Fall coat

Like I already said, it's gotten incredibly cold in Finland in the past week or so. What made it even worse was leaving 22C in Munich and landing in a 9C Helsinki that same evening. Even my leather jacket isn't enough to keep me warm in the mornings when the temperature is just barely on the plus side of the scale. Still, I refuse to go fish out my winter coats and wear them. So what now?!

Well, my grandparent's happened to have a garage sale this weekend, and I stopped by yesterday for a while (and saw my little cousins and my aunt and uncle who I haven't seen since we left for Munich in May, probably?!). This amazing floral coat happened to catch my eye, and I got to take it home --- for free!

It is the perfect thickness for this weather! It's thicker than my other fall jackets since it's got a bit of a lining, but it's not as thick and overpowering as my winter coats. And I'm in love with the pattern! The shape and the size are amazing as well, and it doesn't have anything extra on it that would ruin its perfectness. Score.

Coat - grandma's / Jeans - Dr. Denim / Shoes - Vans / Bag - Ois / Scarf - Joel's (Dressman?)

Also love the HDR setting on the new iOS 7. You can actually see the clouds and the blue sky in the last pic. 

Now back to some last minute studying. I have exactly two courses at uni right now, Chinese and gender studies. I don't have a job. Yet I still manage to leave all my studying until the last minute, and half of my homework I just end up skipping. WHY?! I need to get a grip :D

Nails & Grotesk

So I've really managed to catch some sort of flu now. Honestly, I'm never sick. Like properly. I get minor colds that never really develop in to proper illnesses every now and then, but usually they don't really affect me. The last time I remember being actually really, properly sick was in 2009 or something, right before we left for Shanghai to look at houses and schools for my family. Anyway, yesterday and today I have felt like (for lack of a better word) shit. Which sucks, because yesterday was Joel's birthday, and right now he's out with friends at Adam's, where I was supposed to go as well. I also had to miss the first uni soccer game of the season. Not really a big deal, but I was looking forward to it!

I had to go to a lecture yesterday, and in the evening Joel and I went out for dinner, but the time in between I spent at home feeling sorry for myself. Which is when I decided to paint my nails.

I've been seeing a lot of white nails lately, and I like it! So on our last trip to Munich I went out and got Essie's Blanc. In Finland Essie polishes cost around 16e a pop if I remember correctly. In Munich they're around 8e. Half the price, no jokes. Insane.

Except on our last day, feeling maybe a tiny bit fragile from the day before which was spent at Oktoberfest, I just ran through DM quickly picking out whatever products I wanted to bring home. When I got to my parents, I realized I never actually checked what the bottle of nail polish said, I just grabbed the first one in the "Blanc" row. And what do you know, someone had placed the wrong bottle in the row, which I then bought. This one, called Allure, was also white-ish, but really sheer. Whatever, I did a white-ish sheer matte manicure. Ignore the really bad job on my ring finger. I never really do much to my nails except for the occasional normal manicure, but I was thinking I could maybe combine these two whites and make a solid to sheer gradient? We'll see.

Moving on to more about last night. A few weeks ago I spotted a nice deal on Groupon again, 48e for a three course meal for two people at Grotesk, a very nice restaurant in the center of Helsinki that would otherwise be a little out of our price range. 

The menu included in the deal was a surprise chef's menu that started out with a creamy, slightly sweet corn soup with some slow cooked lamb. This was definitely my favorite, even though everything we had was great!

Main course was slow cooked veal with a crispy top, hollandaise and a potato croquette. Joel had some mushroom puree under his veal, but since I asked for no mushroom (I honestly just can't, I've tried, but I can't), I had a beet puree that was amazing. This course was pretty heavenly as well.

And finally, for dessert there was redcurrants with redcurrant sorbet, chocolate ganache and milk chocolate mousse. I think. It was good, but I'm not really a dessert kind of gal. I prefer savory foods to be perfectly honest! But I still managed to dig in with such appetite that I forgot to take a photo, which is why you have a picture of Joel's dessert and red wine stained table cloth. Not my fault! I think.

It was definitely a good birthday dinner, and I would not mind going back at some point. I need to remember to keep my eye out for amazing deals like this more often on Groupon!

Now for some more CSI and tea in bed. Sniff.

Comeback

So, it's been almost a year and a half since I last posted anything. I have no real reason for being MIA (ha ha) for so long. It just happened. Anyway, I don't really have much to say about that, except that I'm back now!

It's gotten insanely cold in Finland in the past couple of days. Joel and I were in Munich over the weekend for the Oktoberfest opening, and on Monday we left 22C and came back to 9C. I left at around 8AM yesterday morning, and my phone told me it was 1C. O-N-E!!! Brrr. I've been waiting to wear fall clothes, like my leather jacket. It was too hot to wear it before, but now I'm afraid I'm basically just going to have to skip that phase and go dig out my winter coat. My throat, head, and nose seem to be telling me so, at least...

Anyway, I wanted to share a couple of photos from Wiesn (read: Oktoberfest).

I finally bought a new dirndl. My old one has gone inexplicably missing somewhere during our last moves. All I have left is my shirt. I borrowed my mom's and Sofia's dirndls last year in the hopes that my pretty black and green bird embroidered dress would somehow turn up somewhere. I've kept my eye out for a new one, but somehow every dress seemed ugly and just not as good. We were out looking for lederhosen for Joel last Thursday when this black and pink one caught my eye. It was seriously love at first sight. I don't know if you can see in the picture, but the top has tiny little embroidered pink flowers all over it, and the rest is just plain black. The apron in these photos is actually borrowed from Sofia's dirndl, I bought one that's more of a dusted rose color the next day. It's sort of silly how excited I am over a dress that I can only wear on one occasion every year, and that probably looks hilarious to everyone not used to them. But I'm obsessed.

So, after lining up at 7.30AM on Sunday morning, we finally got our first maß just after the doors opened at 9AM. At this point the tent was still freezing cold, but it didn't take long for it to warm up. Right now, looking at these pics, I'm really regretting we only got to enjoy the atmosphere for one day this year. Maybe next year we'll be able to book a longer vacation!