Outlandish

Some people critique wines, some movies, I seem to have developed a habit of critiquing countries. The difference is that for me that critiquing affects my actual life quite a lot. If a country gets a negative review from me, I’m not going to be comfortable living there, obviously. Cultural differences, those little everyday things that drive you crazy, make you appreciate all the little things you have back at home and make you realize all the things that prove the fact that grass really is greener on the other side of the fence. Those are the things I base my critiques on and obviously as a Finn I look at things quite differently than somebody from India or Brazil, for example. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral The only culture shocks that I have experienced have been all those times that I moved back to Finland. Noticing how nothing had changed, nothing had moved forwards, rather backwards and how the coldness and darkness really do affect your and everybody else’

Here in Slovakia I have become familiar with the concept of Secret Santa. It is a popular Christmas time activity at work places and I assume it originates from the States. The main idea is to lift at random a colleague's name from a hat. Your job then is to buy something small to this colleague as a Christmas present. The presents are later dealt out by the Secret Santa and the point is that you don't know from whom your gift is.  Of course if you get your best friend's name from the hat you'd probably buy something personal and maybe attach a card on it to notify them that it's from you. Our team has a bit of a grumpy reputation; not eager to participate in any stupid team activities. But for this most people were totally in (of course there were the odd two people who tried to squirm out... I didn't give them a choice :D). I've mentioned before how hard buying Christmas gifts is. Especially because I want the gifts to be useful and s

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

Reality starting to set in. Last week I handed in my resignation, for the first time with trepidation. I'm utterly aware that most people would never do what I'm about to do: leave a job they like in a company they like and move away from a country that they absolutely love. Yes, I'm completely nuts! We have this saying in Finland that rolling rocks don't get mossy and I think that's the story of my life in a nutshell. I get bored easily and boredom is my worst nightmare. I need new experiences and excitement in my life all the time and even though I am completely happy here in Bratislava, if I let this opportunity of discovering a new country slip away I would never  forgive myself! And as a single, childless, independent person, why wouldn't I go and be nuts :D I'm an experience-addict! But, I still have a lot of time left here and thankfully it's one of my favourite times of the year: Christmas. The markets are lit up and there's

The drive to Zuberec on Friday evening last week was quite bad: it was already dark and it was raining so hard that you could barely see the red back lights of the car in front. But one thing I did notice on the way: a huge castle lit up on top of a steep hill. Turns out it was the Orava Castle (Oravsky Hrad). I love castles (because I still want to be a princess...) so I wanted to at least stop on the way home on Sunday long enough to get a picture of it.  We did stop. But the moment we got up to the castle door it was literally closed in our faces. Closing time. Suomen Leijona !?!?!? The legend of the castle says that the noblemen owning the land made a pact with a devil because they wanted a castle that couldn't be built by any man. If the devil succeeded in building the castle in one day the noblemen were fine, but if not they would go to Hell. Obviously the devil didn't succeed (on purpose I expect) and the noblemen went to Hell. In proven fac

Sunday morning, slow and lazy as it should be. The Sun was out as it always is on Sunday mornings and there were people already in the kitchen eating breakfast. Exactly what I like Sundays to be like. I like going for trips with a big group, the bigger the better, and somehow I love mornings then. Drowsy people sitting around table, one staring at the table cloth with blank eyes, couple people talking about which is the best sandwich cheese, one sipping coffee from a mug that's bigger than her head and someone going around asking who wants more of this or that. Life <3 Of course after breakfast comes the time to start cleaning up and packing. In Finland, when at the summer house, Sunday mornings were very efficient and fast for some reason. No matter if the weather was awesome we were in the car driving to the ferry before it was 12 o'clock. Since moving to Slovakia and traveling with my colleagues I've learned that Sundays can also be full of things to do before go

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