A happy woman

Uh, I just made a call to our hotel in London, and everything's fine with our booking! This means we are actually going there, I'm so thrilled! Never been there before and I always wanted to go! Therefore I'm spending the day watching movies related to London; Notting Hill (which is actually going to be close by to our hotel area!!), Match Point, Closer and so on. I'm getting in the right mood and atmosphere!

Otherwise lately I've been thinking about the dating life here in Helsinki. One of my colleagues told me that she'd met somebody on the internet from another city here in Finland and that he was coming down to Helsinki in order to meet her. I must say that at first it striked my mind as strange, but later on I started thinking how cute it actually is. How nice it is that some people actually still consider dating something serious and they are ready to make an effort to find somebody special. I actually personally think that internet dating is one of the ways of dating where you get to know the person you're going out with. Of course a lot of people lie on the internet, but I think after a while they get caught doing that since they don't keep track of their lies anymore. I mean my friend knew a lot about this guy not ever having met him. Seldom we already have a mental profile of the people we date. I find it interesting to follow my friends' dating life since I find myself so far from that kind of life nowadays.

Last Friday me and my boyfriend celebrated our 9 month anniversary. My superb boyfriend had bought us some champagne glasses for our new wine cabin and we had some sparkling wine. It was perfect! I actually feel that this is the healthiest relationship I've been in, and I am genuilly happy. For this reason, my new favorite song for my Ipod Shuffle is Scandinavian Music Group's "Onnellinen Nainen", a happy woman. Here follows some parts of it that I like:

Mulla on vain yksi ilme
se ei ole surullinen

Olen onnellinen
olen onnellinen
olen onnellinen
onnellinen nainen

pitkään se vei
vihdoin voin sanoa hei hei
ilman että jään miettimään
niitä jotka taakseni jää

I've also been thinking about where the line goes when it comes to friends doing physical things with people you've had a history with. I mean, if you have spent the night with somebody in your history, are your friends allowed to do the same? I've always thought that the is an unwritten rule concerning friendships and that there is no need to say it out loud. But now I've noticed that you should never expect anything to be a matter of course. I mean in my situation, it's not the fact that I long for something I've had. I am completely satisfied with my life situation. I just don't like the idea that one of my friends would have something with somebody I've had something with. I mean, I don't like the feeling about knowing too much. Having had a history myself with that person, his glow has sort of been switched off and I hope for something "better" for my friends. After all, we all have our reasons not to pursuit somebody.

The working ethics in Helsinki have changed. Before you could be sure to get your pay check on time, that your colleagues would be on time and give the same kind of input as you on their job, that your rights would be honored at work etc. What I have come to notice is that this is a completely false assumption. I was chocked about the fact that like I mention before, nothing is self-evident. You have to fight for your rights, especially as a student working part time. We have pressure from our school's side to do well and graduate in time, but at the same time we have to work hard in order to have enough money to pay our monthly rents. Until now, I've been having two part time jobs on the side of studying. Fortunately this has now ended and I will from now have free weekends, something I haven't had since the end of June!!! Of course this also calls from some sense of being stingy during the rest of the year. Every euro is important when it comes to getting through the everyday life. After all, Helsinki does not belong to the cheaper European capitals. But after heard what my boss told me about the Norwegian prices, we have still nothing to complain. According to her, a McDonalds meal could cost 14 euros in Norway, double of what it is here. A cocktail costs 20 euros there, not even 10 euros here.

I went to the Picasso exhibition yesterday with my dear sister. We have the honor of hosting the Parigian permanent exhibition of Picasso's works until the beginning of January. We've placed it in beautiful surroundings in the Finnish National Gallery called Ateneum. The exhibition has been highly awaited and I actually bought the tickets for us in March for my sister's birthday.

Since the exhibition started the 18th, I didn't expect there to be a queue. And seeing as we already had the entrance tickets, I thought that we could basically just walk in. Way was I wrong. There was a queue of about 50-100 metres.

But I must say that the waiting was justified by the exhibition which in my opinion was one of the biggest ones we've arranged here in Helsinki. My favorite thing about the whole exhibition, was its wideness. There were not merely paintings but even sculptures, photos, graphics and drawings. Since Picasso was active during such a long of a period, he witnessed some of the main events in recent history, e.g. the world wars. This could be seen in his production and the exhibition was divided into different rooms with themes. I was really proud of Helsinki managing to arrange something so well. Walking around in the Ateneum, I actually had the feeling of being in a major European city. Well done Helsinki!

Although there are many positive aspects of Helsinki, I wouldn't be honest if I wouldn't tell about the negative. Going to work on Friday, I was chocked thanks to one of these. Me and my colleague were sitting on the tram at 10.50 a.m. when an about 35-year-old man pulled down his pants and started urinating all around the tram. He was apparently drunk or high, maybe both. Luckily after about five minutes, the driver let us know that we had to change the tram as the man was escorted away from the tram and the tram was to be washed. The situation was handled well even though it got me thinking about how lacking the alarm system is in the Helsinkian transportation means. I mean, we were almost only women on the tram when this happened. What were we supposed to do? There could also have been children or elderly on board. I think that especially on trams, trains and underground trains, alarm buttons should be installed.

I also got chocked about the neverchanging fact that we have these sort of people here. How can we be completely happy with our society as long as we have these unhappy and lost people?