Vacation in Finland
I flew to Finland on the following day as I had returned from Vietnam. And that is where I spent the next 7 weeks, even though in the beginning I had no idea whether I stay at my parents' for a few weeks or even a few months. I had come there with a way-one ticket. The first two weeks I spent quarantined at home - but we did give up on trying to keep the distance of each other inside the family. Being quarantined in Finland was so much better than it would have been in almost any other place. Since I was staying with my parents who worked at home, I could spend a lot of my time in the kitchen preparing all their meals and baking sweets. And one of the greatest things about staying in Finland was that I was still able to go for long walks outside home. Finland hasn't limited people going outside and since my parents live nearby a forest, I could walk around in the nature without needing to face many people. Additionally, I found a free online course for 2 months for practicing French a little bit. I didn't feel bored at all. The one thing I felt negative for, was the fact that my husband was on the other side of the world.
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| Lakes, forest and some animals. I couldn't complain about my quarantine time. |
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| The melting ice forms quite interesting shapes. |
After my two weeks in quarantine, I started taking care of doing the groceries, too. And I could also help my previous employer who needs personal assistant in her life even during the corona time. That is how my 7 weeks in Finland went quickly. I could enjoy spending a lot of time for cooking, I could go to sauna whenever I wanted, I even went into the lake from sauna once, I played frisbeegolf with my family and surprisingly, I got to play with snow many times. Last winter was warmer than ever in the Southern Finland and there was hardly any snow. But that was followed by a spring when the winter strikes back several times. For some weeks I felt like it was snowing every 2 or 3 days and then the snow always melted during the same day as it came down.
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| Korvapuusti - Finnish cinnamon rolls |
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| Chocolate cake with vanilla sauce |
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| Oven apples |
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| A cake for my brother who had b-day close to Easter. |
One day I and my parents drove a bit further from home in order to walk in a nature reserve. I love walking on small forest paths and the views were very nice especially around the lakes!
At the end of April H was finally able to find a flight back to France for early May. That and the fact that the French schools can open on May 11th were my hints to check return flights also for myself. And I flew to France to reunite with my husband after 7 weeks in different countries.
Vacation continuing in France
The schools in France were allowed to open on May 11th. But unlike in Finland where all the schools opened at once, here it didn't mean that all the children would return to schools on the same day. For example the school where the older child I look after goes to, will not open during the whole May and June is yet to be seen. Therefore I couldn't return to my normal working hours and in fact, I have not been needed at all yet. My first working day since the beginning of March will be day after tomorrow. The younger child is at the nursery, so I will spend some hours with the now-already-4-year-old, so that the parents can work better. So I have been in France for two weeks now but my vacation has only continued. My spring vacation has turned into a summer vacation when the weather here has reached over 20 degrees every day and some days almost up to 30. I almost feel guilty for not working and still getting 80% of my salary while some other are loosing their jobs or adjusting their work to a new environment or working more than normally...
So instead of making snowmen, I have been sunbathing and growing herbs and flowers. Now it surely feels even nicer than before that we have our own yard. All the parks here are closed and even though we are already allowed to go outside without permission papers, we don't go much elsewhere than for groceries or a run with H. He works at home and I try to keep quiet during his meetings. one time a few of his friends came over to our place and we had barbecue. Eating with Vietnamese people means a lot of food and a lot of variety. Cannot complain!
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| Growing chili, coriander and flowers. |
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| Barbecuing with Vietnamese people guarantees a lot of food. |
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| We played my sushi game and ate some cheese cake I had made. |
We talked about going to Accrocamp - a place to go on different tracks in the trees - already when barbecuing. And on Sunday we went for it. Sunday of course was a busy day there but it would be more difficult for us during the weekdays because of everyone's work and because during the weekdays you have to have a permission from your employer in order to use the public transport during the rush hours. Many of the tracks were similar to the Accrocamp place that I went to with H last October but some tracks were very different. It was so much fun to climb up to the heights, be able to go through even the most difficult objects and always slide down to the ground at the end of each track! The scariest part was the Quick jump where you basically just jump straight down from around 17 meters.
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| This Accrocamp place had some different obstacles than the other one we had visited. |
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| Probably the highest slide-down |
