What is a perfect weekend made of?

Brunch, Ikea shopping, Temple bar Tradfest and cooking together with friends!

On saturday morning me and my swiss friend got a kick-start for our day. Got up early and headed downtown for brunch. We just randomly selected a cafe that looked cozy and served Irish breakfast and went in. We sat there for two hours just talking and enjoying the food. I had fried eggs, mushrooms, a small sausage and a piece of bacon, delicious! :P And lots of excellent coffee!

After the brunch we took a bus to Ikea, a trip that I had planned to make for two weeks already. So finally I got to buy the rest of the stuff that my room was desperately in need of. For some reason my room gets really cold in the night (I wonder if it's actually a switch for the lights that I turn off before going to bed...) so I've been looking for a blanket and got one from Ikea, yay! I also bought a frying pan and a kettle, cups, knives, forks, spoons (yes, everybody needs to have their own stuff for cooking, even though this residence accommodates lots of exchange students who only stay for 5months or so). Oh and I bought some candles for the fake fire place that I have as a decoration in my room :)

After the trip to Ikea we left to the Temple Bar Tradfest, an event that had been going on for several days already. There was live music on the streets and in all the pubs in the temple bar area and we ended up listening to this cover band in a pub that was actually called 'the Temple Bar'. Here's a short clip of one of my favorites from that evening. Unfortunately, after a couple of ciders I wasn't thinking that in addition to the band playing, I was also recording my own very, very bad singing :D :D Wish I could blame others - horrible, but fun! :D

U2 - With or Without You

Sunday was obviously a lazy day. I was supposed to study but the effort of my day was basically just skyping and doing my nails, haha. Left all the work for monday morning and cooked together with my res mates in the evening. But we all need these lazy days every once in a while, right? ;)

Trip to Cork

Last weekend we took a bus to the south coast of Ireland and stayed two nights in the city of Cork. We arrived late on Friday night and when we got to our hostel, it was already dark. So no sightseeing and walking around anymore, but instead we went to check out some local pubs, which we were supposed to be one of the best ones in the country.

Quinness, of course. I was able to drink 1/4 of the pint before giving it to a friend and switching to cider.

We went to a couple different pubs and decided to stay in a place where people seemed to bee on a good mood and partying like there's no tomorrow. At first it seemed like a cool place, they played classic rock hits from the past decades and we were all dancing to the music. At some point, however, they started playing horrific modern rock and even death metal and it was impossible to dance anymore. Haha, when they played BYOB (below) and a bunch of other similar songs we gave up and left back to the hostel.

System of a Down - BYOB

On saturday we did a whole lot of sightseeing. At first we visited this English market that sold all kinds of fresh food products and looked for a nice breakfast cafe there.

Delicious cheese

A glimpse from the market square, our cafe is upstairs

My breakfast was nothing special, but the cup of coffee probably one of the best I've ever had

After breakfast we starting walking around the city. I think the colorful houses that they have everywhere are just so cute. I haven't seen two houses next to each other that would have been of a similar color.

Cork city centre

Trying to figure out where to go next

Walking across the city

On out Cork city tour we saw a lot of churches, a jail, University College Cork, visited a local museum and a couple of pubs. I don't mind walking, but I had new shoes on that I had never worn before, so my feet started hurting like hell after a couple of kilometers. So every now and then I had to change the high-heeled boots on and when I couldn't walk with them anymore, back to the new sneakers. Somehow I managed to do the whole tour without any blisters or twisted ankles, but I gotta admit that I should have listened to my mom and pack flat shoes in my luggage when I left from  Helsinki.. :D

Saint Fin Barre's Cathedral

University College Cork

Just in front of the local museum: the ugliest statue I've ever seen. Their main attraction I guess ;)

Cork City Gaeol - the jailhouse

In the evening we had dinner in a pub, again, and finally ended up in proper nightclub. It was a lot of fun and we all just danced together. I also challenged my russian friend to have a vodka competition with me and obviously had to leave back to the hostel to sleep after my defeat :D

Apple liqueur shots for the group

Luckily the last picture has got nothing to do with that idiotic competition. It's a set of really bad apple liqueur shots for the whole group.

Off to the Finnish embassy in Dublin!

Today's the first day to cast a vote abroad in the Finnish presidential elections and since I don't have any lectures on wednesdays, it's a good time to get this done today. I googled the embassy's location and marked a small pink dot on my map so I should have no problems in finding it, but with my orientation.. Well, I might find myself in zoo or something :D So let's hope for Sauli's sake that I find my way there ;)


...Had to update this post!! Found my way and met a lot of friendly Finns there! Even got a Fazerina chocolate after casting my vote :P Yay!

The Finnish Embassy in Dublin, Russel House

Happy happy joy joy :P

Dublin city

I had many things that I had planned to do and seeing Dublin city yesterday was one of them. It was lively and full of people and had a cozy atmosphere. It was also a lot bigger that what I had expected! Why oh why have ALL my expectations been so low?? We were just walking around the city center with a friend to get a feel of how it's like and after a couple of hours ended up in a lively restaurant for dinner. The Irish also have really good cider, and but so far I've only had Bulmer's, which they sell in Finland too.

I know I've mentioned this already before, but people were really friendly and helpful and started conversations everywhere - I always get surprised of that! And I would love to take this friendliness back to Finland with me. It would improve everybody's quality of life especially during the darkest seasons! :D Being friendly to people and getting treated kindly back is something that just always creates a good mood, right?

Shopping street

O'Connolly street

Lots of people wandering around the city on a Wednesday evening

River Liffey

Double-decker buses

Gorgeous old buildings everywhere

Yesterday, I decided to go jogging instead of a work-out at the gym. I heard about an opportunity to sign up for a "Get in Gear" program and for 20e you get access to all aerobics classes during the following 5 weeks. I always only go to the gym for working out, so I randomly decided to sign up to do something else for a change. So since the classes start next week, I decided not to pay the gym fee at the Belfield campus and went jogging along the coastline instead. The scenery was pretty, small ponds, swans swimming, deep green fields and hills everywhere. Next time I'm taking a camera with me! :)) And again, I was surprised of how friendly people are!! All the other people jogging either smiled at me, nodded to greet or actually said hi :D I think it's super nice! And I think that because of the people here, I already kind of feel like at home here :)

Dublin to Vancouver!?

It's funny that the name of my blog is Helsinki to Vancouver since I'm now more than 2000 kilometers away from my home city. But here I am and it's been such a positive experience so far :) :)

I got to know so many nice people already on the day that I arrived and everybody's friendly and easy to talk to here - and always ready to help out. A nice change compared to the grumpy Finns who hate the winter and try not to waste their energy on talking to people :D I've been here for three days now and mainly stayed at the campus area and in the centre of Blackrock. Even though I had zero expectations of the place, I really like it here. And once I finally get to Dublin city, I'm sure I'll like it a thousand times better!!

Blackrock Novitiate Residence

The Blackrock campus is cozy and the facilities excellent compared to my home university. My residence is just next to the main building so just a few minute walk and I can reach all the lecture halls and other campus facilities - also a nice change for the 35 minute bus ride that I need to take to reach the campus back home. The Blackrock campus is for graduate business students only and the rest of the University College Dublin people are at the Belfield campus, which I think is like 15mins away from here by bus and 10 times larger than Blackrock. I'm finally going to see the main campus tomorrow since I need to go get a card for the school gym. I'm guessing that doing sports is easy around here - or at least they promote the sports services heavily - and since Blackrock is located by the sea, it would probably be nice to go jogging along the coastline.

Blackrock Novitiate

Main Building

Campus entrance

The residence and my room were totally different from what I expected - thank god! :D I saw some pictures at the university website and they really don't do justice for the Novitiate :D I thought I was going to live in some rat hole where everything is dirty and not working, but instead the building looks like a castle and my room is 4 meters high!

Stairs to my floor

Hallway

So in my room I have all the basic equipment and there's a common kitchen in each floor. At first I thought that there's no fridge there, but then I discovered that the little box in my room, which I had mistaken as a heater, was actually a small fridge! So I guess I'm living quite comfortably here after all :)

My little 177

First purchases on the top shelf - wine glasses ;)

Love the huge window

Wooden blinds on the window!!

ugh missing all the stuff that I left home!!

I have an effin fireplace in here!! :D

Once I finally get to the Dublin city center, I'll post more pictures. The thing is, I haven't bought a ticket for public transportation yet. I heard that it's 110e a month, for students 90e/month... What a horrible price! But a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do - otherwise I'll miss temple bar, shopping, god knows what :D

Last days in Helsinki

I hate goodbyes. It would be easier to just leave in a rush than say proper goodbyes to all your beloved ones. But I couldn't do that. So the last days in Finland were sad and full of all kinds of emotions.

I went to visit my grand mom a couple of days before I left and she told me that she would love to come visit me in Dublin but she's too old to travel anymore. BS I say!! :D I've never seen a granny that strong and full of energy! Anyway, she wished me good luck and told that she's proud of me cause I have the courage to leave. It was nice to hear that :)

<3

We also had a last dinner with 'I' just before I left and it was so nice! We had reserved a table in Salutorget and everything was just perfect there. The atmosphere was nice and he was handsome, with his new "gay-purple" shirt ;) ;) We had snails as starters and it was delicious! The main courses, fish and reindeer, were also amazing and the dessert... ohh... a dream! I had chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream (of course) and he ordered passion fruit-mango salad with vanilla yoghurt. It was such a nice evening and I couldn't think of anything better as the last thing to do before leaving Helsinki. Nice memories and nice pictures to look back on :)

Esplanadi

My chocolate cake with mango sorbet (which I gave to 'I') and vanilla ice cream

Passion fruit mango salad with yoghurt