When I first arrived in finland, eating a 10 euro meal was like Oh My God!, not because it was expensive but I was directly eating up my savings (or my parents) so, was living life with the least of indulgences... however it doesn't mean that I didn't "party"... a glance at my "party calendar" (oh yes I have one... just for statistical reasons :) ) shows that I had quite a bit of fun.
Anyway I digress from the point, I started work in January at the laboratory, it was part-time (20hr of work + study), so I was not anymore eating into savings but living on a balance with little or no capacity to save.
Then came April, and I was working full-time (it took sometime for the work permit to come through) and then I was steam rolling though high-life (:P not quite though)... St Petersburg, Moscow, India, Munchen, Nordkapp, Copenhagen, Tallinn soon fell victim to me as I had enough dough to conquer it all... I have been raising my quality of living, no more living like an Indian student, satin bed sheets, crazy-cool clothes, accessories, computer gadgets, rugs, candle stands, 30 euro steaks once a week (yes, it's almost certain that I indulge in this extravaganza each week), movies at theaters, more parties, hosting parties etc...
Now I am standing on a cross-road, I have to make a big decision... hmmm... not the relationship kind but well maybe a relationship kind, I have to buy a DSLR camera... this will set my savings back... back to null, hopefully not into red though... i.e unless I go in for the Nikon D80, however I am caught in the Nikon (D80:€1100 or D40X:~€800) vs Canon (400D:~€800, aka Rebel XTi) debate
(i.e. wait for Nikon D80 prices to come down, in europe it costs abt 1100 euros)... and I have about a week to decide - well it makes sense to buy it before th SPA F1 race, if not then I can always wait some time longer until an opportunity like this presents itself again... or maybe some friend traveling from the US could pick one up, I save a lot because of the euro advantage :D
update from an unrelated news, The Skype workshop (at the beginning of the month) was amazing, Tallinn was rocking!!! I so love Estonia! Maybe I should really contemplate joining them...
This last week in Helsinki, it was the "Art goes to Kapakka (Bars)" festival which culminated with the "Art night" on friday and the city center was abuzz with people, bands playing at street corners, tents and stages sprang up out of nowhere. The city center hosted about 200 free events and comparable number of paid events as well... it was a night that I cannot forget soon.... there were so many people, it was like a "mela", except people were self organizing and you could still see order in the chaos... there was no visible hurry in the crowd... see what you see... I am kinda short on words to describe the festivities... I throughly enjoyed the night!
UPDATE: I bought the D40X
UPDATE2: I traveled in October to Wien and Budapest, Serbia missed out due to VISA reasons
UPDATE3: I bought the N95.
UPDATE4: Savings? = 0; solace: no debt on credit-cards :D!