Outlandish

Loneliness. Doesn't have quite the same ring to it in English as it does in Finnish. In Finland loneliness has been in headlines for a while now because it's becoming a huge social problem: 400 000 lonely people in a country of 5 million. Scientifically explained loneliness is an involuntary experience and emotion. For a lot of people in the world this might sound incomprehensible, but even in a metropolis you can be completely alone. I would know.   As a Finn I enjoy being on my own every now and then. Nothing beats a lazy Sunday alone at home or in a café with a book. During busy weeks or months I see those lonely days as a bit of luxury. But a human being, especially me, has a limit with the voluntary loneliness. For some that limit is just a need to ask an opinion or telling someone what happened to them today. The simplest thing, but it can be devastating if you don't have anyone to ask or to tell. Others, like me, have the limit much lower: just the need to s...

I don't think I'm quite right in the head because I keep putting myself  voluntarily into situation that are far from my comfort zone. This time especially I found myself close to the limit. Last time I made the big mistake of drinking too much on Friday. This time I knew better... But I apparently still had one shot too many. I blame the altitude, it fucked up my body because normally I wouldn't have been so hungover on Saturday morning! (Comparison: Turku approx. 10m above sea level, Bratislava 140m above sea level, Zuberec (where our cottage was) much higher.) Not so bad though that a proper portion of scrambled eggs, bacon and a bucket of coffee wouldn't fix! The weather for Saturday was forecasted to be bad. Rain and a lot of clouds. So I comforted myself by thinking that we would take it easy. And we did find a route that was supposed to take approximately three hours and which would take us to some mountain lakes. So, we got our gear together a...