See how beautiful Helsinki can be?

I wish I had the time, the energy and the friends to just go and sit in the Esplanadepark and talk, but I’ve got tons of shit to do, I’m supertired and my friends are all working, living in Porvoo or otherwise just too damn far away. Or already hanging out with boy- and girlfriends.

I’ve been thinking today.

Since Emil and I’m going interrailing, we thought we could freelance some for Hufvudstadsbladet. So I talked to one of my bosses today, and she liked the idea. She asked me if we could write about how to travel cheap, what to do for free and where to live on a budget, how it feels to be constantly vagabonding with a huge backpack. How it feels to be constantly vagabonding with a huge backpack.

Now my backpack is a 17 litre Fjällräven Kånken, which you can extend with 9 litres. And it’s always full. And I’m always on the run, visiting a minimum of 2 cities every day. On a daily basis, I spend at least two hours in buses, another hour or two in trains, metros and trams and then I walk approximately 3-4-5 km, plus driving to the places in Porvoo where I go by moped.

I carry stuff for approximately a week with me every day, and everywhere I go. I usually sleep at home, but I arrive by midnight and then I’m out the door at 7.15. This is a lot of fun, when everything goes as it should. But when I forget to tell my family exactly how late I’ll be home, and they’re all up and yelling when I stumble in at midnight (of course, it’s my fault, but these situations are just frustrating for everyone), or when someone at work is having a bad day. Add a little stress (or as usual, a lot), plus a non-working computer programme, plus bad organization and suddenly everyone is getting more and more frustrated, trying to keep their voices down and staying calm, and then someone says something and the fire’s lose. Now I try to stay out of these things, but even when they’re going on 5 meters from you, the feeling catches on to you. Add an upset friend calling, a broken phone charger, an important e-mail I forgot to answer, red lights everywhere when running to the tram, missing a bus and having almost enough pocket money for lunch. See? Not that funny anymore.

But don’t worry, I carry on. It’s so totally worth it on other days, when none of that happen.