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.

Scandinavia.

Now as many of you may know, Finland is not part of Scandinavia. I think the distinction is that it's part of the Scandinavian agreement for free mobility and other parks but it's not geographically part of the Scandinavian peninsula. I just looked at a map and it's a little sketchy.. because of all the land in between. But you get the idea. I had been living in Finland for 7 months and I had never been to Scandinavia. So Jackie and I set out to explore Norway and Sweden.

We first took a train from Tampere to Turku. Took the boat from Turku to Stockholm. Flew to Bergen from Stockholm and took a train from Bergen to Oslo, before flying back to our respective places thereafter.

I managed to see old friends in each city. We met Christian in Stockholm and he accompanied us to Bergen, where we stayed with Elisabeth for a night and got to enjoy her company the next day as well. Then Jackie and I sailed solo to Oslo where we got a most sophisticated tour from Andreas and stayed with some family friends who I hadn't met before, but who made us feel right at home: Jeni, Daniel and Andrei.

So without going into too many details, I can say that we saw some beautiful places in the company of wonderful people!

And as the most random side-note, during our last morning in Oslo, we assisted at a Starfish funeral. While walking along the harbor and stopping to laugh at a kiss-and-sail sign, I noticed a starfish had died on land. I found something to gently lift him with and threw him in the water. [Now I'm really hoping that he wasn't alive and that I killed him. But it seemed pretty obvious that he was dead.] So I took a few pictures of the occasion and I have no idea why I felt compelled to post them, let alone mention this on my blog.

My 90th post...

This blog is catching up to the old German blog and with this post, I will have posted a whooping 90 posts! [The German blog got up to 94 posts in total, none of which are open to the public anymore... sorry - I messed up and put my name in there somewhere.]

So point being, hi August! How have you arrived upon us so quickly?
This summer in Finland has been stupendous! I tutor twice a week for fun and spare change. Otherwise, the remaining 166 hours of my week are spent sleeping, eating ice cream, riding my bike, doing 1000 piece puzzles [or should I say A 1000 piece puzzle... though there are talks of a second being attempted after the first is completed], listening to music, going to the beach and swimming in the lake everyday and basically, living at WokWok part-time [where my friends work and spend most of their waking hours.]...oh and the fact that I spent over 11 hours watching extended editions of all the Lord of the Rings movies should also be mentioned as an activity.

Next Thursday my friend Jackie is flying in from Canada and I'm heading to Helsinki to get her from the airport. Then we have a few free days in and around Tampere to do as we please before we set off on our Scandinavian Adventure: Stockholm, Bergen and Oslo.

Speaking of Helsinki, I haven't heard anything about housing there yet and I'm wondering when/if I should try and find a private apartment for rent [since Helsinki has such reasonable prices of 500e/month for your home sweet 12m2 flats!] But we'll see... I'm supposed to hear back this month. And actually, the first orientation meeting is in the evening on August 25th... so less than 24 days left! Gah.!