Merry Christmas!

We wish you have
a Merry Christmas and a Wonderful new year!

Michele, Anna Maria, Agnese, Rachele

(yes, the picture is one year old)

11/12: Our flat in Finland is sold

We don't own any longer our flat in Finland!

We are very happy that the deal is finally closed.
On the other side, we feel a bit nostalgic about it...

That house was the first one we owned as couple, the place where Agnese and Rachele were born, the place where we spent almost 4 wonderful years (out of five) of our marriage.


We have a lot of memories in that place, lot of great moments. And we had really nice neighbors, with whom we are still in contact.
We enjoyed so much living there! It has been really a good time.

I would like to thank our friend Juha who toke care of the whole transaction process on my behalf.

18/11: First friends visiting us

This weekend we had the first couple of friends visiting us: Mario & Rosa Elena.

Unfortunately they were just passing by and they could stay just for 1 day but we had really a great time together.
We have been in the city centre enjoying the autumns colors, which are spreading all around us.

17/11: Fun Run

As company we toke part at the Cambridge Fun Run, a sport event to rise money for children in needs.
Every team was composed by 4 runners, each one of whom had to run one mile and survive after that.
We had three teams called "Chilly Mountaineers", Blow 1, 2 and 3.

The story is curious: often on Friday we go at the pub to have a lunch together and since a long time ago, probably since the beginning, NemeriX employees used to order "Chilly mountain", which is a blow of potatoes, beans, meat, cheese and a lot of Chilly paper.
Once the pub renewed the menu and the Chilly Mountain was cut off.
NemeriX employees stopped to go there and they officially complained, until the Chilly Mountain was back in the menu at the price that NemeriX employees asked to be!

After the run we went at the pub and looking at the shirts the host was not believing that...
so they wanted to take a picture of us... and here it is.

12/11: Ickworth

We visited Ickworth park & gardens (the house is closed during winter time).
It is another National Trust place, less than 50 Km far away from where we live.
The gardens and wood were beautiful with autumn's color starting to appear.
There was even an area with deers, which was the most interesting attraction for Agnese and Rachele.
Autumn is spreading nicely around.

11/11: King's College

We visited for the first time King's College, founded by Henry VI in 1441.
It is a beautiful building and it is very often shown as symbol of Cambridge: probably it is Cambridge most famous attraction.

Inside the chapel (the biggest building) there were Choir rehearsal and Agnese and Rachele looked very interested in that kind of music.
A bit less about the University: Agnese said she is not going to study there, but since she is 3 and half she has some time to change her mind.

26/10: Universita' di Camerino - Career Day

Time ago I was invited by the professors with whom I worked for my final project at Camerino University (where I studied) to have a talk at the Career Day, which opens the academic year.
So the 26th I was glad to be there.
I had the talk in the "Palazzo Ducale", in a room called "sala Muta" (Mute room), which I have to admit is not the most sensible name I've heard for a room used for giving lectures.

Whatever the name, the room was plenty of people, the majority of which were students.
I had a talk about my working experience at Nokia first, at NemeriX later with mention of how the University Experience is supposed to help for such a kind of Career.

It looked like my speech was appreciated and I was glad to be back there, and to have the chance of giving back something to an institution (The University of Camerino), which gave me a lot.

21/10: Silk Wedding / "Nozze di Seta"

The 21st of October we celebrated 5 years wedding anniversary.
We just got to know that it is called "nozze di seta", "silk wedding".

This time just flown!

We have been living in two different countries, three flats (hopefully we will move soon to the forth one),
visited many places, met a lot of people, got a great number of fantastic friends.
But most of all, we have been gifted by Agnese and Rachele!

So, we have many reasons to celebrate: thanks to all of these, somehow, have been part of our life!

Michele & Anna Maria

PS: I had a personal great achievement. Gaining in Finland, lost 5 during the international moving, today my weight is the same that when I married Anna Maria! The saying that a man earns 1 kg per year after wedding failed in my case :-)

30/9: Anglesey Abbey

We visited Anglesey Abbey, a country house made up on a convent.
The older part of it is dated about IX-X century, but it has been extended and improved until few years ago.
There is an impressive garden all around (about 400.000 square meters), where the kids had a lot of fun.
We should come back to enjoy the autumn colors.... later on.

17/9: Wicken Fen

We have been to Wicken Fen, a natural reserve.
There are a lot of different birds and animal, that one could see and hear if two noisy kids wouldn't make them run away before even approaching them....
It was anyway a pleasure to have a walk in the country side.

2-3/9: a real vacation

We have been in Italy for a short while. Anna Maria and kids staid longer and had the chance of enjoying quite a lot the sea side. The weather was great when I went there as well and swimming in the sea during September was still very comfortable. Though once in the water I've notice there were just Germans...

During this time Anna Maria and me went away for a bit more than 24 hours: the first time since Agnese was born!
We went in a a B&B at Sant'Ippolito (PU): Le fontanelle, which is a very relaxing place that I recommend.
First afternoon we were there swimming and reading books. It was so weird not having kids around breaking up the peace every 5 minutes! (OK let's be realistic: every two minutes).
I felt old having such a kind of "wanted" total relax vacation.



The day after we have been to la Gola del Furlo: a really astonishing canyon.

To end the day we went to Urbino, a renaissance university city, very interesting from the architectural point of view and now included in UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites.




PS: all pictures are from the web. Because of the hand luggage restriction, we didn't bring our camera along.

22/8: potential terrorism

Look at the picture: what is that?

It is not what it looks like....
It is definitely not BABY FOOD !

At least according to Stansted airport personnel.
It may be a dangerous item, or some component that could potentially be used to make a bomb...
who knows...
but it is not baby food.
So they thought at the airport, and I tried to reply to the nasty woman at the inspection: "if it is food for adults, why don't you eat it?".
She then specified: "it is not CLASSIFIED as baby food".
Poor Rachele! she had to fly without food...

There I laughed, but what made me pissed of was a bit of envy: that woman has a quite crap job, still she was so passionate!
So energetic!
There must be some satisfaction related to the possibility of exercising power, no matter how logic or intelligent the decision is.
But really, looking at her, it was like seeing that she was so proud of having avoided a possible terrible accident, because she was so careful to avoid that that food entered to the airport!
Amazing!
A lot of people I know, and some time even myself, should have one out of ten of her motivation factor at work: results would be much better!

20/8: Wimpole Hall

We have been visiting Wimpole Hall, a very nice park with a Farm and a beautiful noble house of XVII century.
It is interesting to see a snapshot of the life stile of these people at that time, by looking at the furniture and the arrangement of the house itself. And it is funny to notice that now a days one room out of two or so, of that house would be useless.
There are many rooms for specific use cases: one for reading, another one for playing piano, a dinning room for breakfast, another one much wider for lunch, and a room for dressing up, beside the bed room.
I wonder who was the first reach man who discovered that it is actually convenient to change clothes in the bed room!
Or that to have to walk a lot to reach the reading room maybe not so practical....
However: when we went downstairs, visiting the servants room, I thought: "as overall arrangement, this should be much more close to what we are using nowadays". Indeed it was... except that the living room was at list the double of the size of the one where I live now!

13/8: Ely's Cathedral

This morning was heavily raining so we went with friends in an amusement center for kids, in Ely.
Then, as soon as the sunshine appeared, we decide to have a walk around and we went to visit Ely's Cathedral, which I was scheduling since a quite long time.

It is a worship site since VII century, but the older visible part of the Cathedral is standing since 1091.
Amazing! really impressive!
No much to say really, just astonishment.
This is not the best Cathedral I ever seen, not at all.

But still is impressive. And my mind could not avoid to go back to a novel I've been reading and enjoying a lot last summer: "The Pillars of the earth", of Ken Follet. I had a look at the inner part of the site by remembering one of the novel's character words, and I really had the impression that the columns were just the "binding" from the earth to something "else". Funny to think in this way, but I understand the purpose of such a wonderful construction and the feelings of middle-age people.
It's really a place worth seeing.

23/7: Mountfitchet Castle

We spent a very nice afternoon at Stansted Mountfitched castle, an historical site where Saxons, maybe vikings and at last Normans built a village.
It is an interesting open air museum rebuilt as it was around XI century, under Normans. I would say it meets the intent of showing many particular aspects of life at that time. Except perhaps for one thing: they want to highlight the fact that Normans were quite cruel people and in every corner there is not only an instrument of torture, but quite several puppets hanging here and there...



Of course it was a fact at that time, but that was a village with 11 families of about 20 people per family and to me it looks just a bit too many criminals at the same time in a single place.
Agnese asked: "what is that man doing? why hanging from a tree?". I explained that that was the old way of swinging.
Beside, she and her sister had a lot of fun because the place is plenty of animals left free and she enjoyed running behind sheep and red deers.

16/7: villages tour

Last weekend we started to have a look around at the villages that surround Cambridge.
We are indeed considering the possibility of moving outside from the city.
First attempt (Milton and Waterbeach) was not so successful.
But this Sunday we have been to Fulborn, which is really a lovely one.
The main thing that impressed us is that wherever you go, sooner or later, you'll find an interesting sight that worth a visit.

This Sunday (completely by chances) we visited two middle age churches (XII and XIII century).

First picture: a view of Fulborn church.
Second one: little tourists.

Information technology "applied"

I have to say that information technology "applied" in England disappointed me so far.
I had three experience that may me thought so:
1) NTL network (for internet). The technician came on Saturday early morning, giving me the modem.
I was supposed to set up the account by installing their software (which comes for windows and Mac, but not for Linux, so I was already discriminated... I had to use my wife's laptop). Anyway the pin code given to me looked to be wrong so I had to call the customer service. After several calls they told me that I need a new pin but I had to call the day after (Sunday) because that day the authentication server for generating pin codes was down. On Sunday I called again asking for a new pin and after a long call they told me my pin was right and it must work. It didn't so they pretend to go through the authentication procedure by phone and we did. We close the call and they said "in ten minutes it will work". It didn't. I called again. They told me a need a new pin (really?) but that is given by customer care and not by technical support. I have to call on Monday.
On Monday (I was at work) they told me that my pin was fine, they didn't believe me when I said it didn't, and they asked me to call them when I was sitting in front of the pc (I was at work at that time), since my pin MUST work. I was really disappointed so when I went home in the evening I've tried again the pin, which - surprise surprise - was not working.
Then I called the customer care and said: "I don't care what you think about my pin: it is not working and now I am really tired of calling you several times a day. Please give me back my money and come to pick up your modem".
Answer: "wait, we will give you a new pin". WHAT A GREAT IDEA!
It worked obviously....
I had to make all the phone calls using my mobile (I had just that) and it turned to be very very very expensive, considering that for every call I had to wait in a queue...

2) Internet banking (barcklays).
The authentication parameters worked the first time, then they didn't work anymore.
I called them and they sent me a new pin (new? was the same than before!)... which didn't work.
I went to the bank and the employee there called the technical support and that man asked me to follow every step for proper authentication in front of the bank employee, so to be sure that I was following the procedure properly.
I was amazed to be threaten as one who uses internet for the first time!
I followed their will. And it turned out that there was some problem with my pin code: really??? what a surprise!
They set for me new parameters and it worked.

3) Vodafone on-line billing.
I wanted to open this online service to monitor my billing and my current expenses.
By following the procedure online it didn't work.
First call proposal: recreate a new account, "it will work in 10 minutes". It didn't.
Second call: "now it will work, with this new pin". It didn't.
Third call: "bla.. bla...." I said: "wait a minute, is it possible that it doesn't work with other browser than Internet explorer?".
Answer: "of course not, our programs work with all browser!". Then I got suspicious. They didn't solve the problem.
Then, I closed the phone and I tried with Internet explorer, which worked...

Perhaps these problems happen to everyone in a normal day life.... but coming from Finland, where it is possible to purchase a tram ticket by sending an SMS, it looks to me that IT applied is not so efficient here... or not in all cases.

In the picture: a piece of technology that works in the same way wherever in the world.

1/7: we go to the beach

It is really hot (30 degrees for me are quite heavy to bear) and we decided to go to the seaside.
The first difference I've noticed comparing to Finland, it is that from our place in Espoo I needed 3 to 4 minutes by walk to go to the beach, since it was very close.
From our place in Cambridge to the sea distance is 101 Km!

We arrive there and the beach is huge...
I am still considering if going for swimming when I notice that people have to walk in the water for quite a long while and still their shoulders are not covered. So probably before I can start swimming I'll be already tired!

The courious thing is that low/high tide phenomena is very visible. In three ours we were there the beach became about three times longer (and was already quite big).

It was a very nice day, but we could not avoid to remember how wonderful place was Kivenlahti during summer. We used to go every day to the beach and we miss it!

25/6: Punting

Punting is quite popular in Cambridge.
We have been renting a "river-boat", named "punt", with some of my working colleagues and their families.
It was a very relaxing and enjoyable experience: the stream goes in a such peacefully area, surrounded by several kinds of trees, ducks and swams.
We stopped for a relaxing pic-nic and later we went on the punt again, back to the beginning.
The leading of the punt is funny, but quite more challenging comparing to what it looks like.
After pushing your punt you have to correct the direction and I think that I've covered almost the double of the distance of my colleagues, since I was not able to go straight. However I didn't loose my pole and I didn't have to swim looking for it, as did one guy we met on the way.

Thanks to my colleagues to have organized this great excursion.

17/6: we have a car!

We finally got a car.

According to our style we bought a second-hand one, with high mileage.
Now things are much easier, mainly because of the kids. Even in Finland the life appeared suddenly to change when we bought one.

First experience on driving in the left side of the road was not so traumatic.
It is fairly easy except that the gear.
First gear was ok..., second one ok.... third one: I opened the window!
Anyway I am much more prone to learn to drive on the wrong side, sorry I mean on the left side, since I was told that during roman empire people used to go on the left side and he was Napoleon who change it to the right.

First picture: even this one would help.

Second picture: when going by feet is clearly different.

15/6: One month at NemeriX

15/5: one month in NemeriX

Today is one month that I joined NemeriX.
It is probably a too short time for a balance, but I can say already that the work I am doing is really interesting.
Sometime it is a bit frustrating the fact that there is not anyone else knowing Symbian and therefore I feel "a bit alone" in my task.
But the other side of the medal is that I feel more satisfied for every single achievement. And I am learning a lot.
So I am overall very happy and satisfied.
The only negative side is that working time is really long. I am not complaining about the work itself, because time in the office just passes away.
But I am missing a lot of time that I am supposed to spend with my family... and this is hard.
Hopefully it will change in future.

Today is even a remarkable day for another reason: Anna Maria went out for the first time with a friend she got to know here in Cambridge (in a mother and toddlers club).
She says that every time she goes out in the park she knows some knew friend and this is a big change already.

In the picture, how I feel - sometime - at work.

30/5: Agnese is 3

30/5. Third birthday of Agnese.

She got a bike as present and she ride very fast!
Before I used to run behind her, now I run behind her with the bike... I have to be quicker than before.
Rachele started to walk.
The weather started to be wonderful: it's summer.
And I started to find my clothes when I search for them... finally!

The picture has been taken in Italy, when Agnese had her pre-birthday party.
The same day by phone, she promised to spare a piece of cake for me.
She didn't...

26/5: The whole family is in Cambridge!

26/5: The whole came in Cambridge!

After first things are fixed, the whole family is here in Cambridge!
I was already miss them a lot... it is weird don't have to wake up in the middle of the night because someone is crying...
Now all of them are here, including Rosa, Anna Maria's sister, who came to help us.
Their first feeling was very positive, except than the weather: it has been raining quite most of the time.
The amount of job Anna Maria faced was big enough: she had to open and order all the boxes and things that were left there... and re-order all things that I thought I put already in place...
but apparently the concept of "order" is a personal feeling.
Anyway since the house is small, it is a challenging experience: we have to fill every little space with our things.

In the picture, when some different experience turns to be useful.

18/5: Rachele 1st birthday

18/5: Rachele is one year!

Happy birthday from the whole family!

For the second child in a raw I've managed to miss the first birthday party because of working reason. The family is in Italy but Agnese promised to spare a piece of cake for me.

15/5: Starting at Nemerix

First day and week of work at Nemerix were really positive.
I like very much the atmosphere: everyone seems to be so excited about what we are doing and it looks there is really a strong common goal. It should be natural, but for some reason it impressed me.
I like very much also my colleagues: everyone looks to be so kind and prone to help.
About the task I am demanded to do: I am going to be the only one working with a particular platform (which it is what I was exactly hired for). Honestly I am a bit afraid: the amount of work seems to be huge and... to whom I could ask questions about it if none knows that platform?
Still I have the feeling I am not going to be alone. I am sure that my colleagues will help me in some way.
And now comes into my mind a concept that I read time ago (probably in "Code Complete" or in "The Pragmatic Programmer", or both): when you have a software problem, sometime you go to one of your colleagues, you explain the problem and on the while you talk you even tell a possible solution, and then you give thanks to your colleague who didn't say a word!
It happened to me in the past: some time it is enough that people are willing to listen.
So I am very excited and committed to the goal.
I am afraid as well... but I believe it is normal.

A negative thing.... latest days at Nokia me and my colleagues were making fun about the issue: "are you going to miss Sodexho?" (i.e. the canteen).
Obviously it was a joke, since it was usually bad food for some one grown up in Italy. Again England doesn't have a great food reputation neither...
But what happened this week was that every day (except than Monday when we had a welcome and Friday that is a tradition) every one goes out, buy a sandwich, comes back and eat it in front of the screen of the pc!
This was sad for me and I guess I cannot adapt myself to that custom.

In the picture: a different concept of "work"

11,12 /5: Back again. Goal: to settle.

One week in Italy was enough to rest, even though it wasn't really a rest, meaning that I had to care still about several things (regarding the shipping of the container, money transfer, house agency bureaucracies and so on).
The 11th I take the plane with Davide.
We should be lading at 14:50, then we are supposed to run, if there is not time Davide takes care of the luggage and I run to the train of 15:25 in order to be in Cambridge at 16:00.
This because I have to be at the house agency before closing to sign documents, pay and get the key.
But the aircraft is on time and we do it without any trouble.
I get the key and we spend the afternoon for a sight see of Cambridge, which looks really lovely.


12/5 The container comes in time. But it is locked and we need iron big scissors to open it. Just as a note, when the container left my place in Finland it was not sealed and my understanding was that they would have put a lock which wouldn't have required any tool to open it (just a plastic lock that can be broken by hands as I've seen previously, since the point is not to secure it, but just to show that was not opened during transport. Anyway in my case it was totally pointless because they secured it at the harbor and not at my place, so potentially they had plenty of time for steal things or load drugs and so on).
Davide finds in a shop a bend iron that we call "piede di porco" (pig foot). And he manages to break it on the while I was astonished: I could not believe it was possible!
So after 40 minutes we start the unloading. We have 2 hours.
But with a great, amazing work we are in time.
The house now is plenty of boxes and furniture.... we did it.
We spend the rest of the evening and the next day on assembling furniture and putting things in place.
Then we take a break and we go around in Cambridge we the bikes that were in the container. It looks really to be a nice city.
The morning after Davide leaves: he was of a great help! Thanks a lot!

Not being able to open a lock, I will not have success as a thief. As these in the picture.

3,4,5 / 5: The house hunting

First morning in UK was fantastic: warm, full spring season, flowers, plenty of green: a marvelous welcome!
But the house hunting started badly: every visit we booked last Friday (Monday was holiday) was for apartments that were already gone today.
So we spent the morning and afternoon seeking for new opportunities and visiting two flats that were not suitable for our needs.

The day after (4th) we visited 3 flats in the morning.
First one was fine, even thought small for our needs and furniture, and a bit far from my working place.
The second one was so & so... but we had ten minutes to see it, we exit and immediately another couple entered. I didn't feel to say yes in 10 minutes of time, because we were not so happy with the location.
3rd one was fantastic: big, completely renewed, cheaper than others and very close to my working place.
I went to the agency office and applied for it. There was another woman filling the same application. It was 16:00 and they submitted both of the papers to the landlord on the while I was begging to get a decision as soon as possible, explaining my situation.
After very long 45 minutes, the agent came with the decision. The land lord said: "that woman doesn't have any kids, you do... I will give the flat to her".
I still have 45 minutes before the other agency closes (about the 1st flat).
I cross the city by bike and I am there in time to apply for the flat.
I fill the application but... it is 17:30 and the land lord was not available.
We have to leave UK without knowing if we have a place where to stay.
We said before that in this case I would have stayed more time hunting, but now I decide to leave with the rest of the family since I need rest.
Anyway, beside the unlucky experience, we couldn't have done the half of these visit if it was not for the great help of our friends Giacomo & Barbara.
Thanks a lot guys!
A small note to emphasize the feeling of all of us.
We were approaching for last night at the bed & breakfast Ashtrees when Agnese asked: "Where are we going? don't we have an house?".

5/5. We are at the airport and we have done the check-in.
Before jumping in the air bus, I call the agency.
The landlord has agreed to give us the place.
We have a roof.

The picture shows a different approach to the same problem.

2/5 Unbelievable: the value of time!

6.45 Wake up. I run to K-Rauta to buy extra plastic for mattresses
Container is waited for 8:30-9:00 o'clock.
9:00 I call: "it should be coming"
"Should"... does should mean that the driver has some recovery problem after Vappu? (this is my neighbor theory).
The short of the story is that because of some organization problem during planning, Finnlines company realized a bit too late that they were missing one truck! They kept on telling me: "it is coming".
11:40 The container arrives. The driver doesn't neither say "sorry" (but he probably was just a taxi driver for the container). Anyway he was the only physical person of Finnlines I could see and many thoughts came into my mind. But I decided to save my energies for loading rather than for kicking his ass.
My neighbor was more angry than me... (or let's say that I could hide it better). So she went to have a talk to him asking for apologies (he didn't).
Furniture was already on the ground, thanks to brave guys: Cyril, Andrea, Visa and Christopher.
We loaded the container in one hour.
Agnese helped with her little chairs and other small things. Then she wondered:
"Where should we sit?". Understanding that we wouldn't have traveled inside a container she started to cry because of loosing her kitchen toy that "she liked so much".
If sometimes it is difficult to explain things to a woman try to guess how it is to explain to a little girl!
Lunch on the floor: a dream for Rachele who could reach everyone else dish!
Then we prepared bags for the trip to UK: basically everything it was left behind on purpose... but it was too much! it doesn't fit: the throw away plan starts.
Cleaning, deep cleaning of the house because of the coming exhibitions (thanks to Ritva for baby care service and for supplying cleaning material).
16:00. Time to leave. Anna Maria claims that is not yet really ready: I have to tie her in the car. Rush our.
17:00 We are at the airport. Our friend should be there to pick up the car as agreed. He is not, he's coming (did I heard that before today?).
Few minutes later we give the car to them and we enter at the airport.
There is a too long queue: we are going to miss the flight. Self service check-in never works when it needs to (this is my experience at least) and the error given at this time was: "it is not possible to use this service with this kind of ticket". I don't want to know more: we skip brutally the queue. Even the one at security check, but this time politely.
We have to run. We run: Agnese falls, but she is brave and she stands up and she keep on running while crying.
We achieve the terminal: the farest in Vantaa airport, probably not even Vantaa any longer.
Obviously we are the last: but we are on board.
Now everyone is sleeping and I am terrible tired too, but I cannot sleep.
I don't know how we could make it, meaning the whole thing.
We wouldn't if everyone who gave help to us wouldn't have done it.
Each help, even 5 minutes, was so precious. Thanks a lot my friends!
I was dreaming about this moment few days ago....

1/5: Time to panic!

Now it was time to panic.
We were very late with everything.
It is amazing to realize that box after box, shelves becomes so slowly empty...
or worst... almost empty.
How many things could we gather in five years? and still I think we don't have much!
Funny to think about the value of these items: every single piece seems doesn't deserve a euro cent (or a penny) but if you have to go buying all of them (without considering the time needed) then is a huge amount of money.
Anyway, we couldn't have managed if:
1) Massimo wouldn't have come in the morning and cared about Agnese
2) Juha wouldn't have come in the afternoon to help dissembling the furniture.
THANK YOU GUYS!
Still.... at midnight we decided to go to bed, even if it was not yet over.
We didn't have any longer any bed assembled and we slept in the floor with
mattresses. After five, I've stopped counting the number of times Rachele felt down (and cried).
As revenge (?) Rachele was sick with strong cuff: we could sleep about at 1:30.

29, 30 /4: Packing

These days the packing is a full time activity.
Luckily we still found some time to enjoy the spring:
a pic-nic beside a lake in Espoo.



Then packing again...
The 30th we had another pic-nic with our neighbors.
Many of them were there and they were greeting us with presents!
That surprise was really touching and we were really impressed and moved.
We always liked very much all our neighbors: they were gentle, nice and
very kind to us all the time.
When agents came to evaluate our flat, I told to all of them: "please
write in the add that here is the best neighborhood of all Espoo".
I really think so. And sincerely, because of them leaving Tyrskykuja
was even more difficult.
Many thanks to all of them, for every thing they did for us during our
staying there.


We had a last walk in Kivenlahti Bay at sun set: such a wonderful place!
How many evenings we spent there since we moved to Finland....
how many thoughts, projects, reading and prayers there!
We always look at it as our little paradise behind home.

Call for loading!

Dear friend,

the 2nd of May, at 8:30 - 9:00 in the morning, you will have a great chance of loading a container, which is an exciting and uncommon experience!
Be honest: how many times have you tried it?

It is a great gym exercise, plus the fresh air will help your body to recover from Vappu.

Just show up at my place (tyrskykuja 3b) and join the team (so far the team is one, meaning me).

Further more this exciting experience is for FREE!
You don't have to pay absolutely anything and if you don't enjoy it, you are free to leave! (once the container is loaded).

We are waiting for your help!
(please).

Michele

Nokia shares at remarkable price

Since I've been in Nokia (5 years) shares have never been rising their value so much at once!
This happened yesterday, and today was my last working day.
Just a coincidence?

Leaving NRC is actually strange.
My first working environment with a permanent position. I still remember the first day there: 26th of January 2001, I entered and from the 6th floor I looked downstairs... vertigo! :-)

I had moments of worries, disappointments and sadness.
But even a lot of satisfactions an happiness! And these are the ones I will always remember.

I feel I own very much to all the colleagues with whom I have been working this time.
And it is impossible I am going to forget them and what I shared with them.
This period is a great part of my personal history.

Let's why since I went out with Ronan, and I left to him badge, keys and everything else... I have realized that I left behind much more than that. And I was sincerely moved.

I feel very strange now... it is hard to admit that a great present has become a past.
To my colleagues: thanks a lot guys!

Michele