First Friday

I've had a really eventful few days. On Tuesday I went bouldering with (cue cheesy theme tune)
Joonas

Matti

and Henkka


where my 7 month climbing sabbatical became evident... here you can clearly see me wimpering like a little girl :)

I probably challenged the world record for "most insect bites on the ankles" - I've now got a thought provoking mosaic of spots, from teenie red ones to bulging deep purple. Little bastards!

I managed to chat to a few people on Matrix for a while on Wednesday, which was great! The weather was really beautiful, so after work some of us hit the beach and chilled, which was fine by me, since it was about all I was able to do after the previous days heroics.

Yesterday I went climbing again, this time real climbing at Rollarit (almost impossible for me to say - I can't roll my r's). I tried two routes that were way too hard for me, and failed both attempts... but next time! During the course of this I managed to get bitten again, most significantly three times on the palm of my hand! The palm! It's itching like crazy - bastards!!

Any lack of success in climbing was evened out by complete and total administrative success - The relocation arranged for myself and Gilles, another newbie staying in Hotel Sokos Pasila to go into town. She sorted out a bank account, tax card and social security number. Even better, my tax rate was calculated on my gross earning this year, so I fall into the 19.5% bracket, woo! Anyway, after climbing we returned to my hotel and had dinner with Gilles, which was an expensive but excellent assortment of tapas. We two hotel birds were sick of eating by ourselves. Have I told you about the breakfasts they put on at the hotels? All kinds of everything (except a decent fry) but the crown in the platter is their pancakes... mmm. Makes getting up easier :)

So that's about it for now. First week nearly over, I still feel like I'm playing catch up, and on Monday the real work begins...