Greetings from Helsinki!

Family time, friends and beautiful winter weather. I've been sleeping a lot, studying not enough, planning my brother's birthday party and hanging out in Helsinki. That's to say, nothing special just enjoying my week off. :) Here's some pics:

Celebrating my grandma's 90th birthday. She still looks so young and elegant. :)

With my dear "lil sis" O

So this day has come, my little brother is 18 years old, can't believe it. Monday night celebration with him and his friends in a bar in Töölö. (I felt old btw.)



pretty girls S and A



Me and my baby brother

First time in the new Hard Rock Café Helsinki

With my friend A who's getting married this summer, I'm so happy and excited for her!

The food was delicions but so expensive, 20 euros for a pasta!!

 



Tea catch up with my friend R at her new place

Walking on the ice. This is a small bay in the middle of center Helsinki that leads to the sea.

Sun shining and +4 degrees, perfect!

luxury villas, living here should be cool



Tourist spots: the Finlandia house and the top of the National Museum. :)

Sometimes Helsinki is such a beautiful city, even in the winter. I had forgotten that because I haven't been here in February since 2009. But I still hope that the spring has arrived to Paris when I get back and that I don't have to see anymore snow this year.

Friday night I'm throwing a big birthday party to my brother. About 20 teenagers are coming (plus a couple of my friends too, thank God), we'll see how it goes... ;) Stay tuned!

xoxo: Emi

Une jolie promenade avec T

It’s amazing how seeing the sun can make you so happy. Since Saturday I can’t stop smiling because it’s warm and sunny and I can feel the spring coming. On Saturday I was wearing a leather jacket for the first time this spring. We went for a nice long walk with my friend T in the area Invalides, la Seine, Eiffel tower, Trocadéro, 16th, 15th. Time just flew by, we walked and talked for almost three hours. At first it was sunny, then a bit cloudy and in the end we saw a beautiful sunset.

Here’s some tourist photos we took. For those who live in Paris, enjoy. For those who don’t, be jealous! Haha. :)

 

And this is where we are planning to spend next summer... ;)

 

 

When I came home in the evening I was in such Parisian mood that I just had to have some bread, cheese, grapes and wine. How French.

 

 

Sunday was a sunny day as well and Monday morning when I woke up the sun was shining again and it was so much easier to get up than the past few Mondays. Walking through Jardin des Plantes with C during lunch break is already becoming a weekly habit and at 6pm when I finished my classes and walked home it was still light. A lot different than before Christmas. And this morning, sun again! I’m so excited about the spring, you can’t even imagine. But if all this sounds too positive, I can tell you that I’m leaving for Finland on Friday, for ten days! So snow and cold, welcome back….

xoxo: Emi

Valentine's

I hope you all had a happy Valentine's Day and that you got plenty of love. :) I did and I also got a big red rose and champagne and an absolutely lovely and delicious dinner. Thanks M, it was perfect although every day with you feels like Valentine’s Day.

The rose is beautiful but someone might have had a little too much champagne...



Heart-shaped chocolates that I bought for M :)

Valentine's Day dessert

 

 

In Finland Valentine's Day is called "Friends' Day" so it's more about spending time with your friends or sending greetings to them. And I totally agree, true friendship is more important than anything. So to all my friends all over the world, you were in my thoughts on Valentine's Day and I'm so happy that you all are a part of my life.
 

With my dearest Finnish-Parisian friend J we have our weekly Starbucks-tradition (although we don't have time to go there every week anymore but still quite often). I know that Paris is full of traditional French cafés that are nice as well but we have been Starbucks fans for a long time. There's just something in the Starbucks-atmosphere that makes me happy and relax and a cup of tea with J always helps me get trough everyday life that in Paris often is so challenging (still fighting to get a health insurance for example and I think I might give up soon...). I don’t know if J remembers this but one time at Starbucks when we were talking about something that was so incredibly French once again she said that “Life in Paris is so hard, every morning it feels like going to war”.  A great summary of our lives here. No, just kidding, we love it in Paris. ;) Anyway, Starbucks is the answer for every problem and where we share all the important news. J, always be my Starbucks-friend!

 

At Starbucks Gobelins

 

J

 

keksi + korvapuusti

Valentine's Day decorations

And then to gym, zumba + body attack! (J didn't like me taking photos...)

Love ya all,

xoxo: Emi

And this song is for my friends:
Carole King - You've Got A Friend

:)

La Parisienne à la campagne

I'm still enjoying my "easy new start" at Uni (soon getting worse I'm sure...)  - and partying! This Saturday we celebrated B's 30th birthday, on the countryside. Countryside means 30 min metro + 45 min train + 10 min waiting for someone to come get us from the train station in the middle of nowhere + 5 min car, all this just for a party. Although for some true Parisians the location was too much, I made it and had awesome time. Thanks B and everyone else too for a great party!

 

Last year at B's birthday party I may have made some unintentional comments about the topic city vs countryside so that's why I decided to take my "city girl image" seriously and wore this beautiful dress. But hey, I have nothing against the life outside la périphérique, believe me! Haha. But my point is, wherever you are, always dress in style. :)
 

 

Mä nautin edelleen mun "helposta uudesta alusta" koulussa (ei sitä enää kauan kestä...) - ja biletän! Tänä lauantaina juhlittiin B:n 30-vuotis synttäreitä, maalla. Maalla tarkoittaa 30 min metrolla + 45 min junalla + 10 odotus, että joku tulee hakemaan juna-asemalta keskeltä ei mitään + 5 minuuttia autolla, hirvittävän pitkä matka yksien juhlien takia! Joillekkin aidoille pariisilaisille tää sijainti oli liikaa, mutta mä selvisin paikalle ja oli ihan huippu hauskaa. Kiitos B ja muutkin kivoista juhlista!

 

Viime vuonna B:n synttäreillä saatoin tahattomasti kommentoida vähän väärään sävyyn aihetta kaupunki vs maaseutu, siksi päätin nyt ottaa mun kaupunkilaisimagon vakavasti ja pukeuduin tähän kauniiseen mekkoon. Mut oikeesti, ei mulla oo mitään périphériquen ulkopuolista elämää vastaan, uskokaa! Haha. Mutta pointti oli, missä ikinä oletkaan, pukeudu aina tyylikkäästi. :)




I bought this dress from one of these small boutiques at rue St.Antoine between St.Paul and Bastille. They all have almost same clothes and I often find something cute and a little different than clothes in mainstream stores. I hesitated for at least half an hour between black and white but finally I chose the white one because it's nice for the summer (soon here!)




Matching accessories





Pre-party at my place with M





Ready to go. Ps.I love this jacket, I bought it three years ago from Stradivarius and it's still one of my favorite clothes.

Finally here and ready to party!






The Birthday Boy, no signs of aging to be seen. ;)



A pose with the Bday Boy + P and B



Beaux gosses...



... and pretty girls



Joyeux Anniversaire, make a wish!



The morning after...



When will it stop snowing?? Seriously, I'm so sick of the winter...



Besides my trip to the countryside, I didn't do anything special this weekend. A little bit of studying and sports, lunch on Saturday with my friend W who left back to Holland, and a Sunday eve sushi dinner with big sis M at her new place which is gorgeous by the way (her landlord is a super rich, super chic interior designer and she decorated this apartment in royal style, I need to take some photos to show you).

Today was a hard day at school, maybe because I didn't sleep that much this weekend (still recovering from the countryside experience! lol) but always when Monday's over, the rest of the week already looks a lot brighter. If you had a challenging day as well, take it easy for 5 minutes and enjoy amazing Adele and beautiful Paris:

Sen lisäks, että matkustin maalle, en tehnyt mitään ihmeellistä tänä viikonloppuna. Vähän opiskelua ja urheilua, lauantaina lounas ystäväni W:n kanssa, joka lähti takaisin Hollantiin, ja sunnuntai-iltana sushi-illallinen isosisko M:n luona sen uudessä kämpässä, joka on muuten aivan ihana (M:n vuokranantaja on super rikas, super chic sisustussuunnittelija, joka on sisustanut tän kämpän kuninkaalliseen tyyliin, täytyy ottaa kuvia niin näätte).

Tänään koulussa oli jotenkin erityisen raskasta, ehkä koska nukuin liian vähän viikonloppuna (ja koska toivun edelleen maaseutu-kokemuksesta! lol), mutta aina kun on selvinnyt maanantaista niin loppuviikko näyttää jo paljon valoisammalta. Jos sullakin oli raskas päivä niin ota hetke iisisti ja nauti upeasta Adelesta ja kauniista Pariisi-maisemista:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLQl3WQQoQ0
(Adele - Someone Like You)

xoxo: Emi

 

 

 

 

 








 



 

 

 






Back to school... or not

 

Hey my dear friends! I just wanted to let you know that for once, my week has been reeeaaally easy so far. Haha. I love it when a new semester starts at school and everything is so calm for a week or two. Monday morning we started at 8am which wasn't that cool but then it felt like the teachers either weren't really on the mood for teaching anything or had something better to do. The first one went through an introductive chapter and then let us do exercises in groups and the second one started her lecture 45 minutes late so we had a long lunchbreak. It was nice weather too so after having eaten at resto U with my friend C we took a nice walk at Jardin de Plantes and dreamed about summer and picnics. My courses that I have on Mondays seem really interesting, Tuesday's courses not that much but it will be okay I hope. We don't start yet with everything this week so yesterday I was at Uni for one and a half hour, today I don't have anything and tomorrow I only have one English lesson. And not really any homework either. Chill. So I've had time to take it easy like go to the movies and see my friends. I even had a skype date with my Swedish friend A that I hadn't talked to in a long time. Today I had planned to finally go get me a French health insurance but of course the office is closed on Thursdays (I don't get it, why? This is so French again...), so I have to go there tomorrow. Knowing how it is with everything related to French Administration, it will take me the whole afternoon... I should also seriously start looking for an internship for next summer if I wanna find it without stress and panic. But I'll start on Saturday, I promise. Today it will be relax because I wanna finnish Where we belong, one of my favorite authors Emily Giffin's new book. Or "new" it took me almost 6 months to get it, another thing that irritates me in Paris, that it's so hard to find books in English here (or even translated foreign literature). Finally I ordered it from Barnes and Noble's but it took almost two months until I got it. Anyway, today I'm going to read. And then do some sports. Love my life. :)

Tuesday night cocktails with E at Bastille. This is from Objectif Lune where we often go

What is that guy behind me doing??

And this is from Charlotte, one of E's favorite places

E who always always always wears only dresses bought new black pants, I'm surprised. :D

Cooking for my boyfriend yesterday. It's so nice to cook when you have time! This is my mum's speciality, chicken with vegetables and crème fraîche. I'm so proud of myself, I did it for the first time and it tasted exactly like mum's. :)



And once again, I just love my apartment and living in le Marais

 

First signs of the spring: the weather is still grey but you can see more and more little stands opening by the river...

 

 

I forgot to tell you, I bought these spring shoes from Zara, only 12 euros on sale! This funny style slippers are so in in Paris right now you can see them everywhere. I think they're kind of cute.



A little advertising for Emily, I love her books. She writes simple stories about life and relatioships but her writing is so compelling and heart warming that you just can't put the book down. Everyone read Emily Giffin! :)

 

I'm going to continue my relax day off now. ;)
xoxo: Emi