Time to move on!

(c) Ville Norppa

Only 3 weeks to go and we are getting quite anxious... You might already know us a little bit and this might not come as a surprise, but we want to go NOW!!!! And usually what we want, we also get it.
We can´t go anywhere physically because school is still disturbing our leisure time, but we will leave this site.
So now it is time for us to say bye bye to Blogger and our old website (WIX.COM) and move to a different channel...

http://www.rantapallo.fi/cyclingsummer2013/
is our new website/blog where all the tears and sweat will be shed during this summer. So see you there and don´t be a stranger. Comment or send us email and help world´s children by donating trough this link...

http://oma.unicef.fi/lapset/aloita-keraeys.aspx?col=2-2763

Thanks for hanging with us here, talk to you soon on the other channel! <3

Laura & Pippu

Getting ready for Extreme Run

Last weekend was pretty much about running for both of us. We better keep on running if we want to survive the Extreme Run with a decent time!

Laura went for a run on Sunday and got lost, which made it a lot longer than she planned beforehand, but who cares when the sun is shining and you find places like this:

Pippu was running home from work on Saturday during the night in a quite different atmosphere. A long run really calms you down after a long day at work, right?

Enjoy the spring and keep running! 

PS. We promised to tell how our business presentation went... No tears were shed but it was quite near for Laura to faint ;-) Well anyhow, we NAILED it, got an excellent grade. Hard work gives you permission to play hard... In four weeks it´s time for us to have fun!

...

First year at school soon about to end

Wiuh, these few weeks has been VERY hectic... We started our last period at school and that only means MANY assignments, group works and exam after exam!!! 

The best group assignment given was to come up with a new business idea and write a business plan out of it in 2 weeks. OH MY GOODNESS!!! Well today,Saturday, we have our last group meeting and on Tuesday we will be presenting it to a possible "investor"= our teacher. You can just imagine the amount of restless nights we have been spending because of this and other assignments...

We both also started Spanish lessons and on Monday we have word exam followed the first big exam on Wednesday. Let me just tell you, 24h in a day is just not enough!!!

But what cheered us up, was our newly renovated classroom. RAY- Finland´s Slot Machine Association sponsored our classroom for giving us more inspiring learning environment. :-)

Classroom G306

Every week we have a new theme week at school and after seeing how our classroom looks like, it just made sense to have Las Vegas- theme. 

Viva Las Vegas

Even though we haven´t had time to see our friends (SORRY) we have been planning our project. Few magazines contacted us for an interview, we are right on the schedule on planning our "launch event"  and our sponsors gave us energy to finish these last 6 weeks with style by sending the gear for the summer.

Cycling clothes by Dare2B. No one can say our clothes are too dark.
Safety first.

Sun classes by Julbo. No bugs and sand aloud in our eyes. 

Organic lotion and Sun Screen by Annecy Cosmetics.
Oh the sunshine state Colorado not to forget Nevada, we are ready to meet again.

                 

You know how your gym shirts starts to smell quite fast even though you wash them after every use...Nasty, right! This stuff prevents that to happen and we sure need this to prevent people around us to faint.

                         

Deodorizing conditioner for synthetic technical clothing by Nixwax.

Very good start for this weekend.. Now full of energy to make our Business Plan presentation blow our teachers mind away!!! Stay tuned, we will let you know if we cried a bit or a lot! :-)

Have great weekend!!! <3

It's starting to look bright!

8 weeks to go! There's still tons of thing to do but we're slowly getting there. Flights, bikes, clothes, sleeping bags, tent and computer are now all covered and that's a big relief! Yesterday we got brand new camelbaks, lights, a tinderbox and a lunch box so we have something to eat our beans from :D 

Spring is finally here and the increasing amount of light makes it so easy to keep the spirit up! No more hockey for Pippu though but the outdoor cycling season is just about to start!

Enjoy your spring! We're off to meet with Unicef this morning :)

Oh man... all is good!

UGH... Sorry again for not updating frequently. We have been super busy with EVERYTHING. And you know, when one thing goes wrong everything goes wrong :D

We had a holiday week when Pippu enjoyed her time in Japan and Laura was selling cupcakes on the International Restaurant day for school project.

Photo by Riikka

That day was super fun and if you have never done it, you should. Next time it is organized 18 May 2013, check out www.restaurantday.org for more info. But basically the thing is that EVERYONE can set up their own restaurant for the day. Kind of fun thing to create a theme and to think what to sell and where.. :D

After that day Laura just had to concentrate on trying to find sponsors and to do school stuff. She was kind of silly for taking 6 extra courses for this spring while we are studying hard anyways and trying to organize this summer. But she managed to do a lot of things before her computer lost a whole folder full of files, O ou!!! Well no harm done, just tons of stress factors more...

After that problem was solved, Pippu came back to Finland and it was time for her computer to brake down... This was a bit bigger issue but thankfully she got another computer to borrow but yet again some more things to stress about...

International women´s day cheered us up... Marmot send us a BIG surprise!!!

Marmot 

We got camping gear and some clothes to wear, AWESOME!!! That sleeping bag is so incredibly soft and light and so is the tent, LOVING IT!!! :D

GoExpo 2013

So after receiving that package we decided to change clothes and head to GoExpo to do some promoting and ask if some of the good bike companies would be interested of joining our crazy cycling experience, and YES, I think we managed to do a quite good work there :D We will find out tonight!!!

So after ALL huge disappointments, yet again we are back in the game with a HUGE amount of energy, ready to start cycling... Oh yes, we bought flight tickets finally. So we will start our journey from San Francisco 22 May 2013 and flying back to Finland 18 Aug 2013... 

Cycling Route 

If you happen to be around somewhere along our route, just come meet us, cycle with us or offer a place to sleep (even though we love that tent, we know we will miss bed as well)... :-D

Alright, keep you flag high and stay tuned... Now off to school!!

Pippu's trip to Tokyo

Pippu spent her winter holiday in Tokyo with one of our classmates, Rita. They both have a friend in Tokyo so it made perfect sense to go there together. They stayed in Ace Inn Shinjuku, a hostel about 15 min walk from Shinjuku center. The flights were cheap but here's the reason why: 23 hours of waiting in Moscow in between the flights. Oh well, that's already an experience itself!

16.2.2013
Starting my holiday with 23 hours at the Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow! Time for some school work and hopefully sleeping also. Only a few more hours to go and I'm on a plane to Tokyo and off to see my Japanese friend for the first time in two years! So excited! I've never been anywhere like Tokyo so it'll definitely be something different!

Sheremetyevo airport

22.2.2013
The last day in Tokyo! It's been a great trip with all the food, people, karaoke, sights and what else!

sushi

We've had fun trying to figure out our way here cause not that many people speak English. Something happened in the train we were supposed to take back to our hostel but no one told us what. Three people ignored our "excuse me"s and the forth one just ran away :D We are so lucky to have two Japanese and one Finnish friend living here in Tokyo. They've been showing us around the city and taking us to places we would never have gone without them! The cultural differences are very interesting and travelling is really the best way to understand people from different backgrounds. It would take a lot more than a week's trip to really get into the culture but oh well, a week is still better than nothing :)

Shibuya

Emperor's palace

Another 20 hours to kill at the airport

25.2.2013
Back in Finland! I was gone only for a week but what a difference, feels like spring is here! No more darkness. Feels good to sleep in my own bed again! This is what my accommodation looked like in Tokyo

Well, it's back to school and normal life now! Week went by so fast, it's unbelievable!

Love, Pippu

Time management

There’s so many awesome things going on in our lives that it’s hard to find time for pretty much anything anymore.

I’m finally starting to realize what the phrase ”too much” means. Trying to balance between school, work, sports, volunteering, this project and friends isn't always so easy. Sleeping is also a nice thing to do every once in a while! Last week went by with no more than 5 hours of sleep each night. Though it’s easy to keep going even without when you do something that interests you. With the help of coffee of course! :D 

Prioritizing is really hard when you want to do everything and do it well.  But oh well, this is how you learn! 

Running home from work is a great way of exercising – you gotta get home anyways so why not make the best out of that time! This Tuesday was just perfect for it. 10cm of snow on the ground and more coming from the sky made it tiring enough. 

Enjoy the winter while it lasts.

-Pippu-

Really, we do study... time to times!!!

We just love our study program. Of course it is serious stuff but as the saying goes; When you work hard, you need to play hard, or something like that. Well anyways we have done bunch of fun stuff at school, for example Circus training. How many of you can say your school send you to practice circus skills, seriously :-) We have been training how to make cocktails, how to serve, cook, how to be a good seminar host and now we are organizing a seminar about Tourism in Europe, pretty cool.

But why are we writing about this, is because we have company visits every Friday what we really enjoy. We go see different hospitality companies and get to know their organization and how does it feel to work there. Last Friday we went  to Hotel Haven in Helsinki. It was AMAZING!!!!

We only have 2 luxury hotels in Helsinki; Hotel Kämp and Hotel Haven, which is Finland´s first member of the Small Luxury Hotels of the World chain.

The hotel was full of little detail which made it really fancy but in a comfortable way. It didn´t feel like we should wear dresses while walking around, it was warm and welcoming place.

Near by the lobby, is this comfy area where you can play chess, read books or just chill by the fire.

View from some of the rooms was quite astonishing, especially in brilliant winter sun.

If you have some suggestions about companies we should visit, let us know. This Friday we will visit China Liangtse Wellness :-)

Hunting companies for Co-operation

We are so sorry for not having time to update what we have been up to but last week was all about emails! We sent tons of them and we are trying to keep in mind how usually it's one out of ten who is saying yes. But we won't accept the answer no.
Training is the thing that will save us from all the stress! Luckily we have to find time for practicing. It is really a great break from all the "paper work".

All thought last week Laura´s daily routine got totally messed up cause of two bugs, but they are so cute... :-) Of course she rather went for a walk with them than cycling indoors, besides weather last week was not typical Finnish weather... Sunshine almost everyday, UNBELIEVABLE! And also it was kinda compulsory considering how active they, or actually the other one is. But that did NOT make them be quiet during the night... Oh my goodness how LOUD they can be when they sleep!!! Oh well, now they are back at home and Laura can return to her normal schedule!

It is Monday, which means new week, new tricks but same old us!!!

What a weekend

Travel Fair was a lot of fun. We got to talk with people from The League of Finnish American Societies and they invited us to one of their meetings to tell everyone about our Cycling Summer!!! :-D Pretty exciting!!! BUT the best news was that we got our Minister Alexander Stubb to be the patron of this project!! HOW COOL IS THAT!!!! We just can´t stop telling that to everybody :-D

Oh and the most important thing of course, we finally published our website!!!!

So thank you all who started to follow us here, on Facebook and Twitter, we really appreciate that. Keep on following, spreading the word and donating when we get the permission to start collecting donations!

Hope you had a fun weekend as well, now it is time to start getting ready for Monday, The not-so-cool- day :-)

​

Love,

Laura & Pippu (20.1.2013)

Getting started

Holidays are over and we're training as much as we can find time for. Yesterday we pedaled about an hour and a half. Today it's all about Matkamessut (Travel Fair) and trying to get some contacts! This week has been crazy busy with all the work for Facebook page, Twitter, emails, website and so on! (Remember to check out our Facebook and Twitter from the right bottom of the page). Luckily exercise really helps you to get rid of all the stress, and we're getting both a lot :D 

Love,

Pippu & Laura (18.1.2013)