Skip to main content

Finding Joy




The inside of the Sagrada Familia, reminiscent of a forest with sunlight peeking through


Part of the Sagrada Familia
I went to Barcelona this week on a holiday from what has already felt like a holiday ever since I finished my thesis. Since I had two months in Finland before I go back to the US, I thought that some traveling was in order to take advantage of being in Europe where you can hop from country to country without (sometimes) even having to show any form of identification. And so I decided to finally go to a place in Europe that I have wanted to visit for years: Barcelona. The week leading to the trip was a flurry of activity. I was looking up transportation, walking tours, the many sights in the city, possible day trips to take. At one point I had at least seven tabs open to pages related to Barcelona. All of the research made me excited for my three days to explore a little bit of Spain.

The first day was a flurry of activity. Having arrived late the previous night, I wanted to devote this day to getting a feel for the city in the day light. I ate an early breakfast at one of the cafes that were on virtually every street corner. By the time my scheduled visit to the Sagrada Familia had come about at 9 in the morning, I had already walked over 5000 steps as I wandered around the area close to it. Throughout the day, I wandered farther and farther from where I was staying to the other side of the city and then walked all the way back. I came to my temporary home feeling exhilarated by everything I had seen and managed to do on my own (I am not a fan of traveling alone and get nervous every time I go to a new place).

Streets in the historical part of Tarragona
The second day was my day trip. Trying to figure out how to find my train when I didn’t know Spanish (and continuously said yes and no in Finnish, much to my boyfriend’s amusement), and when the monitors telling where each incoming train was going weren’t working was a challenge that I fortunately got through without too much anxiety. Tarragona was a small and very European. There was a distinct old part of the town and new, with the old having narrow streets that led into small plazas filled with bars and restaurants meant for people more than cars, and the newer part with wide streets and plenty of car and pedestrian traffic alike. The draw of Tarragona was the Roman ruins scattered throughout the city dating from the 2nd century BC.
The Amfiteatre ruins from when Tarragona was a Roman city

But at the end of my day in Tarragona while I waited for my train, I realized that what I really wanted was to go back to Finland. I missed the forests everywhere and the quietness of the people and landscape. I missed the security of being with my boyfriend. It was at home where I felt peace within myself. While I could find happiness in Spain, I needed to return to Finland to find joy.

View of the water from Tarragona
Many of us travel to chase after happiness and adventure. It moves us out of the comfort zone of the familiarity of home and teaches us humility when we are put in positions where we are no longer the ones in control. I certainly felt both of these in Spain not knowing how to even order a coffee and in trying to figure out the metro to and from the airport. But in Spain I also realized that the excitement traveling provided did bring me contentment and joy. Those were to be found at home where there was perhaps less novelty but greater calm.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Dual Identities

A picture of my parents and cousin from Diwali. In my house we celebrate Diwali and have a small Christmas. I don't know many Finnish people, even after being here for five months. But I feel that I've done pretty well, considering I'm in an international program and can say I have four Finnish friends (one isn't quite a friend, but he has helped me out quite a bit) and I can say I have nascent Finnish language skills. I've grown comfortable here, though I still feel like a foreigner. One man who has been living in Finland for almost a decade came here from an African country for his masters. He married a Finn but cannot speak any Finnish himself. And yet, I have the sense that he still does not feel like he belongs here. In one of our classes, he told us how he still gets called racial slurs walking down the street. He commented offhandedly one day “I don’t know what I am.” I understand this feeling, to an extent. I have never been called a racial slur b...

Heart of the City

The past week in New York was jarring to say the least. Though the city still makes me overwhelmed by even the smallest of tasks (where do you go to buy a pack of cards??), I have begun to slowly get used to the constant movement of the city and everything that comes with it. The sound of airplanes flying constantly from La Guardia over my apartment doesn't register any more. I can estimate how crowded the train will be based on what time I am leaving my apartment in the morning or TC in the evening. And although the feeling of always needing to do more still raises the specter of anxiety to make everything I do feel inadequate, I've become resigned to its presence to the point that it is part and parcel of the city itself. Solitude is rare in the city, but last week it was the norm All of these things fell apart this week though, one by one, as another phantom seeped into our lives. Starting with an email from our college president that optimistically called off only no...

Finland's mark

Today in Finnish class I went up to a Nepali classmate and asked him if he knew a Nepali song that I have been obsessed with for the past two weeks. I told him that I was in love with the song but couldn’t understand a word so could he please translate it? In the middle of asking my question I realized he had no idea what I was talking about and that this was really awkward but it was too late to back out so I ploughed ahead anyway. The result was that I avoided him for the rest of class. But part of me didn’t care. Being in a new country gives you thick skin for awkward encounters. Being in a new country also shapes you and molds you into a different version of yourself. A friend of mine wisely said that “where you live leaves a mark on you.” I’m still only a couple months into my two year long stay here in Finland but it is leaving a mark already. On our way to Naantali, a town 18 km away from Turku. There are the little things. I drink coffee (well, half of it i...