Uutiset

For all of you, who forgot this blog is a dictatorship and complained I should post more often:

Today I went to the loo.

what a nice day this was

Joo, minä olen vielä elossa

Moi,

Sorry I kept you waiting this long, I was busy. There have been a couple of highlights in the meantime, but some trivia first:
I need to add some information about shopping in Finland, the Alko stores - how could I forget them last time!? Alko is the place to get harder alcohol than beer (or what they like to call beer here). It usually is very tidy and clean, well sorted and complemented with some smooth jazz playing in the backround plus there are no kiddies around since that is not the kind of atmosphere they look for and you will always be asked for your ID anyway - so already the differences to germany are quite obvious. And they become even more striking when you look at the prices, which would almost certainly cause germans to riot - something they are not exactly famous for, but I imagine this could be enough to achieve that.
Furthermore christmas stuff is capturing the stores these days and I bet back home people have been annoyed with it for quite a while by now becaue somebody appears to have decided that everybody is to become excited about christmas months and months in advance - I am glad people are a bit more reasonable (or maybe only treaten as if they were) here.

And now the weather.
I always concidered talking about the weather to be either the weather forecast or an admission that you have run out of sensible topics, but it is not like that here.
Several weeks ago it started snowing all of a sudden and within two days there were 10 cm (be aware that my estimates are legendary bad sometimes) of snow covering the ground. If you had not found out already now you could clearly see who was south-american as they were freaking out when they saw snow for the first time in their lifes. I hope they lke it, there might be plenty to come.

another nice view from my balcony

The days after the snowfall provided the worst skating conditions I have ever seen - even though I have been to east germany: you never knew if what you were about to drive on was the remaining rests of snow and ice, wet or frozen leaves, and loose chippings - or a deadly cocktail of all of these - right until the moment you stepped on it.
Speaking of deadly: When the snow fell, or rather the snow storm raged, I decided it was a good idea to go out jogging. That of course meant wearing short trousers... and gloves inevitably, I am not crazy. Maybe clowns should consider changing their oversized shoes to that kind of an outfit as it produces lots of laughter. During jogging I, as usual, liked where I was too much to actually care where it led me (it looks like I get lost, but it is not like that at all). When I got the slight impression of snow-blindness luckily it turned dark so I decided to head back home. Unfortunately that meant I had headwind all of a sudden, decreasing my sight to about half a meter as well as cooling me down quite a bit. Soon my perfect Hansel-and-Gretel-style plan to find my way back showed its flaw: my footsteps had been mostly snowed in. Somehow I made it nonetheless in the end, by which I had an estimated 2kg of snow in my hair and on my glasses and a thin layer of ice on my knees - that was fun, I can hardly wait for the next snow to fall.
The weather soon turned to rain, everlasting clouds and fog again as it is the fate of a seaside town. Jogging has become perfectly comfortable/boring since then, there even are street lanterns in the forest!

Having dealt with minor topics like Alko, the weather and my survival let us now move on to more important tings:
We have got a have a sofa! I repeat: we have got a sofa!!

we have got a sofa!!!

Somebody leaving his flat left it in the floor for anyone to just take it and luckily my flatmate was first to find it. As you can see it is pretty enormous and hardly fits into the kitchen, you almost have to climb over it just to get in - just how I like it. Of course that also means it does exactly not fit into the lift, so we had to carry it upstairs all six floors. A ruined back is a little price to pay for a sofa as comfortable as this.
What is more I added a plant to the flat since I was told I had to add some colour and the effect is just overwhelming.

welcome to the jungle

Well this is not where it stands anymore because it looks kind of lost and will need more sunlight anyway, so now it really ties my room together.

bugs not allowed to be cultured and use cutlery

I had Anna kindly (finally) paying me a visit and checking out some local pubs with me. Also I got a nice welcoming present (would be an unusually nice gesture in germany, so thanks once again) including the book "How to Marry a Finnish Girl". I think it might help me understanding the finnish mentality more and hope it will not be too spoiling. And it surely already helped me understanding american stupidity when it comes to efficiency, democracy, enlightenment and more, i.e. "And Finnish still doesn't have different words for ‘he‘ and ‘she‘"... which clearly makes it the most advanced language in the world.

very affordable considering the level of play

Too bad she (respectively you) could not make it for the Kirjala-turnaus which is exactly like the Deutschland Cup - except for being better in every single aspect but one. It is held between Finland, Sweden, Russia and Czech Republic (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IIHF_World_Ranking) (!) in an ice hockey obsessed country in an arena only 10km away from my home... and a beer costs slightly less than 8€, how nice. NOT.
I went to see Russia - Sweden first.
The stadium was not too crowded, so nobody bothered if you took the place you had originally paid for. It had been a similar story with the security checkings, a friendly nod was all the attention I got. That might sound like horrible chaos and the end of the world for a german but it is actually really comfortable.

Ruotsi 2 : 3 Venäjä

It looked or rather sounded like the audience was completely russian, I guess it is what they are best at: playing ice hockey and being noisy. Okay, that was unfair, they also know how to establish dictatorships and get drunk.

Next up was Finland - Czech Republic and of course the stadion was full this time. Although Finland lost in the end it was a fantastic match.

Suomi 0 : 1 Tšekki

Early in the first peroid the finns scored the only goal of the match almost all on their own and then tried to make up for that the rest of the game, resulting in lots of offensive play from them and the most impressive defending by the Czechs including awesome counters and in turn spectacular nullifying of those.
A lovely little bonus was to understand what the fan behind me was shouting: "Hyvä! Menemenemenemenemenemene, nyt!! Ei!" because that shows my language skills have to be at least primitive by now.
My finnish exam I just got back also suggests that: To continue the course you had to achieve at least a two, which I assumed to be pretty tough, until (afterwards) I found out grades do not reach from one to six, but from five to one instead... so my 5- (all credit goes to Nanna!) is not that bad, although it contains some really silly mistakes. Especially mean is dealing with Russia (venäläinen and venäjällä instead of venäjäläinen and venäjässä, you know what I mean) - my theory is that this exception only fulfills the purpose of inciting everybody against Russia.
Now that is a sympathetic note to finish (finnish, haha) on! Next update should be on time again.

Minun suosikki harrastukseni: syöminen

Hei,

I know I am late, you should better get used to that - it is part of my concept of breaking with stereotypes (I have said this so often I almost believe it myself).

Let me start with my progress in Finnish language as people are continuously asking me about that. I still am delighted for every word I recognize (that possibly means it can not be all too many) but I am getting more and more into it. Lately I went to the finnish section of the library to find a nice book for me to read there. My teacher had given us a couple of recommendations and I swear I was planning to leave with one of those!

surely some of the most relevant pieces of contemporary literature

Inevitably then I stumbled upon some even more interesting books, including those of great german philosophers, thinkers and writers I had already dealt with or had always wanted to deal with. In the end my choice had to be this though - partly because I know the plot, but mainly because of the fantastic sound of the title:

Clockwork Orange

It certainly is way too complicated for me - perfect!

As indicated in the title I decided this entry will mostly deal with eating and shopping habits. Unsurprisingly mine did not have to change too much, pasta and potatoes are commonly used here - but small things can make quite a difference as well.
It took me several weeks to become aware, but at least theoretically the first thing you notice when entering a supermarket are the slot machines. To me it is a bit curious how everyone appears to care about alcoholism but not to have at least considered gambling addiction since it is almost the other way around in germany.
Reaching the vegetable section you already get the distinct impressions prices are extremely high - and indeed, they are. A welcome exception is pasta (good for me) and a prime example is beer (not so good for me).

nothing funny here

Having passed that you roam around randomly in the supermarket because you do not see any system in the placement of the products and try to make some good guesses concerning the ingredients listings. If you are in a good mood you may additionally start looking up things in your dictionary and ask people like an idiot, so you appear even more ridiculous. I gave my best at this discipline but remained the only one laughing at me; people are simply too nice here.
Well it used to be like that, by now I am usually getting along nicely.

A few words on the assortment:
Firstly, how can finland be considered a developed country if they do not even have wheat beer? Has to be a conspiracy, I suspect the commies. What appeases me is that everything I knew could be made out of apples is simply made out of pears here - it is brilliant!
Then there are immense amounts of milk products and strangely it seems the majority of them is lactose free or reduced (on a side note, you might consider lactose tolerant people to actually be strange for consuming breast milk of other species). Anyway you need to watch out what you are about to buy, which is also the case for cream cheese: Just as back in germany it turned out to be almost impossible to find any not proudly proclaiming its reduced percentage of fat. What the heck is wrong with society to confuse nutrients with contaminants? I take it as a proof for how disturbed the relation to nourishment has become and am wondering why I am the kind of person to suffer from it.
I seriously would love to buy anything that says "80% fat and a crap ton of sugar"* on it, ideally combined with a picture of some fatso - "You're gonna look like this!" - if I could. Would be honest for a change.
Furthermore I can not understand why I was forced to choose from about 1000 different energy-saving lamps instead of being able to just purchase the simple light bulb that I wanted - applause to this great european achievement.


*If my dear audience is too well-bred to deal with this sort of vocabulary, http://www.urbandictionary.com is always there to help: "A crap ton is equal to 4 shit loads." It generally is a reliable source of knowledge and wisdom, somewhat like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - probably it is only less popular since it does not have "DON'T PANIC" written in large friendly letters on it.


That should be enough angry shouting (and should also leave plenty room for discussions, feel challanged), so... hurra, half of my coins are finally useless!

why do Germans love to carry these so much?

Anyway plastic cards are way more popular here, the number of mine has increased by 500%. For some strange reason one of the rare occasions you have to pay cash are the cafeterias. Their food has an emphasis on potatoes but is quite alright - their true expertise, however, lies in producing remarkable queues.
That is all there is to say about the food for now, but I will continue eating at all expenses just to keep you guys informed!

Not to let this entry become all too excessive (bear with me) here are some quick impressions of what else has been going on.

 "can't keep my eyes from the circling skies..."

I went to the ballet and being only half a meter from the actors was very different from what I had experienced in Halle before. Appropriately this time the music came from my old mate Händel.

Händel statue in Halle - long time no see

Next I found out how nicely my flat is isolated when somewhere below there was a party where they smoked sofas and dogs - at least that is what it smelled like in the whole staircase and soon afterwards the flat.
And how cool is this? Is it usual in Finland?

exemplary! see also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekpD06P7kiI

And I was having a look at the town at night.

wish I had a better camera, there was much more to be seen

That reminds me of how tired I am, the finnish course I had today started at 8:30... in the morning! That is almost midnight! So this is all for now, nähdään.

Rakastan Suomea

Terve!

I am beginning to think I made a mistake by creating this blog - it is turning out to require some effort. But no worries, as everyones expectations (including mine) are so high, this entry also will be longer than two sentences.

To start with the most important news: My skates finally arrived!

nobody would steal my old skates, they just looks funny like this

Actually what I got in the first place was a sheet of paper on which it said I could pick up my package - that is what I guessed at least, because it was in Finnish and I did not really understand a thing. So I searched for the main post station in town where they told me I was always welcome to pay them a visit there - my package had to be picked up at a kiosk around the corner of my flat though.

After this unnecessary delay finally holding my skates in my hands felt a bit like christmas eve, but obviously that is nothing compared to the sensation of driving them. Despite the over all bad weather, they enabled me to easily take a couple of pictures in and around Turku.

either Finns are generally very small people or the dome is pretty immense...

Undoubtedly the most striking building is the dome. I am sure it is totally interesting in many other ways - not for me though.

Aurajoki yöllä

Right next to it flows the Aura, coming from the seaside, which also provides some fantastic view.

you can not actually see the sea because there is tons of islands in the way

For that I only had to take a few steps from my flat and surely was delighted from what I saw. You can find pretty much whatever kind of landscape your heart desires: flourishing swamplands...

imagine the number of warning signs and the height of the safety fence

a "road" through swampy ground like this would have in germany

... next to perfectly climbable mountains within a beautiful forest.

the camera is crap, but the view is great!

And then there is my flats building.

likely to be the most advantageous picture you can take of it

I live in the sixth floor and at first I thought I was going to die of acrophobia, but surprisingly it appears to be way less problematic than for example the third floor. Considering that I do not mind flying in several thousand meters height either, I guess it is due to the fact that I start to lose relation to anything on the ground already.

Also after having postponed it for almost ever, I finally dared to wash my clothes and it was just as adventurous as rumors had made me expect. Before using a washing machine you have to make an online reservation (of course you can not be sure everybody complies with those). Next thing you need to do is learn Finnish (sometimes there even is a swedish translation attached - nice!). That done you can follow the instructions to use one of the washing mashines.
Luckily there is always someone around who has already figured out how it works (usually by pushing all buttons randomly) or at least someone who is lost as you are, so it never gets boring.

Thanks to the help of the washing machines my Finnish is making good progress, I manage to cope with more and more complex structures - by that I mean I sometimes amazingly happen to understand and create full sentences that people would actually use, my skills are still far from being good.
Some days ago I finally met someone who did not speak english and had a fantastic conversation something like this with her: "Puhutko englantia?" - "Ei." - "Uuuuuuuhm".
That was all I could say to express my concern.
As I already caught myself thinking mostly in english by now, my next goal is to start thinking finnish. Actually it is already working partly (for certain things of daily use), so I am very confident that it will be only a matter of years.
The finnish course has yet to become interesting, but biomimetics has proofed to be great fun. The subject is highly thrilling and the professor is kind of mad: Apart from being always barefooted he likes to distract us by making handstands or fighting against the air with cardboard rolls whenever we are busy with a task, it is hilarious.

Moreover lately there was the Erasmus student network 25 years anniversary. International students from all over Finland were invited as well as some australian comedian, Pekka Haavisto (yes, he is famous) and a band. Looking at the place it could have become one hell of a party, it was enormous and the organization clearly was a professionals job.

behind the stairs you can find a huge stage

But then came the comedian. He mainly made fun of the Finns - which is a bit too easy if there are none in the audience - including even the joke about someone trying to commit suicide on the tracks but waiting for the train in vain. A gag almost older than industrialisation, how witty. Strangely nobody seemed to agree with me though, many people even laughed and applauded while only politeness kept me from booing.
He even missed to point out the actual joke of the evening: inviting students and charging 6€ (!) for 0.4l (!) Carlsberg(!).
With at least my mood ruined Pekka Haavisto said something more or less meaningless about the importance of exchange programmes for the european project.
Then the band entered the stage and turned out to be the best part of the programme.

oops, wrong concert

It played some unique sort of new metal with an interesting set of instruments...

making the crowd go wild with the flute

To make another evening full of opposite opinions complete, I was the only one cheering when the singer at some point said: "Whoopwhoop, that's the sound of da police" (indeed, simply because of this scene from an excellent movie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qo3EwozH0Y).

Afterwards the party continued (or rather started) in Klubi, but it was not too spectacular and I have had more than enough self-reference for today.

Nähdään!

Puhtaista raaka-aineista valmistettu saksalainen

Sadly that is the closest you can get to the reinheitsgebot without becoming poor, yet you have got to love this language!
I finally had the first couple of lessons of my finnish course - and I did not learn a thing. Actually my private lessons back in germany were so much of a help, that I even fear all the course will ever do is give me some practice (which of course is important as well). Furthermore "Principles of Chemical Reaction Engineering" started and turned out to be quite interesting apart from the methematical segment (as usual).

I have been in "my" department of chemical engineering (it is not a beauty, maybe there will be pictures of it following nonetheless) before though, on a party in its cellar - and an excellent one. It had all a party needs: music, relatively cheap beer, a crowded place, a dance floor and some tables in case that's not sufficient...

the less room the more atmosphere

...and not to forget some nice decoration.

"Hat hier jemand Schnaps gesagt?"

I guess partying in finland is worth an whole own article, but until I will eventually have become an expert on that a few words on the exchange students welcome party. Obviously some cellar is not capable of hosting for an estimated more than 1000 guests, so instead it had to take place in the three story club "Klubi". That is an enormous building including 4 warderobes and 6 bars... well, maybe I got lost and counted some twice. The interior was rather weird (or at least old), but funnily you could hear some finnish music occasionally.

unintentional 70s party on the 1st floor

Because I live some kilometers from the town centre and according to Murphy's law the buses always drive exactly when I do not need them to, I decided to simply jog home. Unfortunately that is not necessarily the best idea if you had some beer, do not really know the way (especially in the rainy dark), had some more beer, and not to mention did not bring a jacket. Anyway in the end I was about 40 minutes quicker than waiting about two hours for the bus would have been - and had a bad muscle ache for four days. "Great success!".
Additionally to getting completely lost walking allowed me to see a bit of Turkus suburbs and sort of stay in touch with nature.

hanging out with a squirrel

I am definitely looking forward to take a closer look at the area around my new home soon. But for now let me proof to you how much there is to be seen inside, as that is what many people asked me for: some pictures of my flat.

the kitchen (with balcony in the background)

The kitchen is about as spacious as its furniture is not sophisticated. Also there are roughly 1000 compartments (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWLFLg7k3w0) for the two of us and two huge fridges: one for beer and... I forgot what the other one was good for.

more kitchen

Then there is the corridor. Like all the rooms it has a plastic floor that makes perfectly awkward smacking sounds if you walk on it barefooted. Although it is really oversized I always manage to bump into the only piece of furniture in it: that wardrobe thing shown on the picture, that has the ideal height just for that (annoyingly my flatmate is one head smaller than me, which makes it a good laugh for him).

"Mal ganz natürlich, Herr Stromberg"

The bathroom is pleasantly spacious and, speaking as a former civilian servant, easy to be cleaned. It uhm has floating water and everything... no idea what else to say about it.

note the exceptionally professional mounting of the curtain

And now, finally, we come to my very own room. In contrast to all previously shown rooms I would not mind it to be larger. At least it has a huge window with not too bad of a view.

"mein tiefergelegter Bürobolide"

To all of you asking "Dude, where is your sofa? How is it possible to exist without?" I can only reply "Aaaaaaah, I know!! It'd tie the whole room together.". For a good sofa I would love to give away all my furniture (almost turning my room into art), including even my bed. Speaking of which...

finest foam material on a luxurious plank of wood - does it not look inviting?

Amazingly it actually is slightly more comfortable than the floor!

Another fantastic feature is the door, which locks automatically when it shuts. That means if you leave your room without your key (and  of course you only have a single one) and pull the door behind you just like that, you locked yourself out.

Nonetheless my flatmate and me already feel very much at home here.

Furthermore I feel enough like a tourist taking pictures of literally everything (and like a schoolgirl writing into her diary) for now, so none of Turku this time either. But there will be in one of my next entries as soon as I run out of more urgent things to tell, maybe next time. Maybe in one year.

Arrival and Orientation

Moi and welcome everybody to this brand new blog of mine!

I created it because I figured out it would be the easiest way to inform all my friends and relatives about how I am getting along and also provide you with some pictures - of course it should not stop us from additionaly having a chat occasionally.

As you might already have noticed I will be writing in english... please do not complain to me about it, but rather take it as an opportunity to recover some of your language skills (or give google translator a try, haha)... oh, and blame globalization of course.
I admit german is more beautiful of a language, but I will not miss it here because almost everybody speaks it since 42 out of 157 of the new ERASMUS students are german (plus some from switzerland and austria). That includes my flatmate, a nice fellow from Saarland.

But maybe I should start with uhm... the beginning, which is the departure.
That was a mess. After an evening with some nice beer (I already miss it) and some even nicer people (I already miss you) I decided to fall asleep immediately and a few hours later decided to oversleep badly. Unfortunately when I finally woke up I realized nobody had packed all my stuff over night.
That done we left - late of course - just to exactly miss the flight in Hanover and from there continued towards Hamburg, where after several hours of traffic jams and diversions, I missed another flight.

SAAB 2000 - turbogeil! (sorry, there is no other word for it)

When I made it to Turku in the end it was already around 10 p.m. - too late to pick up the keys for my apartment - so to round off this wonderfully stressful day I stayed at the airport for the night, looking forward to being completely ruined the next first day of my orientation course.
Well at least on my flight via Copenhagen and Stockholm I had an only slightly clouded view over small but tremendous bits of Sweden and Finland. I am sorry I did not take any pictures of that, come and see yourself!

That orientation courses first day was not too interesting. The "highligt" was a guided bus(!) tour (how lame is that?) of two hours through Turku. Unfortunately I only managed to sleep half of that time, so now I lost all sense of orientation from driving around in circles and also have the impression that a couple of hundred years of finnish independency can be just as boring as a couple of hundred years of american independency... but I also learned from that guide that I should not compare the history of finland with others countries history - funny to tell exactly exchange students so.

Later that day I met Nanna, who happened to spent her holiday in Finland, and we scouted the town, the supermarkets and my flat.

view from my balcony - good thing I do not have to see the house

The supermarkets were a funny experience, I feel like we spent hours discussing and comparing the products (unsurprisingly mainly my fault), even some woman joined in to excessively inform us about the varios kinds of butter (in german!).
Weird things continued at home when my flatmate presented me The Book of Mormon someone had left behind here (in german - again). I do not intend to hurt the feelings of any Romney fan (well maybe I do), but it is just hilarious:

The Book of Mormon - some miraculous power made us find it

Mosia 7:25-26
"Denn wenn dieses Volk nicht in Übertretung verfallen wäre, hätte der Herr nicht zugelassen, daß dieses große Übel über sie komme. Aber siehe, sie wollten nicht auf seine Worte hören; sondern es kamen Streitigkeiten unter ihnen auf, ja, so sehr, daß sie untereinander Blut vergossen.
Und einen Propheten des Herrn haben sie getötet, ja, einen auserwählten Mann Gottes, der ihnen ihre Schlechtigkeit und Greuel vorgehalten und vieles prophezeit hat, was kommen wird, ja, sogar das Kommen Christi."

or

Mosia 9:3,5
"Und es begab sich: Wir hatten das Land unserer Väter für viele Jahre als Erbteil, ja, für den Zeitraum von zweiundzwanzig Jahren.
Und Ich ließ die Frauen spinnen und arbeiten und sich mühen und allerlei feines Leinen herstellen, ja, und Tuch jeder Art, damit wir unsere Nacktheit bekleiden konnten; [...]"

or

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG7IGiBJU4c

You could say it is most suitable for my german audience... but actually it does not make sense in any language.

These first impressions are getting kind of long considering they only cover a couple of days, so let me finish by letting you know that my orientation courses are over by now. They were not all too useful except for hindering me from picking up my keys and satrting package and meeting my tutor and getting to know some co-students, which is something at least.

presentation on the wonderful finnish way of life - I am convinced!

The actual courses will start on Thursday: "finnish language" is first. Nice!
So enough for now, look forward to hear some more from me sometime - as soon as I will have acquired a bike there are going to be more pictures, including the most striking places of Turku.