Who are we? Keitä me olemme?

Nice to meet you! We are Mirka and Tiina and we used to be colleagues when both worked in Travel Industry. Although Mirka moved to Event Marketing years ago, the passion for travelling did not disappear and so we still travel a lot together. And if we do not travel, we continuously dream & talk about it.

It's not only the travelling and visiting new places that we think is super-interesting, but also the possibility to meet people and to hear their stories and to connect - we often have in us more similarities than differences. Spring 2020 (when forced to stay at home) was finally the perfect moment to start to realize our storytelling dream: in December 2020 we presented you 24 fabulous, strong, unique and bold girls & women around the world - all of them our colleagues, ex-colleagues, friends or friends of a friend. Their stories told about every day life, travelling, friendship, love, dreams, fears, challenges, happiness.

Hauska tutustua! Olemme Mirka ja Tiina ja olimme alun perin työkavereita matkailualalla. Mirka vaihtoi alaa tapahtumapuolelle, mutta intohimo matkustamiseen ei kadonnut minnekään ja matkustammekin paljon yhdessä. Ja silloin kun emme matkusta, puhumme ja unelmoimme siitä jatkuvasti.

Kiinnostavaa ei ole ainoastaan itse matkustaminen ja uusiin paikkoihin tutustuminen vaan myös mahdollisuus tavata ihmisiä, kuulla heidän tarinansa, muodostaa yhteyksiä. Meissä on usein enemmän samankaltaisuutta kuin erilaisuutta.

Keväällä 2020, kun jouduimme olemaan paljon kotona, oli vihdoin täydellinen hetki toteuttaa unelmamme tarinoiden kertomisesta: joulukuussa 2020 esittelimme joulukalenterimaisesti 24 upeaa, vahvaa, ainutlaatuista ja rohkeaa tyttöä & naista ympäri maailman - kaikki nykyisiä tai entisiä työkavereita ja ystäviämme suoraan tai mutkan kautta. Heidän tarinansa kertovat arjesta, matkustamisesta, ystävyydestä, rakkaudesta, unelmista, peloista, haasteista ja onnellisuudesta.

Our travel story and inspiration for all of this:

February 2018 Marrakech

Breakfast at the roof top of Riad Azzouna 13. Still fresh morning sun was shining to the third floor of the old house where we easily saw the silhouette of the old city. We were the first guests arriving to the roof top of Riad for the breakfast. After us arrived two ladies from Germany and right after them a girl from France.

Me and Mirka talked about the Swedish – Danish tv-series “Bridge” in Finnish. Somehow German ladies recognized the series that we were chatting about and started to comment it in English and soon we were in the conversation about the storyline and characters and then, all of suddenly French girl shouted laughing from the other corner of the roof top “no no no, please do not tell! I haven’t seen the latest episodes yet!”. That made us all laugh: we kept sipping coffee smiling – the world seemed very small.

Day after, same roof top: we were supposed to go to Casablanca. Our host had given us full information about the trains, what to see and which places to visit. It is a long story, but we did not go to Casablanca, but somehow ended up in the small van with a driver-guide and German ladies on our way to ….  to somewhere historical place maybe somewhere at the Atlas Mountains.

Only at the first coffee break we realized that none of us had idea what was the main attraction of the full day excursion or where we were going. We were laughing so hard when each of us, one after another tried to find out the name of the place x that was our main site to be visited. All of us had pretended to be fully aware of which full day excursion we have bought, but, none of us knew.

And none of us knew that the excursion included 8 hours sitting in the car: 2 out of 4 of us had a really bad carsickness and road was really bad and did not help the suffering ones.

Basically we travelled 4 hours to place x, visited it under the extremely hot sun (guide only could tell that some episodes of Game of Thrones were filmed there), no water, still holding back throwing up after the car ride, and then it was time to start 4 hours drive back.

It was really the lousiest excursion ever, but we had so much fun: two ladies were old friends and travelled a lot together, just like us. Sharing the travel stories, joking, chatting about everyday-problems, talking about political situation in Europe, equality of the sexes, actors, us as persons, history, gossips, food – yes, time we had as we sat there in the lousy car for 8 full hours literally middle of nowhere.

When we finally arrived back to the hotel, heads were spinning after the long, rocky car ride. It was literally the most terrible excursion, but at the same time one of the most amazing travel memories: yes, you really connect with people when you are forced to sit 8 hours in the small car!

And think about that: just 48 hours before, at the roof top of Riad Azzouna 13 at the old town of Marrakech, in Morocco, in Africa we were total strangers to each other. Some anonymous people who just happened to be in the same place.

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PS. We tried to find German ladies for the Advent Calendar. We knew that one was called Claudia, a prosecutor from Berlin and about other lady we only knew that she was a teacher who worked with refugee children (We don´t remember her name anymore). We could not find them: according to our very secret sources, the were no Germans, no Claudia’s booked for Riad Azzouna 13 during that period. It is a true mystery. As life often is.