Eastbourne, Brighton and yet more wonderful days with Jevgenija (and Dorota)

Some visual aids...

Upon leaving Tampere... and leaving our first official snowfall behind...


Welcome to the UK! I can't said I was surprised.


Old friend...




Brighton!

Every time I saw those signs I just read "toilet"

Jevgenija's old work place.

You tune into my frequency bu that don't mean a thing to me.

You know it's been a busy month when you have to go back and check what you wrote to remember where you left off... and possibly jog your memory a little as to what has happened since. It didn't really help so let me check my agenda...

Ah yes! I went to the UK for 3 days (and thought I'd already written about that.) Let me go grab the camera and share some pictures with you lovely people:

... (I'm gonna post about this in the next post)

I am so happy I went to see Jevgenija, and just as I'd expected, it felt like we'd never been apart. She's looking into taking a trip to Finland in the near future so I'm still waiting to hear about dates next week! Hopefully we can get a few of the Mannheim people up North (Tampere) and together for a visit.

After coming home from the UK, I felt pretty restless and a little confused with life.. as sometimes happen when you leave for 3 days during the week. Not much rest and a whole lot of tired. I managed to recover to make it in to work on Friday for a WHOLE hour! And then some English teaching. Saturday I attended an awesome housewarming party (the house hadn't been warmed for 7 months- insane! haha) where I was the only non-Finn and/or non-Turkish person there. I had to pick a language and I had to stick to it. I'm happy to report I spoke Finnish the whole evening - despite exhaustion - and even made some new friends!

The next week, things finally picked up at work! I got booked for 16 hours and I was pretty happy to be able to go there for more than 3 hours at a time. Juha also came to Helsinki during the few days I spent there that week. That Saturday, the 20th, I taught some English and both my classes were a lot of fun. I didn't do anything super out of the ordinary but I think I'm getting to know my students better and they me so we were just all at ease.

Monday the 22nd I headed back to Helsinki. Holy crap... I just realized that was this week and it seems like 3 weeks ago. Monday night I hung out with Sanna and Marja, a friend from school and a mutual friend of a bunch of people... hard to explain. We had glögi, chips, cookies, chocolates and listened to Christmas music. Sanna's apartment is crazy cozy so it was a nice way to start looking forward to Christmas.

Tuesday I headed back to Tampere after class and Wednesday I was at work for 10 hours. Thursday I went back to Helsinki to finish up a project with Mette. And Thursday was our Master's Committee Christmas party. No one was in the mood to go party but we went anyway and we all ended up enjoying ourselves. There was a quiz about how well we knew the tutors... I didn't even know all their names but we came in second. Then we made gingerbread cookies of various sizes and inappropriate shapes.

Friday my friend Veera came to town from Jyväskylä and managed to get an internship at the prestigious PricewaterhouseCoopers firm for January and February. I'm looking forward to having her close in Helsinki those two months! That evening I went over to Sara's because the e-book we were using the study had locked itself due to us scrolling instead of flipping through the pages using the buttons (or so I'm told.) She managed to get to the library just before closing and get a hard copy of the text book. We met at her place, yes it was Friday night, to talk about research techniques and prep for the exam.

Saturday was an early 7am wake up that felt really depressing because of the dark, which doesn't usually bother me so much, but the fact that it was Saturday made it worse. Funny enough, when I got on the bus, it didn't really feel like a weekend because apparently there are lots of people taking the bus at 8am on a Saturday morning. The exam started at 9:15am. I was done before 10:15am but I figured I could read it over just in case I had made some monstrous mistake and needed to come back to do the exam in mid-January. No thank you... I took the train back to Tampere at 11 and was invited to the circus that same evening. (The invite happened on the train.)

I am sooooooooooooo happy I went to the circus! Juha's mom had an extra ticket and she invited me and we had such a great time. Popcorn, tea and snacks... but that wasn't the best part... haha. I really can't describe all the acts because there were so many of them and they were all soo good. I definitely wish I could try out the rope stuff...the one hung on the ceiling... and I wish I knew what it was called... it's like gymnastics on a vertical rope and you pose and spin around and tie yourself up in it. It looked freaking awesome! My friend Petra was a performer and it was awesome to see someone I knew there too. She did some juggling with her feet, among other things. I need to ask her about it next time I see her :P

Päivi and I hit up Wok Wok after the show... I hadn't been there in so long! We managed to speak Finnish for a large portion of the evening. And when Heikki showed up, he was surprised to hear me speak Finnish: No niin, sä puhut nyt Suomea...
I guess that happens sometimes.

Later that night, after almost falling asleep at home, Juha finally got home from work and we headed to Antti's birthday party. I was pretty low energy in the car on the way there but I was surprised at how quickly I woke up upon getting there. Antti and Jonna have a really great place and it was the first time I was there, since we missed their housewarming. All in all, in was a good night and though I wasn't the only tired one, I'm glad we all got together!

Today, I did some stretching... and made our famous club sandwiches... and worked on the 4th Quantitative Research Methods in Marketing assignment and am now gonna go choose some paint colours for my room in Toronto because my parents are moving and I need to get on that.

Also, listen to "We don't want your body" by Stars. I thought I was over them but I like this song.

Sadly, something really horrible had happened last Monday. Basically, around 5am one of the pizza/kebab restaurants on the main street of Tampere, Hämeenkatu, exploded. The place set on fire and the building above was evacuated. Tragically, three people didn't make it out alive and were later found in the staircase. First it was suspected that carelessness with gas stoves was the cause. Later it turned out it was intentional and people suspected some racism attempt at scaring foreigners. Ultimately, it was revealed that the restaurant's owner had done this himself. I don't really know what's wrong with people these days... but my heart goes out to those who are grieving their loved ones.

Random comment.

Yesterday, upon trying to say...

"Don't get mad."
Älä muutu vihaiseksi.

I ended up almost saying...

"Don't turn into a vegetable."
Älä muutu vihanneksi.

Thanks Finnish, for making me an endless source of entertainment!

Now back to studying for my Research Seminar pre-exam.

Winter!

It's snowing!!! And though it was wet and dark yesterday, it's now light and snowy today! I'm not really sure how the recent turn of events came about but I guess after we went out walking last night, it began to snow... and it didn't stop so much.

Let me shoot for a quick update...

Last week I spent 2 days in Helsinki and hung out with Anne [from Germany]. She made me dinner at her place, we ate there and then went to go see the Social Network. I really liked the movie and later was trying to figure out why I liked it so much and basically, I think it was just really well made...also, it was informative.

It's been slow at work so I haven't had too many hours... by which I mean, none. I did, however, get called in for 3 hours last week so that was better than no work at all! I taught a little English in the meantime before Sam arrived in Tampere on Thursday!

**Sam is from Canada. We met in first year residence and have kept in touch since. Last year he moved to Stockholm and we've been trying to visit when the occasion arose.

Thursday night was the opening night of Jazz Happening so we went to check that out. Two bands were playing, one of which was a little boring but the second of which was... ... well, I was a little speechless. It was basically jazz but with influences of hip hop... or ... let's call it a jazzy-urban sound! We then hung out at Passion before heading home for the night.

Friday morning was a little slow but we managed to make it out in the early afternoon. We met up with Juha and Maria at the rock museum [I have been waiting months to go- seriously] and then checked it out! Everything was really pretty and all for only 1e! Seriously.. you should go. I knew Sam wouldn't mind going because he'd studied geology for his undergrad. We proceeded to have dinner at WokWok and then head to our place for some card games! We eventually made it to Ruma that night to meet up with the girls and show Same some Tampere night-life.

Saturday morning was a little slow again. [haha] We headed to the duck park, after consuming the amazingness that is the Irina/Juha-club-sandwich! We had some extra break so we thought we'd feed the ducks. There must've been at least 70 ducks there and we got them to follow us a quarter of the way around the lake. It was actually a lot of fun :)
I then took Sam to Tuomiokirkko and showed him some surrounding neighbourhoods that I really like. We ended up walking past Vapriikki - The Tampere Art Museum - and scoping out the exhibits there. We went to the Finnish Hockey exhibit and there was a spot to try to score against a fake goalie. I got it straight between his legs - it was a beautiful shot... though sadly, not reproducible at will.

The day took a random turn of events after we decided to go to another event of the Jazz happening that night. We went for dinner at Shanghai restaurant and later agreed to meet Ninnu and Pauliina at Europa Cafe. Between those two social events, we ran over to Pakkahuone to check if there were any jazz tickets left but the place had sold out... sadly, we headed back to town empty-handed. We met up with the girls and hung out at Europa Cafe for a while, conversing and trying to make plans for the evening, before deciding to chill in Lempäälä at Ninnu's boyfriend's place: Daniel. We picked up some food and drinks, got Juha and drove over. We spent the night eating, drinking and playing cards. In between, Sam dazzled us with an amazing piano piece and we all sat in silence by the fire.
It was a really great way to spend a Saturday. :)

We got home late and Sam left before 6am. We're hoping to get to Stockholm before Christmas and pay him a visit.

In the meantime, I'm flying out to London today to see Jevgenija for the first time since June 2009! So yeah, I'm really excited :D! I spent all of yesterday writing an 8 page assignment which is due today and then I'm free for the week.

Can't wait to have more to tell you!
And I need to capture this snow situation on camera to share...