The Life and Travels of Mrs Suvi

Randomly browsing blogs, I came upon a 20 questions post. I thought it was a fun idea and decided to translate the questions into English and try it for myself. Feel free to join in!

Your most memorable fancy dress costume?

Call me boring but I have to admit that I’m not into fancy dress at all. I have mostly managed to avoid parties where this has been a requirement. If I’ve had to dress up, it has been as something unimaginative like a witch or a cat. However, once my coworkers and I organized a 20s party and that was really fun. I just adore the 20s style, how about you? I had a gorgeous flapper inspired beaded dress and even put effort into making a 20s hairstyle!

Which social media platform do you use the most?

I’d say Instagram. These days my favourite part of IG are the stories, I often don’t even scroll through the feed anymore. Truthfully, all in all, I feel quite bored with social media. I mainly use Facebook to catch up with the news. If you count WhatsApp as a social media platform, then that is definitely my favourite as I use it all the time to keep in touch with friends and family.

Favourite season

Summer for sure. I love, love, love summer. Warm weather, hanging out in shorts, ice cream, happy people, gardening, endless summer nights, visiting islands on our sailing boat… Unfortunately summer in Finland is very short and it is often rainy and cold. You could say Finnish summer is bittersweet. Not exactly a close runner up but my second favourite season is Fall because of the crisp air, sweater weather and colorful leaves that brighten up the landscape. Finland is real pretty in October!

If you had to choose the beach or mountains, which would it be?

Definitely the beach even though I’m not one to lounge around on beaches for hours on end. But the fact that a beach is by the water weighs most. I am greatly fond of the sea and lakes.

What can you play very well?

Nothing really. As a child, I used to play the piano but I wasn’t any good. I also played tennis and even though I was better at that than the piano, you can’t find a success story there. I like to play board games and I get very competitive.

What kind of cheese do you like?

Cheese ❤ Halloumi, sirene, feta, brie, goat’s cheese, gouda, mozzarella, manchego….yum! However, cottage cheese is a bit too bland and Roquefort is way too strong. In Finland we have a blue cheese called Aura and I love to put that on top of gingerbread cookies.

Life goal

This is a really difficult question. I would just like to get through life with mostly happy moments. I hope I have managed to raise my kids to have happy lives as well.

How many cities have you lived in?

In Finland I’ve lived in Turku, Kaunianen and Espoo. In Malaysia I’ve only lived in Kuala Lumpur but we moved around a lot – we lived in at least four different neighbourhoods: Damansara, Bangsar, Ampang and Bukit Bintang.

What language do you wish you could speak?

There’s so many! I wish I spoke Spanish, French and Malay. I just know the basics of French (which means I can ask for directions and order food) and a few words of Spanish and Malay.

What can’t you stand?

There’s many things I can’t stand, I have quite a few pet peeves. For example, people who don’t treat others with respect. People who talk down to others or discriminate them in any way. On a lighter note, one thing that gets me going are people at airport security who cannot prepare themselves for the security check. When they slowly start sorting out liquids at the counter, only then taking off their coats and scarves, unpacking computers – it really gets my blood boiling. Please prepare and get on with it quickly! 🙂

If you have an hour to kill on your hands, what would you do?

There’s so many things I would be inclined to do. For example, I could write my blog, read a book or perhaps knit a sock. Or if it is summer, I might go out to the garden to weed the flower beds. I might catch up with friends via WhatsApp or watch a show on Netflix. There’s just too many things to pick one. I most definitely would not start cleaning, as I hate that above all!

Your favourite routine?

Breakfast. It’s also my favourite meal of the day. I love making my son eggs for breakfast on weekends. During the week, my coworkers and I often gather together to have breakfast. Our canteen offers porridge at 1 euro/plate which is a bargain. It’s also a great opportunity to catch up with everyone, as we all do very different things for work and might not cross paths till lunchtime.

When do you become hyperactive?

I am a person with alternating highs and lows – like in a big way. I can easily get worked up about things and become hyper, especially if the thing at hand is something I’m passionate about.

Text message or phone call?

I really don’t enjoy talking on the phone. I only talk on the phone with my mom, daughter, FIL and my friend Jo. Otherwise it’s text messages. Well, not text messages per se – rather WhatsApp messages. I love sending and receiving those.

Your most precious treasure.

I’m not sure what this is getting at. My kids most definitely but maybe I’m supposed to say something materialistic? I can’t really think of anything materialistic that would be so precious to me that I would cry if I lost it in a fire. Except our house.

Your latest foreign language mistake.

Haha, I just took part in a work interview via video where I had to answer a question in Swedish. I am absolutely certain that my answer was FULL of mistakes because I sure as h*** can’t speak Swedish. I wrote what I wanted to say in Swedish and my Swedish speaking friend corrected the language. So my original text was most likely a huge blog of a mistake in itself. And when I spoke on the video, I had to appear natural so I couldn’t read from my notes.  As you can imagine I made zillions of mistakes because I couldn’t check how the sentences went. Needless to say, they did not ask me to join the second round of the recruiting process. No surprise there!

What’s the best therapy for you?

Going for a walk with a friend. There is a forest nearby with walking paths which is quite wonderful to clear your mind. I tried Yin Yoga the other day and I think that did a world of wonders as I was feeling quite anxious before I attended the class. Now I feel very zen. Maybe I should take it up as a regular thing?

If you could be a fictional character, who would you be?

I’d be Katniss Everdeen. 🙂 Who could be cooler than her? Oh, and in case you’re wondering, I’m Team Gale all the way.

Where would you like to travel?

Omg it’s not fair to ask this question!! I have soooo many places I would like to travel that I won’t be able to visit them in this lifetime. If I had all the money in the world, I would go to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore first thing. Then, maybe tour Vietnam and make a short stop in Bangkok. Moscow has been on my list for ages as has München. I always love to revisit Tallinn, London and Berlin. A friend and I have been thinking of going to Lisbon for years now but always something comes up. I’d like to go to Rome with my son. I definitely want to go back to Johannesburg and Nairobi. Sri Lanka would be super interesting! Omg, the list just goes on and on…

Where did you meet your spouse?

We met at a party when I was 15 and he was 16. Which makes us high school sweethearts. ❤

All these photos are from a trip my daughter and I made to Gdansk, Poland in spring 2019. On this day, we visited a nearby town called Sopot. There we found The Sopot Pier – the longest wooden pier in Europe (at 511 m). The first pier was built here in 1827. It’s a popular spot for tourists and locals alike. 

xx