First blog

Hey,

This is my first blog, so let me introduce myself. My name is Anna Iivarinen and I'm a 24-year-old girl (or a young woman, depending on how mature you find me after reading my blogs) from Finland. I study international marketing and linguistics at the university of Vaasa and I decided to start writing a blog, because I'm going to do my 6 months exchange Buenos Aires, Argentina.

I've been told that ever since I was a small child I always had an urge for going. At the age of three this could be seen from my constant escape attempts from the kindergarten to the parks nearby and a year later my when I ran away from my parents in the market place in Casablanca and central train station in Paris in order to have my own sightseeing tours. Both times I was found within a couple of hours by some friendly strangers who took me to the closest info point. Back then I couldn't understand why my family (2 adults and 3 siblings) were so distressed with worry as I had so much fun watching the people in colourful clothes around me and listening to the fascinating languages I couldn't understand let alone imitate. I now realize that my actions, which then in my tiny head seemed like a perfectly sensible thing to do, were not one of my wisest whims as I could have met adults with malicious ulterior motives. But there was one thing I had a slight idea already back then – I knew deep inside that I had traveling in my blood and that I wouldn't be happy if I had to spend the rest of my life in one place, no matter if it was in a big house in the countryside or a small flat in a metropolitan city. Besides, I still enjoy the same simple pleasures than I did as a child – listen to buskers' play their instruments, watch people stroll by and enjoy the sunny days, when I'm not in a hurry anywhere.

During the next years I was fortunate to spend part of my summers in the Finnish archipelago, Spain and Florida, where my parents rented a summer cottage every now and then. I got used to long flights and jet lags as I found the journey itself quite rewarding. I was very much afraid of heights, but loved the thrilling sensation when flying through the clouds and hitting an air pocket as it felt that we were falling. Also the long waitings at the airports weren't that boring as I could come up with stories where people were traveling to and why they wanted to go there.

In high-school I traveled for the first time without my family. At the age of 15 I participated a language course in Malta and went there with a group of other teenagers between 14-18. The language course itself wasn't very useful as we had only around 3-4 hours of lesson a day and having only Finnish friends there I didn't speak much English in my free time. The island was incredibly beautiful, the temperature ideal and we had loads of freetime activities, so the holiday was, nevertheless, very enjoyable. A couple of years later I spent a month working as volunteer in a kindergarten in Germany. It was a small town called Osterwieck, which was founded in 974 and all many of the houses were built in the 17^th century and later one renovated, so that the town wouldn't lose its historical charm. When I went there it felt as if I had gone back in history, because when it was early in the morning, the shops were closed, people were at home sleeping and there were no cars in the historical part of the town, I almost could have thought that I was in the 17^th century and played mindgames about what they looked like, what they ate in the morning, where they went to work etc. I'm grateful of having the opportunity to work there as as it was a complitely different place than all other towns and cities I had been. I loved the architechture, the parks and the atmosphere in the town, but I also liked very much working with small children and sharing a big house with 20 other people from 5 different countries.

Osterwieck

The Kindergarten

Me

During my university years I spent two summers in Wisconsin, United States, where on my first summer I worked in a science centre and the year after in one of the candy shop of the America's biggest waterpark. Wisconsin Dells, the town where I worked in was very small – there were only around 3 000 residents, but during the summer months over there were over 1 million tourists from all over the US and many of the youngsters working there were from many European countries and Colombia. The summer jobs were arranged by the Finnish-American organization, which took care of all the paperwork and all we had to do was to fly there. The jobs themselves were quite lame, but I enjoyed talking with customers and enterntaining children. Every now and then I could also go to work in the waterskiing show, which I enjoyed very much. As I lived close to the lake my favourite thing to do was to go for a walk around the lake early in the morning and watch the sun rise,go there for a picnic later on in the afternoon when me and my flatmates had a day off or go to a Mexican restaurant for a dinner with some colleagues of mine.

After the US, I went to Maribor, Slovenia as an erasmus student to study international management. I really enjoyed my time there thanks to my tutor and German, Slovenian and Portuguese friends. The cities were beautiful and the people very hospitable – in addition to which, as the distances were short I could travel easily to neighbouring countries, such as Croatia, Italy, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary. I guess, what I miss the most about the city is snowboarding with my friends in the skiing centre in Maribor, skating in the city centre and drinking cooked wine or just spending an evening in the local jazz-club listening to live music and socializing with other erasmus students.

Ljubljana

Maribor in the wintertime

My favourite place in Slovenia, Lake Bled

Erasmus people

Right after Slovenia, I went to work to Dublin for half a year. I found a job in IBM and an apartment, which I shared with one Finnish, two French girls and an Italian guy. I also met my first love there, an Italian man name Lorenzo, whom I ended up dating for 3 years. The work was really bad as I had to go to work every morning at 5 am and the work itself was rather unsatisfying as well. Nevertheless, I was happy there, because I loved the city and I met very many sweet people there – not only from Ireland, but also from France, Italy and Poland. I lived for quite a few months with Argentinian and Uruguayan girls and an Uruguayan guy. The neighbourhood especially was very charming as there were many parks there and the city centre was only a stone's throw away. I especially liked to go for a day trip to the small fisherman's villages, big gardens and seaside towns outside Dublin, to pubs in the evening to listen to live concerts with my friends and occasionally to have a dinner in an Italian restaurant with my beloved, Lorenzo.

Dublin city centre

Dublin is a peculiar combination of old and new

My neighbourhood

Me and Lorenzo (he's the second on the left)

After Dublin I came back to Finland to finish my bachelor's degree. Thanks to my various trips in Europe and the USA I hadn't studied much and I pass twice as many courses as my fellow students. It was kinda hard year for me as I had barely any freetime and I didn't have much time to meet my friends or visit my family in Turku. When spring finally came I was truly excited about being accepted to a marketing internship program in Leipzig, Germany. My task in the company was to contact Finnish companies, send sales letters, translate material from English to Finnish and make powerpoint presentations. I liked my work quite a lot – and especially my colleagues who all were around 20-30 years old. We had a very good atmosphere. in at the workplace thanks to which it was really nice to go to work every morning. I was very fond of the city as well. Leipzig is a small city 1 hour away from Berlin. Despite it's small size it's a truly lovely place, the historical towncentre, architecture, parks, small shops and cafés make it unique. I spent my freetime with my friends from couchsurfing and my Norwegian colleagues. Also Lorenzo came to visit me a couple of times in Leipzig and with him I traveled in various cities in Germany and Poland, among others Berlin, Dresden and Wroslaw. It's difficult to say what I liked the most about my stay there, maybe going for a drink or two with my colleagues after work, daytrips to nearby cities with couchsurfers and taking photos on warm summer days in the park. Those were good days, but I eventually started to miss Lorenzo so much that I went back to Dublin to work there for another half a year.

Leipzig

In 10 days I'll go to South America to travel and to study in Buenos Aires, Argentina as an exchange student. This is my second and last exchange, so I'm going to enjoy it fully. First I'll travel to Peru, where I shall stay for 3 weeks and after that I'll continue to Ecuador, where I'll participate a 2 weeks language course. I'll join an organized trip with 19 other students and it will take me to various places, among others in the jungle, beaches and the mountains of Peru and Ecuador – in other words in the most beautiful places there are to see there. Finally, after my trip is over I'll fly to Buenos Aires and continue my international marketing studies in Spanish. I'm so excited about it already, but also so very nervous. I'll keep updating my blog and telling how my new life is in South America.

Me and some of my workmates