Keep on shining...

Well, well, summer has passed and I’ve been on holiday at least from blog writing. Next I’ll briefly describe some of the events during the summer. My main focus for the summer has been on my internship at Procter & Gamble. I’ve really enjoyed my time and I could imagine continuing there after my master thesis. Work atmosphere at P&G is great and people are friendly. I also like the fact that working is made easy at the workplace and processes run smoothly which is not always the case what I’ve heard from my friends. Good experience on the work side was also a three-day training course in Stockholm with other Scandinavian trainees. It’s always nice to share experiences with people in the same situation.

Outside work I’ve enjoyed the Finnish summer at its best. The weather has been sunny since the end of June and nothing beats the beautiful Finnish summer. It’s funny to see how people change in Finland depending on the weather. During the winter streets are empty, sun goes down around 4 pm, people are just wandering palely to work or school and the only thing to wait for is a winter holiday to Lapland or Asia. Or summer. On spring time it already get’s better as people begin to undress their winter clothes. But during the summer the Finns really get it going. Everyone is out on the streets, parks, summer cottages, festivals (and there are many), terraces and beaches. Skin is tanned and the mood relaxed. I just hope that the autumn depression won’t hit the country anytime soon.

One of the specialties of the Finnish summer is the Midsummer festival that dates to third weekend of June. The sun actually doesn’t get down at all during the Midsummer which makes it hard to know what time of the day it is. The Midsummer is usually celebrated in either of the two ways: At the cottage with family/friends or at the music festivals with tens of thousands others. This year I picked them both and we spent cool time at friend’s cottage for one day and another day at Himos festival in Central Finland. It feels like there has been a festival every weekend of the summer and my tour has taken me to Ruisrock and Down by the Laituri (DBTL) in Turku, and of course to my hometown’s Tammerfest.

Finland has also been a destination for some damn good concerts this summer. I shouldn’t have gone to any of those but with last minute decisions I went to see Britney Spears Circus Tour to Hartwall Arena and Madonna Sticky and Sweet Tour to outside concert with 85 000 others. I have to admit that both of the decisions were right and also thank the organizers of Madonna concert to control the biggest Madonna tour crowd in Europe in such a professional way. Madonna really is a star and whole Helsinki seemed to go crazy about her. Media was writing and talking only about her, boat and air traffic stopped during her performance and work places must have been really inefficient before and after her concert. She is still a human being even she sings and dances well. That’s why I’d like to get some of the energy her visit took to some more important things as well like defeating the recession for instance....

Most of the hotels would be jealous of the occupancy rate of my studio in Helsinki as there always seems to be someone in Helsinki when I’ve traveled to Turku, Tampere or Stockholm. But I have to admit that it’s nice to go around Helsinki with friends to places like Seurasaari, Suomenlinna, Linnanmäki and Kaivohuone. It feels rather sad to leave Helsinki at the end of August to go back to Tampere to finish my thesis but I’m pretty sure to come back.

My ex-flatmate Tero, who ran a Stockholm marathon with me in May, is currently working in Vancouver, Canada. I planned to book flights to visit him and after quick Skype-chats we decided to make it a month vacation in October including Texas and Panama. Top3-countries where I want to go are Panama, Fiji and Tanzania so I can’t wait to see Panama, and also Tero of course…

After Stockholm marathon I took a quick break from running before starting to practice for Helsinki marathon that takes place this Saturday, August 15. My goal is to run under 3:30 and I will do my best to achieve it. Naturally I thought some things that might fail like stomach, body not absorbing liquids, knees or calves but than I stopped. Thinking those things were only a waste of my brain capacity. It’s better to be positive and now I only concentrate on enjoying my Saturday afternoon on the streets of Helsinki.

I haven’t been writing too often to my blog but now I promise to have at least one writing each month. The feedback has been good but almost everyone wants more texts. For the Finnish readers I also recommend to take a look on the blog of Forsal adventure sports club at http://forsal.blogspot.com where ten different bloggers including me take their turns to write weekly about interesting matters affecting their lives. Feel also free to comment those texts as well as my own ones in this blog.

Enjoy your week!