we visited the North Pole (Arctic Circle) border and we spent some days on typical Christmas-holidays resorts such as Rovaniemi, Ranua and Kemi. The trip included some visits to a famous hotel made of ice, the arctic zoo (which showed off with polar bears), the Arktikum museum about the North Pole expeditions and researches, and some other visits.
The strip started in Helsinki, on Thursday night. We slept all night in a minibus that was transporting us from Helsinki to Kemi. The trip was a little bit tedious, but it was so late that everybody felt asleep and when we woke up we were already at Kemi, ready to visit the Lumilinna (Ice-Castle, in Finnish). This castle is completely redesigned every year and it is not only an attraction for tourists, but an actual hotel where people can sleep inside the rooms.
The ice castle consists of several rooms, where the temperature is about -5C inside and there are sleeping-bags and reindeer skin covering the snow-beds. There is even a chapel for those who dear to get married there, as well as a honeymoon suite with a king-sized bed, very beautiful (but very cold).
After Kemi, we headed to Ranua, a place where there is nothing but a zoo. However, this zoo has many animals that you may only find after the border of the North Pole Arctic Circle, including polar bears. The zoo also includes some activities such as snowmobile safaris, reindeer safaris with sledges and husky safaris with sledges. I personally took the husky safari with sledge, since I have already tried the snowmobile in two occasions and the reindeer safari is quite boring.
First, we took the husky safari, and we got a quick course on how to use the sledge to turn on the curves and maintain the speed, since the huskies just run as fast as they can towards nowhere. After the husky safari, we went to the zoo to see the animals, but the main point was to see the polar bears, which are difficult to see somewhere else.
After the visit to the Ranua zoo, we took the bus and went to Rovaniemi, which is called the capital of Lapland. It is a small town of 59,000 inhabitants, and there is nothing really interesting there, except that one can visit the border to the Arctic Circle and the Santa Claus Village. There is also a museum named Arktikum, which is very interesting, since it shows the results of researches on the North Pole about ice layers in the icebergs and the Northern Lights.
The last thing we did was to visit a small ski resort located at the surroundings of Rovaniemi, where I tried the skis, since I had only tried snowboarding before. I really enjoyed that day, although I felt quite a lot of times and my clothes were not the most appropriate ones. Besides, I still think that snowboarding is much cooler, but way harder.
Finally, the way back was definitely painful. We spent more than 12 hours in the minibus, without mentioning that the bus driver was confused and driving in wrong directions all the time. The weather didn't help either, since it was snowing the whole trip back from Rovaniemi to Helsinki. However, all in all, I can say that visiting Lapland this way was very practical, since I visited the most important parts and did all the important activities I was missing in a couple of days. The rest of activities I have already done sometime before in other parts of Finland, so I can say now that I have traveled around Finland.
VisitFinland at the Travel Fair 2010
This year, I was attending the International Travel Fair 2010 at Helsinki, working for the Finnish Ministry of Employment and Economy, in the project VisitFinland. VisitFinland is the brand-name for MEK (Matkailun edistämiskeskus), which is the public firm behind the Ministry. I was working on Thursday and Friday (January 21 and 22), offering technical support for those entrepreneurs who were willing to acquire the
The promotion logo for the campaign talks about being in Finland and all the "benefits" of spending a holiday in this country. I think the idea was way original, and we managed to receive very constructive critics from all the customers. Another thing that made me proud was that every single customer sitting in the workshop with me, decided to buy the system, and hence we got plenty of contracts in only a few hours.
This week is quite tedious now, since all these contracts that we received during the travel fair must be served and put into production before February. However, is nice to see that a project that didn't have many high expectations in the beginning is doing well and most companies in Finland are starting to rely on this service, for which I work.
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