Places: Gothenburg

Did I ever tell tou about the trip to fabulous Gothenburg? The weekend before last we packed our bags for a visit to Sweden's second city, Gothenburg on the west coast. The city was a surprise, not at all as compact as I thought it'd be. It is a great place for hanging out with friends, enjoying an ice - cream in the park. For the first time I tried Persian food (have no idea how I've managed not trying Persian food) and it was delicious. So, the trip was great and I'd love to go again - especially to visit the penguins ☺

Places: Mariefred

Istanbul Summary

According to my travel journal, these were the thoughts and reflections I took with me from Istanbul.

• The Mosques (found in every street corner) are something  of a mystery to me. They are very beautiful, grandiose even. To me they represent a reality that is very alien, and thus fascinating. 
• The stray cats are cute and (and surprisingly well taken care of). They are everywhere!

Happy cats in Istanbul

• The noise and the dirt and the steep hills are in fact a part of the city's charm. It does take some getting used to for someone like me, though. Someone like me = does not like crowds and dislikes talking to strangers. 
• It was surprisingly difficult to find "proper" coffee (now, I am aware that my understanding of proper coffee does not coincide with what most other people consider to be good coffee),
• People were extremely friendly and helpful. One example: we were strolling around a residential area when this old man (over 80 probably) started to give us directions in broken English. He wanted to assure that we were not lost!
• It was very painful to see children begging. I am aware that this is a cruel reality in many places, but as it is something you rarely see in Scandinavia, it really took me by surprise. Now imagine the reality of all those people who need to flee for their lives. And imagine that there are people who are more worried about protecting their language rights than helping people in need*. This sickens me.  
• The beginning of June is the perfect time for a visit to Istanbul. The weather was good and it was not as crowded as it has the potential to be.

The Grand Bazaar - not too crowded


* A while back, a letter was sent out in my former home municipality. The authors call for a referendum to prevent refugees from coming to the Åland Islands. The letter can be found here.

Oma maa mansikka, muu maa mustikka*

Hi again!

Istanbul was fantastic, and now I'm home with a tan, sore feet and two more days to go of my summer holidays (+ the weekend). Just realized that we will be away for at least the three upcoming weekends, so I'm quite forced to do laundry. Woop!

Anyway, Istanbul. It was (in no specific order): huge, chaotic, colourful, friendly, loud, smelly, disorganized, hilly, historical, cozy, upsetting and quite amazing. I believe that I had to confront some of my prejudices as well, so it was a useful trip from that perspective. Our timing was perfect, on Sunday there were parliamentary elections in Turkey so I had the opportunity to ruminate upon the campaigns (without understanding any of it). Speaking of the language, I don't like the sound of Turkish at all when spoken. In music it is a beautiful language, and written Turkish looks like a lot of fun, but it just sounds very strange to me.  And we walked over 90K during these days, I'm quite happy I only have one blister on my left foot.

These are just some random thoughts - there will be more, so stay tuned!

The Galata Tower

* In Finnish, "home sweet home" becomes "own country strawberry, other country blueberry". I personally prefer blueberries, so I do not really get this. 

Lovely, lovely Belgrade

Did I tell you that we managed to squeeze in a quick visit to Belgrade in the beginning of last week on our way back from Skopje as well? No? Well, guess what. I visited Belgrade for the second time of my life. Lovely, lovely city. I want to go there again, in all its grayness, that city has a wonderful atmosphere. I want to go there, sip on coffee in a coffee place and just write. And people watch. And listen to that inspiring language that is Serbian.

Places: Macedonia

Where? Macedonia is located in south-eastern Europe on the Balkans. It is a landlocked country and it is one of the former Yugoslav republics. The capital is Skopje. There is plenty to see and to do in Macedonia, due to our short visit, we stayed in Skopje throughout our visit.

How? There are some flights to Skopje from Scandinavia. We flew there with Air Serbia, via Belgrade. We stayed at an apartment in central Skopje.

When? We spent Easter 2015 in Skopje. It was fairly warm, but the weather was unstable. Apparently it would have been a better idea to go there a week later. The locals we talked to recommended to visit in May-June and/or September.

How #2? Macedonia was a very pleasant surprise. It was love at first sight when I saw the mountains and the green fields. Skopje is a fairly small town, so it is easy to get around on foot. All the tourist signs are in Macedonian and English, and people spoke English surprisingly well. There were very few tourists, so we were happy. Macedonia seems to be a country of contrasts and diversity. On the way from the airport to the town, as well as outside Skopje, we saw horse carriages, goats and buildings in fairly bad condition. Skopje was more modern. One of the charming aspects of Skopje was the diversity. Mosques, churches and multilingual street signs were everywhere. We noticed that Macedonians seem to be proud of their history. There was a statue of everyone important, Alexander the Great being the most famous of them all. The Macedonian flag could be found on every street, in front of the majority of buildings. The level of service was good, the food was tasty.

Conclusion: I want to go there again! When the plane back to Belgrade had taken off, I looked longingly at the mountains and felt a sudden urge to go hiking. There is a first for everything!

Saturday Feeling Good

The other day I met some people of the fascinating kind. We learnt about books and we had some great Middle Eastern lunches and South American dinners here in Stockholm. It was fun but at the end of the day the fancy life is only the surface, The most fascinating part was the aha-experience that one can get when truly listening to someone. So people, listen!

I will show you a formula:

 a + -> = b

a = the plan
b = the result
-> = the process

The simple aha that this one fascinating person provided me with the other day was this: the process needs passion. Simple, isn't? And obvious. What a pity that we do not always get the simple and the obvious until someone tells us about it. How to remain passionate while life happens? I know a lot of people have conquered this skill. I have not - at least not to the extent that I would be completely focused on only doing what I love.

Next topic... I finally have the photos from Macedonia on my laptop and I will write some posts soon. In the meantime, I'd like to share one of my favourite photos from the trip. There were books everywhere in Skopje. Lovely, lovely books.

[Joy] Joy is... travelling!

I cannot imagine my life without travelling. 

2014 has been filled with some interesting trips and travels, mainly in central Europe, but we also managed to squeeze in a week in Spain. Sadly enough, I only visited Hungary once. The whole trip consisted of a few sad hours in lovely Esztergom, My love for Hungary seems to stick - I sometimes forget about it, but it will always eventually strike with full force. So, next year I definitely want to go to Hungary. Szeged, Pécs and Kecskemet are all places that I would like to see. Poland is another place that I need to visit now and then to keep my sanity. This year we experienced Warsaw and Gdansk, next year it might be time to visit Poznan.

However, one of my dreams for 2015 is to go further. The boyfriend and I have been discussing three possible scenarios: Australia, China/Japan or South America. The Wanderlust is increasing every day!

[Photo Diary] Lovely, Lovely Vilnius!

Gdańsk & Sopot, we wrześniu 2014 r.

Oh, hello darlings. 

The weekend was so perfect - we went to Poland! Flying to northern Poland from Sweden is easy. fast and cheap. We were also lucky to have the perfect host, a woman who entertained us with stories from her trips all around the world. The weather was great, so we could walk between two of the three Trójmiasto cities - Gdańsk and Sopot. We actually spent less than 24 hours in Poland, but had the opportunity to enjoy the history of Gdańsk and the holiday buzz in Sopot.

We only walked and ate, so it's difficult to say much about the cultural offerings or life as such. I would definitely like to visit the Trójmiasto-area again for more exploring!

24 godziny w Polsce

Ostatnio miałam mały projekt – ulepszyć mój polski. Dla mnie, język polski to jest coś wspaniałego. Tutaj, w Sztokholmie, często słyszę jak ludzie mówią po polsku. A ja wtedy zawsze myślę, że ja też chcę.

W piątek kupiliśmy sobie bilety do Polski. Za kilka tygodni będziemy w Polsce. Jeden dzień, 24 godziny będziemy w Polsce. Ja tylko jeden raz byłam w Gdansku. A teraz nie mogę się doczekać!

So excited about our trip to Gdansk in September!

The Art of Travelling pt. 2

There have been so many travel-related things going on around me, so I really felt the need to write a post about travelling. 

First, my boyfriend's sister and her friend are currently planning a 6-month-or-so trip to Australia and I am so jealous. I want to travel too!

Second,  I am reading a wonderful book called Annanstanslängtan. Noteringar från ett krympande klot. It's written in Swedish by a person called Anders Mathlein. The title could be roughly translated into something like Longing for Elsewhere: Notes from a Shrinking Globe.

Third, LePorkstar has written a good post about travelling.
Travelling has so many meanings for people: some travel for pleasures, others travel because they want to satisfy that thirst for knowledge and new experiences. Some people travel because that it is the cool thing to do in our modern society. I would like to think that travelling requires a certain level of open-mindedness and a wish to improve as a human being. 

Travelling has always been important to me. I remember how my dad took me to the playground when I was about two years old. They had a "bike carousel" there, one of these: 

I used to bike round and round, shouting out the next stop. At the age of 2, I was fairly open-minded about my travelling: the distance between Moscow and Washington was very short. Even then, I felt the need to see the world and to somehow escape the normality of life. Travelling, I believe, is a type of escapism. A desire for more than this. 

There are two "firsts" in my personal travel history. The first time a friend of my mother's took me to Riga, Latvia. The year was 1992 and seeing the realities of the collapse of the Soviet Union affected even me, a kid too young to actually understand things. I remember how the queues to the shops were long, there was no bread and people preferred us to pay in Finnish currency instead of rubles.

The second first was my first trip on my own. During my teens, I had a lot of snailmail penfriends all around the world. A friend from Greece, a girl my age, invited me to visit her and her family. At the time, I was 18. The trip was far from the normal beach travel to Greece, instead I got to see Athens, some islands and the mountains, while experiencing the Greek hospitality.


Travelling - for me - has always been more about scratching beyond the surface, trying to learn about the place and the people I am visiting. It is also about languages, culture and food. Oh yes, food is important. The best part of travelling is to try various local dishes!


The best kind of travelling is when you stay in a country for a longer time. I have been lucky to have this opportunity, several times even. It is during these longer stays that one understands the workings behind the facades: a tourist might not have the time (nor the interest) to understand all the complexity and social forces at play. At the end of the day, one understands that people are the same everywhere.


Sweden is not an exciting country to live in, but at least it is easy (and fairly cheap) to travel from here. That is always a great advantage! The other day we bought return tickets to Poland for 35€ (for 2 people). How crazy is that?

Weekend Trip: Tallinn

This weekend took us to to the lovely capital of Estonia - Tallinn. What can I say? It's a lovely city with a lot of historical buildings and it's the perfect place for a Sunday stroll in the sunshine. Tallinn is  a very popular destination for Finns and Swedes (might have something to do with the low alcohol prices) so getting there is fairly easy and inexpensive. We took the ferry over the Baltic sea. However, I felt that one day in the Estonian capital wasn't enough. I want to spend more time in the city and the country - it's amazing!