Snowwoman

Today, we built the ugliest snowwoman ever. She is a single mum with an ugly baby and a punk haircut...enjoy!

pictures by Lisbet:

Korpiklaani

music: Korpiklaani
mood: thrilled

Yesterday, we went to see Korpiklaani. As you cannot really set the concert atmosphere into words, I just give you some impressions:
- standing about 2 m away from the stage
- Roos' glasses got broken from too much dancing
- the song "Beer beer" means actually spilling beer over the audience
- it was quite obvious that the exchange students were more excited than the Finnish guys -> took them a while to start dancing...
- the guys from the band talked to us (or rather the Spanish girls) after the show and one of them gave them his plectrum (don't know if it's the right word also in English)

Anyway, just amazing!!!!


pictures by Anna:










Tomas dancing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovBGqJ5jV6s

Smoke Sauna

music: none (once more in the library)

mood: adrenaline rush (or at least remembering, wish I was there now!)

On tuesday evening, we made it to the Smoke Sauna in Rauhalahti after several weeks of postponing the date. And it was worth it!

But from the beginning...

We took the bus to Rauhalahti (not that far but felt like in the middle of nowhere) and missed the right bus stop so we had to walk a while through the forest (quite spooky in the dark!).

The sauna belongs to some sort of camping or whatever site with a restaurant. We got group discount because we were 10 people. Also, they give you towels, which is really nice! The sauna was in a wooden building, really how you imagine a Finnish sauna. Inside, it was semi-dark and smoky (smoke sauna, haha) and when you lean back against the wall you get black stains. We disturbed the peace of the place and made the Finnish people leave because we were rather noisy, but we were a group of ten and excited. The temperature was really comfortable, not too hot so you could stay for quite a while. Right after the first turn, we decided to go outside and swim in the lake (see video)! The snow under the feet was the coldest, even though we were wearing slippers. Also the water made us shriek but it was not as bad as the cold wind that made the water on our skin and in the hair freeze. Anyway, this was an experience and afterwards, you really feel sort of tipsy from the adrenaline.

After the next turns, some people even rolled in the snow, but rubbing my arms with it was the worst I could do to myself so I spared me that experience.

All in all, we went in and out for several times (maybe 2 hours) and we all loved it.

Now our Finnish baptism is done!

Kalpa!

Weekly report

music: none (everybody is in bed right now so I can't have loud music - note the time: 00:12 - 00:58)
mood: almost sleepy, peaceful

Sorry for taking so long, but the last week has been quite busy. I guess I finished on sunday (14th) with the sledging accident...

Maanantai:
We were still on cake tryouts, so on monday we made chocolate mud cake with vanilla ice cream and after that pizza (Did we? I don't remember because we had a lot cake and pizza last week!). If pizza or not, the cake was really good, so was the company.

Tiistai:
On tuesday, we had our carnival party and, for the first time, the common room (pictures on facebook, to lazy to upload!). The common room is a big appartment with nice leather chairs, a radio on which you cannot turn down the volume, a crappy kitchen but with a working fridge and lots of friendly flatmates: ants. It is a big place, ideal for having parties. I spend the afternoon baking pulla with Julia. I noticed that the Italian guys indeed see my appartment as theirs as Giovanni rang the bell, opened, ran past me without even saying anything, went straight to the kitchen and shovelled around the drawers because he needed the rolling pin to make pizza. I guess he feels quite at home here!
I succeeded in finding a costume in the second hand shop. I bought a grandpa hat, a shirt and a tie and painted a beard to my face to dress up as my own grandpa. Considering the fact that we are in a country where there is no carnival, we had very creative costumes! I noticed that many people seemed to express their real personality: French dressing up as French, Roman dressing up as a Roman, for example. PJ even painted her tooth with black nail polish!
Carnival party was really fun.

Keskiviikkona:
On wednesday morning, we cleaned the common room. We got 20,75 € refound for the empty cans and bottles! The cleaning went quite well. Then, we had Finnish class. I don't remember if we did anything in the evening but I don't think so.

Torstai:
When I woke up on thursday morning, there were two Finnish girls standing in my flat. They told me that I would get a new flatmate on sunday and they were bringing some stuff for her. That news got me wide awake!
In the morning, I met with some Finnish pharmacy students to practice their German skills, but we ended up chatting in English and not really working. Then I met with Christine and Jakob to finish our presentation for friday (first real assignment here!).
In the evening, we went to see another ice hockey match. It was really hard and amazing and Kalpa won again 5:3! After that we went to McDonald's and then home.

Perjantai:
On friday, we had our presentation. The seminar lasted from 12 to 16.45 and was really annoying. The presentations were interesting but partly quite bad (you shouldn't copy - paste too much!!!) and always took longer than intended. We got nice comments on ours and it went quite o.k. I think. Anyway, the day was really exhausting. Luckily, Lisbet and Nele had gone on with the cake tryouts and in the evening, we finally got our winner cake! Recipe: http://www.chefkoch.de/rezepte/1472871252236939/Australischer-Chocolate-Mud-Cake.html

Lauantai:
On saturday, we started the preparations for Lisbets birthday party in the evening: going shopping. We got Blue Curacao and Minttu and shot glasses and a lot of other stuff which we had to carry up the hill because we missed the bus. Then we made two more cakes and then, I went to the harbour with some of the Belgian girls and Damien (Belgian guy) to watch the ice skating marathon. It was almost over when we arrived but we were not so sorry because it was really cold. In the coffee house, we met not only the Italian guys and an old drunken Finnish guy but also our coordinator from the International Office. Btw, we got mails about our bad behaviour in the bus and in the student restaurant... I never behave badly and I know how to clean up my tray after lunch!
In the evening, we celebrated Lisbets birthday. It was a great party and I went to bed at 3.30. Don't know what else to tell about it...that's why I stole Nele's video again! Here it comes:



Sunnuntai:
On sunday morning, we wanted to have brunch and our new flatmate arrived. We had planned to make pancakes but we didn't have enough eggs. There was planty of food anyway. Pavla made pancakes filled with spinach and covered with cheese... delicious. Also there was salad, apples and carrots, cake, tiramisu, eggs and bacon, milk rice,... we were all really full and still wasted from the party. Finnish word of the day: Krapula (hangover). Also Pavla got a new flatmate who is friends with ours. They are Yadily and Gema from Gran Canaria and they are really nice! Yadily joined us for brunch and then went to wake Gema who slept. They had to travel from friday till sunday, no wonder she was tired! For the rest of the day, I was also quite tired. I slept in the afternoon and in the evening, we had girlie movie time.

maanantai:
Today I was very productive. I went to school to do Finnish homework, then we had Finnish class, then lunch, then meeting with pharmacy girls, then successfully preparing my huge presentation for wednesday. In the evening, we watched a movie and talked for a long time with Gema.

Schedule for this week:
tuesday: watching winter sports and smoke sauna
wednesday: presentation (argh!)
thursday: I forgot
friday: watching Korpiklaani in Henry's pub
tuesday: Kalpa against the first team of the league, Lukko

Yeah!!!!

Sledging Sunday

music: mgmt - kids
mood: now: hm.... thinking... pleased with myself for having finished a very productive day of schoolwork - then: shocked
On Valentine's Day, there is also a traditional Finnish holiday called Sledging Sunday (followed by another Sledging Tuesday) where you go sledging and after that eating pea soup and pulla with whipped cream. So some of the Finnish tutors organized a sledging event for us.
We found two sleds in our flat which made us rich (the others used mainly plastic bags). The Finnish girls welcomed us wearing really professional overalls (from their student club; apparently every student club has their own overall colour and every student gets one after being baptised to the Student Club, I will not go into detail about this thing because I don't really get it). We went sledging which was really fun, especially the taking pictures part. We also met some of the older exchange students.
After a while, the Finnish suggested going to another, "more dangerous" slope. We should have been on alert then....
We walked for about quarter of an hour up Neulamäki ("mäki" means "hill") in beautiful sunny weather and took lots of landscape pictures (all snow and sun and trees,pretty much the same but also pretty pretty). We reached the Neulamäki Tower, which is a small outlook where you have a beautiful view across the lakes. We took lots of pictures of us jumping and falling in the snow which was fun except for the snow in the underpants. Then we saw the sledging slope. It was really steep and scary and looked quite dangerous. At the end, there was a bump where all the guys jumped with their sleds and flew about 5 m through the air before landing in the shrubs. I only went on my butt (still nobody told me a nice word for that, please help me!) so I didn't go so fast but it was still fast. It was nice watching all the people.
Then one girl went on a round sled that turned right before the bump so she went backwards. We saw immediately that this wouldn't come out well. She jumped, turned and landed headforward on her back. She got hurt pretty bad, but all the medical students gathered around her and had some advice. After calling the ambulance, checking with the health insurance, waiting for about a quarter of an hour, brave Czech guys offering their jackets and trying to entertain a terrified injured girl, the ambulance arrived. Unfortunately, we were in the middle of the forest, so they had to carry her some way on a stretcher. We walked back home and waited anxiously for news. Later that night it turned out she had a broken vertebra but no neural injuries. She had to stay in the hospital for the night and has to wear a corset now for some weeks. So now, everybody knows her as "the girl who broke her back". Bad ending of an otherwise fun day!

Great weekend

music: cake - short skirt long jacket
mood: arduous (Funny, I tiped in "schwer" to the dictionary because we had "heavy chocolate cake" today and the first word is not heavy or chunky, which the cake actually was, but arduous!)

I had a really great weekend so far.
Yesterday evening (friday, only mention it because of the time values, remember!), we wanted to go out. Also, there was a birthday party of a girl we don't really know so we didn't want to go there, but someone talked us in to it. So we went for maybe half an hour (still a funny half hour) and then took the bus to Passion. It was the first time there for the Belgian girls and the second time for me. Ale was really happy because Almost Naked Girl was there and some other almost naked girls. The dance floor was pretty empty except for almost naked slutty dancing and kissing each other girls so we took up most of the space for our dancing. Somehow Lisbet (most awesome Belgian flatmate) made me dance on the speaker (or whatever kind of box or step it was) and Ale filmed us up there. Today, I stole his phone and deleted the video, yeah! We had a great time and also our private show of slutty girls dancing (shirt kept on dropping down, uah). It was really fun even though they kept on repeating the same songs over and over the whole evening.
Today, we decided to go skating. It was the first really nice day in weeks and before we started I took some snow pictures with stuffed dolls (childish but I like the idea). Got stuck in a pile of snow and managed to get snow in my boots.
We took the bus to the city center and walked to the harbour, but somehow we missed the skating track which by the way is 12 km long so that was rather stupid. We took a walk on the ice. There we discovered not only the skating track (were too cold to go skating by that time) but also liquid water on top of the ice. I don't know how this is possible at -10°C but it scared us so we went back to solid ground. We had coffee at a really nice crammed with stuff grandmotherly but really cozy decorated (girlish, so to speak) café. They had nice but very expensive cakes and pie so we decided to make our own cake and start cake tryouts for Lisbets birthday. We also talked Alessandro into giving the production of Italian pizza another shot (first try at our pulla baking sunday went wrong, he sort of killed the yeast).
So tonight we had heavy heavy heavy chocolate cake, maybe because we got the recipe wrong, I forgot to add yoghurt and didn't realize it until the cake was in the oven, and great Italian pizza. Somehow, always when we cook we end up having about ten people in our place... But it is more fun like that! Tomorrow, we want to go slaying and making Belgian truffles afterwards. Also, Kirsten is coming back from Helsinki and bringing her boyfriend (Somehow, she and Giovanni both picked Valentine's Day to spend with their partners in Helsinki, what a coincidence!) to visit for some time. Valentine's Day still sucks but I'm curious for the boyfriend.

That's a bingo!

music: flogging molly - sentimental johnny
mood: barely awake, thus not able to find complicated words

(footnote on top: don't trust the time values under the posts, I don't know in which time zone they are but they don't fit! Right now, as I'm starting to write, it is 09.38 a.m. in Finland.)
(footnote 2: posting here is a classical displacement activity as today, I got up at 8.30 to start working on either one of my presentations that are due next week but couldn't manage to get out of bed and when I finally turned on the computer I couldn't manage to start work)

Yesterday evening, my new flatmate was really into going out and dancing, as she is terribly bored at the moment. She even bought a huge box of beer for the pre-party. Bad for her that we found out that both possible clubs are closed on thursdays. See, Finnish people are weird! Why would you close on thursday?
So we decided to go to "our pub" instead. When we arrived, there was a bingo game going on. We joined and Julia won the first turn. She got 20€ vouchers for shopping in either supermarket in town. Bingo is really fun! First, we felt a little weird but it keeps you busy while drinking and talking. Also, it is a little more complicated around here as you don't need to get lines, but certain patterns that are shown on the board. Julia also won the second turn but was only second to shout "Bingo". Still, she got another 10€ voucher. She was completely stunned because of her luck. Should have taken a picture of the look on her face...
We think that going for bingo might be more successful than trying to participate in Finnish quiz games.
So, tonight we will go clubbing. I was shopping yesterday and spent way too much on a gorgeous pair of jeans and several shirts that need to see the party light.
Now, I'm considering dedicating another post to how Valentine's Day is pissing me off but I guess I might spare you that...

PS: Funny event I forgot to mention! Last week, a Greek guy arrived here and he ended up in a flat with 3 girls. The Italian guys are jealous, also because he told Kuopas and they said he should stay there.

One month - Kuopioniversary

music: dire straits - money for nothing (Well, actually none, as I'm in the library again, but that's what we had yesterday. Btw, I added pictures of me sleeping in the library!)

mood: let's recapitulate: excited, frozen, silly, smoked, cold again, sick, depressed, totally depressed, whatever, refreshed, happy, pissed, hungry, not so depressed any more, eager, relaxed,... that should summarize monday to thursday!

On monday, I had my one month in Kuopio anniversary. Quite spontaneously, we decided to go on a Finnish barbecue in the forest organized by some Spanish guy. Now, about Finnish barbecues... well, you'll see.

We met at 7 p.m. and started with waiting for about half an hour for some people that didn't show. One girl brought a dog by the name of Hugo (I guess Pekinese, but furry sausage would be the right description) that was not that much into people, let's put it that way. Killing spree would be another way... We considered different ways of preparing it for the barbecue.

When we finally started, it turned out to be some kind of Safari on a small track in the snow up and down the hill in the forest. Tricky thing was, in summer the area must be some kind of swamp as we were walking on wooden planks barely visible under the snow. If you missed a plank, you stepped into about 1 m of snow. That hurts! We were 30 people with maybe 5 flash lights, so this was exciting. The barbecue place was actually a fire place in the open air. So 30 people had to try to get a place by the fire and take turns in sitting down and grilling sausages on sticks (no rost or anything!). Nice idea: put bananas in the fire and when they are hot, open them and fill them with chocolate! I don't know at what time we were frozen but after a while, we walked back home (Hugo had to be carried both ways!) the same tricky way. On the way back, Diego delighted us with a performance of "Der ganze Bus der huepft olé olé" which in Diego- language is "Dee ganse Lus - alus olé olé". In front of our door, I made a beautiful snow angel. Inside, we realized that we smelled exactly like tar ice cream - smoked. After two days of leaving my jacket on the balcony, it still smells. Unfortunately, on wednesday the temperature dropped to -20 again so I couldn't wash the jacket. On friday, we will probably hit - 31, yeah!

Anyway, on tuesday I had a mean cold. People made fun of me because I got a cold from making a snow angel...

Tuesday sucked.

I was ill and stayed in except for a brief group meeting for a presentation. By 6 p.m. I was thoroughly bored but my headache kept me from studying. I skyped and hung out on the internet and felt so lonely that I was quite desperate for company. My ethical code prevented me from going to a birthday party (if I skip lectures I should not party the same day!) and I was really frustrated. So tuesday was baaaad day.

Wednesday got better. I was high on Aspirin Complex and went to Finnish lesson, library naps (Lisbet, thx again for the pictures!) and shopping. I redecorated my room (got rid of the glow in the dark hearts and found a print of the Northern Lights) which killed the rest of the depression from tuesday (together with the pain killers, haha!). Later, we had the next Italian pasta evening with Kaiserschmarrn as dessert, so it was all in all quite nice.

Today, I wanted to go ice skating but I was misinformed (the track on the lake is still full of snow) so I don't think I can go. In the evening, the new Belgian flatmates will have their first Onnela- evening and I am not going to miss this!

My throat still hurts a little and my nose keeps on running and my whole flat still smells like smoke. Happy Kuopioniversary!

Alcohol

music: lady gaga - bad romance (although Gio says it's not music)
mood: ruminative (Did I use that before? Also, could someone explain the real meaning?)

Today, we went for a beer in "our pub". After some time, a Finnish girl came over to our table and started talking to us with a really loud voice like "are you speaking English?". She was totally drunk at 9 p.m. She made herself comfortable, almost spilling all the drinks on the table while taking off her coat. She kept on telling us how her boyfriend hated her because she used to be a lesbian. He called her several times but she didn't want to go and see him as he "hated her". Also she told us that we should watch her porn movie and stuff like that. She was all alone and nearly passed out while sitting there. Eventually, Giovanni tried to take her home. She staggered around but somehow her boyfriend seemed to have called a taxi that took her. It could have been a funny event if it werent so sad.
In what kind of situation do you have to be to get yourself drunk to a point where you are talking nonsense to total strangers and completely lose control or consciousness about yourself? Also being totally alone without someone to take care of you? I would never get drunk like that and I would never drink alone like that!
When I am thinking or talking about my drinking habits at home a started to feel like an alcoholic here although it really is not that bad. I mean, I don't even drink every week and I had a hangover maybe twice in the last year. But now I think I should quit drinking altogether. I never want to find myself in a situation like the one we just witnessed.
We noticed that many Finnish people are really quiet and shy when they are sober but start to get really eager for contact when they are drunk. Maybe it would be better to get more self- confident in the first place so that you don't need to compensate so much while your barriers are down.
Another thing is that many people here sit in the bar alone and drink. The week before, a woman just sat on the bar by herself and just passed out and fell down.
Drinking alcohol in certain amounts and in company might be a nice thing, but it can have very dangerous effects. If that girl had met someone else, she could have been an easy victim for any rapist or she might just have fallen asleep in the snow and frozen. I think that high taxes on alcohol are not so bad after all...

An erotic adventure

music: in extremo - liam
mood: complete satisfaction

Hei, or in Viking language: harrrrgh! Yesterday, we had our erotic party at Ravintola Harald, the Viking restaurant in Kuopio.
We had a separate room with about 30 exchange students. The restaurant is a great place. Everything is Viking style decorated, the waiters wear Viking costumes (I try to imagine Sarita in this dress, she has worked there before. For your information, Sarita has bleached blond hair and stylish clothes and might look like a goddess, if you get what I mean!) and the food is an adventure itself. We tried cinnamon beer (tasty), reindeer (awesome) with awesome mushroom sauce and delicious chocolate cake with buckthorn ice cream.
We also tried tar ice cream (quite common in Finland). And yes, it is like licking the street. First, it tastes only like smoke, then a little sweet with an smoky aftertaste. Cruel! I believe it gets better while eating but in the end, it was definitely enough. I rather stick with chocolate cake. Also, I discovered that these guys indeed have cherries! Where did they find them in Kuopio? Drives me crazy!
What was really great was that our meat came on a sword! Liesje had Fish on a stone platter and the salad was in a little boat. But the sword (hand made) was definitely the best!
Of course, the bill was not that great but is was fun and after eating, we all sat there, not able to move or to talk. Complete satisfaction. In the evening, we watched The Godfather II as we were all out of money to go out.
Today, the culinary adventure goes on: we will try to bake Pulla (Finnish pastry).
Bon appétit!

Skandinavia

I finally solved the riddle about how Finland is Skandinavia or is not or whatever:
"The clearest example of the use of the term "Scandinavia" as a political and cultural construct is the unique position of Finland, based largely on it having been part of Sweden, thus to much of the world properly associating Finland with all of Scandinavia(....)"The construction of a specific Finnish polity is the result of successful decolonization. The politico-cultural location of Finland is a moving one. It has shifted from being a province in the Swedish Empire to an autonomous unit in 'Eastern' Europe, then to an independent state in 'Northern' Europe or 'Scandinavia'. After joining the European Union, Finland has recently been included in 'Western Europe'."(University of Jyväskylä)" Viva Wikipedia!!!!!

My Life is a TV Show

music: still in the library, but I'm thinking about: the rembrandts - I'll be there for you

mood: (screaming) What is going on? Seriously....

I am wondering...

Is it the TV shows that reflect life or is my life reflecting TV shows? Or is my life becoming a TV show? What is wrong????

A couple of days earlier, Kirsten said that she thinks our life here resembles Friends a lot, as we are all living in one place, everybody is hanging out in someone else's flat, we are doing all kinds of stuff together and so on.

Then the guys here got me started on How I Met Your Mother and things got weird. Not only is everybody quoting the show all the time but also there are striking resemblances. To both shows.

Like we see this girl running around in school who is wearing really thin clothes and we call her "Almost Naked Girl" like Ugly Naked Guy from Friends. Then we are always complainig how Finnish people are so into eating pineapple that we never miss it at lunch (pineapple in salat, pineapple with chicken, pineapple sauce,...) - like The Pineapple Incident from HIMYM. Hunters Pub is McLarens, Ales Bangladesh flatmate made me think of the taxi driver in Season 1 - and so on.

Then there are always stories about stupid girls and French guys (male, female, French?) and Belgian guys trying to get Finnish girls and other stuff that could be made up on a TV show.

So am I just a TV addict or what is wrong here???? I need help - seriously!

Library naps

music: none (it's a library!)

mood: none (it's a library!)

We established a new habit: going to school for lunch and having a nap, something to read or something on the computer on the sofas in the library. You cannot really call this studying but it is always a fine time.

Today, I checked out some pages on facebook and one girl suggested to type your first name to urbandictionary.com and see what the posts there are. I got: "A girl who is able to make you think that the last day you spent together was the best day of your life, only to prove you wrong the next time you see her."

"the hottest and cutest girl in school shes just so awesome and has the best personality, shes realy shy at times but everyone loves her and whoever doesnt love her is just a jelous lozer:) and if ur a guy(damion, aj) then u should deffenitly go out with her" muhahahahaa!!!!! But right so! You guys should definitely go out with her!!!! Sounds kind of desperate, I know. But looks at the mistakes, I would not have made this up! Check yourself!

Another one: "The name "Sarah" is translated from the Hebrew language. It means "Princess"...and rightly so!"

I also liked: "A quiet, sensitive girl. Loves animals and loves to be with people. Not selfish and thinks of others constintly. doesnt always revolve her life around guys, and thinks education is more important."

Sometimes I need to push my self-esteem a little, but you should really try this with your name. Let me know the results!

Anyway, this stuff is just killing time. But when I'm on the sofa, I really do read papers and think and stuff, whether you believe it or not!

Today, there is some kind of educational fair in our school, so there are tables where you can get information, and lots of old people hang out here. Diego (he's not really Diego, but we think he looks like a Diego) succeeded in getting about 5 pens from those information desks. I also got a nice pencil with eraser.

Later, I want to try the gym. It's free for students, which is really nice.

So long!

Snow

music: donots- stop the clocks
mood: transcendental

Yesterday, the temperature rose to about -8°C, so at night is started snowing really hard. When I went out this morning the first thing I met was the snow truck shovelling the snow from the pathway right in front of our entrance. Nice guy! All the small tracks were gone and it was even more white...
We met the German teacher today as we are supposed to do some group work with Finnish pharmacy students learning German. She told us that in Finnland, spring is concidered the time of the year when there is sun in the sky. In Germany, spring is the time when everything turns green. So maybe there will be tulips blossoming here in June... argh!
In the afternoon, I got me a new mobile phone. Nokia, of course! *smile* It is the same that Alessandro has and it is awesome. We also made a reservation for saturday at Harald's Viking Restaurant. You get to wear Viking hats and you can eat from a sword or a shield. It will be soooo great! On facebook, Ale labelled it as an erotic adventure... (click on the picture so you can read it!)
Maybe an hour ago (11 p.m.), our new flatmate arrived, Lisbet from Belgium (I hope I got the name right!). So now we are probably complete.
These were about the interesting things that happened today. In the evening it started snowing really hard again. The snow is like small crystals, fluffy and glittering in the moonlight (last week we had full moon). I wonder how long it will be till I get tired of all the white stuff. Not just yet...