Music tells you more than thousands of words

Recently all my energy to write something has been used for my thesis and job applications and, therefore, it’s been rather silent in my blog. The thesis is still not ready - however it's getting together - so I’ll keep on working on it but meanwhile, a different type of a post for my blog.

It’s less than a month that I’ll be packing my bags again and both the exchange year and my student life are coming to their end. And I’m totally unaware what is going to happen after January… Always during the last weeks of my exchange I have entered into a mood of a lot of thoughts, anxiety of farewells and, on the other hand, gratefulness of what I’ve been privileged to experience as well as mindless urge to embrace the world. Thus, music comes in pretty handy during these moments to process the feelings and, hence, I have listed for you the songs I’m listening to tens of times during these weeks in order for you to have a grasp of what is going on in my head even though I won’t be updating you with my stories.

1. Yo no sé mañana – Luis Enrique
2. Todos los días sale el sol – Bongo Botrako
3. Wind of change – The Scorpions
4. Maailman toisella puolen – Haloo Helsinki!
5. Just one last time – David Guetta

And, as a bonus, a tiny soundtrack of the year with the songs that always bring to my mind unforgettable memories of this year as well as many amazing people that I closely relate to these songs due to the shared moment while listening these together. Can you spot the song we share together?

1. Travesuras – Nicky Jam
2. Vivir mi vida – Marc Anthony
3. Miña terra galega - Siniestro Total 
4. Que idea - Pino Dangio
5. Bailando – Enrique Iglesias
6. Happy – Pharrel Williams
7. Hala Madrid - Real Madrid
8. Clavado en un bar – Maná
9. El Tiburón – Henry Méndez
10. Todos los días sale el sol - Bongo Botrako
11. Que triste es el primer adios - La Onda Vaselina
12. You’re the one that I want - Grease
13. Darte un beso - Prince Royce
14. Propuesta Indecente - Romeo Santos
15. All of me – John Legend
16. Counting stars - One Republic
17. Circle of life - Elton John

It's my last weekend at my home here in Antofagasta so it means that now I'll leave for my farewell party to enjoy of the last night together with my friends here! Once more it's the time of the year of lot of hugs, last shared moments, plans of future meetings, crying and appreciation of what we have had. Never forget how privileged you are to have the important people around you!

Machu Picchu - and how to get there?

Already more than a month ago I packed my backpack and headed to the bus station of Antofagasta looking forward to great experiences while travelling alone and exploring two countries I had never visited before. At this point I can only say that my adventure Lima-Cusco-Machu Picchu-Puno-Copacabana-La Paz turned out to be perfect and even better I could ever have wished for. Due to the tons of new experiences, new friends and hardly any problems, the whole story would be impossible to be told, as you know, you need to travel by yourself in order to understand the glamour. Hence, I will concentrate on Machu Picchu because I know there is a great number of people dreaming of going there and while organizing the trip, I realized there is surprisingly little information about how to get there. Let this text serve you as a guide book to get started!

First of all, going to Machu Picchu is gonna turn out to take a big slice of your budget but it is definitely worth it. You’d also better make your plans well in advance in order to make sure you get the entrance and the train tickets. As you might imagine, there are a lot of people eager to visit this Inca town and therefore the entrances are often sold out already weeks before the planned date. It is possible to book a tour as well and the agency will organize everything for you, but I don’t know anything about that option so I’ll focus on the independent travel that worked just fine at least for me. However, if you go with a tour, it usually means that you take a bus from Cusco to somewhere close by Aguas Calientes a.k.a. Machu Picchu pueblo and after that you need to walk an hour or two to get to the village, so make sure you'll have the energy and remember that the altitude may cause some problems which means that your body might not be working perfectly.

First thing to do is to buy the entrance to Machu Picchu which alone costs about 36 euros. If you want to, you can buy a ticket to the Machu Picchu Mountain as well which makes the price slightly higher but it’s probably worth it (I don’t have that experience but I heard that it’s great). Anyway, decide now what kind of a ticket you want because you cannot buy the additional parts separately. The web page for buying the tickets is a mess and doesn’t provide with any information you are looking for, so Google is your friend if you want to know more about the different destinations in Machu Picchu. Buy your ticket here and remember to print it out before trying to access Machu Picchu. The international student card (ISIC) makes you entitled to 50 % discount and in that case, you need to buy the ticket following the instructions under the “Tickets para estudiantes”.

Before paying the entrance, it is worth checking if there is still space in the train that takes you to Aguas Calientes. You can buy the train tickets here. Make sure that you choose the right stations for leaving and coming back. If you are staying in Cusco, the station is called Poroy and therefore you would be buying the ticket Cusco-Machu Picchu-Cusco with the station Poroy. Poroy is about half an hour taxi trip away from Cusco but it's the closest station. There are three different classes in the train for you to choose from. I travelled to Aguas Calientes with the lowest class and came back to Cusco with the second class. When coming back, at least in the second class they had a show of traditional dances and modeling, showcasing the clothes made of alpaca wool. I was happy with my choice of traveling in two different classes and the train trip back to Cusco was amazing, AMAZING! Please, beware that you need to be at the train station half an hour before the train is scheduled to leave and only hand luggage is allowed. Don't forget your passport.

When you finally get to Aguas Calientes, you need to either buy the bus ticket to Machu Picchu (return ticket 19$) or start walking. The walk to Machu Picchu takes approximately 1-2 hours and it's logically uphill. Some people say that the only acceptable way to get up there is by walking, in that way respecting the hard work the incas did, but, remember that the seeing Machu Picchu itself includes also a lot of walking and climbing, and you are not allowed to enter with food nor big backpack, so make sure that you’ll have also the energy to enjoy this wonder of the modern world. Depending on what you want to see on Machu Picchu, it easily takes 3-4 hours in total, maybe even more.

Aguas Calientes

Aguas Calientes

I stayed one night in Aguas Calientes in order to have the possibility to go to Machu Picchu already at the dawn. I really do recommend this. Aguas Calientes is a lovely tiny village and you can easily spend a day there, tasting guinea pig or alpaca or wandering around shopping the local handicraft. The first buses to Machu Picchu leave at 5.30 am and there is a long long line already before 5am. During the day time, you don’t need to queue for the bus but I bet that it’s not that pleasant to wander around Machu Picchu when there are 2 000 other people there. I really appreciated the possibility to see the place still having some privacy and possibility to take pictures of the place, not only of the other tourists. Already around 8 am the place is full and, unfortunately, some of the magic is gone.

Since you were interested in reading this, I suppose you already know that Machu Picchu is definitely worth visiting. Now the only thing left to do is to buy your tickets and get going! Don’t forget sunblock, water and good shoes!

Feel free to leave a comment if there is something you want to ask or get clarified.

Sipo, I'm in Chile!

The first week of living in Chile is coming to its end. The view of sunrise over a city park that I used to have from my room in Madrid has now changed to a view of sunset over Pacific Ocean and two kisses on the cheek has reduced to only one. Almost everything that I used to know has been left behind for now and I’m little by little getting the grasp of the way of living here.

To start with, Chile is the long strip of land on the west coast of South America. The official language is Spanish (or better said Chilean) and the population is about 17 000 000 people. The city I’m living in, Antofagasta, is located in the second region of Chile which means that it’s closer to Peru and Bolivia than the capital of Chile, Santiago. There is a lot of mining industry in Antofagasta and – well – nothing else. Most of the area around is desert and mountains as you can see below.

Maybe many of the Europeans or at least Finns don’t know a lot about Chile but I bet that the knowledge is better than the Chileans have of Finland. First of all, the locals here don’t have a clue where Finland is located even though each and every one of them can praise the Finnish education system. Also, about 90 % of the Chileans who I’ve talked with, have thought that English is the official language in Finland and they sometimes almost start to debate with me when I tell that it’s not. Moreover, I have needed to convince quite many people of the fact that we are not living in eternal winter. Maybe Finland should finally start branding and marketing itself in order to stay on the world map.

Learning to live everyday life here has brought a lot of surprises and moments of confusion. First of all, I’m studying in a catholic university but still it didn’t even cross my mind (literally) that all the lecture halls would have a cross on their walls. Furthermore, there is no toilet paper even in the toilets of the university – which is by the way private and the students pay for studying there – not to even mention the possibility of locking the door. Not only the streets but also the school yard is full of wild dogs that sometimes get too chatty. I’ve also experienced my first time, when there is no possibility to have milk for the coffee when having a breakfast in a restaurant. The mail arrives to the slit of the gate and the garbage is left on the street – without a garbage can – to be picked up by the bin man if he makes it before the dogs.

To my experience so far, Chileans seem to be friendly but a bit more reserved than for example Mexicans. The country is not one of the best developed ones but it clearly is doing well in something because the unemployment rate is relatively low (less than 6%) and it’s rather safe to live here compared to the other countries around. However, Chileans seem to have a bit of a slimming diet syndrome since they are all the time telling excuses why the society isn’t doing better and how it’s not their fault that they have problems. One of the excuses I’ve heard a lot is that because they don’t have the Finnish education system they cannot develop. It might be through that the education system needs to be renewed but it should be developed to fit the local context with the local rules, I think. 

What is more, according to the locals, the security problems are caused only by the Colombians and Chile doesn’t have anything to do with that. However, I guess Chile is not an exception in this because all the states seem to have the tendency of blaming the immigrants in this issue, not for example the poor integration of the incoming people to the rest of the society. Sipo, Chile has gone through difficult times in recent history but I’d say that the biggest obstacle on the way of development is underestimating themselves and not believing that they can change things. In this sense the Finns and Chileans seem to be really similar. Nevertheless, Chile has potential but Chileans just don't seem to know that yet.

First impressions are just first impressions and probably I'll further develop my view of the country after digging in a bit deeper to the culture and society and other parts of Chile too. Anyway, I have a feeling that it’s gonna be a good last semester of my studies! There are a lot of new adventures waiting outside and the first one will be tomorrow when participating to The Color run... 

A lesson learned, thanks to Madrid.

One chapter of my life has come to its end and suddenly I find myself in Chile instead of Spain where I spent the past amazing seven months. Needless to say, I have been enjoying my life that much that updating my blog hasn’t happened too often… But don’t worry, I think this post is enough to summarize what I’ve been up to and most importantly what I’ve learned from life during the summer in Madrid. In the end, I apparently left a part of my heart in the city I hated so much in the beginning of this year.

The summer has consisted of working, travelling, laughing, crying, making new friends and so on. To put it short, living and loving. Still at the beginning of the year I didn’t have a clue that I would be living in Madrid this summer but now that I look back I can tell you that this short but even more meaningful era of my life definitely was something that was meant to happen before the next journeys.

These following points are something that I wanted to write down mostly for myself as advice for the future but I think it's also worth publishing them because these might make at least some of you readers to stop to think for a moment:

Work with something you love. Working at the embassy wasn’t always a dream come true but still it was always rewarding in one way or another. Waking up early in the morning after not being able to sleep in the sauna-like flat wasn’t always enjoyable but knowing that I’m going to be working with topics I'm interested in and with people I love working with it was never distressing to get out of the bed. To put it short, get a job that you are passionate about. Not next year, not next month, do it now. You spend at work half of the hours you're awake so do something that has a meaning to you. The working hours taking a huge proportion of your time, your satisfaction with your work will also affect your personal life and the others around you. Finding a job might not always be easy but you can do it since when you know what you want, you are able to defend yourself that well that any of the other candidates won't look even close as good as you in the eyes of the employer and thus they'll pick you. If there is no vacancy available that motivates you this much, seriously consider establishing your own company.

Start up the Fusion. One of the events I was privileged to participate through work.

Never ever give up with sports (may it be painting or singing or whatever to someone else). I’m not an athlete (yet) neither am I a huge fan of watching sports. Still, two of the most emotional and satisfying moments I had this summer are related to sports. First one was when watching the final match of La Liga, Real Madrid vs. Atlético. Of course, Real Madrid won and the emotions and the feeling of social cohesion among the fans after that is something that one cannot describe but, I know, all of you who have experienced something similar can understand me. The icing on the cake was going to the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium for the celebration next day and seeing those 80 000 people being so passionate about the same thing. These moments show that even today people can be unite although the events around the world tell a different story. 

Another moment of lot of emotions and satisfaction was when attending the summer celebration at my gym and participating to the two hour spinning session. The instructors gave everything they could at times wearing afros and hippy glasses. There’s no better party than cycling 47 km on Friday evening accompanied by other determined people and a great DJ. At the latest, all the personal trainers and gym instructors who are able to motivate their clients to exceed themselves became the biggest heroes in my eyes.

Respect the people around you and don’t make the mistake of realizing their importance to you only when they aren’t around you anymore. Sometimes people pop in your life for only a moment but some stay longer. Every single one still makes a difference in your life. A smile that you receive from a random person in the morning might make you happier which may cause a chain reaction you being nicer to the others that day. Moreover, some people have the characteristics to make a more profound change in your life already in a short while not to even mention if they’ll walk along with you a bit longer, maybe even a lifetime. When starting my studies four years ago I was dreaming of a life in a big one family house, owning a cool but not so handy car and having the items I’ve always craved for. However, now all of this seems irrelevant and I’d rather live in a smaller cozy flat but most importantly surrounded by the people I love instead of the items I maybe could purchase one day. No matter how hard a situation you’d be going through with somebody or how much you’d want to get rid of a person you don’t like, one day you’ll realize that you have learned something necessary from that exact person. Even though you couldn’t stay with somebody for a long time you’ll at least have the memory always saved with you guiding what your next steps are. If life is favorable, you’ll meet again one day and continue from where you left last time.

When there’s a will there’s a way.

A student visa for Chile, please!

I have been privileged to be an intern in the Finnish Embassy here in Madrid for this summer. The first month of working has been really interesting and I’ve learned at least a lesson or two. However, after chatting with many people, it seems that quite few people actually know what embassies are for – to be honest, neither did I before starting my internship. Therefore, here is a summary what embassies are, or at least should be, for:

1.       They represent the home country in foreign location communicating with the local decision-makers, media and etc. taking care of the diplomatic relations.

2.       They communicate through different media to the people living in the host country in order to advance the knowledge of home country culture and brand abroad.

3.       They help the home country nationals staying in the host country with accident or crime situations as well as during local crisis, disaster or other challenging situation.

4.       They issue passports for the home country nationals who need a new one when being abroad as well as help foreigners with residence permits and other official documentation to enter the country legally.

5.       Furthermore, the embassies and consulates are the official representatives of the home country and their underlying task is to participate in building up a good image of the home country through customer service and diplomatic relations.

As you can see, the type of information given from an embassy or consulate is that kind that it needs to be correct or a client might lose his job, study place or in the worst case get into a jail. Therefore, it is clear that the embassies are trusted a lot and their advice is followed which makes is absolutely unforgettable if wrong information is given. Moreover, the customer service in the embassy or consulate may be the first link between a foreign customer and the home country culture.

Now that you understand how the process should go, I’ll share with you my eclectic story of being on the other side of the desk of an embassy when trying to apply for a student visa for Chile which is my destination for the autumn term. So far I’ve had the honor to visit the Chilean consulate four times in order to have the papers sorted out…

I made sure already when leaving from Finland that I can apply for the student visa in Spain if I’d get accepted to Chile. Well, I got accepted and started the process of applying. Luckily I was told from my home university that it might take even three months to get the visa so you’d better get started immediately. Calling to the Chilean consulate was one of the first things I did here in Madrid and after trying to call them every day during two weeks I managed to get somebody to pick up the phone. That time I was told I couldn’t apply for a visa here because I’m not a student in Spain. Not being too discouraged by this, I dared to get to the consulate to ask about the application process. After ringing the bell three times, they finally opened the door and when talking with the personnel, it became clear (written on a paper) that I don’t need to be a student here, it’s enough that I have the acceptation letter from the Chilean university and then, of course, the other documents that were listed on a separate paper. Win!

Being happy about this easy solution I started working on getting all the necessary documents including a medical certificate and filled form stating, among others, my height and the color of my eyes. When entering the consulate again thinking I had all the necessary documents, I was told that you need to have “a document that states you are a European Union citizen”, which by the way wasn’t mentioned on the list of documents I got on my first visit. Anyway, for a moment I felt happy since I had my European Union passport with me. Well, I obviously counted my chickens before they were hatched because I was told passport doesn’t state this, I need to have that green paper that they showed me. Thanks to the help of my local friend, we figured out that with this document of “European Union citizenship” they are referring to the residency of Spain - which doesn’t have anything to do with stating me being European. Being turned down again, we left for some office to register me for Spain and finally managed to get me a Spanish social security number which hopefully would do for the visa. 

Once again trusting I had finally all the documents, my friend went to the consulate with my papers in order to check everything was okay and I could turn in the application. Everything was fine except the economic solvency paper from Kela (they pay for the student allowance) because there wasn’t a stamp. Well, I then printed another paper that stated I will have a separate grant for the exchange and went to the consulate later that day to leave the papers by myself. Somehow the opinion had changed during those few hours and my criminal record and acceptance letter from the university didn’t do anymore but the economic solvency paper that was ruled out earlier was now fine. Luckily, they probably were already fed up with my face because they let me turn in the application and I could bring the “missing” documents when I come to pick up the visa which by the way costs only 390 euros… How friendly from them! At least I still have a chance of getting the visa before leaving Spain.

I can tell you that during this month of trying to sort this out I have considered quite many times not even going to Chile anymore because this really left a bad taste in my mouth. Being given wrong information so many times and, what is more, getting horrible service the clerks really saying right to my face that “it’s not my problem” has really made me wonder where the hell I'm going... But I guess this is just the first phase of the culture shock even though I'm not even on the South American continent yet.

What did we learn from this? 1) it’s never too early to try to start the application process of a visa, 2) never think that the bureaucracy would work the same way outside of your home country as it does within its borders and, most importantly, 3) choose well the person who comes with you to the consulate or embassy to help you with the possible language problems or other things in order to be able to maintain the relationship also after the losing-my-mind and getting-pissed-off explosions you’ll have when being frustrated with the bureaucracy and the different way of handling things.

In the end, I’m once again happy and slightly hopeful that I might be having all the necessary documents for executing my last student life dream of going to Chile now that I have gone through this application disaster. I still believe it's gonna be worth it! However, I guess that without my lovely friend I would still be calling to European Commission being stupid and asking for a document to state that I’m an European Union citizen so if I’ll one day get the visa all thanks go to him… Muchísimas gracias a mi amigo por ayudarme y lo más importante, por no perder tu paciencia conmigo durante los momentos de frustración finlandesa! Eres el mejor!

Suffering from allergy to the big city customer service

Once again it’s been a while after my last post but at least I have a lot to tell you now. There has been a lot going on during the last month and tons of things I could have written about but just didn’t when being too busy with enjoying life (and stressing about it). I was earlier thinking about posting a traditional travel diary about Lisbon but I didn’t because my camera was broken during the travel time and I don’t think there is any fun in writing about a lovely place like that without being able to show it in photos too. What is more, my words wouldn’t have been enough to express how charming Lisbon was! …actually that charming that I went there for two weekends in a row enjoying the sunny weather and welcoming atmosphere. In other words, I’m gonna skip the topic Lisbon just saying that go there and experience the city by yourself!

Anyway, after falling in love with Lisbon, struggling with exams and saying last goodbyes in Vigo I’ve actually managed to move to Madrid, find a room, make new friends and start my internship in the Finnish embassy. This is to say that after carrying all my seven bags and myself to Madrid and walking more than 20 kilometers in a day when looking for a place where to live, I’m now happily living here in a flat with rooftop terrace and views over the famous El Retiro -park. Most importantly, I’m not feeling like I’m all on my own in this big city anymore, thanks to my new friends! Great start for the summer and I’m little by little starting to feel like home here, however, still being a bit skeptical with the city.

Maybe some of you remember that at the very beginning of my stay in Spain I came to Madrid for one weekend in January. That weekend only made me think why the hell I chose to come to Spain and especially to Madrid, I never wanted to see this city again. Well, never say never because now I’m living here. To my surprise, it’s not actually too bad especially since it’s close to 30 degrees and sunny almost every day (except when it’s raining, like today). If one also has as interesting job as I do, I think life should be at least bearable for the next three months. Nonetheless, even though living here for a summer probably will be nice I highly doubt I will fall in love with this city like I did, for example, with Mexico City last year and there is a reason for that...

The economic situation in Spain is not the greatest at the moment as many of you know, for example, the unemployment rates being somewhere around 25 %. There are some people begging on the street and a lot more people without sufficient income trying to figure out what to do to feed their families. That would make you assume that the employers have a big variety of people to choose from when hiring their staff and that the people who have a job would then be the best for doing it. However, the service here is often so bad that it seems I’m gonna be saving a lot of money because I tend to turn around without buying anything if I get a bad vibe from the staff. 

To my experience, a good sales adviser or a waiter is rather always polite and at least is able to act like he’d be happy no matter how bad a day he’s having. What is more, the questions of the customers are answered politely no matter how weird they would be. I am not requiring anyone to be the happiest person of the world always but just basic politeness is needed when you work in customer service as well as when walking on the street. For some reason, many of the Spanish employees seem to be unaware of this which makes me wonder how those companies are still alive with this competitive situation and why they are not trying to do their best. Most importantly, I feel angry on behalf of the unemployed who actually have the skills but are not employed because the owner’s cousin without any customer service skills got the place.  

I’ve been looking for a proper gym for a week and on Tuesday I went to check one more. I was waiting in the lobby when three of the staff members were talking with each other’s with no hurry or any intention to recognize my presence. The fourth person was talking on phone and when she hung up, she served the person who arrived after me even though she had seen clearly that I was there first. When one of the guys in the end decided that maybe it would be easier to ask why I'm there, he wasn’t really even trying to convince me joining the gym or having any intention to show me the facilities or tell something without me asking first. He only showed me a paper about the prices and that was the presentation. Well, I didn’t join the gym and won’t really recommend the place to anyone. Luckily there are also a few places where you get great service and I finally got a gym membership today!

Hard Rock Cafe is one of the few chains where you get
excellent service no matter on which continent you are!

This gym example is just one of the many bad experiences I’ve had here during less than two weeks. It doesn’t matter if it’s a restaurant, tourist office or clothing store but the service seems to be bad more often than not. Madrid is supposed to be a popular place among the tourists but obviously something has been forgotten when building the brand image and unfortunately the bad experiences are spread quite rapidly with word-to-mouth marketing. No wonder that the economy is not doing so well here because only half of the potential is used. I'm not saying that this would be totally the employees' fault, there are probably a lot of issues with the company procedures too, but the employees are the face of the company and that's why they get the critique. However, you're supposed to always look on the bright side which in this case is that my expectations on service here start to be so low that getting surprised positively starts to be rather easy and the place where I get good service will easily have me as a regular customer and I'll recommend those places to my friends too. Fair game, that's how it's supposed to work!

As you maybe realized, the perspective of this post is maybe a bit different than in the previous ones which might be due to the change from me being a student to me being an employee in the Finnish embassy. Therefore the next posts will probably have something to do with my work, of course, not forgetting my nascent relationship with Madrid and my experiences around the rest of the Spain!

Spanish classes and sunbathing in Valencia

Apologies for not posting the story of my travels during Semana Santa (Easter week) before, but I’ve been so busy with other travels that I haven’t had time to sit down at the computer properly during the past weeks and type my experience into a readable format… Yes, I know, hard life and first world problems.

So, the whole Easter week is a holiday in Spain so what could have been a better way to spend it than travelling? Valencia - the home of paella - sounded like a nice city and there was a good Groupon-offer for the Escuela Albufera language school which is nearby the city of Valencia so I decided to pack my bag and take a flight towards new experiences and sunny weather. It was definitely worth plucking up the courage to travel alone because it turned out to be a great week and not least because of the new friends I made! I even survived from the Irish pub where I happened to go just during the Manchester City - Liverpool game to recharge my phone when being a bit lost and, of course, out of battery.

The school area is a nice cabin village with lots of space to lay down on the grass and chill while sunbathing. Also the beach is nearby and buses go to Valencia every hour. During the week we had relaxed Spanish classes every day for two and half hours except Friday due to Easter. In addition, a salsa class, city tour and paella evening were included in the price. In other words, there was always a lot to do and maybe I improved also my Spanish skills a bit. However, if you are an intermediate or advanced level user of the language, I’d advise you not to expect mind-blowing learning experiences and aha moments when attending Escuela Albufera. Anyway, it was definitely value for money and the experience itself was great!

As I said, I was travelling alone - as most of the others at the school, too - but got to know the first people already at the bus stop waiting to get to the school area. What is more, in the cabin of seven people and within the small group in class it was easy to get to know the others and plan evening activities together. The people in the school were everything between 16-year-olds and retired having different professions and backgrounds. Also the level of Spanish varied a lot but everyone from the beginner to the fluent speaker of Spanish learned something new – if not about the language, about the other people and Spanish culture at least.

There are tons of things to do in Valencia but the landmark of the city is without a doubt the City of Arts and Sciences –park which consists of different sections like Oceanographic and Planetarium. The entrances are not too cheap but the area and architecture of the buildings – which by the way reminds me of Sydney’s Opera house even though I’ve never been there – are so beautiful that it is worth paying already for that. Clearly, there are also lots of shopping and, most importantly, eating possibilities around the city. To make it perfect, there is a lovely and enormous beach close to the city center as well as a really nice garden area where you can take a laid-back walk observing local people having fun and spending time with their families. The atmosphere of the city is more alike to the atmosphere in smaller places but still everything you can imagine is available. The people are so lovely that we even got paella made from scratch only for us because most of the restaurants in the village nearby happened to be closed on Mondays and paella apparently isn't meant to be eaten for dinner.  The only down side of the city – and this is also a word of warning for all the girls going to Valencia – was that when in a club, the guys get worse than mosquitoes so remember your repellent!

Valencia is definitely worth visiting and so far it's my favorite of all the places in Spain I've visited! If you're planning a trip to Spain, consider Valencia at least as good option as the traditional choices, Madrid and Barcelona.   

P.S I finally got yesterday the confirmation of my internship in Madrid and my exchange placement in Chile which means that you’ll be able to follow my stories from abroad at least till the end of this year! J

Why everyone should try leaving

I love airports. The atmosphere at airports is always a weird combination of sadness of goodbyes and excitement of something new. Often there is also a sensation of dreams come true. People come and go being totally unaware of the plans of the others but still you can see that every person at the airport has a story to tell. This time, while being at the airport of Valencia, I’m sad for needing to say goodbyes to the new friends I met during this week of holidays, and leaving lovely Valencia behind, but also excited to get back to home in Vigo and start enjoying my last weeks there before leaving the city with its people again and moving on in my life. I’d love to stay in Valencia but Vigo is waiting for me for one last time. Therefore, this post is dedicated to the ambivalent thoughts of leaving and moving on again instead of travels but, don’t worry, the story of the amazing Semana Santa in Valencia is to be posted soon, too.

The last moments of staying in a place that has provided you with lots of new experiences and amazing new friends is always a period of a lot of deep thoughts, overwhelming happiness of the experience as well as devastating despair of leaving all of it behind and taking a massive step to the unknown. The same process happens when moving from one place to another as well as when ending a great holiday even though the scale might be a bit different. Moreover, it doesn’t really matter if this happens in your home country or abroad but deep down you know that things are going to change soon and there won’t be turning back. During this period of saying goodbyes you start to remember all the small moments of laughter and silly faces, the feeling of absolute social cohesion with a friend you just met and the freedom of wildly throwing oneself into new things. You also start to pay attention again to the regular small things that make you happy like you’d never seem them before. Shortly put, you start to remember how to live.

Last week I wrote a bucket list for myself to complete before leaving from Vigo in three weeks. The list was short: 1) eating a hamburger and guacamole in my favorite restaurant there and 2) eating chili in the same restaurant. Well, of course I want to see all of my friends but that’s not something to tick out of the list so I didn’t write it down. However, after struggling to add stuff to the bucket list I realized that maybe it is the right time for me to head towards new experiences as painful as it is. All good things come to an end, they say. But only to enable the start of new experiences and to remind us what is important in life. Hopefully I will remember this feeling when being busy with my summer internship in Madrid and surprise myself with a cup of coffee on a terrace or a long evening walk just to have a moment to be grateful of how privileged I’ve been with having the possibility to do and see all of this.

It is sad that we so often are so busy hiding behind the duties of everyday life that we forget to see what is going on around us. After waking up, we hurry to work without having time to notice that the sun is shining or that our neighbor had ploughed our piece of yard too. Even if we noticed these little miracles of everyday life, we are too busy to be grateful and enjoy of them. After work we are too tired to socialize or do something we actually want to do. Laying down on the sofa and watching television is a lot easier. Life passes by running and we don’t often even realize that. What makes this so sad is that, according to many studies, people tend to regret later on rather those things they didn’t do than the ones they actually did. Therefore, I think that everyone should try leaving from one place to another no matter if it is a holiday or an actual moving as far as you need to leave something behind concretely not being sure if or when you’re coming back. I assure you that it will make you remember what the things you enjoy the most are and how you get the most out of your life. Once again, one more reason to travel!

For now, ciao Valencia and my new mates! Hopefully our paths cross again sooner or later.

Working hard with different norms

A topic that I’m writing about is something that I have been paying attention to for a couple of months now and it still provides me with new surprises almost every time. Usually I don’t like posting comments like “I went to the gym, yei!” but this is a one-time exception. That is to say, I’m now going to share with you the weird things I’ve seen and experienced at the local gym here in Vigo. There are quite a few of them… If there is anyone who can enlighten me with providing the explanations at least for some of these, I’m more than happy to hear them.

Okay, so I go to a local really well equipped gym which is a part of a national chain. The gym facilities themselves are basically the same as in many of the Finnish gyms including a couple of rooms for the classes, gym and a functional training area. The only difference to Finnish gym facilities is that the showers in the locker rooms are sort of private being like the individual toilet closets. Though, I’d guess we Finns are the odd exception in this not having them.

Let’s start with a thing that I am really positively surprised about. Namely, the arms race of brand clothing we have in Finland hasn’t brainwashed the Spaniards yet. People here don’t care if they have mum’s old t-shirt or if their shoes are so last season, they can still work out. Actually, I think that the most usual outfit at the gym is an old t-shirt with H&M leggings whereas in Finland it is almost shameful not to wear Nike’s clothes. In Finland it often looks like people are too busy to train because the mirror takes all their attention so maybe we should calm down a bit. Obviously, I sometimes feel like I am really being stared at here, not only because I’m the only blonde among the brunettes, but also since I’m the only one wearing a heart rate monitor and special spinning shoes. To make an excuse, they help me to train harder!

Well, Spanish people don’t care about fancy clothing when they train but there are some other necessities they apparently need for working out. Most commonly the Spaniard trainers are accompanied with a phone. This is understandable if you are listening to music to get some motivation but guys, what for do you need a phone in a spinning class when the classroom speakers are as loud as possible and you are supposed to ride the bike instead of Whatsapping? Well, I just realized that I should have carried my phone with me too because now this post will be without pictures, what a shame... It is also normal to see somebody talking to the phone simultaneously with looking like they are training their abs in the machine. What is maybe even stranger, this week I saw a girl at the gym wearing metallic bracelets and I just couldn’t figure out what’s their role in improving the performance. Maybe I’ll try them out next time.

What comes to the training itself, there are quite many differences even though the classes are the same as in Finland. For example, when I go to the spinning class or body pump, instead of entering the class when I’m ready, I need to wait outside for the instructor to let me in. As you might guess based on what I’ve told about the time conception here, this barely ever happens early enough. Only after getting to the exercise room, people are able to start adjusting their seats or getting their equipment for body pump and, of course, without hurrying. In Finland we usually have a couple of minutes extra time to chat after all of this is done because we arrived to the class early to be ready on time. Both of the ways seem to work just fine but this means that here we, more often than not, start and finish quite late which makes participating to the morning classes a bit risky if you want to get on time to school as well. However, the instructors here seem to be more aware of right positions and different options than in Finland if I've understood correctly the nice field specific terminology in Spanish.

There is one more thing that I want to share because it really amazes me. There are these vending machines from which you can buy drinks and snacks at the gyms. In Finland they usually contain water, recovery drinks, bananas and that sort of stuff. Here they are mainly filled with candy, chips and sodas which I just cannot understand. Of course, you can find also water and maybe a protein bar from these but mostly the snacks and drinks available are junk food. I have also witnessed one of the instructors drinking coke during a spinning class. I don’t know if this has something to do with the fact that they don’t have too many food supplement shops or retailers here – it’s impossible to find something like Gainomax in any store – but I could easily imagine that a sport’s instructor would be kicked out in Finland if s/he was drinking coke while having a spinning class.

However, even though many of these different ways of handling things don’t make any sense to me, they seem to work because Spaniards seem to be basically in the same if not even better shape as the Finns. Apparently the fitness epidemic hasn’t spread yet here because it is rare to see a girl to lift weights here but still the Spanish girls are rather slim and sporty looking. The free weight section is always crowded with the Spanish guys but luckily none of them looks like a bodybuilder – maybe thanks to the lacking food supplements. Moreover, the Spaniards seem to have a real motivation for training – it is possible to see the same face at two spinning classes in a row five days a week – whereas some of the Finns (often including me too) need nice clothing and a heart rate monitor to have enough motivation to exercise regularly. Maybe this is due to the longer bikini season, maybe something else but anyway, the teaching of today is that work hard, play hard no matter where you are. ;) ...and, moreover, mum's old t-shirt is not an excuse not to work out!

The sweet taste of travelling

This blog post is purely about travelling because that is the only thing I can think about right now. I went to Santiago de Compostela in Spain and Porto in Portugal last week with my parents when they came to see how I am doing here. After coming back to Vigo I've only been planning the next travels...

First of all, Santiago de Compostela is a small city here in Galicia with less than 100 000 people. Regardless of its smallness, there is a university in the city and also many exchange students choose Santiago as their destination. It takes more or less one and half hours in a bus to get there from Vigo so this capital of Galicia is not too far away from my home. The old town of Santiago is one of the UNESCO’s world heritage sites but the city is even more famous of being the destination of Camino de Santiago, a walk of more than 700 kilometers. According to Lonely Planet, an average of 150 000 pilgrims and thousands of other visitors make this 5-week journey, marked with scallop shells, each year. So if you have five weeks of extra time, the Camino de Santiago might be something you would like to consider because at least each person who has walked through the route and I have talked with afterwards have praised the experience. If five weeks is an easy excuse for you not to try it out, don’t worry, there is also a possibility to walk only the last 100 kilometers which takes approximately one week. Usually after visiting a new place people get things out of their bucket list but after visiting Santiago I just added one to mine.

Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela

After visiting Santiago and having an awful experience in a car rental place called Goldcar (never ever try it!), we finally got going two hours delayed towards Porto on Friday morning. Luckily Porto proved to be an absolutely lovely city and hence we could forget the car rental mess even though everything didn’t go according to plans in Porto either, but that’s the essence of travelling, I guess. The weekend included shopping in Primark, sightseeing tours in a Yellow Bus, wine tasting, delicious (and also not so delicious) food and a cruise on the river. Also a lot of laughter and incredible memories. I let the pictures speak for themselves and just say that go to Porto and experience the lively city with its beautiful houses and view from the river. To get the best out of it, I really warmly recommend you to learn at least a couple of words of Portuguese before you go.   

Now that I got back the taste of travelling it is a bit difficult to stop. I want to go back. I also want to discover every corner of the world that is still unknown to me. Once again I’ve realized that travelling is the best time of our lives and teaches us a lot even though you don’t always recognize it when trying to sleep at an airport or getting food you absolutely didn’t want but it’s still better to eat what you got than to take another shot with the menu written in an undefined language. Somehow it is a lot easier to take the attitude “when life serves you lemons, ask for salt and tequila” while travelling than during everyday life. Therefore, to learn some more patience and dealing with the negative with humor, I have booked a couple of more travels within Spain. The downside is that I just realized that I only have three or four more weekends in Vigo before moving away towards new adventures… The last times come always sooner than expected but this time I’ll try to remember to get the best out of them and pay attention to every second I have left here. I hope you'll do the same wherever you are and remember that the new things are often worth trying already today.

Celebrating (and) cultural differences

It’s been a while since my last blog post but somehow I have been able to convince myself that I am actually being busy even though I only have two courses to complete at the university! Well, let’s make this long break up with not only wrapping up what I’ve been up to but more importantly pointing out some cultural differences that I have paid attention to during past month especially while travelling and partying along with studies.

Let’s start with the famous Spanish conception of time. I guess most of you know that being punctual is not something really Spanish and also that people here eat lunch around 2-3pm and dinner around 9pm or maybe even later. Because I am a Finn, my hunger is really punctual and therefore I usually need to eat something between these two main meals and maybe also something little between breakfast and lunch. However, this is not the biggest source of problems caused by the time conception differences. Namely, the biggest difference in relation to timings and also one of the biggest reasons for me “being busy” is the fact that everything here starts really late and thus also ends late. The classes neither at school nor at gym never start on time but the best example of this are the parties. When we want to party, there is no point in going to a bar before 2am because there is nothing going on there earlier. However, after the first bar closes around 5am, you move on to the next one and next one and next one… It is not rare to visit to 3-4 bars during a night – or maybe more correctly during a morning – and then come back home some time after 8am. This leads to the fact that sleeping the whole next day is sort of necessary and if you are lucky enough, you’ll wake up right on time for the next party. What a great timing! With this kind of sleep pattern, unfortunately, the weekends pass by quite quickly without me having a chance to do something productive like writing a blog.

Xinzo de Limia

Xinzo de Limia and streets crowded with people in costumes

In addition to the normal student parties, we and the rest of the Spain have been celebrating the annual carnival before the Lent (40 days without meat and alcohol before the Easter) during the past week. During the carnival everyone – no matter if it is a toddler or an old lady – goes out to the streets wearing a funny costume and dancing to the music that comes out of various speakers playing different songs. By the way, wearing a police costume is nowadays illegal here. Moreover, at least in Xinzo de Limia which is a town close to Vigo, there are some weird traditions like the organizers throwing ants and flour to the public and hitting them with sticks because the organizers are representing the people who used to collect taxes apparently quite violently. The whole carnival couldn't differ more radically from the typical national celebrations in Finland when we listen to a couple of speeches freezing on the street or watching people shaking hands on TV for hours… If we are lucky, we might get fireworks which I unfortunately didn’t see here in Spain. The thing that impressed me the most was the ability of Spanish people to throw themselves into the party mood and take the role their costume represents. I wonder how many Finnish families would go out to celebrate together each family member having a costume of a Smurf or someone from the Flintstones.

The Flintstones family

Ice age in the "opening" parade

Aladdin in the "opening" parade

The traditional representations of the tax collectors

Whole Vigo watcing the parade

Even more interesting is that the carnival in many parts of Spain and also here in Vigo ends with people showing their grief of the celebration ending. On last Wednesday we had this “entierro de la sardina” (funeral of the sardine), the special event for this mourning period, to end the carnival. This really "sorrowful" event was basically a massive parade going through the city center in Vigo. People were still in their costumes but this time dressed like to a funeral and crying in the parade. Since I had heard already before that it is a celebration “full of sorrow”, I was rather surprised to see that after the parade there were people drinking and dancing cheerfully again on the street. And the music was anything but what you could imagine as a traditional carnival or funeral music – Pitbull and other club music. Due to the bad weather of the carnival opening weekend, we had the main carnival opening parade this Sunday ironically right when the carnival week was ending but it didn’t seem to bother the celebrators. There were amazing dances and groups with identical costumes having fun and showing what they had been practicing probably for months. The whole carnival was absolutely spectacular and definitely something that I recommend to experience if you happen to be in Spain during this time of the year. Hopefully the pictures give at least some sort of idea what we've been experiencing even though the quality of them is not too good!

Entierro de la sardina

The sardine which is also a political statement concerning the recently changed abortion law in Spain

People dressed in black for the funeral

P.S. As you can see from the pictures, it is not raining anymore! The summer has arrived finally to Vigo!