Observations

On Finnish women: Finnish girls are really independent. To the point that I sometimes wonder why do we even bother dating men. They are a nuisance most of the time anyway. I read an article when I was in Finland where foreign men commented on their views on Finnish women. And they all said the same, Finnish women are really strong, independent sometimes to the point of being a bit selfish in the sense that we insist on doing everything ourselves as we do not trust others to do it properly. Essentially everything I could relate to myself, rather scary as I've been thinking that I am special having lived abroad and assuming that has rubbed off some way. And then when we went out on Wednesday I observed that all the girls there were really good-looking and all had to make the iniative whilst the men just sit around and wait for the girls to come to them.

On Finnish men: Like already mentioned, they have a very easy life. They have women who do everything (women have to be masters in professional, social and family life) and all they have to do is to look sombre and sullen. Because I made a really brilliant observation - at least it was so to me - that on Finland a man is a man when he is distant, man of few words and more prone to action. This explains why there persists this gigolo-prejudice to foreign men; men who compliment women and take iniative in talking to girls are actually doing the opposite of what Finnish sense of masculinity dictates.

On Finnish mentality: It's sometimes difficult for non-Nordic people to understand to understand the fundamental difference here. Compliments are a non-entity in Finland, they are treated almost as nonsense but at least pointless. If a man would say to a woman that she is beautiful she would just be embarrassed, not believe him and start questioning his motives. On a related note, if generalised on a more societal level, in Finland if you are rich then you hide it, you don't flaunt it. You can wear brands but nothing ostentatious because that would seem like bragging. A typical, wealthy citizen would never wear a shirt with "DIOR" reading in big bold letters nor would they drive a flashy car, Mercedes is about as far as you can go.

I think especially with women this leads to a nation filled with high-achievers, superwomen who never realise the extent of their superpowers because they are expected to do all this and are never complimented on any of it.

So excuse me for being americanized here but just as an FYI: I like compliments.

On to a more personal observation, I realised how much I love writing. I love writing creative pieces, reports, articles and even text messages (though the actual act of writing them I am not too keen on). But nevertheless, this helped me to solve my existential crisis I have been struggling with lately. Though I love politics, studying theory is not my thing nor is bureaucracy. So it seems like journalism is the logical next step. I'm hoping to get into a Masters/diploma course on it that would actually equip me with vocational skills rather than useless theory so that I could then pursue it as a career. Fingers crossed it works out, so far all the good courses that I've found have already had their application deadline but I'm hoping to talk my way in...

Blast from the past

Of course I had to jinx it. As if I was ever going to have a smooth trip home when I said out loud that hope nothing happens. I ended up stranded at Köln's railwaystation, stuck in the train not knowing what was going on. By some weird chance there was a Finnish family sitting next to me on the train, on their way to the same flight so thankfully I got a taxi with them to the airport. I would have not figured out that there was some fire in the tracks ahead of us, preventing the train from continuing or even if I would've, I still would have had to pay the 95 euros it took from Köln to Düsseldorf airport with a taxi. Insanely good luck considering the circumstances but I would sometime like to experience travelling without any malfunction during any leg of the journey, is that too much to ask?

Also I had to jinx it with this other thing as well. I was just talking to Kali about obsessive exes and used my first boyfriend as an example and how he'd still tried to contact me last year. And of course today he tries to befriend me on facebook and even dares to send a message on fb that it's been such a long time that I can't be upset with him. So I replied that it has indeed been a long time but I still recall you being a nutcase so perhaps just give up trying to contact me ever, argh. Oh how I wish I could full-out rant about his crazy ways but lets just leave it at this. Also I was a total bitch with him but I guess some people never learn.

Escape

Carneval is here. I had not heard of it being celebrated outside Rio and New Orleans until I came to Maastricht but now I indeed find myself corrected. The lovely people of Southern Limburg sure do love their carnaval. The streets are filled with people dressed in the ever-adorning colours of red, yellow and green. Parades keep on going up and down the street. And by nighttime the entire adult population is as wasted as they come. It started today but some people took a head start yesterday making my walk to Kalina's a memorable experience. For some reason it makes men delusional and all the men were checking me out. Some old men tried to dance with me. Thankfully I've mastered my "f*ck off"-look which discourages even the most drunken specimen.

Nevertheless, as you can gather I am not too keen on the event. The intention was to escape the mayhem to Amsterdam but Kalina had to go to England so I found myself puzzled over what to do. To add to the despair, next week is also my birthday and I had a vision of myself stranded alone in Maastricht with a bucket of chocolate, being on facebook the whole day. So I booked a flight to Finland. I thankfully know some people who will be there so I have company, my family will entertain me and I have the luxury of a car and a fully-equipped, clean, functioning kitchen. I intend to cook a lot, try some recipes. Lets hope this is not a first sign of nesting, I'm still too young.

So today I'm in a better mood, there are some parties that I can attend, people will be happy and all is well considering I will leave Maastricht the next morning. Fingers crossed the buses, trains and planes all stick to their timetables.

Oh yea, we had a really cool evening of playing Wii at Barbara's and Marius' place. Love wii! The only clutch of the evening was leaving their place, the last bus did not go to Maastricht so we had to walk from their place in the middle of the night. Five kilometres may not seem like much but it is the most I've walked from point A to point B in a long time. On our nocturnal walk we stumbled into the ponies pictured above. They were quite scary, perfectly still and just staring at us. Reminded me very much from the cow incident about a year ago....

A Bad Habit

Keeping things real here, lets address my drinking behaviour. I party here in Maastricht every now and then; I know, you would have never guessed. And when I do some people find it unfair/irritating that it is somewhat difficult to tell when I'm drunk. There aren't any usual telltale signs such as me getting overly loving or aggressive. I may agree to things I normally wouldn't, I say yes more often than I would otherwise. For example:

X: "Mia, do you want to com and watch a football match, Germany vs Norway, tomorrow"
Mia: "Sure! I'd love to"

I don't forget things like keys or phones nor do I get lost. But I drink and text. Here again it's disturbing when I text I just get a bit more sarcastic and manage to write grammatically correct so people don't realise the extent of my drunkenness. It's not something completely idiotic but also not something I would do if not under the influence, when I remember in the morning what I've texted I tend to laugh. They would make a great book though.

Last night's party was excellent. A lot of people showed up so drinking games didn't actually feature that prominently (too many people to get any kind of discipline or grab everyone's attention) but there were some rules I'd set in the beginning that people had to obey. There rules were as follows:

1. If you complain about the music you must take one shot


2. You must refer to everyone by their nationality, not their name. If you forget -> drink


3. If you mention anything university-related you must go to the naughty corner and take a shot


4. You can only swear by saying perkele, vittu or saatana. Failure to comply will lead to you taking a shot


5. Whenever you hear a song by Britney or Kanye West you must drink

This worked fabulously, people got used to the name thing pretty quickly. Some countries were a bit difficult as there were like 5 Germans and 3 Romanians but they had numbers in addition to natiolity. I myself broke rule nr 4 the most... I can't swear in Finnish. In the naughty corner people had to act/ask questions that were of rather sexual nature, a lot of fun. Overall, a memorably party.

On a non-party related note, I must write down a conversation I had with Deborah. I was standing next to her and as it happens, her face is at level with my boobs (= she's shorter than me). I then said "This must be familiar to you from childhood..." To which Deborah replies "No actually I was a bottlechild from early on." My love to Deborah, lovely German girl who I quite often laugh at, not with.

As you can tell I'm at a pretty up-beat mood. I also got an email from my thesis supervisor about the research proposal I did one afternoon, day before the deadline. It passed and he didn't even have criticism about it. Hahahahahahahaa..

Time guildens the memories

Today I missed Newcastle University and hated Maastricht's Uni. Reason? Uni Maas does not believe I graduated from Newcastle. Seriously. I have given them my transcripts, diploma, everything they requested. But apparently I only delivered them to the registrar's while I should have also known to send the exact same documents to my faculty. Why they don't have a centralised system is beyond me but nevertheless. I then went to show my BA Diploma in person, the original with holograms and watermarked paper and everything. The woman in adminstration did not think it was real!!!! Reason? The signatures weren't handwritten. Obviously they expect from a university of 17,000 students for the vice-chancellor to handwrite his signature on every single diploma... I mean there was an easy solution, I emailed my former faculty in Newcastle to send some proof to Maastricht and they replied immediately today that they have now sent it. So thumbs up for Newcastle. But Uni Maas gets shitty reviews from me.

Yea, so in Newcastle I loved the university but hated the country. In Maastricht I love the city but hate the university.

In other news, today I was just walking home from the university and on the bridge there was a group of teenaged Dutch boys. They had two fancy cameras and as I passed them by they took my picture! And started taking more. I had such a classic response though, I lift my hands up to protect my face and kept on walking. The paparazzi are after me!

Voices...

I listen to music a lot these days since have this lovely new computer.. And I keep hearing two sounds that are making me paranoid. First, the sound of a new message on skype. Second, the sound of new message on facebook. So there are a lot same sounds in the songs and I'm sure they put them there just to annoy me. They get a kick in me thinking somebody loves me and has written me only to have me discover it's all just in my head.

Another cause for joy, with my new laptop I can connect online from my room. The wireless is more efficient in this or something. So I'm in my room most of the time, love it. I can block out the disaster that it our kitchen with its mountains of bottles (me & my friends' doings) even though they are under the table, its dirtyness (my flatmate and his "storage") and piles of dirty plates (he has not done his dishes since December). I'll clean the house again by Tuesday though because I'm having a party.

I've invited some people over next week and the aim is to play drinking games. I've already made up some cool rules, it's going to be great. I'll even decorate with rules and special elements. I always need to have a party to look forward to, how else would I survive here... ;)

One of my favourite sayings

Life's a bitch and then you die.

Loveletter

I just said goodbye to a really good friend of mine, Silvia. She was here in Maastricht on Erasmus and now it's over. She's flying back tomorrow and I just had to say goodbye today because I couldn't stop the tears and I didn't want for it to become anymore difficult for her tomorrow... But it's horrible to see her go. She's been such a big part of my life here. I see her so often at her house, she's such an amazing person with whom we always had so much fun. We've gone through the same relationship troubles and everything... We were like our own little Sex and the City. She's so open, unassuming, beautiful, intelligent and funny. I sometimes find it hard to believe I've found so many great people here, there are only a few gems in this world and she is definately one of them.

I first was rational about her departure. Logic says of course I will see her again. It was great for me to meet her and that eventually chances are that I will say goodbye to the most of the people here. Then I wrote on this book where she collects like well-wishes of her friends and I got really emotional. So I tried to stay positive, cheer her up because she was quite sad and I just wanted her to feel better. But now that I left her place and said the final goodbye, it was so difficult. I'm feeling sad for her because I knew she would have liked to stay and that when she goes back people won't understand what she left behind and will just assume she'll resume her life as normal. But I'm also kind of lost myself, what will my life be like without her?

Other things seem trivial. I will resume writing about silly things once I get over this.