My first Easter in Finland

Greetings from the other side.

My first Easter on Finnish soil is coming to an end, and I have to say it's been a good experience.

But let's start from the beginning.

As I wrote in my previous post about how I worked on Maundy Thursday, I won't go into that anymore in this post.

The Friday was spent in a calm manner. We didn't really get up to much, although I did get a lot of writing done which felt good. I've been slacking off a bit on my writing lately, so it has felt good to get back to it and being creative again.

We also had my future in-laws over for some Easter 'fika'. Though, again, I wrote about that in my previous post, so if you want to read about it you can find it here.

In the evening, after we had had dinner, my fiancee introduced me to something called "pasha", which you can see in the image below:

Granted, as I understand it, this wasn't the normal kind of pasha that they normally make, and enjoy, as that one contains lemon, something which I can't have. Never the less it still tasted really good, I thought, so I hope she will make it again some time. As I understand it, the pasha originates from Russia.

Saturday didn't get off to a great start. Looking out the window at all the snow that had fallen during the night.

Not much to do about it though. In the afternoon, my fiancee and I went over to her parents place, where we met up with her siblings and their families as well for an Easter bonfire - where we grilled some sausages over the remains of the fire - and a good time. My fiancee's sister and her husband also brought along some friends, a young couple from Afghanistan and their little baby.

On Sunday we went to church. It was nice, as always, but sadly not very many people there.

After church my fiancee and I went to her parents for lunch, and this beautiful and very tasty creation that her father had made:

In the evening we all went to a christian concert in the city church, where my fiancee's brother and nephew were performing as well. It was a good way to end the day, I think.

Time for me to sign out for today. The sun is shining and it is my last day off before heading back to work. I think I might head out for a walk, or something.

See you all on the other side!

Easter time is here

Greetings from the other side.

Easter is here, and this will be my first ever Easter in Finland. I am looking forward to it. There will be an Easter fire lit outside, kind of like the ones we have on May 1st in Sweden, and as I understand it we will be grilling sausages etc over the fire. Sounds good to me! :) For the past couple of years, ever since my fiancee and I first met, we have celebrated Easter in Sweden. This year though, we are doing it here in Finland and, as I mentioned earlier in this post, I am really looking forward to it! My fiancee's siblings and their families are coming as well.

The picture above are of some chocolate balls that my fiancee made today. I can assure you they are very tasty, and healthy too! :) She's very into healthy eating and living.

Later today we are having my future in-laws over for some Easter "fika". If you don't know what "fika" is, then I guess the best explanation I can give is that it is a Swedish thing, and it basically means meeting up for coffee or tea and some kind of cookies or buns or similar thing. Essentially it is a social thing. Look it up on Google, or something similar, if you want to know more.

Yesterday I worked as a "kyrkvärd" (not sure what it is called in English, and honestly a bit too lazy to look it up at the moment), at church. First time doing it on Maundy Thursday (according to Google. Don't blame me if the translation is wrong.) or "Skärtorsdag" in Swedish. I've been to church on those days before, but it was my first time ever working  in church on that day. Nervous at first, but it went well. I had my future father-in-law there with me to help as well.

That's about it from me for this time. I hope you all will have a wonderful Easter and until we meet again.

See you all on the other side!

The ant war continues & Concert for a 90-year-old

Greetings from the other side.

A quick one today, as it is a very busy day.

Yesterday we had the same guy who had been here before regarding the ants, visit us again. We had removed the skirting boards ('golvlister' in Swedish. Blame Google if I got the translation into English wrong. ;) he he ) and he drilled holes into the walls behind them and pumped them full of ant-poison. Now, last time he was here we didn't have much luck getting to the ants. This time however, we had almost immediate success! 10 minutes after had had done that, we had about 10 dead ants on the floor. The following day we were up to about 30. We spent the night at my future in-laws place because my fiancee didn't quite feel like sleeping here with the poison in the walls and the ants crawling out of the walls. I can't say I blame her for that.

Hopefully we have been able to deal a decisive blow to the carpenter ants that had taken up residence in our home. Granted, there's no guarantee they won't come back later, but we are hoping they will at least be gone for now. We still have to wait and see how it goes though.

After some warmer days we now have somewhat cooler days again. Not 'cold' per se, but we do get temperatures that drop into the minuses at night.

As we are heading into the warmer periods of the year, Spring and Summer, I will start to see my work-load increase again. Both at work, and at home around the house. I have quite a few little projects I want to take care of this summer, so we will see how that goes. I'll probably write more about them in here as I get to them.

On the Sunday, last weekend, my fiancee and I, together with her parents, went to a concert at the city church which was held to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the school where my fiancee's brother works. He was there as well, playing the piano for several of the acts that were there, as well as performing a beautiful piano piece which he had composed himself. In all honesty he is probably one of the best pianists I have ever heard, and it was a pleasure hearing him play. All in all it was a good concert with a lot of good music.

That's about all for this time.

See you all on the other side!

Spring-time is a comin'

Greetings from the other side.

Life moves on at its own pace here in the countryside. Spring is coming, and you can really feel it in the air now. It's a really nice feeling! Spring does something to you, I think. It revitalizes you after the long, dark winter, and helps to lift your spirit up. We are moving towards warmer times, and it feels great! I think we all need to stop sometimes, take a deep breath and just enjoy the now. That goes for all seasons, but perhaps especially for spring. Take the time to enjoy the blue sky, the sounds of the birds coming back to life, the sunshine on the green pine and spruce trees, etc. It can really help give you some energy back. At least, that's how I feel. 

Yesterday, we went to a jumble sale ('loppis' in Swedish) at the school where my fiancee's brother works. They are tearing down the old buildings and building new, so they needed to get rid of a lot of stuff. There were a lot of things there, and a lot of people. It was difficult moving around to look at things. We managed to get a couple of items though. I was hoping to find a guitar, but unfortunately not. Oh well, maybe next time.

After we got home from that we sat outside in the sunshine for about an hour, drinking tea, eating a cinnamon bun, and talking. It was really nice just sitting on the stairs looking out over the fields and towards the forest. It was warm, the wind was calm, and it is moments like that that really make you appreciate living in the countryside.

Last week I helped out in a different place to where I normally work. It was only Monday and Tuesday, but that was about all I could do since I also had my regular job that I needed to do. It was good to see a new place, meet new people and see how they did things. I really enjoyed my time there.

I keep learning new skills since I moved here. Latest thing I have tried is that I have cut down my first two trees using a chainsaw. It's a lot of fun, and I do enjoy the physical work. I'm still very much a beginner at it, but I am learning. 

This will be all for this time.

See you all on the other side!

Good times & hindsight

Greetings from the other side.

Last week was a bit of a mixed bag for me. The week before we had been away, together with my fiancee and her sister and brother-in-law, to a place called Ukkohalla on a ski trip.  The weather was overcast and the snow messed with our skis a bit, but other than that it was a thoroughly enjoyable trip. When it came to the skiing we did the cross-country variant. It had been years since I last did any kind of skiing, and it was a bit of a strange experience being back on a pair of skis again. It was fun though, and I think I ended up doing something like 13 km in total. Compared to my fiancee's sister and her husband that was nothing though. I think they ended up doing something in the region of 86 km in total.

Among the first things that happened after we got there was that I managed to 'wreck' the bed. It's not as bad as it sounds though. Basically, I was trying to move the bed slightly to the side when it suddenly collapsed. It turned out that, unbeknownst to me, by moving it I had disturbed an upright-standing logg underneath it that was holding the length-wise running beam in place, which in turn supported all the lateral-running supports underneath the bed. I'm not sure if that description paints a good enough picture of what I mean, but I hope it does as my tired brain is currently struggling a bit to think of a better explanation.

Anyway, we managed to fix the bed fairly quickly again.

The trip to Ukkohalla was a lot of fun, and it is certainly something I would definitely do again some day. It was nice to get away for a few days and spend some time with my fiancee and her sister and brother-in-law.

In Sweden we have a saying that translates roughly to "Away is good, but home is best" (Sv: Borta bra men hemma bäst). As fun as it had been to be away for a few days, it still felt good to come back home and sleep in your own bed again.

However, starting the next day I wasn't feeling too well. I felt really stressed and tired, and not really myself. It's been a long time since I had felt that high levels of stress, and seemingly for no apparent reason. It took me most of the following week to get back to normal again. Hopefully that was a one-off thing, but I would really like to know what caused it. Maybe it was a lot of little things that just came together to cause it? I honestly have no idea. Whatever it was, it continued to influence my week though.

I am so glad to be passed that now. Hopefully it was just a one-off thing.

Yesterday I was pretty nervous though. I was set to work at a memorial service. Now, I have done that before, but this was the first time I was going to do it completely on my own. All sorts of thoughts were flowing through my head, and I was trying to remember everything I needed to think about and prepare. I'd lie if I said I wasn't nervous though. Looking back at it now however, I would say that I did a good job. So maybe I didn't need to be so nervous about it, but that's the benefit of hindsight and all that.

Yesterday evening, we had a couple of friends over and we all sat down and watched Melodifestivalen. which is the Swedish competition that decides which entry we send to the Eurovision Song Contest. Did the right song win? I have no clue. I guess we'll find that out when the actual ESC competition is held. After that it is really down to personal taste whether you liked it or not. The main thing though was that we had a great time yesterday evening, together with good friends. We laughed a lot and I think I needed that having been so nervous about the memorial service job earlier in the day.

It's been two week since I was able to really do any world-building or writing, but yesterday evening after our friends had left, I started sitting down with it again and it was such a good feeling. I've missed it more than I thought I did, so being back at it felt really good.

Until next time.

See you all on the other side!

Finding the rhythm

Greetings from the other side.

Getting back into the regular blogging thing has been a bit more difficult than I envisioned when I decided to slow down my blogging output over the holiday season. There are many times when I have thought I should write something, but then something else comes up and I end up postponing writing a new blog entry for another time. Oh well, such is the way of life I guess, and I will have to see where it takes me. The blog is still there though, so maybe I can get into a better writing rhythm with it again, eventually.

Last weekend we had a visit from two good friends from Sweden. It was the first time they were here since my move, and it was a real pleasure to have them here for a visit over the weekend. Having friends or family over to visit is always a good feeling. Even though I like it here in Finland, and I am very happy here, there is always that part of me that misses my friends and family back in Sweden. So whenever people have a chance to come over here for a visit, or I get a chance to go over there to visit, it is always a good feeling.

Tomorrow we are going to celebrate my fiancee's father's 70th birthday. His actual birthday is on Monday, but for convenience sake the celebrations are being held on Sunday instead. It should be a good time, and my future father-in-law has made the food and cakes himself, so you know it will be really good. Being that he is a chef and all.

In a couple of weeks time my fiancee and I are also going away for a few days together with her sister and her husband. It will be nice to get away for a little bit and see something else. There might be some skiing involved as well, if there is enough snow. Either way, I am really looking forward to it. It will be nice to get away and see a different part of Finland as well. :) Hopefully I can remember to take some pictures while I am there and possibly post some of them on the blog.

That will have to round off a relatively short blog. Before I sat down to write it I thought I had a ton to write about, but when I actually started writing most of those things just disappeared. Oh well, maybe for the next blog post. :)

See you all on the other side!

New experiences and wedding planning

Greetings from the other side.

It's been about two weeks since my last post. I guess part of it is a busy schedule and other things to think about, as well as possibly having fallen out of the habit of writing a blog a bit. I'll try to get back into it though, as I do enjoy it. It's a good way to communicate, and to write down the thoughts I have.

This might turn out to be a short-ish post though, as I have other things to do as well today.

I had my first attempts at using a chainsaw yesterday, helping my father-in-law to cut up some logs. It was quite fun. I enjoy working outside like that. :) I also think it is a good lesson to learn for the future, how to use a chainsaw properly, seeing as how I am probably going to be using it in my work at some point in the future, and possibly in my personal life cutting up firewood, etc.

My fiancee and I also went out for a date yesterday. We went to a restaurant together, something we haven't done in a while. We had a pleasant evening, and the food was great. We discussed plans for the upcoming wedding, the wedding budget, and such. I've never been to that restaurant before, but I enjoyed the atmosphere there. It was a cozy and slightly rustic place.

Today, my fiancee has gone off to a wedding fair ("bröllops mässa" in Swedish. Yes... I actually had to look up the translation for that using Google. So if the translation is wrong, blame my Google searching skills) together with a friend to look for more inspiration. I'm looking forward to hearing what she's found when she gets back. :)

I've also spent some time with my father-in-law in the woods helping him cut down trees, cut them up and then move them. Granted, he was the one handling the chainsaw as I hadn't yet even had my first try at it yet. It was fun though.

Right now it is a bit icy outside. I'd much prefer it if the ice would be replaced by a bit of snow. There's very little snow on the ground today. Almost feels like spring is on it's way, but we're only in January still. Feels a bit odd for the season.

I think I will end this post here for today. I'll try to get back with another post as soon as I can.

Until then, take care.

See you all on the other side!

Welcome to the new year!

Greetings from the other side.

And thus I return from the holiday season, bringing wishes of well-being and happiness for you all. I hope you have all had a wonderful Christmas and New Years together with family, friends, loved ones, etc. I also hope that the new year will be a good one, for everyone on this blue marble in space that we live our lives upon. May this new year at least see the beginnings of an end to wars, abuse, poverty, loneliness, and all the other things that ails the world. At least that is what I hope for, and pray for.

The night before yesterday I sat up until 4 or 5 am playing a tabletop roleplaying game over the internet with my friends. It was so much fun, and I have missed it dearly. I don't get to do that too often these days. Then I ended up getting about 4 hours of sleep, before I got up because I had to be at work the next day. Granted, I didn't need to be there until 1 pm, but I had some other stuff to do before-hand as well. It is safe to say that I was pretty knackered by the end of the day. So early night for me last night and then I slept for about 10 hours. I guess my body needed it. It's good that the weekend is here now.

So, my last post was on December 20, which you can find here. Since then I have had my first Christmas here in Finland, and it was a fun and enjoyable time together with my fiancee and her family. Next year we will be celebrating Christmas with my family in Sweden, and then probably do an every-other-year kind of thing. Anyway, focus on this year, and this was the first time I had ever celebrated Christmas away from my family, so it was a bit of a strange feeling. In the end though, it was an enjoyable time surrounded by good people and a warm atmosphere. It is definitely something I am looking forward to do again another year! :)

Even the family dog, Bamse, got excited about Santa's visit and all the presents. Sadly I don't have a picture of him at that moment, but here's another picture of him taken on the same day at least:

He's a big Newfoundland boy, and at 10 years of age he is currently older than the average life-expectancy of dogs of his breed.

There were a few new food-items among the Christmas food that I hadn't tried before. I honestly don't know what to call most of them in English,so I won't attempt to. I will say however that I enjoyed everything that I tried.

Oh, and I also worked during Christmas service on Christmas Eve, as well as during mass on New Years Day.

Christmas Day was spent taking it easy and having lunch with my fiancee's parents. On Boxing Day (Annandag Jul in Swedish) we went to visit my fiancee's sister and her family.

In the days before New Years both my fiancee and her mother got ill. We had intended to celebrate New Years with my fiancee's parents, but in the end we went over for dinner and then went home again. My fiancee went to bed early and I stayed up chatting with friends online for a while. Luckily they are both feeling better now. Though her mother had to go to the hospital and was diagnosed with pneumonia, something which she has since then been going to the health clinic 3 times a day and gotten regular doses of antibiotics intravenously. My father-in-law and myself have luckily managed to stay healthy so far.

All in all it has been a good time, and I can look back to it with fond memories. Now we have a new year in front of us. Let's do the best we can out of it! :)

I wish you all a happy new year. May the new year bring happiness, peace and love to all.

Until next time.

See you all on the other side!

Christmas time update

Greetings from the other side.

It's been a while, hasn't it? Since my last blog entry, I mean. I have been meaning to write, but things have gotten in the way or the energy just hasn't been there at the time to write something. Then again, it is Christmas time. Hopefully I will get the writing back on track soon again! :)

So, what's been going on since last time? Well...

We went over to visit my parents in Sweden over the weekend a couple of weeks ago. It was good to be back in Sweden again. Strange feeling coming home again after 4 months living in Finland, and a strange feeling going back to Finland again. I've always felt at home here in Finland, so it was a bit like leaving home in order to go home. I can't really describe the feeling any other way, and it wasn't like any other feeling I have felt before.

My fiancee and I also got to visit a couple of friends while we were there. It was good seeing them again. They had recently moved to a new apartment, and it was nice seeing their new place for the first time as well. :) I wish I could have visited more friends while I was there, but sadly there wasn't enough time. I guess there is always next time though! :)

As of December 15th I am done with the 4-month trial-period for my job and I am now a regular employee! :) In practice this doesn't really change anything. The trial period is only there to give the employer and myself a period to try each other out. It feels good that it is over though, as I am quite enjoying my job here. :)

Speaking of my work and the people I work with, we went out for Christmas lunch together last week. We went to a place where my father-in-law used to work. He can even be found on a painting there, together with 3 other chefs who worked there at the time.

Last weekend my fiancee and I, together with her parents, went for an hour-long drive to listen to a Christmas concert with my fiancee's brother's youth choir, which he is heading. It was really nice, with a live band and some really good singers. It was a really beautiful church as well. :) Well worth the long drive to get there.

My knee is finally well enough again that I have been able to roleplay (tabletop roleplaying) with my friends again! :) See, in order for me to do that I need to go upstairs since we usually play late in the evenings and my fiancee needs her sleep. So I can't really sit downstairs and play. But now that my knee is better I have been able to go upstairs and play again. For those who don't know, we play over the internet, using Skype to talk and a program called MapTools for maps, tokens, dice-rolling, etc. Works a treat when we are all scattered across the globe. Anyway, it is really good to be back playing again. I've missed it.

Time for me to head outside now and help bring in the Christmas tree. I hope you all are having a wonderful Advent-time and if I don't write again before Christmas I want to wish everyone a MERRY CHRISTMAS! :)

See you all on the other side!

Advent time

Greetings from the other side.

It's been a week or so since my last update here. Though I suppose due to the season I've had other things occupying my mind.

With the help of my father-in-law I have gotten 3 Christmas trees for my employer, and decorated two of them with lights. The third one is going inside the church, and it isn't my job to decorate that one. The two that I HAVE put lights on though, have been fighting me a bit. After some issues we finally got the one outside the church to light up, which was a good feeling. The one at the cemetery still hasn't managed to light up though, and I am not sure what the issue is. We have tried the lamps and they all light up individually, but when we connect the whole thing it doesn't light up at all. Only thing we can think of right now is that one of the lamps isn't of the correct type, so it works individually but not together with the others. I will try out that theory as soon as possible.

Last Saturday we went to celebrate my fiancee's brother-in-law on his birthday. It was enjoyable and the food was great! :) I think someone mentioned there were something like 80 people there to congratulate him on his day. Good to see so many people come to celebrate a really good man. He had made his own birthday cake as well, and salmon soup, for all the guests.

Today is Finlands independence day. It marks 99 years since they became an independent nation, having belonged to Russia before that, and Sweden before that. Technically you have a day off from work today, but I went in to work this morning to raise the flag. I'll be going back later to bring it down again at sundown. Next year will mark the centennial of Finland's independence, and I expect there to be massive celebrations going on. It is a big deal after all. :)

We have snow on the ground, albeit not a lot. While there is a white blanket on the ground, you can still see tall grass sticking through in places. The last couple of days there has also been ice under the snow, making things a bit more 'interesting'.

In a way it feels like there has been a lot going on, but at the moment I can't think of anything else. That is kind of a strange feeling, I have to admit. Oh well, I am sure if I think of anything else, I can always write about it later instead. :)

I hope that you all are having a wonderful Advent, and that the Christmas preparations are going well. My thoughts also go out to all those who are alone this holiday season, and to those who try to do something for these people. I wish you all the best.

Until next time my friends.

See you all on the other side!

Winter-clad greetings!

Greetings from the other side!

Ok. Time for my second attempt at this. I sat down to write my blog post and had gotten a fair bit into it when my laptop suddenly decided to erase everything I had written. Sadly I had not remembered to save it before hand. Not that that would really have mattered as the blog auto-saved just after everything was deleted so it was gone anyway. Oh well.

It has been almost a week now since my last blog post. It's been a busy week and I haven't really had the energy to sit down and write blog entries in that time. Today however is a day of rest of relaxation for me so I figured I would see if I could write something. Well, when I say "rest and relaxation" I neglect to mention that so far today I have already been to the chiropractor about my knee, been grocery shopping and ran some errands with my fiancee, and been called out on a short, job-related errand. Now though, I am back home and hopefully the rest of the day will be calm. Normally, doing things like that in a day is no big deal, but with my knee being a bit sore after the visit to the chiropractor, it's a slightly different story.

My knee has been getting better, but is still a bit stiff and swollen, so I went to the chiropractor to have a look at it. He treated it and for the next week or so I'll need to take it easy and be careful with it. I'll still be able to do my job, but I do need to take it a bit easy so I don't twist the knee or strain it excessively. Hopefully it will be completely well in about a week or two. Keeping my fingers crossed.

The first snow of winter has arrived here now. From talking to relatives and friends over on the Swedish side I know that they have been getting quite a lot of snow lately. I know that my dad has been shoveling snow quite a lot. We, however, have had some cold temperatures, but no snow. Until now. It's not huge amounts, but there's maybe a decimeter of snow. From what we've heard the weather should be getting a bit warmer again this week so we might see some rain and the snow will most likely melt away.

I am still keeping out hope that we will get a white Christmas this year though.

I have also been working a bit on the tabletop RPG world building project. The map-making has been at a bit of a stand-still, but I have been getting a bit of writing done, which I am pleased about. It is a good vent to have after a long day of work. Especially since I have a physical job it feels nice to exercise the brain instead from time to time. :)

I think that is enough for now.

See you all on the other side!

Sleepless night & busy day

Greetings from the other side.

I didn't sleep very well last night. First I couldn't sleep at all and found myself getting a bit frustrated about it. I am normally a person who will fall asleep fairly quickly, but last night I just couldn't. Honestly I have no idea why either. Once I had finally managed to fall asleep I was plagued by nightmares. I wish I could remember them, but I can't. I just know that I had them. Unfortunately my girlfriend didn't sleep too well last night either, so we are both a bit out of it today. She probably a bit more than me, unfortunately. Hopefully we will both be sleeping better tonight. Especially since we need to pick up my parents at the ferry terminal when they arrive from Sweden at 11:30 pm local time. My girlfriend isn't much of a night owl, so normally she would be in bed by that time, but I need her to guide me to the ferry as I have only driven there once, or rather from there, as it was when I arrived here in Finland 2½ months ago and we drove from the terminal to where we now live. Since then I have learned to find my way to various places, but I have not had a reason to drive to the ferry yet, so it's at times like this that I get a chance to learn.

In preparation for their arrival we have been shopping for groceries and other things today. It is amazing how much stuff you need to feed 4 people for 4 days, and then also enough stuff to last us after they have gone back home again until we go shopping again at the end of next week. It feels good to have it done though.

I have found a couple of apps for my cell phone now that I can use to help me learn some Finnish words. I am not expecting any miracles though, and I know they will only teach me words. Grammar and actually forming sentences beyond very simple ones like "My name is...." and ""How are you?" is probably beyond the scope and capabilities of these apps. They are better than nothing though, and hopefully over time I will at least be able to learn to understand some of what is said to me. It is an interesting challenge, I think. Especially since Finnish is so different from any other language I have studied in the past. My previous languages being (apart from Swedish, because that is my native tongue), English, German, Icelandic and Japanese. As far as German goes, I understand it pretty well, but it has been years since I had any training in speaking it so my ability to find the words and forming sentences will most likely be very rusty. As for Icelandic and Japanese I only studied that for a short while and haven't really been using them since, so beyond a few words I wouldn't expect much.

See you all on the other side!

The passage of time

Greetings from the other side.

Another week has almost passed now. Where did it really go? Time seems to fly by ever since I moved here. I can't believe it has already been almost 2½ months since I moved from Sweden to Finland. I guess the fact that time is flying by rather than slowly trudging along is some form of proof that I am happy here and enjoying myself though. In all honesty I am happy here. I have job that I like, a wonderful fiancee, good people around me, and Finland is a nice country. Just two years ago I would never had thought that I would be where I am today. Since then I have moved country, gotten a job there, and gotten engaged to be married to a wonderful woman, to name just a few things. Life, and God, works in mysterious ways some times. You can never fully know what life will throw at you next. Though I suppose that is part of what makes life interesting as well. Imagine if we knew all the things that would happen to us in our lives. Wouldn't that be boring? And somewhat scary as well? Imagine knowing when you were going to die, and how it would happen? Or knowing in advance of a serious accident you would be in - also knowing that there was nothing you could do to change or prevent it? I wouldn't want to know anything like that.

My parents will be coming over for a visit next weekend. Looking forward to that. They will also be bringing with them my winter tires, which will probably be needed soon. This will be their first time visiting us here since my move, so it will hopefully be nice for them to see where I live and what it is like here. :)

My knee is feeling much better now, which is a HUGE positive in my life right now. It isn't fully well yet, but in the last day or two it has been making big strides towards becoming well again. Hopefully it will be fully recovered by Monday when I start working again. :) It has taken almost 2 weeks for the knee to recover. Granted, in the first week I did still work even if I wasn't able to work full-on at my normal pace.

This weekend my fiancee and I are going to go sing with a choir that she is a part of. I am looking forward to it, though I still miss my old choir, Cantare, back in Umeå. This new choir doesn't have a name yet, from what I understand. I am sure it will be fun though, and some other members of my fiancee's family are part of it as well, so there will be familiar faces there. I hope my voice is up to scratch for them though. Always a bit nervous about these things at the beginning.

See you all on the other side!

Autumn Reflections & some other bits

Greetings from the other side.

Autumn has really painted this place in a lot of beautiful colours by now. Sadly the leaves don't stay on the trees for very long, but the ones that fall instead cover the ground in a beautifully coloured carpet, that rustles so gently when one walks through it. Autumn feels like a great time for reflection and inner soul-searching. If you are an artistic person I am sure you can find a lot of inspiration in the beautiful natural scenery and colour-palette that the world around you is painted in. For someone like me, who loves writing as well as creative and philosophical thinking, autumn is a time for reflection and philosophy. Granted, I think each season has its charms, and they are all beautiful and wonderful in their own way. My advise to anyone is to go outside, preferably away from the city to a place where you can be in natural surroundings, and just take a deep breath of cold, crisp autumn air. Let the clouds, the sky, and the colours of your surroundings fill your senses. It is a very serene and calming feeling. Just let go of your troubles for a little bit and enjoy the moment. It is very important to take moments. Moments of relaxation and serenity. Moments of introspection and meditation. Take a moment to realize just how beautiful our world really is. Regardless of whether you believe that it is God's creation or not, one thing I think we can all agree upon is that it is a beautiful place and we should all try and take care of it as best we can. It is our home, and currently the only world we have. It is our responsibility to look after it. :)


In other news pertaining more to my life here in Finland:

My knee is still aching. I have pushed through at work this week however, rather than calling in sick. If I did, none of my work would get done. At least if I am there I can do SOME of my work, if only at a slower pace than normally. At least I am not in constant pain, but the knee still feels stiff, sore and swollen. It looks a bit swollen as well. At least I am getting today and tomorrow off plus the weekend due to only working 60%, so that is very useful when I have these issues. I hope my knee will get better before Monday. Otherwise I might have to go and have it checked out.

My girlfriend and I went shopping earlier today and we had some errands to run as well. My knee wasn't too happy, but we got everything done. We are now set for having some of my girlfriend's family and friends over for engagement coffee on Sunday. Too bad none of my family are able to attend, but with the ferry out of the water for a two week period, that wasn't going to happen anyway. My parents will probably come over for a visit towards the end of this month anyway, so we'll get to celebrate with them then. :)

My knee seems to have survived all the walking between shops, etc, but my calf is really tender and tense. I think the poor thing has been taking the brunt of me limping around. So now I will let it rest as much as possible together with the knee. I am noticing that the knee usually feels best when I wake up in the morning, probably because it has been resting all night and not had any strain put on it for a few hours.

One of the things we managed to get for me today was a new phone! Yes. I finally have a finnish phone number. I still need to actually put the SIM card in, etc, but the fact that it is here now feels great. I didn't have much hope considering how things have gone previously when we have tried to get a cell phone for me. Happily we were more lucky this time around. Hopefully this means the end of overly expensive phone bills for my girlfriend when she tries to call or text to me.

I have not been able to go home to Sweden for a visit since I moved here some 2 months ago or so. It's a shame, but it is the way it is. I am feeling quite at home here, and I know I will get to go home soon enough. :) Now that I am not working so much I have more time to take a trip across the water. :)

I am also making slow progress with the finnish language. Due to a busy schedule and other things getting in the way, as well as me not having found a good app or other thing to help me study the language, I have only been able to take small steps so far. Learning a word here and there, and my father-in-law gave me some great tips on finnish pronunciation. I am not setting my sights too high, or aiming for impossible things, but I am hoping I will be able to at least understand it in the future, and make myself understood as well, even if I perhaps won't be able to hold too advanced a conversation. :) We shall see how it goes!

See you all on the other side!

Cell Phone Adventures & Life

Greetings from the other side.

The weekend is here again, after another week of work. Starting on Monday things will be a bit different for me as my job now goes down to 60%. I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I have more time on my hands to do other things, and admittedly some of those things will probably involve more work in other places. On the other hand my salary also goes down to 60%. That is less good, but as I said I can fill it out with working extra at other places, so we should be fine.

We had a lot of errands to run yesterday. Included in that list of errands were to get me a finnish cell phone so that the people living here wouldn't have to call 'abroad' every time they were trying to reach me on my swedish phone. Turns out it isn't that simple to get a phone when you are newly arrived here in Finland. I can buy a cell phone if I pay the whole sum for it up-front, something we had decided was too big a sum to splash on a phone right now, all things considered. That just left us with one option: paying in installments. Granted, they did have that option - you could buy one and pay over 6 or 10 months - but it requires me to have lived in Finland for a minimum of 3 years. 3 years. To buy a cell phone. And my girlfriend couldn't get it in her name either as she is currently recovering from her burn out and is thus, technically, still considered unemployed. The fact that I have employment, a salary, and would have no problems paying for it didn't matter at all. So technically together we meet all the pre-requisites: I have a steady job and a steady income, and she has lived here all her life. Unfortunatelly that wasn't enough.

We are still going to try calling and asking Sonera (service provider) whether there is something we can do with them. Why Sonera? Because of the fact that with them I can call in all the Nordic countries (or it might just be Sweden and Finland, I'd have to double-check) without paying extra. If that doesn't work I might just have to buy the phone at some point when I am back home in Sweden visiting instead. Which, considering I will now only be working 60% in my main job, will probably be a bit easier to find time for.

The weather has been pretty up-and-down this past week. We've had a rainstorm one day, sunshine the next day, storm winds the following day, etc etc. You can definately tell that the autumn is here. It is quite beautiful out here this time of year with the trees donning their autumn-dresses. Especially when set against a clear, blue sky.

The house is getting into better and better shape with regards to the two floors. Soon we will hopefully be able to have people from Sweden come over to visit, something I am definately looking forward to! :) We have brought in the book case now which will get assembled soon.

That's it from me for this time.

See you all on the other side!

An update

Greetings from the other side.

This will probably be a short update, as I am a bit short on time and energy today.

The last few days have been eventful. I proposed to my girlfriend on Friday, and I got a yes! :) YAY! We went out and bought the rings and now we are settling into our new, engaged, life together. It feels wonderful!

Not sure what is wrong with me today, but I am severely lacking in energy, and have been all day. I hope I am not coming down with something now. :-/ Will probably make an extra early night tonight and hope that I feel better tomorrow.

This is my last week working 100% at my current job. Starting next week, and for the coming 6 months, my job is at 60%. I will be able to work extra in other places to make up for it, but it still feels like a bit of a hassle. Oh well. It could be worse. At least we are healthy, happy, and we know we'll survive on the lower income.

I am starting to feel very much at home here in Finland now. :) My biggest hurdle is still learning the finnish language. Considering it belongs to a different language group than Swedish, that I haven't studied any language like it before, and that I am somewhat limited in when I actually have time to study, I have a feeling it is going to be a slow process for me. I'm still going to try though! :)

I think that will be all for now. I'll return with a better post later when I have my energy back.

See you all on the other side!

Reflections on the present

Greetings from the other side.

Another week is slowly coming to an end. It still surprises me how fast time seems to move since I moved over here. I know I have been here over a month now, but it doesn't feel like it. In a strange way it simultaneously feels like I have been here forever and like I have only been here a week or so. It's the strangest feeling, but I suppose it is ok anyway. I am enjoying it here, which is the important thing. I do think about my family, relatives and friends back home in Sweden from time to time though, wondering how they are doing, and looking forward to when they can come visiting me here in Finland.

I haven't been able to go back home to visit yet, and it might still be some time before that can happen. There's a lot going on at the moment with work, preparing the downstairs apartment, every day life stuff, etc. I'm not sure exactly when things will slow down enough for me to come visiting over a weekend or so. Thing is, I also work some weekends, which also narrows down the options a bit. I will when I can though.

I am slowly learning to find my way around over here, which feels nice. :) It gives a whole different sense of freedom when you know you can find your way around without getting lost.

I have started making friends over here though, slowly but surely. Also, going off with work yesterday was really rewarding as I got to meet and talk to a lot of new people. One 'part' of the experience was entirely in finnish, but luckily people were very helpful with translating and explaining to me what was being said. I do think I need to try and learn some finnish at least, so I am not completely lost when someone speaks finnish to me. Though someone did say to me that looking at me while someone was talking finnish, you would never guess that I was completely oblivious as to what was being said. It looked like I understood it.

I think that will be all for today. It's been another day of hard work and I am feeling quite tired.

See you all on the other side!

A 'Moving' Story

Greetings from the other side.

The bottom floor of my girlfriend's house has been empty since her tenant moved out about three weeks ago, and since then we have been slowly working towards getting the downstairs apartment fixed up and ready so we can move down there. The plan being that the bottom floor will be our main living quarters, and then also make use of the upstairs apartment, plus use it as a separate apartment for guests when people are visiting.

It's been a slow process getting things ready downstairs however, partly because I have been working long days and then am exhausted when the weekend comes, but also because there have been a lot of work that needs to be done. We have fixed up the bathroom, including having a plumber over, we've repainted a lot of stuff in the kitchen and other places, and we've gotten some new wallpaper to replace the ones where the tenants cats had left scratch-marks. We are currently in the process of putting up said wallpapers. Luckily we have had a lot of help from my girlfriend's father. We are also expecting an electrician to come here as we need to do a bit of electrical re-wiring for when we move the stove from upstairs to downstairs, and the one we currently have downstairs to upstairs. It is bigger than the one that is currently downstairs, and will need to be put in a different place, hence why we need the new electrical socket to plugg it in.

It will be good once it is all done however, and we can't wait for it to be all finished so we can finally move downstairs. My girlfriend is getting a little bit impatient about it all taking so long.

There's more to think about when you move like this than you would think. And this will be my second move in a bit over a month. Granted this move is happening within the same house, but there's still furniture that needs to be moved, painting and preparations that need to be done, and a lot of other things.

We also had a little mold-scare in the bathroom in the beginning, but it turns out it was nothing so that was a major relief!

I'm really looking forward to having people come visit from Sweden once we are done with everything. It will be really nice seeing my parents and friends again. :)

There's fog outside today, and a bit of rain. Was kind of hoping for a bit of sunshine, but that might happen later today.

See you all on the other side!

Creativivity & Everyday Life

Greetings from the other side.

Another work week is under way, starting out with a 9 hr work day. The weather was nice though, and the day went by fairly quickly. Feeling tired still despite having had a very calm weekend. Hopefully I am not coming down with something. Need to stay healthy now that I have just started my new job.

The new blog is working out well so far. Only three blog posts on it as of yet, but there will be plenty more. :) Not really had much issue keeping up with two blogs either. I know I am not able to update every day, but I am trying to update about every 3 days or so at least. Keyword there might be "trying" on occasion, but for the most part I will try to keep that up for both blogs.

I have been working more on the map-making for the world-building project. I have some of the major land-masses outlined, but still need to fill in the details. I am still learning, and I don't really want to fill in the details until I have learned the program better. It is a process, but I am learning a bit every time it feels like. I have also tried working on the writing, and I have been brimming with ideas. :) It's just been a matter of actually getting it all down on paper.

Football (soccer for my north-american blog-readers) season is underway, but sadly I have not been able to watch any games yet as I don't yet have the required TV channels to do so. Will need to get it soon, but honestly with the expenses we've had in the first month of my stay here I would not have been able to justify it. Things should calm down soon though on that front, so it is definitelly up there on the list of things to get. Another thing is a finnish phone so it is not so expensive for my gf to call my swedish phone. A big problem for her has also been that whenever she sends me a text message, her phone seems to send me 3-5 copies of the same text message. An example: Day before yesterday she sent me a short message to let me know she was on her way back home. I got that message 7 times, including one the following day. We'll need to talk to her service provider about that, and if it is not on their side then we'll need to see what can be done about the phone.

On a more positive note, life is moving along quite well over here. :) I am enjoying myself, work is going well, and I am surrounded by wonderful people. I am trying to get around to learning a bit of finnish, but after an 8 or 9 hr work day of hard work, I'm not always in the mood to do some studying when I get back home again. Hopefully I will pick things up as I go along and learn a bit at a time.

See you all on the other side!

A busy weekend

Greetings from the other side.

Today's post will be a short one. Will probably try and update with another post tomorrow, but today I am just exhausted. Have had some kind of stomach bug or something for most of the day, which hasn't helped matters either.

Yesterday I went with my gf to my very first wedding in Finland. It was one of her classmates from university who was getting married, and as with all weddings it was a very nice experience. I haven't been too very many weddings back home in Sweden, so it had been a few years since last time. It was nice meeting more of my girlfriend's friends, and getting introduced to them. They had only heard a bit about me, and the bride even refered to me as "the mystery man" (yes, she even used the phrase in english). Met and talked to some very nice people, and am hoping to meet some of them again some day.

There were only two downsides to the day. One was the 1½ - 2 hr drive to get there, and then the same going home again. We got home at about 1:30am. Which normally isn't that late for me, being a "night owl" and all. Though it's been a busy week at work, so I guess I was a bit extra tired. We got home alright though, and I had my gf there to help keep me awake on the at times very monotonous drive home - on straight roads with trees on either side of it for large parts.

The second one was the weather. It was REALLY windy all day, bordering on full on storm at the very least, and a bit of rain. Luckily the happy couple took it in their stride and that was the most important thing. :)

There's a cloudy sky outside today as well, but we do see some blue skies at least. Luckily there is no wind to speak off.

See you all on the other side!