It’s the last day of 2014 and I’m trying to mentally prepare myself for one of 2015’s first adventures: spending January in Bucharest.

For those of you who don’t know, I was born in Bucharest and lived there for my first 5+ years, before my family moved to Canada.

I’ve been visiting 1-2 times a year since moving to Finland (and some summers when I still lived in Canada).

Slowly but surely, I’m learning my way around the city of my birth. But I haven’t spent this long in Romania since we moved away.

Here’s a quick list of things I’m trying to wrap my head around and mentally prepare myself for:

• living with my grandpa for 3+ weeks (also the reason I’m going)
• finding places to work where I can focus and am not bathed in cigarette smoke
• 3+ weeks of immersion in my native language (this I’m super excited about!)
• the food
• managing to live an active lifestyle, walking enough and/or moving around enough
• meeting up with people and not feeling isolated
• the best way to get a better understanding of the Romanian culture, beyond what I already understand
• and a whole laundry list of things I need to accomplish, as well as whatever may come up unexpectedly along the way.

So this is where my focus and energy will be (geographically) this upcoming moth and you can expect to hear more on the subject in the coming weeks.

If I’m honest, I’m also seeing Romania as a brief refuge from life in Finland.

I often get myself wound up and I spin around in circles so being able to reflect on the everyday gives me great comfort and joy too.

Off we go – upward and onward, into 2015!

xo,