September was great!

September was definitely the best month of the year! While I still had a couple of exams at the beginning of the month and I got my grades back (which weren't what I had hoped to be) the month still turned out to be really awesome!

The major reason why this month is unforgettable, is the fact that for the very first time I went on a real holiday with my boyfriend (read: nothing concerning music and longer than a weekend). After almost ten years of wanting to go there, I finally went to Finland. We rented a studio in Helsinki for seven days. I can safely say that this was, together with two other occasions, the best time of my life. I always had a thing for Scandinavia, especially Finland and I thought I would love it after reading about it a lot and seeing pictures.




Love is just a very mild word to express my feelings for Finland right now. Helsinki is an amazing city and I really feel at home there. Fins are shy, humble introverts which are three words that you could use to describe me as well, I suppose. My BF fell in love with the country/city as well and the topic of moving to Finland in the future has come up several times already. I know I probably should try to see more of the country, perhaps try to stay there for an extended period and go there in winter seeing that winter can be very tough and depressing before taking a 'rash' decision. We'll have to save up and learn at least some basic Finnish anyway. What I miss the most is the sea, nature, the clean air and the lack of traffic and hurried people.

 I'm not going to bore you with a long report about my holiday, instead I'm going to pick out a couple of highlights:
- Seurasaari: this a beautiful island with an open air museum featuring old buildings. The nature is amazing, the squirrels are everything but shy (they come to sniffle at your shoes if you stand still and are quiet) and you have amazing places to sit at the sea-side and look at Helsinki.
- Academic bookshop: Since I'm a bookworm, I'm always in search of bookshops. This bookshop, designed by Alvar Aalto, is very beautiful and has a great collection of English books, both Ficton and Non-fiction. I loved it.
- Evening walks: the evening walks around the city and seeing the sunset! Very simple but breathtaking.




Beside an amazing holiday, September has also expanded my book-collection with 29 books. A couple I bought in Finland and the others I bought yesterday in Hasselt at the Boekenfestijn. This is an event that travels through The Netherlands and Flanders were you can buy very cheap books. If you pay €5 for a fiction book, it's a lot. I think I have about 65-70 unread books on my shelves now. Time to start reading!

And finally, University has started again. This term I have about 13 and a half hour of classes that I will attend. I have to retake a couple of courses which means they are easily to skip so I do not have to go to class. Generally I will be in class for about 7 to 9 and a half hour a week, it depends a bit if I feel like going to the evening course. I have two 'full' days (read: classes are spread over the whole day) and one day of tow hours and a four day weekend, hooray! Downside: second term is probably going to be incredible busy.

Tomorrow my first 'full' week will start. I'm excited! I love going to school and learning things!

Finland

As long as I can remember I've wanted to visit the country. I've never been interested in 'warm' countries with exception of Egypt and that is solely for the pyramids and the culture. Nor have I ever had the ambition to travel the whole world and see as much as I possibly can. Most countries I want to visit attract me for their nature, not their climate or because there is much cultural things to do and see.

source: google

I've always been interested in the mysterious 'north' but unfortunately I've never been to it The most north I've ever been is Deventer in the Netherlands. Normally I would have gone to Norway in September but well that has been postponed until I don't know when. I think the northern lights must be one of the most amazing phenomena of nature. And I think the midnight sun must be incredible odd, in a way. There is barely such a thing as 'night' in the summer, while in winter days are very short. Finland attracts me, of the Scandinavian countries the most because of the music and the thousand lakes.

source: google

Most of my favourite artists hail from this country of a thousand lakes. The Finns have so many really good bands (some of them known around the whole globe). I know that their school system (the best in the world) supports making music, but that can't be the only thing that causes to many bands to create such fantastic music? Surely there must be something inspiring about the country?
I'd love to go on vacation to Finland and it doesn't matter in which season. I know it can be incredible cold in the winter, but as long as I don't freeze to dead when I'm inside, I don't mind it. In the summer it can be as warm as here! Maybe if I will be able to go on Eramus (studying abroad for a term) I should go to Finland or another Scandinavian country, though the U.K also lures me for it's interesting to improve my English.

source: google

I love Belgium, it's a nice country (not perfect, but which country is perfect?) but what I miss the most her is nature. If I go for a walk in the nearby park/forest I can always hear the sound of 'civilisation' and encounter other people regularly. Yes I could go to the Ardenne (whatever it's called in English) but I'm afraid of heights and I'm not a fan of climbing hills all day long. So that's one of the reason I don't go for a walk very often, although I love it. Maybe I'll be able to go to Finland on vacation in 2014... though i need to save up money for a lot of things already... hmm. I'll see what life throws at me, I am not much of a planner. I'll just wait and see what tomorrow brings!

Mysteria

Yesterday the new video clip of The Rasmus' latest single was released on the internet. I had heard the song before and I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. Now I have to admit that I like it. It's really weird since it's absolutely not my kind of music. If I think about it I like everything The Rasmus makes. In some way I find that very annoying, because I don't believe that there is such a thing as perfect, but it seems that The Rasmus is, for me, perfect (as a band). Ever since I heard In The Shadows for the first time Iv' been a huge fan of them and they have changed so much and I still like them as much, maybe even more. I don't think there is another band of which I like everything they do. I always wait for the moment that The Rasmus is going to disappoint me, but it never seems to happen, for which I'm glad. They always manage to surprise me and I hope they keep doing.  I can't wait to seem them again! It's been almost 5 months since I saw them in Germany, but it feels so much longer.

What do you think of the new song and clip?

Cologne: The Rasmus

I had an awesome two days in Köln/Cologne/Keulen or however you want to call it. On the first day we saw some rain, but it wasn't too bad and the second day we had a lot of sun and nice temperatures!

I planned to buy nothing, except a hoodie at the concert, but that intent failed when I enter a bookshop. They had loads of Simon's cat stuff and of course I couldn't leave without buying some of it!

The main reason we went to Cologne was the gig of The Rasmus, which was amazing. The act before The Rasmus was In Me, a very cool band with very nice members. My BF bought a shit of them with a lion octopus tigerish thing on it. Very nice art! I wanted to buy a hoodie of The Rasmus, but they didn't have them, so I ended up buying a way too expensive shit and a bag.

I absolutely loved the concert. They played a lot of my favourite songs and the set list was a nice mix of old and new songs. At the acoustic set the asked their fans what they wanted to hear, and I yelled really loud Days, and they played it! I really enjoyed it, but I still don't understand why Lauri's is wearing rubber boots (YELLOW!!!) on stages!

Days (not filmed by me)

The Rasmus is back!

Perhaps a bit of old news, but my favorite band is back! They started their tour the day before yesterday and I am going to see them in 9 days in Köln. They have a very small tour, exclude a lot of countries like Belgium and the Netherlands. Normally the play more gigs in the U.K but this time it's only one in London. 

I think that he new album is awesome. very different from the last three, but still very Rasmus. I can't wait 'til 18 May! When I'm back, I'll blog about the concert of course!