so once again today, random fruit appeared in our finnish salad. often to our surprise, there is fruit mixed in with the cabbage or lettuce salads which we eat at school everyday. sometimes it is diced peaches, canned pineapple (the finns love their pineapple), oranges, or even berries! my irish friend amy coined these as "sneaky fruits" which fits perfectly. we asked our professor if sneaky fruits were always in lettuce salads, and laughing she told us she never noticed them before but now is aware of just how often they appear. also, she said it wasn't typical, just at school. hmmm. very interesting.
in other news, today it was completely dark before 3pm. by 4 i was falling asleep while working in studio. i feel like it is time for me to hibernate. the darkness is so powerful. it is only 6:30 but it feels like 10pm. it is really something to experience... now, i think i will take a little nap, eat some dinner and then get back to work. one project down, two to go.
Monday, November 24, 2008
Saturday, November 22, 2008
st. petersburg
by the time i got to st. petersburg both loaves of peanut and jelly sandwiches i brought were gone, and so i got the chance to eat some russian food. for breakfast we had a strangely cooked omelet that was a bit rubbery, with cheese on top, of course tea, and then a stack of crepe like pancakes with strawberry coulee on top, quite delicious!
after breakfast we had a guided bus tour of the city where we saw many beautiful streets and canals... st. petersburg is made on 42 different islands which are separated by canals and bridges over the neva river delta. the land was originally swampy and they had to bring fertile soil to the area in order to settle the city. originally, it was such a damp and bitterly cold place people were brought in chains to settle the city. however, soon it became the cultural capital of russia, and then the actual capital for awhile.
on the tour, we saw the fortress of peter and paul and st.isaac's cathedral which is the 3rd largest cupola in a cathedral after st. peter's in rome and st. paul's in london... the cathedral had an interesting history of being destroyed and used for other things. during soviet times the holy spirit dove at the top of the dome was removed and replaced with a huge pendulum which came all the way to the floor proving that the earth rotates. the mosaics which replaced the oil paintings in the cathedral (the paintings started to be ruined because there was no heating system, so they were replaced slowly with mosaics) were so beautiful! they had to create 12000 different mosaic colors to reproduce the oil colors ...
in the afternoon, we went to the beautiful church of the spilled blood, which was completely covered in intricate gold and brightly saturated mosaics. the amount of detail and intricacy of of the patterns was simply breathtaking. it was one of the most impressive places i have ever seen. then we visited the kazan cathedral which was built to celebrate the victory over napoleon. the interior was dim and mysterious and filled with religious russian orthodox believers going around from icon to icon praying. the priest was preparing for a mass and the air was filled with incense and singing voices.
that night, we all went to a traditional russian dinner party. we were served borsht (very tasty), herring salad (not so much), a main dish (kind of like salesbury steak), dessert, and of course vodka! our tour guide taught us how to drink vodka russian style. 3 rules, never drink without good company, good food or for a good reason. first, only a boy can pour the shot (a small half inch) and then everyone toasts, "nasdroyva" clinks glasses, drinks the shot, and then smells rye bread. when smelling the bread, no taste of vodka hits your mouth and you only experience the bread. very tricky! the dinner was really fun and we were delightfully entertained with traditional music!
on wed. we first took a tour of catherine's palace, an amazingly huge palace about an hour from the city. the inside was decorated with carved wood with gold leaf in russian baroque style and each room was more magnificent than the last. the most impressive room almost completely covered in large pieces of amber (the current room is a reproduction, the original amber panels were lost in WWII when the nazis occupied the palace, the original panels have never been found)....
during our free time, we went to the russian museum where we saw more russian art masterpieces, and in the evening we took a canal tour of the city. it was cold on the boat, but the lights of the city were very beautiful! under each bridge we had to hold our breath and make a wish until we passed to the other side.
our final day in st. petersburg we spent at the state hermitage museum which is inside the winter palace and 4 other attached buildings. it is the 3rd largest art museum in the world and holds amazing masterpieces. the palace itself was simply breathtaking with gold everywhere, spectacular chandeliers and intricate and beautiful wooden inlay floors. i felt like i was in a fairlytale.
we started with a guided tour of the most famous works of the italian rennaissance (paintings from davinci, titian, rafael, a great unpolished sculpture of a crouched boy by michelangelo) and then to other masters carravaggio, rembrandt, vandyke, rubins, rodin, the second biggest collection of french impressionists (cezanne, renoir, monet, etc) and then the largest collection of matisse (dance and harmony in red, 2 of my favorite paintings which i never thought i would get to see!) and then many works by picasso... the museum was phenomenal and i could have spent much longer than 5 hrs there! the guide said that if you look at each piece of art for 30 sec. it would take 3 yrs of constant walking to see everything there, amazing.
after the museum,we got on the bus and rode the 17 hrs back to oulu! it was a long trip and the border formalities were rather extensive. we had to get out of the bus 2 times to go through customs and had our passports and exit migration cards checked a total of 6 times. 5 times on the russian side. but finally, we all made it through and safe back to oulu.
this weekend, i have a lot of catching up to do... now, it is crunch time! i hope all of you have a very happy thanksgiving (i will be having a makeshift one with friends here, but it is not the same as my mom's delicious food and family's company) take care and send me an email update! i would love to hear from home.
nasdrovya!
after breakfast we had a guided bus tour of the city where we saw many beautiful streets and canals... st. petersburg is made on 42 different islands which are separated by canals and bridges over the neva river delta. the land was originally swampy and they had to bring fertile soil to the area in order to settle the city. originally, it was such a damp and bitterly cold place people were brought in chains to settle the city. however, soon it became the cultural capital of russia, and then the actual capital for awhile.
on the tour, we saw the fortress of peter and paul and st.isaac's cathedral which is the 3rd largest cupola in a cathedral after st. peter's in rome and st. paul's in london... the cathedral had an interesting history of being destroyed and used for other things. during soviet times the holy spirit dove at the top of the dome was removed and replaced with a huge pendulum which came all the way to the floor proving that the earth rotates. the mosaics which replaced the oil paintings in the cathedral (the paintings started to be ruined because there was no heating system, so they were replaced slowly with mosaics) were so beautiful! they had to create 12000 different mosaic colors to reproduce the oil colors ...
in the afternoon, we went to the beautiful church of the spilled blood, which was completely covered in intricate gold and brightly saturated mosaics. the amount of detail and intricacy of of the patterns was simply breathtaking. it was one of the most impressive places i have ever seen. then we visited the kazan cathedral which was built to celebrate the victory over napoleon. the interior was dim and mysterious and filled with religious russian orthodox believers going around from icon to icon praying. the priest was preparing for a mass and the air was filled with incense and singing voices.
that night, we all went to a traditional russian dinner party. we were served borsht (very tasty), herring salad (not so much), a main dish (kind of like salesbury steak), dessert, and of course vodka! our tour guide taught us how to drink vodka russian style. 3 rules, never drink without good company, good food or for a good reason. first, only a boy can pour the shot (a small half inch) and then everyone toasts, "nasdroyva" clinks glasses, drinks the shot, and then smells rye bread. when smelling the bread, no taste of vodka hits your mouth and you only experience the bread. very tricky! the dinner was really fun and we were delightfully entertained with traditional music!
on wed. we first took a tour of catherine's palace, an amazingly huge palace about an hour from the city. the inside was decorated with carved wood with gold leaf in russian baroque style and each room was more magnificent than the last. the most impressive room almost completely covered in large pieces of amber (the current room is a reproduction, the original amber panels were lost in WWII when the nazis occupied the palace, the original panels have never been found)....
during our free time, we went to the russian museum where we saw more russian art masterpieces, and in the evening we took a canal tour of the city. it was cold on the boat, but the lights of the city were very beautiful! under each bridge we had to hold our breath and make a wish until we passed to the other side.
our final day in st. petersburg we spent at the state hermitage museum which is inside the winter palace and 4 other attached buildings. it is the 3rd largest art museum in the world and holds amazing masterpieces. the palace itself was simply breathtaking with gold everywhere, spectacular chandeliers and intricate and beautiful wooden inlay floors. i felt like i was in a fairlytale.
we started with a guided tour of the most famous works of the italian rennaissance (paintings from davinci, titian, rafael, a great unpolished sculpture of a crouched boy by michelangelo) and then to other masters carravaggio, rembrandt, vandyke, rubins, rodin, the second biggest collection of french impressionists (cezanne, renoir, monet, etc) and then the largest collection of matisse (dance and harmony in red, 2 of my favorite paintings which i never thought i would get to see!) and then many works by picasso... the museum was phenomenal and i could have spent much longer than 5 hrs there! the guide said that if you look at each piece of art for 30 sec. it would take 3 yrs of constant walking to see everything there, amazing.
after the museum,we got on the bus and rode the 17 hrs back to oulu! it was a long trip and the border formalities were rather extensive. we had to get out of the bus 2 times to go through customs and had our passports and exit migration cards checked a total of 6 times. 5 times on the russian side. but finally, we all made it through and safe back to oulu.
this weekend, i have a lot of catching up to do... now, it is crunch time! i hope all of you have a very happy thanksgiving (i will be having a makeshift one with friends here, but it is not the same as my mom's delicious food and family's company) take care and send me an email update! i would love to hear from home.
nasdrovya!
Friday, November 21, 2008
moscow!
wow. i just arrived safe back to oulu from an 8 day excursion to russia! i got to see and do so many amazing things i don't really know where to start to explain my experience. pretty much it was 2 days of traveling and 6 days of constant sightseeing and activities in moscow and st. petersburg!
so i left last friday at 10 am and we took a bus to southern finland all day...and then hopped on the tolstoi overnight train to moscow. the train was really old and squeaky and on each car there is an old lady who watches over things and makes tea, strange. it was a long train ride, but i fell asleep easily in our sleeper car. we awoke early in moscow and straightaway started the city bus tour of the city.
immediately, leaving the train station i knew i was in russia.... with the cars, the building styles and the people with their fur hats. we toured around the city seeing the major sights of the kremlin, bolshoi theater, statue of peter the great (that was supposed to be christopher columbus and a gift to the usa but didn't happen so they replaced the head with peter's), the novodevichy convent, the cathedral of christ the savior, red square with lenin's masoleum and st. basil's cathedral... etc. etc. we also walked through the city to visit the art nouveau house of the writer gorkiy which reminded me a bit of casa batllo in barcelona...very sweet.
in moscow you can definitely feel the presence of the soviet past. the architecture of stalin's 7 towers and the terribly intimidating university of moscow made you feel about 2 inches tall. the pulse of the city was very alive, but at the same time the people felt sad. people didn't laugh or smile in the streets and all workers in restaurants and musuems spoke little to no english and often just barked out words in russian saying them louder when you shook your head not understanding. even at the tourist sights, the people were not terribly welcoming. it was also a little nerve racking walking in the streets because there was a police or military guard about every 50 m in the city center. the police have the right to check your passport and hostel papers at any time, and are also known for needing a monetary bribe to give your papers back, but luckily none stopped me in moscow. (in st. petersburg me and 2 friends were stopped by 3 police and they asked for our passports which we had in the safe at the hostel....they didn't speak much english, but when they asked where i was from i just said finland and then showed them my iowa driver's license... then we repeated students, tourism until they understood. they were polite to me, but did a very detailed strip search on the two friends i was with, luckily no problems, phew.)
so our first night in moscow, we had a guided tour of the subway with the same woman from the bus tour, she had a crazy russian/british english accent with a new york accent on top. so she would be speaking about something and then the new york accent "look over here at the red "squahr" would come out.., it was hilarious. the subway is really impressive with many of the stations elaborately decorated. it was meant to be a palace for everyday people and it really is amazing to see. it was funny because our group was about 3/4 design and architecture students and we all were really interested the whole time taking pictures everywhere. our guide was like, "wow, you are the most interested group i have ever had on this tour."
on sunday, we started the day with a great tour of the kremlin (where the russian president works). our guide was an excellent story teller who drew us all into the history of the site, making the stories actually come alive. he was a professor of russian history, and asked us questions to think about what we were seeing and to really understand the mindset of the leaders and history of his country. it was really captivating, and the curiousity i felt when listening reminded me of ms demoss one of my favorite teachers in highschool... he showed us the cannons that were captured from napoleon's army, the biggest bell in the world (that never rang) and the biggest cannon in the world (that never fired) as well as all of the beautiful buildings inside the kremlin.
one of my favorite buildings is the russian orthodox coronation chapel (where all of the tsars were coronated starting with ivan the terrible in 1547) it is completely covered (walls and ceiling) in intricate mosaics. the icons tell the story of mary, jesus, the last judgement (on the back wall to remind you when you are leaving) and saints that were the namesakes of the different tsars. it is interesting that when napoleon controlled the kremlin for 30 some days he used this beautiful building as a horse stable and ordered all the silver and metals to be stripped from the icons and melted down in order to be taken to france. when napoleon was later defeated on his way back, the silver was returned to the church and cast into an amazing silver chandelier.
after the tour of the kremlin we toured the tretyakov art gallery which houses the biggest collection of russian art. we traveled through time starting with icons (my favorite was an icon of jesus with untraceable eyes) and moved through to 1900s. we had the same guide as the morning and it was a very enjoyable tour.
russian history is so vast that it is really hard to have a mental time line of everything and to keep all the tsars straight...it is a lot of "he married her, had this illegitimate child and then murdered his son. and then the nephew of him comes to power, is a bad ruler, is murdered by his wife who takes over power...etc" one of my favorite paintings of the exhibit was of a noble woman getting taken off to the gulag concentration camp being pulled on the back of a sled. her black dress starkly contrasts with the white snow, and while the men are laughing, the women all look on with fear and sympathy in their eyes. i think it is all very fascinating and would love to learn more of the history! i also now really want to reread all the russian classics... i saw both of the famous portraits of tolstoi and dostoevsky at this museum...
after the art museum we went to the world famous moscow circus! it was really fantastic with crazy acrobats, tumbling, clowns, motorbikes in a cage, lions, tigers, horses, contortionists and daredevils! i was on the edge of my seat and very entertained.. after we went on a city tour of moscow at night. red square is really awesome all lit up!
monday we started the day with a tour all about the soviet past of moscow where we toured the novedichy cemetary where lots of famous people are buried and visited the fallen idols sculpture park. our guide pointed out that a lot is explained about soviet times in the famous cemetary where the graves of all the important people (writers, politicians, actors, ballet dancers, musicians, poets, etc.) are buried from the 1800s... in the most central area there is a plot that contains the body of stalin's second wife (who either commited "suicide" or was murdered) but this one grave takes up the space of 8 plots. who was buried there before and what happened to their graves when they were removed for her plot? there is no record of who was buried there before.... very interesting. in the fallen idols park there was one area with a really haunting sculpture depicting the innocent victims of the gulag, and in front of the sculpture was stalin with his face chipped off and next to him a sculpture of the man who invented the gulag system, terrible.
monday evening we went to the ballet at the bolshoi (unfortunately at the new theater because the original is being rennovated) the ballet consisted of parts of 3 famous ballets. the first and last were classical and the middle was very modern and a sad story. the dancers were incredibly graceful, beautiful, powerful and so controlled. it was an awesome performance and everytime i see ballet i want to see more!
we then took an overnight train to st. petersburg! we arrived early in the morning and immediately from the station you could feel the city felt much more european. the atmosphere reminded me a bit of milano with more color, plus canals... very beautiful!
phew. i will switch now to uploading some pictures and will continue with my st. petersburg adventures after my sauna.it is good to be back in finland, so safe, clean water, friendly people and of course the sauna!!
so i left last friday at 10 am and we took a bus to southern finland all day...and then hopped on the tolstoi overnight train to moscow. the train was really old and squeaky and on each car there is an old lady who watches over things and makes tea, strange. it was a long train ride, but i fell asleep easily in our sleeper car. we awoke early in moscow and straightaway started the city bus tour of the city.
immediately, leaving the train station i knew i was in russia.... with the cars, the building styles and the people with their fur hats. we toured around the city seeing the major sights of the kremlin, bolshoi theater, statue of peter the great (that was supposed to be christopher columbus and a gift to the usa but didn't happen so they replaced the head with peter's), the novodevichy convent, the cathedral of christ the savior, red square with lenin's masoleum and st. basil's cathedral... etc. etc. we also walked through the city to visit the art nouveau house of the writer gorkiy which reminded me a bit of casa batllo in barcelona...very sweet.
in moscow you can definitely feel the presence of the soviet past. the architecture of stalin's 7 towers and the terribly intimidating university of moscow made you feel about 2 inches tall. the pulse of the city was very alive, but at the same time the people felt sad. people didn't laugh or smile in the streets and all workers in restaurants and musuems spoke little to no english and often just barked out words in russian saying them louder when you shook your head not understanding. even at the tourist sights, the people were not terribly welcoming. it was also a little nerve racking walking in the streets because there was a police or military guard about every 50 m in the city center. the police have the right to check your passport and hostel papers at any time, and are also known for needing a monetary bribe to give your papers back, but luckily none stopped me in moscow. (in st. petersburg me and 2 friends were stopped by 3 police and they asked for our passports which we had in the safe at the hostel....they didn't speak much english, but when they asked where i was from i just said finland and then showed them my iowa driver's license... then we repeated students, tourism until they understood. they were polite to me, but did a very detailed strip search on the two friends i was with, luckily no problems, phew.)
so our first night in moscow, we had a guided tour of the subway with the same woman from the bus tour, she had a crazy russian/british english accent with a new york accent on top. so she would be speaking about something and then the new york accent "look over here at the red "squahr" would come out.., it was hilarious. the subway is really impressive with many of the stations elaborately decorated. it was meant to be a palace for everyday people and it really is amazing to see. it was funny because our group was about 3/4 design and architecture students and we all were really interested the whole time taking pictures everywhere. our guide was like, "wow, you are the most interested group i have ever had on this tour."
on sunday, we started the day with a great tour of the kremlin (where the russian president works). our guide was an excellent story teller who drew us all into the history of the site, making the stories actually come alive. he was a professor of russian history, and asked us questions to think about what we were seeing and to really understand the mindset of the leaders and history of his country. it was really captivating, and the curiousity i felt when listening reminded me of ms demoss one of my favorite teachers in highschool... he showed us the cannons that were captured from napoleon's army, the biggest bell in the world (that never rang) and the biggest cannon in the world (that never fired) as well as all of the beautiful buildings inside the kremlin.
one of my favorite buildings is the russian orthodox coronation chapel (where all of the tsars were coronated starting with ivan the terrible in 1547) it is completely covered (walls and ceiling) in intricate mosaics. the icons tell the story of mary, jesus, the last judgement (on the back wall to remind you when you are leaving) and saints that were the namesakes of the different tsars. it is interesting that when napoleon controlled the kremlin for 30 some days he used this beautiful building as a horse stable and ordered all the silver and metals to be stripped from the icons and melted down in order to be taken to france. when napoleon was later defeated on his way back, the silver was returned to the church and cast into an amazing silver chandelier.
after the tour of the kremlin we toured the tretyakov art gallery which houses the biggest collection of russian art. we traveled through time starting with icons (my favorite was an icon of jesus with untraceable eyes) and moved through to 1900s. we had the same guide as the morning and it was a very enjoyable tour.
russian history is so vast that it is really hard to have a mental time line of everything and to keep all the tsars straight...it is a lot of "he married her, had this illegitimate child and then murdered his son. and then the nephew of him comes to power, is a bad ruler, is murdered by his wife who takes over power...etc" one of my favorite paintings of the exhibit was of a noble woman getting taken off to the gulag concentration camp being pulled on the back of a sled. her black dress starkly contrasts with the white snow, and while the men are laughing, the women all look on with fear and sympathy in their eyes. i think it is all very fascinating and would love to learn more of the history! i also now really want to reread all the russian classics... i saw both of the famous portraits of tolstoi and dostoevsky at this museum...
after the art museum we went to the world famous moscow circus! it was really fantastic with crazy acrobats, tumbling, clowns, motorbikes in a cage, lions, tigers, horses, contortionists and daredevils! i was on the edge of my seat and very entertained.. after we went on a city tour of moscow at night. red square is really awesome all lit up!
monday we started the day with a tour all about the soviet past of moscow where we toured the novedichy cemetary where lots of famous people are buried and visited the fallen idols sculpture park. our guide pointed out that a lot is explained about soviet times in the famous cemetary where the graves of all the important people (writers, politicians, actors, ballet dancers, musicians, poets, etc.) are buried from the 1800s... in the most central area there is a plot that contains the body of stalin's second wife (who either commited "suicide" or was murdered) but this one grave takes up the space of 8 plots. who was buried there before and what happened to their graves when they were removed for her plot? there is no record of who was buried there before.... very interesting. in the fallen idols park there was one area with a really haunting sculpture depicting the innocent victims of the gulag, and in front of the sculpture was stalin with his face chipped off and next to him a sculpture of the man who invented the gulag system, terrible.
monday evening we went to the ballet at the bolshoi (unfortunately at the new theater because the original is being rennovated) the ballet consisted of parts of 3 famous ballets. the first and last were classical and the middle was very modern and a sad story. the dancers were incredibly graceful, beautiful, powerful and so controlled. it was an awesome performance and everytime i see ballet i want to see more!
we then took an overnight train to st. petersburg! we arrived early in the morning and immediately from the station you could feel the city felt much more european. the atmosphere reminded me a bit of milano with more color, plus canals... very beautiful!
phew. i will switch now to uploading some pictures and will continue with my st. petersburg adventures after my sauna.it is good to be back in finland, so safe, clean water, friendly people and of course the sauna!!
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
i think i just invented the zero... what? oh, nothing, nothing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leG6mHngH48&NR=1
a little excerpt one of my favorite short films.. 'why man creates' by saul bass. i haven't seen it in years and thought everyone would like to see this edifice clip, great stuff...thank you cf alpha program.
today, i went to rovaniemi (the gateway into lapland) with my class! we saw some of alvar aalto's most successful buildings (a city library with great skylights), the artic circle, santa's village and a great museum all about the artic region and lapland. it was a great day!
i am counting down now my trip for russia. 2 days! woot.
a little excerpt one of my favorite short films.. 'why man creates' by saul bass. i haven't seen it in years and thought everyone would like to see this edifice clip, great stuff...thank you cf alpha program.
today, i went to rovaniemi (the gateway into lapland) with my class! we saw some of alvar aalto's most successful buildings (a city library with great skylights), the artic circle, santa's village and a great museum all about the artic region and lapland. it was a great day!
i am counting down now my trip for russia. 2 days! woot.
Friday, November 7, 2008
hope
what an amazing week to be an american. ever since living in italy or finland this is the first time that i feel truly proud to tell people that i am american. it is amazing what a change in attitude the world is feeling about our country right now. the positive pulse is beating strong. each of my international friends congratulated me on the election and i am encouraged listening to their hopes about how the whole world might change. it is most exciting!
this week i have been keeping very busy trying to do a lot of school work! things are coming up fast with 8 days this month in russia! i think the deadlines will be here before i can even blink. time flies in finland.
wed. night i had a great experience making karelian piiraka (karelian pie) with ESN... they are thin rye flour dough pasties filled with rice porridge.. you eat them hot with egg butter. they were easy and delicious!
last night, i went to my kummi family's house and made them chicken fajitas and guacamole and chips! they have never had fajitas or avocados before so it was really awesome to introduce them to new tasty food. they both really enjoyed everything and now know what to do with tortillas (tortillas just just came to finland 4-5 yrs ago)! it was really great to cook for them and just hang out. each time we get together we laugh a lot and are both learning new words. i also found out that they have 2 disc golf courses in oulu and they want to learn how to play, so i am going to teach them sometime!
tonight, i am going to cook jodi's tasty pasta with parmesan, basil, bacon and corn for my 3 french friends and then really get to work. i have lots of homework this weekend, and am looking forward to relaxing a bit here in oulu after i have spent the last 3 weekends away....
i would love to hear from you back home.
peace.
this week i have been keeping very busy trying to do a lot of school work! things are coming up fast with 8 days this month in russia! i think the deadlines will be here before i can even blink. time flies in finland.
wed. night i had a great experience making karelian piiraka (karelian pie) with ESN... they are thin rye flour dough pasties filled with rice porridge.. you eat them hot with egg butter. they were easy and delicious!
last night, i went to my kummi family's house and made them chicken fajitas and guacamole and chips! they have never had fajitas or avocados before so it was really awesome to introduce them to new tasty food. they both really enjoyed everything and now know what to do with tortillas (tortillas just just came to finland 4-5 yrs ago)! it was really great to cook for them and just hang out. each time we get together we laugh a lot and are both learning new words. i also found out that they have 2 disc golf courses in oulu and they want to learn how to play, so i am going to teach them sometime!
tonight, i am going to cook jodi's tasty pasta with parmesan, basil, bacon and corn for my 3 french friends and then really get to work. i have lots of homework this weekend, and am looking forward to relaxing a bit here in oulu after i have spent the last 3 weekends away....
i would love to hear from you back home.
peace.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
update
hey everyone! so long time no update! i have been so busy traveling. i just got back from a nine day trip to helsinki, tallinn and riga.. (all amazing cities..i am still going through my 4 gigs of photos from that week...)and then this weekend we had another class field trip up to the north east to hossa.. where all of us in nordic design stayed in a cabin on a beautiful lake. we enjoyed the fresh snow, saw amazing amounts of stars and shooting stars, went on a great hike through the woods to see 4000 yr old pictographs, cooked around the fire and of course enjoyed the sauna! i really enjoyed going straight from the sauna into the lake and of course rolling in the snow, too. check out my pictures from the finnish nature.. i will try to write more soon!
Friday, October 17, 2008
chocolate milk
so today, i was sitting in the student cafeteria in the city center, vanilla, having lunch with 3 french friends, a spanish boy, a girl from hungary, a girl from ireland and a girl from belgium. and we started talking about nesquik because anais and pello drink it every morning for breakfast! but get this...they drink their milk out of a bowl. now that is just asking for a milk mustache...come to find out that it is very common in france and spain to drink chocolate milk out of a large bowl for breakfast! why not a mug i ask? well, it is too hard to dip your bread or eat some 'cereals' out of a mug, so of course drinking from a bowl is a good solution! anais also explained that her parents drink coffee out of a bowl for breakfast, a mug for lunch and a tiny cup for dinner. now that makes a bit more sense, but really...wouldn't just a bigger mug do the trick? i love to find these small differences in cultures... so fun.
so tonight, i am having dinner with all the other arch/design exchange students at filippo's flat. he is from near verona,italy but goes to school in venice and is making us all an italian feast! i am getting excited...... oh, parmesan reggiano!
so tonight, i am having dinner with all the other arch/design exchange students at filippo's flat. he is from near verona,italy but goes to school in venice and is making us all an italian feast! i am getting excited...... oh, parmesan reggiano!
Thursday, October 16, 2008
RELIEF!
i could not be happier today! this morning from 10-11 a computer guy from Dell Finland came and fixed my computer! it took less than an hour with tea and all... it was an easy fix, just replacing my video display card! wOOt! (thanks old greg) i am so overjoyed to have my computer back. it is kind of crazy how much this machine connects me to the rest of the world. to you, my friends and family at home, to the world of news, entertainment, music, social networks, etc. and of course for necessary to manage all my pictures, music and schoolwork! wow, this is a great day.
so last night, ESN organized a finnish puulla baking where we learned how to make the traditional sweet bread of finland. it was super fun following the recipe and all baking together, and then of course eating the puulla after! it is really delicious..a sweet dough with cardemum, cinnamon and sugar. i think that our group made the most delicious puulla! i will post the recipe and some pics soon...
today, i am just getting ready for next week's trip to jyvaskyla, helsinki,tallinn and riga! i hope you are all doing well... send me updates of your lives, i would love to hear from you!
so last night, ESN organized a finnish puulla baking where we learned how to make the traditional sweet bread of finland. it was super fun following the recipe and all baking together, and then of course eating the puulla after! it is really delicious..a sweet dough with cardemum, cinnamon and sugar. i think that our group made the most delicious puulla! i will post the recipe and some pics soon...
today, i am just getting ready for next week's trip to jyvaskyla, helsinki,tallinn and riga! i hope you are all doing well... send me updates of your lives, i would love to hear from you!
Sunday, October 12, 2008
finnish birthday!
hey everyone... thank you so much for all the sweet birthday wishes! i missed all of you as i celebrated my bday, but am thankful for my new friends in oulu who made it a special day!
this week has been super busy, school is picking up speed and i had to get 2 presentations ready for the day after my birthday...so i spent lots of long nights trying to get those finished so that i could celebrate on my actual birthday! i did get them finished and had quite the birthday celebration.
so wed. i had class all day from 10-6 and then i went to my french friend´s (anaïs, juilette and emilien) apartment where they had a birthday party for me and fernando (a guy from spain who has the same bday)... the invited all of our design friends as well as our friends from campus, so it was quite the party. a bunch of the spanish girls made tortillas de patatas (spanish omlets with potatoes..very tasty) and they also made 2 homemade chocolate cakes and sang to us in english,spanish, french, italian and german! i received lots of chocolate presents and a beer bottle opener that is made out of a reindeer antler..very finnish... i also got all the different cultural bday wishes (a lot of the european countries give kisses on your cheeks for your bday..in belgium 3, france 4 and italy 2... and in spain they pull on your ear for as many years old you are..) later we went to our favorite dance club and danced the night away. it was a great way to celebrate 23, and i am glad that i made my goal to make good friends by my birthday...
so thursday and friday i had presentations and lectures all day, but on friday night i went to the exchange student dinner! it was super fun because each person brought something from their country...there were literally over 100 things to try.. from chinese dumplings to spanish omlets to austrian pastries to indian chicken..there was a little bit of everything. my favorite dishes were a tasty risotto made by my friend filippo from venice, and then a tiramisu made by another italian guy. björn, you would have loved it! it was a really sweet night and i was much too full when i left!
yesterday, i met my kummi family and went to the oulu history museum... the museum started with the beginging of civilization in this area during the stone age and went through to modern time. it was a nice museum with lots of artifacts from the area and interesting facts about the city´s history. there used to be lots of industries here in oulu, like a glass factory, candy factory, ship building and a tar factory... the tar smells really strong, and still today finns use tar in their shampoo, soap, candles and even candy! i am not such a huge fan of the candy but finns can´t live without it...maarit and jarkko were very excited to explain their heritage to me and luckily could translate everything for me, too... in the basement of the museum was a really cool travelling exhibit from a man born in oulu who was a missionary in namibia during the 1930s..it had a lot of the local basketry, tools, instruments, jewelry and even bugs that belonged to his collection. it was a fitting exhibit
after the museum, i went with friends to the oulu kärpät (kärpät=ermin) hockey game!! we were playing the pelicans from southern finland and it was quite the match. they were really good players and the game was the most exciting hockey game i have been to.. we won 3-2!
after the game a big group of us went to relax in the sauna.. it was very hot and very relaxing...the temperature gets to around 80 C, and afterward you feel completely relaxed, warm and ready for bed!
today, i went and had lunch at my french apartment in the center, and am now just trying to catch up on life here in the computer lab. i miss my computer! i am still waiting to hear from dell..but will try to contact them again today. tonight, i have lots of work to do for my 2020 project...but i hope i can skype some of you soon. it is always good to connect to home.
peace.
this week has been super busy, school is picking up speed and i had to get 2 presentations ready for the day after my birthday...so i spent lots of long nights trying to get those finished so that i could celebrate on my actual birthday! i did get them finished and had quite the birthday celebration.
so wed. i had class all day from 10-6 and then i went to my french friend´s (anaïs, juilette and emilien) apartment where they had a birthday party for me and fernando (a guy from spain who has the same bday)... the invited all of our design friends as well as our friends from campus, so it was quite the party. a bunch of the spanish girls made tortillas de patatas (spanish omlets with potatoes..very tasty) and they also made 2 homemade chocolate cakes and sang to us in english,spanish, french, italian and german! i received lots of chocolate presents and a beer bottle opener that is made out of a reindeer antler..very finnish... i also got all the different cultural bday wishes (a lot of the european countries give kisses on your cheeks for your bday..in belgium 3, france 4 and italy 2... and in spain they pull on your ear for as many years old you are..) later we went to our favorite dance club and danced the night away. it was a great way to celebrate 23, and i am glad that i made my goal to make good friends by my birthday...
so thursday and friday i had presentations and lectures all day, but on friday night i went to the exchange student dinner! it was super fun because each person brought something from their country...there were literally over 100 things to try.. from chinese dumplings to spanish omlets to austrian pastries to indian chicken..there was a little bit of everything. my favorite dishes were a tasty risotto made by my friend filippo from venice, and then a tiramisu made by another italian guy. björn, you would have loved it! it was a really sweet night and i was much too full when i left!
yesterday, i met my kummi family and went to the oulu history museum... the museum started with the beginging of civilization in this area during the stone age and went through to modern time. it was a nice museum with lots of artifacts from the area and interesting facts about the city´s history. there used to be lots of industries here in oulu, like a glass factory, candy factory, ship building and a tar factory... the tar smells really strong, and still today finns use tar in their shampoo, soap, candles and even candy! i am not such a huge fan of the candy but finns can´t live without it...maarit and jarkko were very excited to explain their heritage to me and luckily could translate everything for me, too... in the basement of the museum was a really cool travelling exhibit from a man born in oulu who was a missionary in namibia during the 1930s..it had a lot of the local basketry, tools, instruments, jewelry and even bugs that belonged to his collection. it was a fitting exhibit
after the museum, i went with friends to the oulu kärpät (kärpät=ermin) hockey game!! we were playing the pelicans from southern finland and it was quite the match. they were really good players and the game was the most exciting hockey game i have been to.. we won 3-2!
after the game a big group of us went to relax in the sauna.. it was very hot and very relaxing...the temperature gets to around 80 C, and afterward you feel completely relaxed, warm and ready for bed!
today, i went and had lunch at my french apartment in the center, and am now just trying to catch up on life here in the computer lab. i miss my computer! i am still waiting to hear from dell..but will try to contact them again today. tonight, i have lots of work to do for my 2020 project...but i hope i can skype some of you soon. it is always good to connect to home.
peace.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Saturday, October 4, 2008
biking in circles
so today, i decided to try out my new bike... it is a cheap fairly crappy bike with back pedal breaks, no gears and is overall a bit dodgy... but i am excited to have more freedom to explore outside the bus system and now i am getting the hang of it. i thought i could figure out how to bike to the city center so i could do some work at studio... so i took off on a bike trail and just started going in what i thought was generally the right direction. hahahha...
for those of you who know my wonderful sense of direction first hand you won't be surprised that i ended up in the middle of the woods with no idea where i was. it started to rain a bit, but i was warmly dressed, so i just kept turning and following random paths through the woods. (the bike paths are really nice here and very flat, which is good since i am still working on getting the braking down).. so i kept going and i guess i must have made a giant circle because pretty soon i was in a neighborhood, unfamiliar but friendly looking...
i kept going and then out of nowhere was the big lake that is a 20 min walk away from campus... i found myself on the beach where i had walked to on one of my first days here. the first time i was at the beach the surrounding birch trees were green and lush, and now there are only a few stray golden leaves hanging on. the sky was blue the first time, and today it is grey and full, creating a somewhat ominous diffuse light with the forshadow of winter to come.
by the time i got back to campus it was raining pretty hard, so i took the bus into town and now am at studio. before i came to studio, i stopped by my french friends anaïs, juliette and emilien´s new apartment (just across the street from our studio building) and they were excited to show me the place. it is sad not having the girls live with me anymore, but they gave me a key to their place so i can always go over, use their internet and make myself at home... it is good to have friends.
well, now i must get down to some work...send me some email updates so i have a reason to take a break!
for those of you who know my wonderful sense of direction first hand you won't be surprised that i ended up in the middle of the woods with no idea where i was. it started to rain a bit, but i was warmly dressed, so i just kept turning and following random paths through the woods. (the bike paths are really nice here and very flat, which is good since i am still working on getting the braking down).. so i kept going and i guess i must have made a giant circle because pretty soon i was in a neighborhood, unfamiliar but friendly looking...
i kept going and then out of nowhere was the big lake that is a 20 min walk away from campus... i found myself on the beach where i had walked to on one of my first days here. the first time i was at the beach the surrounding birch trees were green and lush, and now there are only a few stray golden leaves hanging on. the sky was blue the first time, and today it is grey and full, creating a somewhat ominous diffuse light with the forshadow of winter to come.
by the time i got back to campus it was raining pretty hard, so i took the bus into town and now am at studio. before i came to studio, i stopped by my french friends anaïs, juliette and emilien´s new apartment (just across the street from our studio building) and they were excited to show me the place. it is sad not having the girls live with me anymore, but they gave me a key to their place so i can always go over, use their internet and make myself at home... it is good to have friends.
well, now i must get down to some work...send me some email updates so i have a reason to take a break!
Thursday, October 2, 2008
oulu update
i feel like lots of time has passed since my last blog... as follow up, the manhattan short film festival was really amazing! there were 12 shorts from around the world and strangely 2 of the shorts involved adoption and both were very creepy, and two others dealt with losing a parent as a child... one of my favorites was called new boy, which was about a little boy from africa who saw his own father get murdered by a militia and was flashing back to this memory on his first day of his new school in ireland. overall, the 2.5 hrs was well worth the 3€!
on sunday, i got to meet my kummi family! they are a young couple, maarit and jarkko... maarit works at a technical school as the media specialist and jarkko is a chef of some kind for a wholesale food shop.. they are in their 30's with no kids, and they are quite eccentric in their love for heavy metal and country music and jarkko's dream is to buy a harley davidson...they are not quite typical finns in that they are both rather outgoing and talkative, which is nice!
for our first meeting, they picked me up at the bus stop and took me to the sea here in oulu. the beach is really nice, but it was rather blustery and cold. we walked along the coast on different little islands and talked about lots of things. they both are really easy to talk to and are very enthusiastic to practice their english... then we went to their house and maarit's mom, merja, came over to meet me and we had some tee (you guessed it, tea) and leipa (a dry hard crackery piece of bread that has a lot of fiber and rye flour, very tasty with tee) she was also very excited to meet me and had to see on a map exactly where i was from. it was really a great day and we had good conversation about finnish and american culture, food, politics, history, ecology, military, music and i even learned a finnish swear word... it is nice to spend time in a real house and get a glimpse of how non-student finns live...tomorrow, i am going to maarit's sister, sari's house and we are going to cook a traditional finnish meal together!
last night was city rally (all incoming freshman at oulu do city rally) for exchange students, which consists of teams of exchange students tromping around the city looking for 5 different check points where we had to do different tasks for finnish student judges (who could be bribed) in order to learn all about finland. my team was my main group of 15 friends and we had a blast making fools of ourselves acting out charades (at one point i was one of santa's reindeer...santa lives in lapland), singing in finnish, dancing traditional finnish dances in the street, answering finnish trivia, and trying strange finnish food... overall, our team had the most team spirit and had a lot of fun even though we didn't win the challenge...
school is going well, too.. i am a bit stuck on one of my ideas for my design competition class...but i know i just need to spend more time drawing and sketching out ideas and something will click.
overall, i am feeling good and am finally over my cold! i have to get to some work now, but i would love to hear from more of you.. i will post some new pics soon. here is my address if you want to send me a note!
yliopistokatu 16 as 510
oulu, finland 90570
peace°
lia
on sunday, i got to meet my kummi family! they are a young couple, maarit and jarkko... maarit works at a technical school as the media specialist and jarkko is a chef of some kind for a wholesale food shop.. they are in their 30's with no kids, and they are quite eccentric in their love for heavy metal and country music and jarkko's dream is to buy a harley davidson...they are not quite typical finns in that they are both rather outgoing and talkative, which is nice!
for our first meeting, they picked me up at the bus stop and took me to the sea here in oulu. the beach is really nice, but it was rather blustery and cold. we walked along the coast on different little islands and talked about lots of things. they both are really easy to talk to and are very enthusiastic to practice their english... then we went to their house and maarit's mom, merja, came over to meet me and we had some tee (you guessed it, tea) and leipa (a dry hard crackery piece of bread that has a lot of fiber and rye flour, very tasty with tee) she was also very excited to meet me and had to see on a map exactly where i was from. it was really a great day and we had good conversation about finnish and american culture, food, politics, history, ecology, military, music and i even learned a finnish swear word... it is nice to spend time in a real house and get a glimpse of how non-student finns live...tomorrow, i am going to maarit's sister, sari's house and we are going to cook a traditional finnish meal together!
last night was city rally (all incoming freshman at oulu do city rally) for exchange students, which consists of teams of exchange students tromping around the city looking for 5 different check points where we had to do different tasks for finnish student judges (who could be bribed) in order to learn all about finland. my team was my main group of 15 friends and we had a blast making fools of ourselves acting out charades (at one point i was one of santa's reindeer...santa lives in lapland), singing in finnish, dancing traditional finnish dances in the street, answering finnish trivia, and trying strange finnish food... overall, our team had the most team spirit and had a lot of fun even though we didn't win the challenge...
school is going well, too.. i am a bit stuck on one of my ideas for my design competition class...but i know i just need to spend more time drawing and sketching out ideas and something will click.
overall, i am feeling good and am finally over my cold! i have to get to some work now, but i would love to hear from more of you.. i will post some new pics soon. here is my address if you want to send me a note!
yliopistokatu 16 as 510
oulu, finland 90570
peace°
lia
Monday, September 29, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
happy weekend.
woot. so it is friday, and i am tired from a long but exciting week... since monday i have been busy with classes but have also had a bit of fun!
today, i had a very interesting lecture about the topological reconstruction of architecture using algorithmic methods... the lecturer was an eccentric genious of a man who simplified this concept down into a fairly understandable lecture. it is crazy to think about designing whole buildings with named geometric patterns + trial and error scripts of specific parameters... if you imagine the work of zaha hadid you kind of get the image in your head of what this looks like. he showed us some slides of frank gehry´s work and explained how really it was kind of a false reality because he uses steel for the structure and then merely covers it with sweet surfaces... then he went on to show us some of his models of experiments which use structures from nature (a bird´s nest for example) which can exist structurally independent from something like steel. i think this is really fascinating and confusing and i would like to imagine a world someday with the materials and methods to make this possible...
i am looking forward to another exciting weekend...tonight, i am going to the 11TH ANNUAL MANHATTAN SHORT FILM FESTIVAL where 12 films are shown 295 times in 115 cities in one week... i am glad oulu is one of them! it should be pretty sweet. tomorrow, i have my nature adventure and then sunday i am meeting my kummi family (a 34 yr. old couple without kids) to go for a walk along the sea! they sound very friendly on the phone, so i look forward to meeting them.
in other news, i sent in my ballot today to vote! very exciting!! they will also send me another official ballot so i cast my vote twice, but it will be only counted once, darn....hopefully, i can watch the debate online! go obama!!!
let me know what you are all up to at home. i really appreciate any feedback and comments!
hauskaa viikonloppua! ....................(have a good weekend)
yesterday, the highlight of my day was helping two of my friends (christian and jorge) in the redbull gravity challenge... which was to drop an egg 50m and have it land safetly, not broken on a target! we came up with a "rocket" like design that was made out of a 1.5 liter water bottle upsidedown with sand in the bottom, then cotton balls filling it up. the egg was placed near the top of the bottle with two doors cut in the side of the bottle equipped with cardboard ramps so after the rocket landed the egg could nicely roll out the door and down the ramp safely on the target. we added a sparkly party hat as the nose of the rocket to make it look more rockin and aerodynamic! (i will post pics of this soon)
the contest was pretty hilarious and some of the other 15 teams had spent considerably more time, money and energy on their inventions.. but amazingly, our egg landed safetly (by burying into the cotton) without breaking, however it failed to roll onto the target. so we ended up with a mere 7 points with the winner getting 10! the winning team won a lot of redbull (no loss there) and a free jump out of a plane (with guide and parachute), yikes! i was happy to just be outside and enjoy the sunshine!
the contest was pretty hilarious and some of the other 15 teams had spent considerably more time, money and energy on their inventions.. but amazingly, our egg landed safetly (by burying into the cotton) without breaking, however it failed to roll onto the target. so we ended up with a mere 7 points with the winner getting 10! the winning team won a lot of redbull (no loss there) and a free jump out of a plane (with guide and parachute), yikes! i was happy to just be outside and enjoy the sunshine!
today, i had a very interesting lecture about the topological reconstruction of architecture using algorithmic methods... the lecturer was an eccentric genious of a man who simplified this concept down into a fairly understandable lecture. it is crazy to think about designing whole buildings with named geometric patterns + trial and error scripts of specific parameters... if you imagine the work of zaha hadid you kind of get the image in your head of what this looks like. he showed us some slides of frank gehry´s work and explained how really it was kind of a false reality because he uses steel for the structure and then merely covers it with sweet surfaces... then he went on to show us some of his models of experiments which use structures from nature (a bird´s nest for example) which can exist structurally independent from something like steel. i think this is really fascinating and confusing and i would like to imagine a world someday with the materials and methods to make this possible...
i am looking forward to another exciting weekend...tonight, i am going to the 11TH ANNUAL MANHATTAN SHORT FILM FESTIVAL where 12 films are shown 295 times in 115 cities in one week... i am glad oulu is one of them! it should be pretty sweet. tomorrow, i have my nature adventure and then sunday i am meeting my kummi family (a 34 yr. old couple without kids) to go for a walk along the sea! they sound very friendly on the phone, so i look forward to meeting them.
in other news, i sent in my ballot today to vote! very exciting!! they will also send me another official ballot so i cast my vote twice, but it will be only counted once, darn....hopefully, i can watch the debate online! go obama!!!
let me know what you are all up to at home. i really appreciate any feedback and comments!
hauskaa viikonloppua! ....................(have a good weekend)
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Monday, September 22, 2008
a sunny fall day
hyvää päivää! (good day)
finally, we see the sun in oulu! after a week of overcast skies i have now seen the sun and blue sky for two days in a row! here fall is in full bloom with all of the trees bursting with orange, yellows and reds. yesterday, i took a relaxing walk with some friends to a lake only a few minutes from where i live.... it was perfectly calm and reflected the changing season in the blue water refreshing my spirit and delighting my senses. i felt like a true finn hiking through the forest. we ended up wandering through the university botanical gardens (very beautifully kept, and they had a whole hill of plants from north america making me feel right at home)...
this week has just flown by and i see now that it has been a whole week since my last update.... i will try to do better!
the highlights of my week this week are many, but the first was a welcome banquet reception on wednesday that the city of oulu held for all the exchange students! held in the city hall, we were greeted by the mayor of oulu and treated to champagne, wine and a full plate of tasty dishes. it was a very generous and friendly way to welcome me to oulu and i got to meet a city businessman who has lived here for the last 25 years but is originally from minnesota! kind of crazy. i will put a picture up of the hall sometime soon...
on thursday afternoon, i got the chance to play some finnish baseball with a whole mess of other exchange students through ESN (erasmus student network, a really sweet program that sponsors events each week and trips around... i am going to russia with them at some point!). as most of you know i do not have a great amount of hand, eye, bat coordination (think p+w softball) so finnish baseball is the perfect solution! instead of having a ball pitched to you the pitcher stands an arm length away and just tosses the ball up into the air for the batter to swing at... you get three chances and you have the choice to run on any of your hits, or just take off running without even hitting (usually what i did) then you run to first which is off to the left, second to the front and right and then third even farther away to the left again.. the bases are kind of in a zigzag and then you have to run back to home. you also can steal bases at any time which makes the running a bit easier. it was really fun to play a new game, and astonishingly enough, i wasn´t even the worst player out there! hahaha.
it was great because after the game we asked a finnish guy to take our picture and being the typical finn he just stood there silently taking our photo without a smile or even a 1, 2, 3! the finns are typically quite reserved and from what i have seen so far it has been true (except when they get some drink in them), at least that is what they keep telling us. they also told us at orientation that it is hard to make friends with a finn, but once you do, you are friends for life!
speaking of friends, i just found out that i am going to have a kummi family, which means that i get a finnish family to be friends with and do typical finnish activities! i get their contact info today and look forward to meeting them soon.
my other exciting event of the week was experiencing the finnish sauna! there is actually a sauna in the building next to my dorm and so a group of friends and i all went together to try it out. it was very hot inside, no surprise, and it hit about 80* C, or 176*F.... we stayed in for about 5-10 min. and then went directly outside the sauna to very cold showers and then back and forth several times... afterwards, i felt like a puddle all relaxed and warm! it was delightful and i know i will be there a lot this winter.
not much else is new, just settling into school and classwork...i have my third finnish lesson today and have much to master... the double consonents and vowels are really difficult to hear but i am working on it. it makes a huge difference, with one missing a word could mean fire or custom´s office...
i have really been enjoying myself so far and one of my favorite things is all of the different languages around me. i am constantly learning words in french, spanish, german and finnish while explain english to everyone. sometimes we are all lost in translation, but luckily usually end up having a good laugh about it. for example, in my studio lecture my professor was explaining that "to really understand the architect, you need to get in his pants" i laughed out loud, but looking around me everyone else kept furiously scribbling down notes... later i explained to my friends that it is a much better idea to just "walk in his shoes."
well, i am off to a lecture on modern nordic architecture! i am so thankful for all of your notes and comments! it is great to hear from so many of you. i will try to put up pictures soon. what is going on back at home? any big news i should be aware of?
peace-
ps: good news with my computer... dell is sending a new motherboard to finland and will contact me when it arrives to fix me up! they said it will take from 2-4 weeks! yay!
finally, we see the sun in oulu! after a week of overcast skies i have now seen the sun and blue sky for two days in a row! here fall is in full bloom with all of the trees bursting with orange, yellows and reds. yesterday, i took a relaxing walk with some friends to a lake only a few minutes from where i live.... it was perfectly calm and reflected the changing season in the blue water refreshing my spirit and delighting my senses. i felt like a true finn hiking through the forest. we ended up wandering through the university botanical gardens (very beautifully kept, and they had a whole hill of plants from north america making me feel right at home)...
this week has just flown by and i see now that it has been a whole week since my last update.... i will try to do better!
the highlights of my week this week are many, but the first was a welcome banquet reception on wednesday that the city of oulu held for all the exchange students! held in the city hall, we were greeted by the mayor of oulu and treated to champagne, wine and a full plate of tasty dishes. it was a very generous and friendly way to welcome me to oulu and i got to meet a city businessman who has lived here for the last 25 years but is originally from minnesota! kind of crazy. i will put a picture up of the hall sometime soon...
on thursday afternoon, i got the chance to play some finnish baseball with a whole mess of other exchange students through ESN (erasmus student network, a really sweet program that sponsors events each week and trips around... i am going to russia with them at some point!). as most of you know i do not have a great amount of hand, eye, bat coordination (think p+w softball) so finnish baseball is the perfect solution! instead of having a ball pitched to you the pitcher stands an arm length away and just tosses the ball up into the air for the batter to swing at... you get three chances and you have the choice to run on any of your hits, or just take off running without even hitting (usually what i did) then you run to first which is off to the left, second to the front and right and then third even farther away to the left again.. the bases are kind of in a zigzag and then you have to run back to home. you also can steal bases at any time which makes the running a bit easier. it was really fun to play a new game, and astonishingly enough, i wasn´t even the worst player out there! hahaha.
it was great because after the game we asked a finnish guy to take our picture and being the typical finn he just stood there silently taking our photo without a smile or even a 1, 2, 3! the finns are typically quite reserved and from what i have seen so far it has been true (except when they get some drink in them), at least that is what they keep telling us. they also told us at orientation that it is hard to make friends with a finn, but once you do, you are friends for life!
speaking of friends, i just found out that i am going to have a kummi family, which means that i get a finnish family to be friends with and do typical finnish activities! i get their contact info today and look forward to meeting them soon.
my other exciting event of the week was experiencing the finnish sauna! there is actually a sauna in the building next to my dorm and so a group of friends and i all went together to try it out. it was very hot inside, no surprise, and it hit about 80* C, or 176*F.... we stayed in for about 5-10 min. and then went directly outside the sauna to very cold showers and then back and forth several times... afterwards, i felt like a puddle all relaxed and warm! it was delightful and i know i will be there a lot this winter.
not much else is new, just settling into school and classwork...i have my third finnish lesson today and have much to master... the double consonents and vowels are really difficult to hear but i am working on it. it makes a huge difference, with one missing a word could mean fire or custom´s office...
i have really been enjoying myself so far and one of my favorite things is all of the different languages around me. i am constantly learning words in french, spanish, german and finnish while explain english to everyone. sometimes we are all lost in translation, but luckily usually end up having a good laugh about it. for example, in my studio lecture my professor was explaining that "to really understand the architect, you need to get in his pants" i laughed out loud, but looking around me everyone else kept furiously scribbling down notes... later i explained to my friends that it is a much better idea to just "walk in his shoes."
well, i am off to a lecture on modern nordic architecture! i am so thankful for all of your notes and comments! it is great to hear from so many of you. i will try to put up pictures soon. what is going on back at home? any big news i should be aware of?
peace-
ps: good news with my computer... dell is sending a new motherboard to finland and will contact me when it arrives to fix me up! they said it will take from 2-4 weeks! yay!
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
day 10
so today is my 10th day here in oulu... it is crazy how much can happen in 10 days. i still feel in a bit of a daze with all of the running around trying to get everything figured out! (i had to sign up for internet on campus, then pay for it downtown, get a bank account but first get a paper from an office on campus, sign up for a student id card, but pick it up downtown, buy a cell phone, buy a bus pass, buy a sports hall pass, sign up for classes etc.etc.) hopefully, my routine will start to kick in soon and things will be more normal....
but i can't complain, oulu is a great place to be! my kummi student is maiju (kummi means godparent) she has been most helpful showing me around the campus and the town... she is so exhuberent and sweet, i think i have the best one! it is perfect because there are about 8 of us in her group so we immediately can start here with a group of friends... on one of my first days she was showing us the city library and theatre and stopped in the street to show us a traditional finnish dance that looks a lot like the bunny hop!
so the campus is set up outside the city about 6km and i live on the campus on yliopistokatu (university street)... my building is 8 stories and i live on the 5th floor with 3 other official roommates (julia from germany, dawn from france, and violet from china) and then 2 extra french girls juliette and anais (who sleeps on my floor) until they move into their flat downtown on oct. 1st. they are already fast friends. it is crazy that all of these people from paris and madrid and bavaria and all over can all come together and understand eachother so well. we all really do have so much in common it is hilarious..we sang sing star karaoke at my place sat. night after going to the most amazing opera (orpheus and eurydike) at the city theatre and everyone could sing along to the same stupid pop songs..we all grew up with a lot of the same popular culture and yet we have so much to learn from eachother at the same time... we spend hours just talking, laughing, translating and looking up eachother's houses on google earth.
i feel good here, minus the fact that my computer is broken. also, today in the wood shop i was lowering the planer sander table with the automatic control and all of a sudden i heard a big snap! and one of the internal bearings broke because the back of the table got caught on a piece of wood that i couldn't see! so we had to finish our sculpture by with a hand sander, but it ended up looking ok... but still it was a bit stressful.
well i need to make some dinner and do some homework! i will write more when i can.
but i can't complain, oulu is a great place to be! my kummi student is maiju (kummi means godparent) she has been most helpful showing me around the campus and the town... she is so exhuberent and sweet, i think i have the best one! it is perfect because there are about 8 of us in her group so we immediately can start here with a group of friends... on one of my first days she was showing us the city library and theatre and stopped in the street to show us a traditional finnish dance that looks a lot like the bunny hop!
so the campus is set up outside the city about 6km and i live on the campus on yliopistokatu (university street)... my building is 8 stories and i live on the 5th floor with 3 other official roommates (julia from germany, dawn from france, and violet from china) and then 2 extra french girls juliette and anais (who sleeps on my floor) until they move into their flat downtown on oct. 1st. they are already fast friends. it is crazy that all of these people from paris and madrid and bavaria and all over can all come together and understand eachother so well. we all really do have so much in common it is hilarious..we sang sing star karaoke at my place sat. night after going to the most amazing opera (orpheus and eurydike) at the city theatre and everyone could sing along to the same stupid pop songs..we all grew up with a lot of the same popular culture and yet we have so much to learn from eachother at the same time... we spend hours just talking, laughing, translating and looking up eachother's houses on google earth.
i feel good here, minus the fact that my computer is broken. also, today in the wood shop i was lowering the planer sander table with the automatic control and all of a sudden i heard a big snap! and one of the internal bearings broke because the back of the table got caught on a piece of wood that i couldn't see! so we had to finish our sculpture by with a hand sander, but it ended up looking ok... but still it was a bit stressful.
well i need to make some dinner and do some homework! i will write more when i can.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
suomi (finland)
so i made it to oulu! it is a beautiful city and the air is so crisp and fresh. everything seems cleaner in finland from the smell of the air to the minimal nordic aesthetic. i couldn't be happier!
so to begin my journey... i left from cedar falls with bjorn on thursday around 2pm and he drove me to minneapolis where i my plane took off at 9pm! i had a great flight over the atlantic, it was really strange because i was sitting in the second to last row in a window seat and this man came and sat down next to me. the whole time he looked really uncomfortable and irritated and i could tell he didn't want to talk, so i figured it might be an awkard 9 hours! so before we take off the man gets up and goes to the back of the plane and then returns about a minute later... then out of nowhere a flight attendent comes up to me and says, "miss, you can move to the front where you can have a window seat and more space." so i followed her all the way to the second row behind first class and had my very own two whole seats! it was a great flight with a good hot dinner and breakfast.the 9 hours flew by as i watched the sex and the city movie (pretty good, although i was a bit disappointed), drank 2 glasses of wine and proceeded to sleep pretty much the last 5 hours!
In amsterdam i had a short 2 hour layover and then i was on my way to helsinki! in helsinki i immediately got all my baggage and went to the domestic flights where i waited for 4 hours to catch my cheap blue1 flight to oulu! by this time i was very exhausted, yet so excited to be near my destination! as we flew out of helsinki i could only keep my eyes open long enough to see fireworks exploding in the distance as if welcoming me to my finnish adventure.
after landing in oulu we walked in the cold finnish air into the airport to baggage claim! waiting for my bags i met a dozen other exchange students and we all became fast friends as we took taxis into town. after dropping off my bags into my room (it is great all white, yellow and blue and very cheery) i went with my new french friend, anais (she is also sharing my room until oct. 1st when her flat is ready!) to a close building where a number of the other design and architecture students were having a party! ildika (from hungary) had made hungarian food and eleanora (from roma) made pasta, so it was great to eat a warm meal. everyone is super friendly and seems to be here for the same reasons as myself! it is so great.
now i have been here for 5 days and it feels like i already have many good friends. i am getting my barings aorund the city and am finally figuring out what my schedule will be for the semester. i am looking forward to tomorrow when we start our first class in the woodshop!
more news and pictures later... i now have to get ready for the vulcanalia (a big party for all oulu students sponsored by the university!)
so to begin my journey... i left from cedar falls with bjorn on thursday around 2pm and he drove me to minneapolis where i my plane took off at 9pm! i had a great flight over the atlantic, it was really strange because i was sitting in the second to last row in a window seat and this man came and sat down next to me. the whole time he looked really uncomfortable and irritated and i could tell he didn't want to talk, so i figured it might be an awkard 9 hours! so before we take off the man gets up and goes to the back of the plane and then returns about a minute later... then out of nowhere a flight attendent comes up to me and says, "miss, you can move to the front where you can have a window seat and more space." so i followed her all the way to the second row behind first class and had my very own two whole seats! it was a great flight with a good hot dinner and breakfast.the 9 hours flew by as i watched the sex and the city movie (pretty good, although i was a bit disappointed), drank 2 glasses of wine and proceeded to sleep pretty much the last 5 hours!
In amsterdam i had a short 2 hour layover and then i was on my way to helsinki! in helsinki i immediately got all my baggage and went to the domestic flights where i waited for 4 hours to catch my cheap blue1 flight to oulu! by this time i was very exhausted, yet so excited to be near my destination! as we flew out of helsinki i could only keep my eyes open long enough to see fireworks exploding in the distance as if welcoming me to my finnish adventure.
after landing in oulu we walked in the cold finnish air into the airport to baggage claim! waiting for my bags i met a dozen other exchange students and we all became fast friends as we took taxis into town. after dropping off my bags into my room (it is great all white, yellow and blue and very cheery) i went with my new french friend, anais (she is also sharing my room until oct. 1st when her flat is ready!) to a close building where a number of the other design and architecture students were having a party! ildika (from hungary) had made hungarian food and eleanora (from roma) made pasta, so it was great to eat a warm meal. everyone is super friendly and seems to be here for the same reasons as myself! it is so great.
now i have been here for 5 days and it feels like i already have many good friends. i am getting my barings aorund the city and am finally figuring out what my schedule will be for the semester. i am looking forward to tomorrow when we start our first class in the woodshop!
more news and pictures later... i now have to get ready for the vulcanalia (a big party for all oulu students sponsored by the university!)
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