Onward!!

Going away for two weeks with no internet access and scarcely any phone contact made me think about the interconnectedness of these times. Who among us blog-reading (and -writing) folk doesn’t have a list of RSS feeds continually ticking new information to our screens? Who isn’t on social networking sites getting live updates on what our friends are up to?

What happens when you go away and leave that to go to Zimbabwe for two weeks? Email piles up, and not just boring work things. Invitations to parties, events and concerts, message chains among friends still in town and links to pictures of amusing animals pile up unread. But is there something more significant that one misses when away like that? Why do I feel uncomfortable about the prospect of marking a lot of emails and feed items “read” or deleting the lot? I feel equally uncomfortable thinking about reading them all and “catching up”. How much of it matters in the end?

Well, radio silence once again, from now until the end of the month. The sound of the rain outside is cold and miserable. It’s hard to even imagine +30 and sunshine, and rain that is warm and pleasant when it does fall.

Neither my body or my mind have quite grasped that not two weeks from returning from a constant -15 or lower, I’ll be jetting off to the heat of southern Africa. I’m not a complete newbie to the place, but the last time I was south of the Equator in Africa was around ten years ago. It might be high time to go back. I’ve got all my required vaccinations, I’ve changed currency (crisp new US Dollars are actually quite nifty, but don’t look like real money at all to me) and all that’s left is one day of work. Oh, and packing.

I’m on the fence with shoes (trainers or walking boots?) but will definitely be wearing my new sandals, considering they cost an arm and a leg. It’s really not the time of year to be buying warm weather gear. The number of t-shirts to take is a little less certain, and I guess all depends on how tight I want to ram my rucksack. I’m probably overpacking, considering there’ll be washing facilities etc. What else do I really need? The pair of jeans I’ll be flying in, the hoodie I’ll be wearing, and a button-up shirt or two for evening meals, right?

List for last-minute panic-buying: Insect repellent and a copy of Private Eye. I guess that’s it.

No guidebook, no experience, no German skills, no clue.
Vienna is going to be fun for a long weekend, especially with the above issues.

Usually I read up on the places I go to. Well, this time I can honestly say that I’ll let the place give me an impression that isn’t affected by preconceived notions. Except for sachertorte. There is going to be plenty of that.

It felt nice coming home. The hard rain pounding on every surface, from the train station roof to the tops of buses and the pavement reminded me of a similar afternoon around a year ago, in a completely different part of London. I walked, huddled in my vaguely rainproof jacket, thinking that I like this place because despite the grey drabness and ugliness and everything, London is simply so full of life – from the nutters proclaiming their version of the apocalypse to the single mothers and their unfortunate offspring who are fed on chips, to bankers hurrying to work on crowded public transport and the immigrants with barely-conversational English thrust into service jobs. It’s a completely nutty place but somehow it accommodates all.

It feels cold, though, after a week of soaking up occasionally impossibly hot sunshine in Spain. I have a bit of a tan from lounging by the pool and going swimming in the Mediterranean. I got stung both by a bee (not noticing it at first) and errant jellyfish tentacles. Both felt about the same. I singed the hair from my fingers by poking around at a barbecue that I got very, very hot indeed. I slept until past midday, had breakfast and a quick swim before retiring back indoors to wait for less angry sunshine a few hours later. Though I could check my emails while there it felt good to legitimately disconnect from the hassle of everyday life. I found out new things about the friends I travelled with, and realised that on average I think my lifestyle is actually comparatively healthy. We burned the clutch of the rental car on the ridiculous coastal slopes and angered some of the neighbours by talking on the veranda until 5am one night.

We got caught in an absolutely epic rainstorm on the way back to the airport. From where I was sitting in the back, I could barely tell we were still on the road by the lane markings occasionally visible. Luckily we made it out of the storm, only to hit the morning traffic around Valencia. Still, my journey home went smoothly, what with Ryanair being their usual choppy service. Still, I’ll take it since it meant I was actually able to go on this holiday price-wise. I did need it.

What the everyday is, now that the week’s break is over, is still unclear. My graduation ceremony is a week away. Until then I suppose I just keep applying to jobs as much as I can.

A friend of mine, who is at Glastonbury festival, received her university results today through her friend who is in London and checked the notice board that results for their university are posted on. She texted me “A first. I’m shaking.”

I wonder how I’ll feel come results day (the 14th). I have this vague inkling that I have done rather okay and will end up with a first myself, but on the other hand it really does teeter on such a fine line. Up until then things seem to hang in a balance, a kind of limbo where little happens. Of course, I am applying to jobs (though not as madly as the friend mentioned above) but it seems I’m only now recovering from the past term, two weeks on. I’m going to spend a week in Spain thanks to some rather amazing friends (and cheap-as-chips Ryanair flights which I admittedly have not yet secured the funds or paid for) which will be very, very welcome. Sun, pool, grill and chill. What could be better? Maybe then I’ll have a clearer head upon coming back, because I feel being in this limbo isn’t the most productive state of being.

Though I am sincerely looking forward to the break (and I feel I deserve it), I can’t help thinking how beautiful summer back in Finland is. It would be wonderful to get some of that, too, but you can’t have everything. For some reason I’ve been feeling like doing things with my hands, which is as inexplicable as it is new. Mucking about at the family summer cottage would give an opportunity to do a bit of that, though, if only in the form of chopping wood and some general maintenance.