Love and roots

Oh, hello, my old blog! 

All of your followers have probably disappeared, sorry about that. But I have things to tell you, so I'm back!

Kävelin kivisiä katuja,

ajelin kehäteitä.

Hiihtelin elämäni latuja,

ajattelin meitä,

kuinka nuorina tahdoimme

päästä maailman syliin.

Minkä sille me mahdoimme:

jäätiin maalikyliin.

--

Näissä elämän vesikeleissä

hahmottuvat haasteemme suuret.

Tärkeintä loppupeleissä

on rakkaus ja juuret.

I may have done the most radical thing I've ever done. I moved to Finland in August.

Making the decision to move took a lot longer than my decision to move to Scotland. That was something I didn't even have to think about. But moving to Finland was a tough decision to make.

I had fears that I would just "move back" and get stuck. I was worried that Finland would be cold and dark and I that would just get depressed and scared of life. — But actually: Scotland is cold and dark and I had been living there for 7 years. That's almost a decade. Practically (if you use a little bit of imagination and don't think about it too hard or precisely), a 3rd of my life. So I was about to get stuck there and wanted to try something else. I could have moved to somewhere completely different: Germany, Sweden, Japan...?

But no, Finland was worth a try. I had never lived here as an adult before. I have a 5-year old sister and a 3-year old goddaughter. It was about a time to get to know them. Being a bit closer to be able to meet them a bit more often wouldn't be so bad, right?

So I tried it.

I moved to Finland with my new kitten. And so far it's been awesome. I've probably never been this happy. And maybe it's time to share some of this happiness with you! Goodbye depression blog, hello happiness blog! That's kind of what the blog was about in the first place though, but maybe it's good to inform you about the fact that I've just had the best autumn of my life.

Finland has been so sunny. I've met dozens of fantastic people. I feel really extroverted in Finland compared to typical Finns you find in the streets. Well duh, who speaks to strangers in the street? (Apparently me.)  I thought I might be lonely if I lived alone, but it's been quite the opposite. Now, I actually have to leave the house to socialise and apparently I do that. Sometimes I also have guests over. And I have a cat, so there is no boring times at home ever. Not that I even know how to get bored.

I've started a new hobby and somehow got a temporary job where I'm allowed to drink water and go to the toilet. And all of my best friends live really close to me so I actually get to see them more than a couple of times a year. Instead of random messages I now get phone calls of whether I can meet them for coffee straight away. It's so crazy after so many years of communicating primarily online.

I love my friends, I love my life, I love my cat, and my roots are here. This city I moved to has been completely new to me, but maybe I'll grow some of my roots here. Some of them I left behind in Scotland. Roots all over the place. 

Year 2014 - autumn!

Hi!

So now it's time for the second part of this 2014 reminiscing thing I thought I'd do. In case you missed the first half, here's months January - June.

...So what happened in the autumn 2014?

July

July started with a trip to the vet. My cat died, and we buried him. I was very sad. I also spent a lot of time with my family members and best friends while I was still in Finland. I went to see my brother's first own flat, went strawberry picking with my sister and went to the Moominland with my best friends and goddaughter. Soon it was time to get back home to Scotland, but the weather was actually really lovely and warm so I got to go to the beach a couple of times before that! After that the rest of the month was just routine: working either early mornings or afternoons and getting home really late. 

These picture collages actually make my time in Finland look really long. It was actually less than two weeks, but it just happened to be the end of June and beginning of July and the most significant thing that happened to me in the summer.

August

August was actually pretty cool. I discovered my new favourite beer: Tsingtao 青島啤酒廠, a Chinese beer. There was also Aurora International Festival 2014 : a group of French folk dancers travelled from Toulouse to Aberdeen by bus (!) to perform their dances and to experience the Scottish culture. I went to a couple of their events and had a great time - they were such lovely people!

But the best thing in August was Manchester Pride Festival. It was such an amazing and well organised event! They had so many things going on and the whole Manchester Gay Village was accessible only with the festival wristband (which was really cheap considering all the events included in it!) which made it feel really safe as well. During a regular weekend, Manchester is fantastic compared to Aberdeen. Instead of one gay bar you get a whole street full of them plus a couple of extras but during the Pride Weekend it was just incredible! I spoke to one straight girl who had come to the festival just because she thought it would be a great event and she was so excited she said she would come back next year too. (So that's this year! Who wants to come with me?!) It was like one of these big all-weekend music festivals that I've been to before in my life but with all sorts of amazing extras. And really good performers. I'm so excited I saw Heather Peace, Foxes and Conchita Wurst. From front row. ... Aaahhh!  

Also, I sent my mum a postcard from Pride. That's something I thought I'd never do. Last time I went to a Pride Festival I had to lie to her and claim that I went somewhere else.

September

Carrying on with this theme of each months highlight being a trip somewhere: September was about Crete. I had never been to a beach holiday before. I had actually never travelled anywhere where it would be sunny or warm. My previous holiday destinations have ranged between Alaskan tundra, an uninhabited island in the middle of the North Sea, Germany in the winter etc. So I guess you can imagine my excitement? And perhaps understand that only 5% of the clothes I packed were actually even suitable for such weather conditions. It was so hot. What is that madness of not needing a jacket? Even in the evening? Mediterranean was such a beautiful and lovely place. I smothered myself with sun screen and enjoyed the sun and a few great cocktails. I was so pleased with the expensive sandals I had bought for this trip. I didn't want to wear anything else during this trip.

That trip was just so much more amazing than the new green coke – Coca-Cola Life –  that has 37% less white sugar because it has been replaced by Stevia sugar. But it was probably the most exciting thing in my life to happen in September besides the holiday. I mean, green coke. What is that?

October

October was wet. Very wet. And I was getting a bit tired. I went swimming, but it was pretty much the only excitement in my life. I felt a bit lonely as well. I was working only evenings anymore which I didn't really like – I preferred to have a mixture of late and early shifts. I wasn't really happy with how things were in my life. I started applying for new jobs and funding to go back to uni.

November

In November I got early shifts again and got to run to work with the bunnies before dawn! It made me feel so much better. I was also feeling really Christmassy since at work there had been all sorts of Christmas stuff going on for over a month already. So I put our Christmas tree up mid-November and listened to a lot of Christmas music. I also attended my work's Christmas party which was quite an experience... Before that I, however, had a sophisticated day trip to Fraserburgh's Lighthouse Museum which I would like to visit again, because we didn't actually have enough time to go and see the actual lighthouse.

Finland's government passed the equal marriage law which was a good reason for a wee celebration and some bubbly wine! It went well with some fajitas and a good lesbian movie Better Than Chocolate. 

I also had another successful job interview! I decided not to take it though because I also got money to go back to university.

December

December was fabulous. I quit my job and flew to Finland where I spent the first three days sweating and having problems breathing because the houses were so warm and the air was so very dry. And then there was snow! And my brother had a new kitten! And I went on a Turku-Stockholm party cruise twice! And there was Christmas and I loved all the lovely Christmas trees and all the yummy food!

I also turned 25 in December which is a bit scary because it's a quarter of a century which makes me sound really old. Like should I be sensible and know what I'm doing in life? I know nothing. But it's OK. I had a small birthday outing on my actual birthday but it ended up being like a double date in a table reserved for 10 people in a restaurant. It was a bit embarrassing, but at least the most important people were there. So much for those friends who didn't show up. But Tiia offered me a birthday dinner in a fancy restaurant when I arrived in Finland and afterwards we went to see Turku Christmas market!

I also liked that silly white T-shirt. I took that picture when I first saw it before Christmas and bought it later in January sales. Now I can wear it and be creepy.

The end. 

Okay, life goes on, and 2015 looks fairly promising!

Year 2014 - spring!

Happy new year, guys!

... Okay, I admit that my plan was to do this post last month. But better late than never, eh?

I did a similar post last year and found it really therapeutic to say goodbye to the year 2013. So I think it's worth it to review what happened in my life in 2014 as well. Maybe it will remind me of my mistakes so that I can learn from then? And more importantly I can see what I've achieved last year so that I can be proud of it. And maybe after this it will be easier to focus on this year and the future.

This has potential to be a bit long, so I'm going to do this in two parts.

So what happened in spring 2014?

January

I welcomed the year 2014 in a small Finnish town with my friends. We stood on a muddy field with sparklers. I had bought myself a fancy new camera with objectives and everything for a Christmas present and had great intentions to learn to use it. 

We sailed to Stockholm with my friends and had a great day out in rainy and wintery Stockholm. When Reseda and Anna would sail back to Finland, Mayumi and I were supposed to catch an evening flight to London. But of course there were problems. We had locked our suitcases, passports and plane tickets into a locker at the ferry terminal. But we hadn't realised to check what time the ferry terminal would close and of course the place was empty and the doors were locked when we returned there to collect our luggage just before our train would leave to the airport. Fortunately, we managed to catch the security guard before he went home. It was his first day! Thankfully, he was lovely and helped us to get back into the building to get our stuff, and we made it back to UK in one piece.

Before travelling back up to Scotland I spent a couple of days in my favourite city, Oxford. I visited J.R.R. Tolkien's grave and just wandered around the familiar streets and felt nostalgic.

When we got back to Aberdeen, Mayumi and I decided to compare whether differently priced Jaffa cakes actually tasted any different. They did. The medium priced were the best ones.

February

In February the sun started shining and Aberdeen didn't seem quite as miserable anymore. I decided that I needed to do something with my life and to start living again. I started yoga. I applied for jobs. I got contact lenses. I travelled to a job interview in Glasgow — and for the first time in my life it was successful job interview! My favourite shop, Lush, was campaigning for equal love. We also had a lovely candlelit Valentine's double date night. Also, our flatmate's Japanese boyfriend was visiting and we organised a road trip to visit some Scottish castles.

March

In March, Satu and I visited Manchester, bought some Lush bath bombs and may have ended up having a bath wearing our party dresses after a wee exploration trip to Canal Street. 

I also went to another job interview, got offered another job and started working in Aberdeen. And that's how the era of riding buses began.

April

In April, I had a lot of early mornings which involved getting up at 3am and running out of the door to catch a my bus to work. Those mornings were made a lot better by our neighbourhood bunnies who ran down the street with me. I really loved living there! Working was exciting but commuting for 3 hours everyday was tiring and I started drinking a lot of coffee.

I had a wee holiday too! I travelled to London to go to #rosweglyn -event, to meet "role models for the next generation of gay girls", also known as, "One venue, a handful of YouTubers and 600 screaming lesbians". I was quite excited to go to this thing! I got to meet Kaelyn and Lucy, who I had been following for a long time! And it certainly didn't make it less exciting that two other lesbian youtuber couples: Wegan (Megan and Whitney) and The Roses (Rose and Rosie) were going to be there too. Because Youtube has become sort of like my best friend, I obviously have been watching their videos too. Unfortunately,  Rose ended up in hospital that morning and wasn't able to be there.

May

This was fairly work-orientated month. I took photos of animals I met on my way to work each morning. It was dark, so I'm sure you understand that my phone wasn't able to produce high-quality photos. But I was so happy about meeting these animals! In May, I also finally got paid and celebrated that by buying a new hand bag and eating some fancy Japanese-style food. I also moved to a new flat, and then back to the old flat because the new one sucked. I also got myself a pool and sauna membership to the new aquatics centre. It was so good for me to dip into a pool after a long day of work and then to relax in the sauna. It made such a difference! And afterwards I liked to go to the pub to get a glass of cheap champagne.

June

I enjoyed summer in my favourite neighbourhood and admired our local Pictish standing stones. Then I received some bad news from Finland and travelled to see my poorly cat. Jonna happened to be hosting a breastfeeding celebration party so I travelled to her village to spend time with her and my goddaughter and some friends. We also got a chance to explore my hometown's dangerous nightlife... The same night, there was someone trying to get into a nightclub with a scythe. I don't know why my mum thinks the rest of the world is dangerous, when this sort of thing happens when I visit home.

So that was the first half. Here's the second half.

Do you enjoy looking back to see what you have done last year? I think I've seen some apps on Facebook that do that for you without you needing to dig through your photo albums like I did for this post. Oh, and if you have written similar posts yourself, feel free to link them to me!

We stayed.

Guess what?

We decided to stay here with the bunnies and all the happiness. It's far from some places, but sometimes far away is good. We have our own things that are close to us. There's a river, a 24-hour supermarket, fantastic foresty jogging route and a little park with a Pictish standing stone. This is our home.

It's been quite a busy week moving back and forth. I really recommend to everyone to move away or to pretend to move away if you ever feel unhappy. It really makes you appreciate your life at your current place more. Unless you actually feel happy about moving  – then you should probably just move.

But I've never been this happy before in the Bunnyland. I mean, I've been really happy living here, but I feel that I've never appreciated this place quite this much. We had some friends over for dinner on Friday, and we showed them around our house, our surroundings and even took them for a magical shopping trip to our local supermarket. It was lovely to see that they were as excited about this place as we are. They even said that they understand why we want to live this far from the university.

I'm also really excited about summer! I even managed to dry some laundry outside at the weekend. I've also been looking at garden furniture recently. It would be nice to sit and eat outside.

Laundry and dinner party weren't the only things that happened this weekend. We also went to a Moulin Rouge themed ball on Saturday. It was kind of a one-year-together celebration for us. And also a good excuse to dress up.

It's almost Christmas!

Today I woke up. (Well yeah, that alone is quite an achievement for me...)

And I realised that there's only a couple of days left until I'll be trying to fly to Snowland for Christmas. And I have't even eaten all the chocolates in my advent calendar! Also, the snow is not guaranteed. Thank you global warming. But I wish there will be snow!

I have spent the three most recent Christmases in Scotland. But this year it's time to do some crazy flying around Europe and sleeping at airports to get to the Finnish Christmas Wonderland.

Finland, the land of trees and snow.

I have bad experience of flights being delayed, cancelled, diverted and whatever other things could happen to them. So I never really expect to get where I am trying to fly. You can read about it more in my post "About unexpected situations!". From past experience I am flying via Scandinavia, because they are more prepared for snow and will not close the airports like the rest of the Europe tends to do. And when I say Scandinavia, I really mean Scandinavia. First we're flying from Aberdeen to Stavanger, Norway. From there we fly to Copenhagen, Denmark. And from Denmark we fly to Helsinki!

Helsinki Cathedral. Or the "Church of Doom" as the Finns like to call it.

I quite look forward to spending Christmas in Finland this year. I'm taking Laura with me and we'll see where we end up spending it. We've been invited to three different households on Christmas Eve. Fortunately all of them are in the same town.

But Christmas in Finland is fun! Teletubbies even made an episode of it.

That's exactly what it used to be like in my childhood! I'm not sure what I'm going to wear this Christmas, now when I don't have an elf costume.

Loimaa, the little town in Proper Finland where we're going to spend Christmas, is not that bad either. As long as there is Christmas food, Christmas tree and my cat. It might even be enjoyable. It's a small town - most of which is agricultural field or forest. It's name basically means "countryside". The greatest landmark is the grain elevator - the huge building for storing the crops. They even put fancy lights on it.

Loimaa! Photo by 16valve at taloforum.fi.

But what! I didn't realise it was almost flying time already! I better get on with doing laundry and packing. I can't really do laundry without emptying my suitcase that I currently use as a laundry basket. And I can't pack anything because I am almost out of clean clothes. And if I start doing things with it I could just start piling Christmas presents in it already. Tomorrow I'm also going to meet a friend I haven't seen since first year, do the rest of the Christmas shopping and then go to our Japanese society's Christmas meal! Where having hot pot. I'm so bad at eating hot pot, but thankfully there will be skillful people there to help me.

Icy Tampere.

Can you feel the Christmas approaching?

Stories from Finland

Hello!

Guess what? I have a new favourite song! I really wanted to share it with you.

This song is by a new Finnish band called Sallan ja Miron matka maailman ympäri, which means “Salla and Miro's trip around the world”. These two young Finns make their own music – Miro composes and writes their songs and Salla sings. Miro also plays instruments and sometimes sings. There are also two other members in the band – the boys, Aku and Aarni sitting on the bench in the video.

For a moment I had thought there was nothing worth listening to coming from Finland these days. My favourite bands had either quit or started a long break. But then I discovered this band! And they haven't even released their first album yet.

I also think that this music video is fantastic. It has all of my favourite things in it! Finnish summer, planes and holding hands. To be fair, I like everything about this video. It's different in an ordinary way, and it's cute and happy!

I don't listen to music very often anymore. And when I do, I mostly just want to hear happy music. I have heard enough angry and depressing music already. I probably could listen to something like that, if I was angry or depressed at the time – but these days I just want to be happy. And it's a lot easier if there is happy music playing in the background.

In this song, Tarinoita - “Stories”, she's singing about how she's not sure if she wants her to tag along. She's asking her to tell stories – and it's irrelevant whether they are true – in order to get to know her better.

She asks three questions:

1. Can you ride a horse?

2. Do you believe in God?

3. Could you save me?

In the end she concludes that it's pointless to beg the world for love or forgiveness – and that she does want her to tag along.

When it's summmer in Finland, I like to sit in a cage with a cat.

Did you like the song?

First times

Someone once said that you should try and do something new everyday. After spending a year mostly sitting alone in my room, it sounds very extreme to me. But it also sound like something I should really try to do!

This week I've done many things!

I've drank champagne dressed up in sequins,

There's just no space for unhappiness if you have champagne and sequins.

had a house party at my flat,

There were two of my favourite people and two people I had never met before.
The blinds fell down and the floor I had just washed got very sticky.

broken some rules,

We also polkaed on the beach barefoot.

found a random taxi driver who was just picking up his wife from work and convinced him to take me to the airport to catch a flight that was supposed to leave in 45 minutes.

Miraculously we made it although the check-in desk had already closed when we got there.

And stroked a hairless cat dressed up as a dinosaur.

Thank you, Henri!

It's been a busy week.

Other than that I've come to realise that I have no idea what I'm going to do with my life. But this year has taught me that trying to keep working when life is full of stress and there's no happiness – it's not worth it. If I had known what I know now, I probably would have quit earlier. My life involved long days of trying to keep on top of my part-time job that was there to help me pay my rent and doing all of the uniwork for my masters. I felt too busy and too stressed out to meet friends in my very limited free time which I mostly spent crying alone at home, and as the year went on I became too nervous to even try and meet up with anyone. It was a very lonely year. My job was lonely as well, I was working alone when there was no one else there and my class situation at the university alarmingly reminded me of secondary school. I felt socially lonely – which is even a worse feeling than just feeling lonely when you're on your own.

That's not how I imagined my life to be. When I was little and obsessed with the TV series Friends, I wished that one day my life would be like theirs: I would live with my friends, have fun and they would be there for me when it hasn't been my day, month or even a year.

But basically, after somehow (barely) surviving this year, I want this all to change. I am currently looking for a flat where I could live with friends. Haven't found anything yet, and am mentally preparing myself to live in a cardboard box, but at least I don't want to be alone anymore. I also never again want to be in such a toxic environment that it's slowly killing me. If one day, for instance, I would manage to get a job, where I have to work with complete arseholes who are not treating me nicely and try to smoke me out, I am not going to stick around to see whether they mange to mess up my life or not. All I want from my future from now on, is happiness and I am not ready to negotiate it anymore.

Have you done anything new for the first time recently?

How to pack?

Good evening*.


*Or which ever time of the day it is when you're reading this. For me it's an evening, although that's not what the clock says.

I'm contemplating packing. This is a very essential part of my strategy for packing. It's unintentional, and I definitely don't recommend packing around midnight, but this is how it happens to me every time, and I've learned to accept it. I'm just unable to pack too early (20 minutes before I actually need to rush out of the door is the point when I usually start feeling like it might be the time to actually do it), so I decided to take this time and use it to write to you about packing and how to do it wisely.

My friend Tiia packing.

1. Before you go anywhere you need to think about where you're going. Well duh, that's quite an obvious thing really. But then you should apply this and think what you actually need with you, and leave all the unnecessary things that you normally would use at home. For instance, if you're going to stay with grown-up guests or in a hotel there's no point filling half of your backpack with a towel because you will be provided one when you get there. And you definitely don't need things like your hair-straightener if you're going camping and won't even have electricity.

I'm starting my journey to Finland tomorrow (in my opinion and experience, it's not proper travelling if you arrive to your final destination too soon). I'm going to visit my friends and family for approximately a weekend. Therefore this blog post will only tell you how to pack for short visits. I will write about packing for longer visits and proper touristy trips later.

Tampere, Finland.

2. Once you know where you're going (it of course gets trickier if you don't know where you're going but I will discuss that problem in my next packing post as well) you need to think about what you're going to do there. I would recommend writing these things down so you can see the whole picture. But if you don't feel like using it, you just have to trust your brain to keep all of it in order. And if you forget something, you can only blame your brain.

The special things that I'm going to be doing are:

a) Seeing my cat.

b) Getting my hair cut.

c) Going to my brother's army vow.

d) Going to my friend's leaving party.

e) Visiting a friend who moved to a new flat in Helsinki.

Remus the Cat.

3. Once you have these things down it's easy to think them through and gather things that you need in these occasions.

For the happening (a) I need myself because my cat likes me. 

For the happening (b) I need my hair messy and too long. 

For the happening (c) I probably need something slightly sensible, although I have no idea what is going to happen there. According to my mum it will involve a lot of standing on a cold and windy motordrome looking at things happen. She told me that I should wear lots of clothes because she heard that last January some mothers nearly froze to death because they weren't wearing enough clothes. Well, it was -20 in January and according to the weather forecast it will be 40 degrees warmer this time, so I wouldn't really worry about freezing and can leave my fur coat at home. And after standing on the motordrome I will go and dine with the soldiers and my brother's girlfriend. So sensible clothes might be the way forward although I do love my giraffe t-shirt.

For the happening (d) I need my ridiculous high heels because this is a chance to wear them if we end up going out. And because she hosts a leaving party because she's moving to UK, and I'm flying from the UK to go to her party, which is a little bit silly, I must keep up the ridiculousness level.

For the happening (e) I probably would need a boat, because there seems to be a lot of water on the roads in Helsinki every time I try to approach it with a car. The other day, someone was swimming on the road there. But I am not likely to have space for a boat in my backpack so I just have to live without it and hope for the best. My friend also told me that I'm allowed to come and visit if I bring something really expensive as a house-warming gift. Therefore I will pack an empty Ben&Jerry's ice cream tub. She collects them and it's only good if it's already empty because the ice cream would just melt and it would be messy.

Turku.

4. Once you have all of your special bits and pieces gathered you can pretty much see how big a bag you require. The size of the bag will also depend on how you're travelling and what you're allowed to take with you.

I'm flying with Ryanair with only hand-luggage. This means that I am only allowed to have myself and one bag. I am however allowed to wear a lot of clothes and to have a jacket on and fill my pockets. This is why so many people look like they are pregnant when they are flying with cheap airlines. This time I'm not going to do that, but I'm going to wear my woolly winter coat "just in case it's cold in Finland". If I needed to take a lamp-shade with me, I would have to wear it as a hat.

Everything that I am not wearing will need to go into my backpack. I am not allowed to have a handbag when I walk onto the plane but no one will stop me if I walk out with one. My backpack can therefore be as full as it can as long as there is still space for my handbag to fit in it for the 5 minutes that it takes to walk onto the plane. It's also probably a good idea to pack an empty carrier bag somewhere near the top of your backpack in case you get a slightly too warm on the plane wearing all of your extra layers and want to take them off.

So how am I going to pack the silly things I need to take with me: the high heels and the empty ice cream tub? 

The high heels take a lot of space so there is no point trying to fit them anywhere in my luggage. There is also no point trying to run across the airport wearing them. Thus, I will carry them in my handbag (a carrier bag works too if your handbag isn't big enough) until I need to fit everything in my backpack at the gate. Then I will wear them until I'm through the passport check on the other side. Not so that my mum and grandma would faint, but because it's not a long walk and doesn't involve any running.

The ice cream tub can go in the backpack once it's filled with clothes that will support it's structure so that it will keep it's beautiful rounded shape. I will just have to remember to remove the clothes before I gift-wrap it or my friend might be a little bit surprised why I am giving her my old odd socks in an ice cream tub.

Gilmore Girls.

5. Add all of the other required things, excluding the ones you decided where unnecessary at the point 1.

I warmly recommend taking:

a) Underwear (believe me, it's embarrassing if you forget them)

b) A clean top for each day (if it's a short stay without a possibility of doing laundry or if you're not going on a shopping holiday)

c) Toothbrush

d) Small toilet bag including your medication

e) Travel documents (make sure you have your passport when you're OUTSIDE. You don't want to get to the airport/another passport check point and realise that you did check that you had it before you left but then put it down on your desk at home.)

f) Phone and camera 

And that's all you need unless you have some souvenirs to take to someone. If for some reason you feel like you need something else, keep it to minimum. For instance, you do not need your whole make-up bag. And if you're flying you need to pop most of it into a mini-grip bag anyway, so take only a small selection of them. If for some reason you're flying you have a suitcase for a short trip, you are probably taking too much stuff with you. If you have an empty suitcase on the way there, it's ok because it means that you're going to renew all of your wardrobe and do your next weeks grocery shopping wherever you're going. It's alright, I already know someone who does that.

Landing in Finland.

6. Close the bag and go to sleep. Or run to the station/bus stop/taxi/one-of-those-other-things-that-move.

Of course I haven't done any of this yet, because I've been writing to you here. So now I will need to go and do just what I explained to you. And possibly eat some ice cream.