Today's news

I went to work and my boss gave me a bottle of wine as a christmas present. Sweet. Unfortunately, it tastes horrible. If I mix it with Karpalo Lonkero it's much better, and more alcoholic. Anyway, nice one Tatu!
Then I walked home in the snow and when I got back Tommi asked me if I'd got the text he sent me. I looked at my phone and the estate agents offered me the room I wanted in the flat I viewed! Which is a good thing but I'm also quite sad because that means there's no going back when it comes to Jussi. It's the end of an era, and it's difficult to accept. Maybe I need something definitive like that in order to move on. I'm happy but also sad. It would be nice to move out of limbo, but it cements everything, and that's hard to deal with. At least they didn't care about me being foreign, which was a concern for me.
I'm going to start looking for a second job too. This week I only had to work today, and Tatu doesn't think they need me at all next week, and I can't live on only one day's wages per week. We talked about it and he said he would understand if I left the company, but I do enjoy my job and would be happy doing that and another part time job. I hope I won't have to leave Suomen Filateliapalvelu but, like he said, if someone offers me a full time position I ought to take it.

Free beer and cheese!

Oh god I'm hungover. Olkkone had a Christmas party last night that included vouchers for free beer. Then the barman gave us free beer even without vouchers. I think we were there for around 8 hours. This morning everyone wants to die.

As well as free drinks they had a little buffet, so everyone was eating free cheese, meatballs, olives, pickled onions, chocolates and biscuits, so it was like a real party. There was also free non-alcoholic glögi on tap. For English people, it's like mulled wine but the Finns prefer to add rum or vodka. As this was without alcohol, it was warm, spicy fruit juice. I can now say with certainty that making a cocktail from glögi and Karpalo Lonkero does not produce very pleasant results.

I've never been to a bar in England that made such an effort just to make everyone happy at Christmas. On New Years Eve last year The Dev in Camden gave a free shot of Jäger to the first 100 people through the door, but as you had to pay £5 entry for a bar that's normally free it didn't really make much difference. It just meant you'd bought a very expensive shot, and apart from that nothing happened. I'm told this really isn't unusual in Finland, and that lots of bars do it for Christmas, New Years Eve and the bar's birthday.

It was nice though, it involved some drunken phone calls to England and it was nice to hear some English voices again. I think everyone was very happy.

I ought to go to Maistraati to finish sorting out my social security but today is more a day for sitting down quietly.

Social security part 2 and cool supermarkets

Today we took another stab at getting a social security number. We walked to the police station, and were told we need to go to Maistraati. (A registry office basically.) Not cool, since that's on the corner of market square, two minutes away, rather than 20 minutes away like the police station.
We went back and went to this place, which bizaarely is in a department store, along with a wedding room and the office of the Brazilian consulate. Where's the sense?
However, I filled in my paperwork there, showed them my passport and work contract, and got approved! Woop! But as things can never go 100% right in this country the computer system wasn't working and I have to go back on Thursday so they can process my application and generate a number.
I think the only practical thing I have left to deal with is registering to pay tax. And deal with my boss seemingly forgetting I'm alive - Suski asked him about my work hours yesterday and he'd said he'd call me to ask me to work today and give me the rest of my hours - still haven't heard anything! Not that I mind getting a day off but I'd like to earn some money. I suspect someone brought in some really nice stamps to sell and he got distracted. I'll call him eventually. Just not today, fuck off am I going to work in the cold now.

When Emma and I went to S-Market earlier to get some lunch I noticed the deli counter for the first time. Most English supermarkets have one, but this was an off the scale, food porn deli counter. They have regular stuff like burgers, pastries, salads etc but they have stuff like mashed potato, macaroni cheese, other pasta dishes, pizza, and you just have to heat it all up when you get home. I had a very exciting feta cheese and olive burger and some couscous salad. It's not the cheapest part of the shop, but they had so much stuff. Much nicer than the slightly soggy and greasy samosas and onion bhajis I always bought in Sainsburys in Canterbury.

Finnish films and flats

I just went to view the flat we found. They do things differently here - everyone who's interested turns up at the same time and looks together. It was very nice, and spacious, and the other people were all girls around my age or a bit younger so that would be fine. It's 30 seconds walk from Emma and Tommi's front door, and would make no difference at all for getting to work or the shops. I hope that my foreigness won't be a problem and that they wouldn't purposely choose a Finnish speaking person over me. In all other ways I'm just as suitable as anyone else - I have a job and an income and would be responsible about it all. Right after that I got a Finnish bank account! It was much more straightforward than opening an account in my own country for the first time, so I'm proud of Finland for being simple for once.
Yesterday we were planning to see a Finnish film, Rare Exports, but ended up watching Twin Peaks for seven hours instead. The film is in Finnish and English, and is a slightly strange story about hunters capturing wild Santas in Lapland, and training them to be nice to children. There are two short films which are meant to be seen before the full length one, you can see them here. Youtube says you have to be a grown-up for that.
There's another Finnish film I'd like to see, which I think will be released soon, called Iron Sky. It's about space Nazis. Excellent.
The first Finnish film I ever saw was Paha Maa. For reasons that remain unclear, that film was what made my friend Katie want to go to Finland, which in turn lead to us boarding a flight to Helsinki in August 2009. I only saw the film after we'd been there and Jussi had come to London, and if I'd seen it beforehand it would have convinced me to never, ever go to Finland. It's one of the most miserable, depressing things I have ever seen. Why it had the opposite effect on Katie remains one of life's unsolved mysteries.
Whilst Jussi and I were together he showed me a few Finnish films. I would advise everyone to avoid Mosku at all costs. It's basically five hours of a miserable Finnish bastard hunting reindeer and moaning about Russians. Nothing actually happens. Matti is hilarious, but then Matti Nykänen is quite a hilarious guy. It's funny but tragic the way things turned out for him. I also really like Pahat Pojat, which I understand to also be a true story. Another film I'd like to see is Saatanan Radikaalat, which is about four dead Finnish guys who have such a great time in Hell they get sent back to Earth as a punishment. It's from the 1970s but it would be nice to find a subtitled copy or download.
Of all the films I've seen, only one did not have Jasper Pääkkönen in it. He's quite nice though. Not so much in Matti but in Paha Maa he was quite tasty. Ding dong.

Life sorted

Tommi found an advert for a room in a flat last night that's a minute's walk from their place, still Yliopistonkatu, and the monthly rent was half of what I'm earning in a week! It was living with a few girls, but house sharing is normal to me, I think in Finland people without much money and students usually live alone in studios, but it would be nicer to be with some other people.
Rent seems to be a lot cheaper here; it might be because furnished flats don't really exist. Everyone said they could help me with furniture, I think all I'd really need is a bed and probably a table and chair for drawing. I'm going to possibly view it on Monday, but if that or something similar works out I'd have a home, a job and some friends here. Do I need anything more?
Also, I have a huge hangover and it's not good.

Workiness

Yes, I work at a stamp dealership. Yes, that's hilarious.
I kinda find the people who go into the shop funny because almost every single one is an elderly man with glasses. They also seem a bit shocked when I say "Minä olen Englantilainen", and scuttle off looking scared. However, I have to admit to a nerdy stamp-loving moment today. I remember when I was a kid being taught in school about the Victorian period, and in that time the first British postage stamp was issued, and they showed us pictures of it. Today, when I was making up an order, one of those was part of it! I had a nose at it for quite a long time, and was a little bit excited. I'm officially a nerd.
Work is going well. My boss took me for lunch yesterday, which was a bit of a shock because that's never happened in any job I've had in England. He walked into the room and informed me he was taking me for pizza. Obviously I wasn't arguing with that.
I think Finnish workplaces are a bit more laid-back than English ones, although possibly I just got lucky because I work at a very small company. The only really chilled out job I had in England was working in the Oxfam bookshop in Canterbury. The boss was an aging hippy who was usually stoned, and tended to disappear mid-morning for a fry up. It was a good job.
I need to adapt to getting up early every day. I'm exhausted, my back and legs ache so much, I feel like an old woman.
Finally, I guess I'll be staying in Turku because things have gone sour with Jussi, yet again, and I'm not prepared to tolerate it anymore. I have friends here, I have a job, and I'm sure I can eventually sort out my own place to live. I don't need someone who only wants to drag me down.

Turku/Vantaa

Vantaa


Turku


We might move to Vantaa next month, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. I could, of course, stay in Turku on my own, but that would be pretty difficult. My main concern is to be in this country and continue my experiences here - at first Jussi actually wanted to return to England, but I did not go through all this stress for a 7 week holiday!
I've only been to Vantaa because that's where the airport for Helsinki is. I don't really know what it's like, but Jussi is keen so he can work at the Koff brewery again. It's also commutable to Helsinki, so there would be plenty to do and there would probably be more employment opportunities for someone like me.
All of this would be just fine were it not for the fact that I love Turku, I like my job here, and I'm starting to feel quite settled. I was walking home from work at 9am this morning, the sun was just rising, it was snowy everywhere, and it all just seemed so lovely, I wanted to cry just thinking about leaving. I'm not saying I'd want to live here forever but it's such a nice place, and I don't really know what Vantaa is like, and maybe I wouldn't like it there. I haven't had enough of a chance to live here and explore. I'm not really in a financial position to stay here alone, and Jussi is very set on the fact that he wants to leave. Why he feels like that when he bitched and whined for months in London that he wanted to come back here is a mystery. And obviously, I'd like to be with him too, but I don't think I can have both him and Turku. I'm very worried, and very confused. If I really couldn't stay here then I'd choose Vantaa over England any day. Maybe it would be another good opportunity for me, and it would make my overall experience much bigger to have lived in more than one city in this country. I think I need a Finnish person to tell me the whole dirty truth about each place so I can work it all out/give me a coin to flip.
I'm sorry to have this big old emotional rant - this blog was not intended to be for such things, but I guess it is relevant. It's been a bit of a difficult day, thinking about all of this and feeling so uncertain. Any advice is welcome on this one.
On a lighter note, tomorrow I'm meeting a girl who reads this blog, so hopefully I'll end up with a new Finnish friend. Also, in the photo of Turku at the top, the grey building in the top left hand corner is where I live! Not for long apparently, but never mind. Our flat's on the opposite side though.