My moving to Finland and having first struggles

 

November 2022

I was really looking forward to moving to Finland. My heart was drawn there, and I knew it was meant to be. And so, without many hesitations, I left my job where I was almost six years, my beloved apartment and my life in Prague. As indecisive as I can be, I was absolutely rock solid on this one and didn't have to think about anything. I knew I couldn't do otherwise. I didn't really want to say goodbye to my friends and family, because I knew they would still be a big part of my life.

I had to smile at the reaction of the chatty taxi driver who took me to the airport in Prague and asked me how I ended up in Finland. When I replied that I was there first for study reasons, he wondered what is studied in Finland that we don't have in the Czech republic. Typical. Czechs are very patriotic, and they take personally when someone goes elsewhere for studying/working and so on. It is almost evaluated as betraying. I like the Czech republic very much; I think that Prague is one of the most beautiful cities in the world and still, I decided to search for happiness in Finland. Sometimes life brings it like that. Gradually I learned that the only acceptable excuse for my departure is love, because my Finn is the only one.

Upon arrival, I was experiencing feelings of euphoria. My beloved and I are finally together after almost two years of long-distance relationship. I took it for granted that I would immediately feel at home in Finland. After all, it wasn't my first time here, two internships and ongoing visits. Every time I was here, I felt a sense of calm and ease that comes not only from nature, but also from the Finnish people and their lifestyle. I moved in the spring and had big plans to finish my dissertation during the summer, learn to speak fluent Finnish, then take my final exams in the the Czech republic in the fall, and then find my dream job, which would be the icing on the cake of my perfect new life.

Haha....

After a month, I found out that it wasn´t that simple. The initial enthusiasm was replaced by anxiety. I was confused by the bureaucracy that needed to be dealt with. I had to apply for registration so that I could be given a Finnish number and I could get a foreigner's ID card. I had to fill out a lot of documents, and not all the instructions were easy for me to understand. It didn't help that I had previously worked in the municipal, which could help me to orient in these things better. Everything was different here. Another thing was the language barrier. I didn't make any progress with Finnish, on the contrary, I was forgetting what I had learned in the beginners' course I took in Prague. It was clear to me that I had to learn Finnish because even though more or less everyone here spoke English, I was surrounded by Finnish and felt isolated. I often didn't know what is happening around me, what is the conversation about. In a small group it was fine, because we were speaking English, but in larger gatherings I didn't feel comfortable at all.

Even the completion of the study did not go according to plan. The first version of my dissertation was finished by the deadline I had set for myself, i.e. by the end of the summer. However, the further process was dragging on incredibly long. I found myself at a spot, not knowing whether to look for a job or prepare for the final examinations. So, I at least started taking an intensive Finnish course in the autumn and was looking for job offers. This sobered me up from my idea of immediately shining at work, because there weren't many offers in the field of ecology where English was all I needed. Or rather, only positions at universities for which I wasn't even qualified yet, because they required a PhD. After browsing through the job offers, I was gradually accepting the fact that I would have to take temporarily job as for example an assistant in a hotel or a help in a restaurant where my English would be sufficient. I was expecting to get better professionally and so far, it looked like I was taking a giant step backwards. But I was thinking that I just had to look around a bit longer, learn how things are and I would find my way, it just wouldn't be right away.

As for my settling in, I've found that feeling at home in a new environment, even though I was exactly where I was supposed to be, doesn't come by itself. Suddenly I felt like I had lost my safe nest in my former apartment in Prague, and I didn´t get used to the new one yet. I thought that the feeling of home would come by time, but the truth is that I had to help it. It was very important for me to surround myself with little things that were close to me and that I knew. It was worth to send a few boxes of personal items through the post, even though the real value of those items was less than what the postage cost. Except for one highly valued object, which was an antique lamp from my grandparents, and I'm grateful it arrived in one piece. Anyway, when I put the glittery mushroom and painted mug on the windowsill, hung my pictures, lit a candle in the familiar candle holder, home breathed on me. I bought the Monstera plant I'd always wanted. We painted the apartment, one wall in the living room a beautiful silvery light grey and the other room a light khaki. I chose new curtains which gave the living room a fresh stylish look. Gradually I washed the cases on the couch, cleaned the windows, rearranged some of the cupboards and the kitchen, moved a few pieces of furniture around and it finally started to feel like home. This all we women need to settle in. Men take the new environment as it is and just add what is missing, but they don't willingly go for more radical changes. I am joking with Petri that his peace was interrupted with my arrival. In the end, he was glad for the changes as well. I've heard somewhere that two motives drive our decisions as humans: to avoid pain and to get pleasure. I've found that when it comes to home innovation, option number one prevails for men because they just don't want to go through all the doings around it, while we women are driven by option number two. The vision of a cosy home is more powerful than the short-term discomfort and sweat of painting.

I think the initial swing of feelings after moving to a foreign country is perfectly normal. Mostly because it brings with it changes on all levels. Normally, for an individual, any change is stressful. That's why we stay in a job where we are not happy, afraid to leave a toxic relationship, to jump into something new and unexplored. Living in a foreign country brings a whirlwind of change all at once and it can be quite mentally challenging.  Change of environment, people, work, culture and I don't know what else. Some things need time to settle. I knew I had the most important thing figured out, and that was being with the right person. Plus, in Finland, where I feel content, surrounded by beautiful nature. I believed that everything else would fall into its place too. I just had to wait for it.