Part II: what to do in Lanzarote?

12 February 2017 satu Leave a comment

During our stay in Lanzarote we visited another two interesting tourist attractions that I want to recommend to you.

Firstly, I recommend you take a walk in around Volcan del Cuervo, it will help you understand what happened on this island many years ago. After my husband told me that many people come here just to see the volcano, I sure walked respectfully around it. And let’s face it: it really was extraordinary. It takes like 45 minutes in total from your car to walk around the volcano. Great activity when the day is a little bit cloudy and you are tired of lying on your deck chair.

Want to get a bit higher? Visit Mirador del Rio up at the Risco de Famara in the north of the island. It is one of the most representative architectural creations by César Manrique. In its breathtaking view you can see the archipiélago Chinijo Natural Reserve and the Famara Cliff. And I promise, it is here you want to have a glass of sparkling. There is an interior café/bar where you can relax and have your check-in moment and post your “I am here” pictures on Instagram.

A postcard from Lanzarote

8 February 2017 satu Leave a comment

We have been in Lanzarote for more than a week, and I kind of start to understand those tourists who fall in love with the Island and decide to sell everything and move to Lanzarote. I cannot blame them. I mean, it has been a dream to wake up every morning and to hear and to see the ocean. Then go to the kitchen and make morning coffee and look at how the sun rises over the sea. It is breathtaking. And then when you get the chance to go jogging down by the sea or do your yoga practice in peace, well it is an ideal picture of a perfect life, to me at least. Or how about reading a book on the terrace and taking a sip of chilled white wine every now and then.

Well, these are all those perfect Instagram moments that we tend to share with others; luckily we have this family holiday reality, which keeps our feet down on the ground and us from going crazy about moving to the island. The fact is that in those holiday apartments the facilities are never as good as at home, which can cause some intense moments at times. And especially, when in this two-room apartment the other person needs to work. So on this so-called holiday we have learned this: do not mix work and holiday, if there isn’t an extra room for an office.

And to accept that even an ideally perfect holiday has it’s down sides, like tired parents, a screaming baby, pee on the bed or a broken toilet. These are just little things in the big picture, things that you can laugh about when you are in the right company.

Travel

What to do in Lanzarote?

2 February 2017 satu Leave a comment

So, when we got to Lanzarote we rented a car to get to our destination (Arrieta), which is about half an hour from the airport. On Sunday evening we had basically stayed in our area, walked a bit and seen some friends of my husband. In the evening our little girl started to be a bit anxious so we decided to go for a drive.

My husband had done a bit of research on the Internet, and he had found this amazing place called Los Jameos Del Agua. It is a center for art, culture and tourism. The place is located inside the volcanic tunnel created by the eruption of La Corona Volcano. Inside the tunnel there is a lake, which constitutes a unique geological formation.

I have to say that this place was so incredibly beautiful that it goes top of my list. Not just all the creation by the nature, but Los Jameos Del Agua is also beautifully adapted into be a restaurant, bar and place for musical or theatre activities. It is a perfect mixture of harmony, nature and artistic creation. I promise you: it is worth every penny to visit this place.

We visited the place in the evening an hour before closing time, so we didn’t have that much time there, but I am sure in the next two weeks we will return to this magical place, maybe for dinner — that would be an unforgettable experience.

You can find more information about the place here.

Travel

Next destination: Lanzarote

31 January 2017 satu Leave a comment

It’s early on Saturday morning and we are heading to Orly airport. It is 5 o’clock and we are already in the taxi. We haven’t completely woken up yet, and we act mechanically just to make it to the plane (and get that morning coffee). I’m always a little tense before we go on holiday. Too many deadlines before leaving. The night before I was finishing my text for my creative writing course and then cleaning up the house. But when we get to our destination and I feel the sun on my face, I start to feel relaxed and blessed. It’s like a little Buddha is sitting on my shoulders and whispering: now you can relax. I don’t really care which seaside resort we are heading to (as long as it is not full of tourists), because the result is always the same: when you hear and see the ocean in front of you, it is like your inner clock starts to tick more slowly.

And I feel totally grateful when I can do my morning yoga on the terrace and most of all: to enjoy that cup of coffee outside. It is actually the first time in my entire life that I am in a sunny place in January. It was about a time. More tips and travel stories from Lanzarote coming up.

Wellness

The big hair crisis

26 January 2017 satu Leave a comment

Imagine a moment when you are at the hairdresser’s, with hair dye on, and then when it is time to rinse the color out the hair stylist starts buzzing and complaining to another hairdresser. Well this happened to me last Saturday.

The whole hair-coloring thing was an impulse. It was Saturday morning; I had just finished my yoga. My husband and daughter had left for a baby swimming class, and I thought that this was the moment to sneak out. So I walked to a hair salon nearby, not a very fancy one. Just one of those drop-in kind of places where you don’t need to make an appointment. I know, not very classy, but I didn’t have a lot of time, and during the week it is impossible for me to do anything on my own when I am at home with the baby.

So let’s get back to that washing station. It turned out that in Finland my hairdresser had dyed my hair with some ecological hair dye that turned out completely orange after applying bleach to get some highlights.

So the hairdressers talked to each other for a while and decided to do another bleaching. I was terrified at the thought of ending up completely hairless. The other problem was that I needed to be at home in half an hour. We were going to a christening, and I surely hadn’t thought that I would spend more than three hours at the hairdresser’s. So once again I was abandoned at the washing station with more dye in my hair. My hairdresser went to take care of another client. After a while another hairdresser came over and started to wash my hair. I tried to explain that I was in a hurry, but she kept chatting with her colleague, not really giving a damn that I was already late and super nervous, of course. She just told me that when you come to a hairdresser’s you need to reserve more time! (More than three and a half hours?)

Finally in front of a mirror how my hair would turn out. Of course it wasn’t what I had hoped for (but how often do you actually leave the hairdresser’s feeling completely satisfied?), but I didn’t have a choice or any more time. So I left and literally ran home. I changed my outfit in a minute and off we went.

In the Uber I did my make-up and tried to finally calm down. Luckily we got to the church on time.

And after the ceremony I was happy that we were at a French christening where they served champagne and different types of pastries à la maniere français instead of coffee and cake like they do in Finland on these kind of occasions. I surely did deserve a glass of champagne or two!

Note: After a couple of days I started to like the color. It is again in process, but in the meantime I am going to enjoy being more golden brown blonde:)

Sustainable Fashion

The story of the green pants

23 January 2017 satu Leave a comment

“You’re wearing green pants, they are very green”, my mum said, when she saw these pants.

I found them at a recycling center in northern Finland, liked the color and decided that I needed some brightly colored pants in this dark period of time. Well the pants didn’t look like this at the beginning. I got in my DIY mood and shortened the length to be a more culottes-like style. Easy operation, good result, I would say.

I mostly like to dress up in fewer colors nowadays, but now and then this crazy-childish-me wants to have some fun and pick all different sortts of stuff from my wardrobe and mix them up.

Here in the pictures you can find all these things: checks (vintage Vuokko shirt), 80’s style earrings, sparkling shoes, those green, green pants and a leopard belt – not bad, huh? As I am listing all these I feel like a little girl dressing up her doll. And I thought: did I really wear all this at once? Yep.

But I have to say: never underestimate the power of colors. I surely needed some color therapy. That day I was feeling tired. We all were. It was late on Saturday afternoon and we hadn’t even left the house. But then I got up form the couch and dressed up, and then in half an hour we were out having a little adventure around Paris. The day ended well: we walked to a second-hand clothes event, had a glass of champagne at a cozy brasserie in Ménimoltant, and then ended up having dinner in an Indian restaurant on the way home. This is one reason why I love to live in Paris: when you go out, you never know where you will end up. I love the spontaneity that you have in this city. And like I wrote before, this city always knows how to seduce you.

So this was a little story of some green pants that went out around Paris, and also to remind you, how you can lengthen the life cycle of a garment. Sometimes it just needs a little cutting and a DIY touch.

Culture

Living between two cultures – sometimes it feels like this!

18 January 2017 satu 2 Comments

Living between two cultures, what does it feel like?

I have not written much about this subject, but now that we have just returned home after spending a month in my home country, I want to share my thoughts about what it is like to live between two cultures, between France and Finland.

In a way I feel like I’m having an affair with my home country. Secretly I start to miss it every three months. In fact, according to my husband, I want to go to Finland every different season. Before Christmas I start to talk about a little autumn break in the north, then of course for Christmas we have to go to my hometown and experience the real winter. And then it is too long to wait for the summer to come. Again I start to ask: Can we go for a quick spring break? And then there is the Finnish summer – nightless nights, all that light and greenness – where else you can experience that than in a Nordic country?

Concretely, living between two cultures feels like this (or this is how I felt last week when we returned to Paris after spending a long period in Finland):

Firstly, our home felt strange and familiar at the same time. I kept opening drawers to find the scissors. The doors seemed to open in the wrong direction. And when I’m tired I start to mix Finnish and French. At the supermarket I said to the cashier “thanks” in Finnish. Merci, I tried to correct, embarrassed.

In the morning I secretly miss Finnish filter coffee “Kulta Katriina”, even when I have that perfect cappuccino in front of me.

Then there is always the moment when you feel lost because the routines that you kept in the other country, don’t work in the other. For example, in Finland I used to go for a walk with my daughter before the lunch hour. And afterwards she slept a couple of hours outside in pram. That does not work here! When we try to go step outside it starts to rain and she is not content. Besides, those daily walks are not so relaxing when the streets in Paris are too narrow even for a small pram. I return home and say to my husband: In Finland there are big snowflakes coming down – how lovely is that?!

The first week back is always difficult, and not only for myself, but for my husband, who has to listen to my complaining. And it’s the other way around when we go to Finland. I am sure this typical for bicultural couples. The grass is always greener on the other side, right?

Then a week goes by and then comes another one, and the everyday life gets you, and you just do what you have to do. The noise of scooters going by, the French language, your favorite bread at the local boulangerie and that Parisian life start to seem normal to you again.

And when life gets too hard, there are always those other Finns that live just around the corner, and they know precisely how you feel – the good and the bad.

Sustainable Fashion

Slow fashion: Giving the old dress a new life

15 January 2017 satu Leave a comment

Last autumn I found a bargain of an old dress from a Parisian vintage shop. The dress got hidden away in my closet. I liked the color, but let’s face it: the model was way too big for me. So I never wore the dress.

As my point is to encourage you to use the contents of your wardrobe, damn right I’m going to be an example of it. So I took my scissors and cut the dress at the waist. As a result I got a top and a skirt.

Now we are going to focus on the top part.

So this is what I did:

I removed the shoulder pads.

I sewed some old lace trim onto the wristbands and the hem,

and that was it.

Result:

I prolonged the life of this garment just by some simple cutting and sewing.

Now I have a new top, which I can mix up with a pair of high-waisted jeans or a long skirt.

More style pics coming up soon.

Wellness

Recipe for my super diet – you should try it too!

11 January 2017 satu Leave a comment

Normally the New Year starts with a lot of promises. Maybe you want to get thinner? Start a new diet? Or did you already get a membership at the closest gym? When you look at the magazine stand at your nearest supermarket you’ll see how all the covers of women’s magazines seem to make promises about how you can accomplish a good life or be happier.

As we know in life, there really isn’t any shortcut to happiness. And certainly a fast diet is not an answer to that. Me, I don’t believe in diets: I have been on one and never will. Also, this year, I haven’t made any hard promises or planned any radical changes. Instead, I will continue on the good old path that I started to walk a couple of years ago.

So this is it:

I will continue eating healthy and a 99 % vegetarian based diet. My whole body feels so much better since I became a vegetarian. Also, when I changed my eating habits, I started to learn how to actually cook.

I listen to what my body needs. I won’t go to the gym to do any hardcore training, if I don’t feel like it. I believe that we all experience different periods in life: sometimes you need more active training, sometimes some softer workouts. For me, in this cold wintertime, I need more of relaxing yoga than hard training at the gym. This I will respect. Before, I would force myself to go running ten kilometers three times a week. Not anymore, now that I know that it didn’t do any good to my body.

I will continue to be a more conscious dresser. That means I will shop less than last year, I will mostly buy second hand clothes or make them myself. Also, I will continue shopping in my own wardrobe. The key is being creative in everyday life.

On this channel there will be more talk about sustainability in fashion. This spring I am going to take part in an online course about ethical fashion and I can bet you, that I will share the information here. Furthermore, I have a pile of books waiting about the topic. I know that this talk about sustainability can be harsh, and you might wonder what I am on about, but it is a serious issue that we need to get more people to get engaged in. And I am not trying to be better than others, I am just a beginner learning about this topic.

So I am sure when continuing on this path I will feel better about myself inside out.

So I challenge you to join me in this three-step movement. The only rule is to be merciful to yourself and others – and think about the environment!

Lifestyle

Good vibes for the New Year 2017

5 January 2017 satu Leave a comment

Wild New Year’s Eve party and a lot of promises for the new year.

No, no, no!

This is how our New Year’s Eve went when we celebrating it for the first time as a family:

Delicious pizza in a local good-old restaurant. As a bonus a glass of wine.

After dinner we went to see a big fireworks show, which was organized by my home town. Well, we were there an hour before it all started. As a result, we were stayed in the car at a parking lot and waited and waited. (Mum can remember all schedules, can’t she?)

After that there was a sauna waiting. And to be honest, I couldn’t imagine anything better, when it was cold, dark and windy. Even the idea of a wild home party came second. Nope, we weren’t moving anywhere from the house.

After the sauna I created my mind map for the new year. It is kind of childish, I know, but it is my thing. It clears my thoughts and goals in life.

And of course a bottle of champagne was well needed…and some talk about what we are going to do in the year 2017.

Because we tried not to be that boring couple who goes to bed before midnight, we watched a wild Abba movie on TV. While the plot was as bad as it could get, the costumes were top of the top!

Next morning, the first day of the year 2017, I woke up sick.

Our year of well-being didn’t start as we hoped, but some good old bed isn’t a bad start after all. Anyway, reading in bed is always a good idea. Now I got to go back to finishing the much talked about #Girlboss by Sophia Amoruso.

I wish you all an easy start for the new year!

Satu Adam