Kahvila musings

I'm in Wanha Maunulan Kahvila, sipping on Europe's most consumed and most awful coffee and nibbling on a very very sweet omena something pastry.

The end date of the flat is negotiated. I'll book a ticket out in a few days. I'm asking friends for a sofa to sleep on in the days before I leave. It's feeling very final.

It's a weird feeling. KM once said to me that I can make any place my home. That's a point but it's missing the point. Success in Finland symbolises something. No one I've met, who came for either love or Nokia, have ever been desserted in so quick a time after arriving. And I stayed. And I kind of made it. Or at least made it such that I wanted to come back, without love or Nokia. It's a big point score for independent women. I look at everything from the friends I made, to the furniture I own and feel every effort I made to survive here. Sure I cheated, I never got a Kela kortti, I rarely work for a Finnish company and I never went to language school. But a girl can only do so much.

So leaving feels a little bit like a failure (though it's the UK tax man that killed me more than anything) and the end of an era.

There's a part of my heart that will stay here no matter what...