Five Good Things This Week

Forgot to do this yesterday for whatever reason. Last week was full of lots of little fun things and hopefully I can remember/think of (only) five for this weeks five good things!


1) I walked about 44 kilometers from Monday to Sunday. It was nice weather the entire week so I had a lot of motivation to walk almost everyday to school. It's about 7ish km from my flat to my university, so about an hour from door to door, and the path I take goes right next to Iidesjärvi for about 45 minutes of that hour; a lake in Tampere is shocking, I know. It put me in a great mood all week and I want to do it this week as well but it's not such nice weather now. It was also good because I plan to use that route to skate to and from school once I get my skates sorted out!

I love winter but I'm so ready for nice weather

2) Speaking of roller skates, because I don't do that enough already, I finally got my outdoor wheels! I got the Atom Pulse outdoor wheels in green. I've heard great reviews about them and they already seem nicer than the outdoor ones I got with my skates when I bought them a year ago. I wasn't able to order the skate tool (for none skaters, it helps take the wheels on and off) I wanted, which is why I have yet to stick 'em on my skates and get out there. I should be able to get the skate tool soon, so I should be out skating soon! I got the wheels from Gearcheck.fi and they are just lovely. I was a bit of a noob and forgot to select the green ones when I ordered them, but noticed it straight away...once I had already paid, got the invoice as an email and noticed the colour selection was ”smoke” (black) and not ”green). I sent them an email straight away telling them it's not a huge deal but if they could send the green ones, I'd be really happy. I got a very quick and lovely response saying that they would make sure I got the green ones. I'll definitely be buying from them again!

What lovely wheels I have!

3) Saturday was spent eating. Seriously, just eating. Actually, more than just eating, but, mostly eating. Also, eating. My flatmate and I went to our friend's place to apply for apartments for next school year as all of us want to share a place together that actually has a living room (ah international student housing, how I loathe them) and is closer to town. We decided to make brunch and it was a feast. English style pancakes with assorted toppings, homemade korvapuusti, bacon, coffee/tea, turnovers (which are called something else in German but I can't remember the name), and some fruit. We actually managed to apply for four nice apartments that are all close to town, wish us luck!
As if brunch wasn't enough, Saturday evening was pizza night. And I don't just mean ordering pizza from the nearest take-out place, I mean honest to goodness made by a real Italian pizza. My good friend made me and seven other friend about five different pizzas from scratch. I can't remember all of them because I later went into a food coma, but there was margherita pizza, pizza with salami and sauce, pizza with ham and no sauce, and pizza with peppers, eggplant, no sauce and mashed potatoes. Never in my life had I had mashed potatoes on pizza but it was so yum and quite normal in Italy. My flatmate and I were so food drunk by the end of the night.


4) I had lots of fun at roller derby on Friday night. I was in a position that I haven't really had to do before. I fucked up a few times but got lots of help and encouragement from two friends I NSO (Non Skating Official) with and it really helped out my confidence.


5) Yesterday was not so much fun because my friend and I were struggling to get a statistics project done. Neither of us is good with numbers and we realised that we had to change a bunch of stuff right before it was due (we can't work on it at home or even in just a computer lab because we have to use a program that's only on the school computers and you can't talk in computer labs). We were so burnt out after the four hours of doing it, especially me since I get frustrated easily which leads to me being rude, and we couldn't face going to Finnish class for two hours. Instead of becoming even more frustrated and wanting to crush some skulls, my friend and I decided to take advantage of cheap(er) day time movie tickets and go see Captain America: The Winter Soldier ,or, as it's called in Finland, Captain America: The Return of the First Avenger. I wasn't a huge fan of the first Captain America and I didn't like The Avengers that much either, but I do love me some comic book superhero movies, especially ones that involve Marvel characters. I only know about The Winter Soldier from wikis I've read and Bucky's appearances in the Wolverine: Origins comics, and I didn't like him much in the comics (same goes for comic book Steve Rogers. Again, I've only read him in the Wolverine: Origins stuff), but laaaaawd in the film Sebastian Stan did an awesome job portraying him. I'm a sucker for tormented baddies that aren't actually that bad; and it's an added bonus if they've got longish hair. I obviously don't want to spoil anything, but it's definitely the first comic book film I've really enjoyed in long time (I enjoyed it more than some of the X-Men films, which might not be that hard to do but I really like X-Men films so that's saying a lot). I might even break away from my exclusive Wolverine comic book reading and start reading Winter Soldier stuff because I enjoyed the film so much. It was definitely a perfect thing to do after a rough first half of the morning and I really want to see the film again! Curse expensive Finnish movie tickets!

10/10 would recommend

The film was great and Winter Soldier can get it.Photo belongs to it's owner

That's it for the week! This week is going to be busy as well with events on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday! Stay positive!

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Five Good Things This Week

Nothing much this past week except for a wonderfully long and boring intensive statistics course. Such fun. Anyways, there was some good last week. The best is that I'm getting better at a routine that makes me much more efficient and I'm quite liking it! Onward and upwards we go!


1) I walked about 27 kilometers between last Monday and today, and that's only the times I specifically went for walks and recorded my time and kilometers. It's supposed to be nice weather all week so I'll hopefully get out everyday!

There are lots of paths to chose from and I quite liked this one, even if it did have some steeps hills. It weaves in and out of the forest, which is lovely. I didn't reach the end but I'll be trekking it again soon once it's less icy!

2) Even though yesterday was rainy, I still went with some friends up to Pyynikki for a walk on the rocks at Pyhäjärvi (one of the big lakes that straddles Tampere city center) then of course we went for the always necessary munkki at Pyynikin Näkötorni.

At the base of that little tower is doughtnutty gold

One of my favourite spots because it reminds me of where I grew up. Always go for a walk down here before getting munkki. The hike back up the stairs of doom will make it much more deserved. 

3) Like I mentioned earlier, I'm getting a better routine down. For the longest time my sleep schedule was all over the place and it drove me nuts because I would be getting up later in the day and I felt like I couldn't start anything because it was so late. I also used to just wake up fifteen minutes before I had to go catch the bus for class and I never had time for breakfast or waking up normally. Now I've managed to get to bed at decent times, before midnight, and wake up early enough to get my morning started slow before I have to start doing more important things. I got up early on Friday and managed to have breakfast, putter around on my computer, get some homework done, and go for a walk in the woods all before noon! It makes me feel so much more efficient, I love it!

Getting up early and not feeling tired means I can go to places like this and still have time to do everything else! 

4) Monday was St. Patrick's Day! I'm probably one of the few people in Finland that has enough Irish heritage to legitimately celebrate St. Patrick's Day. My mum's side of the family is part of a very large Irish clan that's been around for hundreds of years, but being Canadian I've got some other European heritage as well. I don't know much about my dad's side other than that they are very much from Newfoundland and a fair amount of people from Newfoundland have Irish background. Regardless of their Irishness, or lack there of, Finns still use St. Patrick's Day as an excuse to drink. There's an Irish pub in Tampere called O'Connell's that had a big St. Patrick's Day shindig that my friends and I went to for a few hours. It was basically like any other St. Patrick's celebration I've been to back in Canada; lots of drinking, lots Irish music, and lots of green.

Obligatory green cider. I usually drink beer or Lonkero, but Irish cider seemed to be the cheaper  way to go for St. Patrick's Day. This wasn't at O'Connell's, but at an English pub called Soho just two buildings over from O'Connell's that we went to beforehand. 

5) I wore my new bikini for the first time on Saturday, to sauna, and I didn't feel as self conscious as I thought I was gonna be. That probably has to do with feeling better about my body as a whole and being with friends that I feel aren't judgmental towards me. Yay for positive body image reinforcement!

That's it for the week. Like I said, nothing exciting, but such is life sometimes! I think I've got a pretty quiet week this week so hopefully I can spend most of it outside since we have wonderful weather!

This was less than a 24 hour period of the area I live in. We got a dump of snow then it all melted the next day.

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5 Good Things This Week

I totally forgot what day it was; last week was very busy and I guess it led me to think it wasn't going to end! Not that it was busy in a bad sense, I was just having a fun week. I remembered to do this last night while I was with friends, then I remembered again while I was out for a walk but that was at about kilometer 3 of my almost 8 kilometer walk. Anyways, on we go!


1) Monday and Tuesday were food making days. On Monday my friends and I made Laskiaspulla, which is a sweet cardamom bun filled with whipped cream and jam (the traditional way is with whipped cream and almond paste, so I've been told). They are on sale everywhere before Lent starts. We all wanted to try our hand at making them and they turned out fantastic! They were so yummy that my flatmate and I made some yesterday, sans filling, and we've already eaten most of them. It was also the first time I have used yeast and now I'm not afraid to use it; I even made bread from scratch on Wednesday!
Tuesday was Shrove Tuesday, which in Canada means Pancake Day! Everyone came over to my very clean apartment (my one flatmate that is not tidy at all was gone for the whole week so we had the opportunity to keep the place clean all week) and we feasted on all sorts of pancakes. Thin English pancakes with lemon and sugar, fluffy Canadian and American pancakes with various toppings, and savory German pancakes. It was a night full of yummy eats, good music, and tons of laughs

They taste better than they look. And they look amazing

ALL the pancake toppings!

First time baking bread was a success! Rosemary and garlic bread (there's none left...)

2) I went to bed and woke up at a decent time all week and it's starting to become a routine for me. I was even up and dressed before 8am on the day my flatmate and I had class at 9. Im usually up about 15 minutes before we have to leave, so being up and dressed before her and still having over and hour before the bus was nice for once.


3) I watched an awesome film this week. It's called Prisoners and just came out in late 2013 and is the first film in a long time that I want to watch again. There was so much detail to it and I don't think I absorbed it enough with just one viewing. Jake Gyllenhaal and Hugh Jackman were both phenomenal and Im so shocked it was looked over by The Oscars. I definitely recommend it.

Seriously, go watch it. *picture from Google Images*

4) Saturday was a fun filled day, and it was sunny ALL day! I met my flatmate and some other friends and we went for Nepalese food, which I had never had before and it was so yummy. Then my flatmate, another friend and I went shopping and I finally bought a new bathing suit and had some munkki and coffee from Pyynikki. And finally, my friends and I went to watch a hockey game. It was Ilves (one of the Tampere teams and the one my flatmate and I cheer for) against Blues (Espoo). Ilves lost, but it was lots of fun and we had awesome seats. We will definitely be going to another one soon.

It was very windy all day so the sun got covered by clouds from time to time, but my friends and I were sat here for 20 minutes basking the the sun when it came out. 

Half of my new bathing suit. Sv kvlt

Hockey Night in Tampere

5) Last night my flatmate and I went to a friend's place to watch a tv show that the singer from Reckless Love is in and it was hilarious. It's a sort of singing contest where the artists compete each week in a different genre and the more votes they get, the more stars they get which determines the winner in the end. Last night they did gangster rap and if you know anything about Reckless Love, you'll know how hilarious it was. 

A promo picture for the show. This photo has been on billboards in Tampere for over a week and I almost died laughing the first time I saw it. *photo from Olli Herman's Official Facebook page*

That's it for last week! This week is going to be quite busy with school but also with fun stuff. Tomorrow I'm seeing Apocalyptica perform with an orchestra at Tampere Talo (I haven't seen them live since 2008) and I think at least once this week I'll be going out for drinks with friends. Here's to fun stuff over the week!

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5 Good Things This Week with one extra

I felt really down the first bit of the week. There was a lot of school work to be done, I was stressing about money, and it's still gross weather. But, in the second half of the week I managed to get my school work done, and even handed some stuff in early, figured out the money situation, and it was sorta sunny on Saturday! As Dory says, ”just keep swimming”.

1. I went skating twice and it was loads of fun!

The ice rink I go to every week! Have I mentioned that it's underground?

2. I found a music festival in Finland I can actually go to before I head back to Toronto for the summer! Sauna Open Air got cancelled this year and I was bummed about it cause it's apparently a great festival and it's right in Tampere. I didn't think I was gonna go to any here this summer since everything was after I left for Toronto, and none had great lineup, but this new one seems pretty great! Skid Row, W.A.S.P., Shining, Reckless Love (which will be hilarious to see at the same festival as Shining), Santa Cruz, Egokills, as well as a few others are all on the lineup. It should be pretty fun! If you wanna check out the festival, go here

3. I got a concrete budget down to get me till June once I can start working again. My dad was surprisingly very relaxed and helpful about the whole thing, which is not how he usually is when I have to talk to him about money

4. I got a package from my mum! It was being held in Customs since the beginning on February (I think it was because Mum sent it through her company). To get stuff from Customs you have to prove your identity, and since the customer service office in Helsinki is closed down now, the only way to do that is through your phone contract or your bank account. Well, I don't have a Finnish phone contract because I'm a foreigner and I just got a Finnish bank account and I won't have web banking for 3 months, and you need web banking login information for the identity confirmation. I thought that I wasn't going to be able to get the package and my mum spent $70 Canadian dollars to send me something nice and it was going to get sent back but, I got it in the end after I sent an email asking about it and getting a reply straight away! She sent me some cute rainboots, socks, and cookies!

I love getting mail!

A tiny bit too big but I love them so much! Now I won't wreck my other boots in the wetness!

5. I had a really nice movie night on Friday with my flatmate and another friend. Since the Olympics my friends and I have been meaning to watch the documentary about the ice hockey player Teemu Selänne (if you don't know him, he is a really big deal here; like the Finnish version of Wayne Gretzky). Friday was Kalevala Day aka Finnish Culture Day so we thought it was a good excuse to watch a film about a Finnish hockey player! We all snuggled up on my bed with junk food and wine and watched it, as well as The Mighty Ducks. The movie about Teemu was great and we had such a nice time!

It's a really good film, especially if you know how famous this guy is. Check it out. *image from Google Images*

6. I walked almost 7km yesterday. I wanted to see what kind of shape the path that goes from my flat to school was in since I want to skate on it once the gravel is cleaned. I really enjoyed myself and my leg didn't hurt till I was basically at the end of my walk (I have a messed up left knee/leg/hip which can make walking for extended periods a bit of a pain). It might be a bit difficult on skates, but I think I went the wrong way at one point and next week I'll try a different way that has less hills. 

Diverted a bit off the sidewalk to walk in the forest a bit. This is right beside the highway. 

The path took me to my favourite church, Messukylän vanha kirkko

Next week will be some more skating, pancakes (Tuesday is pancake day!), possibly ice swimming, and a hockey game on Saturday (Ilves vs. Blues)!

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Five Good Things This Week

Another sorta lame week even though it actually wasn't. I'm still feeling a bit out of sorts, but I shall push through!


1. I went ice skating on Monday. That's not much different than most weeks since I try to go once a week. However, it's been so warm lately here in Tampere all the outdoor rinks have gone out of commission. So how did I manage to go skating? I went underground! Finland is nifty and puts lots of stuff underground, like infrastructure, to help with sprawl. I didn't think they put ice rinks underground (this one is actually two rinks), but it was really neat and convenient for those of us that are not done ice skating this year!


2. I went to Helsinki on Wednesday. It was a school trip to the studio of the biggest commercial television station in Finland. It was really interesting and then later my classmates and I went for drinks and food. It was a fun, albeit long, day.

These were our visitor badges from the tv studio. We got to keep them

Looking out onto the Gulf of Finland. More on my Instagram

3. I finally got to go into what I think is the prettiest building in Helsinki. I always thought that Kappeli was a fancy restaurant, but as my friends and I were walking around before our train, my Finnish friend said they also have a little coffee bar so we went in! It was expensive, I didn't get anything, but it is just so pretty in there. I'd really like to go back in the spring or summer.

Pictures don't do it justice. This is just one part of the building. 

So pretty inside as well!

4. I did a lot of school work today and yesterday. It always seems to be a constant drip of work that I have to do so I can get a bit discouraged, but I think I've worked it out to make a list for what I want to do during those days and it helps me organise a bit better and feel like I actually did something


5. Canada won Gold in Men's and Women's Olympic Hockey! It's a big deal.



That's it for this week. Next week is going to be quite busy with quite a bit more school work. As always, I'll be exercising as much as possible (on Saturday I want to walk the path I found for roller skating to see what it's like) and sticking in some fun stuff, I'm sure. 

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Five Good Things This Week

Last week I had three goals for this week and I am proud to say I accomplished all three!

1. I started back at the gym. I hit a tough spot after my horse died last March and got heavy enough that it was starting to affect the way I was walking and it was taking a real toll on me mentally and physically. I lost about twenty-five pounds over the summer, but have put about ten back on because of the realities of student life. I'm finally in a place where I'm feeling motivated enough to get healthy. I'm using an app, which I have to use via Internet because it's still in Beta phase for Windows Phone, called HeiaHeia. It tracks your exercise, has tons of different exercises and sports to chose from, and you can set goals for yourself, not necessarily weight goals but also how many times or hours you want to exercise. I set up a three month program that will start on Monday. I will undoubtedly not be able to follow it as closely some weeks because school will get in the way, but like I said, I'm the most motivated I've ever been to do this and I plan on sticking to it.

2. I finally got some ice skates! All Canadians are birthed from the icy shores of Lake Ontario with hockey skates strapped to their feet and a stick in hand, right? Maybe I'm exaggerating, but my family is a hockey playing family. My dad played for the Ontario Hockey League, and subsequently lost his upper front teeth, and my brother played on an all star team. I have skated since I was three and played hockey collectively for about five years, as well as figuring skating for about four years. I was never that great at either, hockey is the only time I've ever broken a bone, but I am a good skater and I really enjoy it. 
          Finland is wonderful for the fact that ice skating is part of school for kids. In Tampere, there are rinks set up virtually everywhere and I can only think of one that costs money to use. I told my dad this and how I was probably going to rent skates to go once or twice, and he ended up sending me money at Christmas to buy some skates for myself. I fully intended to buy some while I was in Helsinki over Christmas so I could go skating with my mum, but the thought of lugging them plus everything else back to Tampere made me decide against it. This week I finally got to the Intersport at Koskikeskus and got a pair of Easton's for less than sixty euros (yay for sales!). I even got the chance to go skating on Friday at the massive rink by my university (think the size of two football (soccer) fields) and I was on cloud nine for the rest of the day. I'm going to be going skating there as my treat for the week since Fridays are supposed to be about an hour and a half of cardio. I hate cardio; running is no fun, stationary bikes hurt my knees, treadmills are like running purgatory and there are only so many times I can put up with an elliptical. Not only am I going to enjoy doing laps on ice skates, it's going to help immensely with my roller skating and will build up my endurance so that I can skate to and from school with ease come spring time and clean sidewalks. I've also convinced a few of my friends to pick up some skates so we can all have something fun today together!

My new friends. Designed in Canada....made in China

3. I went to a concert Friday night. Everyone knows I love music a lot and it was a large part of why I fell in love with Finland and decided to come live and study here. Hell, music is why I'm in a Master's program! I've missed out on a few concerts since August because of lack of funds, but sometimes it pays to spend a bit of money when you get to hear some good music. JP Leppäluoto was randomly performing at Jack the Rooster, a very nice if not expensive bar, and while I appreciate his voice, I'm not super into the stuff he's done nor have I ever really kept up with what he's done. I have seen him perform at Raskasta Joulua (a yearly series of concerts with Finnish metal musicians performing Christmas songs. It's possibly the best thing ever), and was impressed with that enough to give him a try on Friday night since my flatmate and another friend were going anyways. He managed to start almost a whole hour behind schedule, but the place was packed considering it was not promoted very much. He performed some good covers of mostly 90s songs, but I wanted to get home early and was basically out the door as he started singing Rebel Yell. Other than having to get very sassy with three guys getting all up on my friends and I, and there being an obscene amount of people wearing plaid that night, myself included, it was a fun night spent with good friends.

If you have no clue who I'm talking about, JP used to sing in this band, Poisonblack. While he is a very good singer and I'm sure I would have been into them when I was younger, it's not really my thing anymore. 

4. I got a lot of school work done yesterday. I'm almost done my first research proposal even thought the due date got moved from today to March 9^th. With the new due date and being almost done, I can do a properly literature review now. 

5. I had my second walk on a frozen Näsijärvi today. I went out on Näsijärvi, one of the two big lakes that sorta straddles Tampere, when it was frozen back in March 2012 but didn't get too far out. Today some friends and I walked from Särkänniemi, the amusement park, out to the tiny island that has a light house on it and to the shore near Finlayson. I guessing it was about 3km in all, but I'm not sure. There were a ridiculous amount of people doing all sorts of things like walking, skating (there is a specific path you can use to skate across the whole lake), biking (which was weird and a lot of people were doing it), cross country skiing, ice sailing, kiteboarding, and even dogsledding. Clearly Finns know how to deal with winter. After walking we went to the Pyynikki kahvila that is in Keskustori for munkki and coffee. A Sunday well spent!

Tiny light house. More photos on my Flickr and Instagram

Looking towards Särkänniemi. More photos on my Flickr and Instagram

All in all, this week was a good week! I accomplished some goals, got some entertainment, and got outside. Next week I want to do well with my new training program, get ice skating at least twice, and get my research proposal done.

Here's to being positive!

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I'm legit now

Look what I picked up today!

That was the last bit of paperwork type stuff I had to take care of before I left Canada to head over and now I'll be allowed in the country with no problem. When I went on exchange to Helsinki I didn't have my permit before I left because I needed a new passport and didn't get that until mid-way through August (it was really just my own fault for not applying for a new passport early enough). In Canada, at the time, (and possibly elsewhere) you needed to submit your passport when you applied for the permit because they have to put the actual permit into a page on your passport (think of it like a sticker. A very important sticker) and it was going to take a month or so before I was going to be able to get my permit. It would have been cutting it really close had I had to send my new passport away to get the permit in it and it wasn't going to do me any good when I needed to catch a flight to Finland if my passport was in Ottawa! I asked both the Finnish Embassy (in Ottawa) and the Finnish Consulate (in Toronto) if I could apply for my permit in Finland. Both said yes but that I should still apply, and pay, to have it done in Canada. Now let me just say that it costs, at the time, about $345 to just apply for your permit and if you leave the country before you are approved for your permit, your application is void and you lose you money. Basically, they wanted me to apply, not get my permit on time because I've left and therefore they'd get $345 from me without having to lift a finger. LAME. I was pretty freaked out that I wouldn't be allowed into the country when I was at the airport but I had all the information necessary so they let me in! (also shows the benefits of being a Canadian and holding a Canadian passport. Sad but true fact of getting profiled at the borders. Im sure I have more stories about that to tell.)

But the fun thing about getting residence permits now is that it's no longer a sticker in your passport! It's just a little card that you can keep in your wallet. I was assured by the Finnish Embassy in Ottawa that even if, for some reason, I left before my permit was ready, I could get it sent to me in Finland and that the Embassy would write a letter for me to show the border security that I had the permit. This is SUCH a better idea than the old way. But they now make everyone applying for a residence permit visit the closest Finnish Embassy so that they can submit original copies of the requirements in person (like your degree certificate, health insurance, bank statement, acceptance letter) and also so you can submit a passport photo. I also had to get my fingerprints taken. It was a pain for me to have to go to Ottawa to get it done. It's about a 5 hour drive from downtown Toronto to Ottawa and I had to do it on about 4 hours sleep because it was the day after Mayhem Festival.While it was a pain for me just to go to Ottawa to do it, a girl in my program that is from Venezuela had to go all the way to New York to get her stuff done and another girl from Bangladesh had to go to India. I guess I shouldn't complain so much.

All in all, Im stoked to have my permit now and now it's just stickin' it out over the next few weeks and then I'll finally be back home again!

I realize that this was probably a boring post about residence permits but it'll get more interesting soon.

To tide us all over, have a picture of me being a typical tourist on a canon on Suomenlinna

Is that a canon in your pants or are you just happy to see me?

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Of Vikings and Care Bears

Well, hey there! You've stumbled across my blog and this is the first post! I thank you now for coming here to share in my life in Finland. I promise to share some knowledge, interesting stories, and, of course, many laughs.

SO, where shall we start?! I think introductions are in order. My name is Biz. Strange, I know, especially for a white Canadian girl with basically only British, Scottish, and Irish heritage. The name that is on my birth certificate and other government documents is of no significance because I simply do not identify with that name. I've been known as Biz since I was about 9 days old and my big brother, who was 4 at the time, thought I was a very busy baby and my family started calling me Bizzy which was then shortened to Biz. I started getting called Biz in school around grade 1 when I came home at the beginning of the school year complaining to my Mum that Elizabeth was too long to write and could I please use my "home name". So, call me Biz.

Hey look, it's me! 

So a little bit about this "walking cartoon character" as my Finnadian friend has described me. I'm at the older end of 22 and was born and raised in the land of hockey and maple syrup, Canada. I graduated with an Honours Bachelour of Arts Degree in Cultural Studies specializing in Film, Video, and Media from Trent University in 2013. I'm starting my Master of Arts program at the beginning of September where I'll be studying Media Management at the University of Tampere. I don't have my exact career objective planned out BUT, I really want to be involved in the music industry or the film industry working behind the scenes to get amazing works of art to the public.

So why Finland? weeeeell, like a lot of people, I discovered Finland through Finnish music. I was at the older end of 13 when I went to Toronto for the day with my Mum and we stopped at Indigo (a chain bookstore in Canada. They might have them in the States as well) and I picked up an issue of RockSound magazine because it had a cd with it and some band I liked was on it (to this day I cannot remember the band I originally wanted the cd for). The band that was on that album was HIM and an acoustic version of Funeral of Hearts from their Love Metal album. The whole magazine did a big feature on HIM because their greatest hits album And Love Said No had just come out, or was just coming out. I was so impressed by the one song and the feature story on the band that I went straight to HMV, when I was near one since my hometown is tiny, and bought And Love Said No and it was ALL I listened to for MONTHS. I gradually found other big bands from Finland like The 69 Eyes, Negative, Apocalyptica, The Rasmus, etc. and then wanted to know more about the country and sort of fell in love with the country as a whole. It's just got something about it that really appeals to me but it's really hard to explain (maybe through this blog you'll find out why I love it so much). So in 2011 I got the opportunity to go on exchange to the University of Helsinki for a school year. As soon as I landed in Helsinki, I just looked around and said "I'm home". I really came into my own while I lived in Helsinki, which I think a lot of exchange students say, but in Helsinki I felt less like a tourist/exchange student and more like a local. I made so many wonderful friends while I was there, many of them I met through Tumblr and still keep in touch with and can't WAIT to see again soon! Hi to you lovely people if you're reading this! It was one of the hardest things for me to have to leave at the end of my exchange but I was determined to get back to Finland and worked my ass off in my 4th year at Trent to get into an international Masters program that only lets in 12 students every 2 years. And I did it. So here we are, 25 days until I get back on Finnish soil and I'm so ready to be back.

My new city, Tampere. Photo by me in October 2011. 

Im a different person than I was almost 10 years ago, THANKFULLY, but I still love Finland.

Hopefully you find my adventures in Finland to be somewhat interesting. While I lived in Helsinki I had a Tumblr, of the same name as this one, but it had it's limitations and this way I can write walls of text without getting annoying. For this blog I have plans to do theme type stuff (which I'll need help thinking of, hint hint nudge nudge), music stuff (I went to A LOT of concerts last time I was in Finland and plan on going to more this time round), travel diaries (both in Finland and in greater Europe), etc. I also have plans to start my Youtube channel up again, providing I can get a video camera, and if I do that I'll be doing a lot of vlogs and random videos in conjunction with this blog. Don't forget to follow me on Tumblr (lilacviking.tumblr.com) and Instagram (@lilacviking)! If you have any questions about me or Finland, don't be shy and ask via comment on this blog or send me an ask on my Tumblr!