Most dramatic moment

The most dramatic moment in my life....was leaving Finland when I was 18 years old. My parents decided to immigrate to Canada and I was asked if I wanted to come along or stay in Finland. I was studying journalism at that time and already had a few job offers. I was just about engaged and had my whole life planned. I decided to leave it all behind and go to North America with my parents.

I had never even heard of British Columbia before. We ended up in Northern BC for the first few months and it was a bit of a shock to the system. We lived in a very small rural community and everyone knew about us before we had even arrived. I went to Northern Lights College in Fort St John for a term, before moving to Langley with my parents.

We lived in Canada for 2 years, and these were fun, adventurous, incredible years. I moved back to Scandinavia in the early 90's. I ended up in Stockholm, Sweden, and worked in a Greek travel agency. I travelled to Greece a lot during the next few years, and just about moved to Athens when I got a job offer there....but fate got in the way and I moved back to Vancouver in 1995.

My whole life changed after that first move to Canada when I was 18. From then on, my life has taken some interesting twists and turns. And continues to do so.