From birthday to Father’s Day

Last week was…full of surprises and lots of things to do. Definitely not a boring “normal” week.

On Monday my roommate, Mahso, had her birthday. I took her after school for coffee to Starbucks because I had this coupon which I could get 2 beverages for 1. My roommate doesn’t like coffee so she took frappucino without the coffee…and I finally tasted the pumpkin spice latte. It was quite sweet, I didn’t taste much coffee in it. But it was so funny when Mahso was drinking cold drink on a cold day. That day was the first day here when I really felt the coldness. I actually had to wear my leather jacket for the first time. The whole week has been quite cold because of rain and wind.

We were also suppose to get pastries from John Lewis (my roommate got a coupon), but we kind of forgot it (we still haven’t used the coupon) after our friends came to meet us. KC and Mallik had a cake for Mahso, and we went to eat to Tinseltown.

There’s my roomy on the left smiling, next to her is her friend who gave to Mahso the best cheesecake I have ever tasted. Thank you! Other side is sitting KC and Mallik. There was also another friend of Mahso but he joined afterwards, he gave a big bunch of flowers to her. She really was spoiled that day, but she deserved it.

Here’s the cake we were eating at Tinseltown. Yummy!

Christmas is coming, and you can really see it in London. On Oxford Street they have put the Christmas lights on.

Oxford Street reminds me of Aleksanterinkatu, which is a street at Helsinki (my country’s capital city). It’s a similar shopping street like Oxford Street, but not as much as crowded. There is also always beautiful lights decorating the street during near Christmas. Talking about Christmas makes me think of home, but soon there’s going to be a Scandinavian Christmas market in here, London. Hopefully I can get there Finnish mulled wine (glögi).

These week I had two exams, biology and math. I think I did quite well, but I was a bit of in a hurry during math test because we weren’t allowed to use calculators so counting in my head takes time…I was also given the chance to do a research relating to environment. My job was to take lots of pictures how people and companies are concerned of taking care of environment. I was really excited about this task, but I don’t know did I do well because my week was busy. I tried to explore much as possible but at the end of the week I realized I need more pictures and was starting to be in a hurry. I tried my best and I enjoyed it, taking photos is kind of a passion of mine. Hopefully they liked my work, and if they did I might continue the work. Taking photos and getting paid…what would be better?

Weekend was interesting. On Friday I was suppose to go party with my friends…it was only me and my friend, KC, at Camden drinking couple of beers at pub. It was okay, but failed plan. Saturday we were suppose to go clubbing after fireworks. That day started as a great day. Because I had finished my exams and free from studying all day, all night, I wanted to treat myself so I went to Starbucks to have a breakfast. I had a gingerbread latte and snowball chocolate muffin, which was basically big chocolate cupcake on top a white chocolate. It was very sweet morning.

 There is my sweet breakfast. Looks good doesn’t it?

After that my day went down. Typical Finn, gets depressed. Not because of the grey cloudy and rainy weather, but for personal reason. On that day everything just started to annoy me. I didn’t even almost go to see the fireworks but I’m glad I did in the end. I was with a company of my friends, Liz and Zee, watching the fireworks and enjoyed drinking mulled wine (not as good as Finnish one).

I have been hearing whole weekend fireworks exploding because of the Guy Fawkes night. Remember, remember the 5th of November…

In the end the day turn out to be awesome. I saw some great fireworks and later we had a good house party which included Indian snacks, beer, good music thanks to DJ Tarini, and hats. Yeah, everyone was wearing different kinds of hats and sometimes we exchanged them, trying to be cool. I really got in to the party mode which I had missed.

Sunday, Father’s Day for me, was my favorite day of that week. I had sent earlier a photo card of me and my friends at Piccadilly Circus as a Father’s Day card to my dad. It’s like a tradition in our family to do cards for someone’s birthday, and Father’s Day and Mother’s Day. Usually I also bake a cake but I wasn’t home to do that, so mum had baked it. My dad was happy about the card, and I had the chance to Skype with him and rest of the family. Brother was his usual self…energetic…

All I could think of that my family was eating my favorite dish: raw salmon (gravlax) and boiled potatoes. Just thinking of it makes me hungry…but they didn’t, they were just eating tortillas, so yay for me for not missing it (only missed the cake). I was about to eat my tuna lasagna when I remembered we were discussed of having dinner at my friend’s place, Suhaib a.k.a. Su. I finally had the chance to cook Finnish food. I was planning to make macaroni and meat casserole but had to change plans: made it vegetarian. Instead of meat I put there spinach, carrots and celery. I was really surprised how good it turned out to be because…

1. I had never done it that way
2. I cooked it
3. I don’t usually like vegetarian versions of dishes (probably because of traumas of school food…)

I boiled the pasta, but not too long so it won’t become squashy. Carrots and celery were fried with a little bit of oil, and I added some spices such as black pepper. Spinach I mashed with my hands and boiled it a couple of minutes and spread all around to pasta. Then I put the carrots and celery and mixed it. I also needed to mix milk and eggs and pour it to the dish. On top lots of cheese to cover it completely. After that I just put it in the oven.

There was also made Indian food and yes, I ate it. This time it wasn’t spicy at all even though some of the Su’s friend, who were also having dinner with us, said it was spicy (even too spicy). It was a fun mixer of cultures, and actually the Indian food tasted good with my casserole.

 

There was so much food that we couldn’t eat all. Had to leave some space for ice cream as well. So we packed rest of the food and Mahso could taste my cooking (I was little upset that she couldn’t be able to taste my Finnish cooking because she had been away for whole weekend).

That kind of week for me…and I’m starting to get hungry again for looking all that food.