11. week
On Monday decided to keep up the good work and went to the outdoor gym in Doorly Park. The weather was unconventionally beautiful and it was a delight to be outside. The time really flies when you go to the outdoor gym – the walk there takes about 20 minutes and another 20 minutes back. There are several work-out devices, some of which we have given descriptive names. One of them is “the surfer” by its official name, where you sway your lower body from side to side and hold to the support bars on your both sides with your hands – we preferred to call it Ricky Martin (doe to the wild swinging of the hips) and sing Livin’ La Vida Loca. Beside it was the “air walker”, where you simply placed your feet on the pedals and swayed them back and forth, as if you were walking. It was probably one of our favorite pieces of equipment – when you started walking, you could tell why it was named like that. Before you knew it you had been out for good two, three hours. When we came back home we tried to make beef bourguignon as we had some red wine sitting around, but Noora wasn’t really satisfied with the final outcome of the food – it was eatable, but not quite how it should have been.
On Tuesday Siru sent her post cards to her friends and family. Later on that day we wanted to climb the Knocknarea, a nearby hill. We took a bus towards Strandhill and asked for the bus driver where we should get off. He asked what way would we liked to go; the old route or the new one. We were perplexed – we hadn’t even heard that there were two routes. He recommended the new route and promised to tell us when to leave the bus. The bus stop was just beside the beginning of the new route and the day was beautiful as a bride. The sun was shining brightly and the sky was completely cloud-free. Only the strong wind forced us to keep our long sleeved jackets on. The climb didn’t seem very hard, but as it was quite steep from time to time, we had to stop to catch our breaths and try to avoid any asthma attacks. The view was spectacular all the way up and even more magnificent on the very top of it. We had heard in school that on top of the Knocknarea there was a Megalithic grave of the Queen Maeve and there was indeed a big pile of stones, which must have been the grave. It was such a shame that there were no information plaques concerning legend of Maeve.
We wanted to visit Mammy Johnston’s, too, so we just caught the next bus to Strandhill’s direction when we got down from Knocknarea. Before rewarding ourselves with mouth-watering delicacies, we decided to walk a little bit more along the beach. Noora climbed one of the big, sandy hills against our better knowledge – she had her shoes full of sand when she returned, as one could expect. Finally, in Mammy Johnston’s, we ordered sweet wraps filled with strawberries, banana and chocolate served with ice cream of our choice. Even Siru, who doesn’t usually have the taste for sweet things, thought it was really good.
Wednesday was not very busy of eventful day; after breakfast we went to the city center where we looted the charity shops as usual before going to Tesco to buy some groceries. We cooked some dinner and put some meat in red wine and beer to marinate for the coming days. We also decided to proceed with our school tasks so that we wouldn’t have to stress out about not doing those in time. On Thursday we went again to the outdoor gym where we trained a couple of hours before making some red wine beef and relaxing for a while. For Siru the beef was just an appetizer, since her roommate had promised to cook for her. Siru was served an unconventional meal with shrimps, pork, pineapple and rice and even though it looked very interesting, it was actually tasty.
On Friday we wanted to relax and watch a few movies accompanied with salt and vinegar crisps and salty liquorice from Finland. For lunch we made beef, this time with the beer marinade and it was as tender as ever. After another movie we decided to have some dinner and since we had some leftovers of the lamb, we had some filled naan breads – a great end for such a lazy day.
On Saturday there was a flea market at the Model – naturally, we were excited. We both found a little something, but there would have been the perfect pair of shoes for Noora that she unfortunately had to leave behind. The seller had put a quite high price for them and wouldn’t lower it at all when asked – she just looked down her nose at Noora like she had just insulted her ancestors. Considering that the shoes seemed to be a bit worn and not any parts of them were even leather, Noora couldn’t understand her stubbornness about the price. To make up the quite poor catch, we visited some other flea markets before going back home. For dinner we made the cauliflower gratin again because it was so good when we made it last time. We were not disappointed – this time it was even better!
On Sunday we went to buy vegetables from Aldi, which is farther away from our apartment. We had just reached the store and both gotten a shopping basket into our hands when it happened. Noora was looking at our shopping list from her phone when she dropped her phone on the floor, resulting its back panel to fly off as it usually does. Only this time the damage was more extensive. Noora put the pieces together but the phone wouldn’t open anymore. She was mad at herself for being so clumsy and quickly after getting back home we went to outdoor gym to vent the frustration and other negative feelings. In the evening Noora sent a message to her parents about what had happened and they promised to bring her some replacement for a phone when they would come to visit us.