In Austria!

Oh does it ever feel good to be back in Europe!

So far it's been lots of plane, car and restaurant time but much much more to come. But I've missed being here a lot. Even my taste buds feel more alive haha.

Merry Christmas!

So I noticed yesterday that "Merry Christmas" is no longer a phrase reserved for December 25th. And this has become increasingly obvious to me in the past couple of years due to facebook and other social networking tools.
Although the phrase did not come into usage this year, or any year really, as early as radio stations impose their Christmas songs on us, I'm only a few hours early here!

So to everyone:
Hyvää joulua! [Merry Christmas] and a safe and happy holiday.
<3.

P.S. Leaving for Europe tomorrow!
P.P.S. Finland in 10 days!

Last week in Canada.

Alright so I have a few things to write about today.

First of all, I got my top wisdom teeth out this morning and it involved a lovely high due to laughing gas and all my other anesthetics. The procedure was quite pleasant actually and I feel sooo much more relaxed than I did yesterday.

I'm wondering if any of you have ever immigrated to somewhere before... because let me tell you, I've never been so stressed in my life! Except not right now... due to my meds hehe. I called the airline yesterday to find out that I'm allowed to pack 20kg and anything over that will cost 11 euro/kg. And for the first time in a long time, I had all my clothes in one space and now have to decide what's important and what's not. And shoes are awkward to pack and I can't bring my awesome cookbook... so there's just a lot of decision making to done!
Additionally, you'd think finishing school would make life stressless, but the opposite is true. But with a little help from my mom yesterday, we really got somewhere with the entire operation so from now on, it should be much easier.

Departure to Europe: December 25th, 10pm.
Arrival in Austria: December 26th.
Arrival in Finland: January 3ed, around 10pm at night.

Finnish word of the day: matka = trip, journey, voyage... etc.

Christmas is coming up, woot!!!

Home.

Today I took a small step for Finland, and a big step for myself: I moved out of Montreal after finishing my last exam on December 18th. I should've dedicated an entire post to that yesterday but the phone was ringing off the hook and texts so I ended up straying far from the comforts of blogging cyberspace and hanging out in the "real" world for a bit...something I should stop doing by tending to my 8 unread Facebook messages, piling up for a few weeks now...

So yes, I sprung out of bed at 6:30am today [by which I mean I woke up at 6:30am and couldn't fall back asleep until my alarm went off at 7:15am]. Made breakfast, the 'usj' and relished my last morning in Montreal. Apart from extreme hunger... it was among the cheeriest mornings I can remember in Montreal! I drove out of the underground garage in my building and didn't even notice it was -15C until they announced it on the radio. As I drove past the Bell Center on toward the 720 [that's the highway that runs through downtown Montreal] I swear some snow and light painted a rainbow across the Bell Center parking lot... I interpreted this as a great sign and whistled the whole way to Kingston [by which I mean, of course, that I rocked out to Lady Gaga the whole way!]
And so I made excellent timing AND didn't pee my pants as I pulled into Vanessa's driveway at 11:30am, packed up the car with Vanessa's stuff, repacked Ted's luggage, checked out Monique and Kim's art exhibit, ate lunch, went to the LCBO, picked up Vanessa's debit card and dropped off some library books [so not in this order] before heading toward Toronto. Oh and before Kingston, I stopped for gas.

So alas, I am now tired...
which brings me to the Finnish word of the day! = väsynyt.

zzz

Why such a complicated link?

So you might be wondering why I chose parisanaasuomesta.blogpost.com as the link for this blog.

So here's the deal:
Pari sanaa Suomesta means "a few words about Finland"

pari = pair
sanaa = words
Suomi = Finland [this one is very important!]
Suomesta = about Finland.

As for the actual inspiration of the title...I think some Finnish rap fans may find a link between my title and this piece of musical genius:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=radOR0LImhQ&feature=PlayList&p=7F9B3DA15F7F35CA&index=0

Yes, I went there.

It all started with...

I would love for the first official entry of this blog to begin with something along the lines of:
“It all started with…”
But I can’t do that. The chain of events that led me to where I am today, I can’t quite yet comprehend. And there is so much more to come that I can’t even begin to fathom. So for now, I’m going to focus on the multitude of things to come…

I decided to start writing today, on December 12th, 2009 because of a movie. It sounds kind of silly but I watched a movie about a woman who kept a blog for a year while she cooked 524 recipes. I also spent the day doing the first of an infinite list of things that will help me get from where I am today: Richmond Hill, Canada to where I will be 22 days from now: Tampere, Finland. [Pronounced: Tam-pé-ré]
So far, I’ve made a list of things to pack [the easy part as far as I’m concerned] and sorted through the clothes I have here [there are more in Montreal]. But the real magic begins when all that stuff fits inside one suitcase… and a box I will mail to myself before leaving.

But I think the toughest part of this spontaneous adventure is feeling spontaneous about it. It’s been a few months since its conception, the last semester of my undergraduate degree had to be finished – I’m 6 days away – and all the details are still getting sorted. I’m 13 days away from leaving the country and it’s really hard not to bore everyone with talks of how excited I am…

… so I’ll keep it short tonight.

Finnish word of the day: jännittävä - exciting!