Other worlds

There's a live events company that brings films to life, Future Cinema. I was lucky enough to get to be at their Grease event! It was such an amazing experience! They had transformed Barnes Common park into a '50's fun fair with a carrousel, ferris wheel, dance hall, diner, Frenchie's house for makeovers and hair dos, few old cars to pose with, and actors playing the characters from the film interacting with the audience. The park was filled with people dressed in '50's

Such an amazing business idea! Experiencing the films you watch and love. They've got another branch called Secret Cinema for which the film isn't revealed until the opening credits roll, but they do give out hints before the event and finally give a dress up theme and time and place for it. Then you just show up wearing the appropriate costume and you're taken into the world of the film they're showing you. I'm in love with this company! They only do a few events a year because they really are spectacular and it takes a lot of time and effort to put the whole thing together. So far I've only seen trailer videos for their previous events but I'm going to one in November! I'm already excited to see which film it's going to be and what they've done for it!

Then there's Secret Screenings; a smaller profile film event where we were told a time and a place but the film was kept a secret until it started; no big special event shenanigans. It turned out to be The Imposter, a documentary about a French serial identity thief who managed to convince government officials as well as the family that he was an American boy who'd gone missing three years earlier. I suggest you check it out! After the film we heard from the director, Bart Layton, and the Private Investigator, Charlie Parker about their experiences with the case and the film. Fantastic experience as well. I think it's mostly the anticipation and secrecy, and the film turned out to be fascinating too.

A Door In A Wall is organising a murder mystery treasure hunt. I'd be really tempted to go to that too but they recommend people to do it in groups and I don't particularly have a group here. I've been doing stuff and going to things with one person and now he's gone back to uni.

I've also subscribed to a secret supper club newsletters for some secret dining in a secret place but haven't heard anything yet.

This city really is full of fantastic events and experiences just as well as everyday awesome places and venues. London is not a place to be bored in. If you've got time, willingness, and ability to use Google, you will find amazing things to do every day of the week! Or don't even bother googling, just hop on a bus (any bus) and hop off somewhere you've never been before and go for a little walk around the area.

Vamos a la playa! Y a Great Escape y a Finlandia.

When I came here, I kept my options open. I had no actual plans to go back to Finland but neither had I decided to definitely stay here; I'd do whatever would suit the situation best come August and the end of my internship. Well, that was then. Now I've decided to stay. I keep falling in love with this city more and more as time passes and the thought of packing my things and leaving just seems ridiculously wrong. As of future plans - if job hunting carries no fruit, I have at least a year to figure out my next move while finishing my degree; I still need to complete few courses and of course write my thesis. It'll be tight but things always work out.

Speaking of thesis - I finally have a general idea of what I want to do it on. If this idea gets approved, I'll be working with the Farm so it'll be a nice continuation to my internship.

This spring/start of summer will be too amazing! Chronologically: My best friend is coming for a visit, the Farm is going to The Great Escape, I'm visiting Finland briefly to go to my niece's high school graduation and then flying to Málaga, Spain for a friend's wedding! And we're doing this:

Last Sunday 1.4. I went for a walk around my neighborhood, grabbed a coffee in a farm close by and then stumbled upon Stave Hill Ecological Park. And all this just a spitting distance from London Bridge so basically still quite central London. The farm has goats, pigs, ducks, chickens, geese, sheep, turkeys and a pony. They serve food, coffee, ice cream and cake. They also sell eggs; chicken, goose and duck.

Pictures!

Jaguars are native to SE London

Big cities don't have nature

My interpretation of a concrete jungle, consider this a postmodern view

South London is such a miserable place

Proper music post!

There's this thing called Ja Ja Ja club where Nordic bands and artists play tunes and it's organized (bi?)monthly at The Lexington. I like this idea and think I'll go again and keep track of what's happening! This Thursday was the day. I heard about it at about 4pm on Thursday when my boss asked if I wanted to go and introduce myself to the Musex UK project manager. Yeah, why not. So I went to see Manna (FIN), Freja Loeb (DEN) and Útidúr (ICE). (I apologize for linking to MySpace but they don't seem to have websites!) Had a few words with the guy, he was very tall. After Manna's set I was already really tired and had a headache so I was getting ready to leave when I saw one of the boys from the next band carry a saxophone on stage and decided to stay for a bit. I stayed for two more songs and headed out. Bummed that I didn't get to see the last band but as I was very disoriented (getting lost on straight hallways, almost missing my tube stop - twice, bumping into people, etc.) on my way home it was probably for the best that I left. By the time I was home I just and just managed put on my pajamas before crashing. Slept like a.... thing that sleeps very deeply.

Anyway, I liked Manna. I've never heard any of her songs before even though she's been in the media quite a bit in Finland for the past, I don't know, maybe couple of years? I'm very bad with time. I was very positively surprised as I was expecting just another female singer-songwriter that we're all getting a bit bored of, amirite? But she had just enough rock and just enough groove to be interesting. I have to say, they (she?) were more intriguing on stage than on record and I spent a lot of time trying to find a video that would do them (her?) justice. This one's alright but still lacks something that was there during a live performance. Wine, perhaps...

The next group, Freja Loeb, were essentially the exact same thing as Manna. Same cereal, different packaging. There's a band, there's the girl, the group's name is her name, they play indie, both girls wore leggings as pants and red lipstick, you get the idea. Manna had the advantage of being first so people (me) weren't yet bored with that. And in my mind she was more likable anyway, more real. Her voice was also definitely stronger while I couldn't really even hear Freja for a big chunk of the time. But they had the sax and that alone is cause for mad props in my book. I also realize that had Freja been first on stage, I'd be comparing them in reverse and that might affect how I feel.

As I already mentioned, I didn't stay long enough to catch the last band, Útidúr from Iceland, but I've since checked them out on YouTube. My first thought was that they sound very Icelandic. Not really my cuppa tea normally, but I'm strangely fascinated anyway. I can picture a time and place for this and will make a mental note to listen to this more when that time and place present themselves. Beautiful sounds and I do love me a bit of violin and trumpets. For a fraction of a second they remind me of a chilled out and slowed down version of Katzenjammer (NOR).

I wish I'd seen them live but no can do.

For a bonus, here's Katzenjammer with A Bar In Amsterdam. 

No Place Like London

Let me just say, Jamie's Italian is a beautiful restaurant. My feelings may have been enhanced by those two bottles of wine we had during the course of the night, but it was good wine! And the fact that I really like Jamie, I think he's fun and has the right attitude towards food and cooking.

That was last Sunday. Also the day I realized that I love this city. I've been perfectly content here all this time but now I'm starting to really grasp the magnificence of this place. We spent the day having Sunday roast at a pub, then just strolling down the street by Thames, visiting Tate Modern, admiring the view and then had great - yet affordable - food.

I started making a list. List of things to do when my friend Maria is coming for a visit. I'm getting really excited about that even though it's still five weeks away. There's so much to do and see!

There's these little quirky things that are so interesting about this city! Like wandering around London Bridge area (sort of city centre) and stumbling upon some little cottage that looks like it's been teleported here from some idyllic little village on the countryside. Huge office building towering over it on the background. And going to Canary Wharf for the first time to be amazed by how it seems like a completely different city. Completely different country even! And this guy and his guitar:

Rockin' by the River

One of our bands released their new single on Monday. Check out the video here. (I would embed the whole thing but for some reason YouTube search can't find it) They're such a fun band, I really like them. Also, we're releasing five new singles from five new bands from five different cities on April 30th. Now it's relentless promoting of that for the next five weeks. Five seems to be the magic number here. That gives me a flimsy excuse to do this:

People are strange

While out shopping I found this gem in Urban Outfitters. For £475 it could be yours!

Too bad I'm too short for this

If you're not quite that well off but totally love the design you might find comfort in that this lovely shirt was only £135.

Bargain!

Then we saw this fun street performance. Knocks bird-whistler right to second in my 'weirdest way to apply yourself' -list.

Brian stew

I joined a boxing gym. Bought a 3 month membership, got the rest of this month free. Fucking finally! I've been feeling so bad about myself for not working out and eating unhealthy and just not taking care of myself like I used to. So Tuesday morning I got up a bit earlier and went for a little jog, popped in, had a quick look around and decided to start training there.

The owner is a middle aged Irish bloke with a really strong accent so I'm not quite a 100% sure what I've gotten myself into and what my membership actually includes. But the place seemed like a good place for getting the most out of the workout. It was old school, it was sweaty, it was rough. Not some girly fitness gym where women wear pretty things and smell like flowers. Saturday noon I went for my first ever ladies only boxing fitness class! It was so fun and so hard. Although I thought it'd be a lot harder on me since it's been about a month since I've really exercised but I came to realize that a few week break really isn't the end of the world when you've been working out actively before that, it doesn't just disappear in a few weeks time.

On Tuesday night the girls from the office got our pretty brains together and took part in a pub quiz. They had difficult questions about capital cities, mediocre questions about random shit and easy intros in the music round. There was only one song we weren't absolutely sure about so we randomly guessed it right! It sounded a lot like a boy band song so we picked Westlife. Then we randomly picked the word "love" for the song title. It actually was Westlife and the song was My Love! Good instincts.

Franco chillin'

Si of Violet Bones rockin'

On Thursday a bunch of us went to see Franco and the Dreadnought in Camden and on Saturday I went to see Violet Bones in Buffalo Bar, Islington. Franco gig was fun enough and the guy is very likable and I really enjoyed that night even though I'm not much into all that "guy and a guitar" sweetness. Then on Saturday the Violet Bones were soooooo good! And attractive. They could well be in my top-something list of my favorite bands, and probably will be eventually. First I need to hear more. I'm so glad I get to work with them. They had cassettes on sale at the merch table but I forgot to buy one. Yes, forgot. I don't know what happened, apparently my brian went "PRIII" and everything I was about to do was just suddenly gone. I remember walking towards the table and then got distracted and went home instead. I'll have to ask around if I can get one somewhere still. This is the video for their latest single "Chamicals".

On the weekend I finally got into the flow of some retail therapy. Saturday I went to King's mall and Sunday to Oxford street. I now have such pretty things in bright colours! There's still some stuff I didn't have time to look for but there's always next weekend! Now that I still have money I might as well put it to use and buy lasting things instead of spending it all on takeout indian food and everything else that's bad for me. I definitely need shoes. To go with my new pretty things. Which reminds me:

Show me your dirty face

Dust. There's lots of dust in this town. I have to vacuum my room once a week here because house dust just piles up so quickly. In Finland that miracle happened maybe once in three, I'm a very lazy housekeeper. The pollution is also visible in my cotton pads when I wipe my face clean every night and mornings. I've always thought of air pollution as something invisible (apart from obviously car fumes from passing cars) that only quietly affects things like health and whatnot but I've come to find that it is also very real physically too. I'm curious to see if I can also feel it the next time I visit Finland.

I can not, for the life of me, get a stupid bank account opened! They don't seem to know what they want from me since every time I've tried, they've needed different documents. Passport seems to be the only thing they all agree on. They also always want proof of address but don't quite know what they can accept for that.

This week was quite uneventful. 10-18 at the office and then home to watch tv. Which is awesome! I definitely prefer working to going to school as I can - with a clear conscience - just bum around doing whatever when I'm not working. With school there's always some essay that needs to be written or a project proposal that needs editing and researching and stuff. Now my free time is actually my free time! No nagging sense of guilt about assignments.

On Wednesday one of my coworker's band had a gig and we all went to support him. Check them out here. And here's a video just in case you're too lazy to navigate to a different site.

Saturday night I went to a local pub with two Finnish girls who also have just started their internships here. It's nice to meet other people who are new to the city and compare notes on how we feel about it ;) I had a -10% food voucher but forgot to use it so I'll have to go back in a couple of weeks. Tuesday nights they seem to have a pub quiz, that could be fun.

I'm a farm girl now

My first week of interning for The Animal Farm has gone so quickly! People at the office are nice and chill, but professional of course. The atmosphere is relaxed but the environment stimulates hard work. Really an ideal place to gain work experience as the first step into the harsh music industry world. She says after one week.

So far I have: googled a lot, browsed Twitter a lot, listened to boring bands a lot to find few good ones, sent emails a lot and laughed a lot.

On Friday we went to Kensington Roof Gardens where one of the bands the company works with - Athletes in Paris - were playing. Dress code: "No effort, no entry" so I put on a skirt and heels - my new Irregular Choices. It was a super posh place, and very very beautiful. I'd imagine it'll be amazing in the summer! As the name indicates, it is a garden on a rooftop. They'd built a sort of tent around it tho so we weren't exactly outside the whole night - only about half outside. The gig was very enjoyable, they're such a fun band and a bunch of nice guys. And I really like their music too. Drinks were expensive. I paid over £10 for a GT and £8,45 for a glass of wine!

Athletes In Paris

Other great things have happened this week too: We got a new dishwasher to replace the old broken one! We couldn't use it at first, though, because it couldn't be plugged in. But we didn't have to endure that for too long as the plumbers showed up to rescue us from the mountains of dirty dishes the very next day! A dishwasher really does make life a little bit simpler.

Fun fact: There's a pretty respected rehearsal studio in the building complex and lots of famous people use it. I've heard exciting stories of celebrity spotting around there! And then I got to witness some of it myself; Little Mix came into the café to get lunch one day.

First week of the rest of my life

I'm here! It's lovely! The first two days we had +10°C and sunny weather but after that it's been around +4 and cloudy. Still a great improvement to the -20°C we had in Finland!

I landed at 9:15am on Thursday morning. I found my way to the flat quite easily - I took the tube: Piccadilly line to Green Park and then Jubilee line to Bermondsey station. The tricky part was getting my stuff with me. I had two big suitcases, a carry on bag and a purse. I had to macgyver the carry on on to the other suitcase using my scarf so I could push that around with one arm and then drag the other one along with the other. Ok, so now moving on flat surfaces was doable but then the subway train came and I had to somehow get these over the step on to the train. That turned out to be a little challenging as the other monstrosity was quite heavy and unbalanced with the carry on hanging on to it. People proved to be helpful enough and I wasn't left on the station struggling.

My flat is just a few minutes walk from the station. Satu, my flatmate, came to the station to lead me home. I put my stuff in my room and then stepped out for a little bit. I found a big shopping center close to here and went to wander around for a bit. Then I took a much needed nap in my comfy bed. I'm finding it surprisingly easy to adjust to sleeping on a single after so many years of having a king size bed.

On Friday I met another Finnish girl, Eve, to go vote on the presidential elections and then we sat down for a coffee at Hotel Chocolat in Covent Garden. I had a ham&cheese wrap. Wrapped in a chocolate thin pancake and it had cocoa nibs and weird stuff in it! I was quite scared of what it would be like but was very positively surprised! It was actually really good! Eve had to go meet her boyfriend for lunch and I started wandering around aimlessly on the streets on Covent Garden. I found some sort of market, a few streets with shops and then eventually stumbled upon Charing Cross station.

Topshop was quite a disappointment but one day I will get shoes from Aldo. And I'm making it a mission to get Irregular Choice shoes. I've been drooling over their website but haven't seen any of the styles I like in stores. This time I didn't buy anything. I headed back home and went to buy some food. Ended up only getting yoghurt, some berries and grapes and a little thing of coleslaw. I didn't think grocery shopping would end up being a problem but for some reason I just didn't know what to buy! Later I went to get Indian food since it is the national food around here. Had that with a bit of wine and watched TV. Crazy Friday night!

I've also been to wander around Camden Town. I believe I only saw a small fraction of it. There was so much stuff! So many little shops and market booths and people and everything. I've been so overwhelmed that I've forgot to take any pictures! Next post will be nicer to look at, I promise. I've also had time to go to Regent street and Oxford street for some shopping. I haven't bought much, which surprises me. I find myself being stupidly cautious and cheap when it comes to shopping. My most prized purchase has to be a pair of Abigail's Party shoes by Irregular Choice. I've been drooling over their website for months and now I finally have a store near by! I might go crazy and end up buying everything they sell.

My darlings!

Satu's family have a box over at The Valley where Charlton Athletic are based and she invited me to a football game. It was great! Such a modest start with all the football enthusiasm; food, champagne, it was nice and warm in there with a great view over the field. And they tied at the last minute!

I could get used to this.

The flat is nice and even tho my room is quite smallish I have a lot of storage space here. I haven't quite emptied my suitcases yet but I think I can find a place for everything. The flat gets a bit drafty and chilly at times but mostly it's warm enough. And at least my blanket is working. The single windows will take some time to get used to; I can hear the street outside my window like there's no wall at all! I've been sleeping with ear plugs on and waking up multiple time a night for some reason.

I better get my nutrition in order as my skin is letting me know I've been eating too much bread and other bad foods for me. I've also somehow ended up having alcohol every night I've been here. If not at some pub then at home with dinner.

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.

Taking care of business

These are the practical thingies that I need to do before I board the plane.This listing is more for me to remember and maybe you to check through if you're thinking about interning abroad. For the rest of you this post might not be very interesting to read.

Paperwork: There's the Practical Training Agreement, Training Agreement and Quality Commitment for Erasmus student placements, (rest are quite freely translated) another Erasmus training agreement, scholarship application for practical training completed abroad, certificate of semester abroad, proof of summer studies for KELA (the government office that gives me money for being in school) and another form for KELA letting them know I'll be spending a semester abroad. That's seven documents that I need to write and fill out before the end of the year at the very latest. I'm going to try to get them ready in a month so there's enough time for them to be processed.

Apartment (FIN): I was battling between terminating my lease and moving out completely and leasing my room furnished for 6 months to ensure I have a place to come back to if I need it. I decided to move out. At the end of December I'll be moving to my parent's house for a few weeks before taking off to London town. Before that I'll need to go through all my belongings, treasures and trinkets and haul most of it to a second hand shop, give away to friends or strangers or throw out. Things need to be get rid of. And that's a bigger job than you'd imagine. Going through my clothes alone will take longer than life. And I also need to decide what to do with all my furniture. Most of them are giveaways anyway so I can pass them on or leave them here if roomies need them but things such as my bed and some shelves that I'd like to keep will need a temporary home.

Apartment (UK): I'll need a roof over my head in my new location. I hear it rains a lot and four walls and a ceiling would probably do the best job at keeping me dry. I'll need to buy an umbrella too. I've been browsing gumtree and posted an ad on finn-guild's forum (Finnish-British organization) but it seems that I probably won't find a place for January until December. The ones that are being advertised now are free from the end of this month or from the beginning of November.

Shopping: I don't need too much (just somebody to loooove), only some bigger things like a new laptop. Well, want would be more accurate as this one is still working. But I want a smaller and lighter one that'd be easier to carry around. This one is also starting to slow down a bit but that could probably be fixed by installing Windows 7 on it. I don't care, I want a new one and it will be cuter. I'm also considering getting a smart phone to make it easier to document and organize my life. I used to think I'd never miss having one if I never get used to it but now it's just been one too many times that I've had to curse having a regular phone. If any of you have any suggestions for either, I'll be happy to hear them! I have one restriction for the phone though; it can't be sim-locked as I won't be using it with my Finnish plan. And the umbrella I already mentioned.

Bills and Memberships: Electricity and Internet bills need to be switched to my roomie's name. I also need to terminate my gym membership. I hope all goes smoothly as the Internet plan and my gym membership are fixed-term contracts.

Insurances: I'll need a travel insurance, obviously. Also getting a European Health Insurance Card could be a good idea even though travel insurance also covers health issues. The European blah blah is anyway free of charge so might as well. I'll need to look more into all of this with someone who actually understands something about insurances.

Plane tickets: Pretty obvious. I'm not in a rush with these since there's always cheap flights going to London. Also depends on when I'll have a place to go to. I'll try to rent from mid-Jan. so I'd have a couple of weeks to ride on the tube before I start work. It's a bit bigger a city than what I'm used to so getting around might be a bit more complicated and needs to be rehearsed before I have any actual responsibilites. I'll also need to find out how much luggage those cheap flights allow me to carry and how much extra bags cost.

NI number and other shit: I haven't yet had time to find out about all these British social security things, if I need them or not and if I should get it done even if I don't absolutely need it. I'll find this out soonish. I anyway can't really do anything about it until I'm in the country.


Now I'm going to call it a night and stard reading 100 facts about pandas. Or Book of General Ignorance. Listening to 75 boy band songs everyone should listen to before they die.

Why?

In many ways I had the best and the suckiest Monday of my life this week. Ok, maybe not that many but who's counting. One, actually. I got two internship offers from two equally attractive companies; the other in fabulous NYC and the other in trendy London. How to choose? I hate choosing between two good options. I'm shit at it, it sucks balls and I never know how I can be sure I've made the right choice. I want to do everything and please everyone (well, everyone who matters).

After applying rational thinking I figured that in the long run I'd probably benefit more from interning in London just because I'll probably score a lot easier on the job hunt if it wasn't so damn difficult to hire me, as it would be in the US with all the visa hassle. And yes, one of the objectives of my internship is to get my foot between the door that is now in between me and my career. Sure, I'd have more experience, a reference letter and a bit longer CV after 6 months in NYC but none of the contacts I may get in London. The job itself also seemed a bit more versatile, so there.

So that's my reasoning for going to London. The main argument for going to NYC was that this might be the last chance I get to live in the States while moving to England will always be possible for a European citizen. Oh, well. I get to visit. And in the event of extreme want-need-demand I can always get hitched for a couple of years and get permanent residency.

And if any of you dare to comment that I probably made the wrong choice, I will put a curse on you! I've watched Buffy, I know how it's done.

London Calling

Sorry about the cheese in the headline, but that is exactly what this post is about. And what this blog is about.

I just secured an internship located in lovely London and I'm very much pumped up about it! I've been planning leaving Finland behind and moving my existence to the islands that are the UK ever since I started uni. Actually, I've been planning to get out of Finland ever since I was about 11 years old and I've already tried my wings twice but only temporarily. Which this move might also be, and then it might not. The internship will be 6 months but after that I'll probably try to look for a real job.

I almost got derailed during the application process and was dreaming about completing this part of my studies in NYC but now I'm right back on track and really excited! Not that NYC wouldn't have been absolutely amazing but London suits my long term plans a lot better. Tough choice still. Incredibly tough. If I'd go with my gut feeling, I'd go to NYC but for all the wrong reasons. I have to say, still, that logical reasoning really sucks right now. I think I'll dedicate a whole post to that chaos that went on in my head.

The application process itself couldn't have gone smoother. I sent the application on Saturday night, heard back from the company on Sunday, called them today (Monday) and they said that as far as they're concerned it's a done deal, they'll have me. Made easier by two of my friends from school who are interning there at the moment and have done amazingly making them trust this degree program. Thanks!

I now have about three months to get everything ready, handle all the paperwork and whatnot. So for now my posts will be about preparing. But hey, as the saying goes, well planned is half done!

Now I'm going to quote my all time favorite band Incubus (get used to it, it will happen a lot, I promise):
I've waited all my life. If not now, when will I?

IT'S NOW!