About travelling

 I'm sitting on a train, on my way to Cardiff.

People's reactions have been rather interesting when I've told them that I was about to go to Cardiff.

Example conversation 1:

“So are you going home tomorrow?”
“No, I'm going to Cardiff.”

“CARDIFF? Do you have a friend there?”
“No, I'm going alone. Just visiting Cardiff.”

(seemingly unsurely of whether it was a joke or not:) “...Fair enough.”

Example conversation 2:

“I'm going to Cardiff.”
“Why?!”
“Well, I've never been to Wales.”
“Well most people live quite happily without ever being to Wales.”

So in this blog post I'm going to talk about travelling. And how it's good for you.

Cardiff.

I ended up booking the tickets to Cardiff after watching Torchwood, Doctor Who and Gavin & Stacey. I thought that going to Wales was an excellent idea. My flatmate pointed out that I could go to Wales. Indeed, I had never been to Wales and I had just handed in my dissertation and I technically had a holiday.

So I did some research of how to get there. Unfortunately the Megabus website had once again collapsed (resembling the way their buses normally break down when you're on them), and Ryanair had stopped flying from Aberdeen to Dublin, so I couldn't fly to Ireland and get a ferry across to Wales. Thus, I booked train tickets through 4 different train companies, and here I am. - I even managed to change a train in Birmingham, although my train was late. It was very exciting: I run around the station panicking that I would miss my connection and would need to spend a night in a McDonald's, until I realised that my connecting train would leave from the same platform the previous train arrived at.

It didn't even occur to me to ask someone to come with me. I wouldn't mind company, I really wouldn't (unless, of course, it was someone very annoying with very different ideas of what travelling is about), but during the holidays most people have plans and the rest probably wouldn't fancy a spontaneous trip to Cardiff.

Last year, I did manage to convince a friend to go travelling with me. It took her a few days to decide on, whether she wanted to come or not. We ended up going to Spain, which was never on the list of places I wanted to visit. But since I had never been to Spain, I figured why not, I should give the place a chance.

Spanish palm trees.

Travelling alone is alright, and it has many benefits: you get to decide what you want to do, and when and how you want to do it. You don't have to visit all the boring tourist attractions or walk around all the boutiques if you don't feel like it. You don't have to carry anyone else's stuff, let them take pictures of you or listen to them complain about something you don't care about. The down sides are that you will have no one to talk about the trip with later and the only person who knows the inside jokes concerning this trip is you, and you will become even weirder.

Why should you go and see places then? Well it's true that all the same chains are everywhere. As I learned watching Torchwood and Gavin & Stacey, Cardiff will have McDonald's, Boots and Tiger Tiger just the same as Aberdeen. But the town is different! I will probably get lost again! But I'm prepared – I draw myself a map.

My map.

When I went to Anchorage I hadn't done that, but fortunately they gave me a map at the hostel so that I could pay, as I didn't have enough cash either. I then managed to find a cash machine, which inconveniently was a drive-in ATM with a sprinkler next to it. It took some planning to choose the right moment to approach it without getting wet in the process. Turned out the machine was out of notes. But I didn't get wet and I had a map.

Drive-in ATM with a  sprinkler challenge.

What I'm trying to say is, that by leaving home once in a while, you will see and experience things that you otherwise wouldn't. And after your adventure you will get to come back home with many more stories to tell and remember. Travelling is never complete waste of time. Even bad trips having something positive about them. If nothing else, they made you more patient and to appreciate all that you have at home.

Let's see how this Wales trip goes.

Happy morning, world!

I am up because I have completely messed up my sleeping rhythms, and it's actually an evening to me.

But being up now, I can see everyone else get up. And it makes me wonder why everyone is always so grumpy in the morning. Are people not meant to be happy because it's a new day and anything could happen? They get to have a cup of tea or coffee or a glass of juice and eat their favourite breakfast. Today they could meet the most interesting person or the most exciting opportunities could come up. For sure something funny will happen and there will always be something to be happy about.

But people don't seem to understand this. Is it because they have run out of milk for their tea, coffee or cereal? Or because they didn't get to sleep enough last night? Or because it's winter and the sun didn't rise before they had to get up? Or because they are so tired of getting up everyday to do the same things? They get up every day and go to school or work, getting stuck in the traffic, coming home, watching TV, going to bed and doing the same thing again tomorrow?

Okay, those who know me know that I am the worst person at getting up, or actually waking up in general. And I will not speak after I've just woken up. My mornings are quiet. But I'm happy. I've woken up. I can do things. I know there was a dead insect floating in my tea cup this morning. But the whole world is out there and there are things to see.

I hope you're not too tired this morning and that you would be happily eating your breakfast. I hope you'd be able to enjoy these last days of November before it's December. These are the last days of this year! The trees are getting bolder, and people are putting Christmas lights up. And it's dark and cold which is exactly why we need friends, candles, hot water bottles and woolly things. I hope you all have enough of those.

Have a happy day!

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!

Sailor's wife

Good evening bunnies,     (Yes, I did just call you a bunny – never done that before – now let's move on)

I was poked about an hour ago for not having written a new blog post. Well the thing is, that I would have written one earlier but I didn't feel that I had anything especially interesting to write about. Today I had a quite a normal, boring day.

I got woken up by a strange Irish man who asked whether I had a bit too much to drink last night. Then I got up and walked to a computer to write about some rocks. I tried to microwave myself a cup of tea but forgot it in the microwave until my flatmate washed the cup and made me some new tea. Then I got hungry and went to look for some left-over pizza but there wasn't any. It made me sad so I ate some chocolate. In the evening I did some cleaning around the house but accidentally broke a glass. This made me even more sad, so I decided to have some cheesy pasta for tea. Unfortunately when the crucial point of adding some milk to make the cheesiness into a sauce came, I discovered that we were out of milk. So I ran to the corner shop in my pyjamas and bought some. I also bought some Jaffa cakes because they are meant to make any occasion happier. Then I watched the first episode of the documentary series My Transsexual Summer  until my flatmate came home and we played Scrabble. The end.

Well, not really the end, because now I'm writing this. And the reason I'm writing this is, that I would love to write more blog posts about things that interest you! What would you want me to write about or discuss? Tell me and there are very good chances that I will write about that.

When I started this blog Mandi asked if I could write about music and books that I like. Unfortunately recently, I haven't found the time to read any novels and I've just been listening to really random songs that I've for some reason added as my favourite on Youtube. In the course of that I've found out that my flatmate really dislikes Aqua's Barbie Girl. But that's not the song I've listening to right now.

This is song is called Merimiehen vaimo, it's from a Finnish band PMMP and it tells about a wife of a sailor. She never got a chance to get a good education so she just had a lot of children instead, and stayed at home with them. She became a little bit bitter in the end, and was always very sad when it was the time for her husband to leave again. She always took the children to wave him away, until the children grew up, moved elsewhere and never visited her anymore. And of course one day the ship came back without her husband. But this song is about how she met her sailor in a ball and they danced together when they were still young and everything was still ahead of them. I like this song.

So yes, if you didn't like this post and have anything in your mind that you would like to read instead, or if you liked this and have anything inspiring to say about how I could make you enjoy reading this blog even more, let me know! Otherwise, I might never end up writing about those things.

Anti-stress strategy

 Hello people!

Last week I wrote about my coffee break while I was stressing about my dissertation. Well, I've since then come to a conclusion that stressing is bad and unhelpful. My stress didn't make the books that I needed miraculously appear on the shelves in the library nor did the maths I had to do get any easier. Therefore, this week I'm going to tell you about my new strategy: not stressing.

This week has been great. I went to a few Halloween parties at the weekend and then heard on Tuesday that some Christians despise Halloween. I ended up creating a personal theological dilemma because of this, and threw my Christmas into a bin. I then had a wonderful midnight conversation with a friend and picked the Christmas back up again. I now know approximately what I'm going to do this Christmas and it won't be stressful at all. (Well, apart from the Christmas shopping.)

Because my dissertation was not getting anywhere, thanks to the lack of books I needed and the diagram that I was convinced was wrong, I decided to have a break from it and write an essay for another course. My essay topic was interesting and it was all good, except that actually writing it sounded very tiring.

But then because the university' rector elections coming up, someone called Matt Bell put posters up about getting rid of the unisex toilets in the library.

This lead me to do a lot of reading about toilets and how they should or could be separated. And I ended up joining the “Unisex Toilet Appreciation Group” on Facebook. But someone posted a Youtube link there. And I watched the video. And then I watched another video that Youtube recommended me. And this went on for quite a while and in the end I found myself watching all the videos that someone had posted there (they didn't have anything to do with toilets) and realised that I was developing a really unhealthy crush on someone I had never met and will never meet. But hey, I was happy! And definitely not stressed.

And I'm still happy, and now I'm actually more willing to write my essay and dissertation because I'm not stressed about it. I guess sometimes you just have to have a break from your work and do something really stupid that and potentially embarrassing.

I would also like to tell you that blog writing helps, because I am writing. And the more I write, the more used to I get to write and it will therefore be easier to write thousands of words.

Both of my flatmates are participating in the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) contest, which I find a little bit depressing because they are writing thousands of words each day and I can't write my assignments that fast. But writing is good. Keep writing. You may start by writing me a comment.