Pippa Buchanan has been blogging for seven years, many countries, three serious boyfriends and two hair colours. She has written about topics as diverse as creativity, cooking, procrastination, travel, politics, mental health, family history, love, heartbreak, writing, books and gardening.

When Pippa isn’t absorbing the internet, she has been gainfully employed as a video games programmer, bartender and teacher.

Old

My name is Pippa.

I live in Helsinki, Finland.

In Finland, 5.5% of the population speaks Swedish as their native language. Most Finnish Finns learn Swedish in school. In Swedish, Pippa apparently means “fuck”. When I introduce myself to Finnish Swedes, young people giggle and old people blush.

I’m starting to introduce myself as just “Pip” or “Peppi/Pippi”.

I’m originally from Adelaide, Australia.

I’ve travelled in Europe before. This time I came to Europe via China, Mongolia and Russia. I was pretty tired after catching all those trains so I just stopped in Finland.

I love my hometown. I want to live there again.

I’ve made some amazing friends in the three months I’ve lived in Finland. Sadly, my best friend here lives an hour away by bus and we hardly ever get to see each other. Considering that all my other really best friends live 15 000 km away, catching up with Ninnu is relatively easy.

At the moment, I wouldn’t give up living in Helsinki. But ask me again in November. I hear that November here is terrible.

I’m trying to write and paint and illustrate more frequently. It’s very hard letting yourself be creative when you’ve shut that part of yourself away for a long time.

I used to be a computer programmer.

At the moment I work in a bar. It’s tiring work, but I enjoy speaking to all the different people I meet.

I really enjoy writing letters and making exciting packages to send to people. I also like receiving mail. Get in touch to find out my postal address.

Older

There is something oh-so-enticing about packing up one’s life in a backpack and heading off to different places around the globe. There’s something even more exciting about doing this with one’s best friend and soulmate.

Though I’m now in Helsinki, alone. Living and working for the summer. Send me mix cds. Email me.

Dan is somewhere else. Austria at the moment. I’m not sure what will happen between us in the future, which means that most of the time I’m horribly confused. When I’m not confused I’m considering the benefits of meditation, picking up glasses or serving cider, or reading.

I recently bought myself a bikini and dyed my hair brown. I’ve never owned a proper string bikini before. And for the last eight years I kept on dying my hair red. The dark brown feels different, but good.