I love London. I don't like Finland (where I am from). Mainly because I feel that I don't fit in. A lot of people say they want to find their roots or they want to go back to their roots, see I don't get that. Since I was twelve I knew I would leave. It's not that I don't love my house, my family and my friends but for me Finland seemed like a cage, a place where dreams came to die.
Now I visit home approximately four times a year. I still don't like it there and I feel like my life in London has been just a dream but I've learned to love it from a distance. I have realized that I love my country when I am not there. I love being Finnish when I am not in Finland and I try my hardest to never move back there. Not that it's not a good place to live. To be honest it is probably the best place to live in the world but it's not for me. So that's the introduction to what I am going to tell you. I want to tell you why for the first time I wanted to be in Finland (- not physically but to be on the same page with some people).
See, our landlords were a bit of a pricks the other week. We have an upstairs room that leads to a rooftop balcony but we had no access to it because we did not have stairs for four months since we moved in (now we got a temporary ladder). We have been asking and asking for them but didn't get any answers. After all this waiting we had enough and decided we shouldn't be paying full rent when we cannot use upstairs room or balcony. Our offer was to pay £150 less for the duration that we did not have access to upstairs but our landlords 'kindly' informed us that if we are not happy we can move out. In Finland the tenants have rights and if there is a space they cannot use because of the landlord they don't have to pay for it. You pay for what you have access to. We rented this apartment wanting that upstairs room and balcony but we didn't have it so why should we pay the full price. Makes no sense. This is what bugs me. Here landlords are the kings and tenants have to do what ever they say. Our landlords in our previous apartment where even more out of order and couldn't keep to the contracts themselves. It's all this trying to trick people mentality that I don't like and I guess in those moments I miss Finland. Here I am on my own and the laws that I am used to suddenly don't apply. It's like a different jungle.
The difficulty of living in another country than your family is that they cannot help you or give you advise in this kind of situations because they do not know the laws in here. That has been the toughest thing living abroad. I have been here for nearly two years now as a student and I have a lot to learn. I never fight against the culture I am in because I decided to come here and if I don't like it I should leave because it is not my country but sometimes I wish that I could change some bits around to make it more sensible and more fair to everybody.
People keep telling me that I need to toughen up because 'this is real world, it's not Finland anymore' and I do admit they are not wrong. I just accept that what is right is the law. It's not. See, we Finnish people are quite honest and straight forward (obviously this is a generalization) and I expect that elsewhere as well. I know it's naive but I don't want to go everywhere doubting every single thing I am told. Like with the landlords, they were so nice when we moved in and that's where it stopped and now they try to get money out of every single thing. I am still not willing to turn against humanity but sometimes a harmless looking plant can be poisonous - or at least taste bad.
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