A few days of Christmas

Happy Holidays everyone!

I managed to haul much crap that are my material possessions over to my parent's house in Saarijärvi (a quiet 10,000 people town in central Finland) earlier this week. Now I'm staying here until I hop on that plane and soar over to London. Time to relax, take a breather, go on quiet walks in the nature (if no snow appears) and watch actual TV. (And be bored.)

We (mom & dad & I) had a very traditional Finnish Christmas. When I was younger I thought Christmas was pointless; it was just another day spent at home without the option to go out and see friends because they're all stuck at home too with their families. Oh, have I grown since then! It took me moving away from home to live on my own to learn to appreciate this holiday. It also helped when I started liking Christmas food. Sure, I've liked ham but didn't care too much for the casserole dishes (carrot, potato and swede). Now I was craving Christmas dinner for weeks! In addition to the food mentioned before we also had smoked salmon, cold smoked salmon tartare, rainbow trout roe and herring rolls. And the best gravy in the world! Made from the pig fat from the ham. Simple but oh so damn lovely! And of course the lovely Finnish Christmas bread - "joululimppu". Store bought, obviously, although that url will take you to a recipe. Only things we prepared ourselves were the potato casserole, herring rolls, cold smoked salmon tartare, smoked salmon, ham (which set the smoke alarm off, twice. No fire brigade was needed so no biggie!) and the gravy. And mom made mustard like every year. It's soooo good with the ham!

Omnomnomnom!

Not to mention gingerbread cookies, crackers and grapes with a cheese platter for "dessert" accompanied by Scandinavian mulled wine. Blue cheese is pretty much the only thing gingerbread is good with (apart from an android phone). I'm a cheese lover, have been since I was a little kid. My taste has since evolved but there were signs that I'd grow up to like cheesy things.

And repeat on Christmas Day! It'll take a few weeks to slim back down to my usual size...

Presents were pretty much absent this year. Dad tranferred some money to my account and I got them a DVD. I also got one gift in the mail from Maria, it turned out to be a tube scarf she knitted herself. Thank you! My one present was placed next to a plastic flower that almost looks like a poinsettia! There's really no room for an actual christmas tree here.

Everyone have a sparkling New Year's Eve! I'll be spending the night at work feeding the hungry drunken folk. I have 28 days until take-off and only 6 more shifts at work!

Don't do today what you can leave for tomorrow

Procrastination is what I do best. Everything in my life gets done in the very last panic of "this needs to be taken care of yesterday!"

I have to clear out my apartment on Monday. I sincerely intended to start packing today but watching Criminal Minds just seems much more important right now. Then I'll crash at my parents' for a month before boarding the plane! I've gotten rid of my bed and my bedside table mainly because I had friends come over and take them with them. So now I'm camping on my floor sleeping on a mattress and every knickknack that was piled on the table is now all over my floor. This is pretty much the state I'm currently in:

No worries, I have until Monday!


On another note: almost all paperwork is now done! Almost all school work is also now done! There's one essay still waiting to be written. I even bought a travel insurance and figured out how to handle money stuffs. So I've actually done lots. I still need to get a new passport and fill out a form for KELA and some summer school papers but then all official stuff will be taken care of. These can wait until January.

On Monday I'm leaving Jyväskylä behind and then I'll just kick back and enjoy Christmas. I will not spare one fraction of a thought to any learning diaries, essays or exams for at least seven months! I'll be working over New Years which is a bit of a bummer but it is what it is. I'll save some party-energy for next year then!

I've also had "Yay, I'm leaving" (or "Go away!") dinners with my friends; last Saturday I went out with a bunch of people and yesterday with two friends from elementary, middle and high school. Both times were much fun and the food was good! So I've kinda said goodbye to people already.

A lot of people have asked me if I'm nervous or getting scared. I'm not. Of course I'm excited but I'm not stressed or worried. Things work out, they always do. No, I don't have a room yet and I probably won't even find one before I'm already in the country but I can't worry about it now, I don't even know how to. I'll find a place eventually, until then I'll just have to make do.

But home is nowhere

Things are still pretty much how they were a month ago. Except that I have the Practical Training Agreement ready and mailed. I've been waiting for it to get back to me for two weeks now but day after day the mail man disappoints me. I also have all the other documents ready to go, I'll just need the Practical Training Agreement as an attachment to those before I can give them to the international office people. I also booked a flight for Thursday 26th of January. Well excited!

Finding a reasonable flight turned out to be much more difficult than I originally thought. Oh, and can you imagine that flying with Finnair would have cost almost 900€! That's insane! Finally I found a good flight with British Airways for a bit less than 90€. I still have to pay for an extra bag but I think I'll just do that in the airport. It would be 6€ cheaper to pay for it online but since my other bag is so humongous I'd rather check it in person. The info on the website about extra bags and size restrictions was way too confusing for me.

Finding a place to live has proven to be quite difficult. So far pretty much everyone is advertising rooms that are available NOW or next week or something, nothing for January just yet. I've also tried to suggest Skype chats to people instead of me going over for a viewing but no luck yet.