What about the struggle?

It's Linnea again (not to confuse you). Long time no hear here. We haven't really been posting lately (you can read the latest post about our anniversary trip to Rome by Arno here) due everything that's been happening around us lately. And I feel like we haven't really kept up with our busy lives here on the blog for like half a year, so I will jump back to January...

Remember how we got stuck in Jakarta, Indonesia and then Tel Aviv, Israel on our way back home from our Christmas trip in Bali? (Here is the whole story) So after missing a few days of work I came back to finish my projects in Yleisradio (the Finnish broadcasting company). We had a nice goodbye party and then I was left wondering what's next. By this time Arno had found himself a nice job in a tennis hall and told me to figure out what I want to do instead of rushing into a job I would hate.

On top of the scars and problems that the scooter accident in Bali had cost me, my wisdom teeth were acting up and had to be pulled off – or more like beaten to a billion pieces and removed by an operation in my case. And this being (expensive ofc,) very painful and swelling my face up I was also put on a sick leave so that the stitches wouldn't break or get infected. So basically I was just sitting inside, eating ice cream and banging my head against the wall trying to figure out what to do with my life next. Trying to earn some money by gigs and part time jobs.

There were also some other factors to be considered as the fact that we were living in Arno's dad's friend's apartment and he was supposed to come back from Indonesia and we move away to somewhere. Arno was also applying to the pilot school at the moment, my application process to universities was about to start and I hadn't finished my studies in Helsinki Design school so we weren't able to just move to Lapland or fly to Australia. We had to stay in the area and find an affordable place to stay – and with a flexible contract since we had no clue if the pilot school would just suddenly pull us to another city and give us a week of time for moving. And of course we weren't exactly rich either since Arno had been in the army for half a year and they pay you almost nothing (like 5 euros/day).

So once again we were feeling pretty lost with no plans whatsoever. One day we just went through some options and Arno put out there an idea of us moving to his grandpa's ex house at the country side, next to his mom's house and buying a car. It felt like a joke to the both of us. Like the last option on the table. But as we were considering all the factors of the moment it started to sound like a plan that didn't include paying rent or leasing an apartment for a year and then not getting rid of it by the time our schools would require us to move. Plus hey, all of our stuff we didn't take to our part time apartment had been moved to Arno's mom's house. So we ended up buying a car and preparing for our move to the country side.

I luckily got a job at this one stable not far from our new country side apartment so everything seemed to work out. At least pretty much until the point when we opened the door to Arno's grandpa's cottage.

The house was built by Arno's grandpa in the 60's and had served as his mom's and ant's childhood home. Now it had been pretty much standing empty since his grandpa passed about five years ago. Arno's grandma had been using it as a summer cabin every now and then, but most of the time it had been standing empty and cold.

The first morning I burst into tears as we woke up from our too small bed located in the living room so that it blocked the toilet. The mice had been having a riot in the night, it was cold and messy with brown water coming out of taps, boxes everywhere and I couldn't even find room to make myself some oatmeal. Arno hugged me and told everything will be alright. But all I could think of was how come our bright future looked like a smelly, little cabin full of spider webs and mice?

I was about to back out from this plan until I sat down and thought it through by myself. I have been living in Dziwaresekwa, in a poor suburb outside Harare, Zimbabwe. Where there is not always electricity nor water. I have to find my Africa mindset again. So that evening as I returned from work I put some good music on and started to tear down stuff. I took off the old curtains, cleaned the spider webs, dead bugs and mice poop. Together we moved some old furniture out of the way, burned scented candles and kept the door open as long as possible. We painted and renovated the bedroom, put our new bed in and carried a big TV over. Then we mice proofed the house and got the cat to take care of the rest. Slowly but surely it was starting to look decent and we began to adjust.

Of course the spring did not go without any set backs. I had my entrance exams for university and paramedic school (couldn't decide). I studied around the clock for months and did my very best. And then came an email saying there had been technical problems in one of the paramedic school tests and that was for sure going to affect on my points. Like getting into a school with dyslexia wasn't hard enough...

Living in the country side has its' cons for sure and one of them is that there are basically no public transport so we had to bond with our little 500 euro car (named it Shemale). The car being our only transit we depended on it to work so we would get to work to earn money and to the super market to spend it (the trip to the closest shop was 7 km). And then when one morning it broke in the city we had no other option than to tow it 30 km to home and try to fix it ourselves rather than take it to the fixer and pay 5 times what the wagon was really worth. So for 4 days Arno took off from work and just fixed the car around the clock in the neighbour's garage. I served him some soda and food and helped as much as possible but he really did the hard work. It ended up costing us way less than a mechanic or apartment rent but wasn't cheap still.

As I am a little accident prone, I also fell off a horse and had to spent one Sunday night in a hospital taking CT scans of my neck that hurt like crazy. Then one day at work I hurt my finger (when an empty plastic bag attacked me) and a week later the doctor called me in saying that it was broken after all ( = sick leave again). Only my problems were costing us a lot of time and money spent for doctors' appointments.

And then – this is something we have kind of kept quiet about - during the pilot school medical tests they found something that could in the worst case scenario ruin Arno's pilot career for good. It felt like the carpet had been pulled from under our feet again. Everything he had been working for and dreaming about his whole life was so unsure again. As we sat in the car just staring to the emptiness I told my sweetheart that everything will be alright, even though I had no idea weather it really would.

That night when we came home and Arno was napping I sneaked to make some coffee and open up my computer to find out as much as possible about this thing. After a lot of research I communicated with my and Arno's parents and decided that we are going to do everything in our power to fix this (and I could have never done all of this without the help from them!). The first step was to find a good doctor to deal with it. And we sure did. The best specialist in the whole country who took our matter in his hands and made all the possible tests for us. Then started the long wait, several phone calls, scans and doctors' appointments (all costing money of course).

A month later we were sitting in the final destination – in the pilot school doctors' office where he would get either a no or a yes answer depending on the tests. And after several hours of waiting and few more test the doctor stamped him a medical certificate saying he would be qualified to become a pilot (all fit and ready) and would start the school in 5 months! It felt like our luck had turned finally! We were so happy!

A few days before that I had graduated from Design school and finished my freelance gigs for Yle so what was holding us anymore?

You see, we had become to love our life at the country side and the cabin felt like home with the deer and moose running on the back yard and such fresh air during the starry nights. This cosy little house was a place we never expected to like that much but life can surprise you. After all we are both from the country side and loved BBQ and hammocks. And living there had saved us a lot of money. So Arno accidentally found cheap tickets to Bangkok and we decided to take off for six weeks!

And as I am typing this text for you, we are sitting in an airplane on our way to Thailand. It's dark and Arno is sleeping against the window as most of the passengers. I have enjoyed some nice wine and cheese and am about to cuddle next to him. When you read this, we have already made it there and are probably searching some street food for breakfast or dim sums from night markets. And enjoying the sunny 34 degrees.

For this trip we have no scheds nor plans. Just two backpacks packed for our adventures, each other and the open road ahead of us. Let's see what the life will bring on our way. But I have some confidence that everything will be alright. Because just yesterday I got to know that I got a confirmed school place too and will start studying this fall.

Hugs,

Linnea