Aku Ankka Turussa

So my last few hours in Finland are quite stressful but despite my lack of time a spend an hour to get the new special Aku Ankka comic, with the signatures of the authors and cartoonist. Which is so cool. Oh Aku Ankka is Donald Duck by the way. He's stories are probably the most read books in this country. Old and young love them. Totally weird but well so are Finns. So in this special edition you have a story about Donald Duck, his greedy Uncle and the 3 nephews are on a treasure hunt trough several Hanse cities, including Turku were the story ends. And also very cool is that you get the comic in 3 languages in one book, so Finnish, Swedish and English. Pretty cool I'd say. Well all that specialness costs a lot of money. i won't say how much but you can buy several comics for that money. anyway it is super special and it has my name on the cover and there are just a limited number of copies, so definite worth waiting 60min to get the signatures.

Hair and sledging

So after several complains it's time for an update (or two or three? ;)). But how to summarize 2 month without writing a novel. Well I try to be short. In general not that much happened. I did a lot for my uni courses and tried not to die during those weeks with -25°C. ;)

So in February after my visit to Rauma not much happened. Besides that I went to a Finnish interpretation of the musical Hair. I love this musical and have seen different productions already in Germany so I thought it wouldn't be that difficult. I know almost every song by heart in English and German so why not try it in Finnish. Well it wasn't such a smart idea I can tell you. First of all the musical, as part of this whole Turku 2011- Capital of Culture year, was performed in the Logomo building which is an old factory building. And well there is no heating. So I froze my butt of while trying to figure out what the story is about. Seriously I didn't get anything. The three main characters were represented by 3 groups of people. And well the whole musical was played by middle aged people, at least that's what it should have been. But seriously who wants to see mid 40s till mid 60s women and men dancing like in trance and on drugs in Hippie clothes. I had nightmares for days! But the songs were nice in Finnish. ;)

Listen yourself to recordings from the 70s.
Hiukset
Täynnä elämää
Niin paljon meitä petettiin + Kuljen valoon aurinkoon

March was a bit more exciting. First of all there was Laskiainen in the beginning of March. So what is that? Well in other parts of the world you call it carnival. But it's not really like in other countries with dressing up and so on. Finns have their own tradition and Finnish students as well. So first of all you eat special kinds of pulla during that time. They are filled with marmalade and cream. I, of course, bought some of these very expensive Laskiaispulla. Well not enough cream and my pulla are definitely better. ;)


A student tradition on Shrove Tuesday is going sledging. And so the students from Turku gathered at Vartiovuori, a little hill area with a big park south of the city center, to slide down a hill on crazy self-made sledges. Seriously those guys are crazy. We saw half naked beach volleyball players, a Finnish train, the burning Mylly-bridge (which collapsed in 2010 because of the very strong winter), a Kalevala scenery and 2 times the game 'Angry birds'. It was very funny to watch. But I couldn't stay the whole competition since my sister was visiting me and well she got sick on her very first day and that's why she was not in the mood of spending 4 hours outdoors. Anyway enjoy the pictures.

 And the winner was the Computer Science student club called DaTe with their interpretation of Angry Birds.

OK need to get my beauty sleep now since my cousin's wedding is tomorrow so it will be very long day since my parents want to party the whole night, at least that's what they told me and I'm the designated driver. ;) The next update hopefully follows then on Friday. I promise!

Turku2011 opening ceremony

So the opening ceremony of the 2011 European Capital of Culture in Turku was äh well nice if you watched it on TV or were one of the invited guests or journalist because as an ordinary citizen of Turku, you had practically no chance of seeing a thing. It took me more than an hour to get to the harbor, was almost frozen to death because of the -16°C outside and was practically then running with 50.000 other people to get a good spot to watch. Well that was impossible I saw some lights in the back and heard a little bit music far away and that was it. Oh and there was some fireworks but also nothing that special. So a complete waste of time and energy. And afterwards it took me two hours to warm up completely after I got home. :( Let’s hope that the rest of the year is better organized.

Back on track

Moro!

Hmm been absent for a while or better say just too busy with other stuff and now i noticed that somehow the files where i from time to time wrote something down to post it here later is somehow gone or at least i cannot find it anymore on my laptop. So there won't be much on what happened here in Suomi during the last weeks since i cannot really remember it anyway. But if I forgot something important, then just remind me and i will write a little bit about it.

Just a short summary of December.
Well I was here, no internship in Germany because I am stupid. That is all i am going to say about it. And please I don't need any questions about uni or my future right now since i feel already bad enough about it and I don't need more pressure. Thanks.

So December. It was äh COLD! FREAKING COLD! Even for Finland. We had snow, very much snow which is very unusually for December at the coast here. And 3 weeks long under – 15°C is also very unusual. So we were all freezing and well not spending much time outside. But it is still one of the best month to spend in Finland.
Here December is call Joulukuu. Joulu means Christmas :D So it's the Christmas month. And Turku is the official Christmas city in this country.

So Joulukuu and in general the Christmas season starts with the openings of the Christmas markets all over the country. In Turku it opened at the end of November, at the first Advent weekend. The Christmas market here was very small but very nice and traditional, no drunken people, no weird smell of liver or other disgusting things like in Germany :) And in Turku Christmas market is just open on the Advent weekends. I was at the opening, - 20°C and of course I wasn't properly dressed. I thought my toes would freeze off.

At the same weekend was the traditional Åbo Akademi Christmas concert of the two choirs and the university orchestra. It was as 5 years ago the perfect start to the Christmas season. This beautiful Christmas music filling every corner of the cathedral. Very special I can tell you.

Anyway the next big thing was December 6th. And no it is not St. Nicolas day, ok it is but that is not important. The 6th of December is Finnish Independence Day. That day is very special. It is not celebrated as a big party like in countries as the USA or Norway but it is very quiet and a day to remember all people who fought and lost their lives for the independence of this country. The student unions of all the universities organized every year a torch procession from the student union buildings to the main cemetery. As 5 years ago I was of course a part of that procession. This year I even got my own torch. It felt pretty amazing being part of that big group of students that walked to the city in remembrance of the past. Since the procession was around 6 you could see in many windows two blue/white candles flickering. That is part of the independence day tradition. As well as watching the presidents ball in the evening on tv. I missed parts of that but well I have seen it the past 3 years so besides the different dresses it is not that much different every year.

Then I went one evening with Carolin to the so called 'Best Finnish Christmas Song' singing in one of the local churches. It is somehow tradition that in December people gather in the Churches to sing together. Sounds weird and well it was little bit weird and great at the same time. We went to Mikaelinkirkko which is a huge Gothic church, very nice and for me it was the first time that I've been to that church and well it was impressive. So was the singing. I love Finnish Christmas songs and charing that with a few hundred other people was so great. :) Definitely a great tradition.

So next on the agenda was Lucia Dagen. A Swedish tradition which comes from the days of Catholicism in the North. Well as in Sweden also in Finland there are Lucia celebrations and a Finnish Lucia is elected who is doing the whole traditional events in Helsinki. Since Turku has a big Swedish community we had also our own Lucia celebrations in the Cathedral with our own Lucia. I was a little bit late so I didn't got to see much but it was also more about here the songs and speeches. Luckily it was in Swedish so I at least understood more or less everything even if I didn't see it all.

Before Christmas it was time to say goodbye to a whole bunch of people. And that wasn't nice at all. I miss my flatmate Eva, my German friend Carolin, the crazy Peruvian girl Vicky, weirdo Adam and Hitomi my Japanese cherry blossom. :( Well life goes on, somehow although more or less all my friends are gone now so I have to make new friends.

For Christmas as I mentioned in an earlier post I was invited to a family Christmas diner with delicious food, singing, more food, Christmas story reading, caroling and well food. :D I think I gained around 3 kilograms during the holidays. If you want to know more about Finnish Christmas food just read this http://www.dlc.fi/~marianna/gourmet/season1b.htm and that is more or less everything I ate on Christmas.

The Wednesday after Christmas my friends Katrin and Tellu visited Turku at the same day and it was so nice to see some good friends again. From time to time it is just nice to see and hug some people who know you longer than 4 month and understand you better than many other people.

New Years Eve was a little bit quieter than Christmas. I was alone in my flat with my DVD collection which my mom finally send to me and since there were people blowing their money in the air I had my own private fireworks and didn't even need to leave the cosiness of my apartment. :)

So last Monday the new semester started here and that means new exchange students. Well haven't met many of them but well. Got also a new flatmate, from China, but she is already here since August which is nice that I don't have to tell so many thing for the dozens time. Seriously I am so tired of answering questions like: 'How long are you in Finland?', 'What do you study?', 'Why did you came to Finland?' .... bla bla bla. I know that it is necessary if you meet new people here but seriously I explained everything already a thousand times and at one point it is just annoying.

So that was it for the moment. Should get a little bit sleep before the Combined race and grand opening of the Culture capital year tomorrow. :)

Oh yeah I forgot: Turku is next to Tallin the culture capital of Europe so if you have the chance you should visit this amazing city this year. There is a lot going on.

Will tell more about opening ceremony during the next days. Hopefully before I leave to France.
Jeap I am going to France next Wednesday. The first time that I leave this country since August! Woohoo!!

Nähdään! (See you!)


PS: Happy New Year to you all! :P