How to deal with constant change

The series of requested posts continues. In this post I will try to explain how is it possible to live a life where everything is constantly changing, how to deal with the change and don't I ever miss settling down. Or something like that.

The trick here is the point of view. Even though it might look like my life is constantly changing, it certainly doesn't feel so to me. In my own opinion my life is very stagnant, the same things repeat time after time. It's like living in a cycle. Book the flight, book the accommodation, open the bank account, get a SIM card to your phone, go to the office, go to home etc. Basically, I always do the same things but in different places. It gets old very fast. What I am trying to explain is change is what you perceive as change. If you think nothing ever changes, then that's your reality. Everything's always the same.

The church in Namesti Miru. There was a light show yesterday 

I don't have an exact reason for choosing what seems to be a permanent expat/immigrant life. People are different. While many people could not imagine moving to another city let alone moving to another country, I could not imagine staying in one place forever. Where is the excitement in a life where nothing ever changes? I guess I have always been interested in how people live in other places, I want to explore different lifestyles, different cultures. When I was a child I used to dream of going to exotic places and getting to know the world. It is what I want to do with my life. 

Moving every year or so can get a bit exhausting, of course. I have to renew my social circle every time I decide to move, have to adapt to an environment that can be very different from the previous one. But life is pretty similar everywhere. You eat, you sleep, you work. It's nothing more complicated than that. I don't know if this explanation makes a lot of sense. In my head it's all very clear. Actually, finding new friends has never bothered me a lot. I'm not very social and the older I get the less I care for other people's company. I'm at the happiest when I am alone. Usually I meet a couple of new people that I can really call friends and that's enough. 

Another important reason behind my choice of lifestyle besides curiosity is boredom and the need to find happiness. I get bored very easily. I usually lose my interest towards everything within 3 months, be it a hobby, a job, studies, whatever. Nothing in me is made for long-term projects. I don't like commitments. They limit freedom. 

And then there is the happiness thing. I have never been a happy person. As I said, I get bored very easily and with that comes a feeling of dissatisfaction with everything. For sure other people's lives are more exciting. The others travel a lot more than I do, they have more interesting things happening to them and so on so forth. Moving often is my way of trying to figure out what makes me happy. This far, no success. I have the image of a perfect place in my head, a place that is warm and nice, there will be a lot of sunshine and life is very relaxed. I will have found my dream job and I will live in a nice apartment alone and still have enough money to travel a lot. I wonder if I will ever find that place? I guess not. There is the answer for the question if I ever want something permanent. Yes, if that something permanent is 100% perfect. 

All that I wanted were things I had before

This is a requested post about how my life has changed. How things here differ from my "previous life", what is good, what is not, what is challenging, what is simple. What I miss most about my life in my previous city.

I will compare Sydney and Prague. True enough, I stayed the summer in Finland but I think it will be more interesting to compare Australia and Czech Republic. Actually, this is a topic I often think about. So, how is my life different now?

The good thing is that I am in Europe again. I am closer to my family and I can book a flight to Finland and arrive there without having to travel 30 hours and transfer at least once. Moreover, if I ever decide to stay in another EU country for good, it is a lot less complicated than arranging residence permits and visas in a non-EU country. Long live free movement of people and goods in the EU area! I liked Australia, mostly the climate that is less harsh than in Europe, but Australia is absolutely too far from Europe. I cannot even imagine staying there long-term. I could hardly ever meet my family and friends. In addition to that it would be too difficult to arrange a working visa to Australia. I have a degree in international business and that's not one of the degrees preferred by Australian immigration office. I'll try again with better luck if I ever decide to become a doctor or a nurse... Highly unlikely.

What is worse then? Well, the salary, of course. It will take me a lifetime of work in Czech Republic to save the amount of money I saved in 6 months in Sydney. (OK, I always exaggerate a bit, but that's the general idea.) I miss understanding the language, too. In Australia I never had to worry about someone not speaking English, I was more worried about me myself not speaking English. It would be nice to be able to read the labels when I go grocery shopping. I just miss being able to read. I miss understanding the information boards, advertisement etc. I miss being an adult who can act as a part of the society, following the written instructions and announcements.

In all honesty, it is quite easy to find English speaking people here (except at the foreign police) but the fact remains that the official language is Czech and if you can't understand it, you'll always be an outsider. You might suggest I study Czech, but no. I have tried to study Russian and Polish and they were absolutely too difficult for me. It's the pronunciation that does me in. I lose my motivation because I cannot pronounce all those funny sibilants in Slavic languages, let alone hear the difference. Also, I have an 18-months contract with the possibility to extend but I am not sure if I will want to. Prague is nice but I cannot imagine staying here very long. No reason to study a new language just for 18 months or so.

Prague is quite international these days but it cannot beat Sydney. That's what I miss from Sydney. According to 2016 census, a typical New South Wales person has at least one parent who was born outside of Australia. No one is too different or too foreign in Sydney. I felt at ease there, being a foreigner. Sometimes in Prague the service is worse if you don't speak Czech. Maybe natural reaction but still unpleasant. Made me think about my experiences in South Korea and Japan where in general the service culture is stronger and you cannot really make a customer feel like she is a nuisance to you. Once I went to a hair dresser's in Seoul, but the lady there didn't speak English. She found me a translator- a lady next door who'd been living in US. That's service, isn't it?

Life in Australia was more interesting. People around me were changing all the time and with breathless horror I was waiting for another change in the dynamics of the room. We had fire alarms going off in the middle of the night, thieves stealing useless stuff. Even my cardigan got stolen. Well, it's not that I miss those kind of things but I have to admit it was interesting.

I loved my job in Australia, that's one more point to miss. I remember that Christmas time was too busy, working late and starting early, but other than that I was excited about my work. When the bus drove to the last roundabout before our street, I was usually full of energy and ready to start a new day. I liked the atmosphere in the workplace. I liked my colleagues and I miss them a lot. I miss walking to the bus station after work, miss going to the local restaurants and trying all kind of new foods, miss going to a shopping center nearby. Writing this post has made me realize that I am a "nostalgic" person. When I read my old blog posts I do remember that Australia was no paradise, but it's a blessing to only remember the good times, isn't it? I guess it takes more than a flight to actually move from a place to another. Nowadays we can travel faster than our minds can recover from the changes. My life moved on but inside my head I'm stuck in another time, another place. Maybe I should take a fresh approach on life: "I can't predict the future I don't care about the past". Life is here and now.

One more thing: I also miss the opportunities I didn't use while I was in Australia. I have the feeling I missed on a lot I never went anywhere or did anything much. I didn't go to that barista course I was planning to enroll on, didn't go to any lectures or lessons. I didn't do anything except go Saturday shopping in Queen Victoria Building, which I miss dearly. Plenty of stuff I don't really need there.

10 things to do before 2018

Lately I've been running out of blog post ideas. I was planning to stop writing this whole thing because for some time it has felt more like a compulsory activity than voluntary and fun way to express myself. But yesterday I asked what the readers would like to read about and got some very inspiring and awesome topics, all of which I am going to write about. I was very surprised because I thought that since this blog is listed as a travel blog, people would like me to write about the attractions, holiday destinations in Czech Republic etc. But I also got many requests to write about myself. What I feel, what I think, how I see life. So I will write about myself, in the travel context. So this is a requested post. My friend gave me 10 things I need to do before 2018, and I accepted the challenge. The things I need to do are as follows:

1. Take a pet/ help to take care of someone else's pet. Well, pets are not allowed in my apartment and I don't really want a pet either, it doesn't suit my free lifestyle. But I'd love to help somebody with their pets. Preferably not dogs, though. Too bad I didn't get this challenge a couple of weeks ago when I helped my colleague to feed her cat while she was away.

2. Go on a date. Frankly, I don't want to. I am not the kind of person who enjoys dating. Dates either make me feel bored, upset or shitty about myself, or all of them and many other negative things at the same time. I've never had a dating experience that left  me feeling good in my entire 29,5 years and all that shit that comes with dating has made me lose all the interest, not that there was a lot to lose in the first place. I don't want a relationship and all my close friends have always been and will always be females, so dating is basically a waste of perfectly good time, because there's nothing I could possibly gain there.. But it's in the challenge so I have to figure out something. 

3. Read your favorite book. I used to read a lot, so I have plenty of favorite books, some of which I have read several times. I hope to go to Finland for Christmas so I can pick up one of my old favorites and read it again. Maybe it will be Cat among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie or Death in Berlin by M.M. Kaye. To put it shortly, I never read much when I'm abroad. Never made it to check the local libraries and buying books gets expensive and takes a lot of space at home.

4. Find a new friend. I totally need this. I had so many plans to be more social and try to make new friends when I moved to Prague but the truth is, I am very tired and fed up with people. All I want to do is sit alone in my own room and think. It's not very healthy, but I feel like I need solitude. Maybe it's an after-effect of Australia, being surrounded my people non-stop, living a life without any privacy. I want to be alone but I will try to go to some expat meeting and make that one new friend. 

5. Spend the new year with someone/ others. New Year's eve I will be working until midnight but maybe I can do something fun on new year's day if I'm not too tired. Last new year's eve I had to go to bed early because I had to start working at 6 a.m. the following day. It seems to me new year is not for me. But luckily there will be lunar new year and that's actually more fun than the western new year. 

Enjoying the last warm day of the summer 

6. Do something you enjoyed when you were a child. What did I enjoy doing when I was young? Something I still enjoy? Actually, this one is difficult. I keep remembering a lot of fun stuff from my early life but what did I actually do? I never was an active child. Dunno what this could be, let's see. My oldest friends, please help me remember! 

7. Write a letter to someone. We have forgotten the art of writing letters. Everything's online these days. My goddaughter had posted me a letter, a real one, but it never made it's way here but was returned to sender. How bad can the postal service be? 

8. Put this list somewhere you can see it. Done.

A plastic octopus on the river

9. Participate in a Czech aerobics/ yoga/ some other sports lesson. Does anyone know a good place for this? I'm totally in for it. I wanted to participate in yoga in the dark lesson but got too scared because they threatened to blindfold the participants. Not my genre, really. 

10. Plan a trip. I am already planning my holidays. It would be nice to go to Spain. 

So, these are the things I need to do in the following weeks and write about. Maybe I could do number 7 already today. I have plenty of time to write a letter now. The real challenge is in sending, I can never make ti to the post office before it closes. 

Sunday, Monday, happy day

What's your favorite day of the week? I guess most of us would say Friday, Saturday or Sunday. Personally, I have noticed that my favorite day of the week actually changes. When I was living in South Korea, Sunday was my absolute favorite. It was my only actual day off, because on Saturdays I went to study Korean language. The school was located at the opposite end of the subway line so it took me almost an hour to commute there, then the lessons and then back home. So come Sunday I was just happy to do nothing, or maybe go for a lunch or do some shopping.

In Poland I loved Friday evenings and Saturdays. The entire weekend was just about to begin, my time to unwind and forget about the office. Sundays were actually terrifying, because Sunday is, as we all know, all too often followed by Monday. And Monday has never been my favorite and most likely will never be.

In Ireland I loved Thursdays, don't ask why. It seemed to be an Irish habit to start the weekend on Thursday, a nation that is chronically unable to wait for Friday evening. Maybe the atmosphere was catchy. Maybe. Who knows. I didn't have a favorite day of the week in Australia, most likely because for a long time I was just traveling. It doesn't matter so much whether you travel on Friday or Tuesday, it's all the same. And I don't have a favorite day here in Prague either. It will be interesting to see which one it will be. Maybe something random, like Wednesday?

OK, that's enough of the days of the week. There is another topic to discuss, namely holiday plans. I will have 8 days of leave this year and I have to start thinking where I'd like to travel. I am planning to go somewhere in November. Where is it warm in November? Maybe Israel? It would be nice to go to some really random and exotic place but maybe I am not open-minded enough to do something like that. Any recommendations, anyone?

Did I bring too much stuff

Packing your life in a suitcase is a form of art and many people I have met on the road seem to think that I am not a very talented artist. So I decided to write a post to explain in detail why it might be a good idea to pack some extra stuff after all. Did I really pack too much? Well, I don't think so. There's no item in my suitcase that I haven't been wearing.

It's all about shoes

So, my piece of advice is to throw away all those minimalistic ideas of packing as little as possible. Who started this "7 kilos miracle" kind of packing in the first place? Whose idea is it that backpackers should only have the bare minimum with them? Is it like "the less you carry the more successful you are, the better person you are"? It might be a good idea to think critically about your packing if you are going to be hiking in the bush for an extended period of time but otherwise it doesn't really matter. I have traveled in Australia by bus and plane and guess what? So does the suitcase. I don't have to actually haul it with me more than a couple of kilometers at a time, max. That's nothing.

I don't feel good about the idea of going shopping here. Even the second hand stores are expensive and it's difficult to find what you are looking for in a second hand store. There's never your size if you find a nice shirt and finding good-quality clothes might be challenging. I love op shops, but I wouldn't go there if I actually need something. Op shops are more for finding the special, rare things that mainstream shops have stopped selling years ago. And thinking about jumping to someone else's shoes just disgusts me to some degree. It's not nice to wear shoes shaped by someone else's feet, sweaty, worn, old shoes. Not cool man.

I want to have many different kind of clothes, clothes for most of the situations I might find myself in. I like shopping, but it's only fun if you have a source of income. I still prefer eating over spending 20 bucks for something I could have easily brought with me. After all, I have an endless selection of clothes back home.

We go everywhere together

And honestly, laundry is simply a pain in the ass in the hostels. One load costs 4 dollars and drying the laundry costs another four. We hand wash our clothes if we can't find a place where to do laundry for free. In this light it is quite nice to have more than 2 t-shirts, especially so because the laundry takes ages to dry on this humid island they call Australia. Reminds me of Ireland. Moreover, you don't have a place where to hang the clothes to dry, you just have your bed.

When all the nice combinations of clothes are waiting to be washed, you can use your imagination with what remains. This habit goes by the name backpacker fashion. You'll choose anything that's reasonably clean and neat. Same leggings go for gardening, looking for a job and for sleeping. I might start a fashion blog next. LOL. By the way, I have never done this much mending before. It's nice to have some clothes that still look relatively nice and the ones that don't, well, I'll just throw them away when the adventure is over.

Marking one's territory 

Shoes are also quite heavy but still I managed to carry 5 pairs with me. Two of those are already gone and I need to buy some new pairs. My flip flops were gone a long time ago and I had to replace them in Cairns. And you'll need to pack something warm because it gets cold here, especially in the south. guess how much a winter jacket weights? And guess how much it costs?  I am truly thankful for my ability to believe I am always right. It prevented me form believing all that "leave behind half of what you packed" nonsense. Personally I'd say that's bull shit. Even six months would be a long time to run around bare-assed.

Traveling together

Let's talk about traveling together today. I've been talking about it a lot with Anna, and every time we've come to the conclusion that it was probably one of our best ideas ever to come to Australia together. Had we come here alone, we would have probably already booked the return ticket and gone back home feeling depressed and acutely hating Australia. Having someone to share the joys and sorrows with makes it easier to face the challenges of being on the road. The negative experiences feel easier to process and forget about when you have someone who is equally annoyed and angered by them, who feels what you feel. It's easier to find your fighting spirit when you have someone to share the bad experiences with. Together we can fight even the windmills and who knows, we might win against all the odds. :) Plus all the positive experiences feel even more positive when you can share them with someone. Awesome experiences feel a lot more awesome when you hear someone echo the same thought.

The distances in Australia are extreme, so having a travel mate means having company, someone to talk to or just someone with whom to share the companionable silence. Passing time without a functioning wi-fi on board is a challenge without a friend. And together it's easier to resist eating the snacks and packed meals the first thing you board the bus. I seem to have that particular problem when I travel alone, the snacks are gone in a couple of seconds. But when we make the decision together to have lunch at 11, it's easier to stick to it. And there is always the good friend who will make sure you don't violate the decision and pig out the food all by yourself.

It's also a financially clever decision to travel together. Have you ever noticed how much more you''ll pay for the hostels, tours etc if you travel alone? The entire world is made for couples and families, even food is sold in wholesale-sized packages. Together we can take advantage of that. We can even occasionally afford to eat something more pricey because we can put our last dollars together and share the cost.

When traveling alone you need to be vigilant all the time, consider things like where to leave your luggage if you need the restroom, or where to leave your purse if you want to go for a morning run. Traveling together, you can take turns going for a run, going for a swim, and you'll always have someone to look after your belongings. It doesn't get more practical than this!

We are a team, both of us have our unique set of strengths and weaknesses. Especially when volunteering it's been a beneficial deal, we can share the tasks according to our interests and skills.

So what's more difficult when traveling together? Everything takes more time, you'll have to plan and negotiate a lot to make sure everyone's happy. Compromises are a part of daily life, and we have agreed on that we are not very good at compromises. If one of us wants to go to Russia and the other wants to go to China, we won't go to Mongolia for the sake of compromise, we will go our separate ways. But that's OK, too. We don't have to live in each other's pockets all the time.

I started with nothing and I have most of it left

I couldn't escape it after all, namely the gene that has caused hoarding disorder in most of my family members. Apparently settling down for one week activated the gene and I started accumulating different kind of objects. Like this morning, when I found a cooler bag in the kitchen with a note "it's yours", I took it literally. Why not? I also confiscated most of the edible goods inside the cooler bag. The nomad life has made me feel like a vulture descending on a road kill every time there's abandoned stuff available.

The paradox in this is that I've tried to avoid possessing too many things since I started traveling but it seems like I've got the hunter-gatherers' instincts to -well- gather things. It's difficult to fight it, so I take things "just in case it'll be needed". And please note that here I'm quoting about 99% of my relatives.

I justify my acquisitions because everything I've found here has been free. People chuck their stuff all the time when they're leaving. Also, I don't own that much at the moment, only one suitcase containing clothes and other necessities. (But it's a big suitcase.) Australia is expensive and you have to plan for the future, have to save for the rainy day. One of these days I might be able to sell the cooler bag for a couple of dollars..

But when I seriously considered washing and reusing a plastic lunch bag I understood that I should have my need for medication evaluated. The same goes for keeping an empty instant coffee jar. We kept the jar for a couple of days after finishing the coffee "just in case", before we finally agreed that it's never going to be useful and threw it to the bin. The very next day we found a broken box full of laundry powder and moaned "and we don't have the glass jar anymore!" In the end we put the laundry powder in an empty bag that used to contain quinoa. It's not heavy like the glass jar so all in all it was a good solution.

Then I started to collect books. It's an old sin of mine I've been committing since I was a child. People leave their poor books alone, abandoned, forgotten about. There they are, on the "free shelves" for anyone to take. It's not like I even want to read them all but hey, haven't you ever noticed how books manipulate people, often whispering things like "don't leave me here, I want to go to your home with you" in that gloomy, mournful voice only abandoned books have.

I have to leave some of the stuff behind, I can't help it. Even my big suitcase is not big enough to carry everything. I went to a flight center to ask how much one needs to pay for a flight to Brisbane and I also asked if the airlines allow a  30kg luggage.
"30kg, not a chance" was the short reply I got from the salesman (who, btw, had been living in Finland and asked me where I'm from in Finnish). After a moment he added: "Well, Jet Star might allow a 30kg luggage". We'll see.

FAQ

I've been asked several strange or funny questions during my travels and today's post presents two of them and also delves into the world of cultural differences. Quite recently I was asked if I like my native language. I've always thought that everyone loves their mother tongue but apparently that's not the case. This conversation (and an online course in linguistics I'm taking) made me think about languages and identity and the combination of those two. Well, I love Finnish. I mean, who wouldn't love a language that has coined such a useful, funny, and most of all eloquent word as "comma f*cker" (a person who corrects trivial or meaningless things, as defined by the website Better Than English) Oh yes, our idioms tend to be a bit on the crude side.

I love Finnish for many reasons. First of all, it's the only language I can speak without a foreign accent, so when I go shopping in Finland I don't need to relate my immigration story to every cashier. And if someone dares to claim that I have an accent in my Finnish, that won't be without consequences. Secondly, Finnish is the only language in which I can discuss any topic under the sky. If someone criticizes my choice of words, well there are going to be consequences for that, too. In addition Finnish is the language of my family and my relatives, the language into which I naturally revert to when I'm tired, upset, angry, etc. One night not long ago I woke up when Anna was moving in our room and I wanted to ask what's wrong. I was shocked when the thought popped into my mind in English instead of Finnish. I was confused for several minutes and tried to decide which language I should use. The same thing happens on the rare occasion when I dream in English. I'll wake up thinking that something's not quite right in my head.

Another seemingly strange question I was asked quite often in Korea (and a couple of times elsewhere, too. I can understand it in Korea where people often take a western name if they work with western people, though.) is whether or not Laura is my real name. Yes, it is, do you want to see my passport or what? Apparently Laura doesn't fit the image of a Finnish name. It's a sad fact, however, that when I was born it was one of the most common names for a girl in Finland. Yell "Laura!" on the street and you'll have a dozen ladies about my age turn their head.

And finally I thought to introduce you to the one true thing I miss from Finland and that's not dark rye bread. It's the silence. Australian culture and the backpacker culture tend to be very social and people are talkative. The need to comment everything gets a bit tiring for a person who comes from a country where it's seen as polite to leave people alone. One of these days I was squeezing a lemon because I wanted to add some lemon juice to my water and one of these cheery, talkative backpackers around me exclaimed. "oh, you put lemon in your water!" Dude, I know. I can see it myself, so there's no need to mention it. It's like my foreign accent. I know I speak English as second language, it has ceased to surprise me long time ago. Sometimes I feel like I'm in a TV show and someone's narrating my life to the audience ("Now she's packing her suitcase, I wonder where she's going"). And then I want to go and find a society that isn't driven by the need to fill in with meaningless chatter every silent moment that lasts longer than 2 seconds.

A girl from nowhere

Thoughts about how you don't feel like explaining every Tom, Dick and Harry you happened to meet in the corner store how you ended up spending your gap year in Australia after first studying and working in South Korea, Poland and Ireland. Yeah, sometimes it's better to say nothing at all as your accent is bound to reveal that you aren't local. Yeah, you don't necessarily want everyone to know it.

I tried to buy stamps in a stationery and the lady there told me straight away, sorry we don't sell international stamps, you'll have to go to the post office. This being just one example of how annoying it can be to have an accent. And there are more examples, of course. Every time I have a conversation with someone, sooner or later I'll have to summarize my immigration history. Asking this classic question is an easy way to start a conversation, I get that much, and some people are probably genuinely interested where the heck did this person wander here from, but imagine repeating the same thing time after time. Like a broken record. Boring.

Sun is about to set

And it's not like the entire city of X (insert current location) is entitled to my story. The cashier at Woolworths doesn't really need the info but I can't help it. They'll notice I'm a foreigner when I open my mouth. Silence is golden they say. I don't want to keep repeating where I'm from, I want to tell the world where I'm going to.

Then you'll meet people who feel embarrassed by their own curiosity and they'll hastily at "I mean, originally". It is relatively easy to change our home country and sometimes it's possible to change your nationality. I could be  brand new Australian, American or Englishwoman,  but everyone will hear I used to be something/someone else. Getting the accent right is the most difficult aspect of language learning. I can only imagine how fed up expats/immigrants are after 10+ years of hearing "where are you from" from every second person they meet. For how long you can be a foreigner in your new home?

Always remember that a rolling stone gathers no moss

It's easier to be a foreigner in a country where you look different, so people will know you are most likely a foreigner. I never needed to explain that I'm a foreigner when I was living in South Korea. My face is also acted as a warning sign for those who didn't have the ability communicate in foreign languages. On the other hand, looking different probably means experiencing more racism. It's nice to blend in after all.

Every time my accent start to get on my nerves I'll remember this funny story. My Grandfather visited the dentist in Finland to get a filling done. After the treatment the dentist asked my Grandfather where he's originally from as it was clear for the dentist that he isn't local. Grandfather was a bit confused by the statement as he is a Finn and speaks Finnish but he's originally WWII refugee from Karelia (nowadays a part of Russia), so he asked how the dentist figured out he was born in different part of the country. The answer: his teeth are different. I assume that's because he didn't drink the same water or eat the same food as people did in our area. So EVERYTHING in us tells a story about our origin, better to accept it with good grace.

I wonder where did he come from. Nowadays he's in a museum in Brisbane.

Speaking of languages

Do you still remember the special pleasure of learning to read? When letters became words and words started to form sentences? When you could finally read books, magazines, flyers, information on bulletin borads and so on? (I can remember the joy when I didn't need Mother's help to read subtitles in foreign movies.)

Guess what? That special feeling of accomplishment is not forever lost even if it's not likely that you'll suddenly forget how to read. It's possible to experience it again. And again. You just need to start studying a new language. What's even better, it's not enough to learn just the alphabet this time. You'll also need to learn the words, hahahahaaa. (Evil laughter) "Easy to read, difficult to understand".

I don't know what possessed me when I thought that it would be a nice idea to learn to read once again, in Polish this time. I don't care if I'll never be able to read the junk mail tax office might send me, I'd be happy to be able to read a menu at a restaurant. I made this unbelievably optimistic wish before I had any knowledge of the Polish language. Now my most optimistic plan is to learn the numbers in 5 years and maybe then it could be possible to take a look at the most common greetings.

Polish belong to Slavic languages and previously I have wrestled with that lot when I tried to study Russian. When my grades hit a rock bottom I decided to forget the whole thing. After graduating from UAS I felt a momentary relief, thinking that I'm done studying languages. But then I drifted to Poland with the rising tide and found myself in a country where it's not only possible, but also very probable, to miss a train if you don't happen to understand the announcements at the railway station.

So, all in all, I started studying Polish. Next week my newly acquired skill will be tested. Let's see if I can order a coffee and a piece of that delicious cake at a coffee shop. If I'm not able to say "cake" in Polish, at least I'll get the coffee.

Devil's Haircut

Dear reader,

Did you ever wake up with the sinking feeling that your bad hair day is not a day anymore. It's a week. Two weeks. A month. You name it. Well, I did wake up with this feeling a month ago. And after that I've been considering a visit to hairdresser's. I was hesitating for such a long time because I wasn't sure if I could find a hairdresser who'd speak English (or Finnish, haha).

Anyways, after suffering the enormous pains of the bad hair purgatory for the better part of the summer, I finally decided to take action in oder to look less like something the cat dragged in. Well, of course it turned out that the hairdresser didn't speak much English (and if you try very hard I'm sure you can make an educated guess about her Finnish skills :) but you see, I was desperate. So, equipping myself with detailed photos of the desired result, I decided to take the risk.

Come to think of it, you can never be 100% sure that someone has understood what you've explained, even if you happen to have a common language. At least I've often heard people complain that their hairdresser/cosmetologist/doctor didn't quite get it and they were not satisfied with the result. You can't force other people to see your vision. And they can't read your mind (which is a fact to be happy about, really).

As it turns out after the scary visit is over, I couldn't be more satisfied with the result. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. And it was definitely worth the 149 zlotys I invested in this. :)))) All is well when the hair is well!

When money talks, no one is listening

Money is the thing that makes the world go round, isn't it? Nevertheless people never seem to have enough of it and it's extremely rare to hear someone complain that they have too much of it. Except if you happen to be living in Poland. In Poland even the blogger herself has come to understand the pain of having so much money that you don't know what to do with it. Unfortunately this is not because I'm sickly rich and it's impossible to deposit more into the bank account, but because the usage of large banknotes is banned, so to say.

For those who didn't already know, the currency of Poland is zloty. The smalles unit is the teeny-tiny coin of one grosz and the largest one is two hundred zloty. And two hundred zloty is good for nothing except maybe for charity.

It doesn't matter whether you are at a grocery store, cosmetics store, clothers store, restaurant (the list is endless, so I'll make a stop here), the cashier will expect the customer to have more common sense that to try and pay with hundred zloty if the price of the product is only twenty zloty. Keep your wealth a secret, please!

You will notice the aversion towards poor banknotes when you stand in front of the cashier and extract hundred zloty from your purse. The cashier will immediately step backwards in attempt to take some distance to that potentially dangerous object you are holding. They will invaribaly enquire if you have a more suitable bill hidden somewhere. My savior is my inability to understand Polish. It works miracles every time and I get my change.

Slowly even my absent minded self has understood that one cannot go to zloty war unprepared. Because of this "currency crisis" I'm indebted to someone most of the time and I'm sure my friends are sick and tired of paying me out when I fail to produce a suitable bill. So in the future I promise to carry a wider assortment of bills to be able to pay for my own food and drinks..

Next week I will start practicing what I just preached and promised by finally going to the post office. I've been postponing my visit because last week I didn't dare to go there waving my 50 zloty note, but now I have this harmless 20 zloty (see below). So let's see if I'll come out alive!