Outlandish

Listing your highlights from the past year is a common practice for social media users around the globe when the year is nearing its end. I encountered this question as early this year as October and it got me thinking... The years when I have actually achieved a lot (moving abroad; getting a job in a huge, international company; achieving a long-time dream, etc.) I never acknowledged those achievements much. Personally, of course, I was aware of what had happened and been done but I didn’t shout about it publicly. On the other hand, the few years that have truly been the most trying in my life so far I have mentioned. Usually in a form of a prayer or a heart-felt wish that the next year would please be better. So far I have gotten that wish... Most of the time. But honestly, how your next year turns out to be depends a lot on how you embark on it; do you start the year with the Finnish mentality ”it’s gonna be just as shit as the last one, nothing ever changes” or do ...

This year has been particularly bad weather-wise; we moved from Spring straight to Autumn (read: we moved from rain straight to more rain). And now it seems that global warming might ensure that in the future 'Summer' will become a word that can only be used in past tense, because warm waters (and thus weather) will flee from these latitudes. It's little bit hard to try and stay positive when the shelf of clouds on top of us is so  thick and consistent that we live in constant darkness. The difference between day and night becomes more and more obscure every day as the days also get shorter. Oh yeah, and then there's this rain. Like, non-stop rain, which I thought was a physical impossibility... Unless you live in the monsoon area, which I do not. But it turns out that there is an area, the very last corner of Europe where all clouds gather and dump their load throughout the year. And that place is called Estonia and I, an imbecile moron, decided to move here...

”Travel broadens the mind”  is a quote that everybody has probably heard. It has even been translated to almost all known languages. And the reason for this is simple: it’s true. I started my mind-broadening travels already as a teenager when I moved to Brighton, England for one summer to learn English with EF Language Travels. That trip was the starting block for my great love for England, English culture, English language and also for traveling, meeting new people and learning about life from different perspectives. Because each person you meet sees life a little bit differently, even if they come from the same country as you. I have discovered that even though each country has its own culture, and each culture has its own habits and traditions that largely define how we live our lives, in the end we human beings are all similar in so many ways. We all have the basic needs and emotions, even if in some cultures showing those emotions publicly is not considered appr...

A – Aurinko. That would be sun in Finnish. I remember an advice from my dad when I was struggling with some minor school work: “Always pick the first thing that comes to your mind. Instinct is most of the time right.” And aurinko has been on my mind constantly for months now. There’s a saying in Finnish about people talking most about the things that they lack at that very moment. And I truly lack my doze of sunshine, sun owes me three months’ worth of shine dosage! B – Bratislava. My former home city, capital of Slovakia and one of my favourite places on this planet. Everything is so cheap in Slovakia and there is a lot of what we have very little here in the North: Sun being just one them! C – Cocktails. It’s Friday, of course the answer is cocktails. D – Ducktape. I saw a glimpse of an article about how you can hide fatty parts in your body with ducktape. I didn’t bother reading the article but it brought tears of laughter in my eyes: I have done that! I have never b...

Lately Estonia has been covered under a thick layer of depressing gray clouds day and night. Darkness arrives earlier every night and it is already really cold for October, it even snowed yesterday morning! Since there are only couple days a week when I am required to be in the office I have started taking a lot of home office to be able to sleep longer. And I also want to avoid going out into the coldness as far as I can. This means that my weekends have sort of stretched to three days long and all of those three days I just lie on the couch either staring at my laptop or TV... I can't remember when I have felt so useless and as if there is absolutely no point to my life anymore. Even if somebody asks me for a drink or whatever I take one look out of the window, see the depressing clouds and people walking with thick hoods drawn over their faces and I return to the sofa... But I am not yet completely defeated! There are still some things that brighten my days in addition...

It’s a common joke in Finland that people who graduate from Universities graduate to be unemployed. Unfortunately more often than not this is very true. In my case as well as many other cases. I had a job when I was nearing graduation but in the end if I wanted to graduate by Christmas 2012 I had to finish my thesis and in order to do that I had to sacrifice a lot more time to the research and writing. So I quit a job as a sales assistant in a clothing store. Thankfully I already hated the job a lot, so quitting it wasn’t a big shock, moreover it was a positive thing. So, I graduated and after New Year had gone by I found myself “standing on nothing”. At that moment it didn’t much matter because I still had plans. And money left in my savings account to realize these plans, like going to Paris for a long weekend. But after the trip the harsh reality started setting in when I had to start applying for all sorts of jobless benefits and proving to all kinds of entities that I ...

Autumn is here. Big time. Apple trees all over are stretched to the limit trying to hold the weight of all the delicious apples hanging from their branches and the previously so warm sunshine has grown colder. I mean this, the Sun doesn't feel warm anymore. The trees are not yet yellow but most flowers have died already and the shades of yellow and orange are seeping in to parks and woods. Somehow it seems so wrong... summer was so brief, it didn't properly start at any point. We kept hoping and hoping but it never really started. And now all that weak hope is finally forgotten. But not all is bad about Autumn. Even though it's not warm anymore we have enjoyed a lot of sunshine lately. Also restaurants and shops are changing from their light summer foods to more hearty, full ingredients including vegetables and most importantly, the gold of the forest, mushrooms! A lot of people hate mushrooms because their texture can be a bit slimy and the taste can be strong...

It's August but the worst kind of Autumn has already arrived in Estonia. It has been raining eeevery day, just as it did in February for a whole month. And since it's raining all the time it's also dark, which is the most frustrating thing, because in reality it should still be light most of the day for couple more months. Until the never-ending winter darkness descends. And no matter how positive a person you are there is no way the darkness wouldn't affect you. Especially when I lived much more South it was easy to recognize from people's reactions that darkness was descending here, because people started to complain more than usual. The closer to the end of the year we got the worse the complaining got, and the array of issues worth complaining about went to stratospheric lengths. French are famous for being very big complainers but I think we Finns could beat them hands down every time. It's in our genes. But in the end no matter how much you complai...

You know how all blogs these days seem to be full of healthy breakfasts with smoothies that include cow piss and coffee made of squirrel poo and suggestions how your life is not full without a doze of something that tastes just as disgusting as it looks. While I'm very happy that people take care of their bodies' needs, I'm also extremely happy that I don't need to eat that crap. I stay healthy and, if not fit, at least relatively skinny with a normal breakfast that my very Finnish family has always enjoyed. On a normal morning at home before work I need to have my cup of coffee and I usually make a quick bread with cheese and cucumber. Nothing special but enough for me. Sometimes if I wake up a bit earlier I make porridge topped with sugar and cinnamon. That's usually for slow weekend mornings, though. But at home I get to enjoy a proper breakkie that I don't even have to cook myself. Sometimes it's scrambled eggs and bacon British ...

This gorgeous summer weather already in May (yes, up in these latitudes it’s a rarety that May is warm and sunny, usually we can expect snow any minute) is making me nuts! I’m so happy, I feel like a balloon that’s too full of helium on the brink of exploding. Any moment I might just jump up from my work chair and start climbing the walls and laugh uncontrollably without any proper reason. Just because I feel like it and it’s this woooonderful warmth and sunshine that is doing it to me! Last week I traveled home to Turku on the first morning boat. I was sooo tired and as always also quite grumpy. Before 10AM is just too early to be expected to be jolly about anything. But sitting there on the view deck at the front of the ship, watching the sun rise from the East and two swans flying diagonally past the front of the ship no matter how tired and grumpy, I smiled to myself. On Thursday morning me and my brother and his girlfriend drove to the Turku Archipelago to ...