So I'm at the Rovaniemi Airport. Flight leaves in just over an hour, and I'll be home in just over 20 hours.
Can't wait to just be home!
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
it's almost over
So it's almost over. I leave in 4 days. It's been crazy, fun, and most of all, exhausting.
It's definitely summer now. It's almost 80 outside, which is about as hot as it gets here, and the sun hasn't really set in several days. It gets a little less bright out but it doesn't really get dark anymore. They say that this winter was the coldest here in over 20 years, and the warm weather the past 2 weeks is unusually hot for this time of the year. All the snow melted, and within 4 days, everything was green. Just thought I'd post some pictures for y'all.
First, this is a rullakebab. It's a huge tortilla shell that's stuffed with meat, lettuce, cucumber, mozzarella, and lots of kebab sauce, and rolled up like a burrito. They cost 8 euros, but considering it's all I'll eat for an entire day because of how big they are, that's not too bad.
That's 2 200g chocolate bars end to end, and still not as big as the kebab.
the path away from the dorms towards town
the walking/biking path that goes along the main road into town
the river
the river, facing Rantavitikka
river to the right, path to the city center on left
field in front of public library
It's definitely summer now. It's almost 80 outside, which is about as hot as it gets here, and the sun hasn't really set in several days. It gets a little less bright out but it doesn't really get dark anymore. They say that this winter was the coldest here in over 20 years, and the warm weather the past 2 weeks is unusually hot for this time of the year. All the snow melted, and within 4 days, everything was green. Just thought I'd post some pictures for y'all.
First, this is a rullakebab. It's a huge tortilla shell that's stuffed with meat, lettuce, cucumber, mozzarella, and lots of kebab sauce, and rolled up like a burrito. They cost 8 euros, but considering it's all I'll eat for an entire day because of how big they are, that's not too bad.
That's 2 200g chocolate bars end to end, and still not as big as the kebab.
the path away from the dorms towards town
the walking/biking path that goes along the main road into town
the river
the river, facing Rantavitikka
river to the right, path to the city center on left
field in front of public library
Monday, May 17, 2010
Work
So it's almost time for me to head back to the states! I've enjoyed my time here, but it's been exhausting, and I can't wait to get back. It finally started getting warm here this past weekend. Up until last Thursday, the warmest it had gotten here was like 9 celcius, or 48 fahrenheit, but it jumped up to 22 on friday, and since then it's been around 26, which is 78 fahrenheit. It wouldn't be that bad, but there is no air conditioning in our office, which is on the top floor of the building, and on the corner, so it gets really hot in here. It's really nice for walking to/from work though, especially when there's a nice breeze going. The last of the snow melted over the weekend, and this morning for the walk to work I actually saw a little bit of green, and for the first time saw the river without any ice on top of it. It really is beautiful here, I can just imagine what it'll be like once everything starts to really grow in a few weeks. It's supposed to stick around 26 degrees from now until I leave, so should be pretty nice, just hoping the wind will pick up so we can get a cross breeze going in the office.
Since this is my last week at work, I am really busy. Pretty much done with all the video editing, just a couple of final things to do on older projects, it's mostly translations left. I am also going to be doing some voiceover work for one of the DVD postcards. They're gonna hire someone to do the voiceover for most of the stuff, but on one of them there's a section with someone asking questions, and an expert on the northern lights is answering them, so i'm asking the questions and doing the little intro bit, so should be fun.
Oh, and back to the weather...it's bright out all the time now. I fell asleep at midnight last night, and it was as bright as noon, and this morning i woke up with the sun shining bright in my face, and looked at the clock, and it was 5
ugh...
have the thickest curtains i could find for a decent price over the windows, but it's still way too bright in the room
i get paid my final paycheck this afternoon, so am planning on doing a little bit of souvenir shopping, then will start going through all my stuff and packing this week so I don't end up frantically packing at the last minute like usual.
can't wait to get back!
oh yeah, and don't remember if I mentioned this before, but I am now officially a college graduate. Man, time flies...
oh, and here's a picture taken at 11:30 pm
Since this is my last week at work, I am really busy. Pretty much done with all the video editing, just a couple of final things to do on older projects, it's mostly translations left. I am also going to be doing some voiceover work for one of the DVD postcards. They're gonna hire someone to do the voiceover for most of the stuff, but on one of them there's a section with someone asking questions, and an expert on the northern lights is answering them, so i'm asking the questions and doing the little intro bit, so should be fun.
Oh, and back to the weather...it's bright out all the time now. I fell asleep at midnight last night, and it was as bright as noon, and this morning i woke up with the sun shining bright in my face, and looked at the clock, and it was 5
ugh...
have the thickest curtains i could find for a decent price over the windows, but it's still way too bright in the room
i get paid my final paycheck this afternoon, so am planning on doing a little bit of souvenir shopping, then will start going through all my stuff and packing this week so I don't end up frantically packing at the last minute like usual.
can't wait to get back!
oh yeah, and don't remember if I mentioned this before, but I am now officially a college graduate. Man, time flies...
oh, and here's a picture taken at 11:30 pm
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Turku
So this past weekend I took a trip down to Turku. I had been talking about going down forever, but things kept coming up for me, Michael or Toni. Those are my two friends that live there in Turku. We met on the facebook game Hobowars, and have been playing that, as well as a couple other facebook games, together for a couple years. So I took the overnight train down to Turku on Friday. It left at 8:00pm and arrived in Turku at right around 9am on Saturday. I bought a ticket for a sleeper car, which normally would be 100 euros, but with my student card (which cost me only 18 euros) I got a 50% discount, so that was awesome. I was in a cabin for 3 people, but was the only one for the first part of the trip. We didn't have to change trains or anything, but it made lots of stops on the way down to Turku. The other 2 guys in my cabin got on in Oulu, about 3 hours in, and that's when they started drinking. After I finished reading through The Giver, which is in my opinion the best book of all time, I went to sleep and slept pretty much the rest of the train ride. When I arrived in Turku, Toni picked me up and we went back to his and his girlfriends' place where they had offered to let me stay for the night. Toni and I decided to walk through the town along the river over to the other side of town where we could see the Castle of Turku.
The Castle was pretty impressive. I've heard it's not that much compared to many of the other castles in Europe, but seeing as the only castle I've ever seen before is the one in the Disney logo, it was very impressive. It was huge inside, took us a good 2 hours to walk through and see everything inside it. They had restored sections of it to be like it was in the medieval ages, during the renaissance, etc. so it was really cool to see the progression of the architecture and furniture and everything.
After that we walked back along the river to see the city center, and went to meet Michael and Maria (Toni's girlfriend) for lunch. I had an awesome burger. It was called a panini, but it was just a big burger with sliced filet mignon instead of ground beef. It was one of the best things I've had since I've been here in Finland. After lunch, we went over to see the big Cathedral in town. It was humongous, and very impressive. It and the castle were a couple of the only buildings to have survived all 5 or 6 fires that destroyed most of the city several times over the years. After that Toni and I went to a hockey game, TPS (Turun Palloseura, from Turku) against HPK (Hämeenlinnan Pallokerho, from Hämeenlinna) Naturally, we were cheering for TPS, and they won 3-1. It was a really crazy game. We could only get standing tickets, so it was tiring, but it was insane. The stadium's capacity is 12,000, and there were 11,820 people there. It was so loud, and there couldn't have been more than a couple hundred HPK fans, so the cheering for TPS and booing for HPK was awesome. After the game we went back to Toni's place, where Maria made dinner. She made Karelian Stew, and it was amazing. Especially since they had fresh homemade lingonberry jam made from berries picked at their summer cottage, which, surprisingly, goes amazingly well with the beef, pork, and lamb in the stew. The berries here are to die for. She also made a blueberry pie out of fresh berries. Best blueberries I've ever had. After that, we were all pretty tired, so we went to bed. I slept on the couch, which was actually pretty comfortable.
On Sunday Toni had to go to work all day, so Maria and I walked around town for like 4 or 5 hours just seeing the whole town and walking their dogs and just talking about Finland, and Turku and everything. After a while I went to meet Michael again, and we hung out for a little bit and had dinner, and then I left on the train back for Rovaniemi. It left at 9pm, and arrived here at 11:30 or so. I just rested the rest of the day, and then today I've been working all day.
So, picture time.
The Train Cabin
The beds
Scale model of the castle
The Castle from the inner courtyard
Turku City Hall that sits on the banks of the Aura River
Mermaid Tail sculpture in the Aura River
The Cathedral
The inside of the Cathedral, and the biggest set of organ pipes I've ever seen
And this is back in Rovaniemi, the view outside, at 10:30pm
Anyways, looks like from here on out I'll just be working and waiting to come back to the states. That's all for now.
The Castle was pretty impressive. I've heard it's not that much compared to many of the other castles in Europe, but seeing as the only castle I've ever seen before is the one in the Disney logo, it was very impressive. It was huge inside, took us a good 2 hours to walk through and see everything inside it. They had restored sections of it to be like it was in the medieval ages, during the renaissance, etc. so it was really cool to see the progression of the architecture and furniture and everything.
After that we walked back along the river to see the city center, and went to meet Michael and Maria (Toni's girlfriend) for lunch. I had an awesome burger. It was called a panini, but it was just a big burger with sliced filet mignon instead of ground beef. It was one of the best things I've had since I've been here in Finland. After lunch, we went over to see the big Cathedral in town. It was humongous, and very impressive. It and the castle were a couple of the only buildings to have survived all 5 or 6 fires that destroyed most of the city several times over the years. After that Toni and I went to a hockey game, TPS (Turun Palloseura, from Turku) against HPK (Hämeenlinnan Pallokerho, from Hämeenlinna) Naturally, we were cheering for TPS, and they won 3-1. It was a really crazy game. We could only get standing tickets, so it was tiring, but it was insane. The stadium's capacity is 12,000, and there were 11,820 people there. It was so loud, and there couldn't have been more than a couple hundred HPK fans, so the cheering for TPS and booing for HPK was awesome. After the game we went back to Toni's place, where Maria made dinner. She made Karelian Stew, and it was amazing. Especially since they had fresh homemade lingonberry jam made from berries picked at their summer cottage, which, surprisingly, goes amazingly well with the beef, pork, and lamb in the stew. The berries here are to die for. She also made a blueberry pie out of fresh berries. Best blueberries I've ever had. After that, we were all pretty tired, so we went to bed. I slept on the couch, which was actually pretty comfortable.
On Sunday Toni had to go to work all day, so Maria and I walked around town for like 4 or 5 hours just seeing the whole town and walking their dogs and just talking about Finland, and Turku and everything. After a while I went to meet Michael again, and we hung out for a little bit and had dinner, and then I left on the train back for Rovaniemi. It left at 9pm, and arrived here at 11:30 or so. I just rested the rest of the day, and then today I've been working all day.
So, picture time.
The Train Cabin
The beds
Scale model of the castle
The Castle from the inner courtyard
Turku City Hall that sits on the banks of the Aura River
Mermaid Tail sculpture in the Aura River
The Cathedral
The inside of the Cathedral, and the biggest set of organ pipes I've ever seen
And this is back in Rovaniemi, the view outside, at 10:30pm
Anyways, looks like from here on out I'll just be working and waiting to come back to the states. That's all for now.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Chinese Food
So I just got back from lunch. I went to a Chinese restaurant here in the Rovaniemi city center, along with 3 other exchange students. I asked for everything to be cooked like 地道中餐 (traditional chinese food), and it was all amazing. We all shared Szechuan Beef, Curry Chicken, Sweet and Sour Pork, and my personal favorite, 虾仁鸡蛋 (Shrimp and Egg), which tasted exactly like the Shacks' shrimp and egg, and of course, good, sticky white rice.
Talked with the owner for a little bit in Chinese, she of course wanted to know how I learned Chinese, so it was really nice to actually be able to speak with a native speaker. She's from Hebei, in central China.
Anyways, I should get back to work, just wanted to post, because I'm so happy right now. Haven't been able to stop smiling since the food first came out.
Talked with the owner for a little bit in Chinese, she of course wanted to know how I learned Chinese, so it was really nice to actually be able to speak with a native speaker. She's from Hebei, in central China.
Anyways, I should get back to work, just wanted to post, because I'm so happy right now. Haven't been able to stop smiling since the food first came out.
Friday, April 16, 2010
crazy weather courtesy of the volcano
so the past few days it's been clear out, bright blue sky, beautiful, light from around 4:30am-10:30pm or something like that, and all the snow on the roads, sidewalks, and parking lots and everything has almost completely melted
then the volcano erupted. It's snowing really really hard out right now, and the temperature went down a few degrees, and it's darker outside
Tommi (my boss) called me this morning on skype (and woke me up) to tell me not to worry too much about the volcano affecting my flight out in late May. He studied geology in college, so was going on for about 15 minutes about what effects the volcano should and shouldn't have on us here. I don't remember most of it as I was only half awake, but I do remember that he said that the volcano ash that was thrown up into the atmosphere would normally be blown northwest, but for some reason the strongest winds right now are blowing southeast, which is why the ash has covered Finland. I didn't connect that volcanic ash with the weird weather until I left work to grab lunch and the weather was so weird.
crazy crazy weather
oh, and i forgot to mention...when i left for work this morning it wasn't snowing or anything, and i didn't think to check the weather report since it's been clear so much lately, so don't have my waterproof coat with me...gonna be a fun walk home this evening :P
Oh, don't know if I already posted this or not, but I am officially done with all of my studies for my undergrad work. YAY!!!!!
Oh, and Rachel, I asked one of the student tutors if he knew a place where I could get my measurements taken and he said he'll try and find one, and if there isn't one here, I should be able to find one in Turku when I visit there next weekend.
Can't wait to get back!
then the volcano erupted. It's snowing really really hard out right now, and the temperature went down a few degrees, and it's darker outside
Tommi (my boss) called me this morning on skype (and woke me up) to tell me not to worry too much about the volcano affecting my flight out in late May. He studied geology in college, so was going on for about 15 minutes about what effects the volcano should and shouldn't have on us here. I don't remember most of it as I was only half awake, but I do remember that he said that the volcano ash that was thrown up into the atmosphere would normally be blown northwest, but for some reason the strongest winds right now are blowing southeast, which is why the ash has covered Finland. I didn't connect that volcanic ash with the weird weather until I left work to grab lunch and the weather was so weird.
crazy crazy weather
oh, and i forgot to mention...when i left for work this morning it wasn't snowing or anything, and i didn't think to check the weather report since it's been clear so much lately, so don't have my waterproof coat with me...gonna be a fun walk home this evening :P
Oh, don't know if I already posted this or not, but I am officially done with all of my studies for my undergrad work. YAY!!!!!
Oh, and Rachel, I asked one of the student tutors if he knew a place where I could get my measurements taken and he said he'll try and find one, and if there isn't one here, I should be able to find one in Turku when I visit there next weekend.
Can't wait to get back!
Thursday, April 15, 2010
hmmm...this could be bad
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63E1TM20100415
The link's to an article about the recent volcano eruption in Iceland and how it's halted all flights in and out of Finland and much of Northern Europe, as well as many cross-strait flights from JFK and Newark Airports. For now all flights are grounded for just a few days, but volcanologists are saying that if the eruption continues it's possible for there to be "intermittent problems to air traffic for 6 months"
I was talking to my boss about it and to try and make me feel better he said "don't get upset, anything can happen, and you can always take a boat..."
not very reassuring
I'll keep following the story and post if things change
The link's to an article about the recent volcano eruption in Iceland and how it's halted all flights in and out of Finland and much of Northern Europe, as well as many cross-strait flights from JFK and Newark Airports. For now all flights are grounded for just a few days, but volcanologists are saying that if the eruption continues it's possible for there to be "intermittent problems to air traffic for 6 months"
I was talking to my boss about it and to try and make me feel better he said "don't get upset, anything can happen, and you can always take a boat..."
not very reassuring
I'll keep following the story and post if things change
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
school and work
So first, the good news. I got my ticket back to the states. I will be flying back on May 25th, and I can't wait!
More good news, classes are almost finished. I only have one class left, International Sales Negotiations, and I only have 3 class meetings, with a project due in a week, and then I'm done with classes. Which means I'll be done with all my undergrad studies...man, time flies.
Now for the other news...
Yesterday I took my survival Finnish exam, and considering how little she actually taught us throughout the semester, everyone figured the exam would be pretty easy. We were wrong.
I failed the exam.
Every single person in the class failed the exam.
The closest anyone got was the two Dutch girls, who each got around 45% of the questions right.
After we finished the exam we went over it afterwards with the teacher, so we already know our grades, and she already knows that the exam was too hard and that everyone failed, so I figured she'd give us a curve or something. She just told us the date of the make-up exam.
So in two weeks I guess we're gonna have to retake it. Our only hope is that she either changes the exam to make it much easier, which I doubt she will do, or she keeps the test exactly the same, in which case we can just memorize the answers from the copy of the test that a few of us kept.
Anyways, enough of that. I start working fulltime this week. I still have sales negotiations on thursday and friday, and then next wednesday, but other than that, I will be working Monday-Saturday, 8-4. As I'm sure you all know, I'm not a morning person, but I sort of have to work early now. I was told before I came here that they would be getting me a laptop that I can do editing on, but it doesn't look like that's gonna be happening. It's still possible that they'll get one sometime, but it's been pushed back so many times now for one reason or another, I just don't think it's gonna happen. So in the meantime, I work on the computer here in the morning, and then Juha comes in to work in the afternoons, so I just work on translations and stuff on my own laptop then.
No pictures to post, haven't really done much lately, mostly been working and resting, and that's gonna continue the next little while. I am looking forward to the weekend of April 24th, as I will be going down to Turku to hang out with a couple friends. Other than that though, it looks like I'll just be working until I head back to the states.
Again, if anyone has any questions, leave a comment, email, or post on facebook and I'll have something more interesting to write about.
More good news, classes are almost finished. I only have one class left, International Sales Negotiations, and I only have 3 class meetings, with a project due in a week, and then I'm done with classes. Which means I'll be done with all my undergrad studies...man, time flies.
Now for the other news...
Yesterday I took my survival Finnish exam, and considering how little she actually taught us throughout the semester, everyone figured the exam would be pretty easy. We were wrong.
I failed the exam.
Every single person in the class failed the exam.
The closest anyone got was the two Dutch girls, who each got around 45% of the questions right.
After we finished the exam we went over it afterwards with the teacher, so we already know our grades, and she already knows that the exam was too hard and that everyone failed, so I figured she'd give us a curve or something. She just told us the date of the make-up exam.
So in two weeks I guess we're gonna have to retake it. Our only hope is that she either changes the exam to make it much easier, which I doubt she will do, or she keeps the test exactly the same, in which case we can just memorize the answers from the copy of the test that a few of us kept.
Anyways, enough of that. I start working fulltime this week. I still have sales negotiations on thursday and friday, and then next wednesday, but other than that, I will be working Monday-Saturday, 8-4. As I'm sure you all know, I'm not a morning person, but I sort of have to work early now. I was told before I came here that they would be getting me a laptop that I can do editing on, but it doesn't look like that's gonna be happening. It's still possible that they'll get one sometime, but it's been pushed back so many times now for one reason or another, I just don't think it's gonna happen. So in the meantime, I work on the computer here in the morning, and then Juha comes in to work in the afternoons, so I just work on translations and stuff on my own laptop then.
No pictures to post, haven't really done much lately, mostly been working and resting, and that's gonna continue the next little while. I am looking forward to the weekend of April 24th, as I will be going down to Turku to hang out with a couple friends. Other than that though, it looks like I'll just be working until I head back to the states.
Again, if anyone has any questions, leave a comment, email, or post on facebook and I'll have something more interesting to write about.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Trivia
Well, nobody sent me any questions, so I guess I'll just do a post with random little tidbits about Finland that most people don't know.
Please, send me some questions, or the next few weeks will see some boring blog posts.
- You can use a credit card for everything here, from a pack of gum at a store, to a taxi, they accept plastic everywhere
- You can also pay for a ton of stuff with your phone...lots of vending machines have a number, you text the number with what you want, the drink pops out, and your account gets charged for the drink
- The language of the elves in Lord of the Rings is based on Finnish
- There are 187,888 lakes in Finland
- Finland is the least corrupt country in the world
- Finland was the first country to give women the right to vote
Please, send me some questions, or the next few weeks will see some boring blog posts.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Norway and work
So last Sunday we left at 9am for our trip to Norway. The group was me, Jacques, Marleen, Laura, Andrea, and her boyfriend on the trip, along with Sammi, our student tutor/chauffeur. We took a big van, so all of us were in one vehicle together. The first day we went up to Inari (still in Finland), where we spent the night in a couple cottages. On the way we stopped in Ivalo and went to a Sami museum, which had a couple of interesting things, but wasn't all that exciting. Me, Jacques, Marleen and Andrea were in one cottage, and Sami and Andrea and her boyfriend were in the other cottage. I was exhausted, so fell asleep pretty much right away when we got there, but the others went out and tried to build an igloo in the snow. The next morning we drove to the Norwegian border and went on up to Alta in northern Norway. The weather was absolutely horrible for the drive up, it was snowing a lot, and was really windy, so at times we had to go really slowly because of the poor visibility, but we did make it up there. It did clear up some of the time, and we got some amazing views of the fjords, which looked so cool. Everything there is really expensive though. I thought Finland was expensive, but I was proven wrong. At a little cafe in Norway we stopped and got a burger. Regular size burger (small for the states) with some fries, no drink...18 bucks. The same in Finland is like 10, and the same in the states would probably be around 5. It's crazy.
The next day we were going to go to Tromso, another city to the Northwest of Alta, but the road between the two cities was closed due to the weather. We decided to go anyways, just a different route. Unfortunately that meant we had to go back down south into Finland, over to Sweden, and back up to Norway, so it was cool to be in 3 different countries in a matter of 4 hours, but made for a long day of driving. When we finally got to Tromso it was really cool though. It was still snowing a little, but the weather wasn't too bad, so we could see the city. It's built on an island, with a HUGE bridge between it and the mainland. The next day we went in to the city center and explored for a while, and visited the Polarium, a polar museum, where we got to see some bearded seals being fed and trained, which was pretty cool, although I couldn't get many of the pictures to turn out. Those things are a lot faster than they look. They're like big fat torpedoes in the water. Later that afternoon we left Tromso and headed back south and back into Finland. We spent the last night of the trip in a huge cottage in Kiipisjarvi. It was a tiny little town, so nothing to do, but we had fun. We all played card games and truth or dare inside, and then went outside to see if we could see the northern lights, and we finally got lucky. They weren't very bright, but they were amazing none the less.
The next day we headed back to Rovaniemi, stopping on the way for lunch in Levi, a ski resort town in Finland. When we finally got back to Rovaniemi we were all exhausted, so we all pretty much crashed right away. The next few days I worked a lot on translations and stuff for work.
This past week has been pretty crazy. I've been in classes half the week, and working the other half. I finally started video editing, which made work a lot more interesting, but it also means I've been working more than before, so I'm really tired.
Anyways, here are some pictures from the trip.
The van
The road
More road
The group at the Norway-Finland border
Lovely visibility, isn't it?
Me on the Sweden-Finland border
View from just out front of the cottage in Tromso
Bridge to Tromso
We at at the northernmost Burger King in the world. Was almost 90 bucks for the 6 of us to eat.
Didn't try the Whopper Nacho due to the jalapenos, but looked interesting.
The bearded seals at the Polarium
We stopped to take pictures in front of this huge wall of stone and ice, it's my new background on my iPod
The Northern Lights (silhouette is of our cottage)
Hope you enjoyed the update and pictures.
P.S.
If you guys have any questions about Finland or anything, let me know and I'll make a blog post next week about all kinds of stuff since I don't have any exciting things planned for the near future.
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