Part 3: Chloe [these parts are out of order]

Last week Chloe came to Tampere for a few days. Here are a few snapshots:






My long-lost highschool friend and rhythmic and artistic gymnastics buddy and I hung out, caught up, played Frisbee golf for the first time, went to Lauren's cottage, walked around Tampere (maybe 13km of it), made food and the like. Juha made some guest appearances. Thanks for the visit (and the pictures) Chloe :)

Catch up!

Alright so, let's skip through all the details, but basically: I GOT A JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I got an email last Tuesday from a company I had interviewed with in March, and they wanted me to start last week! So I went in on Friday and have since worked this week on Tuesday and Wednesday as well.

In the meantime, Jibbie, Juha's friend from Mannheim, came to visit us! She was visiting her twin in Mannheim and planned some stops along the way. I'm happy to report, Finland was among the stops! We took her to a hockey game [yes, it was my first hockey game ever!!!!] and sightseeing around Helsinki! [Though I sadly had to miss some of the sights due to school and work.]

Now I really want to tell you guys that: I LOVE TAMPERE!

Here is why...

I had lunch with Nina today and Juha came for a bit too. Then he left for Germany during lunch, and Nina and I hung out post-food.

Then I went to the bank and spoke in Finnish! Now only that but the bank teller was so sweet and started asking me how long I've been in Finland for, am I a student, etc. She was soooo nice and spoke to me so clearly and I understood everything she said!!!!
So I walked out of there with a spring in my step, went to get a bus pass, and basically got paid for it... it was in Juha's name but I asked if we could change the name. Apparently we could! [Juha, I owe you a bus pass! And some change.]

On my way home, I ran into a friend from school - Murat. Him and his friend were out buying a present for someone's birthday. We ran around town for a bit before we all headed home.

It was all quite random, but just a nice flow throughout the day! Tonight, I got plans with the girls :)

Orientation.

Okay kids, I know I've been a little out of touch these past 3 days but for good reason: the good people at H@nken decided to extend our orientation over 2 days, in case we missed something the first 27 times it was explained to us. Now I realize that sounds whiny but I'll tell you why it ended up being a really good thing: because we all focused on each other!

Over the past 3 days, I've had time to meet at least a dozen new people, exchange names with a few more and look forward to taking classes with completely different people as well. I've already signed up for my 2 first classes in the first period [1 semester = period 1 + period 2].

The most interesting orientation talks we had consisted of a prof standing in the middle of the auditorium, pretending he was Brussels, and asking us to place ourselves around him geographically. That made for a really interesting depiction of where everyone was from. Also, it made it 100% easy to locate my new Canadian buddy from Saskatchewan, Nicole! [This was the introduction session for Masters and exchange students. Thus the insanely diversified world map we created.] My second favourite talk was done by the Green Office guy and he spoke to us about the importance of keeping H@nken green. He had a good sense of humour and kept it short - so it was memorable and we'll be keeping it green on H@nken's behalf as a result. Go travel coffee mugs! "Maailmaan paras isä!" ...jne.

Today was a pretty boring day in terms of information. We found out we need to bring the original copies of our diplomas in for "registration." This made me angry as we needed to send in lawyer attested copies ($50) and then I left mine in Canada so shipping costs ($60?) plus risk of it being lost... (iunno how much it costs to replace but you know mAcGill will milk it for all its worth...) soooo... perhaps I can keep on begging them to let me bring it after Christmas? I think that's a good plan... for now...we'll see...

ALSO, we heard from the student union about the Welcome Dinner, Sept 10th, the cottage weekend, Sept 18-19, the St-Petersburg trip ... and more to come! I'm really looking forward to it all.

Jackie is coming back on Tuesday afternoon and I'll be in Tampere by the evening on Tuesday. I need to skip class on Wednesday morning (already) because there's no point rushing back for a 1.5h lecture... but at some point I need to sign my HO@S agreement and get the keys to my new crib!

On a final note, I love this song because it calmed me down as I was getting in to Helsinki on Wednesday afternoon. Santogold's I'm a Lady. Enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpL8odTN2_c


Photo credits: here.

Jetlag.

I keep forgetting that blog posts don't need to be 30 pages about the daily epiphanies I have and put off writing about because they're too long and if I don't go into all the details then they feel incomplete and why write about them at all.

So anyway, I got back to Tampere yesterday! I landed around 6pm, got in around 8pm after a quick stop at Prima - Ideapark. Managed to get to bed at a regular hour - 12:30am - due to lack of sleep on the plane. And I woke up at 12:30pm today...having slept 12 hours, of which at least 9 involved light outside. Now this might all sound fine and dandy to you but since I have an interview/presentation/really short essay to prepare for Friday this was actually quite disastrous. The consequences of which I'll face tomorrow... since it's 2:17am and I'm still wide awake. BUT it really shouldn't be too bad and I can't wait to go, present, be interviewed and then CELEBRATE THE START OF THE WORLD CUP!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Point being, the average European jet lag: wide awake but usually the darkness helps tell your body it's time to sleep. Current jetlag: sun appears to be trying to do me a favour and stays out 19h and 18 minutes a day.

I actually found a chart: [it was here but the format didn't hold so just check out the link below... it's quite different from what we're used to in Toronto, for example.]

Thank you: http://www.gaisma.com/en/location/tampere.html

Tidbits from my parents' visit to Tampere!

There is absolutely no order here so don't worry if you think you're missing the point on some cryptic comic-book plot.