The Audiobook

How pleased am I with the photo above. The audiobook. It is, isn't it. On occasion while I am not plotting world domination (read: binge watching TV series) I think that I should go through all of my photos (bwahahaaa... yes, it's that impossible), but I get side tracked like there's no tomorrow. Because there are all those photos that to me look like stills from films yet to be seen. Adventures. Memories. Surprises. Then it could also be New York, its omnipresence in films and literature, like a drug. Here today are some fragments from March 2017. Not the best photos I have ever taken, but...

Week 2: Brown

Using: coffee beans, Fuji Instax mini and an iPhone.
Listening: The Strokes.

Week 1: Flowers

Using things at hand: confetti filled balloons, a hyacinth, snow, glass prism, DSLR, Lightroom.
Listening: James Blake.

All New, Same Old

Here's to 2019! (Blimey, got it right the first time, no accidental 2018 was typed. Proud moment.) After my last update an old friend reached out and I can't help, but think that there are some of us out there who are like the Bletchley girls (with reference to the UK mystery drama). So here's my resolution for the year - to keep that very fact in mind. (Here's braking the first new year's resolution - no resolutions.)

I find these photos from Linnanmäki (an amusement park in Helsinki, Finland) so appropriate for a new year's first post. Everyone excitedly rushing into something new. Yet to be stuck in the same pattern that eventually makes them dizzy. (That's the deep and meaningful thought for the year.)

So in 2019 I am returning to an old love - weekly photo challenge. I did one in 2013 (feels like yesterday, totally) and I enjoyed it a lot (or so my mind keeps telling me). I feel like it is time to have another go. I wrote down 52 spontaneous words and tucked them away in a metal box (so yes, I also really wanted to make us of my Belgian cookie tin with nuns on it). You can see the 52 weeks from six years ago on my old blog here.

Just taking a quick glimpse back on 2018 I would also like to share two on my favourite Finnish Instagram accounts for how life is. Sisko Savonlahti - she's exactly like me and nothing like me, but wait... if I had a dog and could find memes as poignant I would have exactly the same social media presence (...). Kasper Strömman - somehow I get PAW Patrol now, epic.

One more time, here's to 2019! May it be scrumptious!

Most Memorable of 2018

This title is in vain. So much has gone down in 2018. Memories are bleeding into one. One could just shrug it off by stating the timeless - eh, life. I have no idea why I consider it timeless and what exactly it is supposed to tell you about my year. So I am gonna list some most memorable moments here in no particular order. Needless to say like any other year there have been many moments for jumping-dancing GIFs and a big handful of those that should come with a private screaming quarters. But since human mind is a feeble thing that can be easily manipulated I choose to focus on the first kind. Let's construct on the inspiring and positive. Here's to my carefully constructed public success! (Sarcasm, it's here, right, you can tall, surely.)

Without further ado (ah, too late for that phrase to be thrown around, you say...).

• My very first photo exhibition! The ultimate, needless to say. Yet I say it - the ultimate! (More about it here.)
• Moving to Helsinki. Back to the old, meeting the new. Almost nine months here and I still stand by my claim that it's the best place to live in (if one has to live in a cold dark country).
• Cocktails for lunch (alongside food and good company). It should be more of a thing, really.

• Getting my own museokortti - the annual ticket to all Finnish museums. I have been going to museums a lot. Like you know other people go to gym or something. Too bad my name memory isn't stellar and I absolutely fail at cultured name-dropping conversations, still. But some inspiring art has been seen. 
• Related to the above - teamLab exhibition at Amos Rex.

• Taking a train on water. Not literally (shocker). But when A-train leaves Manhattan for Rockaway Beach there's a strip when if you stand in the middle of the subway car you can only see water from both windows. Combined with morning sun peeking in it is totally like riding on water. (I really should have taken a video.)

• Related to the previous - New York City. As always. 
• Roadtripping in Italy. That rainbow for example and a sacred hideout. 
• Food: breakfast waffles in Manchester. Syrup and bacon, you make me proud.
• Netflix binge watch love: The End of the F***ing World.
• Cinema: Call Me By Your Name. Like, yes! (I know it's a 2017 movie, but saw it in 2018, so totally legit.)

• Gigs: The National, Young Fathers, St. Vincent, Arctic Monkeys, Mikko Joensuu, M, Liima, Jaakko Eino Kalevi. 
• Dance: The Beauty in Gray by Bryan Arias (Paul Taylor Dance Company at Lincoln Center, New York). I would like to see that again. And again. 
• Records: 
• Sander Mölder - TIKS 068. Most listened upbeat record, surely. 
• Rosalía - El Mal Querer. The most unexpected as it combines musical styles I am not too often drawn to. 
• Beach House - Teen Dream. An oldie, but found its way to my life this year. I am somehow always better with listening to music that is not brand new. Has earned its place here as I have listened to it a lot. A lot. Totally looking forward to 2019 to listen to all the 2018 best releases. ;)

Bye 2018! We shall never meet again. (Unless they change the calendar system or you know - casual time travel.)

Travelogue 2018

In the vein of 2017 I am gonna have a quick look back at 2018. Towns I have passed through, had a coffee or two in, spent a night, fell in love with... places I visited outside Estonia and Helsinki, Finland. In chronological order. Because I am partially the places I visit. They leave their mark.

Brussels, Belgium

Staten Island, New York, USA

Sheffield, UK

Liverpool, UK

Manchester, UK

Tuusula, Finland

Salo, Finland

Tampere, Finland

Lappeenranta, Finland

Lahti, Finland

Tivoli, Italy

Termoli, Italy

Vieste, Italy

Trani, Italy

Casalabate, Italy

Alberobello, Italy

Martina Franca, Italy

Ostuni, Italy

Otranto, Italy

Santa Maria di Leuca, Italy

Gallipoli, Italy

Lecce, Italy

Mänttä, Finland

New Haven

So what if what you get is not reality nor my memory of the day. But just New Haven through a dark-Friday-night-lens. Mind lens if you wish. Almost like a memory. But not quite. A mash-up. Why would I tell you that tho? Perhaps 'cos the clock is about to hit 11:11.

This is New Haven (Connecticut) on a glorious autumn day in year 2015.