Outlandish

”Travel broadens the mind”  is a quote that everybody has probably heard. It has even been translated to almost all known languages. And the reason for this is simple: it’s true. I started my mind-broadening travels already as a teenager when I moved to Brighton, England for one summer to learn English with EF Language Travels. That trip was the starting block for my great love for England, English culture, English language and also for traveling, meeting new people and learning about life from different perspectives. Because each person you meet sees life a little bit differently, even if they come from the same country as you. I have discovered that even though each country has its own culture, and each culture has its own habits and traditions that largely define how we live our lives, in the end we human beings are all similar in so many ways. We all have the basic needs and emotions, even if in some cultures showing those emotions publicly is not considered appr...

I've spent so much time at home in Turku this past Spring and Summer that I'm not quite sure any more which country I live in, Estonia or Finland. But now I think it's time to leave the cruise ships in peace for a while and hopefully people will visit me, so I won't need to compare the times for buses and boats because they never really match the way I would want them to. But before I walk to Linnhall and wave my goodbyes to Finland for a while I want to go back to last weekend, which turned into a proper Turku Experience.  All sorts of little happenings and businesses offering things to do pop up around the city of Turku in the summer. Especially around the Aura River at the moment you can find anything from restaurants and river boats to a couple of very Finnish phenomenon; a mini sauna and a hot tub that you heat up with wood in a little stove. This hot tub is special, though, because you can sit in there while floating in the river. We found the idea...

If you like to choose your travel destinations according to food culture and great restaurants Estonia is probably not one of the options that pops to your head straight away. But it should be. Tallinn alone is bursting with world-class fine dining restaurants and awesome, innovative hipster cafés and restaurants. The restaurant that has been ranked number one in most travel apps and websites is Rataskaevu 16 in the middle of the beautiful Old Town and I must admit, I had nothing to complain last time we were there in March. The restaurant is in a very old stone building with narrow halls and small stone-walled rooms. The atmosphere there is quite dark but still cozy. Food is amazing of course and the most interesting feature is probably the toilet (at least the ladies’ one); it has a glass floor and underneath it there is a drop to a stone well. I’m not afraid of heights but in the toilet I didn’t feel exactly comfortable and I must admit I sat on the toilet sideways so that I ...

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...

One evening the weather was just so nice I couldn’t stay indoors so I put my jacket on and went for a walk on the beach. There I found myself smiling without a reason, which tells me that I am happy here. But I must confess a disappointment about Tallinn; people. They are not the least bit interested in making new friends. They are helpful, for example, I got exceptionally wonderful help in finding a flat, which I appreciate enormously, but when the time came for me to take the person out for a drink or some food to say thank you, I was thanked kindly and never heard from them again. Even the Brit I know here is more interested in hanging out with his own friends than helping me find new friends by maybe introducing me to his friends. He has Estonialized in a very short time, and comparing to Brits I can’t say it’s for the better. It’s not just Estonians, this is a very Nordic problem, extremely common with Finns as well. I've seen it even with my own friends in Finlan...

Ladies and gentlemen... I HAZ INTERNET !! Oh, don't you ever take such simple things for granted as having a functioning internet connection! But now the planets are all back in their correct places and I can start really living here in Tallinn. Little by little I get my life in order here. I got the local ID card and thus was also eligible for an internet connection in this country where  e v e r y t h i n g is done online; bills, voting, apothecary recipes, signatures(!!), everything. I have also located the main furniture stores in a country that hosts not a single Ikea. So when I finally have enough money (maybe in 2023) I can start to furnish this wonderful flat hard core.  I have had and will have friends visiting me every weekend, which has been an absolute blessing for me and a curse to my wallet. And when my parents finally come I will get the final piece missing from my bed. Darlings, bed and internet, home is not a home without those two things, ...

Home sweet home. And what a way to start off the Christmas season! On Friday I went to see a concert from a Finnish Idol-contestant from 10 years ago, Antti Tuisku. A record audience sang along to every song and danced like crazy. We had a blast! And on Saturday we had Little Christmas party with my girls, which was kicked off early in the afternoon with riding Icelandic horses. We had dressed warmly but the weather surprised us in the most positive way. Full-on sunshine and almost 10 degrees warm. It has been an ongoing joke in Facebook how in July it was colder in Finland than it is now in December.    We got to the stables in Mynämäki (Jaakkolan Islanninhevostalli) a little bit late but it was fine. When we got into the stables everybody sighed with adoration: Icelandic horses are incredibly cute! They are smaller than regular horses but bigger than ponies with very fluffy fur and big eyes. They are very calm and live in herds so, unlike with bigger horses, ...

Yesterday after work I was sitting in my favourite café here in Bratislava, Urban House, having a glass of wine and looking out of the window at people coming from and going to the Christmas market. And it hit me like a ton of bricks: what the hell am I doing? Why am I moving away from a place where I have been nothing but happy 100% of the time? Why am I changing a job in a huge, international company to a job in a small, unknown company?  I had to really pick my brain and list some pros and cons again in my mind and eventually it all comes down to one thing. Family. That's why I'm moving away from here, closer to home. It's my brother's and my best friend's birthdays at the end of January and if I lived in Slovakia I wouldn't be able to attend either. At this moment, when panic is rising in me, the fact that I wouldn't have to fly to get home made it certain to me that this is something I have to do right now. If I didn't go to Tallinn a...

How perfect it is that I still had time to go check out the Budapest Christmas Market before moving away from Slovakia. And to check it out with the company that I had... I am just so fortunate when it comes to friends. When traveling, the company you have is a very important factor in how successful the trip will in the end be. The worst trip I ever had was unfortunately a long weekend in Paris - as gorgeous as the city always is - because schedules do not belong to a holiday. In my opinion the best thing in Paris, or any destination, would be to get a bottle of wine, some brie cheese and relax. This trip to Budapest was exactly that; complete relaxation, no schedules, no plans (except going to the Christmas market) and in the end we did see a lot of Budapest, mostly places I haven't even seen yet, like the Basilica. I had been quite sick for two days and was really afraid that I wouldn't be well enough to go. But working from home turned out a very good idea and o...