Whenever I have the time and money, I love to travel to see my dearest friend. He lives at Tampere which is way too far, but luckily close enough to visit sometimes. A week ago it was the last week of my holiday and I decided to use it to travel there.
I just love to travel, and I mean any traveling - even domestic traveling counts. I love to sit in the train and watch the scenery pass by. Whenever it's raining it adds a certain vibe to the mood and I love it even more. This time I was lucky enough to catch exactly that moment. The raindrops kept hitting the window and I just couldn't stop staring at them.
When a train window is full of raindrops I just can't help but to stare at them and think of them as alive creatures who are in a competition against each other. I always cheer for the smallest and slowest one. I find them endearing and the saddest as they leave behind while the other drops fiercely force themselves towards the other side of the window. I found the drop to cheer for this time as well. It curdled to the middle of the window and stopped there. I got a little sad and put my head down for a while. But when I looked again, it had decided to leave a half of itself behind and was now pushing itself towards the other side of the window faster than any other drop. It won. I was happy.
One night we decided to go check the roof. Henri moved to a new apartment last summer so apparently he hadn't climbed there yet. We took the elevator to the top floor and luckily got through the huge iron door. We didn't even have to climb to the actual roof because there was a balcony there just waiting to be visited. There were also ladders that went up to the chimney and come to think of it the railings of the balcony weren't that high to climb over to sit on the actual roof either. I bet the roof will be the number one place to be in the summertime. It was bloody cold and I had figured that I'd probably survive without a jacket (hey, it was only fucking snowing out there) so we didn't stay there forever but the view was nice.
Ever since the first day our plan for the week was mostly to do absolutely nothing at all. We like to do that a lot. Later during the evening some of his friends came over to join us for a session of Scrabble. My new mission in life is to beat Henri at it. He is surprisingly good and it's very annoying. Everytime I think I'm finally in a leading position I check the score and he seems to be leading me with a hundered points. It never seizes to shock me. Though he is always the book-keeper so I'm a little suspicious.
The rest of the week was quite laidback as well. I was supposed to meet some old friends but for some reason ended up not to. Though I did meet up with Nata from
White Trash Disease, she was a sweetheart and it was so nice to finally meet her. We had dinner at Napoli and I gladly ordered the pizza I was recommended to order without any further questions. Haha, just could resist it after the sales pitch she threw at me, apparently it was
the best pizza. Tested. Word.
Still, most of the evenings we just ended up having a lot of grandstands for talent shows with Henri. I Used To Be Fat was a favorite of ours as well alongside with the alleged sobbing that always comes along with it. On Saturday he invited some friends over and after a good kick off for the night we headed to Ruma, the best bar in the country. Well, at least I like to think so and so do quite a few other people as well. So fuck you whoever decided to take down the fucking building.
On Sunday I left with a heavy heart and a very light head with a minor palpitation effect. I got to the station half an hour too early and was the first one to sit in the train all alone. I didn't have my headphones on so it felt incredibly quiet and serene. Maybe even a bit too quiet, I thought as I looked outside of the window. Nothing was moving, nothing at all, not even the clouds on the sky. I glanced over all the platforms and there were absolutely no people anywhere. Strangely quiet, I thought.
I came up with a solution that the station was probably evacuated from all the people because there was a shooter on the loose at the platform area. Just my luck to be the only one left here, I thought to myself and felt a little bummed out and also kind of scared to be killed with a gun very soon. It was completely quiet except for the quiet humming of the train engine. Suddenly the train door behind me whizzed, beeped and opened. Slow steps started to walk towards my slot. This is it, I thought and closed my eyes waiting for the gun to go bang. A middle-aged woman in a flower hat waddled by me greeted me on her way to the next cart.
I guess the hangover had gotten the best of me.
When the train finally left the station, I started to stare at the scenery again. The first snow had finally came while I was at Tampere and I couldn't help but to gaze out of the window and be amazed by the winter wonderland that I was passing through. Last year we had a plenty of snow, p l e n t y I tell ya, but stil I would've liked a white Christmas this winter. Didn't get one on Christmas, but now it was finally here.
White fields and snowy trees speeded by and everything, absolutely everything was leaning towards blue except for the street lights that were glowing warm yellow light. The view was breathtaking as the sun was just settling to the horizon. Thin threads of cloud were glowing red and pink but everything else was entirely pure white all the way from the top of the trees to the ground. Finland can be so incredibly beautiful.
I turned away for a second to grab my camera from my bag to capture the moment but as I turned back towards the window it was too late. The sun had already set and everything was blue. Still, Finland is so beautiful.
XOXO
Joanna
