The smell of smoke

Happy x-mas sales shopping everybody! Christmas was nice and I survived the long days of work leading up to the holiday. At the sales I've only bought myself some yarn and knitting needles and I've started on a new pair of leg warmers. It's been years since I last knitted, and then I didn't really knit anything more complicated than...leg warmers. But you gotta start somewhere, right?

Knitting seems like an nice and stay-warm-under-a-blanket hobby, unlike sewing where you got to get partly undressed every time you're trying your item on, and right now I want to stay warm because out flat is feeling very cold at the moment. For a very interesting reason;

A week ago Mr. Kitten and I went to bed around half past ten in the evening. Roughly an hour later we woke up to the very sureal sound of the fire alarm in the stairway outside our flat door. We could smell something burning, so I grabbed some clothes and my phone and we went outside to see what was going on. There was fire engine outside the house and other residents in pyjamas and wintercoats. We couldn't see any flames or smoke, but were told that there was a fire in the storgage department of our basement, almost directly under our flat...

More fire trucks arrived and hoses were dragged across the snowy lawn and smoke-divers were making their way down into the basement. Around this time the basement window broke or was broken and smoke started pouring out, lot's of it. At this point I was wondering if I should have tried to rescue my computer and camera and thinking things like will all my clothes get damaged from smoke and so on. But, after about an hour the fire was put out and our flat was safe, but too smokey for us to be allowed back in. Finally, at half past one we got to go back into our flats where we did our best to air out the smell of smoke and get some sleep. What a night!


The stairway still smells of smoke, but luckily our flat stayed pretty smoke free so the smell is very faint in here. The fire broke out directly under the flat wall-to-wall to ours, and something must have been damaged as the heating isn't working in the room closest...And in every other room it's freezing as well. Everything in out storage cage is covered in soot and the plastic covering our garden chair cusions has melted. We had mostly camping and skiing equipment in this storage, some of it still needs to be checked for damages...But we are safe.

I wish you a very safe and happy new year! (Don't forget to get home-insurance and fire alarms if you haven't got any!) My new year's eve will be spent and my cousins wedding. See you in 2010!

Back from Milan

Hello everybody! I've been back from Milan for a few days now, and I've finally got round to putting up some pics from the trip. Most of them taken by me and my brand new used canon eos 350D! I'm so pleased with my new toy, and my bf was also quite impressed by the picture quality. Alright, so here we go. We arrived in Milan late afternoon, checked in at the hotel and started to explore the city.

The first thing we wanted to see was the Sfortza Castle and the pretty fountain in front of it. At 5 o'clock when it got dark the castle lit up and there was music and a little light show.

There was a tram covered in lights driving around.

The Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, the shopping centre right outside the duomo, where all the fancy shops like Prada, Gucci etc were situated. But, everything was closed. Come on, it was new years eve! But yes really, only a few small and expensive looking restaurants were open.

The Duomo at night, with a large flower and light covered christmastree in front of it. By this time in the evening it was snowing wet snow and it was pretty cold aswell. The lack of open places to go made us return to the hotel for drinks at the bar and then bed. The thought of going back out there in the cold to see the fireworks, and then try to somehow get back to the hotel after the underground stopped running didn't appeal. So we fell asleep. No wonder, we did get up at 3 that morning...

The following day, after a breakfast consisting mainly of biscuits and tiny bits of white bread, we returned to the duomo to have a look inside. It was amazing, and huge, and full of details.

After seeing the inside we took a lift up and saw it from above, even more details and a pretty good view over the city as well.

Here I am, showing off my new glasses on top of the duomo.

The view from the side of the cathedral.

As all the shop were still closed, we went for a walk in the park. As you can see, it wasn't exactly a suntrip we were on.

I said hi to Napoleon.

And we had dinner in a fancy restaurant. And a fast food place or two, as I mentioned before, most places were closed. But I managed to fulfill my goals of eating a real italian pizza - made and served in italy, as well as a plate of real italian pasta.

The following night we got up at three, again, and caught a bus back to the airport. When we landed in Finland we had breakfast and spent the following 5 hours or so in the ideapark shopping centre outside tampere. I bought some earrings, socks and stockings, underwear from Gina Tricot, and from Eurokangas a piece of fake fur out of which I intend to make a muff to warm my hands in. Fur -both real and fake- seemed to be all the rage among the 90% of russian passengers who flew out to Milan on the same plane as us. Just in case you wondered.

All in all I'm very pleased with the trip, although Milan is probably much nicer in the summer and when places are open. But still, I got to fulfill my shopping desires back in ideapark, so I'm not complaining. I hope you've all had a good start to the new year!