Being productive!

Yesterday after writing on my blog I decided not to go out anymore. I went to the shop and bought some food to cook dinner. After eating I was so tired from the working week that I nearly fell asleep in my armchair. I was watching some episodes of How I met you mother and went to bed quite early.

Today is a good day so far! I was very productive after a good night sleep I did a lot. I got up fresh and happy somehow. Although the weather wasn't that good in the morning I fixed myself after breakfast and talking to A. over Skype and went out.

I went to the city to look for a birthday present for A. She said, that I should not buy anything, since I am coming there for her birthday, but I would feel bad coming with empty hands. So I bought something small for her!When the weather got worse and it actually started raining I decided not to go out again, but stay in and finally write my report about my year abroad. Since there was no real deadline for it I totally forgot it, got a reminder by my university and forgot it again. Now came the second reminder and I put an alarm into my cellphone to write it this weekend.

Since I do not have a real desk here in my room and didn't wanted to write the whole bloody report with my laptop on my knees I took one of the shelves and used it as a table. It's actually pretty good and now I totally buried my plans of buying a desk for the room.I wrote and wrote and suddenly I realized, that it was already quite late. I had written the whole report at once and wrote about 5 pages about my life in Helsinki. It was good to recap the year and to write down important things to consider. It is amazing how much I would have been able to tell. I was already keeping it as short but informative as possible. Crazy how many impressions and experiences I had during this year in Finland!

Anyways, writing made me hungry and so I warmed up the rest from yesterday evening. I am always making so much more, than I can eat at once. Its hard to cook for just one person somehow and I really miss the time in Kannelmäki, where we were mostly cooking together!

Now I will relax a bit more, bring some order into all my stuff here in the room and maybe put the laundry on. There are no plans for this evening, so I will see, what the next hours will bring!

~M~

Packing and Cleaning!

This is so weird. I have nearly everything packed, my room is empty and it smells like detergent.

This morning S. came back from Åland and I picked him and J., his travel company, up from the harbor. It was good to see him again after such a long time and it scares me, that we wont be living together anymore now. We had so much fun together and he was an awesome flatmate. I hope and well, I know we will see each other soon again!

When we came back I started packing the rest of my stuff. Most of it was already taken by my parents home to Germany or is already in Ekenäs, where I am going to stay for the next couple of weeks. I dont know what I am doing now. I dont have an internship placement yet and no job in Germany. So instead of hanging around in Germany and not doing anything I rather stay here in Finland, where I have at least A.

After most of the packing was done S. and I went down to the city center. S. wanted to buy still some things for his father, as a birthday present and for another friend. So we went to Esplanadi to a souvenir shop. After S. found what he wanted we went to Stockman and S. bought an ice hockey jersey of the Finnish national team, as a souvenir for himself.

When were back in Kannelmäki I cooked lunch. We ate and sat there talking. There and also before in the city we both, S. and I, realized how much we will miss this life here in Finland. Ok, Helsinki is not the most beautiful, not the most lively and not the best located city in the world, but we were living here for almost one year now and had our life here with a lot of fun and memorable experiences. It is and will always be a part of our life and I can say it is a good one.

After the lunch we started cleaning right away. We were emptying the cupboards, decided what to throw away and what I will take to Ekenäs. We were cleaning the cupboards and the dishes. It was actually not as dirty as I expected it to be. Then S. called his mother in Spain and I emptied my room in order to clean the floor. Now I am sitting here writing. The smell of the detergent gives me a small headache. Maybe it's also all the thoughts running through my head, all the good memories. Even tho I was complaining about this city and this flat all the time it is hard to leave. But I know that live goes on and that changes mean progress. And progress is always good!

I just have one night left. Tomorrow I will leave here! It is a weird feeling!

~M~

First Day of Real Spring!

This day was awesome! It was 22°C (finally) and I was a lot outside. It started with a long walk this morning with A. here in Kannelmäki. We walked pretty far and were enjoying the warm morning sun. For lunch we went to Pasila and met S., who went to the city center before to take pictures.

After lunch I had a group meeting and A. and S. went to a park overlooking the harbor of Helsinki. As far as I know were they sitting there in a café and were enjoying the good weather. My meeting took about two hours and afterwards I called A. to ask where they were. We agreed to meet up on Esplanadi, the one and only Boulevard of Helsinki. In the middle of the street is a nice and wide park, where you can sit on the benches and just observe people walking past.

This is also what I did, while waiting for A. and S., but instead of looking at people I was reading a book. It was so nice and warm, that I didn't had to wear a jacket nor a pullover. However, after a while there came a cold wind and since I anyways feel a tini-tiny bit sick, I put my hoodie on - just in case. On the way back it got even better, since we got free Nescafé® in front of the train station.

Now I came back from Pasila. A. took the train back to Ekenäs and I am alone again. It is now really weird. She took all her stuff from here, emptied out here space in the closet and the cupboard. My parents left Finland today and took also a lot of stuff with them, as I mentioned before and now I really feel, that the time here in Helsinki is soon over.

However, I am going with A. to Stockholm for two days, soon and right now I am planning already the next trip. This time I wanna go to St. Petersburg and Moscow. I actually planned to go by train, but when I - more as a joke - checked the flights I realized, that they are way cheaper. There is one airline, which is flying within Russia for super low prices. The trip from Moscow to St. Petersburg costs just 14€. I will inform myself a bit about this airline and see if I really wanna fly with them.

Anyways, I will go on planning and then to bed. I have to get up early tomorrow. Even tho it is a public holiday I will do a lot for uni!

~M~

Totally Exhausted

I just came from a group meeting and I am totally done. I got up this morning early and was then first talking to A., my flatmate's sister, who is visiting him right now. Since he was in uni at that time we were sitting in the kitchen and talking about stuff.

After the breakfast I started working, reading and writing, and did that basically 6 hours straight. I totally underestimated the work, but I had to finish the writing before the group meeting at 4 pm.

That was what I was doing today, now I am sitting shortly here and later S. and I will go to the Austrian dinner, about one minute from our house.

~M~

Stormy Spring

It is incredible windy here in Helsinki. It feels more like October than April. Even tho the day started off nice it got worse. It was raining and just disgusting weather.

Therefore I stayed in basically the whole day. I just went over to the other building to bring my laundry, to get it out and put it into the dryer and get it out of the dryer. Around 1 o'clock I went to Pasila with S., E. and M. We were asked to give a small presentation of our experiences as exchange students to the new tutors. It was really nice, since we could give them advices and recommendations what they could do different in the future. The organizers actually said, that our short speeches were the best part of the whole day and were giving the most information!

It was also nice to meet new people. Since we just know our tutors it was good to see other Finnish people. We also invited them directly to our BBQ afternoon tomorrow here in Kannelmäki.

A. is now packing all her stuff again. After two weeks here in Hesa she is going back to Turku for one week. I am pretty happy that she has been here, since I like her ;-) and she was helping with my Swedish presentation. I wrote my text and have the presentation half way ready. I really love this language and my text had just few (like 3 or 4) mistakes in it. I am so proud!

~M~

The day after!

Wow, this was amazing! I am back from the Sea Battle, a party cruise between Tallinn and Stockholm. And as I said, it was amazing! So much fun, so many people, so much alcohol!

We started off on Sunday afternoon, when we left Helsinki with a ferry, since we had to catch the Baltic Queen in Tallinn. Already on the first boat, the Super Star, we met a lot of students from all over Finland. Together we were plundering the Tax Free shop for cheap alcohol and were starting to play drinking games.Since the rules were not clear and the trip just took two hours we didn't get far with the game. We were changing the boat in Tallinn and were obtaining our cabins. I was supposed to stay with three French guys in a cabin, but then I was asked to change the cabin. Since one French guy had some kind of childish argument with a girl he wasn't so happy about staying in the same cabin with her and asked me to change. So instead of three French guys I had three French girls as cabin mates... not too bad, if you ask me ;-)

The afternoon and early evening went on with drinking games and cabin parties. Then we went to the all-you-can-eat-and-drink buffet, which was included in the ticket price. It was a lot of fun and a lot of good food was served. And since the alcoholic beverages were also included we went on drinking, of course! And well, this is basically the last thing I remember. I don't really know what happened next, but it doesn’t matter, I think. I was told that I, that we all together had a lot of fun!!!

The next thing I remember, however, is that I was waking up in my bed, with no sense of time, whatsoever, and with all my clothes and even my shoes on. Since, I didn't know what time it was (my cell phone died the night before, since the battery was empty) and didn't wanted to wake up my cabin mates, I left the cabin and was wandering around the ship. I at some point found a clock, but it took me like three attempts to read it. Anyways, I went to the reception of the boat to charge my phone. I left my phone there and went to the Cafeteria to get some coffee and food.

Then we arrived in Stockholm and since I didn't know anything about the plan of the others, so, if they wanted to go to Stockholm or if they wanted to stay aboard, and especially, because I met our nice tutors in the corridor, I decided to go with them. We all three were so hungover, that we looked for a restaurant right away. We were so hungry, that we didn't realize that it was just 11 o'clock in the morning. Anyways, we found a nice place with a nice terrace. It was so lovely, that we were sitting there for nearly two hours, eating our salad and pizza and just enjoying the good weather. Then the one tutor, J. wanted to go shopping, but S., the other tutor, and I decided to stay outside. I called M., one Italian guy, I was hanging out with to meet him. He was around with J., an Austrian girl and I., a Hungarian girl, so we went to meet up. We were walking around the city, having fun, feeding birds and just doing stupid hangover stuff until we went back to the boat.

When we came back we all went to get some hours of sleep, since the program was anyways about to start rather late. So I went to bed for like three hours, had a shower and was then ready to party. It was my aim to not pass out (yes, I didn’t go to sleep, I passed out!) before 1 a.m. like I did the night before. I didn’t wanted to pass out at all, I wanted to remember the evening, so I started slowly with the drinking and refused all invitations (and they were numerous) to join drinking games, since this was the main problem the night before.We went from SpeedDating to Folke Westside and later to Highride, the two Bands that were playing on the Sea Battle and then to the clubs. In the beginning of the evening the security had to close Ibiza, one of the clubs because it was too full. So we went back to the Starlight Palace, which was bigger and therefore not so crowded.

The night went on, we were dancing and having fun and suddenly we realized that it got light already. So we went downstairs to get our jackets to see the sunrise from the deck. We went up onto the Helipad and onto the bridge of the boat (actually a restricted area, but who cares, we were "intoxicated" anyways). We took some pictures, but went in quickly, since it was so windy and chilly. The club closed at around 8 o’clock in the morning and we decided not to go to sleep for the last two hours on the boat. So we wandered around and got some food.

When we were arriving in Tallinn I went immediately to sleep on one of the benches in the Terminal. I nearly slept three hours straight, just interrupted by people asking me if they could leave their luggage with me or telling me where they were going. Actually I don’t know why they did that, since I was anyways not observing the suitcases and couldn’t tell anybody, where to look for the people, they were searching for. Anyways, after the boarding I found a nice place to sleep aboard. It was in the front of the ship under a skewed Window, where the sun was shining on. Since I was freezing it was the perfect place to sleep, nice and warm. The area was crowded and one of the passengers was playing some “evergreens” on the guitar and singing to it. Perfect setting to relax.

After a while I got up, searched for the others and went with J., I. and M. to the Tax Free Shop to get something to drink and to buy chocolate. When we arrived in Helsinki I was almost fresh again and was happy to hear that we had a private taxi back to Kannelmäki. A., one guy from.. uh, I actually don’t know where he is from.. anyways.. he came with the car to the Terminal and offered to bring us home. It was really nice of him, since walking after these three days would have been hell.

I really have to say, I had an awesome time on the boats and in Stockholm. I met so many new and fun people. I really enjoyed it. Thanks to all you people, who were there! Thanks for all the funny and crazy stuff we did!

~M~

BBQ-time

Today we had a barbecue here in Kannelmäki. Even tho there is still a lot of snow we met with about 30 people in the park between the houses and grilled some stuff. It was basically just a nice get-together with the other ERASMUS students and I really enjoyed talking to people.

Now I just got back from the city. I went with A. to grab a burger and buy some bread. Then we walked back from the central station to Pasila and took the train from there. It was a nice walk at a nice spring-like evening. The temperatures were still mild (for Helsinki) and the birds were singing.

This was a really good Easter Monday. I am actually now supposed to read some stuff for the group meeting tomorrow, but actually I dont feel like it. Will do it tomorrow shortly before the meeting! Like always, shortly before deadline!

~M~

Uni is back!

Wow, it's still light and it's already 7 pm. Yes I know, there was the time change, but still it feels like spring just came up like a jack-in-the-box. It was nice weather and 6°C warm, for the weekend the forecast says about 10°C.

Anyways, I am back in uni now. I just had my second day of the last period here, which means, that I am going to be done here in 55 days, as one of my colleagues just told me. It's amazing how time goes by. So the two days in uni were fine, but I am totally exhausted already.. or.. well, I would say I am still exhausted from the weekend. The courses were ok, the teachers also, even tho I know that this last period will be a lot of work and not so relaxing like the other one. I already got so used to getting up round 9 a.m., having breakfast and at some point going to uni. Now I have to get up round 7 a.m. all the time and that's just cruel!!!

Tonight I will go to the sauna again to be fresh for tomorrow's morning lesson. Otherwise there is nothing to tell... well, I brought some order to my room, since it was necessary. Not so interesting, I reckon...

~M~

Boredom!

Seriously, I'm bored! I thought it would be nice to be off, but somehow it is boring. So many people left to Stockholm or home. The weather is not the best and so you cant even go out to enjoy the weather.

I have to say I got up this morning pretty early, since A. left to Tampere for her aunt's brithday, which they celebrate this weekend. So I was awake early, had breakfast and coffee and was sitting a bit at my PC. After that I learned some Swedish, since I have to... uuhh ... there I realize that I totally forgot to go to my Swedish class yesterday! Seriously, I really forgot it... damn!

Anyways, after that I went out for a walk, but it was really disgusting outside. Yesterday evening, when I was in the cinema, watching Alice in Wonderland, it started snowing. Basically it started before I left home. Then, when we came out of the cinema and went to AussieBar to have a beer there was already 10 cm of snow on the ground. This morning however the temperatures rose up to 5°C and the whole snow was melting again. Damn... now my shoes are wet and everywhere is slush.

Now I just had lunch with S. (thanks for cooking) and made coffee. Now I am bored outta my mind and dont know what to do. Internet is boring, outside is boring, city center is disgusting with the snow... I reckon I will read something. I really dont like these days of the winter... it should be spring... NOW !!!

~M~

Get crackin!

Seriously, I have to get outta here! I dont wanna write the exam tomorrow! I just came back from my first exam, which was pretty easy and should have been good. Still I am annoyed somehow at this uni.

Yesterday, while learning I got so fed up and watched this video again:

The Longest Way 1.0 - one year walk/beard grow time lapse from Christoph Rehage on Vimeo.

It's from Vimeo and was created by a guy, who was walking over 4000 km in China for over one year. I feel really stuck right now and need to travel again. The winter here in Finland is taking way too long now and always after few days of warmer temperatures it's snowing again and it gets cold! I would really need summer or at least spring now. It's even worse to read then the blog entries or Facebook statuses of people, who are traveling right now all over South America and Asia. This really gets me sometimes. But I know, that soon I will be somewhere else and that makes me happy. It is anyways just one year more in uni and then I'm free to do whatever I like to do... so I just have to hang in there!

I also have to get crackin now with my internship. All my applications I've sent so far were rejected and it seems pretty hard right now to find something, because of the economical situation. I hope it will work out soon. The problem right now is also, that I was/am so occupied with my uni stuff that I do not really find the time to apply somewhere. Anyways, I already planned to work on that the first three days of the Intensive Week.

At least I have something to look forward to right now. Next week I will be going to Vaasa, to a huge students happening with loads of people and loads of party. And next months there will be the Sea Battle, a booze-cruise... and hopefully higher temperatures! I just keep that in mind and it will get me through my learning now!

~M~

I need a break!

I am learning already half the day, therefore I need a break now! Well, half the day, because it started off with me doing the laundry and putting the laundry into the dryer/drying room. Then I was learning a bit, was drinking coffee and talked to E.

Then I went with E. to Pasila to have lunch and while we were there also S. joined us. After lunch we went to Lidl to buy some stuff, went home and I was taking a break. I talked to A. and checked out Facebook a bit. Then I started learning and now I just needed a break from that stuff. I am glad that I just have two days of exams. But of course exactly on tomorrow, on the day before the more important exam, there is a huge student party in Circus and I can't go. It's always like that.

Anyways, from Friday on I am off uni for 10 days or something. I hope these days don't fly like the last three weeks did. I really need the world to slow down a bit. It's too hectic and fast and gets therefore annoying. As I said today to E.: I hate time! I mean I hate to be stuck in schedules. I hate me hurrying and sometimes even running to catch the train, even tho I know the next train is leaving 10 minutes later. I hate not doing sports, because the really tight opening hours of the gym are not fitting into my timetable. I hate eating because it's 2 o'clock (and lunch is just available until 2.30) instead of eating because I am hungry. I just want to get my watch of my wrist, switch off my cellphone (since it has a clock) and simply enjoy the day like it comes. Having this in the summer was so awesome!

~M~

Awesome Weekend!!!

This weekend went fast! It's Monday today and I had a presentation in uni this morning. After that I went to work, to earn some more money! Now I am back here, booked my laundry time for tomorrow and thought, that I could write my blog again!

As I said, the weekend went pretty fast! I reckon it's because my brother was here and we were really active. He arrived on Thursday morning/noon. I went to the airport to pick him up and it was really good to see him again. The weather was wonderful, so we quickly went to Kannelmäki, where he left his stuff, then to the uni in Pasila to have lunch and then to Helsinki center, where I showed him around a bit. Sadly the weather then changed, it got windy, really cold and eventually it started snowing. So we went back to my place, where I him, since I had to go to my Swedish class. My Swedish btw. is doing good (I think/hope), today at work I was talking to one of the girls in Swedish. Anyways, when I returned from class A. had also arrived "home" and we spent the evening together, F. cooked and we had a good time talking.

The next day we got up early, as we had to catch the ferry to Tallinn. I wanted to show this city to F. because I liked it, I wanted to see it in winter and also, that he could put another flag into the map of cities he visited. We were walking around, had a coffee in a nice café and then went back to the boat. Tallinn is not so big and so five hours are more than enough to see the whole city... especially in winter! However, on the boat back to Helsinki we had dinner and suddenly there was an announcement, that if there was a doctor aboard he should come as quickly as possible to the bar. Something had happened there and when F. went outside to take some pictures of the sun down, he was told to leave the deck, since they expected an helicopter. We, as we are all in a way "tourists" were waiting outside to see the helicopter, but eventually, after what felt like three hours in the cold, we realized, that the helicopter was canceled. So no action on the boat, as expected. Anyways, A. and I then went to the Eckerö Market and bought booze for Pampas, a student festival in Vaasa, which is in the end of March.

On Saturday F. and I got up early again and went to Pasila, where we met up with a group of students, and from there to Kirkkonummi. Helga, the student's union of Haaga-Helia, had organized a winter sports day for the exchange students and so we went Snowboarding. It was again so much fun (for me) and I hope F. also enjoyed it after a slow start. The hill, however, was not so high and so you were down in like 30 sec., had to queue for 5 minutes, 2 minutes in the lift and then 30 sec. down again. I got a little bit bored and started to jump over a small hill on the slope. It went well and was thrilling for a novice like me. Then shortly before the end I wasn't concentrated anymore and somehow lost the board under my feet during the landing. I fell pretty hard onto my head, which was luckily protected by a helmet. Anyways, I was down and didn't know where was up and where was down for a minute or so. Later, since the headache didnt go away and I every now and then had problems to focus things with my eyes, I realized that I probably had a concussion, which is holding on ever since. It is getting better, but I still feel that I made an unpleasant acquaintance with the ground that day.

The Sunday was lazy. We went to the City center one more time, had a coffee and then went back. I had to work for uni and A. and F. were sitting around, doing stuff.

Today, early in the morning. F. left to the airport, A. left to the train station and I went to uni, as mentioned before. However it was a really nice weekend, apart from the accident, which was my own stupidity. Anyways, doesnt matter, I am still alive, the pain is vanishing and I wont stop being stupid... I will go on snowboarding, I will go on motorcycling, I will go on doing whatever I want to do and no one is going to stop me ... :-P ;-)

~M~

Beeing a little swamped

I am feeling good! I have shit loads to do in uni right now, as we have to finish a project until tomorrow and I am still waiting for the stuff of one of my group members to finally write the conclusion to the report. He is just not sending it, which will bring me into trouble in the end.

Anyways, the weather is nice and I know when I have this uni stuff finished, my brother is coming. I am so looking forward to that. He is going to stay here from Thursday noon until Monday morning. I haven't seen him since Christmas and we are not so much talking on skype/phone, as he is working so much. As I said in one of my earlier posts, you just see the value of your siblings, when you are not with them. I'm really happy and so looking forward to his visit.

Now I will go on working on this uni work, since I didn't had so much time on the weekend. As mentioned we had all the people here and now they left. I just had nice and relaxed breakfast, which gave me fresh energy for the day!

~M~

Kannelmäki (Private) Hostel

----------------------Written on Friday----------------------

I thought I might write something here, since it's March and the weather is nice. I know this is not really a reason, but there was no other available.

Anyways, we have visitors right now in our flat. P. & C., from Italy are visiting us right now, M. from Spain is coming this afternoon. They were here last semester and were our neighbors here in Kannelmäki and most of all our dear friends and dinner guests every now and then. Also A. is here. She is out of uni and right now working on her dissertation.

On Thursday we all went together with the exchange students of Haaga-Helia to an ice hockey game. It was really nice and after I watched a lot of ice hockey during the Olympics I got really interested in this Finnish national sport. The game was fun, even tho it was slower and also the atmosphere inside of the arena wasn't comparable to a football stadium. Maybe it's just the Finnish culture, which was affecting the cheering and shouting.

----------------------Written on Saturday----------------------

On Wednesday I was actually supposed to go to a student party in the city center, but I didn't make it there. Before I was asked by S., a Finnish girl, to go out to Amarillo. She went to Germany on Friday and asked me if I wanted to join her "farewell-get-together" for a beer. It was so nice, that I stayed instead of going to the party.

Yesterday, on Friday, we broke the record of "number-of-people-having-dinner-in-our-flat" by far. The old record was 14, now we were 20 people, sitting in one room at one table. It was really funny, everybody brought food and we ate so much. We were so many people, because apart from C. & P., the two Italians also M., another ex-exchange student from Spain as well as three friends of E., my flatmate, also from Spain. Sounds difficult, but after all the maths, we are 10 people in the flat.

After the dinner we went to Circus to party. We were lucky, that we were entered into the VIP-List beforehand and so we didn't had to pay the entrance fee. The money was then invested into drinks instead. It was a fun night and we came home late/early ;-)

Today we had a hangover-day. Sleeping long, breakfast round 14h and lunch at 18.30! Damn good day, with half of the people. The other half, the friends of E. and E., got up after maybe 2 hours of sleep to catch the ferry to Tallin. Crazy Spaniards !!!

~M~

PS: I changed the Favicon, the icon next to the URL, of my blog. It is supposed to be the sign for the Departures on an Airport, a sign for traveling. I like it!!!