Another Week & Borrowed Words

"In life as in dance: Grace glides on blistered feet" Alice Abrams

Dancing through life

Life has been good, but at times a bit busy. Even after 2 years in this beautiful country it’s still hard to adapt to the work life at times.
The work hours are very different. Work starts later in the mornings than in Finland, which makes it hard to get out in good time.

For the first year I was busy catching up at work and forgot all about hobbies and socialising. Luckily these days are over. I now indulge regularly in taking dance classes and I really enjoy it. It’s a beautiful sensation to express myself again through my body. Dancing has done wonders for my spirits as well and also lifted the dark cloud of writer's block that was hanging over my head for a few months.

I am not quite ready to reach for the stars yet, but I am positively dancing through life!

It's all about timing

Today I left the house happily (2 hours early) to go to my class in Dun Laoghaire. I do not have a car and as I might have mentioned before the public transport here is somewhat funny. If you do not live on the dart line for instance you need to travel all the way into town, then cross town for the nearest dart stop and then travel back south on the dart.
Well that was my intention today as well, but once I had purchased my ticket and started waiting for the train I found out that the trains would not run all the way to Dun Laoghaire and there were no connecting buses from the last stop.
I have to admit I am very inexperienced when it comes to taking the Dublin bus, but as it was the only solution left to me I ran out of the station and found a stop for a bus to Dun Laoghaire. The bus then took me on a lovely round trip of the southern parts of Dublin that were still unfamiliar to me. I had plenty of time to take in my surroundings as the bus stopped every 2 -3 minutes (no I am not making this up;). We did reach Dun Laoghaire after 59 minutes (yes I did not keep staring at my watch) and sadly way too late for my class (I am sure there are faster bus lines though). I went for a walk then waiting for the dart service to resume and would have kept quiet, if I would not have been greeted by this lovely advert on the train.

Well really it's all about timing sometimes;)

Pictures of Italy

We are back from our holidays. Italy was definitely an interesting, beautiful and somewhat surprising experience. Here a few impressions of the places we visited.

Rome:

As you can see this city has clearly been taken over by top class German pop (?) music. These posters of Tokio Hotel decorated almost every single tube station throughout Rome.



We were even more surprised that the rest of the advertisement space in the Roman tube stations is dedicated to good old Finland. Do they really promise a country of constant spring, or is my Italian letting me down here?


This was the most impressive experience in Rome. we visited the Pantheon. The light and the atmosphere was stunning and from a different world.


One more impression of Rome that needs no words.




Florence:

This was the best place to visit. A lot more approachable and relaxed than Rome and more really amazing ice cream places that even serve liquorice ice cream (that was one of the highlights for me in Florence).

Here are some impressions from Tuscany. There was so much to see that I feel a bit overwhelmed now. If you plan to visit all these beautiful medieval cities you definitely need a lot of time to explore and enjoy!

Volterra & Lucca

Siena & San Gimignano

Me in Poggibonsi