Take Me Away

It feels like it's time to pack my bag and leave once again.



..But I guess i'll have to stick to paying rent and listen to my mate's advice to not always run from my problems.

But escapism...oh so fun, and so easy...

Marketing Trainee, Flow Festival

The thing I so secretly talked about a couple weeks back - the internship I applied for.

At first I had no incentive to apply to any internships since I had other plans in mind - first to Rock Werchter (Belgium), 3 weeks of sailing from St. Malo, France to Lisbon, Portugal and then back to Belgium for Tomorrowland festival.

But... Then I got a message from my ex-classmate Laura claiming I HAD TO apply for this position that was screaming my name - the Marketing trainee at Flow Festival.
The pace my heart was racing at and the speed my breath had accelerated to told me I was going to have to make a hard decision - apply to my dream job I have been striving towards to or follow my passion of traveling and take part in the tall ship races I had been thinking about for a couple of years already.

I was laying wade awake that night. Weighting the options. I was sad to admit that I already had different plans - as I already had purchased the Rock Werchter ticket some three weeks ago (probs forgot to mention) and I would just have to let this perfect opportunity slip. I was just on the verge of falling asleep when I sprung up as enlightenment hit me.

The past three years I have been doing things such as organizing parties, travels and even resulted in starting my own event management company. I have been all around the world just for festivals sake - from good ol' Seinäjoki to Gdynia, and Werchter to Lorne. I have experienced and learnt a lot of things about festivals and marketing and my head is full of ideas how things could be developed. Since becoming aware after reading an article that such a profession as an "event manager" exists, creating my OWN festival has been my sole dream.

So why the fuck shouldn't I apply to my dream job?

It's not like I didn't email the exact same company last year asking whether they had some work (the internships had been given out already at that time - on a more miniscule applicant search scale though).

So I decided to do it. To give it a try. What could I lose? Plus. I was their perfect candidate.

The least that could happen was that I wouldn't get in and I could pursue my travel plans. At least I would know that I had TRIED - which I think is all that matters.

Well, I sent them the best application I've ever written but unfortunately I wasn't picked. I don't know what kind of superwoman they are looking for cause my cv and resumée was pretty damn good ( ;) ), but I hope the person they choose really fits the job and appreciates the opportunity :) And, I'm not bitter at all. I'm super happy I tried and content with the result. I mean, I guess in one point they were relatively interested in my application since they emailed me asking for my age (oops.. Can't remember why i've deleted it in the past?) ? So yeah. Better luck next time (:

PLUS.

Now I can go traveling ;)
-Optimisti ei koskaan pety-

*=thank you Kimmo _so_ much for all the proofreading and tips you gave me, means a lot, really :)
Photo property of Kimsu Love 

Set Me Free

Every once in a while I get this feeling:



Kinda getting anxious here... I should be surfing, sleeping in a beach shack and walking barefoot... Living life the way I want it. Not the way I should live it.

I'm slightly freaked out that although I have quite the freedom here (since I do get to backpack twice a year; during chrissie I have a month off of school and I have a nice 3 month summer vacation) - I'll be completely unchained only after three years...  and I'll be turning 25 that year. fuuuuuuu. I should be living my life NOW.

But. yeah. I'm gonna finish school - or at least keep on going as long as this motivation remains. I guess I just need to distract myself until then - music, parties and mini-traveling until I set myself completely freeee.

And hey, it's not like i'll be in Finland for that long anymore... :) 2013 Fall I'm off to Madrid to do my exchange and on my fourth year (2014-2015) I have my five month working holiday abroad.



Life's pretty good. Just gotta remember it.

@ Helsinki-Vantaa Airport

Holy fuck I'm knackered.



Currently i'm sitting a Helsinki-Vantaa airport eating my over priced brekkie (9€ for a sandwich and a 0,4l pepsimax woooot)  and man am I stoked.... TO SLEEP ON THE PLANE! Seriously, the lack of sleep i've had during my final exams has been ridiculous. I seriously can't even understand how I'm still standing with only 3-4hour sleep every night since Saturday...

Last night was no different:
I was finishing my last school projects and at 00:00 I was done with one of my portfolios and considered whether I should do my IT-assignment (which was due on Tuesday) or pack... after all, I had to leave in 5 hours.

Someone said something pretty funny on FB when I was pondering this hard question:

Aleksandra Okolo-Kulak

hmmmm should I pack now and finish my IT-HTML project on the airport...? :D Got heaps of waiting to do anyways. I say YEAAAH

 ·  · 6 hours ago near Helsinki

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  Janika Daniela Haapasalmi likes this.

  
  


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    Henri Nordström All true business people work at the airport waiting for their plane! ;)
    

    6 hours ago · 

    
    

    
    
  
  
  
  

I agree ;)

So I started packing and boy am I glad for the Internet... Having my packing list on my blog made packign sooo much easier ! All I had to do is adjust the four month packing list to a one month one by reducing the amount of clothes and walá! DONE. Left some things (and a lot of clothes) out from previous experience and also packed my wettie aka wetsuit with me :) My backpack actually only weighted 10,8kg !

What was I supposed to write about... man, this lack of sleep is killing my brain ! Slept like 2h whee.. OH YEAH! I was supposed to show you guys a bit of my preparations for this trip ;)

FINALLY purchased this book !!! Ever since Mile High, the brilliant show of flight attendants and stewardesses hooking up / getting drunk / doing drugs, had a reference to this book, i've been meaning to read i. I've order this book twice to a book store (once for OZ trip and once for Interrail trip) but it has never arrived early enough (ok, i'll admit, i've never ordered it early enough...) but this time I decided to dive in to the wonderful world of Ebay were everything is cheaper anyways! The book cost me only some 7€ :]
BOUGHT AN UNDERWATER CAMERA !!! BOOYAA. Ok, I'm probs more excited that i'll be able to make videos again and take "situation" aka random photos + drunk photos :] My Nikon isn't really for those purposes...

Mom bought me a Christmas calendar so I could countdown the days to my trip ;) Started opening the calendar 24 days before departure ;)

FINALLY found this !!! MAn. Been looking for this for 5 months :D
One day after work I went to see my bestie Mia at her place and we made some food and had some wine. "I'm not going out, I have to study". Two wine glasses later I had decided we were to go to a bar. After arriving to the center, having a drink and deciding to switch the bar, we walked for like 2km around the city... We would decide "lets go to lama! oh, it's too full", walk over to the next best thing and be like "nah". So after walking past 5 different options we went to Maccas and then finally inside and acutual bar: Aussie bar. It's when I stepped in, that I realized I had lost the bag which I had had with me at work and which had my school library's Economics book and a library book of Lonely Planet on Bali & Lombok... MAN DID THIS TURN OUT TO BE AN EXPENSIVE ONE. 150€ ??? Books + drinks + insisting my mate Mikko to take a taxi with me back home (he suggested we could sleep in his car... I can only imagine how much I would want to kill myself if waking up hung over as fuck in a cold _fucking_ car : D) I was a bit bummed though since I had been thinking of taking the lonely planet with me on my trip. I usually don't read any guide books but since I only have a month in Bali, time is at essence and I don't want to loose any. So. I just order my copy from Ebay ;) Much cheaper too, than buying one at a book store in Helsinki!

Anyhoo, boarding time soon (7:30), next step Frankfurt airport, stay tuned!

ps. oh fucken hell.. how's that IT-project going, you may ask..

Lisbon, Portugal

Lisbon, Portugal 26.7






Today was such a big hassle day.



So I wake up in Lissabon just when the cute Swedish guy sitting next to me was getting up. It was around 10ish and our train had just arrived in Portugal. I said bye Erik who hurried to the sunny outdoors. I started packing my stuff up and then I noticed that Erik had forgotten the cap, that he had been wearing, on his seat. I grabbed the cap with me so that I could give it to him in case i would still bump into him but unfortunately he was nowhere to be seen.



I had no clue how to get to my hostel or were it was (I was doing this in my bulletproof adventure way yet again: just write down the address of the place and you'll end up there somehow) so I kept just asking ppl in Spannish how to get to the part of town where my hostel was. This guy told me to get on the bus so I did so and kept my eyes open for my stop. I arrived at my hostel around 12ish and they told me that if I waited around an hour I would be able to check in. Well my room wasn’t ready after an hours wait so I left to the train station to sort my ticket out. I was kinda bummed I hadn’t realized to do it as I already had been at the train staion when arriving via train that morning.



So I hoped on the bus and asked if the drived could tell me to get off at the right stop. As I was watching the scenery pass and the bus stop names change, I got this feeling that this one stop was my stop but because the bus driver didn’t tell me anything, I didn’t get off. It was not until we drive on to a ramp that I went up to the driver to ask about my stop. I found out hat I HAD been right about my stop, and I had missed it... The driver told me that there would be another train station stop in 20 minutes so I just went back into sitting and watching the landscape.



When I finally arrived at the train station, I had to kill another 30 minutes in order for the international departure office to open up.. When the thing eventually opened up and it as my turn, it took me like 40 minutes to sort my train  out :D  Usually it takes you a minute... Anyhoo, it had been super easy booking my way out of Lisbon: the Lisbon – Madrid train for Friday BUT the way Madrid – Paris = everything booked. I’ve never been to Paris but I must say I’m not that excited anyways about it, I just wanted to get to Paris because I have to get to Brussels so I can fly back home... So it’s on the way home and the place where I need to go in order to make international connections out of France.



I had been standing in like with two Swedish girls who told me they were going from Hembaye, border of France, to Paris, so I decided to give it a try. The booking person could only book me from Madrid to Irún but he told me that the next station was really close –  only a five minute walk away from Hembaye station. I would arrive in the middle of the night so I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to get a train to Paris, or where I’ll be sleeping that night... but I decided to book the train anyways as there were no other options for me.



So I returned to my hostel and was fianlly able to check in. Took that well needed shower <3 I was in the bathroom were the showers are and I met this girl Lien from Belgium. I asked her whether she knew where to find a super market. Se was really nice and traveling by herself too. So I walked to the super market (I don’t get it how people say it was ”far away”, come on, a 10 minute walk? And who wouldn’t like to walk in a foreign country and see more stuff...!) and I was so amaized how cheap everything was !!!! I even took a picture of the groceries I did for 12 euros 8D Bought a bottle of red for myself and cooked up some salad for dinner. I made so much of it and had like 3 portions which after I was super bloated of :D



I was sitting ouside with Lien, eating, and we decided to go walking. Because she needed something out of the store we walked there again and I bought some readymade Sangría. Gotta love San Juan. ;) We walked up to this castle and because the sun was setting I was a bit camera happy ! We randomly bumped into Lien’s uncle ?!? Small world much? Anyway, we were just sitting and drinking Sangría and enjoying life :) She told me about this time she got high with her mate and then they found some bubble wrap from the trash can which they then took and got this brillian idea of selling it... ”Selling fun” they called it :D I mean who wouldn’t love bubble wrap?! Anyhoo, people were really getting into the bubble wrap thing as they were trying to make everyone they passed on the street to purchase it. Eventually they got bored and just started throwing the bubble wrap all over the street and then the police got a bit interested in who was trashing the streets and –being high- they got super freaked out and ran away and then paranoia hit in and they were hiding inside with the curtains closed 8D Alrighty. But yeah cool, love people who can just make fun out of nothing...such as bubble wrap!



We also went to walk on the promenade or what ever you call it. I took pictures of the beautiful ”25 de Abril” -bridge that lead up to the peninsula. The bridge looked exactly like the Golden Gate and it actually WAS designed by the same company that constructed the Oackland Bay bridge in San Fran but not the Golden Gate (as someone told me) Wikipedia says.

Sleep Deprivation

4.8 At Barcelona Airport 8:30 AM



I was almost left outside of the terminal at 00:30 because I lacked any papers of my flight what so ever.

Security guard infront of the gates of terminal 2:
"Su tarjeta de embarque por favor."
"...............No tengo."
"No tarjeta, no pasar."
"Pero.. no tengo."
"No puede pasar. Abiertan en las seis."

At this point I thought that I was in deep shit. I was trying to recall whether it had been ever necessary print out any forms (disregarding Ryanair's flights) or was a passport just fine to be able to check in. I began to panic that I would not get home. Or that I would have to wait outside the terminal for 5,5 hours..........

"Estás sola?"
"Sí.."
"Ok, pasa"
"MUCHOS GRACIAS."

I think the security guard realized I wouldn't be well off on my own with all my luggage and no where to go to (except terminal 1), waiting outside in the dark for the clock to struck six.

There was no way I was going to risk missing my flight (again) so sleeping was not an option. So I purchased 24 h wifi with 10 euros and pretty much made a camp in one corner. I sat in that very same place for 7 hours... Holy fuck. Thank god my friends have insomnia and Hector was on facebook to keep me company. Later on I saw Jared online and we skyped for half an hour!!! Man do I miss him so incredibly much. He is one of my all time favourite people I met in Australia and I still keep in contact with him. It was so good to see his face and hear his voice and I wished I could've just jumped through the screen to Darwin and hang out with him and hug him ! Jared's the best. We reminisced about good times... That very first night Melanie introduced me and Laura to Ian and Jared and we met crazy Wolf man. On that same night me and Jared got peed on by Melanie (!!! EPIC!!!)... We also thought about Magnetic Island and Airlie along other stuff. Damn. If only Jared would be going to Indonesia in December instead of September.

After skyping with Jared and reading one message on fb that wasn't reall the most pleasant one, I started feeling a bit anxious about going back. I am pretty sure it's the sleep deprivation that's talking, but I just really started doubting my purpose in my life back home. It felt a bit like in January, when I was returning home from my four month trip - returning to nothing (no school, no job etc). I tried to remind myself that it was just an illusion because I have everything going on for me back home - I'll be working non stop in August, i'll be volunteer working at this festival and getting free tickets to it, i'm gonna start going to the gym again and school is about to start in late August. But somehow just knowing, that I would go back to Finland with the mentality of saving up again so I could  get away go traveling again felt a bit depressing.  It feels crazy to have this strong urge of wanting to get away...
Don't I really have anything in Finland that would make a difference to keep me from wanting to leave home again ?

That's the issue I've been resteling with on this trip. Am I really happy in Finland? Do I really wanna live there? Meeting Finnish people abroad is always such a dull reminder of how things are back home - everyone is just so "jäinen". No one can keep up a conversation (unless they are drunk) and although I would be the one that is trying to spark up the convo, the other participate just lacks the skills to maintain it. And talk about Finnish men.  Oh God. Don't even get me started. When I came home from Morocco I had decided to stay back in Finland to study, because I had a lot of shit going on and I knew I wouldn't have been able to cope on my own in a foreing country without my safety net. But now that I feel like i'm over those dark times, I feel like there's really no reason why I should stay home, in Finland.

The only reason why I would consider living and studying in Finland is that uni is free and I can make a lot more money  -so I can go traveling again- in my country compared to most of the countries. Unless we are talking about Australia with a minimum wage of $18.5 per hour. Jared actually just told me that he gets $20 an hour but with tips $30.. He said he worked yesterday for 5,5 hours and made  _150_ dollars. But yeah. The uni isn't free in Australia... It's pretty much the opposite, at least the ones I looked at some two years ago.

Yeah. I don't really know... I've been planning I should at least do an exchange year after this one. That would give me one year in Finland, second one in exchange and the third one in one of the partner universities abroad (in Madrid I hope!). The final year, the fourth one, has a work practice term of five months, and it is recommended to do abroad - which I would totally do of course. So I would only be in Finalnd for some 1,5 years or so. Unless they wouldn't recognise my studies on my exchange year. I think I wanna go visit CIMO - the place where they took us in high school. Maybe they would be able to sort my life out a bit for myself.

But I must say. When I was surfing in Portugal, I just felt so happy. "This is what I wanna do in my spare time", I thought to myself for the tenth time. And surfing is not something you can do in Finland (unless you are totally passionate, crazy and ridiculous).

We'll see.

Ps. I've just been so happy during these past five weeks that I don't want it to go away.

Koepakkaus

Transportation of Luggage... Backpacker Style!

Tein eilen koepakkauksen.
Suoritin sen n. 15 minuutissa ! Man, how fast am I ?
Asiaa selvästi helpotti se, että olin aiemmin (töissä) listannut haluamani reissuvaatteet ja muut kamat alas, joten "mitä mun pitäiskään pakkaa" -miettimiseen ei mennyt ollenkaan aikaa. Panin merkille, kuinka  luonnolliselta ja arkipäiväiseltä pakkaaminen tuntui: se sujui vaan niin sukkelasti ja päämärätietosesti ! Oli jotenki sellanen "osaan tän unissanikin" -fiilis ja siitä tuli entistä enemmän sellaset OON NIIN VALMIS REISSUUN -vibat :) Huomaa, että on tultu purettua ja pakattua sitä rinkkaa pariin otteeseen aiemmilla reissuilla ;)

Kuitenkin kuten olinkin ajatellut, päädyin siihen, että ostan uuden rinkan. Tässä tapauksessa rinkka olisi myös ihan iki-omani (oon tähän asti käyttäny faijan rinkkoja) ! Tohon koepakkausrinkkaan ei nimittäin mahdu oikein mitään. Tiedän, että voisin jättää ehkä pari vaatetta himaan, mutta naah. Pitää muutenkin ostaa oma rinkka jossain vaiheessa niin why not now. The sales are on too. Kaiken lisäks, discoverasin uuden vian tossa rinkassa. Se alavetskariosion ja keskivartalo-osion rajottava pohja (jonka saa avattua vetskarilla), on myös revennyt... Eli joo. Uus rinkka vaan tänne. Huomenna siis Mastercardia vinguttamaan urheilukauppojen alennusmyynteihin...