Two of me dear friends Sara and Krista applied for university this spring - and got accepted!! They both started in the University of Eastern Finland, but their campuses are located in two different cities eastern cities of Kuopio and Joensuu. I decided to take a lil weekend get-away and visit the gurls and see their new homes :)
The journey started Friday morning with a train. The trainride from Rovaniemi to Kuopio, where Krista studies, took 7,5 hours and included a change of train in Oulu. Even though the trainride was pretty long, it was very chill. I read, ate some snackos and even worked on my bachelor thesis a bit.
We met up with Krista and Sara when I arrived to Kuopio around 5pm. Our main goal was to get some food haha but we were also able to see a little bit of the city center. In quick glimpse Kuopio seemed very pretty! Some cute old houses still left in the city center and the city was also very lively. We went to eat at Ozaki sushibuffet, which was fairly cheap and tasty.
After overeating at the buffet we went to check out Krista's new apartment. It was perfectly located in the middle of the city, and also very cute and practical :) After this lil visit at Krisu's, me and Sara continued with a car to Joensuu where Sara studies. Joensuu is about two hours with a car from Kuopio. The ride went by super fast, and it was great to catch up with Sara after we had last seen each other in Spain this spring. We arrived to Joensuu in the Friday evening pretty late so not much action then. Sara focused on organizing her new apartment as she had been shopping in IKEA earlier and I did some yoga. Then we relaxed by watching Keeping Up With the Kardashians. Ahhh those first seasons of KUWTK are gems.
On Saturday we had a very nice slow morning before heading to the Joensuu city center. We walked through some artsy alleyway called Taitokortteli, which was extremely pretty and filled with old buildings and cute boutiques. Too bad the weather was gloomy af so the pics do not do much justice... I bet this Taitokortteli is especially nice in summer when you can enjoy a drink outdoors in one of the many cafes and listen some live music.
We visited the North Karelian Museum in the city center's Carelicum building. North Karelia is a region in eastern Finland, and Joensuu is the capital of this region. The museum was very informative and fun, definitely worth a visit. There is so much history in North Karelia, as it is near to Russian border and therefore it has been the epicenter of the many important historical events.
After the museum we went for a snack in the very cool cafe called Houkutus. It seemed to be very popular also with the local students. After snacking we were ready for a beer in the nearby gastropub called Vispilänkauppa. Also very nice place right at the city center! Of course I was happy to try some local beer and get new check-ins for the Untappd beer application haha - already tried 130 different beers wuhuuu! Very proud.
After beer drinking we walked around a bit in the city center. Apparently, the most important sights of Joensuu are the wolf statues. There are two wolves, which are sitting on the different benches and watching over the market place. Pretty cool! And we also went for a dinner in a nice Indian restaurant called Mumbai Kitchen. After dinner, we drove with a car to see the gorgeous church and to see the university campus where Sara studies.
I think overall our sightseeing day was very successful! So afterwards we were ready to pick out some snack from the store and just relax at Sara's place. The Lord Of the Rings was on TV, which was perfect. I just love those movies. Ahhh so epic. Luvluvluv. The LOTR are the only movies which are actually even better than the original books in my opinion. Luv them.
The next morning started off slow, haha TV took so much time again. I honestly love Finnish TV and all the reality series so much I could waste my life away with trash TV so easily... Anyways, after getting up properly we decided to drive back to Kuopio to catch my train. We chose to visit IKEA for lunch. IKEA has this"meatless meatballs" dish which is super good and as a dessert we had the veggie hotdog. Very satisfactory indeed.
We did not have much time to do anything else than eat in Kuopio before my train to Rovaniemi left. The trainride back was the same 7,5 hours and also went by pretty comfortably.
All in all this brief visit in easter Finland was super nice :) It was lovely to see the girls, and see their new beautiful apartments and new hometowns. The next time I am ready for a even longer visit - if I ever dare to leave princess Pyni any longer than for a weekend...