Outlandish

It's been the longest August ever. I've been quite homesick and almost obsessed with getting a new direction for my life. Every day at work when I mark the date up I'm disappointed that it's still August, because it feels like by now we should already be in September and much closer to Christmas. Even though I've been applying for jobs in Finland every day I feel sort of 50/50 about it. First of all the reality is that with over 10% unemployment who would hire someone from abroad when that person already has a job while there are completely able people in Finland applying for the same job. I know I probably wouldn't. And also, if I got a job in Finland in a small company for how long would I actually enjoy it? Maybe a year but after that all the things that have always troubled me there (climate!!) would catch up with me again.  I think the last reality check came yesterday when I was reading the news in my country: around 1000 people being fired in one...

Europe is in complete panic with hundreads of thousands of people flooding from Africa and Middle-East into our lands. Even if EU forced its member countries to receive these people (which it didn't do but instead made it voluntary) the European countries still could not take in all the people coming here. Nobody knows what will come from all of this, but people are fearing the worst. For example Slovakia just announced that  it will only receive Christians . Quite a tricky thing that and very short-sighted. But that's because they have never in their history taken in refugees. This country is very racist but only because they don't know any better. People are always afraid of everything new and strange. Also in Nordic countries people seem to be more racist. But I don't believe they are. But the few racists can now make a lot of noise through different medias and thus make it look like there are a lot of them. In Finland we've been following how in Sweden thei...

Sziget Festival is one of the biggest in Europe, organized every August for a week in Budapest. My best friends purchased tickets there in the Spring and since Budapest is a bus ride away from Bratislava it would've been stupid to miss this chance to go check it out. We stayed in a hostel/hotel on Téréz Körút, a very nice area walking distance from the centre and the river. The place was really nice and rooms clean and with modern furnishings (points for that!), but with the price we paid (53€/night) I would've expected the owner to be in the reception when he was supposed to. As a punctual Finn there are some situations where I want service exactly when it is promised; for example if check out should be done between 10-11am I would expect someone to be in the reception to receive the keys. Not a big issue, really, we were in no hurry on Sunday, but I like things working smoothly when I travel and I'm willing to pay extra for that. In this case I felt I paid the extra ...

I've been rafting altogether once in my life and despite the rafting itself being very enjoyable the experience as a whole was traumatic. Mainly because the Finnish summer decided to show it's full wrath to us all day long with literally pouring  rain on our necks. On top of that, because of a storm couple days previously, there were fallen tree trunks lying across the river and we had to carry the boats over them. What made bad even worse was the day's meal of mac and cheese, which is one food that I truly hate!  This time I felt confident in the fact that the trip would be much more successful an experience than that time 10 years ago. 36 degrees, sunshine and such a wide river that no tree would ever reach from one shore to the other.  A bus took us over the border to Hainburg, Austria. Behind the castle there we found canoes ready and waiting. A quick safety reminder (in Slovak of course....), life vests on and boats in the water! I was a bit ...