...I got a sunburn from Hell

So, when you happen to go to Hawaii and a native tells you to put on sunscreen – for the love of God: put on sunscreen! Had to learn that the hard way.

It was the summer of 2014 and I was leaving Japan. But before heading home I decided to go to Hawaii. Honestly, when Mary (my BFF from Hawaii) suggested I come visit her when the semester ends I didn’t think I would actually do it. It seemed like such a wild and crazy idea (not to mention expensive) but the more I thought about it, the more I started to like the idea. Yes, it was crazy, and yes, it would be expensive, but I was certain it would be worth it.

So I bought the tickets, cried for a while, tried to get used to the idea of being a broke ass ho and went on with my life. July ended, it was time to leave Japan and before I knew it I was in Hawaii. You know how Estonians have the idea that Hawaii is basically paradise on Earth? Yeah, that’s pretty much how it is. Its warm, there are flowers and palm trees everywhere, the sun is shining, birds are singing and everything is so beautiful it takes your breath away. I almost cried when I got there. Not only because I felt like I’d died and gone to heaven but also because for the first time in a year I could understand everything people around me were saying. I could read the signs and labels in stores, I could talk to people without having to worry about misunderstanding them, I could buy stuff without mistaking it for something else. Everything was in English and it was glorious!

The first few days I was like a kid in a candy store. Everything was new and exciting and wonderful and I couldn’t believe I was actually there. We went to the beach every day – apparently that’s what people do on Hawaii... like, for real... One of these days me and Mary were hanging out on the beach just sunbathing, drinking beer and I, being the ghostly pale Estonian that I am, decided that sunscreen is for the weak. Besides, „I need to get som colour on my legs“.

„You sure? Cause you could get really bad sunburn here,“ said Mary with a worried look.

„Oh trust me, I never burn. I could sit in the sun for hours and still be as white as snow. My legs don’t need no sunscreen!“ I assured her confidently.

„Okay, if you’re sure... but don’t say I didn’t warn you.“

Mary would later go on to say that she knew I was going to learn the hard way... and I did. I really should’ve listened to her when she told me that the sun in Hawaii is something else. It really was...

I didn’t feel anything after getting home from the beach. Sure, my skin had a slight pink hue but other than that I felt fine. So imagine my suprise when I woke up the next morning, got out from under the blanket and discovered that my legs had morphed into two overcooked lobsters. Oh joy! Not only were they bright red but they burned like the fires of Hell. I could feel the heat radiating from my legs even without touching them. Well, touching them was almost impossible because the skin was sensitive as all hell. This was no mere sunburn – I had blisters all over my thighs. That’s a second degree burn. And the worst part? I was wearing shorts while sunbathing so it looked like I was wearing bright red stockings.

The sunburn was hellish. I couldn’t sleep for two days, my legs hurt like hell – not only the skin but also the muscles – and I looked like I’d forgotten to take off my stockings when going to the beach. It lasted for a few days, then the blisters broke and the top layer of my skin came off, the pain subsided and I was kind of okay again. Sure, I had a stupid looking tan but I was sure it would disappear in a few months.

It didn’t. It has lasted for a whole goddamn year. Every time I go to the pool or to a sauna I can see people staring at my legs thinking „why the hell is that girl wearing stockings to the pool?!“. I have the most moronic tan ever and I haven’t been able to get rid of it. Well, thank god I’m not gonna spend a lot of time on the beach this summer! Oh wait... I’m going to Hawaii again? Damn... Well, at least now I know better... hopefully. 

...Fernando decided to go on an adventure

Imagine this: you’ve just spent the most wonderful year abroad, found new friends, experienced awesome things and now its time to leave. Imagine you have all your stuff – everything you managed to accumulate in the course of the year – in one huge suitcase. Imagine a looooong flight home: three layovers, one of them being 12 hours long and 30 hours of travelling altogether. And now imagine that you get to your home airport and your suitcase – you know, the one with a year’s worth of your stuff (including some sentimental mementos) in in – is gone. Just... gone...

That’s what happened to me after I left Japan. 30 hours of travelling, during which I managed to get about 4 hours of sleep, and the first thing I find out after landing is that my suitcase is missing. It was about 10 pm and I was tired, sleep deprived and feeling shitty in general. And there I was: standing in the airport, waiting for my suitcase (henceforth known as Fernando). I stood there looking like an idiot for almost an hour – by that time I’d lost all hope and there were no more bags coming from my flight. So I walked to the corner of the room, took a seat and cried. Yup, just broke down crying in an airport.

So after five minutes of breaking down and making everybody else in my immediate vicinity feel really uncomfortable, I finally contacted an airport employee and filed a missing suitcase report. Then I went home (which was a two hour drive away). It was a horrible end to a horrible flight.

A week passed... and then two... and there were no news of Fernando. I called the airport and they told me that since so much time had passed they were treating it as a ’special case’ (whatever that means). I also understood that the longer a suitcase is missing the less likely they are to find it. Just as with missing persons cases – the first 48 hours are the most important. I told them I saw Fernando before my last flight, next to the plane in Frankfurt (because I did). They said they’re looking into it. I started losing hope...

And then I went to Finland to visit my friends and have a sort of reunion party in a summer cottage. I was on the train when the call came – they had found Fernando and were delivering him to my apartment in a few days. A part of me was overjoyed! The other part said: ’Really? They find him now? As I am leaving the country again? Bastards!’ By that time I had almost given up all hope of finding him again. The days I spent in Finland and later in Tallinn managed to make me forget about him again so when I finally arrived in my apartment again I was a bit surprised to see Fernando standing by the window, looking a bit bruised and battered but intact. Alive. Or as alive as an inanimate object could be...

Our reunion was sweet though. I promised to never let him go again (a promise I would later break) and he promised... Well, he didn’t promise anything. Because he’s a suitcase. He can't speak... 

...I really should have read the label

I think only one other person knows about this story so I decided to share it with everybody. Because I apparently love it when other people laugh at me.

When I arrived in Japan in September, 2013, it was hot. It was already the 9th or 10th (I forget) but it was hot as hell. I didn’t even notice it in the beginning – most likely because I was too tired to notice anything – but on the second day the heat got unbearable. And of course I realized that I’d forgotten my deodorant. Great! At first I thought it wouldn’t be too bad. I just had to move as little as possible and shower a lot. I could do that, right? Wrong!

It was 2 am on (technically) my third day in Japan. I had already taken like... 4-5 showers that day but as it got dark and I was still sweating like a pig I decided that something should be done. I couldn’t even sleep because I smelled like sweat! I felt sticky, disgusting and just plain bad. I realized that if I didn’t do anything I would be up for the entire night. Oh sure, I could’ve taken another shower (and I was planning to do that) but that would just mean I would get sweaty again in an hour or so. No, that wouldn’t work at all.

Thankfully there was a convenience store not too far from the apartment building and since I was up anyway I decided to go there and get some deodorant. I got dressed, headed to the store and (after 10 minutes of looking around) found what I was looking for: spray deodorant. There were three small bottles and the only difference was the color on the spray can. One was blue, one was pink and the last one was green. I got the green one because I assumed it would smell kind of neutral. I didn’t even bother to smell them beforehand but headed to the cashier and made my purchase.

Getting back to my room I took a quick cool shower, dried myself, got dressed and got the little spray can of deodorant out of the shopping bag. As I was spraying it into my armpits a single thought floated into my conciousness.

’This... doesn’t feel right...’

So I stopped spraying, took a good long look at the can and read the lable.

ヘアスプレー

Hairspray...

Okay then... I had just sprayed hairspray into my armpits... Well... It wasn’t the dumbest thing I had ever done but it was up there. See, if I had bothered to read the lable this situation could’ve been avoided. If I had just taken one good look at the spray-can I would not have mistaken it for deodorant. But it was late and I was disoriented and it was hot as hell so my brain was fried. Still... Hairspray... in my armpits... I guess I should’ve been happy that it wasn’t insecticide.

Strangely enough the hairspray kind of worked. I didn’t sweat as profusely as before (or at least I didn’t smell like it anymore) and I slept like a baby afterward. Nobody ever questioned why there was an almost full can of hairspray in my room. Maybe nobody noticed... or if they did they thought it was only natural for a woman to have hairspray in her room – never mind the fact that I never used hairspray after that one time.

So the moral of the story is: always read the lable first before you buy something. Also, whenever you feel stupid just think ’It could always be worse - at least I’ve never sprayed hairspray into my armpits’ and I promise you won’t feel as dumb anymore. 

...I got home from Japan

Let’s start at the end. Doesn’t make much sense but making sense is for the weak.

Returning to Estonia after my year abroad was not easy. Sure, I missed a lot of things about Estonia. I missed my family, my friends, my apartment, the food... But leaving my friends, Japan and the life I built there was one of the hardest things I had to do. I always knew it wasn’t going to last forever but I never actually thought about leaving until the very end when it became too real. I guess a part of me just hoped that at some point time would stop and I would get to stay in Japan and party with my friends for an enternity. All good things must come to an end though and before I knew it I was back in Estonia and everything looked and felt like I’d never left.

The first month was bad... but not as bad as I anticipated. When I first got to Japan, knowing I would be there for almost a year, I expected to be nervous. Actually I thought I would have a panic attack. That never happened though. I just got to the apartment, unpacked my suitcase and fell asleep. The next day I already felt like I’d been there forever so there was no need to worry or panic.

Returning to Estonia, I was once again expecting to panic. I thought that leaving my friends and my life in Japan would cause me to fall apart – if not on the first day being back then surely in the first few weeks. That never happened either. Yes, I was sad, distraught and even claustrophobic (it comes with living in a small, small town) but everything considered... I was doing ok. Not great, mind you, but... ok... I wasn’t a miserable mess like I had been the first time I had to leave Japan (after only two months of doing volunteer work). Sure, I wasn’t jumping up and down out of joy but I was keeping my shit together.

That being said, I wasn’t really that happy to be back. I’d been away for a year but somehow it seemed like nothing had changed at all while I was gone. Everything was the same only... smaller? It’s hard to explain but I felt that, even though nothing had changed, I didn’t quite fit in anymore. It felt like wearing a pair of old jeans that don’t quite fit as well as they used to but you squeeze yourself into them anyway because its your favorite pair and you bought them when you were 15. Then you go out in them and realize that they you don’t look good in them, the color is faded and there’s a hole in the crotch that you didn’t notice before. Being back in Estonia felt like I was wearing crotchless jeans that also made me look fat. In short: I felt uncomfortable and wanted to get out as quickly as possible.

One problem with returning home after a year abroad is that not many people can relate to what you’re going through. Sure, people might act all sympathetic and say things like „I’m sure it was though leaving your friends behind“ or „It must be hard to get used to being back“ but they don’t know what it’s really like. They don’t understand. And that’s why it was hard for me to talk about it to anyone. I felt like neither my parents nor most of my friends would truly understand what I was going through and honestly, I feared I would annoy them with my stories about Japan. For the first few months I started almost every sentence with „When I was in Japan...“ and I’m pretty sure people were starting to get sick and tired of it.

Thankfully I had my sister who, after 4 years of living in Spain, was moving back to Estonia, at least temporarily. She was as excited to be back as I was  and we bonded over our mutual dislike of living in Estonia. Slowly but surely things started to get better. Life wasn’t as painfully dull as it had been in the beginning and even though I still plan on leaving Estonia as soon as possible I feel okay for the time being.

Wow, that sounded so patriotic just now. I swear I actually do love Estonia but I love it like a very old close friend. You know the one – you have so much history with them that whenever you’re apart you can’t wait to meet them again. But when you actually do meet you realize pretty soon that you don’t have that much in common anymore and after a few hours and a few uncomfortable silences you are more than ready to say goodbye and get on with your life. Because while you still love that friend, you love the memory of them more than the actual person. And you can only visit memories, not live in them.

That... wasn’t supposed to sound so deep. Anyway, by now I’ve spent waaaaay too much time with good old friend Estonia and the silence has gotten pretty awkward. After I finish school I’ll probably move on to greener pastures. Until that time, however, I shall kill time by writing memoirs about the good old days and trying to ignore Estonia who’s been staring at me with a disdainful look as if to say „You know it’s not polite to be on your computer while you’re visiting a friend.“

Random picture from Japan is random.

...I began writing a rather strange blog

By popular demand (or rather repeated demands by one person) here’s my blog – in English! Because writing in Estonian is too mainstream! Oh, wait... That doesn’t make much sense. Neither will this blog! Hah!

Now, I know I could have just continued my old blog and started writing it in English but honestly, that would have messed with the aesthetics of the whole thing and everybody knows I’m all about aesthetics. Not to mention it would confuse the hell out of my grandparents. So, here’s my new blog: uncensored (not that my grandparents don’t already know that I’m a raging alcoholic – they’ve seen the videos), completely in English (some Estonian might slip in from time to time) and lacking a narrative. It’s just going to be about the stupid things I’ve done, the stupid things I’m still doing and the stupid things I will most probably do in the future. Let’s face it: I have a habit of making horrible decisions with hilarious consequences. Hilarious for others, not for me.

So, a quick recap of my life for those who don’t know me. I was born and raised in a depressing smalltown in Estonia. I went to the university when I was... older (majoring in psychology) and at the age of 22 I went to Japan for the first time – a decision that has shaped my life thusfar. I had fun, came back, was miserable, entered a study abroad programme and moved to Japan for a year in September, 2013. Had fun... Lots of fun... Came back to Estonia and... well, here I am. 25, unemployed, with a useless degree in psychology and having no clue as to what to do in the future. Yay me! My parents must be so proud. Honestly, when I was younger I imagined that by 25 I would’ve already achieved something but I guess life never works out the way you want it to. Not that I mind though. I’ve experienced so many amaizing things and made great friends in the past few years. I don’t regret anything. My year abroad was the best time of my life thus far. So life didn’t work out the way I expected it to – it’s been better (and far more interesting) than I thought it would be. Sure I don’t have a job or a love life but I have tons of experience living in Japan and a lot of new friends all around the world.

Pity that I can’t pay my phonebill in experience though...