Morocco

Amazing trip. These are the words that come to mind looking back over our trip to Morocco. Great country, great weather and most importantly great company of 7 wonderful people (I include myself, cuz hey, self-love Y'all).

We started off in Agadir (thanks Wizzair for launching direct flights from Vilnius!) where after 10 Moroccan minutes (translation-1.5 hours) we finally got our rental cars and were off to our Airbnb. Once there, we received a friendly welcome and were accompanied to experience some Morrocan cuisine in the local restaurant. Naturally, we ordered a tagine and some other local dishes to try accompanied with a well-deserved glass of wine, ordering which proved to be more simple than expected.

The next day we decided to head to the beach to see the ocean. The bravest co-travelers even succeeded to go for a swim. Mind you it was morning and not too warm outside, but this didn't stop us from enjoying the water and sunshine. After the swim, and a short stop at the supermarket we continued our journey with a visit to Paradise Valley - a lovely valley in the mountains with a short hiking trail and mountain pools.

Before reaching our destination, we stopped to marvel at the mountain landscape that was unveiling itself and ended up meeting a lovely man who makes honey and other goods. We took a short rest with some local tea - Morrocan whiskey, as it is commonly referred to as. A friend even bought some cactus and Argan honey!

The valley itself was lovely to walk through. My ever-growing need to go hiking in the mountains was satisfied by the short walk. When we came to the end, my fellow traveling friends proved that they are truly fearless when it comes to cold water. The icy pools were no match for them. Some even took a leap of faith jumping off the cliffs.

Marrakech was our next destination where we decided to spend the whole following day to see the city and take a rest from continuous driving. After a shaky start with not being able to go to the Laurent gardens and being slightly scammed by some locals that had us follow them to places that are 'must visits' 'open once in 15 days' and so on we were finally back on track by midday. Our spirits were raised by the local market where we bought some much-needed souvenirs and a lovely dinner on a terrace overlooking an old town square.

5 am the next day we set out to the desert, where we were to spend new years. It was a full day drive, but we wanted to see some more so managed to choose some pretty cool spots to visit on the way. These included Atlas movie studios, a road with many castles and Gorges du Dades with incredible views of the mountainous region. A long drive followed our visits, but it wasn't without its very own adventures. Firstly, we had separated from part of our group and without phone signal could not get in touch until we were back on the highway. Secondly,  there seemed to be police checks every 20km or so and not seeing one of them almost had us pay a fine. Luckily, half of us are students and our car was pretty crappy and beaten up so the police let us off with a warning. All turned out well in the end and we managed to get reunited with our friends at the desert hotel.

The next morning we were sitting on camels and making our way to the middle of the desert where we would spend new years night. This proved to be a great experience. The camel ride, sandboarding off the tallest dunes and relaxing in the sun were felt to have been much needed after nonstop active time in the days prior.

We greeted the new year (or I should say 3 new years since we celebrated the Lithuanian, Spanish and Moroccan one every hour from 10pm) around the fire with songs and games with a few Spanish people who had come to the desert with us. We were also accompanied by our guide who would not leave us be even when he was not particularly wanted. I guess tourists can get up to no good when unwatched in the desert and his presence wasn't overly distracting anyway. However, he was pretty darn dedicated as he even walked up the dune with us at 2am, when we were waiting for the stars (sadly it was cloudy and we could not see them well...) and tried to help pull us down the hill when we expected to slide down on a mattress.

The next few days were mostly spent on the road by car and then train to Tangier. However, we did have a quick look at the Hasan mosque in Casablanca and walk by the ocean before the train ride.

After a quick stop in Tangier for the last night where we met some lovely travelers and played cards against humanity, we were off to the airport. Our journey to Vienna was about to begin. Yes, yes, nonstop travel yet again.

Lapland

This winter I spent a wonderful week skiing in Lapland. You're probably asking - "There are mountains in Finland?". Yes. Yes, there are. Very few, but a lot have been turned into mini getaway resorts with alpine and cross-country skiing, reindeer and husky parks and of course multiple opportunities to go for a sauna.

The first couple of days were spent alpine skiing which I hadn't done in quite a few years so it was so great to finally get a chance to (damn you Lithuania for being so flat...). As soon as I went up the hill I couldn't help but spend the next 10 minutes just looking around at the beauty of Lapland in winter. The sun was starting to set (as it does for most of the "day") and despite freezing my fingers off, I was able to take a few photos of the scenery.

It was interesting to witness arctic circle winter. The best way to sum it up is: 10am sunrise, dim light for a few hours and bam, sunset. It's dark by 3pm and feels like the day went by incredibly fast. Luckily the ski tracks were very well lit, so well in fact that it was practically brighter than in the day time. Houses are also very well lit indoors, all to help you survive the darkness which I'm sure can easily bring you down.

But hot cocoa can cheer you right up!

One mission we wanted to achieve was to witness the elusive Aurora borealis- the northern lights. This proved to be much more challenging than I had thought. On days it was strong, the sky was cloudy and on clear days the aurora was weak. This led us to believe that there could be a correlation there... Sneaky Aurora... On our last day, we finally had a chance. However, it wasn't too strong so even though we saw it, it didn't provide that Wow effect we were craving so much. Next time it is then.

We couldn't go to Lapland and not visit Santa. Conveniently, we needed to pick p a friend in Rovaniemi, where the Santa park is. We met Santa (two of them actually), walked around the village and got our fill of Christmas spirit. It was interesting to find out that they were heavily marketing themselves in Japan and so many Japanese people were coming to Lapland specifically for visiting this place. It was nice to see the park, but to be honest I felt like there was so much unused potential. The different pavilions weren't really working with each other, there were too many shops (the interior design shops were cool, but in Santa town, really?) and the service packs were set in stone so you often didn't have a chance to try out some services individually.

Smile! You're on Santa camera!

Santas ride then and now

The third day we gave cross-country a try, going around the hill we had spent the previous days going down. Finally, we finished our trip with a day of snowboarding. Since my brother had decided to switch out skis for a board from the first day, he was able to give us a few lessons on how to you know, not kill ourselves on the bunny slope. He proved to be a great teacher as by the end of the day we were able to all go down the red slope together (the beginner way, but still. Win :) ). 

And so the long way home began. We had driven up all the way from Vilnius and decided to go back without making any stops on our way back (that's a 20-hour ride for ya). This was because we were set on coming home in time for Christmas eve dinner. We made it back at 6am and after waking up and taking a few hours to prepare we were all ready to start the celebration :)

Thoughts: being too quick to lay all your cards on the table

I've been noticing more recently (in others and myself) this need in a conversation to bring up all the cool stuff about yourself in the least amount of time to quickly show people you've just met how interesting you are. It may be a consequence of travelling or being outgoing, basically being in situations where you're meeting a lot of new people, but don't have much time for long conversations and have to capture their attention fast. Like a tweet or Instagram hashtag, you sum up up a bit of info in the most "You" way you can. So you condense and share some of your intense life events or experiences to show people, a sort of trailer for your life and try to make a great first impression getting the person hooked on your story. Our society moves at super speed these days and interactions have followed suit.

However, sometimes when you condense a major event like it's no big deal trying to show that this kind of thing happens all the time to you, that's exactly what you turn the event into - something that is no big deal. You reduce its meaning to something superficial by not giving it the attention you could, and it becomes shallow. What may have been an intense and meaningful experience is stripped of its depth by the way you speak about it.  Instead of unavailing the passion you feel for it and inspiring the person you're talking with to share experiences that have awakened those feelings within them they might feel they have to 'up the ante' and search their experience bags for a memory that sounds as 'cool' as the one you shared, not necessarily of the same personal value. Conversely, it might be harder for the other person to share something because an event or experience will not resonate with them as a feeling might and they don't have that dimension to grasp on to when sharing their experience. What's more, you end up hiding the essence of the experience, the thing that gives it life and that can sometimes feel like you're untrue to yourself like you're giving something up while shielding away its light. This might happen when you are pressed for time and want to identify people with whom you would like to have a deeper conversation. However, by not attaching feelings to your stories you stop at merely telling each other how 'cool' you are, at best getting some external validation and not connecting on a personal level or forming a bond with whoever you are talking to.

Using this method you can meet and get noticed by interesting people, but you won't necessarily form a connection with them. And it's the understanding and connection that we crave. What's the point of having a thousand friends on Facebook, but not feeling like you can write to most of them as time goes on.

Another thing that can sometimes come to mind as the cause of this sort of empty sharing parade is that you are trying to prove to the person you're talking to that you are 'worth' their time. If you feel like you need to do that, then you've put this person on a pedestal and have created a morphed power dynamic in your mind where you're on the lower end. This isn't great as it doesn't benefit anyone. The best conversations and interactions come when both people respect each other, give each other space to share and are confident in themselves enough not to be bothered about what the other person will think of them in the end as long as what they think of themselves at the end of the conversation is good. You most likely don't ever need to talk to those people after this interaction ever again, but you're stuck with you, honey. If you need to jump through hoops to get noticed, that interaction is just going to leave you drained and if so, why do it?

There is nothing wrong with sharing your stories with others, but it's important to make sure you are happy with the way it's going, and you're creating an experience in itself. What kind of experience would you like that to be?

Some might say that not laying all their cards on the table can make them feel untrue to themselves. Is it not more untrue to oneself to not give the space and proper amount of time to reveal them? When the time is right, it can be done in a way that is both organic and authentic.

Remember, the world isn't ending, you have time to share your experiences giving them the full amount of time they deserve. Also, isn't it great to uncover parts of people you didn't know existed until you've known them for a while? Peeling back those layers slowly and the suspense that comes with that can be incredibly exciting. If the person you are talking to enjoys your company, they will stick around for you to reveal more about yourself and your friendship will grow more organically than if you just push all you have on them at once and expect them not to be overwhelmed by it all. After all, you've had your whole life to do the things you've done, feel passionate about and experience them, people can't process that same amount of information in the few minutes you spend talking to them.

Helsinki

A couple of weeks ago I ventured to Helsinki to visit one of my closest friends who had just started a Masters program there. I picked a great time to visit. The trees were making it clear autumn was in full swing, but it was still warm enough to spend most of the day walking around the city without freezing our tails off.

After a long overnight bus ride and a ferry from Tallinn, I reached my friends' house where I was greeted by a couple of attention-hungry cats. I then proceeded to nap while I waited for her to come home feeling slightly like goldilocks having just walked into someone's house and choosing a place to rest.

When my friend came home we made our way to the city to check out the many recommendations given to me by Nea - a Helsinki Local I found through Showaround - this cool website anyone can sign up to be a local guide and show around their city. I recommend checking out the site before your next trip, quite cool to meet locals and experience the city through their eyes. Since Nea is also interested in design she had some cool suggestions of interesting design shops and galleries to visit as well as cafes, bars and museums.

We were quite lucky as both museums we visited - Helsinki museum and Helsinki Art Museum (HAM) were free admission. Therefore, I happily spent the money I saved on postcards - sending which has become a travel tradition of mine. If you haven't ever received a postcard from me, it's not that I don't care, I probably just don't know your address so please tell me what it is and I might just send one your way on my next trip ;) .

One recommendation for food that we decided to test out was this sushi burrito chain Soma. I was a bit sceptical at first, but oh man were they good! Pretty much giant sushi so what's not to love :D Full and happy we decided to check out this bar with one of the best names I'd ever heard- "Why join the navy when you can be a pirate". Why indeed :) There also just happened to be live music so double win!

The next morning I woke and up and actually did yoga which I have been doing almost every day for over 3 months now. We had decided to go to the university campus for some cheap student cafeteria food (2.60 compared to 10eur we'd spend in town, Helsinki is frickin' expensive man...). Before going there we visited HAM which had an exhibition of paintings by the artist of Moomin and where I bought another postcard... it was a Moomin one so had to be done... maybe I should decide on a limit for postcards before the next trip though :D

Spent the trip playing "Spot the Moomin"

After checking out the campus and eating some free pizza after a talk given by a visitor about augmented technology and implants we made our way home with a quick stop at the grocery store where we bought ingredients to make Pisco sours - a cocktail M. learned to make in S. America. We managed to make a nice one after the third attempt and I gotta say, they're pretty good, might order one next time it's on the menu. We then proceeded to groom one of the cats... as you do... because his fur was so tangled it had formed dreadlocks catching all sorts of things in it and so desperately needed a makeover. He got annoyed after a while but we all know he loved the attention. After I left he began to demand more cuddles and since we cleaned him up a bit I'm sure people were more willing to give him some :)

We spent the next day walking around the city some more and just happened upon an anti-racism protest in the centre which naturally we joined in on for a bit. It was organised following an incident where a man was beaten up in a train station the past week, Was great to see so many people coming together. After this small detour, we continued to visit more sites including a small cafe with a lovely view of the sea where we snuggled up in blankets and got free refills of tea (score!).

Later that evening we checked out a "Music and food tasting event" one of the cute covered markets they have and waited to hear back from others of any suggestions and invite for going out. We decided on a party and made our way there. The night was pretty fun due to the nonsense we got up to. We also ended up walking halfway home getting in at 7:20am... well our plan to take a day trip the next  (turned out to be the same) day pretty much went out the window.

Instead of the day trip, we decided to check out Helsinki sea pools- basically, a complex including a section of the sea sectioned off as a pool, a couple of heated outdoor pools and a sauna right in the centre of the city. This was perfect for a lazy day and so the obvious choice.

I left Helsinki by plane the next day - had to come back in time for my first lectures the next day. All in all, this was an amazing trip made that way by the great company I spent those few days with and the wonderfulness of the city itself. I do recommend visiting ;)