LIFE WITH A NON-EU CITIZEN

You know what's annoying? Migration. You know what's even more annoying? Migrating in the EU with a non-EU citizen.

I have migrated to three foreign countries during my lifetime. Moving to UK and Ireland were fairly painless as a EU citizen - I basically just walked in and stated "I live here now". Don't get me wrong: it's not actually that easy, and migrating to another EU country still asks for a lot of paper work and aimless running. Take my most recent migration experience to Ireland, for instance. Settling to Dublin went basically like this:

1. Search for a flat. Find out your landlord wants a reference. Awkwardly send a few emails to your former landlords in Finland and beg them to write you recommendation letters in English (if they can).
2. Open a bank account. Find out you need a proof of address. A job or a Personal Public Service number should do the trick.
3. Book an appointment to obtain a PPS number. Find out you need a proof of employment to get one.
4. Find a job. Find out your employer needs your PPS number to properly hire you.
5. Repeat the loop until you start crying.

In the end I was able to get a proof of address from the academic registry of my university, which allowed me to open a bank account and get a PPS number. I'm now a happy resident of Ireland. (Don't think opening a bank account was all that simple, though: during the 5 weeks that followed I received 5 different letters until I finally had all the information needed to have a fully functioning bank account!)

But Canada. God damn that was some serious paperwork right there. Judging from my Facebook update back in April 2015 the immigration process seemed to have caused some gray hair:

In other words, I have it easy now that Alex and I are back in Europe. I can just rush through the border control with my fancy chipped EU passport and then disappear forever. Watching my Canadian partner ramble through his immigration process occasionally makes me feel like my EU passport is like a golden ticket to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.

The last few weeks have been extremely stressful. The Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) requires every non-EU citizen to register at their office within 90 days of arriving to the country. This requires a bunch of supporting documents, of course. Previously you were supposed to camp outside the doors at dawn and hope to be through with it within the next 9 hours. However, just recently they switched to an electronic booking system where you can book your registration appointment a maximum of 6 weeks in advance. Too bad all the appointments within those 6 weeks were already fully booked, and Alex would be kicked out of the country 5 days before the next available appointment. What a nice dead end.

A dozen phone calls, emails and bureau visits later the issue was solved, but I feel like my life expectancy just got at least 5 years shorter due to the stress caused by yet another immigration issue threatening our relationship. I'm not saying I'm against such regulations, not at all. Sometimes the little human can just get lost in this jungle of procedures and formalities, and it gets tiring after a while.

In the future I'll try to update more often with smaller posts about everyday adventures like this. What do you think?

Do you have any similar experiences? Does migration ever make you have grey hair? Share your experiences in the comments below! 

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WHY I MOVED ABROAD

"You're from Finland? But isn't that like one of the best countries in the world? Why on earth would you move somewhere else?" You can't imagine how often I've heard this. I'm so used to explaining my current whereabouts it has become like a mantra created solely to make people understand my motives for emigration. So what pushed me to leave Finland and seek life elsewhere?

  THE MYTH BUSTER

The most common misconception coming with the question posed in the first sentence of this post is that somehow moving away from a country has something to do with personal hatred, disappointment or even a feeling of not belonging. My emigration from Finland somehow resonates back to people as "Finland, you failed me and we're done". Of course this can be the case, and it should be perfectly acceptable in itself - there surely are places where the state can't possibly offer its citizens the safety and economic stability they would need to establish a life there. However, as a citizen of a western welfare state with free internationally praised education, free universal healthcare system and number 5 on The World Happiness Index 2016 I can't argue that, in my situation, the reason for my emigration lies somewhere in there.

In other words, the whole affair becomes personal really fast. The two countries - your place of origin and the country of immigration - become binary opposites and are put to a position of confrontation, against one another. It's like a competition of one being better than the other. Emigration is easily taken as criticism towards your home country, which is why some Finns might get insulted from the idea of one of their own abandoning the ship and hopping the border. At the same time some locals of your new home country might find it odd you've decided to leave a place with so many virtues. "Do you think it gets any better than that in here?"

Emigration isn't criticism, not always. My emigration isn't. It's not criticism towards Finnish culture, Finnish society or the geographical area called Finland. I have no problem with the darkness, long winters, the cold, the silence of people. I never left because Finland, as a nation and as a culture, somehow failed me or disappointed me. I didn't pack my bags in anger and turn my back to it, I didn't leave as a rebellious protest accompanied with a fanfare as I boarded the plane.

As a kid I thought I would. Because yes, even at the age of 19 I still thought Finland was boring and life would surely get so much better somewhere relevant, like London or Paris. I cared much more about other people's "Finland, where's that?" than I cared about things that actually matter: economics, healthcare, safety. I honestly loathed people who would move abroad and then turn into "little Finnish wussies" missing things back home and trying to tell me how moving away makes you appreciate things in Finland. I didn't want to see or hear any of that because they proved me wrong - that moving abroad isn't magic, and secretly I still loved Finland. I was disappointed how so many expat Finns were not at all like me, who "totally wouldn't ever miss anything and I wouldn't care if I never got to speak Finnish again". And let's face it: this is probably what you expected to read from this post, right?

I was naive, and this naivety is in the core of the question at the top of this post. "Did you move away because you hate Finland?"

  UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

I moved away because, guys, there are things we can't learn by staying. Living abroad is like a bootcamp to surviving life: the daily struggles you face while travelling the world or immigrating to a new country are like kicks to your crotch, and with every kick you become a little stronger and a little less wimpy. In order to grow as a person you need to take hits, you need to struggle, because at those moments of anger, desperation and hopelessness you may face while being lost in the Australian bush you're face to face with your strongest possible self because you have no other choice.

That strength is something I want to train. I grew up shy, scared and almost mute. I was afraid of everything: people, house plants, loud noises, being alone. Eventually, as an adult, my life reached a state where I couldn't possibly go on the way I had, and after three years of hitting the lowest I have ever been I became angry at myself. I promised I would never be afraid like that again: afraid of disappointment, loss and confusion. I wanted to know what it would feel to be normal, to be an extrovert who isn't afraid of taking the leap and sinking into the unknown.

So I moved to Leicester. By distancing myself from Finland and jumping into my first terra incognita, the land unknown, I gave myself a chance to explore my fears related to losing control - because let's face it, moving abroad can be a pain in the ass! As time went by and I kept facing one struggle after another (missing supporting documents, wrong forms, not knowing how to pay bills for god's sake) I became used to it, and I knew to expect it. Slow and steady I learned to handle disappointments and solve problems instead of sitting down and crying about it.

I moved abroad because I needed it - many of us do. I needed to face the people, speak foreign languages, fail and then try again. We all have our own life-changing moments, and one of mine is definitely that time I sat down to my seat on my British Airways flight with a one-way ticket to London, at 05.30am in the morning. I was heading to a life of uncertainty, unpredictability and discomfort. I had no idea what I was doing and that's exactly what I needed to do.

  CONCLUSION

Finland is ranked as one of the most equal countries (SOURCE) with one of the highest per capita incomes (SOURCE) in the world. Finland has incredible scores regarding freedom of speech and freedom of press (SOURCE). In this light, it might seem odd for foreigners that someone in the possession of a passport and citizenship to this Scandinavian shangri-la would voluntarily choose to move elsewhere and turn their back to all these international statistics.

I did because, despite Finland's many virtues, there's a whole world out there. There are places to be and people to meet, immigration forms to fill and trans-Siberian trains to catch. Emigration doesn't have to be criticism or trying to find greener grass from the other side of the fence: sometimes it's all about self exploration, leaping into the unknown and hunger for more life.

Will I ever move back? At this point in my life I have no clue. If I do, despite everything I've seen and done during the past three years, it will be the bravest thing I will ever have done.

Have you moved abroad? Why? Share your story in the comments below!

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First Impression of Dublin

Here I sit, finding myself as a newly arrived immigrant in yet another strange country. French has switched to English, poutine to stews of all sorts and all the beer - well, to more beer. A month has passed since I moved from Canada to Ireland, and it has surely taken some struggle getting used to my new hometown, Dublin.

I miss Québec. There, I said it. I miss Québec tremendously, and as I walk around the (unpleasantly often, unlabeled) streets of Dublin I act like a broken-hearted teenager who longs after her ex while leaning on the shoulder of her unsuspecting rebound. Sorry Dublin - just like Québec, I think you have to win me over, because I'm in the midst of a culture shock.

Now I hear a little voice on the back of my head asking "But what about Finland?!" I say Finland, no. You stay out of this. I'm over you and I only see you as a friend with whom I've had some good moments that have turned into memories by now. I just had one hell of a rollercoaster ride of passion, drama and a year full of really weird stuff with Québec, and I don't forget that so easily.

I miss my friends and family from Finland, but let's face it: I haven't lived there for over a year - heck, I didn't even know any of the new shops and hot spots in my old hometown anymore, and I felt like a complete stranger. I had to let my local friends guide me through a jungle of new cafes and renovated shopping centres, because I didn't know where I was. I will surely write a whole separate blog post about this traumatizing experience as an expat Finn, but there's still one place in this world where I know every corner and every stone: Québec City.

I keep comparing Dublin to Québec, and I keep repeating the exact same mistakes and following the exact same patterns of shock and adaptation as I did when I first moved to Canada. So just like I compared Finland and Québec back in the days IN THIS POST, let's see how Dublin has been able to impress, astonish and annoy me so far.

1. THE IRISH BOW TO NO ONE
This is a tough one, because Canada has turned me into one of those spoiled brats who now naively live in the false impression that everyone is as sweet as a sugar pie, gives you a seat in the bus and stops you on the street just to tell you how beautiful your hair is. Quebecers make apologising an art form. They bump into you and before you even know, you've unwillingly engaged yourself into this weird apology dance where the shocked and tearful quebecer is fondling your shoulders while chanting "pardon, excusez-moi, pardon, pardon", and you just kind of stand there and keep saying things like "Pas d'problème", "Pas d'stress" or "Ya pas de quoi" to calm them down. (This apology dance has also occurred to me in St. Petersburg, but went something like "Простите девушка, простите!")

The Irish take none of that shit.

Anne Street South, Dublin

Dublin is like a zombie apocalypse. You walk on Dame Street on a hot summer day and your only strategy of survival is to choose any spot from a distance and then keep your eyes on it while walking straight, no matter what. Just keep looking at the spot. If you make the mistake of looking passers-by in the eyes or letting your gaze wander from one side of the road to another, the zombies will spot your weaknesses and mercilessly walk straight over you. (I quote my friend in here: "It's like they're actually aiming for you. Aiming!") Dublin is a busy city with busy people, and gives me this newyorkish hunch with a European twist.

The same happens in grocery stores. Half of the time there I spend looking for garlic and broccoli, and the other half I dodge other customers. Life is a constant battle.

2. THE IRISH PLAY THE WAITING GAME
Well this is something that Ireland definitely shares with Canada, and grinds the gears of an impatient Finn who's used to things getting done when they're promised to be done. That being said, just last week I finally received a security code for my account for Canada Revenue Agency website BY MAIL. Oh, my dearest Canada. Just when I thought you couldn't be more old-fashioned with your cheques and landline phones, you truly surprise me every time.

Ireland, on the other hand, makes me look back in times when I was living in the United Kingdom, where things often happen with a short (or slightly longer) delay decorated with apologetic courtesy phrases like "We truly apologise for the delay" and "We will look into your matter already this afternoon". Only that the Irish don't do the courtesy part. They just let you wait. At this very moment, on Monday night, I'm still waiting for a phone call that was scheduled for Friday afternoon. I don't have a bank account. I don't have a social security number. I'm not even a student of my university yet. I'm just waiting for someone to push the buttons.

3. THE ACCENT IS MAGIC
Let's be honest, it's good to be back in an English-speaking country. My heart will always have a soft spot for l'accent québécois, but I also happen to truly enjoy the feeling of being able to communicate with other people without having to stop after every other word to blurt out the safety pause "euhh...". The uncomfortable feeling of being a second-class citizen is gone, and I can almost feel like a normal, fully functioning adult who's able to buy her coffees to-go without starting over the phrase "pour emporter" at least three times. Occasionally I still feel self-conscious about my English. Well, I did before last Friday, when in a job interview I was told "Your English is perfect." That smile probably got me the job.

I love the Irish accent. Sometimes I act like a complete creep and just sit in the bus listening to other people's conversations, trying to suck in whatever tiny nuances of pronunciation from their dialect. In Québec I was constantly mistaken as British (to be fair, for quebecers anyone who pronounces the letter T in "water" is British), and hopefully, maybe if I work on my R's and O's enough, next summer those lovely francophone p'tits bébés of Québec will pass me as an Irish. Sláinte, right?

The end of this post will be spared for a reminder for anyone who missed it in the previous post: I NOW HAVE AN INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT! Find me @melliais and stay tuned for weird pictures and weirder hashtags.

As I was leaving you, Canada

6 days ago I boarded a plane away from my life in Québec. As the plane took off and I got my last glimpse of the city lights of Montréal in the dimming night, I knew I had turned my back for all that could have been: my temporary work permit could have been extended, turned into a permanent residence, and in the end, maybe one day, I would have held my Canadian passport in my own trembling hands after having cheerfully chanted the lyrics of O, Canada in front of a jury. In the very end, if I had chosen otherwise, I would have become a Canadian.

But I chose a different life. So as the lights of Montréal slowly faded away and disappeared behind a wall of clouds, I tried very hard to think forward, hold back the tears and remain grateful for all that I experienced as a resident of Canada, for I have inevitably been changed forever.

I never considered Canada - not before meeting Alexandre, that is. In my mind Canada was just a stereotyped and distant country on a continent I had never even visited, yet alone thought of one day calling my homeland. Lumberjacks, plaid shirts, maple syrup, ice hockey, polite people always saying sorry, all that jazz. But it wasn't for me, who had long since fallen in love with a whole different kind of culture. And as life worked in its mysterious ways and I one sunny summer day found myself standing in that very same P.-E. Trudeau airport for the first time, exhausted from the longest flight I had ever taken, I was a tabula rasa. A blank board, ready take in all that Canada would throw at my face, in good and bad. I had no expectations and no prejudices. My only experience of a Canadian person was the man, Alex, who waved at me from the residents' queue a few meters and border guards away, while I was stuck in the much longer and insanely slow visitors' line. Alex was about to introduce me to Canada, his Canada, and I was prepared for everything. That entrance hall on that airport in Montréal was, and always will be, my very first breath of a country that would, in the upcoming years, end up filling my lungs with its love, hate and completely unpredictable adventures.

I have said good bye five times on P.-E. Trudeau airport. Sometimes I've been the one leaving, other times I've stayed. But every time - every single damn time - Canada has shot its little harpoons at me, and every time those good byes get a little harder as Canada is pulling me back. The first time, 2 years ago, I cried because of Alex and the thought of not seeing him for 2 months was scaring the living crap out of me. 6 days ago everything was different. After 2 years of being shot with little Canadian harpoons time after time my feet, my heart and my stomach hungry for more poutine were so tied to this land, and I didn't cry only because of Alex - I cried because I was about to lose not only his Canada, the one he had showed me from that magic carpet of his (precisely a 2005 Toyota Echo), but my own.

In 2 years I had had time to observe, learn, experience and get attached to a Canada that would be special to me, and only me. My personal relationship with Canada had been formed and was no longer dependent on my dear Canadian ambassador, waving at me encouragingly from that queue back in the days. My Canada is no longer a distant stereotype of lumberjacks, plaid shirts, maple syrup, ice hockey and polite people always saying sorry. Well, yes. Actually. But there's something else now.

Poutine: french fries, cheese and gravy

My Canada speaks French. It greeted me with a cheerful Bonjour! and started whipping me to repeat it to an extent where I wanted to spit on its pretty little francophone face. My Canada is full of people of minority who love their language, their culture and their heritage so much it hurts, they squeeze it like a scared child is squeezing his toy on a nightly trip to a bathroom across the corridor. They laugh loud like Americans, pull off their plaid shirts and beards like the most stereotypical English Canadian lumberjacks, eat like the British and love like the French. They hug you tight and they give you their all, whether its kisses on the cheeks or food from a nearby vending machine when you're out of change. Les québécoises, they will love you like a tiger mother loves her cubs, as long as you try and roar at least remotely as loud as she can. That francophone folk, in all their infinite and furious passion and willpower to fight against oppression, are the most easily flammable material I've ever encountered. Vive le Québec libre! is the first sentence my Canadian ambassador ever taught me, on that damp but lovely little flat on Highfield Street in Leicester, and whether or not they all agree on these political views, they all have one. Even the ones who say they don't, as I pose the question, they all engage into an inner monologue about independence. My French-speaking Canadians love all this so much they occasionally forget there are other ones out there, ones like themselves, as minor and a bit lost.

My friend Will and his weird Guinness

Despite turning inwards, Québec is inhabited by the most loving, caring, friendly and polite people I've ever encountered - and I'm not kidding. The stereotypes are all true, and I love them for proving them all right. My Canada is about people who let me throw myself into their arms, knowing I would be safe and sound, and that whatever I say or do, they will love me for it. During the past years I have been impressed, astonished and utterly amazed by their habit of always finding ways to show me how much they can care. My Canada sounds like an annoyingly polite counter-question "... but what would YOU like?", reeks of weed at night on a street I can't remember, and feels like a gentle touch on my shoulder as I press my drunken head in shame against the bar desk after spilling my drink. And on that moment, as I, drunk as mentioned, encountered a barman who brought me a new drink for free instead of kicking me out like in Finland, I started crying. (Honestly, this happened and it's my friends' favourite running gag: "Mel I know I'm being really nice right now but please don't start crying") So many times Canadians have made me burst from happiness as I jump into their arms in the middle of the office or fall asleep on their couch during an insane nightly winter storm. They have made me laugh so much my abs hurt, and they've made me cry, they've made me angry and disappointed, and as I'm fighting with them on the phone at dawn after a party that turned weird, they always lower their heads, say they're sorry and make everything alright.

My Canada is full of people who are overly self-conscious, unreasonably insecure and sorry to an extent where I want to grab them from their plaid shirted shoulders and shake, shake, shake them into the realisation that their tiny little francophone culture has so much to offer and so much to teach to the world, that instead of throwing their flaming passion into strangers' face as a defense mechanism, they should OPEN, and share that crazy national dish of a poutine with the outside. My

Canada has the most breathtaking landscapes I have ever seen, the incredibly vast and empty wilderness, humbling mountain horizons and waters like nowhere else in the world. Its hiking trails have put me to my knees so many times I'm constantly bruised, but once I reach the top, every damn time I feel like screaming from the top of my lungs how incredibly grateful I am to stand right there, right at that moment, sharing a glimpse of this magnificent land, wanting to ask the rest of the world why you don't love Canada and Québec like I do. Canada is a country of people who don't know what they're sitting on - their shared smiles in a bus or sun-glazed mountain tops in a distant horizon from the window in the morning commute are the kind of moments they pass with a shrug, but I cherish forever.

My Canada, my dearest Canada, the one I saw last as mere dimming city lights from an airplane window: you are a land of internal struggles and conflicts, things you want to forget and things you have promised never to forget, as stated on all of Québec's license plates. But you're also a land of people with so much potential, so much love to share, so much unleashed energy and so much furious fire I've seen in all those eyes I've stared at on street corners, in the dark of the night, on door steps, across the table. You have changed me. The girl in that entrance hall, scared of the unknown, no longer exists. I breath you in and I will never let you go. Whatever emotions are loaded into all those license plates I've seen during the past 2 years, I now know what Québec's motto means to me.

Je me souviens. Lest we forget.