Meli 'n' me

music: basshunter - now you're gone
mood: woeful
The last couple of days, my dear friend Meli from Germany was here to visit me. Now it is 6 a.m. and she just left for the airport. It is crazy how fast time is passing when you are having a good time!
The day she arrived, I picked her up at the airport. I had some confusing conversation with the taxi people to manage to get a taxi but it worked out. Roman mocked me because I wanted to pick her up and spend money for the taxi but it was worth it! After all, she took a plane to see me so I can for sure take a taxi to see her!
From the airport, we went more or less straight to Hunters to meet all the people. They kicked us out at two in the morning...
On friday, we went to school for lunch. There we met Christine and her boyfriend and friend from home. The weather was not very nice but they convinced us to join them on a walk to Puijo Tower. It was a great day, when we were up on the hill, the sun came out and it turned out to be a good decision. We had coffee in the turning restaurant on top of the tower (made me seasick) and a lot of fun on the slippery way down.
In the evening, we all went to Passion. The music was even more strange than usual (Backstreet Boys etc.) and the people in there looked certainly younger than 18, but we were a lot of people and had a lot of fun together.
Saturday morning, we went shopping for the 60's party. Kirsten found a great dress for me that I took. Afterwards, she was jealous because she liked it herself ;-). But she also looked great! I also got soooo pretty new shoes...
Meli and me stayed in the city center a bit longer while the others were having lunch. When we came back, the food was already gone, but Alessandro cooked something new only for us. That was really so nice!
We spend the afternoon with preparing food for an international dinner party in the evening. We watched and helped eating the legendary tiramisu and then made black forest cake with the rest of my cherries that my mum had sent me (still pissed by the fact you don't get cherries here!). The dinner was really good, it was pretty much impossible to try everything. After we were all full, we got dressed and went to the 60's party in Studentia. We were meant to take our shoes off but after some drink spilling, the floor was ruined anyway. The 60's music and the costumes were great. I will not tell everything that happened there, but it was a lot of drinking, partying and free love going on that kept us talking for days. We left with the last bus at 2 a.m. We had the feeling not to be drunk, so we had an afterparty with the vodka bottle Meli had brought from home. Now we know a lot of stuff about each other and I had a huge krapula the next day.
Sunday was "celebrate the hangover" - day with brunch at 2.30 and baking pulla in the afternoon.
On monday morning, I had class, after that we left for Helsinki (see next blog). When we came back on tuesday night, Alessandro and Pavla were supposed to sing Karaoke (did I tell about the tradition that those who win in Bingo have to sing?), but there was a goodbye-party for Paulina and Pavla was sick so that was rescheduled. We went to Hunters anyway. Wednesday, I had to go to school to discuss a project work I have to do, then we went to the city center to go shopping once more and to visit the harbour. Now, spring has arrived to Kuopio, the snow is melting and there is a lot of mud and water everywhere. So the walk was a lot of fun! For dinner, we went to Harald's again. Complete satisfaction once more! We closed the evening at home (which is, of course, Hunters again) with playing Bingo. This time, nobody had to sing.
And now, Meli is gone...
Also Paulina and the Russian people already left. It is really weird. Next week, it will be three month here and only two more to go. I really missed Meli and was happy to see her. Also next week with my mom will be great. But it sucks that already, people are starting to leave and the time here is running out. Life will not be the same again and I start to wish our time here will not end.

Lapland Trip: Report

music: my youtube is not working, no idea why, so no music
haha, of course there is music: The Cat Empire - Lullaby
mood: sleepy (it is 9:40 in the morning but I somehow woke up at 5:30 and couldn't go back to sleep. So it is my right to be tired!)

Hyvää Huomenta!
As you probably already saw from the videos, we spend the last week in Lapland.
We left on sunday morning at 3.45h. To face that inhuman time, we decided to have a stay-awake party on saturday evening. We made muffins for the bus ride and watched lots of movies. Still, some people fell asleep. I was also really sleepy and grumpy.
The bus was o.k. but the legspace was quite small. I didn't really sleep during the trip but rather dozed. I noticed that farther north, the sun rises earlier. The first light appeared at 5.20h.
We had a stop in Rovaniemi to see the Santa Claus Village. First, everybody wanted to write postcards. It was nice to see Santa Claus Post Office where they show all the letters Santa gets every year. I overheard a conversation of some German tourists who told that you can take some of these letters from all over the world and answer them yourself. Some nice idea!
Otherwise, Santa Village was rather disappointing. You can go and take a picture with Santa for 30€. Then you can buy lots of souvenirs. That's pretty much it. Of course, it is cool to see where the polar circle is indicated but still... It was sad and it really gave the idea that Santa was invented by Coca Cola as a symbol for Christmas commercialism (even though I don't recall seeing a coke sign).
In the late afternoon, we arrived in Levi. This is a skiing area in Lapland around a hill with about 500 m height (not a mountain for sure!), which is pretty much the highest the area has to offer.
We stayed in cottages with either 6 or 7 people. I was with Kirsten, two Italian and two Dutch guys. The cottage had a lot to offer: LCD TV, DVD player, sauna, dishwasher, laundry machine, big pots in the kitchen, wine glasses, even shot glasses,... except for sufficient bed space. The guys had to share a room in 4 with a high bed, a double bed and a matress on the floor so one of them decided to stay on the sofa in the living room. In the girl's bedroom, there was only one small bed and a floor matress. I chose the matress and it was actually more comfortable than the Kuopas matress here. We took turns going to the sauna (too small for all of us), went shopping for dinner, met with the Belgian people for cooking pasta and went to bed at 9.30. I slept 11 hours straight and was still tired when I got up the next morning.
The next day, we went snowshoe walking. That was really fun but not so easy. The guide was some funny local guy who had the funniest accent ever ("isne wolf, isne guys withne snowmobiles, isne wolf gone"). He was quite enthusiastic but we did not always understand him.
First, we went up to the top of the hill with a gondola and tried out the snowshoes a little, Then we walked to a restaurant and had some hot chocolate and doughnuts and some après- ski music (including annoying German songs). After that, we made our way down the hill which was more difficult, also because of the more than 80 cm of snow, and resulted in some falling and a lot of laughing.
Back home, we went to the sauna again and then spend the afternoon enjoying the comfort of the TV. We were quite amazed by the MTV soaps and already miss them back in Kuopio! We had dinner on our own and later, the Belgian girls came over. When they entered, Lisbet screamed "There are the Northern Lights!" and I went out immediately and saw the Northern Lights! At first, it looked only like a cloud, but then it turned green and started moving...
Later, we went with the bus to the top of the hill to look for more of that, but we didn't see anything. It was an annoying event. I wanted to watch at least the stars which are amazingly bright in Lapland, but people were quite drunk and all the time taking pictures with a flash so that I felt like going blind. Also, a lot of drunk people act really stupid including running around and bumping into each other (and me) in the slippery snow, falling, starting to cry and to fight. Stupid and pointless! I was rather pissed when we went back.
The next day was nicer, we went snowmobile driving. First, we were stuffed into huge overalls, boots and helmets, then we went off. I cannot really describe it but it is fun! We shared the scooters in two and switched for the way back. We stopped at a reindeer farm (chocolate and pulla!) and saw some reindeer and traditional houses. On the farm, there was also a car stuck in the snow that our guys helped to get out again, so they were the heroes of the day.
The snowscooter is quite o.k. to drive but it is difficult to keep the direction. I messed up a little once but I didn't crash.
In the evening, we watched Champion's League. Then we wanted to go out for Northern Lights again, but there weren't any. The rest stayed at the Czech people's place but I wasn't in the mood for company so I went to bed.
On wednesday, we went to a husky farm. We got to see the dogs and ride in a husky sledge. It is really amazing, the sledge has to be tied to a tree, otherwise they would just run off!
On that farm, they also trained dogs, wolves and foxes for movies. We got a tour and lots of explanations about all the animals they had there. Awesome fact: If they go on a several day long safari, they run 30 to 50 km without a break!
It was really cool and we all wanted to take a puppy home but we couldn't (too expensive!).
Wednesday evening was St. Patrick's day. We went for dinner in a restaurant (I ate reindeer, tastes really nice) and got to finally talk a lot with our Dutch cottage mates. After that, we went to the Irish Pub in town to celebrate. It was quite crowded and they were out of the Guiness St Paddy's Day hats. First, we aquired two chairs at a table with an elderly couple, then we gradually moved until we got a big table next to the billard table. Lots of people from our group joined us, some played pool and it turned out to be a really nice evening. Lisbet even got the guy from the band to lend her his guitar and she sang for us in private. Only Gio was quite dissapointed that he didn't get a hat.
When we were already in bed, Dämien called me and asked if we were already sleeping, because he had a surprise. So we got up again and he brought a hat for Gio. He was really really happy about it!
The next morning, we left at 10h. On the way back, we visited a snow village where you can sleep in beds made of ice. The art and the sculptures were really amazing, but I would not want to spend the night there!
On our big afternoon break, some of our dear Spanish friends had some communication problems in a supermarket as to whether to pay for chocolate or not, so they needed some translation assistance by the police. This delayed us for more than an hour and we only got back at 23.30h. In Kuopio, there were more than 10 cm of new snow. Welcome back! But we were happy again when Gema welcomed us with a big hug and her proud exclamation that she made muffins!

Lapland Trip 2: Husky sledge ride

Lapland Trip 1: Our cottage

A little tour through our cottage that Kirsten and I shared with two Italian and two Dutch guys. Notice the LCD TV, dishwasher, microwave and, most important, the sauna (dark room inside the bathroom)! The pictures show what it looked like the last day!

Red Nose Day

me and my flatmates Kirsten, Lisbet and Gema... and our beloved Radio Rock!

music: Van Halen - Jump (only in my imagination, really: recorded ecotoxicology lecture)

mood: sniff

Yesterday was quite busy. It was Gema's birthday, so in the morning, Lisbet and I went to Prisma to buy the things we need to make mojitos. Surprisingly, we indeed found fresh mint. When we wanted to buy the rum, I discovered a weird thing about Finnish law. When you accompany someone who is buying alcohol, you also need to show your ID. Of course, I didn't bring mine so we couldn't buy the rum. Stupid!

In the afternoon, we went to see the ski jumping tournament. It should have been exciting as it was one of the world cup tournaments and the best jumpers of the world were there. The Austrian people were really thrilled to see their heroes. I note that day as "an experience" as it was rather boring (also because Germany sucks at ski jumping) and after three hours of standing outside everyone was freezing. Today, my nose is running really bad! The fireworks at the end were nice, though.

When we got home, we were all cold and tired and nobody was in the mood for going out. We still had Gema's party in our place. She wanted a red theme party so everybody dressed in red. We had also bought alarm red lipstick and Gema had "found" some red plastic roses so we had some silly red rose and red lips pictures and we decorated each other with red noses. Wonder how some booze can turn you totally childish! *lol*

We also met some of the guys who have been here from last term. One of them is selling his bike and I am seriously considering to buy it. Still planning on losing weight...

3 days of snow

music: radiorock-piste-fi *hahaha*
mood: sunny and cloudy

Hey guys!
Sorry, I didn't post anything in quite a long time, but as life is repeating itself there were not too many news to distribute...
So what happened during last week?
First, I was quite busy with school. I had three seminar days and gave a presentation which went rather well but I guess I took too much time. Then we had our Finnish exam. I didn't study for it because I was busy writing an essay which went rather slowly but is done now. The exam was not too hard but we will see how it turns out. Right now, I am doing my online course and trying to find time to study for the other exam in april. The next weeks will be busy but I will come to that.
Next thing about last week: it was stupid. Our favourite pub was still closed for water damage. Then the bus drivers were on a strike so one evening after the most exciting Kalpa match against the first team of the league, Lukko (a lot of fighting, big mistake of the referees leading to twenty minutes of straight "booo" by the Finnish, and, of course, victory after some overtime), so we had to walk back from the city center. Then there were three days of nonstop snow after one week of plus degrees. We were all quite annoyed but last thursday, the snowing stopped, the busses were driving and Hunters opened again! So everything went back to normal and happy.
We established the habit of having brunch every sunday. This weekend, Lisbet and I made muffins three days in a row and now, I am on a diet. I went running for the first time yesterday and it was really good. Some girl told us that she gained ten kilos during her stay her so I will not let this happen!
On sunday, we had really nice weather and went for a walk to Neulamäki tower. We took lots of pictures and enjoyed ourselves. It was a great day!
Annoying thing this week: they are renovating the bathrooms in our building (not ours, though!) and there is a lot of noise from 8 a.m. on. Yesterday, I tried to study at home but it was no use. I'm really sorry for the people whose flats are concerned because they will not have a bathroom for three weeks and also, this will effect their kitchen. They went to ask for refund for the rent yesterday but I am not sure if they were successful.
As last week was rather quiet, the next couple of weeks will be rather exhausting. Today is Gema's birthday. First, we are going to see a ski jumping tournament. Then we are having mojitos in our place, then we are going to Onnela to dance.
On sunday, we are leaving for the Lapland trip (3.45 in the morning). We come back on thursday evening. The week after that, Meli is coming to visit me for a week. The day after she leaves, we are going to St.Petersburg (yeah!) and the day after we get back, my mum is coming. The day she leaves, I have an exam. So these reports will probably be more exciting!