Category Archives: Crazy Euopean People

Crazy Euopean People, Mom in Law

Adventures of my mother in law

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Few days ago my mother in law arrived for her three-month visit. Usually there shouldn’t be much to write about yet as it takes few days until her crazy stuff begins but this time she outdid herself. It already started at the airport here in Finland. I believe she just can’t wait to give me material to write about.

The day started pretty normal except that her flight was suddenly one hour early but this didn’t cause us any sweat as we live only 15-20min away from the airport. We managed to arrive just few minutes after the plane landed so we were in no hurry as it takes some time for the passengers to leave the plane and get their luggage. So we waited in the arrival hall, waited a bit more and waited even longer until we stayed there for over one hour. All the time we saw other Chinese passengers from the same flight passing us by but no sign of mother in law. We called some friends who are working at the airport to check the gate and the luggage claim but they could only tell us that there were no Chinese people left in those places and that the sign for the flight from Chongqing was gone as well from the luggage claim.

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Mother in law with her daughter in the 90’s

What had happened to my beloved mother in law? We knew she boarded the flight as she had sent a message before shutting off her phone in the plane and the Helsinki airport is pretty tiny so there are not really many places for her to hide from us and our friends. We went to the information center and made some calls but still nothing. On the way back to the arrival hall we saw a group of people, a very emotional mother in law in company with a not so happy looking border guard and a smiling translator.

The border guard and the translator told us then what all went from after she had left the plane. Apparently she did not go through the passport control but through the transfer area where she ended up in the middle of the airport again. After she got some advice from other people she found her way finally back to the passport control but there a new dilemma started. Sure she had her passport and flight tickets but they also wanted to see her invitation letter which she received from us so she could even get the visa. After much discussion in some special room for passport and visa problems the border guard told her “If we don’t find your daughter in the arrival hall we have to send you back”, wow, very nice, I wonder how he would feel if his mother is in a foreign country and is suddenly forced to show some papers no one even knew before to have with them at the airport…

Mother in law at our wedding (don't we just look creepy with blurred faces?)
Mother in law at our wedding (don’t we just look creepy with blurred faces?)

All ended well, they found us/ we found them and mother in law was allowed to pick up her luggage and leave the airport to come with us. Now we have a full apartment, the noise level is constantly high that I don’t even dare to concentrate on any kind of task which requires my head and hopefully our baby will be born in one of these days.

 

Now I hope that the next posting will be about our baby to be born or it will be about further adventures of my mom in law.

Crazy Chinese People, Crazy Euopean People, Crazy Family, Travels

Visiting Kammi-Kylä

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Last year summer my parents in law were visiting us for the first time in Finland. The main reason behind it was that they could attend our “big” wedding in Finland and see where we currently live. As we had a whole month with them we tried to show them as much as possible without straining our financial situation too much. In a previous post I wrote about their first visit on a strawberry farm, well now I will write about their first visit in a truly weird place.

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Welcome to Finland

This place is located near our summer cottage in Nummijärvi which is near the city of Kauhajoki. I guess these names mean nothing to you but anyways I wrote them down  just as some reference if you ever get interested and want to visit there. So as I mentioned this site is near the cottage my parents own and we were there for a few days prior to our wedding. We wanted to show my parents in law more than just the beautiful nature there and the idea of visiting that weird place came just at the right time. We only had a 20 min car ride through forests and swamps till we arrived.

KK
One of the many Saunas

First of all the whole place is located within a swamp and the owner of this particular place had some years back the idea to build on his own several buildings in this swamp. I think all materials except the windows and some water drains are natural materials found all over his property.

After many years of building he had created a little village for himself, including several sauna buildings, a building for parties and dances and a little swamp spa. Swamp Spa? Oh yes, it is hard to describe but I have uploaded a picture with a part of it. Basically it is a circular trench with a little island in the middle on which can be found a few benches and a fireplace. The trench itself can be used to swim around. Did I mention already this whole thing is located in the middle of a swamp? This means that you swim in the swamp when you feel like it.  You got to remember that there are some fancy spa’s worldwide where you have to pay a hefty sum to take a swamp mud bath so this “free” version has its own positive aspects.

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The Swamp Spa

Sadly I just don’t have the words to describe this place in its entire beauty and weirdness. It is just one of these places you have to visit to get to know its value.

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look at that craftsmanship

My parents in law were also fairly impressed by this place but they said they would never go to swim there, fair enough, I don’t know if I would do it either without the sauna being on!

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View from the 2nd floor

 

 

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Fine details everywhere

 

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What wonderful and weird buildings here are

 

Here are some picture and a very short description in English and hereyoucan find everything more described in Finnish. Also here the official website of the Lake and, yet again, a Finnish description.

Crazy Chinese People, Crazy Euopean People, Crazy Family

Christmas and New Year celebrations

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The Christmas madness is over. Just kidding, there was no madness involved for us this year. We had some peaceful days of doing barely anything besides relaxing. Only on the 24th we made some Christmas cookies again as I had finished the last batch some time earlier once again.

So did we follow-up on our Christmas celebration plan? Certainly not. We skipped the whole music part of the plan due to our laziness and I guess we cut on some edges on the other points as well…besides all of that mother nature didn’t like us and gave us only rain the entire time.

Because my wife sometimes loves to make food, we had a great Christmas dinner and afterwards exchanged our gifts (yes, I managed to buy something fairly useful for her). On the other celebration days we visited some Chinese friends, had hot pot 火锅 and they played some 6 hours of mahjong 麻将(I was pushed to the living room to watch TV as I have no idea about the game).

Now it is just trying to figure out what we will do on New Year except of watching “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”. Maybe we celebrate with some friends or maybe alone, we shall see…

This was it for this year, I hope everyone had a great year or at least managed fine. I bet many of you have once again New Year’s resolutions and barely anyone will stick to it (But I will!).

I wish you all a Happy New Year and see you as lively as ever in 2014!