i'm doing it again...

I'm hopeless!! I'm on a wonderful vacation in Switzerland (telling you all about it once I'm back in Finland & bored next week) and what am I doing 1 o'clock in the morning? Making new travel plans of course! It's this time of the year again.... Aaaargh, I have a new lovely apartment waiting for me in Finland, but the road is calling me loud and clear.  I think I'm going to book some flights pretty soon... again. I just hate and love my wanderlust, you know that, right?

Yeah... I'm just a meanie, just came over to teeeeeaaaaseeee you! ;-)

I already know 2013 is going to be phenomenal... So, in 2011 it was Brazil, in 2012 it was the US, and in 2013 I'm pretty sure it will be....

Yeah... I just can't help myself.

xxo

I'm all messed up and I'm ready to GO!!

Woah... I can't believe I've survived the past 7 days, honestly. Or... make it the past month. I'm like a superwoman! Here's the thing:

First I spent hectic two weeks packing all my stuff in Joensuu - and learnt it's surprisingly lot of work after living in one place for 6 years (you wouldn't believe all the junk I found in my storage unit!). Add all the office stuff, my car breaking down, all the necessary appointments and finding a suitable moving company, and you'll get the picture. Just in time I got everything done, and last Sunday I drove my (now fixed) car into my new apartment in Bonehill, South Karelia.

I don't mean to whine, but seriously - while I was driving, I was thinking would it be so terrible if something in my moving would have worked out smoothly - first the car broke down, and once I got it fixed, the weather on Sunday was HORRIBLE. Seriously. I can honestly say that I'm a decent driver, and usually I love driving, especially alone. But last Sunday was the worst roadtrip ever, the weather was absolutely horrible - so fucking windy and snowing... Yeah: usually I love driving, but last Sunday I was simply happy to get in South Karelia in one piece!

Okay... I left Joensuu behind and arrived in Bonehill on Sunday. On Monday I spent all day driving my stuff from my parents' place into my new apartment, and in the evening the moving company brought the rest of my stuff from Joensuu. When I went to sleep around midnight on Monday, I had all my stuff inside my new home - one goal achieved.

The whole Tuesday I spend UNpacking my stuff, organizing everything into closets and so on. Today I drove to Lappeenranta to meet a dear friend, and started packing for my Xmas vacation once I got home. Holy crap it feels like for the last month my life has been just packing and unpacking, I'M SICK OF IT!! I also paid a way too many bills, made a few phonecalls and stressed about what I might have forgotten...

Well, I'm not sure if all this sounds like much when you read it, but let me tell you - I'm on the edge of a nervous breakdown by now! I think I didn't realize how much work this moving thing actually is. Especially because I have done it ALL by myself - all the way from finding an apartment to getting my stuff here. It hasn't been easy, and more than once I've felt like it would have been so much easier just to give up. Buuuut I didn't, I made it through, and I'm pretty damn proud of myself<3

Tomorrow morning I'm off for Helsinki, where I'll spend a few days; meeting some friends etc. On Saturday I'll fly to Switzerland -- CAN'T WAIT! In case you missed it, I'm going to spend Xmas and New Year with my US roadtrip friend Caroline. It will be aaaaawesome. Leave all this stress behind and simply enjoy my life a bit. I know I've more than deserved it. It feels like I've been constantly running out of time the whole month, but tomorrow it will be over. Thank God! No more stress, no more schedules, no more sleepless nights... it will be heavenly.

And then... then it will be 2013. If last year I felt like I didn't want to let the old year go, this year it's the opposite - I can't wait to get rid of 2012. I'll write the official New Year blog later, but I'm already ready to say this year SUCKED and I can't wait to leave it all behind. On the other hand, I have high hopes for 2013, it will all be so NEW: new year, new apartment, new direction for my life... maybe even a little bit whole new me, who knows.

Anyway, I just wanted to write something down about this horrible December, just to remind myself I MADE IT THROUGH. Now it's time to sit back, relax & enjoy my Xmas vacation. I'm sure it will be wonderful. I'm so happy to leave Finland for a while, especially since it's absolutely fucking freezing in here right now! Around -22*C at the moment, forecast says around -30*C by Christmas eve...

God bless (and a few Google photos of Switzerland just to get myself into the mood)

itsepäisyyspäivä

Happy Indepence Day, good ol' Finland! The title is one of my favorite Finnish word puns: itseNäisyyspäivä means indepence day, itsePäisyyspäivä means stubborness day - and let's face it, Finns can be pretty stubborn ;-)

I just want to take this chance to tell you that I really like this country, and at times I might be thought as patriotic, even. I've seen quite many countries, and it feels the more I travel, the more I learn to appreciate Finland. I have my chronic wanderlust, I always want to see new places and experience new adventures, but I also enjoy coming back to Finland, each and every time. After all, Finland is where I come from, where my roots are. Sure, Finland has its faults, no doubt about it, but there's still plenty of nice things here, too - and that's something I've learnt to appreciate after travelling as much as I have. In a nutshell, Finland is not any better or worse than any other country, but it's mine. It's a place I will always return, eventually. It's a place... it's a place I call home. Like Rodney Atkins puts it while thinking about his own country:

...These are my people
This is where I come from
We're givin' this life everything we've got and then some
It ain't always pretty
But it's real
That's the way we were made
Wouldn't have it any other way
We fall down and we get up
We walk proud and we talk tough
We got heart and we got nerve
Even if we are a bit disturbed...

Yeah... today is the day for all us Finns to feel proud of our isolated little country. Light up those two candles to your windowsill and listen to some Jean Sibelius, right? (hey, here's a comic relief for this quite deep blog entry: I haven't really listened to Finlandia hymn that many times; now I did, and came to conclusion it's actually pretty scary! xD Just try it... LOL, and the beginning reminds me of Star Wars theme)

Yours Truly