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After going through some very tough weeks in Finland I am now back in Malta together with Stephen and I am trying to get back to normal life again. Although I am not always very satisfied with my job I must admit it felt good to be back again, most of all to meet some of my work mates again. It is also good to have something to occupy the mind with, if I would just stay at home I would become crazy with all the thoughts running around in my head.

Apart from work I also have another thing to occupy my mind with now, because today I started an evening course in Maltese! Stephen helped me to apply for this course, and we applied for the second year, since I have tried to learn a bit on my own. Still, I was a bit worried that I would not be able to keep up, but the course seems to be quite basic, so I think I will manage. Luckily we are only seven students in the group, from six different countries (Italy, Germany, France, Russia, Latvia and obviously, Finland. We had to introduce ourselves in Maltese, which was good, because I really need to start daring to speak in Maltese, I have still not manage to overcome that treshold. So hopefully this course will make me braver :-)

I am still keeping contact with many of my former work mates from Sweden, since I worked in an office there for almost five years I made many good friends. One of them contacted me some time ago and told me that she and her husband were planning a holiday in Malta! They have actually been here several times before, they really like Malta (I cannot blame them :-).

Anyway, we decided to go out for dinner together this evening, and Stephen and I picked them up outside their hotel in Qawra. It was so nice to meet her again, we had not seen each other for almost two years I think. We had not planned beforehand where we would go to eat, but Stephen suggested that we could drive to Mdina (where one of our favorite restaurants is situated), and everyone liked the idea. While walking through the narrow streets in Mdina we saw an art exhibition, and we went inside to take a look. It seemed to be the opening evening of the exhibition, because suddenly someone began a speech. Trying not to be too unpolite we stayed there listening for a while (although Stephen was the only one who understood anything, since the speech was held in Maltese). After a while we got fed up and left, our level of politeness turned out not to be very high after all :-)

By now we were really hungry, so we went straight to Xara Palace to eat. We found a suitable table outdoors, and we really enjoyed each other's company and the food, the pasta was great. After the meal we strolled around a bit in Mdina and went to see the view, and we did not arrive home before after midnight.

I have been a bit lazy with my training lately, but today I was planning to compensate for this big time. Unfortunately things do not always turn out as planned...

When I go to aerobics or spinning I often go together with a friend called Simone, and today we had planned to go for 3 (!) classes, since our gym had a charity fund raising day today, with a lot of different aerobics and spinning classes. We started off with spinning at 11 am, and I was very enthusiastic, since I love spinning and the instructor was really good. After the class Simone drove me home (after some embarrassing problems to find the way, I have lived here for more than a year now, and I still managed to give the wrong instructions to Simone about how she should drive...).

Anyway, at home I rested a bit and we ate lunch, and in the afternoon Stephen and I went to Dingli (our dog Foxy happily joined us) to take a walk and Stephen took some photos of flowers. We had already started to walk back to the car in order for me to get to the gym in time for the two remaining aerobics-classes, when my right knee started hurting me badly. I sadly realized that it would be impossible for me to do any more training today, so I had to cancel on the classes. I really hope it is nothing seriously wrong with my knee.

It is very busy at my work at the moment, so I had to work half day although it is Saturday. But I did not mind, the hours passed quickly and I managed to get many things done. When I arrived back home we ate lunch and then Stephen and I drove to Dingli cliffs. Stephen took photos of some plants, while I was sitting in the sun reading a book. After a while I got very tired and took a short nap in the car.

At around 4pm a friend of Stephen phoned him and asked him to come to a workshop to help him fix some electronic equipment. We drove to the workshop near Marsascala, and after some trouble they finally managed to fix it. At that time Stephen and I was starting to feel hungry, so we decided to go to Marsascala to eat. When we arrived we discovered that all restaurants were still closed, and we assumed they would not open until 7pm. Therefore we went to a cafe to have some hot chocolate and a dougnut. Then we walked around trying to choose a restaurant, and we finally decided to go to an Asian restaurant, Jakarta. Since we were very early we had to wait for a while before we got a table, but we did not mind, they had a sofa that was very comfortable :-) Once we got our table the service was very good and fast, and we ordered a set menu which turned out to be very good. We noticed that almost everyone in the restaurant chose the set menu, so we were not very original. The starter was a large selection of different kinds of appetizers, and I was almost full before we had even started with the main course! The main course consisted of three different dishes, which were all very good. For desert I had a very special flambee ice-cream, while Stephen chose a more traditional sorbet. This restaurant can really be recommended, but just a tip: don't eat a big dougnut before :-)

Today Stephen and I went to Gozo, since we had been invited to a party at Odysseus Lodge near Ramla Bay in Gozo, by our Gozitan friends Simone and Piotr. We left from home at around 11:30am, because at first we had to go to the post office in Qormi to pick up a parcel that my friend Katarina from Finland had sent to me. We arrived in Gozo at around 1pm, and we drove directly to Sannat to eat at the restaurant Il-Girna. It was still sunny, and we chose to sit outside although the wind was a bit cold. We were lucky, because as soon as we had finished our meal and went inside to take a cappuccino there, the rain started. We ran to the car and drove up to a hill near the Gordana Lighthouse. Here we had a very nice view and just stayed cosy in the car watching the rain.

After some rest in the car we decided to go shopping, since it was still raining. We drove to Arkadia, and I bought several sweathers and Stephen bought a warm cap. We also went to a cafe to have a coffee and a piece of cake, since we felt we needed some more energy for the party. We arrived a bit early to Ramla, so Stephen decided to take some photos of the beach in the moonlight, and I stayed in the car listening to music and reading a book. The party started at around 9pm, and we stayed until 3 in the morning. We had a lot of fun talking and dancing, although there were a bit of fighting over the choice of music.

Stephen and I had decided that it was unnecessary to rent a flat for just one night, so instead we had brought a quilt and some pillows in order to sleep in the car. But when the party finished in the middle of the night and we arrived to our car it did not start :-( For some reason it seemed that the battery had drained, and Stephen was determined that we should try to get the car started immediately, although I tried to convince him that it could wait until morning. But he is the more stubborn of us, so we started pushing the car back and forth on the parking lot to get it started. It was muddy and slippery, and no downhill, so I did not think we would manage. However, against all odds we were successful after many tries. We went for a short drive to make sure it was ok now, and then we parked near a steep downhill with a very nice view of Ramla Bay. Exhausted we very quickly fell asleep in the car.

Imagine to be woken up by some warm rays of sunlight on your face, and to see the sunrise and the beautiful view of Ramla Bay beneath you. We definitely did not regret our choice to sleep in the car, it was much more comfortable than we had imagined. I would not like to do it many nights in a row, but for just one night it was perfect. We went by walk up to the nearby Calypso cave, and looked at the surroundings with our telescope. We noticed that our friends in Odysseus Lodge had also woken up by now, so we went to talk with them for a while.

At lunchtime we drove to Xlendi, to eat at Ic-cima restaurant. We got very full as usual, so we went to Dwejra Bay to take a nap in the car. To avoid the worst traffic we took the ferry back to Malta already at 4 pm.

We had planned to go to Valletta this morning to buy Christmas presents, but immediately when I woke up I knew it was going to be change of plans. Having lived with Stephen for more than a year I know that it is impossible to convince him to go outside if it is raining. Maltese people are a bit too spoiled with good weather :-) So instead I arranged my wardrobe, which urgently needed to be done.

In a typically Maltese way the weather changed quickly, and in the afternoon it was perfect sun. Therefore we drove to Dingli cliffs and walked around there for quite a long time, because Stephen needed to take note of which plants have flowers at this time of the year. I assisted him as secretary :-)

In the evening we were invited to one of Stephen's cousins, Jacqueline and her husband Renzo. Jacqueline's brother Adrian and his girlfriend Doreen also came, and we had a very nice evening talking and eating a lot of food and sweets. We even got some entertainment by the children in the house, who were singing and dancing for us.

Tonight we were invited to a buffee dinner at Suncrest Hotel in Qawra, accompanied by Stephen's university friends. We arrived a bit late to the hotel, so I was afraid the others were already waiting for us. But there was no reason to worry, because there were many others that had not arrived yet. We waited for maybe half an hour more before we got seated at our table. By this time we were all very hungry, and the buffee table looked very inviting. The starters were very good, quite a large choice. When we ate the starters the entertainment for the night began, and it was quite amusing. The dancer's were very young and not so experienced. But as I said, it was quite amusing to watch, although the music was disturbingly load.

Moving on to the main course we were not very impressed. The choice was not very wide and it seemed the food was almost finished. Actually Stephen did not even have time to take any meat before it finished, so he was a bit disappointed. But on the whole the food was ok, although it cannot be compared to the buffee dinner that Stephen and I once ate at the Hilton, which is very hard to beat.

One amusing part of the dinner was Stephen's relationship with the waitor. Stephen has no problem complaining if he is not satisfied, while I (and many others with me) on the other hand is too shy to do so. Consequently, Stephen ended up forwarding everyone's complaints to the waitor, so I think he is now on the list of the most unwanted customers in this restaurant :-)

It was nice to meet Stephen's friends, although it was a pity that everyone left almost immediately after the meal, so we hardly had any time at all to speak with the ones who did not sit near us.

Stephen and I arrived to Finland two days ago and are going to spend Christmas here together with my father. I spent this morning cleaning up in the kitchen, I found stuff in the cupboards that expired several years ago, so it was about time it was cleaned :-). To save some time I did not cook today, instead we went to a Turkish restaurant in Jakobstad, Aylin, where we (=Stephen, I and my dad) ate kebab and hamburgers. After the meal we all went separate ways: my dad had to go to his fox farm to work for a while, I went to buy some groceries from a supermarket and Stephen strolled around in the centre of Jakobstad taking photos and visiting some shops.

In the afternoon the three of us drove to Jeppo to visit my mum's aunt Gun-Lis and her husband Olof. They are very close to the family, and I always arrange to meet them when we are in Finland. Stephen also likes visiting them, mainly because of Gun-Lis' tasty cakes and cookies. She is really a master in baking, and there is always lots to choose from. We also had time to admire their Christmas tree and just to sit and talk. We did not stay very long though, because we still had things to prepare at home before tomorrow.

When we arrived back home I started to prepare food, since we had invited my brother and his family to come and eat Christmas lunch with us the following day. I fried some meat balls, prepared a moose steak and ham. Later in the evening Stephen and I prepared the Christmas tree, wrapped the Christmas presents and went to the sauna. It was around two in the morning when we finally went to bed.

I woke up quite early this morning, despite the late evening yesterday. After breakfast I immediately started preparing lunch, since I am not a very experienced cook I need time to manage to get everything ready :-) I was a bit worried that I would do some mistake and the food would become uneatable, but I still enjoyed preparing a big meal. An old friend of my mother came to visit us in the morning, and I took a break in the cooking and sat down having a coffee and talking to her. A bit later my dad and I first drove to Nykarleby (a town about 20 kilometres away) to visit the cemetary where my father's parents are buried. We lit a candle at their grave, and then we drove to Jakobstad to visit my mother's grave. There were already many candles lit on her grave, although some of them we had to lit again, because of the strong wind.

When we came back home I made the last preparations for the meal and set the table, and around 1pm my brother, his wife and their son arrived. We were all hungry so we sat down to eat immediately, and to my surprise everyone seemed to like the food :-) I have always been helping my mum previous years to prepare the Christmas lunch, so I guess she managed to pass on some cooking knowledge to me anyway. Among other things we ate smoked ham, meat balls, moose steak, sausages, salads and some Finnish specialities called kalrotslada and morotslada (sorry, but I have no idea what the are called in English).

After the meal we just sat for a while talking and taking it easy. Then one of my father's cousins, Signhild, came to visit us, together with her husband Heikki and their son Johan. We all had coffee and some cakes, and Stephen was happy that finally he met someone who was very willing to speak English. Heikki is a business man with my international clients, so he is very used to talking English.

Among children (and to be honest quite many adults as well) it is tradtion to watch cartoons at Christmas Eve. At 4pm the TV-programme starts (called Donald Duck's Christmas), and my nephew Jonatan (or maybe my brother was even more eager) wanted to go home in time to watch this programme there. I have never understood this tradition, to watch the same set of cartoons every Christmas, so I preferred just reading a magazine and resting a bit.

A bit later in the evening my dad, Stephen and I went to my brother's place in the nearby village Esse. We ate the typical Xmas dessert rice porridge with fruit soup. I really love this dessert, and I share this love with my boyfriend, who ate two big portions. My nephew could hardly eat anything, he was too nervous about the Christmas presents. This year we did not have any Santa Claus coming to us, because last year my nephew Jonatan recognised the Santa Claus as a neighbor, and then the magic disappeared... Instead he handed out the presents himself this year, with a cute Santa Claus cap on his head.

When we had opened all the presents I had no idea that the best Christmas present I could ever have dreamed of was still waiting for me... Stephen suddenly placed the video camera on top of the television a bit in front of us, saying that he was going to test some new feature. He does these kind of tests all the time, so no one really paid any attention to what he was doing. But now afterwards I am a bit amazed that I did not suspect anything :-) Anway, after the "video camera incident" Stephen came back to the sofa next to me, and shortly after he gave me a Christmas card. I opened it excitedly, as by now I know how romantic and poetic he can be, but I was definititely not prepared on something THIS romantic! In the card he asked if I want to marry him, and, if the answer was yes I should go to the Christmas tree to find a small package. I did not even have to think twice, I went to the tree, but had a bit difficulty finding the package. After a small hint from my brother I finally managed, and inside the fancy little bag I found a very, very beautiful ring! Honestly, I could not have done a better choice myself. I felt like the happiest person in the world when Stephen put the ring on my finger, although I was convinced it was all a dream and that I would soon hear my alarm bell ring :-)

My family was also very surprised and impressed by the romantic way Stephen proposed, and we really had something to celebrate when we drank coffee and ate a cake a bit later. I needed to calm down my feelings and get back to earth, so it was a good idea to go to a concert in the church at 11 in the evening. But when we came home and eventually went to bed I still felt like I was dreaming, a VERY pleasant dream...

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