10 memorable photos from Gran Canaria

 1  This cute cat came sitting on our terrace; the terrace where I loved to have breakfast and little breaks from the sun. The whole resort area was really well-kept as one morning, besides the cat,  there was also a man trimming a palm tree in our garden. Meow.

 2  This is the professional way to dry your jacket abroad. Tuck the sleeve in and insure that it won't fall off five times like mine did. To be used at your own risk! No seriously, I wouldn't recommend this to anybody. I was just really desperate before a dinner.

 3  We went dining in a quiet Chinese restaurant in Playa del Ingles which seemed a bit peculiar, truth be told. When my friend's food appeared, it occurred that we would be cooking it ourselves in the table. I might have been able to understand that with steaks, but this was chicken. Goodness gracious!

 4  Oh no, wait a second. On second thought, I need my sunglasses as it's way too sunny out here and I don't want my eyes to be closed. Go on, take it! No, not yet! #holidayphotoproblems

 5   Yeah, we had a good time reading the menus in Finnish. It's hard to translate the mistakes in English because of the complex grammar, but let's just say every other one is written incorrectly. But it was cute.

 6  The sexy sipping face. Or less sexy. Do I really look like that? This isn't even the only one, I think I have about three of these in my archives!

 7  This was one dried out river in Puerto de Mogan! This bridge itself was beautiful, but this truth lay beneath it.

 8  Absolutely no one at Burger King in Las Palmas! Then we saw a family of three: a mother, a father and a small child probably around 3 years old. And they happened to be.... Finnish! Wow, I just feel sooo much abroad right now. I decided to use Spanish and order an ice cream, which was great, but I couldn't catch what the cashier said. So much for that. Switching to English immediately...

 9  Trying on shoes at Primark. Primark is a shoe and bag paradise. I just love it. But apparently I didn't approve of this moment for photographing. However, I happily left the shop with new sandals, and a few more purchases. Ahem, ahem. I've got to praise the Argan Oil I bought for my hair; if it hadn't been for Primark's cheap little bottles, I wouldn't have ever bought this amazing oil at all. My hair sends love to you, whoever invented the oil!

 10  Last but not least, when taking a "unique" holiday photo like this, make sure your horrid plasters aren't ruining it. The pool looks nice... Oh well. It was the first day at the pool so we were all excited!

How to make studying easier

I've been starting to question the accuracy of some longer words in Finnish - my native language! - such as harvinainen (=rare) and näyteikkuna (=display window) 

I guess that is what long summer holidays and a sudden start of school do to you.

Or the fact that you haven't been writing long texts in any other languages than English. Or maybe you've just got too much on your mind. Whoops. At the moment, my timetable is just about full of languages which means that I actually have over 10 hours of English every week and some hours of Spanish and French. But what about the subject that is not a language?

Well, the odd one out is psychology. Which I truly, immensely adore, but for some reason, there has now been a slight decrease in my motivation towards the whole subject. And actually, I wouldn't necessarily talk of a slight decrease... All the famous psychologists and their theories, and especially putting their theories into practice by writing long essays with clarifying examples, which are full of scientific vocabulary, make me feel tired and hopeless. Blurgh. I'm just fed up with it.

Trip to Tallinn Day 3

We still had time to do lots on the last day after checking out of our hostel at noon. Our plan was to roam markets and then visit either Patarei prison or the Bastion tunnels near Kiek in de Kök which we had visited the day before. But first, on our way to a Russian market, we came across this offbeat shop which had the most peculiar old items from the Second World War. Because photographing inside the shop was only allowed after paying one euro, I just settled for a photo taken from outside. And I think this was just foretaste of what we were going to see at the Russian market.

Trip to Tallinn Day 2

Our first destination on the second day was Pirita. It's a neighbourhood 10 kilometres away from the centre of Tallinn so we had to take a bus to get to Pirita beach. The heat was unbearable, once again, so we bought some nice icecream, which, of course, started to melt straight away. It was awesome to walk around in the shallow sea since even after walking metres away from the shore, it was only up to my knees.

After that we walked through a nice little forest well, an area full of trees towards the toilets and shower. We then had to go to the TV tower, which is pretty near to the beach, but it said on our map that it's closed on Tuesdays. I still don't know whether that was true or not, but we decided to go back to the centre.When I rummaged in my wallet for bus money, I realized these 20 cent coins from six different countries. So cool, I just had to capture them! By the way, one student ticket cost 80 cents in Tallinn, which is one quarter of the ticket price in Kuopio. Wow. My Estonian friend told me that the bus is even free for the residents of Tallinn. How awesome is that?

Next we did a bit of shopping at the Rotermann, which has a nice mixture of modern and old buildings. It has to be my favourite shopping area in Tallinn! This time I left empty-handed but at least my wallet wasn't complaining. Haha. We had to check out this renowned pancake house called Kompressor in the Old Town. And I have to admit, those pancakes were delicious! I myself had the feta pancake with smoked chicken and it was such massive a portion I couldn't even finish it! I would've wanted to try the sweet pancakes, but they had to wait as my - just like no one else's - stomach is unbounded. It would be so cool if that weren't the case. I mean, at least when abroad it would be great to taste as many dishes as possible! Did I mention these babies only cost about four euros? Almost too good to be true.

After eating our pancakes, we headed full and satisfied to a tower museum Kiek in de Kök. It basically tells about the Second World War including bombing, plague, weapons and digging the secret tunnels under Tallinn, which still partly remain a mystery. We visited the tunnels on day three, so more of them in the next post.

This five-storey tower didn't have the easiest stairs to climb up.

Museums like this make you think of life today and how much of an impact history has on it. It's weird to think that only thirty years ago Estonia was part of Soviet Union with all the strict regulations... But never mind the past, after the museum it was time to eat (again) so we dined in a pizzeria called Pizza Grande situated in Old Town.

The pizza was the usual, but it was weird how this restaurant had run out of salads and pastas. They had absolutely none of the salads or pasta dishes, even though they had them written on the menu. Doesn't sound very professional... But the pizza was alright. Mine had ham, blue cheese, peach and pineapple in it. Anything with blue cheese is just a 'yes, please' for me! And this last photo is a weird car we came across walking around Old Town. This day was full of seeing new places, walking, eating and just a bit more walking. I had just realised my comfortable flats had officially turned into the shoes from hell. Oh wow. And still one more day to go...

Trip to Tallinn Day 1

The hostel was sweet and its staff was really helpful and friendly; they seemed to be enjoying themselves rather than just working. The rooms were decorated in different colours, house rules were something you shouldn't be taking too seriously and our room's number - I mean name - was Porn. Yep, Porn. Perhaps that tells something about the hostel's atmosphere... Relaxed and full of young people, just how it should be.

After having a small bite at the hostel, I quickly met one of my old friends from Lady Gaga's concert, which was two years ago in Tallinn. Yet again, it was fun to realize how similar languages Estonian and Finnish are. I would really love to learn Estonian, because it's like Finnish with a cute touch. This time I only sticked to occasional Estonian words like 'Tere' and 'Aitäh' (=hello, thank you)

Then it was time to wake up my sleepy friends and see the Old Town's cute streets and viewing platforms. On our way to the platforms, we found a lane telling about Estonia's history and future on a time line. There was also a big rotating globe with all of Estonia's cities. I'm not sure what this place was, but it looked cool. Definitely hadn't seen it before.

Walking, walking, stairs, walking... finally there! We visited two of the three viewing platforms and the view was amazing. I'm happy we had a good map so we could navigate easily without bigger problems.

Walking around and heat aren't that much of a great combination, so we decided to sit down and find a place to have some icecream. The first place we came across was a café called Koogel Moogel, which turned out to be a cosy café&theatre. It was okay, at least it made a nice difference to the usual restaurants and cafés. Oh, and a little note to self: if the waitress asks you two or three times 'Is everything alright?,' you might want to get up and pay. I thought we were to pay from our table as the waitress had brought our receipts there, but apparently we had to pay near the entrance. It was funny, since we we're just sitting there waiting for her to come and take our money.

After seeing Old Town, it was time for some shopping in a mall further away from the centre: Kristiine. Despite our aching legs, we walked  there. We did come back to the centre by bus, whose bus stop was nowhere near the mall, which I think was pretty weird. Anyway, we were happy to get back to the hostel and then go out eating to St. Patrick's after this long day. The food there was ordinary, but its low price and huge portion size compensated it. Below are some portions: salmon pasta and cheese balls. Having been awake for over nearly two days, sleeping felt just priceless. We would still have two days to go, so catching some z's was very important!