Next Stop Dublin: Plans for the Future

My adventures in Canada are over, but my emigrant life is about to continue in 1,5 weeks. What's up next?

I'm moving to Dublin, Ireland, on the 14th of July. Unlike in Canada, my stay in Ireland will remain permanent until stated otherwise, since being a EU citizen grants me the right to stay and work in the country for as long as I want. Hooray! Good bye endless piles of forms and phone calls, I'm ready to sit back, relax and immigrate like never before.

The reason for my relocation is slightly different to Canada too, as I'm about to start my Postgraduate Degree in Trinity College Dublin. Not only is my country of residence changing, but my subject of study too - which actually makes me much more nervous than moving to a new country! Ireland surely won't be too different from England, where I've previously lived for 8 months, but taking on the challenge of studying sociology as a former literature student feels a little scary. My MPhil program is called Race, Ethnicity and Conflict, so more ponder and research about cultural questions are on their way. I couldn't possibly be more excited to start my studies in TCD! (and not only because of their ABSOLUTELY STUNNING LIBRARY) My postgrad degree will only last for a year, but if it turns out I'll fall in love with Ireland like I did with Canada, my plan is to stay there and seek employment in Dublin. I have no plans of returning to Finland. I often find myself explaining this decision, either to myself or other people, but all in all the core reason for emigrating from my home country is a very fundamental need and will to simply live somewhere else.

I chose Dublin for my Postgraduate studies because of multiple reasons:

1. The language -  I want to study in English in an English-speaking country. I often joke about being too old for mastering new languages, but it's partly true: I speak six languages, but studying in any of the countries where these languages are spoken (excluding English) didn't appeal to me. My second option after Ireland was the Netherlands, but realizing I would feel guilty for not learning any Dutch while living there made me quit the plan.

2. The cost - studying in Ireland is much cheaper than In the UK, for example. Well, it would have been if I had chosen any other school than Trinity College... 8000€/year better be worth it.

3. The culture - I love the Irish. I've visited Dublin once, and fell in love in an instant. To my experience, they're like the English without the unnecessary sea of courtesy and politeness, which often made my life a little difficult while living in Leicester. (in other words, I will never forget that one bus I missed because the confirmation email for my ticket didn't say anything about the means of redeeming my e-ticket, but instead was filled with courtesy phrases of different lengths about how important my satisfaction was for their company)

I expect the challenges of living in Ireland to be quite different to the ones in Canada. Instead of struggling with the language, I think I might get in trouble for not remembering to be friendly enough - I'm seriously bad with the please and how are you. Taking on the challenge of studying after working full-time for a year troubles me a little too. Onwards to new adventures!

Other news: I'm featured in expatsblog.com in the form of an interview about my expat life in Canada. You can read the interview HERE. If you're interested in learning more about the struggles of this potato face in Canada, I recommend you read it! Questions about language, transitions and favourite spots in Canada have been answered.

Other news no. 2: Remember that shitty flippy thing I called a phone in my post about MY EVERYDAY LIFE? Well, our ways have parted and I now have an actual phone. This means I now have an access to a camera on my phone, and apps, and stuff like that. So in other words, I now have an Instagram account. I'll use it to record little adventures in my immigrantish life, when things are fun but not worth a blog post. Stay tuned @melliais!

As a conclusion I'll answer a few questions addressed to me during the past 1,5 weeks in Finland: No, I don't have an apartment in Dublin. I'm staying in AirBnB for 2 weeks and hope to find a flat by then. No, I don't have a job in Dublin. I will apply for work when I get there. No, I can't use my Finnish phone number in Ireland. I have nothing in Ireland, and that's the best part. That's immigration - you have nothing, you start from scratch, and managing to build a fully functioning life out of nothing is the best reward there is.

What's up?

I'm an immigrant. I live the life of an immigrant, which is, for obvious reasons, rather different to the one I led in my dear old Finland.

Or is it really?

I've reached a point where I feel like my integration to the local society has come to a pretty comfortable state: I have a job, a bank account, a phone number, a bus card, a fidelity card for my nearby grocery store, I even do volunteer work for the local cultural centre every other weekend. I take the same bus 800 to work every day at the same time, at 7:33 from St-C.-Garnier to Univ. du Québec, work 8-16.30 from Monday to Friday, life has gotten really ordinary. There's a certain kind of excitement in living an ordinary life in an unfamiliar place, where your every ordinary day still feels like yet another adventure to the unknown. I step into the bus 800 at 07:33 and say "Bonjour!" to the driver, and everytime I open my mouth I'm afraid of how it will sound this time. Is my pronounciation of my nemesis, the letter "R", even slightly in place? What if my bus card has ran out of trips and I don't have 3,25 dollars to pay for my journey? What if today, when I'm going to the pharmacy to buy myself a new bus card, I forget how to speak French, or what if the cashier tries to small-talk with me again and I'll just look and feel stupid like I do everytime I don't understand the immensely difficult quebecois accent?

But outside of all these questions of my everyday life's little struggles, the life is really ordinary. I've gotten a few frequently repeated questions from people on the other side of the Atlantic, and instead of always answering something short and general to everyone, I'll do my best in answering these questions with a great attention to detail.

1. How's your French? Do you even speak it? I thought you studied Russian.

Now that you brought it up, yes, I miss Russian. Every muscle in my mouth wants me to speak Russian when I go on autopilot on the streets and someone suddenly starts to talk to me (because like said, that's what quebeckers do). Many times I've accidentally answered "Да", as many times as I've wanted to avoid the Rrrr-ed word "Bonjour" by going with the surprisingly more comfortable "Здравствуйте". To me, Russian is my The Foreign Language. It's the language I speak more or less, with occasional struggles though, the language in which I still have to stop and think a little of what I'm saying, but while listening to Putin's annual speech, I'm able to catch the drift. It's not like English, which I use comfortably enough to love in this language, or which I use to talk in my sleep nowadays. (these two aspects became poetically combined in a situation where I tried to stop Alex from going to work in the morning by grabbing his hand in my sleep and saying "Please don't go. I love you".) I'd still love to go and do an exchange semester or an internship in Russia to make sure I'll one day master the language I enjoy the most.

But when it comes to French, things get a little tricky. My love is not as sincere, it's even a little forced. I took 2 courses of French during my last year of uni and that's it - that was my level of French when I landed in Montréal. I've heard all these stories about people learning languages by immersion, and to be honest, I'd like someone to tell me how the fuck these people manage to do that.

I've come to terms with l'accent quebecois. I can handle the jaw that seems to be moving in ways that shouldn't be possible for the human physiology. I listen to them speak and I understand 50% of the things I hear if the said person speaks with a clear voice and loudly enough (i.e. mumbling to your stereotypically Canadian beard is not cool, guys). I'm able to make sentences if forced. I'm more afraid of speaking than actually not being able to speak, and it's impossible to say whether it's because of my own strive for perfection or my prejudice against French-speaking people being compassionate about foreigners trying to rape their language. At this very moment I'm still a little bit afraid to go to the pharmacy and tell the cashier "bonjour, je vais prendre une carte de bus, douze fois s'il te plaît". I often amuse people with my perfect pronounciation of the famous swear "tabarnak", while I still struggle with my favourite word, "aspirateur".

Dear French, I know you're not like Russian and you'll never be, but I want to get to know you. You sound nice but you're a shitty thing to pronounce. Give me some time.

2. Have you found work?

Photo from Activision.com

As a matter of fact, I have - for 2 months at least, since it's a temporary contract for now. I work for Beenox, a videogame company responsible for the development of products from Activision Blizzard. That's pretty much everything I'm allowed to say, since my obligation to confidentiality is close to the one of the FBI (which is also why there is no demonstrative picture). Most of my work happens in English, but my colleagues are native French-speakers (with an admirable level of English, merci my dear fellows). I really love it there. The days are long and at times I'm exhausted from all the concentration that comes with working in an environment with an advanced-level linguistic immersion, but I don't think I've ever enjoyed more being in a job where I have to face clear zero customers per day. Videogames are cool and Activision is cool.

Afterwards? No fucking idea, once again. Life is an adventure.

3. Are you still with Alex?

This is a funny question, and a bit on the private side too, but I'll answer it nevertheless. I understand your concern - I mean, we met on an exchange semester, spent 11 months in a hardcore long-distance relationship, and then I ended up moving halfway across the globe to be with him during the last year of his uni, so we could move together back to Europe next autumn. The odds are always a little against us, BUT. The odds don't overrun the fact that we still ended up being in a long-distance relationship for 11 months, during which the longest time spent apart was 4 solid months between January and May. It also doesn't overrun the fact that I have, after all, moved on the other side of the world.

I wrote a little love letter for him once at the end of our semester in Leicester. The last chapter of this little piece of poetry will serve as my answer to this question, despite the overly cheezy and possibly even a little embarrassing atmosphere I'm about to create by sharing it here. Brace yourselves:

   My life with you is a travel. You take me to an excursion to myself, you make me discover parts of me I didn’t know exist. I might have sat next to you on the rocky wall of that fort in Marseille, staring at the horizon of the Mediterranean Sea, the southern wind in my hair and salt on my skin, but of all the places I have seen with you, the things I find when I stare into your eyes are the most breathtaking of all.

 The answer to this question is Yes, Yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes like Molly on the last page of James Joyce's Ulysses. Yes, I am still with him.

4. Do you miss Finland?

The picture above would suggest that balancing in the nature is what Finland is to me. What Finland is to me, though, is a country that brought me up. I was raised in the Finnish cultural context, I've assimilated Finnish customs, I am a Finn. English might be the language that has been titled as my mother tongue more than once since I arrived to Québec, but I still, regardless of the situation, always count in Finnish in my head.

Before Leicester I thought Finland is boring. The culture is boring, the people are a bit boring too, the weather sucks and there's too much Iittala in every home. I wanted to get out really badly, swearing I'd never miss anything I left behind.

That was, of course, very naive of me. I enjoy the fact that I don't live there at this time, and I don't have any intentions in doing so in the near future. But moving abroad to broaden your own understanding of cultures, customs, people and life in general has never been the binary opposite of appreciating where you come from. I'll share a little concrete example here in the form of a discussion between two approx. 13-year old Finnish girls I once overheard in a tram in Helsinki (I assume they were students from the nearby international secondary school) after I had just returned to Finland from my 8 months in Leicester:

Girl A: So uhh, are you like completely a Finn or are you from somewhere else...?
Girl B: No, I'm not a Finn. I'm 1/16 Finnish-Swedish.
Girl A: Really? That's so cool! So like, do you speak any Swedish?
Girl B: Yeah, I can say "Jag heter...", it's like "My name is". and I can say "Hej!" and "Tack!"
Girl A: That's so awesome!
Girl B: How about you, are you a Finn?
Girl A: No, I'm also 1/16 Estonian.
Girl B: Oh wow! Hey, say something in Estonian!
Girl A: I don't know any Estonian....

My grandfather is a Swedish-speaking Finn. My great aunt is Russian. But I happen to be a Finn and it's cool. It's cool to come from a country with a good reputation abroad - it's a sign of good education, possibly a great skill in languages, awesome "Scandinavian" culture that becomes more and more trendy all the time. Finland has given me enough in this life for me to be able to leave it, knowing that if I ever fall and need a cave to crawl into, Finland is waiting for me with open arms and free healthcare.

I miss Finland at times. I miss the silence. I miss how I can maintain my resting bitchface without getting asked if I'm alright dear. I miss the absolutely amazing public transportation system of Helsinki (there are still things to develop for sure, but in here it's no surprise if the bus is 25 minutes late on a daily basis). I miss my weird-ass language with its weird-ass expressions. But at this very moment of time and space, Finland is not the place for me to be.

5. Do you plan on staying in Canada for good?

Canada is absolutely breathtaking. The nature leaves me in awe everytime I put my foot out of the city and the people are as polite as all the stereotypes make you think. Despite the non-European atmosphere from architecture to city structures I've taken for granted all my life, I feel like I've settled in here rather well. Actually, I'd like to share this piece of artwork with you as a way to sum up my feelings about Canada. (side note: quebeckers don't like the Canadian national anthem. They have their own unofficial anthem "Gens du Pays" by Gilles Vigneault and Gaston Rochon. Listen to it HERE)

But no, I don't intend to stay in here for good. Why? Because I'm participating a mobility program called SWAP Working Holidays, aimed for university students and newly graduates to go and work around the world for a year with a work permit. My SWAP Canada visa is valid until the 23rd of June 2016, after which I'll have to return to Finland at least as a courtesy. My better half has also expressed his desires to leave the country, so who am I to disagree.

Instead I plan on applying for several MA programs for September 2016. Right now my destination seems to be Ireland instead of the UK due to their new, conservative-lead immigration policy which makes it almost impossible for my Canadian companion to study in the country. Besides, we're both in love with Dublin. Sláinte!

A Story About Leaving

I was walking back home from the store today as I ran into someone I know. We exchanged news and chatted for a second, but on the moment of goodbye it was hard to find words. "The best of luck in life", would've been a bit corny for sure, but my "enjoy your summer" ended up sounding somewhat blunt. What do you say to a person you've vaguely known for several years, but might never see again?

There are exactly two weeks to my departure. It's not the first time I'm leaving Finland - actually it hasn't been even a year since I returned from my 8-month extravaganza in Europe, Canada and the United States - but it's certainly the most permanent so far. After spending a year in Canada I wish to pursue a Master's degree in the UK. In other words, my return to Finland is more or less unclear.

Cherry trees were blossoming a couple of weeks back in Helsinki

I've lived here for 24 years. My family is here, my friends are here, my university and my job and hobbies are here. Quite a sturdy castle I've built there. To be able to turn my back on all of that and take the leap has asked for sweat and tears - not to forget the kind of amount of paperwork that has made me doubt my decision more than once. Seriously, all those forms. Migration really isn't a child's play.

But I did it and it's official - I'm leaving. Since the day I got the Port of Entry Letter from the Citizenship and Immigration Office Canada I've tried to wrap things up in here in the form of packing, selling my property and having hasty coffee sessions with my friends - and they always end too soon, it's all a mess. To hell with all these goodbyes.

I'm leaving Helsinki on the 24th of June, and flying to Toronto with a layover in Frankfurt. After spending a couple of days in Toronto I'm carpooling to Montréal. How I will get from Montréal to Québec City is still a little bit of a mystery. All this is a big ugly mystery, but at least it will be an adventurous one.

Last summer in Montréal