Naistenlahti

When I came home this evening from a friend living in Lukonmäki (we celebrated the orthodox easter with pancakes, something I am not able to pronunce, chocolate cake, and eggs, of course!!), I had to stop on my way. I really like this factory, which is situated not far form Lapinkaari. It always has this really nice lights in the nights.

Pori? What is Pori?

Saturday we had another adventure. Liane, Julia and I went to Pori, the 10th-biggest town in Finland. It is a cute little town near the Baltic Sea with some really nice places around. We visited a wonderful church (the most beautiful I’ve seen in Finland yet), a nice little shopping mile, and the green island near the city centre. And I had my first ice-cream this summer. It was chocolate, of course. 2€ a ball. But it was worth it! So I had my ice-cream, Julia some hair in her face whenever we wanted to take pictures at one of the bridges, and Liane got some cool new shoes. Thanks to Julia and me, who pushed her into a shop. :D
So, all in all the day was really nice, with a lot of sun and a lot of pretty places to see.

Lazy Day................. :)

Today I have a real lazy day. And I love it. After several weeks of not having a weekend off and after one week with 3 exams to write (on which I already have 2x 5, which is the best you can get in Finnish universities), I finally got myself a day off of all the tiring stuff to do. Today there was no learning, no going-to-the-shop-and-buying-food, no cleaning the room... Just eating, sleeping, watching DVD (MacGyver - it is wonderful!;) ), and writing with very nice friends in the messengers (Greetings to Dodo btw. :D). This is, what I needed. But well, I don't want to be too eager now, to write more... remember, this is my lazy day! :)

Fire Alarm... again...

Thursday evening we had another of our countless fire alarms again. These alarms happen to occur once every other week. Most often the reason are students who fail to understand signs saying: "Smoking forbidden inside the house!" But well, that always is a reason to gather in front of Lapinkaari to enjoy the company of all those nice ERASMUS-students. And also this time we saw the firedevil among the people standing outside the building. Firedevil was responsible for the one real fire we had in our dormitories (because of not being able to read signs, I already mentioned earlier...). The firefighters are already quite bored to come to Lapinkaari all the time. Not long and they'll invite us for dinner. :) One of them even cursed in German: Scheiße! :D

Becoming a Trainer

So, I had a seminar last weekend. It was called "Train the advanced Trainer". All in all it was real fun, especially when we had to give a spontaneous trainings about personal hygiene, sex and rock'n'roll, and similar stuff. We gave and received loads of feedback on how to improve our performance and I think I got many good points on which I can now work.
Also we had a funny game going on meanwhile: Mission Impossible. One task was to create a list with all the colors of the participants underwear. In the end there were at least three people with green ones. We also sang Happy Birthday in Latvian, decorated the room, stole the socks of Ulla, and kidnapped her little friend Esa (see picture). And we've done very well. :)


Now, during the week, I have to learn for all my exams this week. But this is quite hard, since I borrowed the first season of MacGyver... I'd rather watch another episode than concentrating on university stuff. But my first exam was already yesterday and the next ones will be today and tomorrow. Then I can go back to relaxing a bit.
Also have I talked to a friend of mine yesterday in Skype. We didn't have contact since last year and hopefully we will see each other again this summer. Slowly kind of a concept is developing in my head, where to travel this summer to visit friends in Germany. Leipzig, Bonn, and Florstadt should be on my list. :)

Oh, and did I mention that the sun is shining all the time and that I could already lie in the sun while studying? You should also try that. ;)
But now... back to studying. I don't want to fail my Finnish exam. Minun täytyy opiskella monta.

What's that?

After days full of rain last week, we finally saw some shreds of the blue sky yesterday. And today? I open the curtains of my window and there is snow outside. Snow mixed with rain. The raindrops sound very loud on my windowsill...
I think I have to get some chocolate to brighten up the day a bit. :)

The Adventure

So, we didn't know where our journey will lead us. Three enthusiastic girls from Germany started a small adventure yesterday in the morning.
We stood in the Rautatieasema (train station) and wanted to take the next train to take us to any other Finnish city. Our possibilities: Helsinki, Haapanmäki, Turku, Helsinki again, and Jyväskylä. We didn't want to go to Helsinki, since we all have seen it already. Liane and Julia have already seen Turku before, and Jyväskylä we actually wanted to visit at another weekend, because a friend of Julia wanted to show us round there. It had to be Haapamäki then? Better ask at the information desk... How long does it take us to get to Haapanmäki? 1h 20min. And is there anything worth seeing? No, it is very small, just a few houses.
Not Haapanmäki then.
In the end we stuck to the original plan and went to Jyväskylä, also if there would be no one to show us around. It couldn't be so difficult to find some nice places to see. And right, after we arrived in Jyväskylä, we immediately found the tourist information and then followed the recommendation of the lady behind the desk in the office. We saw the Kaupungin Kirkko (the city church, which was closed unfortunately), some kind of a park with many steps up to the top (very beautiful), the observation tower (not high, but you see plenty of the city), a nature museum (with many padded animals, very interesting and impressive) and the Alvar Aalto museum (both ugly and interesting architecture to be seen). After this tour we went back to the train station and returned happily to Tampere.
During the whole day I always had the song of a friend in my head, which he sent me just the evening before. Also when it is more a sad song, it suited the day very well.
I spend almost all the ride sleeping and awoke just some minutes before we arrived back in Tampere. Although the day in Jyväskylä was very interesting and nice, I was really happy to be back here. I felt back home.
The last station on our journey yesterday was a Chinese restaurant with some really delicious food.

Happy day :)

Today I feel fantastic. It is the first day since two weeks that I could sleep as long as possible. Not even the detonations (which are still part of our everyday life now) could wake me up. Therefore I woke up revived and relaxed. Is there any other way to start a day better than this?
Lazy as I am I first switched on my laptop and checked my mails... Why should I leave my warm comfortable bed? One very important message awaited me there: The phone number of one of my best friends. Immediately I called him. It was great to talk to him again. Curious as we both are, we asked each other about the things going on in our lives. And apparently there are many things going on. We talked more than 1 1/2 hours until we finally parted.
Now, having slept long, talked to my friend, had a shower, and seeing the blue sky outside, I feel great. I couldn't feel any better. :)
CK: Don't forget to tell FF my greetings. :)

Detonations next to Lapinkaari

First of all - Lapinkaari is the dormitory I am living at. We all love it so much. Especially the amazing kitchens, where we all feel very comfortable... even bacteria feel at home there, and everyone knows how picky they are concerning their domicile. I will have to upload a picture some other day to show this lovely place.
And today it was really funny when I was at home around lunch time. Next to Lapinkaari there is a construction taking place and today they had to blow something up. It started with a loud slow hooting. The sound of the hooting became slowly faster until there was a detonation noticeable. It always lifted me a little bit up. Toooot-tooot-toot-womm!

SUCCESS

Last weekend (28.-30.03.2008) I attended a conference of AIESEC in Helsinki. As usual here in Finland, we slept in a school, and as usual I don't even remember the name of the school. But nevertheless it was great.
I met many people from the last conference and also many new people. I even met a girl from Leipzig - Astrid -, who has been Vice President in AIESEC in the same term as me (Wer rockt den Scheiß? - SUNRISE!). And I have an assumption that every person I meet from other countries, has a really common name for Germans. There are e.g. André from Portugal, Sebastian from Colombia and Herbert (!) from Spain. Very odd. But also funny. :)
So, we spent a wonderful weekend in Helsinki with a lot of people, and workshops, and fun, and (for some people) alcohol. We also had some relaxing moments, when we brought a big mattress from the gym to the plenary and spend one session nicely cushioned. But something bad happened, too: Ernesti, the mascot of Tampere disappeared! :( He is now somewhere out there in this big bad world, all alone and maybe frightened. Or maybe he just has a hell of a good time...

The Beginning

So, this is the beginning? My world starting to be constructed? My voyage through the world about to begin?

... Of course not. I have been lazy, you know... I am in Finland for 3 months now and finally I decided to open my own blog.

I will try to post as often as possible, or at least as often as there is something worth knowing.

Well... let my world get expanded.