I am positive about being positive.

Hello everyone!

Like most of you know, I was in Finland a week ago. I had amazing time, met all my favourite people, went to places I love and obviously went a lot to the sauna. When I arrived Finland it was absolutely weird to be there and to be honest, I was even scared. But routines came back quite fast and in days it felt like home again.

But well. I came back to Leeuwarden and for me it is really hard to admit, but I felt homesick. A lot. Since I've been teenager I've been traveling and been quite much away from home. Actually before this I only felt homesick few times when I moved to Tampere. But I've never felt this abroad, so it was a bit of a shock. Sure I love my time here and people are amazing but for some reason the homesickness hit me this time. Hard.

As a rational person I forced myself to believe it is gonna go away, everything is fine and I really can't do anything to this. I called my family and boyfriend and told the situation to them but still I kept feeling really bad and actually got even a bit sick (might be also our house which is probably covered with diseases, mice, mold and ghosts). And somehow I wanted to stay in my bad feeling. Somehow feeling grumpy and whining about it to my family felt normal thing to do. I wanted to stay in my negative bubble so I didn't have to face the fact I am here and I'm wasting my time by being a grumpy fuck.

But today, I woke up and got urge to go for a walk. Weather was absolutely gorgeous and thought that maybe tiny walk would cheer my up. And boy it did!

I walked and suddenly I started smiling. I found new places in Leeuwarden I've never seen. Seemed like everyone was smiling and greeting me. A nice girl in the shop was helping me and doing amazing customer service. I went to the park and had a conversation with a lady who had a dog exactly we had when I was a kid. I kicked a ball for a tiny boy who was playing football and his ball got away to my direction. A old man with clogs walked by and greeted cheerfully. For the first time since I got back from Finland I felt like this was home again.

And what was the secret ingredient for me to heal my homesickness? Attitude.

In life you can't decide everything and write everything ready for yourself like in films. But what you can do, is to relax and think positive. I know that sounds cliché as fuck, but it just happens to be true. And especially for us Finns that is one thing that seems to be extremely hard to understand. It is up to yourself how you see things. If you keep thinking this is shit, for sure it becomes shit. If you keep thinking you fail, for sure you will fail. If you think it's gonna be okay and you concentrate on the good things, suddenly it is not that bad at the end.

I know I'm often horribly negative person and I will stop it now. Sure we all have bad times and sometimes things really are going bad. But when there is at least a little light, go for it! I dare everyone to join in my challenge of finding the positive in things and trying not to spread that negativeness around so much. Stay positive people and please, think about those unicorns.

- Uppa

PS: I also saw shitloads of GOATS today. That if something cheered me up. Go goats!

Spring Break part. 2 - Belfast

Hello mates and happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

I promised to post video of our spring break's other part so here it is for the glory of St. Paddy's!

Me and guys headed to Belfast to see Dara and I absolutely felt for Ireland. I mean really. I'm no Finn anymore. People are the most amazing, country is absolutely beautiful and who wouldn't love to live with leprechauns?

We also traveled all the way up to North coast, saw foaming ocean, had amazing food with Guinness and Magners. Dara is probably the greatest tourist guide ever, I recommend her tour's if you ever happen to find yourselves from Belfast. Had also honor to meet her sweetest mom and be around when Dara's sister Hana made a surprise visit home! 

So with this video and my heart full of Ireland I want to wish Ireland happy St. Patrick's Day!

Hope you all like the video! :)

- Uppa

Spring break part. 1 - Cologne

Hola amigos!

Few weeks ago we had a spring break and it was AWESOME with my crazy pigs and piglets. We took our backs and headed to Cologne for a long weekend. Saw lots of places, enjoyed german beer and hanged around. After Cologne we took few days rest in Leeuwarden and traveled to Belfast!

More about that in upcoming video. What did you mates do during spring break? Comment and don't forget to subscribe in Youtube. Enjoy the video flufferballs! 

Music: www.bensound.com & www.purple-planet.com

- Uppa

Weird dutch things being weird.

Hallo!

After a long time I finally dragged my ass in front of the laptop and filmed something! YEII!
Unfortunately had problems with the audio of my gopro, so laptop needs to do it now.

So during my stay here I've noticed the weirdest things going around me and I wanna share few of them with you guys. These are just to mention few and for some people these must be the most normal things ever. But I find them weird as fuck. Enjoy the video and let me know what kind of odd things you've seen while traveling around the world!
And sorry mom for cursing. Sori.

Also if you want to see the videos immediately when those are published, remember to subscribe me in Youtube!

- Uppa

I look like Quasimodo

Hola Amigos!

I've been here for two amazing weeks and today I was suppose to make a fabulous video telling all  the cool and weird things about Leeuwarden. BUT I've been feeling bit sick for few days and today woke up with eye infection and no voice left so making video would be quite silent one. I also happen to look like Quasimodo from The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. And no, I'm not kidding, we seriously look like twins. Siblings at least. 

So because of my extremely swollen eye, voice like a ghost and fact that I'm pissed of as a squirrel when it's nuts are frozen during winter in Finland, I am not posting video today. I'm also really lazy and I have shitloads of school things I should be doing instead of this post. But I'm trying to get my act together and post a video next week. 

But so you would hear at least a bit whats going on I'll tell in nutshell:

- World is full of amazing people and I think at least 100 of the greatest happened to move to Leeuwarden for this semester.

- It IS possible to miss Finnish winter and -30c weather. It happens when you are driving a bike next to kanal and wind is trying to pull you in there because wind is a bitch.

- Stroopwafels = diabetes

- I'll never again wonder why exchange students are always hanging out just with the other exchange students.

- My semester is gonna be full of studying. Amazing courses and assignments, but I'll have to study more I've ever studied in Tampere.

- I'm pretty sure dutch people appreciate bicycles more than human life.

- I've saw one pair of wooden clogs. They aren't that common here.

Thats all for this time, I'll try to calm my eye and get better soon, so I could be posting more stupid things here! 

- Quasimodo