Happy Makar Sankranti :-)

Today is Makar Sankranti; तिलगुल घ्या अणि गोड गोड बोला :-)
Yesterday we brought our first car. It´s Red colored Hyundai Accent :-) We are pretty much excited about car and roaming places.
Though both of us learnt car driving but still we are little-bit afraid of driving in Finland. Here Fines are too much :-( Now there is lot of snow everywhere so that is another problem.
But with some practice and care; we can drive :-) and get comfortable with car :-)
Before learning a car; we never used check car model or company or car looks. All car related discussions were noise to us. But once we started learning a car; we started following so many things.
There are so many things about cars :-) Now it´s interesting to know.
There are few changes for one, traveling in Bus or walking on side of road and car driving. When we used to walk; we used to see only for footpath signs; Crossing path. Never bothered about traffic jams or signals if walking.
Now suddenly we need to check so many things too apart from those. Also most important things; how to fill petrol, check air-pressure in tyres, types of car-cover available, motor heater... :-)

Hope to have lot of fun and trips around :-)

Picking Berries

I had heard that in summer, many people go to forest or strawberry farm to pick berries. I was very curious to know how those berry trees look like and how those berries taste :-)
Finally we decided to visit Strawberry farm on a weekend. I was very surprised to see strawberry plants since those were very small plants. So many people had come with their baskets to collect strawberry. You can pick strawberries and buy it from them. While picking berries, you can eat as much as you want. :-)
After coming to office, when I told about the strawberry picking to my colleague, he showed me different types of berries available in Finland. Luckily 3 type of berries were available in our office campus. So I tasted them. One was red in color, one was in white and another was bluish black. Red ones were looking very great. We picked them for his daughter.
In next week, one of my colleague, told me that there are many blueberries nearby office campus and she likes them a lot. Often she goes to forest to pick them and these are very nutritious :-) We picked two cups of blueberries. Even I liked the taste, it´s not sweet, but little sour.
I wish I could have taken all berries snaps. I will update them later.

Paris and Switzerland trip

On 9th July 09, we started our journey to Paris and Switzerland. This was my first long trip to Europe. We were quite excited to see other part of Europe and all famous places like the Eiffel tower and the beautiful Swiss.
Before leaving we collected a lot of information about public transportation which helped a lot. Metro in Paris was very good, I felt like treasure hunt game all the time :-) Tried all possible algorithm for short cut routes for going from one station to another station :-)

View from top of Eiffel Tower was amazing :-) We visited many churches and those were beautiful as well. Each had it´s own history and art. We saw the famous Mona Lisa painting but still I did not understand why did it got so famous :-( May be I am not artist so ...

One day we went to Disney Land. We managed to visit only Disney studio where they show how they film and shunts done in the film. Apart from that there was one 4-D movie which was real fun. One person likes someone on screen and he enters into the Screen to meet her and finally somebody gives way to come out from screen. Also when there was a rain in movie, in theater we felt rain showers(water was sprinkled) :-) I liked it very much. Many of them were only for kids but people like me who loves cartoon, it´s a dream world. We tried few rides; and it was fun too.
Switzerland is very beautiful place to visit. We went to Interlaken and it´s really like paradise on earth. I liked the lake which had a unique bluish green color. I loved to watch that lake and beauty along the lake. We had gone to Jungfraujoch, which is the top of Europe. Journey from Interlaken to Jungfraujoch was amazing since most of the time train was going in steep angle :-) and through many tunnels.
the Ice palace at Jungfraujoch was ultimate :-) It was slippery too... Poor Ravi, he fell down :-(
I wish I could spend some more time in Switzerland :-) I hope that I will make one more visit Switzerland soon.

Confusion

Life is a mystery; I do agree with it. As I have seen and felt that people always think about their issues, solutions and past-present-future. Even I do the same. Sometimes you will not be happy with life even though it is good according to others. If it is good from many ppl point of view then what is the problem with us to accept? May be we never wanted or wished something to happen and it happens...
Even I am in such confusion or feeling unsatisfied with my life sometimes. Let me put my wishes - to have good family life, economical condition should be good enough, should have good office work to do. Am I wishing too much for myself :-(

Learning and giving time to our hobbies .-)

I always wanted to do many things in my life like swimming, dancing etc... but somehow I could not manage it earlier or left it :-( When I was studying I used to think that I can do it later but right time never came or I became too busy in life. I used to spend more time with TV watching some junk serials or movies than on my hobbies. After coming to Finland, we did not have TV so one way it was good since we could think of joining so many classes. Some how finally I decided to try other better things in my life.

I started enquiring about swimming classes, other classes; they were very costly :-( so left it. but later luckily we came to know that in Nokia itself there are many classes and price is also reasonable. So joined Dancing class which included Ramba, Samba, Woogie-Boogie, Waltz and Tango dances. Ravi and I tried to learn at some extend. It was fun when we try to do something which we never did. There were many old couples who were enjoying dancing very much. They use to dance in full swing :-) By looking at them I used to feel so good. Now I understand that "Age is not a barrier for your hoobies" :-)

Later I started with swimming class, first day I was very scared. But our teacher managed to give me confidence and asked me to trust the water :-) After that I learnt swimming in just 5 classes :-) which I never thought I could.

Trip to Tallinn(Estonia)

After a long time, finally I am back on blog :-) I would like to share our trip to Tallinn which is old city in Estonia nearby Finland. We decided to visit Tallinn on 11th April 2009. We were 11 of us with 3 kids. We reached Helsinki early in the morning around 6:20am. Bus stops, railway stations were almost empty. Then we took bus which goes to Harber. When we reached Harber, we could see many cruise, so many people around. We converted some euros to Estonian crowns, got tickets and boarded to Cruise. This was my first journey in Cruise. It was quite big. Even cars and trucks were loaded into that cruise. Cruise started at 8:30am. We got some place to sit and started with our breakfast with Sandwitch and parata.
Then we went on the deck to see the trail left behind by fast moving ship. It was great to see that. On deck it was quite windy and cold, somehow we managed to take some snaps :-) We reached Tallinn around 10:30 am. We got tickets to Hop-on Hop-off site seeing bus. Started visited places.
1. Song Festival Grounds
2. Russalka Monument - a beach place where a beautiful statue showing a direction of ship sunk
3. Visited fort where 3 beautiful churches were there.
4. Then visited Town Hall where lot of different beauitful buildings, churches were there and Viru Gate.
All these places were worth to see atleast once :-)

It was 7pm, we had Hesburger veg-burger and were back on ship at 9pm. Played Dump Sharad while coming back to Helsinki. It was too fun, with all our group we did not realize how did we spent one day.

Last day of the year 2008

Today is that last day of the year 2008, office is almost empty since many of them are on vacation. I am not in mood to do work today but still forcefully trying to work. I am getting lot of wishes from my friends about Happy New Year. I have sent wishes to them as well.
Each year comes and passes so soon before you realized it. Three years back I was waiting for 31st Dec badly since Ravikiran was coming to Bangalore from Finland after 6months. 2 years backs I was very tense. Last year we celebrated New year with our neighbor friends. Now I am in Finland thinking about past. Let me put all good things happened to me or good memories in 2008.

1. We bought our Cane furniture in Jan which I always wanted in my home.
2. We bought new house in September after a long struggle.
3. My Granny and my cousin visited my place for the first time.
4. My mom and Sagar came to Bangalore house for the first time after my marriage.
5. We celebrated our first marriage anniversary.
6. We got to meet our friends very often.
7. My uncle came to our house warming ceremony.
8. First time I traveled in Flight.
9. Visited Delhi.
10. Had been to Solapur.
11. Came to Finland.
12. Joined Nokia and same project as Ravikiran :-)
13. Got to see Autumn and SnowFall in Finland.
14. Visited Ravikiran´s native place.
15. Celebrated Ravikiran´s birthday.
16. Celebrated my Birthday in very special way with all decoration at my home.
17. Got new Mobile from Nokia after joining.
18.Celebrated Sagar´s birthday and visited Goa.
19. many more....

Thanks 2008 for all cheerful memories... :-)