The packers-and-movers will be here on Friday, and we’re moving to the hotel on Thursday. So basically all we need for survival in Finland needs to be packed in the luggage, as well as stuff we’re contemplating to take to Bali. Just the thought of packing again feels slightly dreadful, although I do know that this is just another leg on our long trip.

It’s not all bad. The ‘hotel’ we’re moving to is Oakwood, where Heikki stayed before moving in to RT Nagar. They have a swimming pool and a gym, and the best restaurants are in the same building. (sushi, anyone? pasta, pizza…?) They also have a net connection, which is always a plus. (geek? who, me?) We have a bit less than a week there, and then it’s back to the winter wonderland of slush and darkness. Here’s hoping Finland gets more snow soon, so it won’t be so damned bleak.

And then we get to live in other people’s houses once again. Hopefully not for too long, and hopefully not in the same place for the whole time, but chances are we won’t be setting up our own home there – chances are that we’re gone before that.

So what to do meanwhile? Thus far I’ve sewn myself two shirts and read an innumerable amount of pages on the ‘net. I’m planning to stitch up a pair of pants while I’m at it. I’ve also played on the Xbox, drunk countless cups of coffee and chai and learnt some yoga. Three sessions to go before take-off. I also managed to get a crick in my neck so that my head wouldn’t turn to the right during the weekend. Luckily it’s heaps better already. I expect to do some serious swimming now that I have the chance and read some more, on and off the net.

… and try not to stress about things I can’t affect. Just chill.

Tags: accommodation, hotels, moving, planning, practical stuff, travel

There is a new countdown timer on the sidebar. Right now it says we’re two weeks and two days from Oulu, after which we can shake India off our feet for good. Never say never, but the odds aren’t good for our return.

I also realised I have only 11 working days left after today. Oh, joy.

Tags: moving, time, work

They usually say that no news is good news, but right now I’d like to have some. Almost anything would do, but one thing is hanging above everything else: I would very much like to have a schedule and know the terms for our move.

What I know right now is not much: we will have our honeymoon in Maldives, come back to Bangalore, repatriate to Oulu and then get going to Bali for our IDC (SCUBA instructor) internships. I will have some severance pay from the Corporation, but we still need to gather some more cash for the whole trip to be feasible. If we are going to stay in Finland for more than a few weeks, we also need a place to stay, and that will complicate things even further. Our furniture won’t reach Finland before end of this year, and getting an apartment for one or two months would anyway be far from practical.

It would be easy to fill the gap by selling some of the furniture we have, but by the time we’re supposed to head southeast, our cargo will be evading pirates somewhere in the Somalian seas. We could of course sell them in advance, but the last expat to leave Bangalore had a nasty surprise in the box when they opened it – the whole crate was sprayed with bug spray that destroyed every single piece of cargo and they had to discard it all. Claiming the insurance money after something like that would be the quick and dirty way to liquidate our assets, with significantly better prices and all, but still…

A lot of questions are still open and a lot of loose ends need to be caught, but I think we’re on top of it again. Most likely I forgot to mention hundreds of things, but if something bugs you, please leave a comment.

Tags: holiday, money, moving, planning, practical stuff, time, travel

I finally got the call.

We’re travelling back to Finland next month.

Next destination: the sea.

Tags: it's good to be me, moving, planning, surprises, time, what?

Today I took a day off from the office, went almost out of town (55 minutes by car) to pay some custom fees and did a million small things to make this place more me. My furniture from Finland arrived today and I’ve been busy arranging things and setting up the equipment. I’m already writing this on my desktop PC, but there’s still work to do with my home cinema and Xbox setup. More on those tomorrow.

As I didn’t send my office chair here from Finland, I had to get a new one:

One of the buttons has come off already, but I don’t think I want to go through the trouble of hauling the chair back to the shop for that. See, I’m getting more Indian every day?

For the guests I got something in the upstairs:

And of course there has to be a bar with such setup:

The glasses are still missing, but that only gives me one more chance to post a pic of this awesome piece of handicraft. I just think it kicks ass.

And finally it feels like I live here!

Tags: accommodation, it's good to be me, luxuries, moving, my pimped-up interior design, photos, shopping

I just got the last Abu out of the house after a full day of cleaning, packing, installation of aircons and organising schedules of ten or so people. The gentlemen from the removal company came to pack up and take away all the stuff that didn’t belong to the House (or me), and at the same time a couple of guys came to install air conditioning to the two remaining bedrooms. On top of that I received the first lot of my rental furniture, but more on those in a moment.

At first I have to say how positively surprised I was with the guys who worked here with us today. They arrived on time, listened to our instructions and did their job with astonishing quality. They even suggested calling a real electrician to check out the wirings before connecting any of the equipment, which was something really unexpected. Of course that’s the safe way of doing things, but I never expected to see that in here. Still, two thumbs up and mad props to the guys for these:

The official ladder is actually next to the guy on the right, just against the wall.

Would you climb up there on a ledge less than half a meter wide?

I also got quite a bunch of furniture today, so let there be more photographs:

Some nice paintings in there…

…some missing bottles in here…

…and a missing queen witch here. If this one doesn’t tell who’s the fairest of them all, it can’t be done.

This one is placed in the master bedroom right now, but I’ll have to see if there’s more use for it in some other place. Who knows, maybe I’ll run out of storage space (not).

And there’s more to come, but  not yet – first I need a good night’s sleep on my new king-size bed.

Tags: moving, my pimped-up interior design, people in india, photos, time, ways of working

Remember when I had my stuff packed in April for shipment to India? The ones to be transported by sea?

Well, it seems like they’re already in India. I was informed that the ship arrived at Chennai last Saturday and they are being moved to a train today. If I’m lucky, I’ll get to pay the customs on Thursday and may see the actual stuff before end of this week. I did all the paperwork today with some help from the removal company, meaning that their agent tells me where to sign and fills up the forms for me afterwards. All I had to involve in was listing the values of my goods for the customs declaration.

And boy, did I get a firm reminder of where I am.

The agent was quite close to passing out when he heard how much my video projector had cost, so he made some adjustments to the figures before writing them down. It seems now that my home theater – including the projector, amp, speakers and Xbox  with its controllers and all – is now worth 300 euros in total. Add in the other dutiable stuff and the shipment is valued at around 700 euros for duty purposes.

Right.

Tags: money, moving, people in india, practical stuff, prices, time, ways of working, what is different

My flee from Red Carpet was quick enough to prevent me from taking photos before leaving, but I took two that should tell it all:

Toothbrush mug

Yes, that’s the mug you’re supposed to put your toothbrush in.

And this is the key to the closest equivalent of a safe in the room.

So I’m writing this in a new place called The Residences, almost next door from RC. The place is bigger, cleaner, more stylish and with water mixers in the bathroom – a treat you don’t get here that often. The photos should tell the rest:

And it gets even better: there’s a buffet breakfast, meaning that I don’t have to decide what to eat before waking up and walking to the outdoor restaurant on the roof. I’ll get back to the breakfast if it’s exceptional in any way, but right now I’m quite convinced it will be good.

The exchange booth in the airport had apparently run out of 1000 rupee notes, so I should be listening to Abba instead of Edguy here:
…in a rich man’s world…

Oh, and by the way: the chicken haystack salad in Hard Rock Cafe was excellent <3

Tags: accommodation, food, money, moving, photos, the red carpet, The Residences

I have really been on the fast lane since Monday. During office hours I have been running after visas, flight tickets, tax counselling and so on, while the rest of the days I’ve been packing like crazy. Somehow I’ve managed to stuff an ocean liner worth of furniture, stuff & things into my 76 square meter apartment and it takes forever to get everything out. Now it finally seems that yes, it’s going to happen.

I also wrote a couple of rental agreements today and it seems that I will have some extra income during my visit in India. Still I would need some extra for my apartment loan payments in Finland, and it sounds like transferring money from India to EU can be a bit tricky. I hope to find a feasible solution when I get there.

Apart from being really tired, homeless and dirty, all is well for me. Tomorrow is practically the last day of work in Finland for me. I have the coming week off from work and I’ll spend it by having an utterly biblically fabulous Wappu once I’m still here. Hopefully I can keep my feet unbroken this year

Tags: accommodation, celebration, holiday, moving, practical stuff, wappu