The Busking Queen

Yup, I'm so poor, I have turned to street performing. I took my clunky turquoise typewriter out, sat on the street and wrote poems and stories for people for money. It's actually loads of fun.

Read about my busking experience on my XIHA Life blog.

One woman took a photo of me busking and then printed
out the photo for me. She also gave me 10 euros for one poem!

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Passion Pit – The Reeling

Settle down now: Helsinki

I am finally settling down. I have spent the past two nights in my new apartment, which is only a five-minute walk away from the fake apartment I was duped into believing was a good choice. (See my previous blog post if you don’t know what I’m talking about there.)


I am starting to think it was kind of fate that I didn’t get the other apartment, because this one is really ideal. It’s tiny, but lovely. Here is what I love about it:

Read the rest of my blog post on my XIHA Life blog here.

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Sparklehorse – It's a Wonderful Life

Welcomed to Finland with a scam!

A Finnish friend of mine moved to New York in January. A few months later, he told me about his old roommate who refused to return the deposit from his previous apartment. I gave him my best advice and told him that this was a huge difference between the U.S. and Finland, in my mind. People in Finland are more honest and wouldn’t try to cheat another person out of a measly $800. “That doesn’t happen in Finland!” I recall saying.

Yap, well it does. And it happened to me, but under other circumstances. I never got to live in my apartment, and I still didn’t get my deposit back. I just moved from New York to Helsinki, arriving in Finland on Sunday, May 31st. I don’t have a job yet, but I had arranged for an apartment in Töölö and it seemed perfect: it was 36 m2 for one person with electricity, water and Internet included in the price.

Read the rest of my blog post on my XIHA Life blog here.

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Dear Nora – Girl From The North Country

Let's play catch-up!

I have been MIA over the past few weeks. Trouble is, I went to Peru for a week (for my birthday!), then when I got back to New York, I had to pack up all of my stuff and move it around the city. Now about seven or eight different people are storing my stuff over the summer while I am gone.

Where am I? LIVING IN HELSINKI, FINLAND!

The next few posts are going to be me playing catch-up, hence the sudden boost in posts. Enjoy!

Em