Then just a little look to the orinal of Black-Eyed Peas.

Funny or sad? Or both?

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

My home at Dluga Street

I have made an empiric observation: Updating a blog is impossible without Internet at home, and that’s the way I’ve been living the January. It’s quite exhausting to sit at Starbucks (what I’m doing right now), surf in the net or try to write something here. Too noisy and I rather just drink the coffee. That’s why it’s been pretty quiet here and it continues until I get an Internet connection. And I say it’s not an easy business to get one here.

I’ve been living in Krakow nearly a month now and I’ve also been four weeks at my new work. Hard to say which one I like more. Definitely both are making me really happy.

I haven’t taken everything out of Krakow, yet nor even will be taking in near future. This time I’m going to be here a bit longer, so why to rush. I’ve been enjoying of pretty boring stuff. Cooking and trying to buy groceries when everything is in Polish, reading and also little bit getting hooked on the Game of a Throne -series, sleeping properly 8 hours every night, going to cinema and enjoying the biggest apartment I’ve lived so far. I’ve also checked a jazz club (u Muniaca) and few restaurants – otherwise I wouldn’t be me, but mostly just hangingaround at home and relaxing.

I can already say for me Krakow looks and feels charming. Cultural, historic, lively and full of everything interesting. And it’s just waiting to be explored when I’m getting too bored at doing nothing special.

So everything is rock’n rolling here.

If I look back I would say that last autumn has been one of the greatest I’ve ever had. Decision to come to London was right. It meant that I had to reject a good job offer elsewhere and take a short term job in London and that I had to live in an expensive city with a little salary/allowance.

In the end the job I did in London wasn’t enough challenging for my expectations unfortunately, but no regrets or hard feelings. I met amazing people at my work, I got a view what it’s like work in London and the working hours gave me flexibility to explore the city. It was definitely worth choosing the option, where I could live in city I’ve ranked to top of my list of the world cities.

I fell in love with London in instance – no doubts! I also did a lot in the city. There’re only few days that I spent at home doing nothing special. I knew I have half a year in London and after that I have no idea where I would be and what would I do. That gave me the inspiration and motivation to do and see lot.

I had low rent costs (unbelievably only 250 quid per month), which gave me some flexibility to do other things as well. The rent is the most expensive thing in London. Well it depends of you situation in life, but in general. You can easily pay 500 quid and you still have to live somewhere in the edge of zone 2 or 3 and you have to share a flat. Own apartment is possible only for those with money. That’s a thing that we 25-30something Finns aren’t probably used to. But we learnt. We live as we have to. London is something else than Turku – in a million ways probably.

My things were fine tough I lived in a galaxy far far away. In Morden, which is the last stop of the Northern line. My journey to city centre took about 1 hour and I had from Morden 18 stops to work place. I probably can still remember every one of them. I lived in an English house with another lodger from Hungary and a wonderful and kind Indian lady as my landlord.

Living so far away from centre I had to plan a little what to do and when. Last tube to home went 00.30 and almost every time when I was later out I tried to catch it. The night bus would have meant 2 hours journey and three changes, so it wasn’t that tempting. It also wasn’t option to go quickly home after work and then come back to activities, so I had to go always straight from work. But it wasn’t bad and planning in general is my style.

Then what did I do London? The things I love. Restaurants, bars, pubs, teathers, museums, exhibitions, architecture, bookstores and food markets. I also did some travelling. I was fortunate that my friends also appreciated same kind of things and were adventurous to explore London.

We tried different kind and style of cuisines: Lebanese, Syrian, Thai, Korean, Vietnamese, Sri Lankan, Taiwanese, Burmese, Chinese, Caribbean, Greek, Italian, Nepalese, Indian, Pakistan, Spanish, French, Polish, Hungarian, Russian and restaurants from Michelin starred restaurants Arbutus, St John and Harwood Arms to Pub Food or Street Food stalls in Brick Lane. Brick Lane became my favourite place where I visited many Sundays. The food was often healthy – organic, simple ingredients, lot of vegetables and good quality meat.

We never went to really expensive places. Biggest bill for dining and drinks was 50 quid and that happened once (with my partner in crime Anniina of course). Otherwise the bills were between 4-25 quid. Eating out isn’t that expensive and much cheaper than in Finland, but it of course depends what you prefer and think it’s worth spending.

The other favourite thing I did was culture. I visited museums, galleries, and art exhibitions and went to see famous architecture. I actually went to see more than 30 museums or exhibitions altogether. That’s awful lot to be honest and something I wouldn’t do in normal autumn, but this was London autumn and culture is my passion. Not all of them were good, but most of them were and I  found some amazing museums and exhibitions. I went to see theatres and musicals e.g. Priscilla, We will rock you, Thriller, Yes Prime Minister, Wicked and Legally Blonde. The quality is in London something else.

I did some travelling too and made with my sister to a road trip in Scotland. I visited Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Glasgow, Edinburg, Perth, Isle of Skye and later made trips to Canterbury and Bath.

Then we spent some times in pubs and bars. Why wouldn’t we? That was fun, no doubt.

Things that I liked most in London were the multicultural spirit of the city. And London honestly  is multicultural. That was really refreshing for me, because the racism and True Finns related news from home weren’t that cheering. I also love big cities. I don’t mind the crowds and you can easily bled in. So far my favourites places have always been big cities.

London never sleeps. You will never get bored in London. There’s always something fresh and surprising. Endless amount of museums, galleries, teathers will guarantee there’s always something worth seeing. There are beautiful parks all around the city to have picnic or to go for a walk. London is historical, but is also modern. London is a world-class city and if you like those you will love London.

Altogether London was mind blowing, amazing and magical.

But I’m work-loving person. I had my time in London and now I need a challenging job. I have moved to Poland this week and I have started a new job in Krakow. Good, motivating, teaching job is my priority number one. In the end we spend at least 40 hours every week there, so it should be good. I have only few days behind at my new work, but everything looks promising. And Krakow. If I can’t be in London I wouldn’t imagine better place to be. This city seems to be a real pearl. But more about Krakow later. This was my farewell to London, for now.

”This is your life and its ending one minute at a time.”
Tyler Durden in Fight Club

Here’s some latest pics from last four weeks. I haven’t been bored and lazy all the time. Thanks to my darlings friends, who’ve been visiting here or who have been good company whenever we’ve met.

Borough Market with Suvi and LauraH

Here are my pretty friends enjoying Glûh Wein.

Holmes 2. Great movie and this is how Baker Street station salutes the film.

Exhib at ICA

Restaurant Meat Liquer. Burgers for 7 pounds and rock'n'roll.

My B'Day, dancing.

Park Life. @Hampstead Heath

The event was called Enchanted Woodland. The idea is simple. We had to follow a route that circulated through park. The exciting part was that the park was full of lights, green, purple, pink, orange, halogen, neon and even disco ball -style. I have yo say that the experince was something different.

St. Pancras

And it's made of legos, yes LEGOs.

Covent Garden

Trafalgar Square

Brunswick

Saatchi Gallery

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