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

Russell Brand is a giant

This week started off with going to a band competition, Hard Rock Rising, to show our great affection and support for our fellow intern whose band was battling for a chance to win this thing. They didn't. You may as well still check them out. Apparently it came really close between them and the winning band, which doesn't surprise me.

There's been a lot of promotion going on. There are many new releases coming up, quite a few tours happening and other exciting news for our bands so we've been sending out press releases like crazy. If you want to keep track of what's happening here, follow us on Twitter and Facebook. One mention worthy thing (because I thought it was funny) would be taking over the promotion for Athletes In Paris' new single release after Linda up and left. I stumbled upon this little quote in one of the music blogs that has featured them "What I think they sound like: a dancey rock band (I was going to describe them as "Scissor Sisters Without The Camp" but thought that may be a tad unfair to both bands." I personally quite like that.

I bet he's taller than you thought. 

Saturday I went to Madame Tussaud's with two other Finnish girls who are also doing their internships here. Afterwards we went to a pub to get some food and hang out and then two of us decided to go out for the night. First we stumbled into this really cool, kinda bohemian, artsy little tavern where the 'Madame' gave us a kiss on the hand when we ordered our first drinks, then dragged some guy hurriedly into the disabled toilet with her. It was a beautiful place and I must go there again! Finding a club proved to be a bit more difficult since people kept giving us wrong directions. We were gonna meet up with a colleague of mine at a club called 'Mother' in Shoreditch. Once we found the right street, we asked some guys which way it was. They warned us to stay far away from that awful place but we didn't listen. We finally got there and it was pretty much as horrible as the guys made it sound, but free entrance. We had one drink there and headed off to find something else. Someone recommended Plastic People but as the queue was long and the entrance £10 we didn't bother. Now that I've googled it and it is said to be the birthplace of dubstep I'm glad we didn't. Instead we noticed a bar across the street and went there. The music was bad and people looked well-groomed, but at least it wasn't too expensive. We ended up having a good night after all.

See how ridiculously tall he is!

Buses here are a constant headache for me. I can never find the right stop! I know for a fact that my bus goes to Shoreditch and I was probably quite close to the right stop but just couldn't find it! I ended up walking way longer than I should've and then found a bus that took me to Trafalgar Square and from there I can always find the right bus. But that's way more complicated than it should've been.

I was first a bit annoyed that clubs close around 2-3am here but now I'm glad they do since I get way lighter hangovers. Not that mine have ever been exceptionally bad but now they're pretty much nonexistent. When I first open my eyes after a night out I keep expecting to feel somewhat queazy but quickly notice that I'm absolutely fine. This has happened two-three times now so I'm definitely safe saying it's more a rule than an exception.

I finally managed to open a bank account! Cheers, Churchill, for abolishing identity cards to "set people free" and making things so complicated. National Identity Register is a GOOD thing, Brits. Now I'm waiting for them to activate my card so I can start using it too.

*Oh, hey, attention! There's a little easter egg hidden somewhere in the links, can you find it? It's not exceptionally hard.

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.

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!