Saturday 22.1
Didn't do much today. I was realllly tired. Not sure why though. I need to take my vitamins every morning! i think that would help alot. Second attempt a making dinner in Finland... also a success! I have found the best little college survival quick pasta dinners. There were two parties going on just doors down from one another, we basically took over the 3rd floor of the M building. It was a really great time. My friend Gepke (Netherlands) was celebrating her birthday and Victoria (Australia) and Jane (Canada) had a party just for fun. I have finally discovered that YES it is okay to go to parties and go out to clubs without drinking. I had been just turning down invites because I didn't want to drink and I had been a bit intimidated by the amount of alcohol that is consumed around here. hahaha The party tonight was actually a very chill party though. I took my guitar with me. I put it in the corner for the first hour or two. Then I found a few other people who were playing music, so I joined them. It was awesome. We jammed for at least two hours. I also played and sang a few songs on my own, with only mild shyness (instead of the usual crippling shyness) I had decided before I came here, that one of my goals was to try and get over my fears of performing in front of others. I met A LOT of new people. I was spotted and called out as an organizer though. Which STILL makes me laugh. These two guys who are trying to start up some promotions/productions stuff here in town, were at the party... They came up to me and started talking about it to me, said they had notice me playing music and had seen how I was interacting with everyone. I think especially because I was collecting names in my notebook of the people I was meeting. I have no desire to really get into all that while I'm here, I am after all... still on my one year hiatus from promo work. They will be a good contact though, I will at least know what's going on in town.
Sunday 23.1
Wow! I just noticed the date today... I've been here 21 days!?!?!
I walked to the larger store today (S Market). I only bought a few things though. I don't know that I will need to venture all that way again for the things I currently like to eat. I am living off of oatmeal and buttered toast for breakfast, sandwhiches for lunch, and these awesome quick pastas for dinner. I have also discovered some of the best juice I've ever had, and its only 89 cents per liter!
Tonight is beginner Swing lessons. My friend Adrien (Paris) is very interested in going with me. We met up before the lesson to go over the basics. The lesson we went to was TWO HOURS long!! I was awesome, but exhausting, hahaha. I had soooo much fun! The instructors and all the other students were very very nice. After the lesson I spoke with the teachers and they said "Oh! We've heard about you! You are going to teach for us aren't you?".... I was shocked and flattered! I've been in the dance scene less that two weeks and I'm already being talked about? Hahaha I'm really looking forward to working with them. They are all very nice, very dedicated, and very talented instructors.
Monday 24.1
We have to sign up for laundry turns here. (which i later discovered I can get into the laundry anytime at night LOL) but for today... i went at my scheduled time. Good news - it only costs 80 cents to was a load, and its free to dry it. Bad news - the washer takes an hour / the dryer takes 45 mins or more. I ran over my time and ran into someone else's. Luckily for me... He was very nice (yes and handsome) so it was definitely okay. HAHAHA I used the rest of the day to work online. I didn't go to Tango or Swing tonight. I was still pretty tired from Sunday dancing and feeling a bit anti-social.
Tuesday 25.1
I signed up for another hour of laundry and did another load. I worked online some more getting my classes straightened out. I also decided to start looking at a trip before classes start on Feb 21st :) I'm thinking Scotland at the moment... who knows!? I found reallllllllllllllllly cheap tickets on Ryanair.com. There is a swing dance every Thursday in Edinburgh, so i thought I would fly over, hang out, and go dancing :)
Wednesday 26.1
I had a meeting with my Botany professor today. I am taking a course in Plant Identification but... I am the only person who needs to take it in English! So we had to make a few arrangements. I will basically be doing this as an independent study course and the professor is going to start asking if anyone else wants to work on things in English with me. All the Lectures will be in Finnish, She said I am welcome to attend but that I am not required to do so. After the meeting I went to the Science Library and did a lot of work for my Dinosaurs class back home. I finally decided to go downtown to buy some new gloves for the ones I lost on Sunday. I explored one of the shopping malls extensively before heading back to campus for another event at 6pm. On the way back to campus I found the most awesome little Thrift Store!! It is so organized and clean!! They have a huge variety of items and everything is really cheap too :) I decided I had to come back when I had more time.
I went back to campus and waited for my 6pm event. This was a dinner that was being planned to introduce us to our Finnish Friendship Family (very similar to the idea of a host family, but I have my own place here, I'm not staying with them) They are GREAT :) They are sooo very nice and very welcoming. The Dad is an Engineer who now works in Forestry (he has 3 Masters degrees), the Mom is a Special Ed teacher, the Son is a musician and the Daughter is a dancer! LOL What a great match for me!! They drove me home after the dinner and made arrangements with me to come get me on Friday afternoon so that I could come to their house for the evening. It was a great day :)
Thursday 27.1
I went downtown, to the thrift store where I bought some awesome new curtains, a table cloth, and an awesome vase/flower pot. i went to cafe voca to meet a new friend Jenn (New Mexico) we took a long bus ride to the greenhouse! Hooray!! Greeeen in Finland!! I bought two plants, both succulents and two very cute pots, one is yellow to remind me of Ms. Heather M. Wilder. We went to the bus stop.... and waited... for OVER AN HOUR.. IN THE FREEEZING COLD! only to find out no bus stops there.... we finally found the RIGHT bus stop and got home, but I was completely too tired to do anything... I bailed on dancing... bailed on the big Stammtich party... and just went to sleep... woke up at 3am to try to catch Jen's show.. but no luck. My friend couldn't get an internet connection to get online and skype me the show.
Friday 28.1
I spent the day cleaning house and getting ready. I also worked on alot of Dinosaur homework. My "new family" picked me up around 4pm. I walked into their house to see the 14 year old son cooking dinner! I was shocked! hahaha We had Summer Soup - chopped carrots, calliflour, and peas in a water and milk base. It was reallly good. There was also TONS of bread and cheese and milk! I was there from around 4.30p until almost 11pm!! I hung out with each of the family talking and talking. I played music with the son, the mom showed me a ton of Finnish words and was trying to help me with my Finnish ahahaha, the Dad and I talked about Forestry and the native trees in Finland. The daughter is very shy and is learning English, so she is shy to speak it as well. She really cute though and I'm looking forward to getting to know her a bit better.
They invited me to go see My Fair Lady at the theatre with them!! Hoooray!! It's a modern Finnish version. On the ride home Timo, the dad, was telling me that he plans to take me with him on several of his Forestry meetings so that I can see more of Finland and I can see the country-side / forests. I'm so excited about that!! I can't believe how welcoming this entire family is... they just met me... and they just accept me right off the bat. I hope I can be respectful and appreciative for all they are doing. We sat down again later and had coffee/tea with more bread and cheese! I also got to try the famous Finnish Karjalan pies... ohhhh my :) I looove them. I just simply put butter on these... but I ate THREE of them :) Finnish coffee tastes very bad but... it is STRONG... I stayed up all night... I ended up doing A LOT of Dino homework.
Didn't do much today. I was realllly tired. Not sure why though. I need to take my vitamins every morning! i think that would help alot. Second attempt a making dinner in Finland... also a success! I have found the best little college survival quick pasta dinners. There were two parties going on just doors down from one another, we basically took over the 3rd floor of the M building. It was a really great time. My friend Gepke (Netherlands) was celebrating her birthday and Victoria (Australia) and Jane (Canada) had a party just for fun. I have finally discovered that YES it is okay to go to parties and go out to clubs without drinking. I had been just turning down invites because I didn't want to drink and I had been a bit intimidated by the amount of alcohol that is consumed around here. hahaha The party tonight was actually a very chill party though. I took my guitar with me. I put it in the corner for the first hour or two. Then I found a few other people who were playing music, so I joined them. It was awesome. We jammed for at least two hours. I also played and sang a few songs on my own, with only mild shyness (instead of the usual crippling shyness) I had decided before I came here, that one of my goals was to try and get over my fears of performing in front of others. I met A LOT of new people. I was spotted and called out as an organizer though. Which STILL makes me laugh. These two guys who are trying to start up some promotions/productions stuff here in town, were at the party... They came up to me and started talking about it to me, said they had notice me playing music and had seen how I was interacting with everyone. I think especially because I was collecting names in my notebook of the people I was meeting. I have no desire to really get into all that while I'm here, I am after all... still on my one year hiatus from promo work. They will be a good contact though, I will at least know what's going on in town.
Sunday 23.1
Wow! I just noticed the date today... I've been here 21 days!?!?!
I walked to the larger store today (S Market). I only bought a few things though. I don't know that I will need to venture all that way again for the things I currently like to eat. I am living off of oatmeal and buttered toast for breakfast, sandwhiches for lunch, and these awesome quick pastas for dinner. I have also discovered some of the best juice I've ever had, and its only 89 cents per liter!
Tonight is beginner Swing lessons. My friend Adrien (Paris) is very interested in going with me. We met up before the lesson to go over the basics. The lesson we went to was TWO HOURS long!! I was awesome, but exhausting, hahaha. I had soooo much fun! The instructors and all the other students were very very nice. After the lesson I spoke with the teachers and they said "Oh! We've heard about you! You are going to teach for us aren't you?".... I was shocked and flattered! I've been in the dance scene less that two weeks and I'm already being talked about? Hahaha I'm really looking forward to working with them. They are all very nice, very dedicated, and very talented instructors.
Monday 24.1
We have to sign up for laundry turns here. (which i later discovered I can get into the laundry anytime at night LOL) but for today... i went at my scheduled time. Good news - it only costs 80 cents to was a load, and its free to dry it. Bad news - the washer takes an hour / the dryer takes 45 mins or more. I ran over my time and ran into someone else's. Luckily for me... He was very nice (yes and handsome) so it was definitely okay. HAHAHA I used the rest of the day to work online. I didn't go to Tango or Swing tonight. I was still pretty tired from Sunday dancing and feeling a bit anti-social.
Tuesday 25.1
I signed up for another hour of laundry and did another load. I worked online some more getting my classes straightened out. I also decided to start looking at a trip before classes start on Feb 21st :) I'm thinking Scotland at the moment... who knows!? I found reallllllllllllllllly cheap tickets on Ryanair.com. There is a swing dance every Thursday in Edinburgh, so i thought I would fly over, hang out, and go dancing :)
Wednesday 26.1
I had a meeting with my Botany professor today. I am taking a course in Plant Identification but... I am the only person who needs to take it in English! So we had to make a few arrangements. I will basically be doing this as an independent study course and the professor is going to start asking if anyone else wants to work on things in English with me. All the Lectures will be in Finnish, She said I am welcome to attend but that I am not required to do so. After the meeting I went to the Science Library and did a lot of work for my Dinosaurs class back home. I finally decided to go downtown to buy some new gloves for the ones I lost on Sunday. I explored one of the shopping malls extensively before heading back to campus for another event at 6pm. On the way back to campus I found the most awesome little Thrift Store!! It is so organized and clean!! They have a huge variety of items and everything is really cheap too :) I decided I had to come back when I had more time.
I went back to campus and waited for my 6pm event. This was a dinner that was being planned to introduce us to our Finnish Friendship Family (very similar to the idea of a host family, but I have my own place here, I'm not staying with them) They are GREAT :) They are sooo very nice and very welcoming. The Dad is an Engineer who now works in Forestry (he has 3 Masters degrees), the Mom is a Special Ed teacher, the Son is a musician and the Daughter is a dancer! LOL What a great match for me!! They drove me home after the dinner and made arrangements with me to come get me on Friday afternoon so that I could come to their house for the evening. It was a great day :)
Thursday 27.1
I went downtown, to the thrift store where I bought some awesome new curtains, a table cloth, and an awesome vase/flower pot. i went to cafe voca to meet a new friend Jenn (New Mexico) we took a long bus ride to the greenhouse! Hooray!! Greeeen in Finland!! I bought two plants, both succulents and two very cute pots, one is yellow to remind me of Ms. Heather M. Wilder. We went to the bus stop.... and waited... for OVER AN HOUR.. IN THE FREEEZING COLD! only to find out no bus stops there.... we finally found the RIGHT bus stop and got home, but I was completely too tired to do anything... I bailed on dancing... bailed on the big Stammtich party... and just went to sleep... woke up at 3am to try to catch Jen's show.. but no luck. My friend couldn't get an internet connection to get online and skype me the show.
Friday 28.1
I spent the day cleaning house and getting ready. I also worked on alot of Dinosaur homework. My "new family" picked me up around 4pm. I walked into their house to see the 14 year old son cooking dinner! I was shocked! hahaha We had Summer Soup - chopped carrots, calliflour, and peas in a water and milk base. It was reallly good. There was also TONS of bread and cheese and milk! I was there from around 4.30p until almost 11pm!! I hung out with each of the family talking and talking. I played music with the son, the mom showed me a ton of Finnish words and was trying to help me with my Finnish ahahaha, the Dad and I talked about Forestry and the native trees in Finland. The daughter is very shy and is learning English, so she is shy to speak it as well. She really cute though and I'm looking forward to getting to know her a bit better.
They invited me to go see My Fair Lady at the theatre with them!! Hoooray!! It's a modern Finnish version. On the ride home Timo, the dad, was telling me that he plans to take me with him on several of his Forestry meetings so that I can see more of Finland and I can see the country-side / forests. I'm so excited about that!! I can't believe how welcoming this entire family is... they just met me... and they just accept me right off the bat. I hope I can be respectful and appreciative for all they are doing. We sat down again later and had coffee/tea with more bread and cheese! I also got to try the famous Finnish Karjalan pies... ohhhh my :) I looove them. I just simply put butter on these... but I ate THREE of them :) Finnish coffee tastes very bad but... it is STRONG... I stayed up all night... I ended up doing A LOT of Dino homework.