Intro

This blog was born at 1pm on February 28th 2008, in an office in the centre of Brussels, to mixed parentage. On one side, I wanted something to do while i was eating my sandwich. On the other side, it reflects a desire to see things, express them as I see them, and take it with me along the wild ride of life. Back in my suburb on a rainy, miserable and windy evening, I'm ready to have my first conversation with the newborn.

At the moment, I'm in Belgium. I'm here for several reasons. Firstly, I grew up here and Brussels is as close as I have to a hometown. Secondly, I found an internship here which would act as a blade of grass to my desertified CV. Thirdly, I quite like the place. And now that I write, I think that's about it. It gets a lot of crap, this place, without really deserving it, and simultaneously while deserving all of it. It's seen as boring, pointless city in an equally boring and pointless country where gangs of guys in suits tell everyone else in Europe what to do. having spent 8 years here since I moved over, I know it quite well and, even if the roads are falling apart, the system is infuriatingly dysfunctional whenever you need it and totally inflexible when it works, and it rains all the time, there are some decent things to do. My bank account informs me that I have 3€ left so i might not be able to have the sort of entertainment that the gangs of guys in suits might be able to enjoy but this is one of the few cities I've been to in Europe where i can walk around aimlessly and actually enjoy it. That's not to say I want to stay here. 8 years anywhere is far more than enough. 8 years of battling with Belgian bureaucracy is also far more than enough. More on that another day.

Fortunately for me then, in 4 and a half weeks, I'm moving out, to Finland. Helsinki's a place I know a little, given that I lived there for 2½ years before I came back here for a bit last October. Although it's a pretty unattractive and boring place, there are several reasons I want to go back there too. Firstly, in the right conditions, it's not a bad place to be. This means either at the beginning of the winter, when you haven't become bored of the snow, or at the beginning of the summer, before you've realised that it's not going to get above 20C this year. Again. Secondly, Finland in general is a very attractive place which I could happily bum around in for quite a while. I'd imagine that if you don't like lakes, trees or mosquitos then you'd probably like it quite a bit less, given that there's not much else, but I happen to like two of those three things. Thirdly, you don't get taxed out of your eyes and nose, it's possible to live cheaply and the pay is pretty decent, which is all completely the opposite of here. I've got a job probably waiting for me as soon as I arrive, which is lucky because they're tough to find if you don't speak Finnish or Swedish. Once you get onto the system though, saving up to do something big is quite easy there. And I'm saving up to do something big. Fourthly, and surely the biggest reason, is that M is there.

I'm going to miss the mitraillettes, the waffles, the chocolate, and drinking beer that can actually be tasted but it'll be worth the move and I'm looking forward to it. And that's all. I'll be spending the next 24 hours trying to poke around and find my identity in cyberspace, identity that I've been looking to avoid outside the screen. And I'm also sure that no one will have read this.