Work as a result of The Hangover.

Yesterday, thanks to my darling boyfriend, I clocked 3 hours of PAID work time. Basically he was too... ill... to drive himself and do his deliveries so I drove him and coached him to smile nicely and be polite to the customers even though all he wanted to do was hurl...

So it all started Thursday morning! The day was looking pretty busy but I was looking forward to the running around - even without the energy. I got up at 9am. Studied Finnish from 10am to 12pm and then I took a lunch break. This break was rather extended because I figured I wouldn't have much time to laze around later. I watched some TV online and ate lunch. Then around 2:50pm I left to meet a friend. We scouted all the second hand and Asian shops in the area; I spent 40 euros. BUT I bought: a really nice sweater, a soap holder, a candle holder, many spices, ghee, some warm GREEN mittens...and some other stuff... In total, I think we walked about 6 or 7km. I got home at 6pm, exhausted, ate a small dinner and ran out the door at 6:20pm to get to Finnish class... another 1km walking there and back... came home at 8:15pm to Nina, Juha and Juuso. Nina brought her brother's dog over for a visit so Juha could meet him too. They bonded before I got home :)
I ate another small, quick dinner and we rushed out the door to pub quiz... another 700m or so walk. We hung out there until about 11something and then Eeva drove me home. The boys said they'd be going for a drink at Semafori and they wouldn't be long...

I got home, exhausted, read a little, watched some Ugly Betty and went to bed around 12:30am.

3:30am - I am awoken by the sound of ... Juha. Anyway, long story short, I managed to get him to bed.

Okay so one down, one to go... I laid in bed... tossed and turned... Juha snored and his stomach protested the alcohol as it tried to make sense of what had happened... the stomach that is. I got up around 5am to check Facebook. I turned the light on in bed and read a little... before I knew it 7am rolls around and nothing. I felt wide awake. And my day went on from there...

I met Nina and we walked to Sokos together. I was impressively coherent all through the day and didn't even feel tired. I later realized that I have a really regular sleeping schedule and this tends to happen to me a lot. I miss a night of sleep and it's fine. If you start missing more, that's when it gets problematic. I was gone for maybe 3 hours or so. Once I got home I found a half-dead zombie-like version of Juha. He'd apparently tried taking the garbage out and walking around the building a few times to feel better but to no avail. Then around 5:30pm he started getting calls from the primary driver who needed help with his deliveries. Since Juha didn't feel up to driving, I drove and he delivered. We did 5 deliveries in 3 hours... one of them was to his co-worker who was also at the bar before.

I was pretty happy about the whole day's events! I earned the first bit of salary that I'd earned in the past ... well... let's just say over a year [because I worked for free in the summer.] And the money I earned offset my shopping splurge from Thursday! Not to mention I felt like I'd really been needed for something! [Which is a great feeling as you seek employment.]



To add the cherry on top of the cake, we made Indian spiced cauliflower and green beans with rice for dinner! It was absolutely delicious... but maybe could of used a few extra vegetables. We didn't take any pictures though. BUT then for dessert, I used the almond-flour waffles I am so fond of and added berries, banana and cinnamon! Awesome. And yes, there was some late night Yatzee! [note the dice.]

Now I gotta run! Päivi and Anna are coming over for lunch!

Oh Kuha... the beginning of a beautiful friendship?

Oh, do I have a story to tell!

But first, a few things I've been writing down on scraps of paper and want to remember to make note of:

- Professional driving. In Finland, in order to pass your driving test, you must be a stunt driver! [Okay not actually but when you see Juha park by purposely skidding around the parking lot, it sure seems that way.] When you do your driving test in the winter, you have to prove that you can handle whatever situation: skidding, ice, snow, etc... and when you take your test in the summer, they put soap on the track so you can skid around a bit. I'm actually pretty impressed. If it were harder to get your license in Canada, no one would get anywhere because too many people would fail. But maybe that wouldn't be ALL bad since we'd know how to handle our snow storm driving. I don't know... just a thought.

- There is a bomb shelter in the basement of our building. It doubles as a storage space but if need be, we simply need to lift the board in front of the big door that leads to the storage area and ta-da! you're safe from bombs. Did I mention our building is THREE [3] years old? Apparently this is the norm here. I guess a history full of Russian and Swedish invasion will do that to you...
There's also an air-raid alarm that is tested weekend on Monday at noon. But no one heard it this Monday... it was very strange. Juha was saying if they stopped doing it, people would worry that it wasn't working. I asked a few friends if anyone had heard if on Monday and it seems no one had... one of them did panic when she realized though!

So yes, back to the good story I have to tell. Yesterday, I went for lunch at Päivi's place [Juha's mom] to eat with Juha and Anna [his sister]. We had salad, sweet and regular mashed potatoes and fish. Now WHAT KIND OF FISH!? ... you may ask. Why it was Kuha fish. Like Juha, but with a 'k-'. The meal was fantastic, right up until the last bite; at which point I got a piece of little Kuha's remains stuck in my throat. I will tell you - it was a HOOT having that there for 9 hours. I tried eating some "Pieni Pyöreä - Monivilja"
to wash it down. It's basically a hard cracker/bread type of deal and it's really high in fiber. And I must have eating half a pack [which made it really uncomfortable to sit in the hospital waiting room 6 hours later].

Anyway, the doctor didn't manage to see it because I pushed it down with my finger [semi-by accident] at some point throughout the evening but he said it just sucked but it wasn't dangerous [I was more concerned about it sucking for 2 months like some poor bloke on the internet]. But anyway, he sent us home and suggested we come back tomorrow if it hasn't washed down yet. There was also the possibility that it had cut my throat on the inside and that the cuts just felt like it was still there when really it was long gone. But I was pretty sure that wasn't the case since the pain seemed to move around. So after waiting for 2 hours and going home empty handed [we'll see how much that'll cost...] we stopped at Mr. Chen's for some Chinese food. And at exactly MIDNIGHT last night, I swallowed the fish bone.