I'm a traveller.

Hello!

Remember my "...andthatswhoiam" -posts? They can be found under the tag being myself. I used them as a method of therapy, because I struggled with situations when I had to introduce myself or tell someone about myself. It clearly helped because I actually went to a job interview last Friday!

But I haven't actually shown you all the pictures that I chose from that website last autumn! So now I'm going to tell you a little bit more about myself.

I love travelling. I want to see everything. I feel like the best thing to spend your money on is to travel and see all the different places and meet people who come from different backgrounds than you do. It will widen your views and help you grow as a person. You will get memories that you'll never forget. It will help you become less materialistic and you'll start to appreciate your experiences more.

Travelling has probably always been my favourite thing to do. I'm from a small town, but it does have a travel agency. I used to go there and carry a copy of all of their brochures home. I loved looking at all the pictures and dreaming of all the places I could go to.  Unfortunately, my mum's idea of travelling was to catch a ferry to Sweden, and to stay on it and head back home straight away, without even setting a foot on the ground. Once I was old enough to travel, I cached one of those ferries and went to see what Sweden really looked like.

I'm the exploring kind of traveller. I find it hard to just do what the tourist guide book tells me. I want to find out things myself. I might go to the tourist information to get a map, in case I get lost (which unsurprisingly happens quite a lot), but my favourite activity is to just wander around aimlessly in a new city. I've never been on a beach holiday, because I think I'd find it difficult to just lie there getting burned, when I could be exploring all the suspicious side alleys and getting to know some interesting local people.

Did I ever mention that I'm a big Doctor Who fan? How many TARDIS-themed things have you noticed on my blog? The whole concepts of being able to travel through space and time really fascinates me. There must be more out there. And there is a reason why I ended up with a degree in Archaeology. But I'm stuck in this time and our planet. Which really isn't that bad after all. Exciting things are happening in our time, with all the digitalisation and equality movements. Scary and awful things are happening too, and there are many places I don't even want to travel to at the moment thanks to their political situation. But there's still at least half a planet left which I could and would like to explore.

I strongly believe that understanding the language of the place you travel to helps you get more out of the trip. The more you understand the language the more you understand the culture. And vice versa. Travelling is also the key to learning languages. When you need to find a Burger King in Spain, you suddenly can understand those instructions in Spanish. Or at least I found my way to the Burger King. I also learned to pronounce it the Spanish way.

I've never been to Asia, but I've got really interested in Japanese, Korean and Chinese cultures recently. I thought that Japanese might be the easiest Asian language for me to learn first, so now I've started planning a trip to Japan. It will happen once I feel that I've learned enough Japanese to get the most out of that trip!

I have a funny feeling that the only reason why I've watched all of the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit films is the fact that they are shot in New Zealand. That's one place I would really love to travel to. Originally, I wanted to spend an exchange year there, but it never happened. It's the furthest place on Earth I could travel to, which probably makes it even more exciting.

I have lived in a couple of different countries. I've lived in England and Germany for a month, and in Finland and Scotland for years. All of those countries have a place that feels like a home to me. Sometimes I meet people in Scotland who hear that I'm a foreigner and ask me "so where's home?" They think it's a cunning way to phrase the question: "where are you from?", but I always find it a little bit insulting. Do they mean I'm not welcome here, and want me to go back where I came from? I don't want to go back. I want to find a place I belong. The question is also difficult, because I find Scotland to be my home just as much as Finland is. I'm from Finland but I live here now. And I'm not sure where I want to move next. 

But okay, my home is in Europe. For now at least.

Finnish people don't make friends easily, which is kind of a problem. I have, however, met amazing people from all over the world. I wish I'd find it more natural to open up to people and actually make life-long friends and to stay in touch more.

I've always thought that the best cure for depression is to go travelling. I've never felt sad or depressed while travelling. Everything in this world is just too amazing, to feel depressed. Depression is like being stuck. If you don't realise that you're free to go and do anything, you will feel depressed. If you ever feel suicidal, just sell everything you own and use that money to go travelling. As far as possible, and you might find the reason to live again.

I love learning to get to know this planet. I want to explore my options before I decide where I want to settle down to. I feel that there's no point feeling miserable with my life, if I don't want to go and see how people live elsewhere. Maybe there's a place that is more suitable for me than the place where I'm now? And if not, there's nothing better than that feeling of coming back home.

P.S. Here's a map of the places I've conquered so far.

It's fairly Western Europe centred so far, but I'm working on it.

I pinned these places on the TripAdvisor app on Facebook. And then I mangled it a little bit on Paint, because I hate the way Google Maps stretch the North. Unfortunately this app doesn't have all the places I've been to. I'm especially sad that North Rona is missing. But according to this app, I've visited 17 countries, which is 13% of the world. That sounds like a good start!

I honestly, don't know where I'm going next. But I like to keep my options open.

The space theme is back!

Well, hello there!

Remember when my blog background had a TARDIS floating in space? 

From wattpad.

I thought it was awesome, but then I wanted to use a more personal photo. So I chose this New York City background that I took myself. There was a disastrous accident though, and I had lost the original photo. Fortunately, I had uploaded my New York holiday photos on Facebook. I decided not to care about the worsened quality and changed my background photo. Laura was lovely and spent ages changing it into a form that would be suitable for a background. She told me that I wouldn't be allowed to change my background for a half a year after all that work.

But I missed the space theme! And the TARDIS. 

So TA-DAH! I made myself a fantastic space themed banner where I'm checking out the strange planet of Stockholm and wearing my new TARDIS earrings. Isn't this genius? And completely appropriate for a 24-year old.

How do you find this new appearance? Do you like it?

Non-disastrous family holidays?

Happy new year, bunnies!

I hope all of you had enjoyable holidays! My holidays this year were different. For me. For most people it's probably normal to spend Christmas at their childhood home and see lots of family members, but I hadn't done that for 3 years. And this time I brought someone with me! There was some great potential for holiday conflicts.

Is it too late to tell you about my Christmas? I mean it's so last year... But nevermind! Last Christmas was such a positive surprise for me that I'm going to tell you about it anyway. I didn't get the snow I was hoping to see but everything else went very well.

I've never spent a Christmas with a partner before. As much as I've enjoyed spending my Christmas Eves wrapping presents in a Harry Potter -like cupboard at the bottom of the stairs in my friend's house in Edinburgh, it felt more meaningful to light up candles to family graves and warm up afterwards in the sauna with Laura. She met all of my family members and I met hers. And to my great surprise, everyone was nice to each other. I still can't believe how well my family behaved and how nice and welcoming Laura's family was! Did I mention that her sister made me TARDIS earrings?

Laura and I stayed at my mum's place over the Christmas. On Christmas Eve we had dinner at my grandparents, and then visited graveyards. In the evening, we went and had dessert at my grandparents' friends' house. My brother wasn't pleased about all these activities, because he was very keen on opening the presents. But we did get home before midnight to open them! On Christmas morning, my best Loimaa-friend, Anna, and I went to church. I tried to take Laura with me but, she told me that if I wanted her not to be grumpy for the rest of the day, I'd better let her sleep. But later that day, Laura and I went to Anna's and and a little Christmas celebration with her. 

On Boxing Day it was time to dine with my Dad's family at my grandad's. After that Laura and I drove to Hyvinkää to her sister's place, so that we all would be ready to go and visit her grandparents on 27th. With all of these scary family meetings, and introducing Laura to my grandparents, I had completely forgotten to be nervous about meeting her grandparents. But I was welcomed in with lots of hugs! And I found my godfather's meat boutique's products in their fridge. It wasn't really what I expected to find there, considering that we were 200 kilometres from the boutique. But again, we ate more good Finnish Christmas food, and got an opportunity to use their wood-heated sauna.

But Christmas is not the only thing to celebrate in December. My mum turned 50 on New Year's Eve and we had the biggest Birthday-Hogmanay party that we've ever had. And my friend Tiia graduated as a occupational therapist which of course was a great reason for a party. First she came and celebrated with just Laura and me in Loimaa's vibrant nightlife, and between Christmas and Hogmanay she had a party at her place in Turku.

I am so happy that I got a chance to spend so time with my best Finnish friends. And there were many opportunities to enjoy saunas! And to drink coffee. Sauna, Finnish coffee and my cat are the three things I miss the most when I'm in Scotland.

It was such a relaxing holiday. I thought that meeting so many family members would be stressful, but somehow hardly any of it was. The things were about to get a bit steamy when my mum got stressed out about our packing. I can understand that it maybe looked disastrous with two hardly closing suitcases, and a couple of over-filled backpacks and handbags. Especially when my only shoes broke and I had to buy new ones on our departure day. But instead of a huge fight, we managed to escape and went to drink some coffee with my friend Jonna and my goddaughter. We came up with great plans to go and see Moomins next summer!

This holiday was exactly what I needed. Especially when we had some mini-holidays on the way back. When it's cheaper to travel via Stockholm and Oxford, it's always a great idea to stop and enjoy those places as well. Stockholm was cute and Oxford was the best as always. I hadn't been to Oxford for 5½ years, but it was still just as wonderful as I remembered it! But I'll tell you more about our return journey and the adventures we faced in another post.

Is there something you would like me to write more about? 

Love confessions

Oh look, it's December!

It's time to open our advent calendars! Mine is a Hello Kitty one. Yesterday I was telling my girlfriend about my nightmares and about how I probably would get nightmares if I ever had to enter a house of someone who is obsessed with Hello Kitty. Then I was trying to light candles, dropped the burning match and nearly set the carpet and my leopard patterned blanket on fire. In the end it was all okay, except my finger that now has a Hello Kitty plaster on it. Don't play with matches or this might happen to you.

To celebrate the start of this crazy party month, I thought it would be time for some self-examining "...and that's who I am" picture therapy. For me. But you can do this too if you haven't already!  In the meantime you're just welcome to learn more about my secrets.

This time I'm going to tell you about things I love. Except I find love as a very strong word and almost never use it. It makes me sound too passionate. And I'm not a passionate person! Or maybe I am, but just don't want to show people that I am? To be honest, I'm just overly worried about people finding out what things I really like or even love. Because then they'll know how to hurt me most. And it will leave me in a really vulnerable position. By telling people that I generally like many things but nothing in general will leave them in a lot less clueless position and then they can just mock me about things I don't really care about! But then only those, who I will tell my secrets to, will really know anything about me. But maybe it's time to change that.

Would you like to hear confessions about my feelings?

Less than a month left

Hello people!

As you can see, I changed my blog background, isn't it magical? Seriously, let me know if it's too bright, too dark or in some other way irritating.

Okay, and to the topic, I have less than a month left. After that I can get my life back, move into a closet and feel like a Harry Potter. But before that I have to write 10,000 words about how amazing Greenland is. I hate writing posts relating to my dissertation, but it is the biggest thing I've have to do in my life so far. If I will ever end up having a baby, I would probably blog about that too. But because a dissertation is a lot less exciting than a baby, I will try and not blog too much about it. But today it felt important to tell you that I have less than a month to go before the deadline because it is due 16th December. I wish I had more time and more motivation. I look forward to having it handed in. I hope I will get it handed in.

And yes, now when I have updated you with all that, never ever ask me how it is going. I will tell you if I feel like talking about it. But you will be happy to hear that, (unfortunately to me, for now) there are many more delightful topics to talk about. For instance, some of my recent favourite topics are: burlesque, candy floss, hot water bottles, pokémons, transgenderism, chocolate, lingerie, my belated surprise birthday party that you will organise, cats, awesome food, Doctor Who, Finland's presidential election, vodka, ironing, vitamins I should take, pretty people, your wedding, and the day when it's not normal for me to be awake at 3:30 in the morning. What are yours?

Happy second half of November to you, enjoy hot chocolate or large cups of tea and good luck with whatever you're struggling in your life right now!

Fish fingers with rice

Let me tell you a story. Yesterday, my very foolish flatmate asked if I could cook for us. I didn't have time to go to a supermarket to buy any food so I told her that I could do it if she would be happy to eat whatever I had in the cupboard.

The truth is that I can't really cook. I'm very happy to feed myself though and I'll just cook things that I would like to eat. Lately I've been eating a lot of pasta with cheese in green curry sauce. According to some people it's weird.

Pasta with cheese in green curry sauce.

When I got home I looked into the cupboard to see what I had. There was cheesy pasta, crushed tomatoes, canned meatballs, red pesto, chow mein stir fry sauce, jelly, a pot noodle, red kidney beans, black eyed beans and chick peas. I had no idea what to do with all the beans and peas, but I figured that my foolish flatmate could eat them.

I ended up cooking some mince from the freezer. I learned that you should really defrost it properly before trying to fry it. But in the end it was all okay and I added some crushed tomatoes and black eyed beans with it. I learned that although it's apparently easy to cook things that come in cans, it's really not easy to open the cans. And then I just stirred half a jar of pesto in with the mince and the beans and let it boil a bit. And voilà it was ready to be served with the rice that was ready before I had even started the cooking because it was very difficult to fry the mince that very closely resembled an ice cube.

My flatmate did eat the food. But she said that she would have normally used pesto with pasta and chicken. I thought it went perfectly with mince and rice.

Do you think we're just too used to associating certain foods and tastes together? To give an another example, I used to cook fish fingers with pasta on Tuesdays. This mainly happened because the person who I was feeding them didn't want me to boil rice, that I would normally eat them with, because she didn't trust my rice boiling skills. She protested eating fish fingers with pasta for a while too, because according to her they should always be eaten with chips. In my opinion eating  fatty fish fingers with fatty chips would have been too much. But in the end she got used to eating them with pasta.

So my point is, why do people do this? Why do we like ready meals so much? Where do these set structures of what is meant to go together come from?

Another example involving fish fingers is the first episode of the 5th series of the new Doctor Who serials where the eleventh Doctor Who is hungry after his regeneration and asks 7-year-old Amy Pond to cook him various different things. In the end he asked if he could have some fish fingers with custard.

The Doctor happily eating fish fingers with custard.

Amy Pond found this very strange. And the viewers were meant to find it strange too. But why? Why are we so used to eating what we think is right to eat? There are people who go on holidays to foreign countries and take food from home with them just because you can't buy it in their destination. Why are we so afraid of trying new things? In some cultures insects are the greatest delicacy. I'm not telling you to eat insects, although they are full of protein and potentially quite good for you. In our culture they are not something that we would think to eat. But they do sell a lot of things in supermarkets that we are allowed to mix and match if we're brave enough.

Oh, and yes, I do find Doctor Who as a very educative program. Here's the bit with the fish fingers and custard!

Now I'm off to possibly play some golf. Have a tasty evening!