brrrrr

So it's -24 right now, and it's really windy, which makes for absolutely brutal conditions, especially when you have to walk into the wind.  Even so, in about 5 hours, which will be midnight here, a group of us will be going on a 1 hour hike up to the top of a mountain here near town because apparently these conditions are pretty much the best shot we have at seeing the northern lights while we're here, short of going about 300km north of here to the middle of nowhere.  Hopefully we'll be able to actually see them, and if so I'll take pictures and videos and try and upload some stuff tomorrow.

Anyways, back to earlier this week.  This Tuesday was my first day of work.  I woke up early and walked the 30 minutes to the city center, and started work at 8:30.  I just did editing of the website and a few other documents.  This first week I'm trying to finish up all that stuff and then I'll move on to translating the site into Chinese.  I won't start doing a lot of editing until I get my work laptop, which they're gonna order sometime in early February I think.  So I just worked a couple of hours Tuesday, since I had class at 12:30.  On the way back to school, I finally gave in and stopped at the mall and got a prepaid mobile internet usb stick so i can have decent internet in the dorms.
In Survival Finnish that afternoon, I was pretty much brain dead, so tried to pay attention, but didn't manage to follow the teacher very well.  Even on a day when I haven't gotten up early and worked before class it's hard to follow the teacher, so that's gonna be a really tough class.
Then yesterday was another long day.  Asian Trade from 8:15-11:45, then lunch, and Business Communications from 12:30-2:00, then a 40 minute walk over to the Arktikum (www.arktikum.fi) where we went on a guided tour of the museum for Intercultural Communications.  It had a bunch of exhibits on the history of Rovaniemi and the Laplands, as well as the Sami people, who are sort of like the aboriginal people of the Laplands.  It was interesting, but a little long.  After the tour, a group of us decided to get something to eat, so we went the the northernmost McDonald's in the world, and I had a Big Mac, which tasted exactly the same as every other Big Mac I've ever had.  A couple of the others got ice cream, but I think they're just crazy.

That brings us back to today, where I just got back from a far too cold and windy walk back from Survival Finnish.  Now I get to relax a few hours before venturing back out into the cold.

Then tomorrow I don't have any classes, so will be going into work in the morning and putting in my first full day of work.  I should be able to finish up all of the english stuff tomorrow and start doing a little bit of translating, depending on how many distractions there are throughout the day.  My boss works 3/4 of the time from his home in Luxembourg, so uses skype to keep in touch with everyone, and he really likes to talk, so should be interesting.


edit: back from the hike, no luck :(  saw some vague outlines of what might have been the lights, but too cloudy to see anything exciting

Crazy Sauna

So this evening I went to the sauna, and decided to be crazy, so a bunch of us went straight from the sauna and jumped in the snow outside, then back in the sauna
it was insanely cold, and i thought i was gonna have a heart attack, but it was fun to try once
now all we needa do is go to the sauna just outside town where you can jump into a hole cut in the frozen river then back to the sauna, think a group of us are gonna do that in a couple weeks

Reindeer Pizza

 So today, Jan, Nada, and I decided to get some pizza.  We translated the Finnish menu to English, thanks to Google Translate, and got a pizza with reindeer, salami, mushrooms, and mozzarella cheese on it.  We also got one with honey marinated chicken, onions, and feta cheese.  They were both delicious, but the reindeer one was a little better.  It was tiny little pieces of reindeer that looked almost like bacon bits, so didn't really have a strong reindeer flavor, but it was still really good.

So here's a couple pictures.

The reindeer Pizza

The chicken Pizza

Work

Okay, so I just got back a little bit ago from talking to Tommi, my boss, about what I will be doing and when.  For the first couple weeks I will be focusing mostly on translating www.santatelevision.com into Chinese.  I will eventually be translating the entire site, including either subtitles or dubbing for all the videos, or at least that's what the goal is.  Once they order my work computer in early February I'll be doing more video editing.  It's gonna be a nice computer. Sony VAIO FW Series VGN-FW51MF/H - Core 2 Duo 2.53 GHz - 16.4 " - 6 GB Ram - 500 GB HDD.  Can't wait.
The first project I will be working on is a DVD postcard for a city in Germany.  All the footage has already been shot, and captured, so that is nice.  Now I just need to go through all of the videos and figure out which clips to use and which to toss out.  I have just over 4000 video clips, ranging from 5-30 seconds long each, which I need to cut down and edit into a 12-15 minute video.  So it's gonna take a long time, but it should be interesting, since it's all beautiful scenery and stuff.
I will start working part time this week, and then in mid-April when my classes all end, full time.  I am also going to be going through the various websites maintained by the company to check for any typos, grammatical errors, etc. since it was all written by non-native english speakers.
So that pretty much sums up all I know about the job so far. 


Back to last week.  On Sunday morning I got up and went to Santa Claus Village, along with about 10 other exchange students.  It is just about 12 km north of the dorms here, so just outside town.  For those of you that love maps (dad), the exact coordinates are 66°33'07" North, 25°50'51" East.  We shopped a little bit there, and then went about 2km over to a husky farm.  You could pay extra to go on a dog sled ride, but it was only a 1-2 minute thing, and was quite expensive, so I just settled for watching and filming some Japanese tourists go for a ride.  We did get to pet a bunch of them and got a ton of great pictures.
After we got back home, I headed over to the local Lutheran church, which has an English service once a month at night.  The service was okay, but definitely not what I'm used to, plus there were only 3 other people there, including the priest.  I talked to some guys at school today and they said there are a couple of small independent churches that have English services in Rovaniemi, so I think I'm gonna try and visit those the next couple weeks. 

Yesterday morning, school started back, so had the normal classes, and after classes, I went to the city center to buy a bike.  The shop I went to had a bunch of used bikes out front that sell for pretty cheap, so I got one for 45 euros, and thought it seemed a little small, but would do.  Then I tried to ride it home.  My knees hit the handlebars any time I turned a little bit.  Needless to say I'm gonna try and go back in the next couple of days to see if I can either exchange it for a bigger bike or sell it back and try and get another bike there or some other shop or something. 

Today I woke up feeling sick.  Not flu or anything, just a cold, so congestion and sore throat.  Took a nice hot shower and felt a lot better, but was still feeling sorta bad after lunch, so I took a nap, and felt a ton better when I woke up, which is good, since I had to go to the meeting with my boss.  I think I'm the 6th or 7th in the group to get a cold or something similar in the last few days, which isn't surprising considering the weather, but hopefully nobody will come down with anything more serious, otherwise we could all be missing a lot of classes.

Tomorrow I don't have class until 2:30, which means I get to sleep in!  So gonna take some nyquil here in a few minutes and try and get over this cold fast.

Anyways, picture time.


Me just across the arctic circle.

The first reindeer I've seen, just outside Santa Claus' Workshop.

The thermometer in front of Santa Claus' Workshop.  It was a warm day.

The first week

So I am now done with my first week of classes. I actually didn't have any classes today, so was technically done with them yesterday. Today, I walked the 3.5 or so km into the city center to find Joulupukki TV, which is run out of an apartment downtown. I met one of the guys who will be my supervisors, but won't meet my boss, the one I've been communicating with the most, until our meeting on Tuesday. They gave me 4 of their most recently produced DVD postcards to look through so I know what kind of format will be used for my work. This way I'll have more of an idea of what to talk about for the meeting. I'm gonna try and find a place to buy a bicycle, as it will make the trip much faster, because the 25-30 minutes each way is way too long of a commute each day, especially with classes added in there.

I finally found out my class schedule for the rest of the semester, and it is definitely different from the American format. Different classes begin and end at seemingly random times throughout the semester. For instance, Asian Trade, which started this past week, ends in the beginning of February. Also, I still have 2 more classes, Business Communication, and International Sales Negotiations, which have not yet begun. Business Communication class begins January 25th, and Sales Negotiations begins March 1. My last class will end around the middle of April, which will be really nice for multiple reasons. First, it will give me more time to travel some. A group of us are planning on visiting Norway and Sweden one week, and I also plan to go down to Helsinki to visit some friends that I have been chatting with online for a few years now. Secondly, it also gives me lots of time to just work without worrying about school. Finally, it allows me the flexibility to return a little early for Rachel's wedding!

So yesterday I went to the gym that is just across the street from the dorms here. It's not huge, but is really nice. Has all pretty new equipment, leg press, bench, and some other stuff, and my personal favorite, a heavy bag and boxing gloves. So, I exhausted myself there yesterday with some of the other guys, then we all went to the sauna, which felt great after a workout.
The weather's been a little colder than earlier in the week, averaging around -9 to -15, so has been pretty good for the most part, although the walk back from the city center today was pretty brutal because the wind was in my face the whole time.

Anyways, time for more pictures.


The view outside my dorm room window, the building on the left is the girls dorm, and the one on the right (single floor one) is the dorm office, laundry room, and sauna.


The rock path that lines the road I take to school every day.


Another shot of the road I take to school.


Closeup of branches of the trees lining the road to school.


Main road in town (Valtatie 4) on left side of shot, I'm on the bike/pedestrian path off to the side of it.


Harjulampi (Ridge Lake) frozen over, and those dots are people walking across it. That's the fastest way to get across town since the lake sort of divides the city.


Closeup of these trees that lined the road right by my work, they look really cool with all the branches frozen.


The buzzer to call up to the apartment that Joulupukki TV is run out of.

Classes

So I just finished my second day of classes. They're so different here.

Yesterday morning I had Asian trade from 8:15 to 12:30. Yes, 4 hours. But we had a 45 minute lunch break at 11. But still, long class. I had to leave the class early too, because my Intercultural communications class started at 12:30, and is in the Rantavitikka campus, whereas Asian trade is in Viirinkangas. The two campuses are about 7-8 minutes apart, plus time to put on and take off all the coats, hats, scarves, etc. required for the walk.

I really enjoyed the Asian trade class. The teacher's english was pretty good, and there were some cool people in the class. I sat next to a couple of chinese girls who were freaked out when I started speaking chinese to them, so that was fun. And then there was actually another American in the class (only other one I've seen in Rovaniemi), and we got to talking, and it turns out he's from Birmingham. Small world. He's here with his wife. They're both doing part time studies, and also working with an episcopal church in the area.

For lunch I ate in the Viirinkangas Restaurant (what they call the cafeteria), had an excellent pork and root vegetable stew. It had carrots, potatoes, turnips, and radishes. Very good, and also very filling.

Then we went over to Rantavitikka and had Intercultural Communications, another 4 hour class. We had a 15 minute break in the middle and got out about 45 minutes early, but it still seemed like an eternity. Finns seem to speak really slowly. Not so much in the time between individual words, but they'll say one sentence, then wait about 15 seconds, then say something else. I don't know if they're just doing that so that everyone can understand better, or if it's just a habit many of them have or something, but it made for a really long boring class. The material itself was okay, we basically just did the introduction to what culture is, culture shock, etc.

After class I walked to Prisma, sort of like a Finnish Walmart or some other huge store, which was about 500m or so off a path on the way back to the dorms, so not too bad. Got some food and stuff there, and headed back. I was exhausted from the long classes and everything, so stayed up a little while and read some of The Giver (one of 3 books I brought with me, already finished the other 2), and fell asleep around 7. I woke up around 4 this morning, and tried going back to sleep, but pretty much just tossed and turned and read a little until 9:30, when I got up and showered and everything. Then I walked to Rantavitikka (the one that's 1.5km from the dorms) and had lunch, same stew as yesterday, and went to Survival Finnish.

That was an interesting class. It's gonna be extremely hard to follow, for several reasons. The Finns have 8 vowels, all with different pronunciations than in English. They also have 16 consonants.
The vowels are what really throws me off. For example, a is pronounced like we'd say "ahh", e like the e in pet, i like the ee in see, etc. None of them sound like their English counterparts. And then they have, in addition to our 5, y, ä, and ö.

Also, the way they say things is different. For instance, the Finnish for car is auto, and the Finnish for "in the car" is autossa. Also, if I was to ask "is there any mail for Joshua Courson" at the post office, I'd say "anko sinulla postia Joshua Coursonille" the ille meaning "for."

One of the first phrases we went over was "where are you from", which is "Minkä maalainen sinä olet?", to which I have to answer "Mina olen usalainen", usalainen meaning from the USA, which they pronounce like "ooh es ahh.", so usalainen sounds like "ooh es ahh line in," which I find quite amusing. The Finnish teacher's english is really bad, so she had to constantly stop and think for a minute to tell us the English meaning of any word she said, which is why she just tended to repeat the phrase a bunch until someone caught on and got what she was trying to say. Hopefully it'll get better, but today was pretty bad.

Tomorrow it's back to Asian Trade and Intercultural Communications. However, I won't have to do as much walking, since on Wednesdays, we meet at Viirinkangas for Communications, since there are 2 different teachers for the class.

The weather's been really nice the last couple days. It's been between -5 and -10, which is realy nice. Don't have to bundle up nearly as much. This morning it snowed for the first time since I arrived. I was told it was too cold to snow before, so it made for a nice walk, although a little more slippery since the snow on the ground wasn't packed down much yet.

Now for pictures.

The sign out front of Viirinkangas Campus


The front entrance of Viirinkangas Campus, complete with huge pile of snow out front (you can see part of the front doors behind it)


A bike leaning up against a bench in front of the dorms. This was before today's fresh snow. The bike apparently hasn't been ridden in at least a week.


Well, that's all of them for now. I'll try and get some new shots and post more soon.

Sauna and Pictures

Just got out of my first sauna. It was crazy. You get in the sauna, which is like 95 degrees Celcius, then jump in a freezing cold shower, then back in the sauna, then repeat again. All in all I think we were in the sauna probably 40 minutes or so. Really clears out your sinuses and all your pores and everything. I'm definitely looking forward to doing it again later.
So I went to the welcoming party last night, it was at a club called Onnela. Nice place, but the band they had playing for the first couple hours was playing like country music type stuff, so it was boring, but then after they quit the dj played some good stuff. They had drinks and quiche and chips, pretzels, nuts, etc. for us to snack on, so it was fun just sitting with a group of people talking about stuff.
The group I sat with and have been hanging out with a lot since the first day is my roommate, Jan (with an accent over the a, pronounced yan), from the Czech Republic, his girlfriend Nadia, also from the Czech Republic, Marleen and Laurentia, from the Netherlands, Olesya, from Russia, and Andrea, from Germany.
The church in town is a Lutheran one, but all the services are in Finnish, so I think I'll try to go once I've got a little bit of Finnish down, but for now I think it'd be kinda pointless, so will just have to do something at home. They do have a special night service once a month in English, so will be going to that next Sunday night.
The weather's getting a lot nicer. Was only -20 today, and by Monday it's only supposed to be -10, or as the Finns call it, T-shirt weather. :D

Now for some pictures. This first one is of the road that I take to school and back every day.

















This next one is me all bundled up on the way back from my second day of orientation. It was still light out because it was just 2:00 or so.

This last one is my dorm building. The top left window there is my room. The one next to it is another room, then there's another window half hidden by that tree, which is our living room/kitchenette window. The tiny window on the end of the building is in the shower room. And in case you're wondering, those aren't parking meters, they're outlets to plug block heaters in. I was standing at the end of the road pictured above when i took this picture.


That's all for now.

brrrrrrr

So I'm in Rovaniemi now, and it's cold. Very cold. Very very cold.
When I walked to school this morning, it was -31 C. The nice thing is I haven't had any allergy issues since I arrived in Finland.
It's light out right now, but not for much longer.
Orientation started this morning at just after 9. We got informational packets, and then different people came in to talk to us about weather, culture, language issues, laws and regulations, the churches, and stuff like that. After lunch, which was schnitzel and potato soup, a nice big bowl for 2.13 euros, we went on a campus tour, which ended here in the computer lab.
We have a bus tour of the city planned for 3:00, so that should be good, and then after that, we're done for the day.
Tomorrow we're gonna have orientation again in our own school.
There are 3 schools within RAMK.
Today we were at Rantavitikka (School of Forestry and rural Industries, and Technology)
The school I'm gonna be at (Business and Tourism School) is called Viirinkangas
The third school is Ounasvaara (School of Health Care and Social Services, Sports and Leisure)
In that orientation we will go over our classes and everything with advisors, so I'll know more about when and where classes will be and everything.

The dorms are pretty sparse, have a 2 desks, lamps, closets, and beds in the 2 person rooms.
Little bit bigger than the dorm rooms at Tech, but smaller closets. The dorms are arranged sort of like suites. There are 4 of these double rooms per suite, plus a little living room/kitchenette, a shower room, and bathroom. They are nice and warm, and the water is hot, so that's all that really matters right now.

Well, off to ride a bus around for a while.

That's all for now.

So I just arrived here at the airport in Helsinki. Went through a 3rd round of security, and am now sitting at a computer with an hour's worth of internet. It's snowing a little bit outside, but it must have snowed more earlier, because all the planes are covered in snow. It's beautiful out. And cold. It's -15 out right now, but it's nice and toasty in the airport, so that's nice.

It'll take some getting used to learning to type on these Finnish keyboards, as several extra keys are added, moving the apostrophe over, and shrinking the enter key to about half it's normal size. They add öäå to theirs, so i keep on typing "itäs" instead of "it's"

I'll try and update again once I arrive in Rovaniemi if I find internet there. It's a national holiday, so pretty much everything's closed, so don't know if i'll be able to find a coffee shop with wireless or anything, but should be at school tomorrow morning so can post then.

The Adventures Begin

So I'm flying out of Richmond at 10:40 tomorrow morning. I arrive in Rovaniemi at 1:35 on the afternoon of the 6th, and will start to get settled and everything then. The weather forecast for Wednesday when I arrive is a high of 6 degrees, and a low of -16 Fahrenheit. I will have the rest of Wednesday to get settled in the dorms and get to know the city a little bit, and International Student Orientation begins the next morning. Classes then begin on the 11th.
This time of the year there's only supposed to be around 2-3 hours of sunlight a day, so that should be an interesting adjustment.
I don't start my internship with Santa Claus TV until later in January, so will have plenty of time to adjust to life in the cold and the dark before starting to work.

The thing I'm looking forward to the most is the internship. I will know more about it later, but so far what I have been told is that I will be doing some video editing and tranlating from English to Mandarin.

All done packing now so just need to get some rest and get ready to leave for the airport in the morning.

That's all for now.