Outlandish

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

I came across the headline's statement one day at work Googling for something or the other. And it got me thinking. I'm usually pretty good with money, I rarely buy something just for the sake of buying. I need to really want the item to willingly part with my money for it.  Women usually have a problem with this; buying things without spending much time to think whether they even need them. Especially now that buying online has been made soo easy and returning the items after trying them on is free for the biggest companies. But I have a lot of friends who are just too lazy to go through the return ordeal so in the end they keep the items and plan to maybe sell them or give them away to charity later. I'm not big on shopping online, I like to know at the moment of paying that this shirt fits me and is the colour that it is supposed to be. I also don't have patience when there is something that I want so I don't like waiting for the items to arrive. 

Along the years I've had many homes around Europe, but four of them I still consider as a home to go back to long after moving away: Turku (obviously), Brighton, Aberdeen and Bratislava. So, how can someone who has moved abroad multiple times always forget how expensive it is?! Well, here I am in my awesome new home counting whether I can afford to eat at all for the next three weeks or should I just not buy a vacuum cleaner and live surrounded by dust and stuff...   Even if I have to go on a hard core fast I have to say I'm bloody happy to have this flat! Before I've always stayed in furnished flats because I didn't plan to stay long. But usually in furnished rental flats the furniture is far from nice, so this time I opted for an empty flat so that I could see whether I have any taste for home decor at all.  People tend to spend a lot of time figuring out the furniture in their new apartment one piece at a time. I had a week to figure out the decor

In most of the Western countries florists are rubbing their hands together happily because the day when they sell the most roses (or pink and red flowers) is upon us. Valentine's Day, or the Finnish version Friends' Day (Ystävänpäivä). Couple interesting facts about Valentine's Day; in the USA 19% of women buy and send flowers to themselves. And in Japan it is traditional for women to dote on men with chocolates etc. unlike in Europe or the United States where it's the other way around.  Anyway, while Valentine's Day has become little more than an excuse for women to demand their counterparts to present them with whatever from expensive jewelry to huge boxes of chocolate, I also think that is a very discriminating day. It celebrates couples, and only couples, even though many people these days don't even want to engage in a relationship when the social pressures (family honour, etc.) are in most countries gone.  I would much rather like to see t

So far I've seen Slovaks and Finns to be very similar in culture and behaviour. But on Friday I had a cold reality call when it turned out that the salaries were nowhere to be seen. And what in Finland would end up in big headlines is taken with complete ignorance here. Ever since our teams were outsourced there have been problems from switching between work systems to salaries. Last month the salaries were late for one day and we were ensured that it would never happen again. Of course we believed it. Now it turns out that we shouldn't have: salaries were late for days. In Finland you go to work, remember it's the pay day, check your account and if it turns out that the salary hasn't even been transferred yet, you would turn on your heels and return home... Who would work without being paid? Apparently Slovaks would.  I was so furious I couldn't concentrate on anything, it was just so against all my principles to keep working when other people i

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