NEED A HELPING HAND? | My Weirdest Google Search Hits

Writing a blog demands you to be quite aware of your Search Engine Optimization - SEO. During my time as a blogger I've followed my Google Search activity with much amusement, because believe me, people google the craziest things! Sometimes, fortunately, they land on my blog with these keywords. People ask questions. Worry not. Now, after all this time googling and desperately looking for advice, I have provided you with answers to Top 10 most common, rather weird Google Search hits to The Strayling. Off we go!

1. Multiculturalism Pros and Cons
This is by far the most popular search term leading you in here, so let's look into it. I don't usually go into politics outside my scholarly entourage, but now that the cat's on the table, let's address it like the mix of a Trinity College Dublin postgraduate student in migration and conflict studies and a feel-good blogger that I am.

Pros: Needless to day, everyone gets to be themselves. Usually the pros mention this 'enrichment' aspect, as in, cultural diversity allows us to engage more with other cultures and this way teach us the many ways of perceiving different attributes of life from food to religion to social interaction. The host society gets to see a wide range of sub-cultures being born in it, and migrants can comfortably reside in their new country without the fear or losing their heritage or being forced to blend into a homogenous mass that is the perceived 'Dutchness' or whatever the country we're talking about. Let's take Canada for example. Their immigration policy is based on the idea of 'mosaic': small pieces create a large, colourful entity that we know as 'Canada'. A happy immigrant is a contributing immigrant, as they say.
Cons: When not carried out properly, multiculturalism can create segregation. Let's take this bunch of Chinese immigrants and put them into the China Town. Now do your Chinese thing. No need to blend in. Let's celebrate your difference. Multiculturalism in its worst makes us ask what does it mean to be 'Chinese', how do we perform this Chineseness and why do we have to caricature ourselves like this anyway. It isolates minorities into ethnic communities separate from the majority population and stalls the integration process where the migrant gets to properly interact with the host society and feel 'at home'. Mind you, this is the case only when proper integration policies aren't implemented and migrants are left to handle their integration process by themselves. (Attention: integration =/= assimilation!)

2. Instagram Follow Button
What kind of Follow button do you want? You mean like the preview of my insta I have on the sidebar? You can head to SnapWidget and get one of your own. Or you just want a javascript button to easily let your readers follow your Instagram with one click? You could try AddThis and get a readymade code for your button. If you want a button that just takes the visitor to your Instagram account without autofollow - like I have on the sidebar with all those small social media icons - you have to do some crafting yourself, but let me get you started:

You could head to SeekLogo and download a vector image of the button to your computer. Change the size and edit the colour as you please with Photoshop, or whatever it is that you prefer using. Upload the image to your domain and make it into a link to your Instagram account. If you want a hover effect, edit another photo with e.g. a different colour and upload it to your domain. Now write the code so that when the visitor hovers the image, the second photo will appear. Like so:

<a href="https://www.instagram.com/YOUR USER NAME HERE" target="_blank"><img onmouseout="this.src='NORMAL IMAGE URL HERE'" onmouseover="this.src='HOVER IMAGE URL HERE'" src="NORMAL IMAGE URL HERE"/></a>

There must be hundred other ways to do it, but that's an easy one.

3. Must See Vancouver

So you're travelling to Vancouver and searching for tips? Look no further, I have just the right blog post for you. Here: 4 MUST-SEE SPOTS IN VANCOUVER. You're gonna love it. I loved it. I loved it so much I could live there happily ever after.

4. Looking for Long-Distance Relationship
Now hold on a minute. Are you saying you're looking for a long-distance relationship? Or just looking for ways to cope with it? Because if we're talking about the first one here, you're out of your damn mind. Why would you intentionally try and find a long-distance relationship? It's hell on earth guys! Stick to normal dating and if that monster lurking into your lives becomes inevitable, you can refer to my LONG-DISTANCE RELATIONSHIP 101 blog post for some survival tips.

But I repeat: you don't want to have a long-distance with someone just for the crack of it. Get a pen pal.

5. Fairmont le Château Frontenac / Québec Castle Hotel 

Ah, le Château Frontenac! Québec's most well-known landmark. It's all things gorgeous. If you want to book a stay there, head to their homepage: Fairmont le Château Frontenac

If you're interested in taking a sneak-peek inside and read my review of it, check out my blog post:
FAIRMONT LE CHÂTEAU FRONTENAC: QUÉBEC'S FRONT PAGE

6. Irish Slang 
This is a popular one! People strand in here in the hopes of finding out how to talk like an Irish. First of all, let me offer you my BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO IRISH SLANG post to get you started.

Now, four specific words give me hits. Let me help you with your queries. Mind you, there are multiple Irish English dialects, but it's your lucky day since my Irish friend is from Cork and that's by far the craziest, most bizarre accent of them all. He's here today to provide you with answers:

Craic - A universal English equivalent for craic? It's 'crack', as in 'fun' or 'enjoyment'. You might hear an Irish say 'Well tis gun be good craic', in other words, he expects it to be fun.
Hello - Saying hi people generally say 'sup', 'sss'da craic?' [whats the craic?] 'how's da form', 'how's she hanging', 'any scéal' [scale, scéal = Irish for story] but generally insults are also accepted, like 'sup scuts' [scut = disreputable person] or 'hey motherfuckers'.
Goodbye - People say 'slán' [Irish for goodbye] 'talk cha', 'safe journey', 'gwan', 'gluck', 'fuck off so', 'il talk cha', I say 'later bitch' to a group of friends quite a bit. 'See ya' being an obvious one.
Friend - Usually I'd use the negative like: 'they're not a total dickhead like'. Generally you would call someone 'sound' and then someone would ask them do you know them well. If you do, it means they're your friend, if you don't, then you might either be hedging your bets not wanting to sound like a dick or you might consider becoming friends with them. But you wouldn't really say someone is my 'friend', you would say they're sound or yee hang out. You could also use the word 'langer', it's a mainstay in Cork and can be a harsh insult or a term for endearment depending on the context. You can be a langer which results from 'acting the langer', or it can be dismissive if someone's 'a bit of a langer alright'. Or it can be used playfully without negative connotations.

You can also listen to The Langer Song on Youtube if you want to get more immersed to this real Cork spirit.

7. Emporter Conjugation
Unbelievably so, my blog is now a destination for French grammar assistance. Luckily I have one native-speaking boyfriend here with me and he's ready to help you with this one:

Pronoun	Conjugation: Present
J'	Emporte
Tu	Emportes
Il / Elle	Emporte
Nous	Emportons
Vous	Emportez
Ils / Elles	Emportent

8. Living in Finland Pros and Cons
Pros: It's safe. Free public healthcare. Good and free education (unless you're a non-EU university student, sorry). Low crime rate. High life expectancy rate. Highest gender equality rates in the world. Beautiful girls (I have to cheer for the home team a bit, right?). Houses are well built and insulated so you won't freeze during winter. Wonderful nature. Technologically advanced.

Cons: The language is hard to learn and I bet you can't find a job if you don't speak it - unless you work in IT or such. It's effin' dark during winter. It's effin' cold during winter. It's effin' cold sometimes even during summer. People like to pout in solitude and mind their own business. Racism. Everything is expensive (mind you, the salary is correspondent!). Everyone wants to live in Helsinki and there aren't enough apartments. Finland is actually pretty hard to reach flight-wise, so if you enjoy your frequent trips to Europe, Ryanair won't be there to save you. Did I mention it's really, really dark?

9. Cringyness
Yes. You're in the right place. Welcome.

10. How to Irritate a Citizen of Each European
This is my favourite. My blog is now a source of hatred and ethnic stereotyping. Sadly I can't provide you with all the answers as this blog post would become too long, but let me get you started with the two nations closest to my heart here and now:
Finns: Call them a Swede. Tell them Nokia is Japanese. Ask if they speak Russian as their first language. Casually touch them during a conversation.
Irish: Call them British. Tell them Ireland is exactly like Britain. Assume they have a British monarchy. Actually, just talk about the British.

 What are the pros and cons of multiculturalism in your opinion? How about living in Finland? Do you have more questions? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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THE MOOSE AND THE REINDEER: FINLAND THROUGH CANADIAN EYES

My Canadian SO is the comic relief of my blog, and he's at it again. This post by Alex is a window to his Canadian mind, experiencing Finland as an outsider. Stereotypes confirmed, stereotypes broken? How do Finland and Finns seem for someone from the Great White North?

~ * ~

Hi there, Alex here.

As you may know if you have been reading this blog for a while now, this is my second contribution other than the anthology St. Pumps joke from the IKEA post. My previous text, the seminal text aptly titled His story: the Canadian behind the scenes is available HERE.

This time, I was asked to write about my impressions of Finland as a Canadian who has had the chance of going to Finland thrice.

Before meeting Melissa, I had always kinda pictured Finland as some kind of permafrost land where Saku Koivu had grown up riding reindeer and dog-sleigh to go to free and great university. And I was 100% right as you can see.

Finland was far, close to Russia (therefore very, very alien to me as a North American) and I never expected it would be one of the countries I’d end up knowing the most about. It looked cold, barren and unwelcoming on the maps with all this northernness and I don’t think I would have decided to go by myself, Canada has given me my fair share of cold. Happily, Mel warmed me up to the idea.

One of the things I expected to be really important to do is learn Finnish. No need, they all speak English well, and some could be mistaken for native speakers to someone who hasn’t heard as many Finns speak English. Still, Finnish is the sound of Finland, a chesty language that makes it so that all men sound to me like they should be muscular giants to have that voice, but still a very musical and weirdly soft and flowing one. Finnish also happens to be one of the hardest languages to learn and I look back in envy on myself trying to learn how to introduce myself back in Leicester, all naïve and optimistic that I would speak Finnish reasonably within a year and a half. Nowadays, Finnish sounds to me like a song I sorta know but can’t remember enough to sing it outside of the chorus, I understand some words and expressions, just enough to guess what people are talking about 60% of the time and to have a blank and terrified face when people address me expecting an answer in Finnish. Finland also has interesting music, and I’m not talking about metal, I don’t care much for metal. I may not understand, but Finnish singing is very beautiful, and some of their artists have extremely catchy songs, as in they get stuck in your head forever (looking at you Elastinen). Finally, Finnish is extremely entertaining when comments and statuses are bing translated on Facebook, one little slang word and you might know someone who does slave trade.

Finland is a tech and design hub so everything is cool, stylish and very modern. Helsinki is said to have the best public transport in the world, and while me carrying my 20kg luggage over my head because the snow blocks the wheels while running to catch the bus about 2 km away from Mel’s place would not agree, you can really get anywhere fast an easy. It could be because almost every Finn I know except for 2, I’ve met through Mel and she is like that, but it also seems like everyone is really into design and fashion (well women at least, guys don’t seem to care all that much), everyone owns those Iittala plates and cups (especially the Moomins ones) and have very cool looking houses.

Now Finns. Where do I start. There is this stereotype that Finns are shy and silent to the point of being rude. It does throw one off if it doesn’t come with understanding. Sure, I have mocked Mel quite a bit about how much she stresses in situations that seem really mundane to me, and I have been somewhat shocked by the utter lack of interest people seem to have for one another, but it all becomes logical when you understand that this is how they picture politeness. They give much more importance to privacy and personal space and they feel like not talking or looking at you in the eye is just the best way they can respect your space and privacy. They treat bus seats like urinals in the sense that you should not use one that is right next to a taken one, unless you really must. What I don’t quite understand still is how you are supposed to meet new people when every attempt to talk to a stranger is perceived as an invasion.

Once you know Finns, they are just as cheerful, fun and enjoyable as anyone else, but it might be hard to try to go to Finland to make friends without knowing any first to be your ambassador.

Finland is also not as cold and barren as I thought. Canada is actually about as cold on most winter days, but is more likely to get colder. Sure Finland also doesn’t have a really nice and hot summer that we have in Canada, but almost everyone I have talked to about this seems to disagree that 30 is great anyway. Finland is barren in terms of people, it’s a gigantic space with about the same population as Ireland. A lot of the culture is based around the cottage, a secondary house, usually by one of the 168 000 lakes (actual number). Nowhere can you have as much personal space as by a lake in the middle of the vey lush and definitely not barren forest. This is where you can do nothing, drink beer, long drink, vodka, go to the sauna and jump into previously mentioned lake. Bonus point if no clothes are involved at any point in this process. I have to say not much is more relaxing.

Finland is not very renowned for its cuisine, Berlusconi and Chirac both mentioning Finnish food as an example of terrible, Chirac going as far as calling it second worst after Britain’s. While Britain indeed has terrible food, Finland is one of those places I would go to get fat without any ragrets. While I’m not overly fond of rye bread which is too hard, dry and bitter for my taste, it is mostly extremely enjoyable. I really like fish and it is a very big part of their diet. But the thing I love the most is the reindeer. We went to a Saami buffet, and I have eaten enough to make any vegan sick (and myself too to be honest) and it is just so delicious, the tastiest meat I’ve ever eaten. KotiPizza even made a pizza with it, ironically named Berlusconi, and it is one of the best chain pizza I’ve ever had. Finland has even found a way to make black liquorice tolerable to me.

However, I have a few disappointments. First and foremost, Aurora Borealis are nowhere as beautiful as I had envisioned. They basically look like clouds and without a camera, you can’t see the colours. Then again, I was told that they are more colourful the further up north so I will leave my final judgement for later. Reindeers are absolutely adorable looking, and look super soft, but they are so small, there is no way only eight of them can pull a huge sleigh through the sky.

I just came back from Finland a week ago, it was as lovely as ever and I will probably find a reason to pop by again this year for their 100 years’ celebration. Congratulations Finland, may you celebrate more centuries, you are awesome, beautiful, and too unknown for the world’s own good. Torille!

Have you ever been to Finland? Do you have similar experiences? Or are you a Finn - do you agree with Alex? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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How I Handle Canadian Winter

Mon pays, ce n'est pas un pays, c'est l'hiver - Gilles Vigneault's famous lyrics beautifully describe Québec. When it comes to stereotypes, everyone has heard horror stories about the merciless Canadian winter: temperatures drop far below -30 °C as the snow buries cities under its coat. So how does it feel, and moreover - how to survive it? Is there a way to get the most out of the Great White North in winter without freezing?

My Finnish friends have been extremely curious about winter in Canada. As on many other aspects, comparison (and at times, competition) between Finland and Canada reaches the weather conditions too. Finns are proud of their reputation as tough Nordics not being afraid of snow and cold (I'm not even going to mention Winter War here...), but the same frosty heritage runs in the veins of Canadians. Winter in Finland is cold, dark and seems never-ending, and same features apply to the Canadian equivalent.

Personally I have never enjoyed winter, and the idea of living through this very famous one scared me a little at first. I was not really afraid of the winter itself - I can handle the snow, the cold, the darkness too - but what baffled me in the beginning is the dryness of Canada. Finland, especially Helsinki, is extremely humid even during winter, and the cold is the kind of cold that gets into your bones and won't leave no matter how many layers of wool you wrap yourself into. No wonder I was slightly terrified of the upcoming winter after experiencing two extremely hot and dry Canadian summers. The Finnish humid winter is indeed cold, -20 °C at best, but the dry, crushing and insanely cold Canadian winter is something completely else.

The thing is, in Finland you cannot escape the cold, since the humidity brings the cold through all of

Everything freezes in Canada - even windows.

your layers. In Canada, however, you can survive very far by just attempting to get the looks of the Michelin man and wearing 3 pairs of woollen socks inside your boots. But there is a limit. No matter how many shirts you're able to stuff yourself into, there will be a point where the cold becomes so devastating it makes the little exposed skin on your face feel like it's cracking. In Finland we psych ourselves up before leaving our flat, knowing that the minute we step outside the cold will reach our chest. This won't help you in Canada, since the first 15 minutes spent outside you feel comfortable, energetic and overall ready to conquer the cold in your Canada Goose coat. But slowly, steady, the cold creeps in, and after half an hour in the crispy -40 °C winter air everything starts to sting, then it becomes numb, and then you find yourself desperately running in the streets in order to reach your destination even half a minute faster.

There is more of everything in Canadian winter compared to Finland. More snow, more cold, more chaos in the traffic, more clothes to protect you from frostbite, more windows so frozen that you have stopped to try and open them before spring. Many southern Finns will know what I mean when I say that the winter in here really IS a winter: the landscape gets covered in real snow and not in that slushy grey thing like in Helsinki. The cold is intense, but a very well welcomed change to those oddly warm winter days during the last few years in Finland. And most important of all: unlike in Finland, Canada is located remotely south and is not suffering from the never-ending darkness as badly as my home country. In other words, Canada makes me want to spend time outside, even in winter!

Parc du Bois-de-Coulonge in Québec City

MY WINTER ACTIVITIES IN QUÉBEC

Spending time outside during winter is made much more enjoyable in Canada that it has in Finland. Where Finns choose to hibernate over the depressingly dark winter months, Canadians have become to accept their fate and found ways to enjoy themselves. I have often been positively surprised to notice how active Canadians seem to be, and how eagerly everyone participates in different kinds of winter sports or recreational activities. I have had time to get my fair share of some of these activities here in Québec, the most special and definitely my favourite one being the amazing Domaine de la Forêt Perdue.

1. Ice skating in the forest in Domaine de la Forêt Perdue
Website: Domaine de la Forêt Perdue

Skating is fun, but it's even more fun when you can do it on little icy roads in a forest maze. This domain offers over 12 kilometres of roads to skate, and skates are included in the 26$ entry fee. It was my first time on hockey skates, so it took me a while to get to fully enjoy the experience, but in the end we ended up spending the whole day trying to see everything there was to see in the forest.

The place is actually a farm, so there are many animals to greet as you skate on, from emus to goats and alpacas. Here is one:

Quebeckers seem to be extremely good at skating though, so be prepared to be outrun by 7-year old kids. Seriously, are they born with hockey skates on? Or is there something in the water?

2. Actually, ice skating pretty much anywhere - while watching hockey
Canada is all about hockey, but I'm brave enough to cheer for my home team and say that especially quebeckers seem to have born with the blood of Maurice Richard running in their veins. That is how I at least feel like as I paddle on in the snow around the city: there are ice rinks everywhere, and they're crowded with people from toddlers to elders.

Hockey is shown everywhere in Québec, so do not count on being able to escape it into a fancy restaurant - if there's a TV anywhere close, there will be ice hockey on it.

3. Evacuating yourself indoors in Old Québec's shops and cafés

La Boutique de Noël de Québec

Winter in Québec surely is fascinating, but sometimes enough is enough. When all the fuss about Carnaval de Québec, Canada's biggest winter carnival, starts to get on your nerve, Old Québec has some very nice locations to try and escape the cold. One of the very special shops that fit the winter theme is the Christmas shop La Boutique de Noël de Québec: this shop is a dream for any Christmas fan, and a nightmare for a colourblind. The shop offers Christmas decorations to fit every taste, from traditional decorations to popular culture icons, such as Star Wars and Doctor Who -themed decorations to hang on your tree. They even sell Christmas socks, which are nothing but a rare exception in Finnish Christmas. Judging from the Christmas decorations in this shop, everything really seems to be bigger in North America.

Quebeckers are the masters of maple syrup, 80% of Canada's maple syrup being produced in the province of Québec. That's why you can be sure to find all kinds of hot drinks from hot chocolates to lattes flavoured with maple syrup, and you won't even have to look for it - they will come for you. Old Québec has a few very picturesque cafés, my favourite one being La Maison Smith. The staff also seems to speak excellent English, since most customers around always seem to be English-speakers. And since we're in Québec, do not forget bars and microbreweries. I have personally spent more than enough time in La Korrigane drinking delicious but treacherously strong dark beers to save myself from the frost.

Keeping your beanie on indoors is a funny fashion trend I've observed while spending time in various bars and cafés of Québec. Especially girls seem to be keen on wearing a hat, possibly to avoid getting their hair all messed up. The static in Canada feels far worse that in Finland due to dry air (yours truly gets an electric shock from a fridge at work approximately 3 times a day), so no wonder local ladies prefer to save themselves from the trouble.

4. Just going outside and enjoying the chaos

When I use the word chaos, I don't necessarily refer to the classic Finnish situation brought to the public's attention with the famous newspaper headline "Talvi yllätti autoilijat" ('Winter surprised the commuters'). This chaos is caused by the sudden element of snow finally falling around December, like every single winter before - but not in Canada. Canadians are prepared, and they have their shovels, trucks and salts ready since mid-October. Our car was stuck in the snow the first time we were about to use it after a heavy snow fall, but worry not - our neighbour was there, in his stereotypically Canadian beard and even more stereotypically quebecker Montréal Canadiens hockey beanie, shoveling the snow and ready to lend us a hand. People in here always seem to know what to do with this awful amount of snow.

The chaos in Canada is brought by the amount of snow, since there can easily be a meter of it. At this point I don't even bother to use my energy to curse the heavy nightly snowfalls and the lack of respect North Americans seem to have for pedestrians, but instead paddle onwards on the pedestrians walk at 7am each morning, my legs knee-deep in the snow, desperately trying to reach the bus stop in time.

Quebeckers also seem to know how to dress for the occasion, since unlike the stereotypes might make you think, Canadians don't run around wearing shorts and plaid shirts during winter. Everyone has a quality waterproof winter coat and furred hoods to come with it. Being able to enjoy the local winter to the fullest really asks for appropriate clothes.

Boulevard René-Lévesque on a -40 °C Saturday morning

As quoted above from Gilles Vigneault, this country is not a country, it's a winter. There is something quite magical about the winter in the Great White North, whether it's the locals' peaceful coexistence with their endless snow piles, or the drops of frost on your eyelashes 5 minutes after stepping into the cold winter morning. It's freezing like nothing else, and you definitely haven't experienced Canada before you have seen it survive one of its devastating winters. A word of encouragement for my proud Finnish people though: so far I have survived all those -40 °C days with a smile on my face, enjoying the crispy air, while my quebecker companions have been the ones running ahead of me trying desperately to save their faces from a frostbite. Maybe the arctic blond hair really comes with an ability to bear extreme temperatures?

The Fabulous Life of an Expat

You know that annoyingly amazing cosmopolitan life all of your friends suddenly start living when they move abroad? A few weeks in and their social media accounts are bursting with pictures of fancy drinks, interesting local people and exciting new surroundings. Everything in their new home country is so much better than at home that they have almost forgotten their native language already: it's like stepping out of the national border swipes them off their feet. All those hashtags like #expatlife and #wanderlust makes you see red. Who do they think they are? Do they think they are somehow better than the rest - the ones who have decided to stay?

... Or could it be that we all actually live in the illusion that moving abroad suddenly fills our lives with parties, sparkles and glamour? Our expat friends are likely to share a limited amount of information with us through social media, showing only the interesting parts - and thus leaving us to an illusion that their everyday life is nothing but adventures and exploration.

This is what I have personally done during the past few years. I share the stories that I think might interest my friends and family back in the good old Finland - no one needs to know if I forgot to do my dishes after work or ate poutine for lunch. I will come up with a concrete real life example by sharing a photo of me from the time I lived in Leicester, UK.

How it looks like:

This picture was published on my Facebook news feed. You can try to spot me! (hint: I'm the only one with a Finnish flag on my shirt) Looks fun, eh? All the "cool international people", many of which I miss very dearly. But on the other side of the coin....

How it really is:

This picture wasn't published anywhere. It's an unedited picture of me from the New Year's Eve in Québec a few weeks back: At midnight, I jumped into the closest pile of snow after drinking a bit too much Finlandia Vodka my mother had sent me. My cheeks are red from the cold (and intoxication...), I'm wearing my friend Sébastien's spare clothes and there is overall nothing exciting happening in here. But it is part of my expat life nevertheless.

Sometimes the 7-hour time difference makes it hard for me to keep in contact with my friends and family in Finland. Reading chat messages from them on Facebook is one of my favourite morning routines. However, many of these messages often start with phrases such as "I know you must be busy, but..." and "Do you have a moment to just briefly tell me how you're doing?" The assumed haste implied in such messages makes me reconsider my social media identity: is this how I appear to my friends now that I live abroad? Do I keep my loved ones on track of my everyday life, or have I fallen into the distant #expatlife category? Does anyone even know how it really is to live your life as an expat?

We are made to believe that a migrant's life is like an extended holiday: the party goes on and every day is yet another adventure. The idea of setting a remotely normal humdrum life in another country might seem too obscure to many, and making the distinction between migration and travelling falls into its own impossibility. By travelling, we subconsciously create a confrontation between our home country and "abroad": "abroad" is where fun, adventures and margaritas happen, and our good old homeland is for work, routine and settling down. It's a common misbelief to think that serious things cannot happen abroad, and often the expat's desire to leave his or her home country also gets misunderstood. The will to become an expatriate is seen as an attempt to escape the everyday reality and have that extended holiday.

As we see expats as escapists running from their routine life to an endless stream of parties and adventures, we also end up creating a skewed image of their reality in our minds. That is exactly when the aforementioned, apologetic Facebook messages happen: we want to know how our friends are doing, even if we are convinced they're busy having multicultural cheese 'n' wine soirées on a daily basis. We are afraid that their lives are too interesting to maintain a boringly normal friendship with someone from the old life. They must have better friends now, right?

A very touristic shot from Venice, Italy

The truth is something else. The truth is that an expat's life is just like any other life: we wake up to an alarm, we go to work, we eat a crappy lunch we patched up in the morning before running late to the bus stop. We come home from work in a crowded bus, sweat in our winter clothes, throw ourselves on the bed, exhausted from the day, and spend the rest of the evening watching New Girl. I might have just described my yesterday.

Living as an expat does not mean continuous visits to local tourist attractions, dinners in restaurants or strolling around with a camera hanging from our necks. On the contrary, it also isn't lonely, dark and meaningless wander from one day to another, without networks, comfortable routines or purpose. It is simply a life in another country. I hate waking up to my alarm at 6.15am, whether it happens in Finland or Canada. I'm happy to go and grab a beer with a friend after work, whether we will speak Finnish, English or French. There are good days and bad days. On some days I'm extremely busy running around from work to a bank to a grocery store to a pharmacy, and other days I lull in my bed until noon and won't even feel sorry.

The longer you stay, the less you care about attractions and activities in your new home country. As time goes by, you appreciate more your local grocery store finally stocking more of your favourite yoghurt, than squeezing yourself into an overly crowded museum downtown. Canada is my home, and I want to feel part of it - in good and bad. Despite some of the most amazing landscapes I have experienced in my life, I feel the most at home when I squeeze myself out of that rush hour bus and take a slow walk in the snow to our front porch, enjoying the silence. Canada is not my holiday, it is my routine.

As the cover picture of this post suggests, doing the dishes in a dirty kitchen is just as unappealing in England as it is in Finland. So every time I receive an apologetic message from a friend wondering if I'm too busy to answer, I sigh, look at the pile of dirty plates on my counter and think: "Yeah, she's right - I should be doing something else than procrastinating...."