Finally had the time for putting together the best things I managed to see here. I easily could have spent three weeks in New York, but as I only had two weeks of vacation (and wasn’t ready to spend all my money on traveling) I only had four full days in the Big Apple. And as sadly, my flight from Florida was delayed for 18 hours, so I lost pretty much a full day of time.
Also, I would have loved to just stroll around the city with my camera without too much planning. And the bad weather had an impact on my trip too. Next time I might skip the sun and beaches of Florida and head straight to New York, everything you can ever want is there. I actually lived in Larchmont, about 30 mins from Manhattan for a year, working as an Au Pair, so I’ve spent quite a lot of time in the city back in the days and never got bored. So this is what I managed to see and experience!
Public library
I actually ended up here after escaping the rain into a clothing store in the next block… I started checking on Google Maps to see if there was anything interesting near by and The New York Public Library seemed like a nice option. Luckily, I didn’t get stuck there for too long like the group in The Day After Tomorrow. But it was amazing to see, would love to study in a place like this. 
Chinatown
Something I wasn’t particularly interested in when living in the US, but something I became super interested in after living in Shanghai. Felt a little bit like home with so many people not speaking good English, everything written in Chinese and shops full of Chinese souvenirs. My brief exploration of Chinatown was amazing. I had lunch in a Chinese restaurant and simply explored the Chinese culture in the middle of New York City. 
Coney Island
Another thing I never visited back when living in Larchmont. I love amusement parks and fairs. Sadly the weather ruined everything as it was super cold and nothing was open. But Coney Island was, for sure, one of the prettiest places I’ve seen in the US. Would love to visit it properly on a better weather. 
Museums
Museum of the City of New York I took a quick visit here after reading there was an exhibition of photographs by Stanley Kubrick. I was interested to see how one of the greatest film directors of all time started his career by working for Look Magazine. I really liked the photographs documenting the city life in New York back in the late 1940’s. 
As my time in New York was very limited, I had to choose carefully which museums to visit. I didn’t want to visit the ones I had already been to, and having always had an interest towards the Native American cultures, I chose to visit National Museum of the American Indian.
It was mostly native american artifacts and I found it interesting, but most likely wouldn’t visit again. Instead, I definitely would visit again American Museum of Natural History and Metropolitan Museum of Art, which I visited years ago. One day just isn’t enough for either of them, but I wanted to focus on new destinations this time.
I also did a bunch of shopping at Macy’s after realizing how much better the prices were there than here in Sweden… And I took day trip to Larchmont to visit the family I lived in back in the days. It was crazy to see how much the kids had grown and to realize how fast time flies. And after all this, with just under 1 000 000 people, Stockholm felt tiny.
I wrote previously how it’s been a few years since I traveled properly and how I previously spent 
I had been in Florida once before and visited Disney World and Kennedy Space Center, so for this trip I didn’t have much wishes. And with a large group of people I simply find it easier to go with the flow. We rented a car, so we drove around quite a lot. And the first evening the rest of the group picked me up from the airport and we drove straight to a beach. The sunset was one of the prettiest ever.
This was basically a day trip to the beach. We took some fun pictures and had drinks, but that was pretty much it. Fort Myers isn’t really a major city in Florida, but I guess there would have been other interesting things as well. On the other hand, coming from the Nordics, sun and beaches were pretty much exactly what I wanted. 
At this point we were 6 people, so we could still fit into one car and the group was pretty easy to manage. 
We had a brief tour with a local guide that taught us a lot of new about alligators and other species of the area. Most of the stories we’ve heard about alligators are scary and they’ve been portrayed as beasts that eat pretty much anything they come across isn’t exactly true. Humans aren’t easy food for alligators so they attack mostly when threatened or if humans have fed them and they’ve developed an association between humans and food. However, you should keep a safe distance!
I knew about the southernmost point of the continental United States, but something I didn’t know about Key West was that it has a large gay community. And I also hadn’t realized that even the crosswalks had rainbow colors.
The house also had a barbecue place and a terrace, so we could have a nice dinner with some drinks. We then went to a bar for some more. That was actually the only time I went out clubbing during the trip. I definitely can’t deal with alcohol the same way as I did in my early twenties and prefer sleeping and waking up early, which is kind of nice. Although I kind of miss living a party life like I did back in Paris and Korea. 
I’m hoping to do some more traveling soon (as soon as I stop my seven-day-workweek routine). I’d love to head back to Asia for some Korean cosmetics and bubble tea! 
It’s finally starting to feel like I’m settling down somewhere. I somehow expected that it would be Finland, just didn’t believe that I’d have what it takes to live and work abroad. But here I am, in the capital of Scandinavia: Stockholm! The past two years I’ve only traveled between Finland, Sweden and Estonia, as studying and working took most of my time. But now, a trip to Miami and New York is coming up in May and I’m super excited!
I’ve been browsing through some old pictures and noticed how much I’ve developed as a photographer and how sad it now feels that I wasn’t able to document all my adventures properly, which is something I’ve improved a lot, but there’s still a long way to go. We’re never ready or perfect. I started this blog when I moved to Korea, but somehow didn’t know what I supposed to write or post here. At that time I thought all blogs were just about fashion and lifestyle content that just felt too shallow to me. Later on, writing a blog for 
The biggest downsides of the lifestyle that sometimes has made me feel like I have an ADHD, having no idea what I’m doing or where I’m going, have been the lack of stability, both financially and with interpersonal relationships. Especially now when the constant urge for moving around and living out of a suitcase has vanished and I’d want to buy an apartment hopefully not too far in the future, but it feels like some major parts of me are still somewhere else than Sthlm. But I guess I’ve finally grown old enough to think further than next month. And I have been thinking, what if things would have gone as I originally planned: getting some boring job in Finland, getting married and having children around 25… I mean, happiness is really a matter of state of mind and I’m sure my life could be as happy as it is now, but I’m also pretty sure I’d feel I’d have missed out on something.
Strangely, I couldn’t find any New York pictures, although I lived there for a year. So that’s one thing on my to-do list for the next trip, another one is to check out some thrift stores.And about feeling sorry for all the time I’ve “waisted”: at the end, I don’t think that our biggest regrets will be how much time and money we spent on exploring the world. I don’t think my last thoughts will be: “I’d be at least 2000 euros richer if I hadn’t done that South Korea exchange!” I feel I have the kind of richness money can’t buy.
Pink Horrors 