Funky water.

I've now been in Reykjavík approximately 24 hours. Yesterday was very tiring, but I rambled about my traveling worries in another (school related) blog already, so I don't feel like doing it again. But long story short I was feeling sad and crappy during the whole traveling time, but when I saw the first snowy mountains of Iceland, I started feeling better. Today I went for a stroll around town and didn't even get lost once! I had a map with me, but I didn't need to look at it, the city is pretty straightforward.

Here are windows of the Concert Hall, located in the bay area. They looked pretty funny. I also really like the yellow fire hydrants that are all around town. I'd like to take a photo of them all, along with all the cats! I never knew it, but Reykjavík really seems like the city of cats. Today alone I've seen almost 20. One poor fella didn't have a tail. 8(

If I'm going to walk at least twice a week as much as I walked today, my legs are going to become very buff!! All the hills and slopes, climbing and going those down feels like real training. Probably because it is, really athletic looking people kept running them up and down while I was only walking.

And since the header what "funky water" I guess I should mention that this morning I took my first shower here and experienced the sulfur filled warm water. The smell was... Well, I kept thinking about bad eggs. But the cold water on the other hand tastes amazing, I could drink it non-stop.. Actually, I think I'll go get a glass right now!

Black suitcase is a problem.

I borrowed a suitcase from my mom. I don't own a proper one myself and her suitcase is really nice, big yet handy.

The only problem with this case is that it's so black and boring. Well, the problem isn't exactly the boringness, just that it's very generic and might easily get mixed up with other black suitcases. I'm very paranoid and almost certain my suitcase is going to lose somewhere along the way, and it's scary because my drawing supplies will be there. Screw clothes, if I lose my watercolors, I'm going to flip an airplane!
Anyway, I decided to brighten up the suitcase a bit, and started designing some flower stickers which I could attach to it.

They were supposed to be just very simple, plain flowers with flat color, but I got really carried away. But I just love to color with Promarkers. Once I had cut out all the flowers I tried to stick them to the suitcase with contact paper, but they weren't nearly sticky enough! Then I found some transparent tape and with that I was able to attach the smallest flowers, but they look really ugly, I didn't even want to take a photo of them! And now that I look at the suitcase again, it looks like even the tape is peeling off. So I guess I won't be able to use these flowers after all. Of course I could use something sturdier (like super glue!), but since it's still my mom's suitcase, I don't want to ruin it completely with my experiments. We'll see if I can come up with some other option to make the suitcase easier to recognize.

Worries and Expectations.

My departure is drawing near, only couple of silly weeks and I'm on my wayyy!

I haven't completely understood yet that I'm actually going. Until the end of February I was so busy with my degree work that I had no time to think about the whole thing. Now that I have time, my mind isn't working properly since I have a fever, heh heh. But I've booked my flights and I basically know what to do on 25th, the day of awesomeness.

Everyone keeps asking me if I'm nervous. And most of the time I'm not, but I do get anxious at times, mainly at night. I'm afraid I'll miss my fiancé so much that it gets unbearable. 8 weeks isn't a long time in general, but it's going to be the longest time we've been apart. So I truly hope he's able to get some time off and come visit me!
There was a time in my life when I enjoyed being by myself. I was used to it and I didn't feel the need to be around others. But now that I spend all my time with another person, I'm afraid I can't manage on my own. I fear that my head can't stand the loneliness. So no, the trip itself doesn't make me nervous, but the psychological side does. But I try not to think about it too much. I am so sick an tired of people being negative and pessimistic about everything, I don't want to be like that.

My trip will be perfect.
Nothing will go wrong.
I'm going to have the time of my life.
But if something goes wrong.. I'll just fix it.

Although I did have one major problem: Plushies. I love them, and I wanted to take at least one with me. But my plushies are quite big and I want to pack up my suitcase wisely. Thankfully my darling sister (whose blog can be found here ) seems to be a telepath since she gave me this gorgeous guy as a traveling company! She made him herself! <3

And so, I lamely name this guy Gult (Icelandic, means "yellow"), and he shall be my royal companion.
He has already packed his suitcase, but I have no idea what's inside. We'll see once we unpack in Iceland!
And if I can't make any new friends, this guy might be the only one appearing in future photos...

Okay, another thing that's been on my mind is the weather in Iceland. I think it's pretty much the same as in Finland during this time of the year: unpredictable. One day is sunny and pretty like this:

Aaand the next day God just seems to hate you:

And you know, since it's Iceland, let's just imagine there's a huge mountain in the background and the trees on the other hand aren't there. That's pretty much what I'm expecting. Maybe a tiny bit of lava somewhere.


Really though, I don't mind the weather in Finland, I actually like the cold. Even though it gave me the fever I'm currently suffering from, the drastic weather changes are kind of awesome. and if Iceland is at least somewhat similar, I think I'm going to feel right at home.

How everything started.

When my teacher started talking about student exchanges at school, I immediately thought I wouldn't be allowed to go. I've already been to Estonia from the same school once, so I thought they'd like to give the opportunity to someone else. Luckily my school is full of people who apparently aren't interested in traveling AT ALL, so I had an opening and I used it! My teacher was in Iceland last year for couple of weeks, and he really liked the country. After his stories I decided I want to go there too, and he was really supportive of my decision. Time passed and I was really psyched up about Iceland, when all of a sudden I was told that I might not be able to go there after all. Iceland is actually a very popular exchange country it seems, and my teacher said there's already so many people from other schools going there that there might not be room for me. I was a bit confused since I had made up my mind several months ago, why hadn´t he contacted the coordinators in Iceland about my exchange? I was sad for a while, but then my teacher came up with a back-up plan: I'd go to Munich instead!

I wasn't very excited at first, but the idea grew on me, plus I already had friends there. The coordinator in Munich was so hard working, he kept looking for possible internship places for me and he even found a perfect apartment for me right from the center of the city. But jobs seemed to be under rocks. He kept asking around, I kept asking around and no one seemed to want free labor in their offices. When nothing came up, my teacher started proposing other countries for me. There were several countries/cities on the list and my head was spinning with all the possibilities: Estonia (again), Wales, Ireland, Bilbao, Slovakia, France, Paderborn...
Things were messed up, I was afraid to get excited about any of the places since I thought I wouldn't be able to go in the end anyway and I'd be disappointed. But apparently Munich was still the main target. Around the beginning of February we still hadn't made a decision. I was really starting to lose hope and get depressed since I'm the kind of person who likes to take her time and plan thing, I wanted to start booking flights and I also needed to make school assignments regarding my exchange country, but I just had no idea what was going to happen. Then, out of nowhere, my teachers brought up Iceland again.
"Maybe I should ask from Iceland too", he said.

Um, okay? I had assumed that he had asked already and they said no, but apparently the whole affair was an assumption, nothing had been confirmed. So what do you know, inquiry e-mail was sent and within two days the coordinators replied that they'd love to have me there!

So the lesson of the story is: DON'T ASSUME. CONFIRM.

I still feel a bit bad that I won't be going to Munich though. Because the coordinator there worked so hard. I hope he realises how much I appreciate his work.