It was hard to sum up a year full of life into one video but so it is to a short blog post so this won't be short. Hope you can hang along. I've had quite the ride during the 365 days of 2017. To sum it up it has included:
15 countries: Indonesia (Bali, Java, Sumatra, Pulau Weh), Israel, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar, Laos, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Italy, UAE (Dubai, Abu Dhabi), Ukraine, Estonia, Sweden, Denmark. (I would like to count in Lapland because for me it was quite exotic, but let's leave it out)
Moving twice, graduating from one school, starting in another.
Two broken bones, many visits to hospitals for the both of us.
Many awesome celebrations, parties, festivals, gigs... Finland turning 100!
Tears and laughter, falling down and getting back up (like literally, there's something with me and extreme sports like show jumping and snowboarding).
Two new cars (ups) and two new family members (meow).
Spending time with old friends and family and many new ones we have met along the way!
Let's take a closer look...
For starters; me and January have never been best buddies. 2016 it was dengue fever and handful of hospitals, 2017 it was saying goodbye (for a moment) for my dear work gang in Yle, a few operations to remove wisdom teeth and two long sick leaves. But my 2017 kicked off actually pretty nice by watching fireworks with Arno and my family on the beach in Bali. Then heading off to Ubud and Borobudur! One morning me and Arno woke up 3 am, cycled to the temple in the darkness and climbed all the way up to catch the sunrise and see the village wake up. Breathtaking views! Then we were supposed to head home but got stuck in Jakarta for a few days due a snow storm in Turkey (I know right..). We managed to get on a flight through Hong Kong and Israel. Have to add that my mom's wrist was broken and my leg was injured and swelling due my scooter crash witch didn't make the waiting and flying too much fun. And of course our bags were lost in Hong Kong and then the flight from Israel was cancelled so yeah we accidentally ended up in Israel. That was super fun tho! Such a beautiful country.
February started with me sitting inside due the sick leave and me wondering what the heck I want to do with my life. Or what we want to do. By this time we were living at Arno's dad's friend's house but he was coming back in March and we had no plan for living. We decided to go with our last option of all - moving to Arno's grandpa's old cabin in the country side that had been standing empty since he passed - because it was the cheapest and easiest. See, all along we had Arno's half a year long application process to pilot school running and me trying to figure out what I want to study and we knew our schools would be in a totally different city so we couldn't just rent an apartment from the city. This was such uncertain time of our life - Arno could have gotten a call from the school that it will start in two weeks and then we'd had to move again so we decided not to settle down for an apartment we couldn't get rid of. This allowed us to go snowboard and make an extempore trip to Rome for our first anniversary.
March was a time of change. We bought the cheapest car possible and moved from the city to that smelly old cabin in the woods with no running fresh water. The first night we slept in the cold kitchen in the middle of boxes (or didn't sleep cause the mice had a riot). It was not pretty. I broke into tears the next morning thinking how did we end up like this. But after I came home from work (yep I had started working in a stable that had twenty beautiful competition horses) I just decided that I will make the cabin my home - even if I didn't know for how long in that point. We renovated a new bedroom from floor to roof and bought new furniture and slowly the house began to look like a home. Unlucky I also fell of a horse I was training for jumping in one practice and flew head first into a meter tall fence. Off to CT-scans... luckily nothing was broken so I got back on horse back soon.
In April started my application process and I can tell you there was nothing else in my life than reading and riding. Well yeah, we did visit Belgium too. It was so nice to meet Jenny and see where Arno and his family have lived. Besides the spring in Belgium is be a u ti ful (and the food is delicious)! One day we borrowed Arno's dad's new car (thank yooou!!) and took it out for a ride. First we drove to Luxembourg and from there continued to Germany. On autobahn we reached 225km per hour! After cruising through the Ardennes and tons of little villages, we returned back to Belgium.
The spring in Finland was quite cold and we got a fair share of snow even in May. Driving a little car on dark, slippery roads was daily since we had one car and lived so far from all public transportation. So we had to always collaborate to get to work and home. I spent a lot of time at Arno's work and he at the stables. Our car broke down and it was a pain in my boyfriend's butt to fix it. I had my university entrance exams, did some work gigs for Yle and was so happy to have a normal life again after all the busy stuff. Or so I thought until I broke my finger at work (the attack of an empty plastic bag) and was again on sick leave. Arno was in this point so far in his application process that there were only a medical check that kept him from starting. And against all odds the doctor found something that was about to crush his dreams. This was like a carpet pulled from underneath. So me, my and Arno's parents googled, made calls and did some re-search and found a specialist that we took him the next day. And I am not overstating when I say he really saved the situation.
Into June we managed to squeeze in one trip to Estonia. Then after the long wait Arno finally got the doctor's approval and he was officially admitted to school - after over half a year of hard work. We were all so relieved! It was time for celebration! In June I also graduated from Helsinki Design school's film making program where I had been studying with some amazing film makers and taught by the best professionals in Finland. And it wasn't many days after that I got admitted to Tampere university of applied sciences to study as a paramedic! It was unreal. Later on it revealed to the both of us that our schools admitted only 5 % of applicants and magically we were both about to start studying things we'd dreamed on for so long. But first we were about to fly off to Asia. Yeah we kind of got super cheap airfare to Bangkok (400€) and who can say no to that. So even if it was a little extempore, after midsummer we flew to Thailand and were going to backpack around the Southeast Asia without any bigger plans for one and half months. We headed off to Myanmar, traveled with the local train and visited (again around sunrise) the ancient city Bagan with its' thousands of temples. We continued to Lake Inle and Yangon (where we finally snatched a dream apartment in our future home town via emails, had never seen the place but we had a good realtor).
From Myanmar we continued back to Thailand and stayed on this paradise island (Koh Phangan) where we got hospitalized for a few days. But ended up having fun on the island swimming in water falls and swinging on the beach. And one day we decided to keep on traveling so sitting on the curb of a road, booking flight tickets with our cell phones we decided to continue through Penang, Malaysia to Sumatra, Indonesia. On our way to Indonesia (with no purpose) we found out that there's a village - Bukit Lawang - in the middle of the jungle from where you can hike to find some orang-utans. And without thinking it twice, we decided to go. Two days we hiked with new people all around the world, swam in waterfalls, saw so many monkeys, orang-utans, survived the most intense tropical storm I've seen, ran for our lives when we bumped into this huge alpha male and slept in the jungle. To top it all we rafted back to the village. From Bukit Lawang we found our way with the most dangerous bus ever up to Aceh - the Northern part of Sumatra. From there we took a ferry to this hidden paradise island Pulau Weh were we swam, snorkeld and had so much fun meeting up several times with our Dutch friend we had met during our hike in the jungles of Sumatra. After a good amount of island life we returned to Banda Aceh, a very Muslim part of Indonesia (I had to cover up). We ate the spiciest food I've ever had and enjoyed wandering the city and learned a lot about the Tsunami. Then we flew to Kuala Lumpur for some needed big city vacation. KL was pretty awesome, we walked more during the few days there than probably during the whole trip. After Malaysia we decided to fly up to Laos. There we rented a scooter and ended up going a little off-road (Arno drove the poor scooter through a river haha) and saw the most awesome rural landscapes! After a few days in Luang Prabang we got on a slow boat (because we had gotten enough off deadly bus rides after the Indonesian experience). The boat trip down the Mekong river lasted for two days and was transportation for mostly locals who made their ways to little towns in the middle of the mountains. We spend a few night in little towns by the river before making it to the border of Thailand. We were about to head first to Chiang Mai but ended up discovering Chiang Rai instead and it was not a let down. From there we finally flew back to Bangkok for a few days and then headed off to Kiev. We spent a day in Ukraine and then returned home in August.
August was a busy month. After we returned to Finland started the moving to another city. I traveled off to Denmark to meet up with my friends from the time spent in America. It was quite a reunion in Kathrine's beach house where we spent a week travelling around the beautiful Denmark, having BBQ parties and game nights! Thank you guys! After returning home we officially quit our jobs, said goodbyes to the cabin that had become a home for us. It had provided us such fun times with friends and family. Countless BBQ parties, late nights spent with good friends, reading all day in the hammock, fresh baked croissants from the local bakery, long walks in nature, hookah & Netflix, watching the stars while roasting marshmallows, waking up to deer behind our windows and sipping morning coffee on the sunny patio. We came to miss those times a lot even if it included carrying a lot of water from the well or Arno's mom's house, mouse proofing the whole place and digging the car out of the show many times. But after leaving that behind we started to create our new life in Tampere (which started with our full packed car braking on the highway while moving and us driving with a broken car 70km/h on the highway - it wasn't funny then but it sure is now). Tho I had to run off to Sweden for a job gig with my second family. There was this big Finland 100 years celebration in Stockholm where we got to jump on the same stage with some big stars like Isac Elliot, Rajaton, Tom of Finland, Alma etc. It was such a big festival that even the president and fist lady of Finland and the king and queen of Sweden where there. But mostly I loved the hanging out in sunny Stockholm with some of my favorite people. Thank you again! After some long nights we made it back and the next day was my first day of school. So in a little coma I dragged myself down to meet up with the wonderful class that I get to study with. The same evening we also got two new family members in our family - our 11 year old rescue cats James "Jaime" and Cersei.
September was very confusing with Arno's school schedule changing and my school starting. I loved it! All the parties, getting to know the wonderful people and finding my thing, medicine! But also very stressful. We had Tursajaiset, Bubirundi, Tolumpialaiset and later on in October Hämeenkadun appro, paramedic's pre-Christmas party etc... The whole class had a bonding weekend at this lake with hot tubs and saunas. We also had two beautiful couples who got each others and wonderful wedding parties (Congrats Anna&Riina and Linda&Olli) So the Autumn was busy.
In October we celebrated our birthdays with a spa weekend, held house warming parties and nice get togethers. I had tons of exams and then finally some vacation, ugh. I really love the era and my studying but I needed that. In November Arno started in the Pilot school. I had Innoevent and as unmotivated I was, our group was great, we played well together and ended up winning with our plan. The night gala was so much fun and we were all so hyped about the victory! We later on also celebrated thanksgiving with family!
In December the tight school schedule started loosening and after the exams and practice lessons were over, we started our Winter holiday the first week of December. We headed straight to Finland 100 years celebration with families and it was so so much fun! I did some gigs and spent some valuable time with my second fam, saw friends, partied and then did some charity stuff before we headed off to Lapland with Arno to snowboard for a couple of days. I have never been that North in my life and it was my first time really seeing Lapland (I've heard Kemi doesn't count) after I fave written two books about it, haha. We saw the Northern light and had so so much fun on the slopes, eating well and enjoying our evenings by the fireplace. On the way home we visited Sweden and one of the biggest candy store in the world. After coming home we unpacked and re-packed and headed to the airport. Me, Arno and my family flew off to Dubai to adventure the Arab Emirates for a few days over Christmas. We visited Abu Dhabi, spend a day in water park, another in Ferrari world, went up to the world's highest Burj Khalifa, shopped, swam and enjoyed the warmth of the dessert. And we ended the 2017 as we started it - under the fireworks.
As you can see, it has been a rich year with a lot of ups and downs, time spent with family, on the road with out a destination and life changing constantly. I have grown every day, learned a lot more than I expected, from myself, other people, world (and microbiology). The struggles have made me and my boyfriend closer and stronger but otherwise I've had so much fun and laughed more than ever! And all of the unexpected turns have brought more wonderful people and amazing memories that I will treasure all my life. I am thankful for everyone who has been a part of it. I can say I have lived with my whole heart. And hell of a journey it has been!
Now this year will be different for certain because we will be in school for most of the time and don't really have any specific plans. But neither did we really for 2017, everything kind of just happened extempore, kept rolling and we went along. And it ended up being the best year of my life (like every year has)! So I have faith that the next one wont let me down either. Some cool things we have in sight but more about those later. Other than that I am excited to see where life takes me next! Happy New Year 2018 everyone!
Hugs,
Linnea
Linnea
