Outlandish

Latvia’s capital, Riga, is well worth visiting! It is the biggest city in the Baltic Countries by its population (almost 700 000) and its long and varied history has left its mark on the city. Latvia has belonged under Polish, Swedish, German, and Russian rule and even these days about 39% of the population is Russian. Riga’s historic center is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and its Art Nouveau architecture is world-renowned. Unlike most people destined for Riga, we traveled there on a bus, not on a budget airline. The bus from Tallinn took four hours but it was quite all right when the travel company was as great as mine was. It was surprisingly noticeable when we had wandered over the border from Estonia to Latvia; the houses on the way became derelict and not well looked after, the roads were partly in horrendous condition and when we got into Riga the slum-like areas with most terrible blocks of flats were a truly depressing sight. For some reason I hadn’t expected su...

Another November is behind us, the most devastatingly lame month of the year is over! And that means that Christmas is literally on our doorsteps. A little comfort is brought into the crushing darkness all-day everyday by Christmas lights twinkling in people’s windows and at the markets. The Central European Christmas markets are world-famous but what about doing things differently this time and visiting a proper Northern atmosphere with genuine Christmas treats like glögi (aka mulled wine, a better option for the hot wines served in the South) and traditional Christmas tarts shaped like stars with plum jam. Finland has recently brushed up its game when it comes to Christmas markets and there are all kinds of performances and handicrafts on sale. But they are still missing an enormous beat: Christmas markets are all about good food and drink! So, while Finland contemplates whether serving alcoholic glögi in their Christmas markets will ruin the country completely or not you might ...

Finally my trainee period of 4 months has ended and I am officially a Project Manager. A title I’ve been aiming for ever since I entered University. Why I aimed for that particularly? Because a project is a completely open concept, it can be anything and there are usually many of them at the same time, which means it’s a perfect job for me, because I don’t want every day to be the same and, most importantly, I want to be in charge :D And since I am now officially an employee I am entitled to use the holidays that have gathered up so far. And what would be a better way to waste my one week’s worth of holidays than fly to Central Europe to see some of my favourite people and places! But before that I am traveling first to Turku to see friends and family, since there’s no need for me to be in the office when I can work from wherever. Ok, I might have organized things so that I wouldn’t have to be in the office in June and scheduled all new trainees to arrive in J...

Some people critique wines, some movies, I seem to have developed a habit of critiquing countries. The difference is that for me that critiquing affects my actual life quite a lot. If a country gets a negative review from me, I’m not going to be comfortable living there, obviously. Cultural differences, those little everyday things that drive you crazy, make you appreciate all the little things you have back at home and make you realize all the things that prove the fact that grass really is greener on the other side of the fence. Those are the things I base my critiques on and obviously as a Finn I look at things quite differently than somebody from India or Brazil, for example. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral The only culture shocks that I have experienced have been all those times that I moved back to Finland. Noticing how nothing had changed, nothing had moved forwards, rather backwards and how the coldness and darkness really do affect your and everybody else’...

Estonia, a country I didn't know much more about than that everything there is cheaper than in   Finland. By now I've learnt such interesting things as the fact that Estonia has two Independence Days. First in 1918 when Germans lost the First World War and second after the Soviet Union had been demolished in 1991. Tallinn has been an unknown center of some pretty major historical events, such as the sailing competitions in the Moscow Olympics in 1980. For this occasion the communists built one of the ugliest things my eyes have ever had to endure, Linnahall. It used to be a concert hall on which you can climb and look around the harbour and the sea. The idea is so lovely that I cannot comprehend how they could fuck it up with such an abominable structure. The view's nice though. Another highlight for Tallinn was in 2011 when it shared the status of the European Capital of Culture with the almighty city of Turku. How splendid! But my favourite thing about Tal...