Outlandish

2014 will stay in my mind as the year when my life took a change of course towards better things. So much has happened in just one year that I still don't quite understand it. All I know is that when 2013 ended I wished and I hoped and I prayed that 2014 would be better... a LOT better! And it seems I got my wish. At the beginning of the year I was still living on benefits but at least I had an internship to keep me busy. The work was exactly what I had wanted to do since graduating. But then something tragic happened and ensured that my contract would not continue after spring. That was the last drop, it was the push that I needed to finally get in action. I was done with Finland, this time for good. I applied for jobs everywhere: Holland, UK, Slovakia, Poland, Check Republic, places I don't even remember any more. And I got an interview after interview. In May I got a job offer from Slovakia. A country I knew nothing about but I was so ready to move into!  ...

Christmas came and went and as I always do, I became ill just before. Thankfully I got a bit better by Christmas Eve so was able to enjoy the food, company and presents wholeheartedly. The best present has to be the bag with the ultimate truth written on it: Varför Paris när vi har ju Åbo! (Why Paris when we have Turku) Amen to that. Few days before Christmas it snowed here, to my mum's delight. And even though I hate coldness, snow does make the world look extremely beautiful: 

Another flight survived more or less gracefully. While my decision of never moving back to Finland  grows stronger every day it is always the best feeling in the world to come back to the familiar surroundings and to the safe confines of my parents' home. And especially withing arm's reach of their fridge! It has become more and more important to me in my many travels. I've always appreciated beautiful things, whether it's furniture, jewellery or shoes, being surrounded by beautiful items makes me feel good. That is one reason why I absolutely love my parents' place! My mum has the perfect eye when it comes to interior design (even though she made a huge mistake when agreeing to change the living room's gold and silver-stripe wallpaper to a white, boring one). Scandinavian way of decorating houses is overall very appealing to me; very straight-forward, practical and simple when it comes to colours and shapes. Whereas in Slovakia the interior design ...

Panic is rising when the time to fly home draws near... But before I completely break down lying on my suitcase screaming "I'm not going, I'm not going!!!" I can make a trip down memory-lane to the previous week. At work Christmas was all around: Santa came to visit the customer care departments with gifts and my team had a Christmas party. There was also a movie night where we watched the Finnish Christmas story of the original Santa Claus: Rare Exports. I was positively surprised, the movie was quite good for a Finnish one! On Saturday me and couple colleagues took the train to Vienna to see how the Christmas markets there were. I had been recommended to go see them by pretty much everyone. Arriving in Vienna and walking around the streets, which are already quite familiar to me, I have to say I fall more and more in love with the city every time I visit there. I'm not saying that I would still want to live there, but it's great that it'...

Finland has been an independent republic since 1917. Yesterday it celebrated its 97th birthday. I don't think I could appreciate independence as much as I do if I hadn't lived abroad. Also the fact that right next to us there is a country with very little civilization, no human rights and no freedom of any kind helps to appreciate the things that might normally be taken for granted. For about 600 years Finland belonged under Swedish rule. Because of Sweden we have the Western culture and civilization that prevails in the country these days. But since we have been stubborn from the beginning of time we never succumbed to the Swedish language. We had our own and it was there to stay. Swedish is still an official language in Finland but few people away from the seaside speak it. After Swedes came the Russians. But instead of forcing Finland under their rule we got autonomy: we were able to keep our language, laws and religion. The one thing they screwed up though: becaus...

Ever since I joined the Fun Team I've become very close with the Nordic and UK customer care teams, which means that I've been able to participate in things that my own team doesn't arrange, like the Halloween costume competition and the Christmas party yesterday. Officially I wasn't "allowed" to go because I work under another company these days. But I was offered free entry in exchange for helping with the registration. Obviously I jumped for the chance!  After one of the crazy-busiest work days in recorded history I ran home to change and then rushed across the road to the party venue. Our shift at the entrance only lasted for half an hour which left us plenty of time to concentrate on the main thing: dancing and wine. I haven't been dancing for a long time so obviously I had the time of my life. And what was super awesome was the amount of men on the dance floor! I've never seen so many men dancing.  Did I already mention I had ...

I'm a party girl; I loove getting together with friends, having a drink and going dancing. Since moving here my partying has suffered a recession and I've only been to a club three times. But it's ok, I've been busy with things like traveling, climbing mountains and enjoying the sunny weather (which is long gone now...). But if I can find an excuse to put up a party I will! And moving to a place of my own, close to the centre, with space to spare definitely qualifies as an excuse!  In Finland last weekend was the official Pre-Christmas, or Little Christmas, party weekend, which means that everybody goes out with their colleagues, gets overly drunk and behaves like an ass. I wanted to do my part so I scheduled this party for this time of the year.  But this party wouldn't have been anywhere near as good as it turned out to be if I didn't have such awesome friends here! For example, I was provided with the most amazing light bulb, which t...