Kata in Finland, 23.10.-2.11.2003

Kata visited me in Finland in late October. She met my family for the first time and visited also Finland the first time. I had change to visit Lahti, Hamina, Lappeenranta, Imatra and Helsinki with her. I think she got pretty good impression of Finland and people here, because she is coming back :) I'm sure she is missing the sauna quite a lot as she learned to love also that very much... :)

Visiting friends in London, 2.11.-5.11.2003

I was having late night chat with Anita and she said that I should go to London. She even gave me link for cheap airline tickets at Ryanair. How could I refuse :) As it happened also Sandra and Mayra were coming to London and we were all staying at Danni's place. I also brought Petri (flatmate) with me, because I needed some support with so many girls. Again, long story short: sight-seeing, Chicago -musical, London eye, english breakfast, MIND THE GAP, good chats, Excellent trip :)))

Anita came with Petri and me to Finland. She got similar tour than Kata, just the short version.

Finnish-Asian night, 29.11.2003 (Saturday)

I met Sumika in the center of Lappeenranta when I was shopping there with Petri. We had important task of finding Christmas presents for our girlfriends :) (which is again another story...)

I got an idea that we could cook together some lunch the next day. She was keen. There was also friend of Sumika there so we invited also her. Later they emailed me that would it be possible if a third girl could join. Of course :) We prepared together siskonmakkarakeitto, which was pretty fun. Especially the "sausage part". We had nice lunch/dinner and the girls promised to make something for us later.

Christmas card

Here is a card that I made for my friends.

New Year 2004

What to do the new year. Last year I was in Slovakia and I wanted something more special also for this year. I spent the Christmas at home and it was enough :) I decided to visit Saana in Imatra. She is also a kind of a link to Slovakia for me. We had been trying to meet for couple of months already, but always something came up and we had to cancel. So what a better way to meet than on new year. As it happened I was the only man in the this party and altogether there was 7 of us. And surpringly there were many singles there. This lead to interesting conversations. It was fun and I wasn't as drunk as I look like in the pictures. See the last picture when the year has changed.

The new year tradition in Imatra is of course fireworks, but also a "rapids show". The dam opens its gates for little while and the water fills the old path of the river. This is really nice show. I recommend :)

Winter pictures from the lake, Lappeenranta, 10.1.2004

The temperature is -16 Celsius degrees. Sun is shining and I should study for the closing exam. So I go take pictures on the lake close and freeze my fingers. Cool:)

Visiting Kata, 23.1. - 5.2.2004, Hungary, Slovakia

The best part of a long distance relationship is the part when distance grows short :) And it sure did grow short on this trip. I took two weeks off from school (don't ask how) and went for a two week intensive dating training to Budapest ;) A lot of things can be done with MSN, icq, IRC, postcards, letters, sound recordings and phonecalls, but it will never remove the need for simple basic need - touch. So, there was a lot of touching happening during this two weeks :)

Our "official" program contained visiting charming tea rooms, seeing movies, romantic walks, fixing stairs, snowfight, sledging, visiting Kata's aunt and cousin in Salgotarjan, visiting Lubi and her brother in Slovakia, ice skating, going to a bath, getting lost with the bus and of course my and Kata's snogging was involved somehow in most of these activities :)

There are no bed talks, or no records survived from this date :)

The first pictures till the airplane are taken in Finland and the last pictures, starting from the windmills, in Austria. Slovakia pictures you just have to find out by yourself :)

Japanese pancakes, Lappeenranta, 13.3.2004

A while ago Petri and I made lunch for our Japanese and South-Korean friends. They promised to make us lunch at a later time. After some technical and schedular difficulties we finally had the chance to do this.

Sumika and Young prepared Japanese pancakes for us. I was first afraid that this would be something like the Finnish version of it, but when the girls showed the incredients I knew that there were no chance of this happening. Imagine doing Finnish pancakes and some pork, corn and cabbage (my Slovak favourite dish!) into the dish. Delicious :) I wish to do this by myself sometime :)

Thank you girls :)

• Panoraamakuvia (LTKK, Kareltek)

• Park(*)

• Huhtiniemi-Kourula yökuvia

• Revontulia

• Iltakuvia Huhtiniemestä

• Äiskä Lappeenrannassa (*)

• "Sekalaista" (*)