General mumbling
The last days
Thursday, June 9th, 2011 at 11:48 | categories: General mumbling
During the last week of my stay a couple of friends came to visit. The first night all of us, the guys, me and my gf went to a barbeque night at the American dude’s apartment. It turns out it was the last time I got to hang out with any of the exchange bunch as later on the schedules conflicted. It was a nice night, and a lot of people turned up.
Later during the week we visited Villefranche, but then the weather turned a bit bad and it rained a lot. We did manage to get to Èze, however, which has one the best views around the French Riviera. We also managed to squeeze in an afternoon at the Juan-les-Pins beach, which was completely packed like I’d never seen before. There was almost no room for us–I guess I left just in time!
The dudes in Villefranche
The view from Èze
In the news: A(nother) volcano eruption in Iceland
Tuesday, May 24th, 2011 at 16:58 | categories: General mumbling
About a year ago in the spring of 2010 a volcano eruption messed up the European air space for almost a month. Now, a year later, it’s happening again as a volcano called Grimsvötn has started to unleash its powers.
This might affect my plans in three ways: tomorrow I’m meeting my girlfriend in Paris, and she should be flying there from Oslo. As of now the chances of that happening look good, but the winds might change unexpectedly. Secondly, a couple of my friends are flying over next Sunday, and that might not happen either. Thirdly, I’m supposed to get back to Finland in less than 2 weeks and well, I’ve no idea if that’s going to be possible. At least this makes following cloud patterns really interesting.
Ash clouds
Flying
Tuesday, May 17th, 2011 at 18:48 | categories: General mumbling
Now that I’ve been travelling quite a bit lately, I’ve spent some time on planes. I usually choose an aisle seat at the front because it’s more quiet and provides some space for my inconveniently long legs. However, stretching the legs into the corridor usually backfires painfully since people keep stomping on my feet and the stewards know that in a fight between the food trolley and my knee, usually the trolley comes out winning.
On the EasyJet flight from Nice to Bristol I got lucky, though, and got a window seat by the emergeny exits. It was actually the first time I got a birds-eye view to the area in which I’ve spent the past few months. I noticed it’s really small: after a minute of climbing up I could see all the way from Grasse to Monaco easily, and Italy would’ve been visible had it not been misty and humid. It was interesting.
Some mountains. Nice is somewhere under the wing.
Today I was on a boat
Monday, April 18th, 2011 at 18:30 | categories: Antibes, General mumbling
Julian, a dude from Montreal, organized a little boat trip for us and rented a nice small boat from the Antibes harbor. It was a perfect warm and still day at the sea. It was so nice that even my phone wanted to swim.
As we anchored our boat somewhere between Golfe-Juan and Cannes, us dudes decided to take a little swim. I was urged to go first, so I jumped fearlessly into the deep blue without remembering I still had my iPhone in my pocket. I actually enjoyed bathing in the sea for minutes before realizing what had happened.
Anyway, I didn’t let the little mishap to ruin the nice afternoon, and I’m confident the phone’s still going to work. I opened it using a kitchen knife and it’s now drying up.
Preparing for the trip. Note that Julian's grabbing water, not beer!
Julian & Lindsay
The famous Antibes view, this time from the sea
Even I got to drive
Feeling like MacGyver again
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Big in France
Thursday, April 14th, 2011 at 19:45 | categories: General mumbling
More than once an older lady has stopped me on the streets or in a supermarket to ask me how tall I am or what on earth I’ve eaten after I’ve walked past them. Usually when they realize I’m twice as tall as they are, they freak out slightly. It’s a little bit funny. I hope no one freaks out too much and gets a heart attack, though.
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