Winter Holidays

It has been a long time again, since I wrote. The point now is not, that I am too occupied, the problem is that I am not occupied enough. Not enough happened to write about and somehow also there is a lack of motivation right now.

Anyways, some things happened since my last post.

I was on the Shrove Tuesday/Fastlaskiainen, which is a traditional student happening on the Tuesday before fasting period. Students come together in a park with a hill, which is pretty difficult here in Helsinki, because there are nearly no long or steep hills, and slide down the hill on self build sledges. It is great fun and there were the funniest sledges; the students were going down in a sauna, a pirate ship, on a sausage, a beer bottle, a dinner table and other things. This was all part of some kind of competition of the best sledge and the best sliding performance. Anyways, after that it was everybody's turn to go down the hill in and on whatever. There were students with plastic bobs, normal sledges and I even saw a pan and a wok going downhill pretty fast ;-)
Later that evening S. and I went to the ESN Quiz Night in Nolla, a bar here in Helsinki and nearly won a free cruise to Stockholm. The only thing, which was blocking our way to success was, that the others had more points than our team... but we nearly won ;-)

The rest of the week we spent having dinner at our place with other exchange students or at other exchange student places. On Thursday we went up five floors, where we were invited to a Greek dinner buffet party. One of the students, M., had prepared with the help of her visiting parents a humongous buffet with all specialties from "Hellas". We were eating feta cheese, drinking Ouzo and dancing Syrtaki. It was good to be around new people.

On Friday was my birthday and I got old!!!

Ok, well, I guess you wanna know what I did. Well, I was sleeping long, having pancake breakfast, made by A. and then went to the shops to buy stuff for the evening. Then A. and I were making Quarkbällchen and in the evening some people came over to my place and I was cooking dinner for them. It was a nice and quiet birthday, no fuzz about my person, exactly how I like it. I was with a few people, who really meant their good wishes and not with shit-loads people, who are just there, because there's an open bar! Here once again a big thank you to everybody who came.

Now I have winter holidays. I am off for one week and I am sitting around in A's flat in Turku. The weather is nice, even tho it was snowing a lot on the weekend. (These pictures show one hour of clouds, otherwise, there is just sun... nothing else!!!) I was using the time to finally put some of the batches onto my Halare, my Finnish student "uniform". Now I just have two left and actually it's great fun to sit down concentrate and sew.

Furthermore, my Swedish class is going on, I am learning a lot and can't wait until I really can talk in this language. I am pretty eager to finally participate in conversations of A's family and friends. I think it would be great to at least understand and speak some words in this, for me foreign, language, as this is my way to show respect before the people and the country I am in.

~M~

A Finnish Weekend

This weekend I was in Ekenäs again. After a long time A. and I had a reason to visit her parents and the rest of the family again. C., A's niece was going to be baptized and we were invited.

We arrived on Friday afternoon, when A. was talking to her sister in-law, who is managing a hotel in Ekenäs, about A's bachelor thesis, as she is writing it about something with marketing for the hotel. Anyways, during this time I was helping A's father renovating a room of the hotel. When we came home A's mother was already waiting with the dinner. The evening we had a sauna and were just relaxing at home, as I was anyways recovering from a cold.

The next morning became really Finnish. I went for the first time in my life skiing. As I learned skiing in Finland means cross-country skiing, different from Germany where you mean down-hill, when talking about skiing. We went to Grabbskog, a really nice area not far from A's home. It went really well and I just fell thrice. It was good to have exercise in fresh air again and I enjoyed this Finnish national sport.

In the afternoon we had the baptism. It was held at F's & I's house. We had the ceremony, sparkling wine, good food, more wine, coffee, cake and even more drinks. It was fun to see everybody again, since we haven't been really together since Christmas like this. The kids were playing around and we were sitting, drinking and talking.

Today we went to the center of Ekenäs, as there was some kind of public fair at and on the lake. People were making ice-sculptures, going with the snow-mobile on the frozen lake and doing all kind of "wintery" stuff. We went to a museum, which displays the history of the city. But we did not go for the exhibition, we went there because you could get there free fastlagsbullar, a typical pastry, which you eat traditionally on Fastlag, which is on Tuesday. After that we went home again and had another snack. To be even more Finnish we then went to the local school to go ice-skating, the second Finnish national sport. I used A's father's super old - like from last century ;-) - ice-skates, but hey, never mind, vintage is in. It was again so good to be outside and have some exercise and I really enjoyed it.

Now I am back in Hesa and spend the evening alone. Tomorrow I have to work again and have a group meeting. Student life will go on anyways, always on the road, always active... and mostly drunk! (Naaah... just kidding)

~M~

Student life is awesome!

Damn that was good! I am right now sitting in the train back to Helsinki. It’s 8.15 in the morning and I am basically sleeping. I just went yesterday evening to Turku to participate in a Sitz, one of these drinking parties I was writing earlier about. It was fun as always even tho I was not sitting with the most talkative people. They were not really active, barely singing and just sitting and staring.

Normally you can tell in advance with whom you want to sit, but this time they collected a personal item of each guest in the beginning and were spreading these things randomly over the seats. So this time I wasn’t sitting close to A, who apparently had an awesome time. But that’s always the same in life; you have to be with the right people!

Anyways, the after-party was relatively short, as A. just returned from the GooM – a student party-cruise – the same evening and I had to leave this morning so early. We were dancing a little, drinking a bit more, but then decided, as the music was also not the best, to go home.

It was a good night out and totally worth the “stress”. As I said before, I’m keeping myself busy and that’s awesome. I went yesterday from uni to work and then to Turku and the Sitz. Now I am going to Helsinki, straight to uni, then to work and will be home by 6 o’clock this afternoon. Full schedule as always.

~M~

Busy Times!

It has been a long time since my last post. Its already February and time is just flying. It is good to be back in Uni even tho I don't have so many lessons right now. I would just have three courses if not one of the teachers gave us a project to work on and canceled all further classes. This leaves me now with just two classes per week plus my free elected Swedish class. This means for me that I am in uni two days and then basically five days off. Ok, I have to work with my group on the assignments and we have regular meetings, but still I have loads of spare time.

Well... this spare time is not really spare anymore, as I am working now every day in the German school and as there are many parties. For this reason I also didn't write for so long.

Since I am back from Levi I was busy every day from morning till evening, I went to the few classes I had, to work, to the gym to parties and had a really full schedule. It was good to be busy again, but after three weeks I felt how my batteries got empty and I was slightly sick for three days. It wasn't surprising as I had before a five-day party marathon in Helsinki and Turku, which means that I've been out every evening and got up they next morning early.

Last Wednesday we had our Freshmen Party. Even tho I am here already for my second semester I decided to participate again, as the first time was so much fun. We had such a great afternoon and night out partying. We were walking around Helsinki, drinking and doing fun games, the tutors gave us. The theme was Helgapoly, which was inspired by the board game Monopoly. We all had stovepipe hats, red bow ties and big white mustaches. We had such a great time and were partying from 12 o'clock until late in the night in Onnela.

For the weekend A. came over to Helsinki and we were spending a really nice time together. We were eating and drinking with my flatmates and went out to another party yesterday. First we went to a house party in the student dorms in Pasila and then to Circus where we had a decent night-out with loads of exchange students. Right now we are having our hangover day and enjoying the last hours before she is leaving again to Turku.

But anyways we are going to be apart for just two days, as I am going on Tuesday evening for a sitz to Turku and will come back to Helsinki and straight to uni & work the next morning... business as usual - keeping myself busy ;-)

~M~