Outlandish

When moving to Slovakia for longer than three months you have to register with the local foreign police. You have three months to do that and the process differs for everybody it seemed. Since the day I arrived I have heard dozens of stories regarding the foreign police and how they do things there, all of them extremely negative. First of all nobody there speaks English, so make sure you take someone with you who can speak Slovak. Obviously, why would the authorities handling international affairs need to know other languages? Secondly nobody really knows what sort of documentation you should take with you. You would need different papers/photos/stamps for registering and for getting a local ID card and nobody seemed quite sure which documents were for which procedure because everybody had needed different ones. Take the work contract, no, only take a confirmation of work, rental contract but don't give it to them, just show it, and also a paper from the "Ca...

I don't handle boredom very well. I have no trouble down-shifting and doing absolutely nothing every now and then but I think such lazy moment have to be "earned". Busy week at work would be great excuse for a lazy weekend. But when work is scarce, days at the office are short and I have nothing to do at home. So, a weekend without any plans haunted me through last week. I had quite enough free time to last for the rest of my life when I was jobless, so two days of doing absolutely nothing is not an option for me. I then planned myself a Saturday on my own. Sleep long, then went to the beach for couple of hours (and obviously burned my cheekbones rather nicely). Then went to Eurovea to browse around the stores for a while and had some lunch. I don't mind being on my own but the hard part is staying quiet. Sure you can talk on your own but that might gain some surprised looks from the people close by. When I have a lot of time in my hands and nothing...

It seems to me that Slovak people hike a lot. And why not when you have some of the best sceneries Europe has to offer. We don't hike very much in Finland even though most of our vast country is covered in forests and hills. The typical hiker in Finland is the extreme kind: they go to Lapland alone with the mosquitos in the autumn for a very quiet, very long hike. Not here! Here they gather a group of people for a hike and the group rarely stays quiet. There are hundreads of hiking routes in Slovakia, some of them starting right in the borders of Bratislava. That's where we started our hike, following the little blue markers on the trees that resemble a piece of the Finnish flag. The views on the way... I have never seen anything like it. We don't have proper mountains in Finland. I've seen the Scottish highlands but that's completely different. These scenery was (can't find a better word) awesome! I could've stood there st...

A month at Dell s.r.o! And I have nothing but positive things to say about working here! I've been fortunate enough to always have great colleagues in every job, but I have never experienced such relaxed and enjoyable working environment. As long as you do your job properly, it doesn't matter if your coffee break stretches a little. The work itself is very precise and takes a lot of attention to detail. Completely different than what I have done before: marketing and selling gives more space for creativity and improvisasion. But in my case this is a brilliant thing! I'm learning new things and I'm broadening my know-how even further.   Colleagues, as I have mentioned, are absolutely wonderful. Very helpful and supportive and if there is something happening after work they ask people to join. For example, this weekend we are going hiking outside Bratislava! A 10-kilometre hike to a castle in Pajstun. I am sooo excited! I've been extr...

  First screw-up at work last week. Nothing major, but with my work experience and education background I am not so lenient with allowing mistakes to myself. But everybody screws up and I don't know any better way to learn than through mistakes. Friday I was able to leave work a little early to spend the weekend with my parents. I'm not so good with planning anything because I've learned that the more you plan, the less things go according to plan. So, since my parents had apparently brought the Finnish summer with them I had to go home after work to change instead of going to see the castle.   We did get to the castle eventually though. Bratislava is a really nice city in a way that everything is within a walking distance. So, we took the tram from my apartment to the city centre and arrived at the gates of the old town. The old town is (according to my parents) very similar to the one in Stockholm for example. Loads of restaurants, bars, tourist boutiqu...

I can't remember ever having a culture shock. Every time I've moved abroad the first night/morning is always terrible (missing mum and thinking what the hell did I come here for!) but that's got nothing to do with culture shock. Culture shock means disorientation and confusion when moving to a foreign country and the habits and customs are not what you have been used to. Well, I haven't lived in such exotic places but Finland is rather different from most European countries culturally.   Here in Bratislava I've felt quite at home from the beginning. The city is maybe a bit smaller than Helsinki, and most of the time the architecture and the nature reminds me of Greece. But the thing that feels the most familiar to me are the people. Slovaks are not exactly the warmest kind of people at first but all of the Slovaks I've had the priviledge of spending time with have turned out to be absolutely wonderful. Chatty, super helpful, funny and always worri...

This week, in record time, I got access to all databases and programs that I need at work. So, I've already been able to work and book quite a lot although I was told that for at least a month I would just have to sit on my ass and busy myself with internet or something. On the job front I have also had a lot of blasts from the past this week. I've received e-mails from 3 separate companies in Finland about jobs that I applied for in the beginning of the year... Doesn't give a very good picture of how they do business in those companies! But it reminded me of the fact that even though it is said that being born in Finland is like winning the lottery, the reality, for me at least, is far from it.   Ever since I was little I haven't quite fit in the mold of a Finn. Finns are calm (in public), quiet, very reserved, mind everybody's business but will tell you the opposite and worry a lot about what other people think of them. Finns...