[On the flight from Los Angeles to Chicago, Oct. 7th, Fri. AM Pacific time]

Tried to wake my brain up with a grande latte from Starbucks at LAX airport, but failed sadly. Brain is still sluggish, the impact of the coffee being mainly on my stomach, which was already struggling to cope with the insanely early morning – we left the hotel at 3:30am – and the rare ribeye steak I dumped on it last night at Ruth’s. The steak was awesome, and the shiraz with it – most probably the most expensive wine I’ve ever had – delicious. All in all, the dinner last night was a perfect ending for a great week. The conference was good, and the freetime activities quality time.

Being in Anaheim, Downtown Disney was only a short walk from our hotel. On Monday we had dinner there, at some Mex restaurant where they made delicious guacamole fresh at the table side. Unfortunately that was about the best part of the dinner; my ceasar salad with fried shrimp was ok, but nothing out of ordinary. We checked out the big lego shop and headed back to our hotel, the shorter way as we were instructed by our dinner company, but as it went, we took a wrong turn at some point and the short way became a darn long way. The best part of which I walked barefoot, for the pumps I was wearing had already given me nasty blisters. They didn’t stop me from taking a couple tentative climb steps up the steep arc wall of the Convention Center on the way, tho 😀

Tuesday evening we got to go to the actual Disneyland, as we had the SharePoint 10years party there. The weather had turned rainy and cool that day, and I was afraid it was my destiny to see all Disneylands in rain – it was raining all day when I visited Tokyo Disneyland 23 years ago – but the rain stopped by the evening. Still, the air was cool, around 15C, and I had packed nothing warm with me except for a vest, and that didn’t seem good enough for being outside for hours. So I got myself a fluffy Mickey sweater from the Disney shop at the hotel lobby, and was warm enough for the evening. Probably I’ll give it to my daughter, if she wants it, but it’s actually a very swell thing to wear on these flights too, what with the air conditioning being set quite low in the planes.

Disneyland was not such an awe as it was back then as a kid, but sure it was fun. Plastic and glamorous in Disney fashion, and the show that ended in fireworks was pretty fab with all the visual effects etc. We were maybe 8000 visitors there (just an educated guess), most rides had long lines, so we were lazy and just walked around, trying out only the Indiana Jones adventure – which was great! We had some strange snacks and blue drinks on the house, left Disneyland just about when it was closing time anyway, and got brushed aside by Goofy who was apparently in too much of a hurry to be out of work to be bothered by another photo-shoot.

Wednesday evening we went for another walk in Downtown Disney, to scout the Disney shop that we hadn’t yet checked out on Monday. My girls have pretty much grown out of the stuff, and there was no Hannah Montana or Wizards of Waverly things there. I almost bought Perry the Platypus fluff toys for the kids and myself (it’s so cute 😀 ), but came to my senses 😉 We did some more shop-hopping, with very little actual shopping and finally strated looking for a suitable diner there, but ended up walking down the street outside Disney. We ended up at Tony Roma, a rib place. The ribs were the most amazing ribs ever! The ribs you get in stores back home are like the basic Nokia phone compared to a sleek smartphone. (Leave it to the nerd to make the comparison in gadgets…)

Walking back to the hotel, it was already quite late and we were all a bit giddy, mainly from being so tired after the jetlags and intensive seminar days and late evenings dining out and having some drinks, but I suppose the Merlot at Tony’s had something to do with it too. We giggled at the hotel named Jolly Roger’s, and envisioned some wild business ideas and innovations, laughed at the idea of dressing up in a Microsoft Gold Partner cape and then bursting into the customers’ offices in true Superman style. We had a jolly time, all week long.

Thursday was only a half day of conference, and unlike the couple previous days, it was a sunny day again. I sneaked out of the conference one session early, to catch an hour in the sun before we went to Hertz to get a rental car and go shopping. Sun batteries charged a bit and tan slightly boosted, I was ready to hit the shops again. We checked out Fry’s and came out empty handed, I got some more M&M’s from the Wal-Mart and then we drove to the Citadel Outlet center to do some serious shopping. Altogether we made an about 1000$ additional contribution to the US economy. Quite a bit cheaper to shop there than in Helsinki.

Despite the great shopping and all the cool places we visited, LA’s not a place I’d miss. It’s way too big, the traffic is horrid – how cool is it to crawl on the crisscrossing freeways for hours and again, everytime you want to go someplace (unless you’re driving at 4am like we were today)? Food was great, in more ways than one, when you found the right places, but most of it seemed to be diners that don’t fall far from MacDonald’s. The service was good almost everywhere, that must be said, and the people friendly – I quite like eg. greeting the other people on the elevator instead of avoiding all contact. But what amazed me was the wasteful culture here. Disposable everything! A new towel in the hotel everyday. And when I opened the box with the rather big bar of soap, the next day I had a new one at my disposal.

So anyway, we left sunny LA this morning with our suitcases full of new clothes and things to give the kids at home, our stomachs still working on the steaks from the previous evening, and our minds satisfied by the seminar sessions and the good times outside the conference. It was a good week, but it’s good to get home too.

[On the flight from Chicago to Helsinki, overnight Oct. 7-8th, Helsinki time]

Stuck in between time zones I have little idea of the current time in where-ever and thus I’ve no idea how long we’ve already been flying, how much there’s to go. The tab probably still shows the Pacific time, cellphone updated its time zone to Chicago while there and my laptop never changed time zones at all so it would still be in Helsinki time, but I’m not about to boot that up anymore. And my brain? It’s clueless, barely out of jetlag from the trip the other way, tired from too little sleep during the week and all the traveling and confused by all this time travel.

If there ever really was glamour for me in flying, it’s long gone. My first flight ever, when I was 12, was a 13 hour flight to Tokyo and the next one obviuosly back from there. It pretty much did it for me. I don’t exactly hate flying in smaller doses – I much rather fly for one hour between places (almost said cities, but that’s basically impossible in Finland 😉 ) in Finland than spend multiple hours in a train, but these 6-9-? hour stretches are a strain. Cramped in a small space unable to sit properly for several hours, let alone stretch legs, or get any decent sleep. I did drift off and again for hours on this flight too after having a glass of cooled Cabernet Sauvignon – a mock of a wine, especially after that awesome Shiraz on Thu night. But real sleep? Nah.

In a couple hours (good thing my travel companion is a little more on the map with these time zones; I suppose I could as well check my world time on these devices but it’s easier to ask 😉 ) we’ll arrive in Helsinki where it’s morning, and there’s a full day ahead again and the last time I slept for real was, unh, my brain can’t be bothered with counting right now, sufficient to say that by the time it would be ok to sleep again I would’ve had a full 4 hours of sleep in two days or so. But knowing myself I’m pretty sure I’ll be ok until evening Finland time. Besides, it’s so early in the morning when we arrive that I fully plan on crashing in bed for a couple hours with my boyfriend who probably won’t be up yet when I arrive. And without him if he is… Just a little nap to get me by.

How cool would it be if the airplanes would be like this aircraft in Fifth Element where passengers each had their own sleep compartment and they were all put to sleep for the flight? Or even better would ofcourse be these portals you simply walk through to get to the other place? Oh well, ’nuff complaining already! Traveling is fun and this trip too was great 🙂 it’s just that I seriously dislike this actual _traveling_ part.

[Pics from the trip]

The SharePoint Conference, the reason for me to be here in the first place, started today. Have to say that even though the best part of the day is spent inside the air conditioned convention center, it is so awesome to be able to step outside to a warm sunny day on breaks, instead of rain and cold. And go out in the evening without needing coats etc. Even today when it’s a bit more windy than during the weekend, it’s warm. And the sun is nicely hot. I love it. I could so do without the cold and the dark and the snow and whatnot. Summer ❤

On saturday we went to a mall in Glendale to do some shopping. I found a gorgeous pair of boots for myself and some stuff for the kids. After shopping, we drove to Santa Monica beach, walked the shoreline to the pier and back to the car, stopping for a moment to wach the hunks at the muscle beach, as the sun started to set over the beach. And then drove back to the hotel in such heavy traffic that it’s just unbelievable! I mean, there’s four to five lanes going each direction and they were packed and jammed on a saturday evening. The guys said it took us like two hours to get back to the hotel. I wouldn’t know, I fell asleep in the car on the way.

Later in the evening we went to Ruth’s Chris Steak House for dinner. I was contemplating on a T-bone, but guessed it would be way beyond my capability of eating all of it, so settled on a rare petite filet with some asparagus. Even that was almost too much. But it was heavenly delicious! Best steak in a while. I do think though that eg. those ostrich steaks we fried at home sometime last spring came quite close if not even. Anyway, it was a fabulous dinner with nice red wine and a strawberry daiquiri for dessert.

Sunday morning we got up and moving relatively early. We had some breakfast at the hotel and had the waiters rolling their eyes when we didn’t care for any pancakes and omelets and whatnot; the buffet in itself was plenty! By 10am we were in the car, picked up a friend from the neighboring hotel, and started off to the desert. We took the highway over the mountains to Barstow, had lunch there and continued to Big Bear Lake through the Mojave desert. All those trailers and shackles and age-old RV’s there, in the middle of nowhere! Even the desert isn’t completely deserted there.

The desert gave way to lush greenery when we started the ascend to the mountains and the San Bernardino National Park where Big Bear Lake is. We stopped for some coffee at Big Bear Starbucks, then continued to drive over the mountains back toward LA. According to the signs along the way, we were somewhere over 7000 feet at the highest, that would be somewhere over 2000 meters above the sea level. The mountains were steep and the scenery just awesome! Amazing how many different landscapes you can find here within an approximately 250km radius. From beach to the flat desert to the steep mountains.

Back in Anaheim we went for a light dinner and a couple drinks and back to the hotel rooms quite early. It wasn’t yet 10pm when I closed my eyes, securing a good 9 hours of sleep before the first conference day. Tonight the plan is pretty much the same, an easy dinner and a few drinks, but no late night partying tonight. That’s on tomorrow’s agenda, what with the attendee party at Disneyland!

[Pics from the trip]

Woke up after only three hours of sleep. I tried to fall back asleep, but only succeeded half way. My body seemed to sleep, but my brain didn’t; I lay in bed listening to the even breathing, my own, wondering if this was the way my laptop felt when I put it to sleep when in truth it didn’t and sort of overheated instead. For two hours I tried, then finally gave up on sleep. After all, it was 5:30PM back home, not at all time to sleep (um, yet…). Damn jetlag!

They say everything is bigger in the States. I had yet to see for my own eyes, since this is my first trip to this continent. And yes. Everything is. Starting with the airports with their shuttles and such, and coffee mugs and wheelchairs (I saw more wheelchairs at the Chicago O’Hare airport than on any airport ever before) and ending with, say, our car and the hotel rooms. Seriously! I have two king? queen? jack? -whatever-double-sized beds in my room! For me, myself and I and my ego. Maybe we all fit 😉 And the car? Ok, can thank my colleague for that, but hey, a Yukon XL GMC for the three of us traveling together!

We started our journey yesterday; around 11 in the morning we went to the airport at Helsinki. Or Vantaa of course, but anyhow. I changed some cash, we answered all those questions, checked in and went through security. And decided to have a bottle of champagne for the four of us (as we encountered a friend of my colleague on the way there). So strawberries and champagne it was, but as we were about to go have a bite of something real before the 9,5h flight, we were already summoned to the gate. So off we went, through another security check, I got some water and m&m’s and roasted nuts from the taxfree, and then to the gate.

The nine hour flight, plus an hour or so of delay before takeoff, went surprisingly fast. The airplane was a stingy one to be flying such long over the Atlantic flights, if you ask me, but despite being a bit crammed, I managed to survive the first flight without major pain, or ass or legs or anything (including my head, unfortunately) falling asleep. Approaching Chicago we circled over Lake Michigan for a good while before being allowed to land. And yes, as I already knew, even the lakes are bigger in the U.S. And the surface was like the underside of aluminum foil, glistening in matt silver. What’s with that? Otherwise the nature was much like at home, forests of lush trees with flecks of foliage here and there. And the weather rainy.

At Chicago O’Hare we were faced with the immigration desks. I’m kinda glad I’ve already got my fingerprints back on my right hand (after burning the three forefingers at Tinos); the guy behind the desk didn’t exactly look like one I would have liked to start explaining why I lack prints on the other hand. Anyway, after grunting some questions anyway, of course, he stamped me forward and we went for our luggage. Another security check, baggage drop for the connecting flight to LA, air shuttle (on rails) to terminal 3 and we were good to have some dinner.

We ate some chinese and salad at the fast food area before proceeding to our gates. One of us was flying the 45min. later flight to LA than me and my colleague, except that as it turned out, our flight was late, and our companion made it to LA first. Slightly. By the time I was on that second plane, I was pretty damn tired. Our flight was already almost an hour late for boarding, and still we sat in the plane for what seemed like forever before the plane took off. I dozed off somewhere before the runway and missed take off completely, so when I woke up, startled by the irritating bursts of laughter that went on behind us for the whole four hours of flying, I was at first wondering why we still were just taxiing, like, wasn’t it supposed to be an airplane, not a bus?! Until I realized that we were, in fact, airborne, and almost half way into the flight.

That four hours was a pain, already. My butt was constantly asleep, I couldn’t find a good position, I fell in and out of sleep, irritated by that couple watching some comedy series on the row right behind us, and having no sense of courtesy or, I dunno, anything around them! I mean, it was the only sound besides the humming of the jet engines (which I at some point of drousiness thought had gone out and was building a panic attack until I swallowed and noticed that it was simply my ears had been clogged) – the whole planefull of people was trying to sleep and those darn insensitive morons were laughing out loud like they were alone in their own living room. Yep, the nearly 20 hours of traveling at that point had worn out all tolerance.

In LA we got our luggage and stepped out to a lukewarm evening, the temperature still somewhere around 20C though it was past 10PM here. At home it was already dawn, so no wonder my brain kept telling me all the time it was morning and I was craving for some coffee. So when we got to the car rental, in a shuttle, I got a coffee from the Starbucks coffee machine and stepped out to the warm California evening to enjoy my morning, um, evening! coffee and a smoke while the guys took care of getting our huge-ass automobile. As soon as they figured out where the gear shift stick was (an auto-shift of course, but you still got to get it to reverse and drive from park 😉 ), we came driving to Anaheim. It was about midnight by that time, and the freeways were still teeming with cars.

While it did seem on the way here that the city (or its surroundings) never sleeps, the hotel Starbucks was in fact closed, so we asked the gal at the reception desk instructions to the nearest 7-Eleven. We were sort of hungry. Just around the corner, she said. But I guess we took a wrong turn at the corner, for we didn’t find the 7-Eleven. So we decided on the always-open Denny’s and had a late night “snack” (yep, the food is bigger here too…) there. I mean, it was just about lunch time back home!

And now it’s morning here, finally. Three hours was all the sleep my confused brain granted me. Now I’m sitting in my oversized bed, wiriting a longer story about a trip over the Atlantic than no one will ever care to read, and sipping water that costs 6 bucks per liter, for it was the only bottled water available (we need to find that 7-Eleven today and get some decently priced water). The sky’s clear outside and the temperature estimate for the day is around 30C. Not bad. Maybe I’ll take a shower, go to the Starbucks donwstairs for a coffee and take my camera for an initial walk while waiting for the guys to wake up too.

[Pics from the trip]

LIAMK, jonka arkea, elämää ja pyrkimystä löytää työpaikka taannoisen lomautuksen jälkeen, olen seuraillut jo pitkän aikaa, etten peräti alusta saakka, antoi blogilleni tunnustuksen:

KIITOS! Onhan se aina mukava tietää, että joku oikeasti tykkää lukea näitä juttujani.

Voisin antaa saman tunnustuksen takaisinkin, mutta LIAMK sai sen jo. Vaikka eipä kai se haittaa, saada moneen kertaan, joten ole hyvä LIAMK, mutta vapautan sinut tunnustuksen saamisen tuomista “velvoitteista” 😉 Samalla kun vapautan niistä itsenikin, sillä olen huono noudattamaan käskyjä 😛 Eli siis en jaa tätä eteenpäin kahdeksalle muulle, jo ihan siksi, että elämäni pyörii sellaista mylläkkää, etten edes ehdi seurata niin monta blogia.

Joten kiitän ja kumarran, LIAMKin ohella Sarppa, Tepu, Marika ja systeri olette ainoita joiden blogeja ehdin edes jollakin tasolla lukea ja kaikki tämän ansaitsisitte yhtä lailla, olkaa hyvät 🙂

Jos aloittaa asian positiiviselta puolelta, yksikään ihminen ei ole kuollut eikä loukkaantunut ja puolet hevosistakin on vielä sentään vahingoittumattomia. Silti se lohduttaa jotenkin laimeasti, kun puolet hevosista on palanut kuoliaiksi. Tuntuu pahalta, itkettää. Erityisen pahalta tuntuu ajatella tyttäreni surua – hänhän siellä ratsastaa, hänhän niitä hevosia ja poneja ensisijaisesti hoiti. Elämä jatkuu, tallin toiminta jatkuu tauon jälkeen. Mutta pahalta tuntuu tallin omistajien puolesta – juurihan eilen iloisesti rupateltiin siinä tallin ulkopuolella! Ja pahalta tuntuu kaikkien muiden tallilaisten puolesta. Miten sitä osaa tukea tytärtä oikein tämän käsittelyssä?

Jotenkin koko uutinen tuntui pahalta unelta. Eihän tällaista nyt tapahdu kuin kirjoissa ja elokuvissa! Ei tämä kuulu meidän elämään vaan johonkin pahaan, joka on vain saduissa! Uutiskuvan näkeminen, talli palaneena maan tasalle, iski kuin tikari. Kyllä, meidän talli on palanut. Kolme tai neljä tyttärenikin lempiponia mukanaan – ei sillä etteikö jokainen poneista olisi ollut yhtäläisen arvokas.

http://www.hs.fi/kotimaa/12+hevosta+kuollut+tallipalossa+Nurmij%C3%A4rvell%C3%A4/a1305545986827

Kovasti kovasti voimia kaikille joita tämä koskettaa!!!