Christmas preparations + big news!

 

It's been a while. I'm not gone and I never will be. Honestly, I've been drowned in work of different kinds and planning my next trip and doing Christmas preparations. I swear that Christmas and I do not get along. Usually. Especially when it comes to gifts. I tend to spot million gifs for one person but then nothing to another. It's actually really hard because this year I knew what my friends + family wanted but with my friends I didn't know if they already had it. Now that is one reason why I usually craft something myself. This year I barely had time to do anything so crafting was in minimum.

Earlier this month I went to see The Hobbit: Battle Of The Five Armies. Boy oh boy. I went from "HAHAHAHHAHA" to "NOOOOOOOOOOO! WHY DO YO UDO THIS TO ME?!?!?!". Back and forth. I've never had such feelings for a movie before. I knew way before who's gonna live and who's gonna die but I never knew when. So when it started I was still surprised. The first one was the worst. The character wasn't my favorite, but he was close to that so yeah. After that I just knew the other deaths would be following so surprisingly I wasn't even to emotional. I thought I'd cry like a baby. I almost did. Just so you all know: I blame Thranduil, that stylish, selfish, greedy bastard. His fault. Yep.

On Friday I went to a local big shopping mall called Ideapark. It's very convenient cause it has all kinds of stores and you don't have to freeze your ass in the cold weather outside. I found almost everything there though. I only have a couple of things to buy and that I will do tomorrow.

On Saturday I drove 2hrs to see a very dear friend of mine. I have like five friends living in Helsinki area, but I always fail to visit all of them. It would be very convenient to do all at once but none of them know each other so... yeah. Private time is good. We went to eat in Vapiano, probably our favorite restaurant in the city, then did a little bit of xmas shopping and finally I went to see her new place and took another 2hr drive home. 

And today. Today I have been baking a lot. First I baked a mulled wine - gingerbread cheesecake and toffee chunk caramel cupcakes with peppermint cream cheese frosting. Pics (& probs recipes) to come later. I have a very busy schedule tomorrow and on Tuesday so my next free time will be my luxurious 4 day Christmas holidays.

Then to bigger news. My other dear friend asked me if I'd go somewhere with him. We talked about London, then Santorini (but apparently it sucks in the winter) but finally we found very decent priced flights and hostel so now we're going to *drum roll please*

Wanna guess? It's not in Asia, I can tell you that much.

LOS ANGELES

God you don't even have a clue how long I've been dreaming of setting my feet onto American soil so this is like a dream come true for me. So after panicking if my passport is still valid, or if they require it to be valid 6 months after leaving or if our bag would go straight to LAX and all that we booked the trip. We'll be staying in a hostel in Hollywood, near Walk of Fame, Kodak and Chinese Theater. We might actually rent a car too. We'll be staying 3 whole days and then we have like half a day on our arrival date and on our departure date so it's not very long yeah but it's more than I could've ever dreamed of. And you know, you gotta leave something to the next time too ;)

We'll be going as soon as the end of next month so it was really a quick decision :D I'm so excited right now and my christmas just got a million times better!

But now I must away, for the dreamland is waiting for me.

xoxo,