...

i'm home! hello home, i'm dad! okay that's out of the way now. that ended up being an almost month long trip away from home in two parts. first, i travelled to helsinki for a night to spend at my cousin's place until i went to espoo to have a very calm countryside vacation for around five days. the little hut i stayed at was very charming, emphasis on the little. i've never been to espoo before, so i was kind of shocked how beautiful it was with lush vegetation and extremely rich looking buildings... like having a helicopter on your roof kind of rich. scary. beautiful but scary. i had a blast taking pictures of the nature there, i was obsessed with the bedrock there since we don't really have it around where i live, but running around and climbing on bedrock is a very core and dear childhood memory to me.

pictures taken from walks around the area i stayed at

after espoo i stayed at an airbnb for the rest of my friend's stay, until i went back to my cousin's place for another week. it was a week of laughing at him lose his mind in crystalline conflict in ffxiv, meeting up with my xiv buddies irl for the first time and having a little housewarming party ingame for one of our guild's new club! also i didn't have my hotkey settings saved anywhere and we did the new 6.5 trial with me having to click randomly at skills while being completely lost, that was horrible.

finally arriving at home for a few days, my bestie invited me to her mom's house in the countryside, and we ended up spending the rest of the month there together, cooking and watching videos. what greeted me back in north instead of autumn leaves was pristine snow. now it's unfortunately all sloshly since it's just a tad too early for it to yet take place. i got to experience an outdoor sauna for the first time too, it was magical to walk across the snow under a clear sky of stars and a bright moon to be enveloped in the quiet warmth.

first image is me at an art museum in helsinki where you could draw on all surfaces, second is the snowscape you could see outside the house back north

and that's the vacation experience overview! i feel like i learned how to be alive again, and got reassured that i can still live amongst people. getting away from the usual was a very much needed break, and now i can appreciate my cozy and dark cave with my beloved blackout curtains. good sleep i missed you. now i'll be off to update some other pages of the blog to keep up with the currents!