Outlandish

It's amazing what a boost a piece of new furniture can bring! Lately I have been extremely down. I knew when I moved here that Autumn and Winter will probably be a completely shit time for me but still it surprised me how badly it has affected me. It was really cold for October and it's only 3rd November and Estonia is already engulfed in never-ending snow storm. On top of that my only colleague has been working from abroad for a month so I have been completely alone, which is bad... It's really really bad! Thankfully I have had friends visiting every now and then but after two weekends alone at home I really struggled to find anything positive about each day. But then, finally, my brother brought me a new, proper couch and all of a sudden my flat looks like a real adult apartment! I've loved my apartment no matter how shabby and unfinished it has looked with the tiny, red wine-soaked, white sofa which left a lot of empty space unused in the living room....

I have never been very interior design oriented. Maybe because most of my adulthood I have lived abroad with the knowledge that I will not stay here for long, so the state of the apartment hasn’t played that big of a part in my life. Which has resulted in me staying in some pretty dodgy apartments. For me they haven’t seemed like such bad places to stay in, it has been enough if the apartment was warm and clean and there were the basic furnishings, which include a window, a nice(ish) bed, table and a chair. My family has only recently admitted how horrified she was of some places where I have stayed along the years. But now (finally?) I have so many kilometres under my belt that I feel like I should be content staying still for a little bit longer than just a couple years, which is why finding an unfurnished apartment was a must this time around. In the end finding such an apartment wasn’t even that difficult in Tallinn, although it might have been without a little help fr...

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 ...

I hate rainy days. They're so grey and dark and moody. Outside air feels colder than it would if it wasn't raining. And if you accidentally forget your umbrella home in the morning and get soaked on your way home from work you also freeze to the core. But I do also love rainy days. I can't think of many things that make home more cozier than a  hard-core rain  outside while you are warm inside  surrounded by pillows and drowning in your bathrobe . A cup of tea and a movie feel like a little bit of luxury then.  Rainy days do affect me a little, I always feel much more tired when it's dark and gloomy but when you're trapped inside you also get things done that you might not do if there was an option to be outside. Maybe finally grab that book from the shelf you've been meaning to read but haven't quite found the time for it or catch up with the TV series that everybody's talking about. I also like to use this time when going outside...

Having finally managed to move to an apartment that I can truly call a home and that has all the things I have always wanted my apartment to have (except the bay window) I also want to keep it clean and in good condition. I’ve never been the kind of person who has to have things in order and who can’t stand a centimeter layer of dust on their table tops. I have been quite content living in a dorm room with a floor-covering carpet and a steady layer of dust on it, so ample that my daily route between the bed, desk and door was quite visible after few months. Only when my parents were coming over for a visit I borrowed a hand vacuum cleaner to get the most visible layer of dust off the floor. I have also always been very content with the huge stacks of used or tried-on clothes covering a chair or a bed. But now I have experienced a change. I like my flat clean, I like it with things in their right place and I like it without bread crumbles all over the table top and floor. A...

Even though moving sucks big time (especially moving from one country to another!) it comes often with lovely surprises and discoveries. You unpack and discover things you didn't remember you had! I've lived in Tallinn now for two months and all this time I've had one box in the living room on the kitchen threshold untouched. I knew that it consisted of the most expensive dishes I own and they are quite graphic and deserve a good place in the apartment. But I haven't been able to find a place for them. But then the weekend came when my parents were visiting and I had to get rid of the box. When I started going through the things there I remembered why I wanted to start collecting them. They are lovely pieces of kitchen-ware with subtle mint-green edges. They definitely deserve to be used!  I drink tea a lot! I love tea, there are so many flavours and drinking tea is its own little moment of relaxation. Tea is also a genuinely calming substance, w...

As we know the restaurants in the biggest and busiest tourist clusters are usually over-prized and more than often not worth a visit at all. We discovered this last weekend again when we were craving for some simple pizza and went walking around in the Old Town. Not knowing where you're going you often end up just anywhere close in the end. We found pizza on the side of the main Square and it really wasn't worth the Finnish prices. Thank goodness we had booked a table for Saturday in a place that was recommended to us: Restaurant Kaks Kokka (Two Chefs) between the Old Town and harbour. The place was a bit tricky to find. It wasn't on the street but in the inner yard behind a parking lot. But even though weather was absolute shit this place was worth walking around a bit! The decor was pretty simple and Scandinavian, with black and white and earthy colours, and huge windows facing the street. The lights were a bit bright and in your face but that was ad...

Along the years I've had many homes around Europe, but four of them I still consider as a home to go back to long after moving away: Turku (obviously), Brighton, Aberdeen and Bratislava. So, how can someone who has moved abroad multiple times always forget how expensive it is?! Well, here I am in my awesome new home counting whether I can afford to eat at all for the next three weeks or should I just not buy a vacuum cleaner and live surrounded by dust and stuff...   Even if I have to go on a hard core fast I have to say I'm bloody happy to have this flat! Before I've always stayed in furnished flats because I didn't plan to stay long. But usually in furnished rental flats the furniture is far from nice, so this time I opted for an empty flat so that I could see whether I have any taste for home decor at all.  People tend to spend a lot of time figuring out the furniture in their new apartment one piece at a time. I had a week to figure out the decor ...

I love cafés; going there with friends to enjoy the atmosphere and gossip, or going alone with a good book or a magazine. The best thing is if you can find a table by the window so you can watch the life go by. People-watching is an undervalued way of passing time. I came to realize how great having proper cafés really is only when I moved abroad. In my home town, Turku, proper cafés were extinct still in the beginning of the 21st century. Most of them were service station-like diners which were part of some huge super market chain. They kind of killed the idea of a proper café culture before the idea even came up. Thankfully my city is waking up with this matter and it already has some of the best cafés in the country with more opening all the time. Moods In most European countries cafés are places where you can go relax with friends or alone. Nobody would give you a second glance if you sat in the centre of the space alone reading a book. Quite contrary in Turku, ...