15. März 2015
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| That´s me in january 2015 seeking the northern lights in Rovaniemi, Lappland -22 degrees |
Hi !
My name is Marko, I was born in Finland and I've lived in Helsinki, the capital city of Finland my whole life, and also in this moment I'm living in Finland, maybe it´s just easier to say that I´m finnish. I have a good job, I´ve been working in that same place for 17 years, I have a car, a dog and place to live. My life is good, at least I thought like that ;-) Yes, I´m happy with my life, but could it still be better ? Soon my present life is going to change ( I hope not that "life is good" part ) and that's the reason why I decided to start a blog.. Few years ago one unbelievable coincidence happened to me and it really changed my life..
In this blog I will tell how did I get to this point and what that coincidence was, what happened and what's going to happen next.. In my blog you will see maybe not that much writing but lots of pictures from my Holiday trips, because photography is my only hobby, at least for now.. Ok, maybe travelling is my another hobby.. I'm not going to tell much about my old life history, I like to tell about my near history and my life right now... I´m trying to write in English, because I have some friends who can´t understand Finnish.
I will tell a big part of my story with pictures:
LESS TALK - MORE PICTURES.
LESS TALK - MORE PICTURES.
Ok.
I will start my story from the year 2012. In january 2012 we broke up with my ex girlfriend. We lived together over ten years. That was a big changing point for me and I think for her too, it wasn´t easy, but I think for both of us, it was a good thing after all.. I Stayed in my apartment and she moved away. After a long long time, I was single again.. I´m not a party animal, so I was just taking easy after break up. I worked and did some repairs to my apartment, like a BIG TV wall with led lights and so on :-). I spent time mostly just by my self and with Vili "the dog". I´m happy that we were and we still are friends with my ex, and in the end of the year 2012 we decided to go together to Hong Kong for one week holiday, i will tell you about that trip later in my blog.
Sad update: Vili died in summer of 2015, R.I.P my dear friend :-(
Sad update: Vili died in summer of 2015, R.I.P my dear friend :-(
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| Vili "The Dog" R.I.P |
My "life changing" Holiday
I´m going straight to my best holiday ever. So like i said, in 2012 we went to Hong Kong with my ex girlfriend and we returned to Finland on monday 8.10.2012. But forget the jet lag, next trip was coming soon, very soon. Earlier we booked flights with my old working friend to the next destination. Flight was boarding on tuesday 9.10.2012 so i had about one day to go to home to change some clean clothes and pack again my suitcase.. First pictures of that trip taken from the plane might tell you our destination :-).
Classic holiday destination, beautiful island, highest point 3 350 m, sunny and warm.
9.10.2012
Destination: Sicily, Italy
Yes, the hint was a picture of Mount Etna.. We were thinking of our Holiday trip just for a few moments with my friend, and we decided to go to Sicily. We both like to take photos, so we packed our cameras and few clothes and flew to Sicily. Our hotel was very Basic and cheap (FF) hotel Villa Collina. If you would like to have 24 hours reception services, forget this place, and go to somewhere else. But for us It was a very good hotel, location in Giardini-Naxos was good too, there was two balconies from where you could see Mount Etna if it was a clear sky. Below are a few pictures from day one. We were just walking around. We also ate good pizzas in a small nice restaurant: Royal Ristorante Pizzeria Bar.. Weather was great, in the evening it was a little bit cloudy.
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| 9.10.2012 First pictures from our hotel room balcony. |
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| 9.10.2012 +30 degrees and our hotel room. |
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| 9.10.2012 Hotel Villa Collina. |
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| 9.10.2012 Local Naxos Beach |
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| 9.10.2012 In the streets of Giardini-Naxos |
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| 9.10.2012 Neighbour hotel´s swimming pool, we didn´t have any.. |
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| 9.10.2012 In the evening. First day is over. |
10.10.2012 Day Two
Destination: Morning walk around our hotel and bus trip to Sicily's legendary resort town, Taormina.
Taormina is a very beautiful place. There I ate the second, ok the third, well at least the fourth best tasting lasagne in my life.. But for sure the best I´ve ever had in a restaurant anywhere. In one picture you will see the name of the restaurant if you want to go and try ;-) the view from the restaurant was also very nice.. I hope that this restaurant is still there.
And then some pics, bitte schön..
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| 10.10.2012 Morning walk in Giardini-Naxos |
Next we are heading to Taormina..
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| You can see Mount Etna from many different places in the island. |
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| Very good lasagne, this sauce was so great, my friend took a pizza. For starter i took garlic bread with cheese. |
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| The end of the day two, but we decided to come back to Taormina in the next day. |
11.10.2012 Day Three
Destination: Taormina and Isola Bella Island.
No special plans, first breakfast in Giardini-Naxos, then to Taormina and there just walking around with our cameras looking for a beautiful landscapes, that shouldn´t be hard in Sicily. We also met one nice finnish girl from our hotel and she came with us to Taormina.
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| Looking for a breakfast.. |
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| Taormina |
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| An Island Isola Bella, Also known as The Pearl of the Ionian Sea. |
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| The end of the day three |
12.10.2012 Day four
Destination: Mount Etna
We booked a bus trip to Mount Etna. This girl from Finland came with us. First our bus took us up to 2000 meters, cable car to 2500 meters and minibus to about 2800 meters. We had a bad luck with the weather, it was so misty. On the top was very cold and windy, and we didn´t have enough warm clothes with us, so we turned back quite soon.
We came back down to 2000 meters. There was a restaurant called Rifugio Sapienza. We ate lunch there and spent some time by walking around that area.
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| Nice... |
After Mount Etna, we came back to our hotel to relax a little bit. Soon i heard loud noice from outside. Rich boys were playing with their toys. I got only few to my memory card. Last one is my favourite..
13.10.2012 Day five
Destination: Unknown
For this day we didn´t have any special plans. But we did something different, this time we turned to the right from our hotel. We just walked around with our cameras. Maybe we walked too much, because I broke my shoe. And like a normal man, we don´t have many shoes for a one week. I had to buy new ones fast, because we booked a boat trip for the next day, and this start was early in the morning. I couldn´t go there without shoes.
Luckily there was a shoe shop next to our hotel, and it was open. We went inside and after few moments we noticed, that this woman, the owner, was finnish, so we made a deal in finnish language. I bought one pair of shoes, my lucky shoes, and those were made in Italy, real leather ? ...might be, I don´t know..
14.10.2012 Day Six - Finally The Day that changed my life direction.
Destination: Stromboli, the active volcano.
I like to go to a boat trips in countries where the weather is warm and sunny. We booked a boat trip to Stromboli, which is a small island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. 926 meters high (above sea level) island is one of the three active volcanoes in Italy. In this boat trip I saw not only my first active volcano but also something so beautiful, that it really changed my life...
I hope that I can remember all places right, but we went by bus to Milazzo, our boat was leaving from there. First we had a short photo break in Messina, which is the 3rd largest city on the island of Sicily. These few pictures are from there.
That was our welcoming committee in Milazzo. We didn´t buy anything, I already spent all my money to nice italian leather shoes :-)
In Milazzo, we jumped to our boat, which was first heading to the island of Panarea. Weather was great, sunny and hot. In the boat I almost burned parts of my skin. I don´t like to use sun cream, sun cream is for.... Well not for me anyway, but I was using a hat and sun classes, that´s something.
"Love at first sight"
Boat trip to our first destination took about hour and half. In our boat I saw a girl sitting with her girlfriend, her friend was sleeping next to her :-) That girl was looking so cute. I think now I know what means Love at first sight. I couldn´t get my eyes off her. In my eyes she looked a little bit like an italian, I thought first that they were some local girls. I´m not sure, but I think she smiled at me once :-) Who are they ? Are they alone ? Where are they coming from ? Do we understand each other ? I would like to have an answer to all those questions, but like a normal shy, unsecure finnish man, I didn´t say anything.. Luckily a little bit later in this trip my friend opened his mouth.. I thank him for that.
After some time we arrived to the first island, Panarea. The island is an inactive volcano. There´s only under 300 residents living on the island year-round. the island has become known internationally for its celebrity visitors. I didn´t see any celebrities, but we took a closer look of this island with our cameras. We also ate and drink something in a small coffee Place. People were friendly. This island´s total surface area is only 3.4 km2, but still there was taxis, not normal cars of cource, but small golf cars :-). We walked.
Next picture is taken from this Place where my friend opened his mouth. He asked from those girls: Where are you coming from ? Luckily they understood english :-) They said that they are sisters from Switzerland, and they are travelling just together in Sicily...
Finally we broke the ice !!
Time was running, and we jumped back to our boat. Next it was heading to our main destination, Stromboli island. That part took about one hour. Even if Stromboli is an active volcano, and it´s erupting all the time, there´s still living people. Population is almost 800. Eruptions are mostly quite small at intervals ranging from minutes to hours. And in bright light you can see only some smoke coming from the top.
All Holiday trips must end sometimes. It was also happening to this one. It was getting late and sun was setting down. We didn´t see any eruptions and those Swiss girls were walking somewhere else without us. That situation wasn´t looking so good and it was our last night. But don´t get me wrong, after all we had really great time in Sicily. And we still had few hours left. We went back to our boat. Boat was floating near Stromboli island until it´s getting darker, they said that it´s bigger chance to see something if it´s dark. In the boat they gave us food, vine and some other drinks. Those girls came to our table to eat, it was nice, we talked more and we had fun. We showed them also mobile phone pictures from Finland. It wasn´t helping my feelings when I found out that they have boyfriends in Switzerland. But if I´m telling you the truth, I really wasn´t expecting much, because 1850 kilometers is not so easy distance for a relationship. but it´s always nice to meet new people in Holiday trips. Those girls were really amazing and funny ( and cute :-)). I was a little bit sad though, because soon this moment will be over.
But suddenly something was happening. this volcano was finally waking up !! Maybe this game wasn´t over yet.
People in the boat were taking their cameras and mobile phones to take pictures. Situation wasn´t easy, boat was moving, it was very dark and this eruption was very small one, it didn´t last long and it was also quite far and high from us... You could barely see it with your own eyes. With small compact cameras or mobile phones it was almost impossible to take photos of this eruption. I´m not an experienced pro photographer, so i didn´t even think about changing my ISO settings or something like that. As fast as I could I lift up my super heavy DSLR with looooong "bigger than life" objective. I looked through the view finder trying to find this eruption, in this moment when I saw something red and bright in my view finder I took a picture. The result was maybe the worst picture that I have ever taken in my holidays, but also one of the most important. Luckily that picture looked ok in a small camera screen, I showed that picture to this cute girl. She said that I want that picture, you have to send it to me when you are back home. I GOT HER E-MAIL ADDRESS !!
That´s the picture..
Quite soon after this eruption our boat was heading back to Milazzo. The whole week was sunny weather but all the way back to Milazzo it was lightning, thundering and raining, still it was very warm. Rain stopped before we arrived to Milazzo. We talked more with those girls in the boat and they were also coming to the same bus, because their hotel was on the same direction.. After they jumped off the bus, I was thinking to my self "No matter what happens, don´t loose that e-mail address". They waved to us from outside the bus, maybe we did something right :-)
That was the last time we saw those girls in that trip, that was also their last day, and we all were leaving to home the next day. we tried to find them in the morning at the airport, but we couldn´t find them. That girl was in my mind all the time.
The end of this story - The beginning of my new life
That was my long story from year 2012. Now i´m telling you only a short version of what happened next. After I came back home, I can´t exactly remember when I sent that volcano picture to that girl, but I´m sure that I didn´t wait too long :-). After some time we became friends in Facebook, in Skype and later we changed our phone numbers because of WhatsApp. Her relationship with her boyfriend wasn´t working, so they broke up, I don´t know more details. After that, we were chatting almost all the time, sometimes almost over night. It felt good, I had a very good feeling about her. We had fun. It was so easy to chat with her. But the distance between us was a problem, I hated to be so far from her, I wanted to meet her in real life !
"First date"
We decided to book a return flight to Finland for her in february 2013. It was so strange feeling to see her, but there was something between us straight from this point when we met at the airport, at least I felt that. It was maybe a little bit silent start first, but fast it was getting easier and easier. And she was even more cute than I remembered. It´s so different to chat online than communicate face to face, with strange language. But we really had a great time together. After few days we decided that we should really be together, let´s try ! 14.2.2013 in Valentine´s day we officially started our relationship :-)
I was so happy !
"One thing leads to another"
Two years went by, I was visiting her few times in Switzerland, seven times if I can remember right and she was visiting me in Finland. We went also to a holiday trips to Spain and Hong Kong together, maybe I will tell about those trips later in my blog with pictures. In the end of the 2014 she came to Finland for six months to live with me, and to learn some finnish language :-)
Now it´s april 2015. We made a big decision. I quit my job, now it´s my last month at work. I also gave up almost everything i owned. I have already booked my flight to Switzerland in May. Four suitcases are waiting for leaving, inside those suitcases is everything I have left, mostly clothes, my computer and my camera. I´m really moving to Switzerland !! For good ? That´s the plan.
For me it´s still hard to believe that this is really happening, or is this only a dream ? If it is, I hope that it will never end, but if i´m waking up, I hope that this part when I quit my job was also part of this dream :-).
I´m ready to start my new life.. I hope that everything is going well.
In my blog I will also going to tell about my life in Switzerland, so "Stay Tuned".
Bye Bye ! See you soon !
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| Switzerland is maybe not near the sea, but there´s some lakes and Alps, i think I can live with that :-) |