I'm coming home

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!

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

and these next four pictures were taken at midnight, 1:30, 3:00, and 4:30

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