Song of the month - July

This months I want to share a song which I also found more or less by accident. I don't give much about music casting shows. At least not in Germany. But surprise surprise I really like some of the contenders of Finnish Idols and such things. So when I noticed that 'the Voice of Finland' was over I checked out some songs and well I have a new favorite. :) This guy was just 3rd in the competition but who cares? Not me because this song is just amazing! Still gives me chills!

Enjoy Jesse Kaikuranta with Vie Mut Kotiin!



Well what can I say, I am a sucker for good ballads! :)

Song of the Month - June

So there were a couple of options for this months 'Song of the Month'. Since I am now now one of those working people we listen to a lot of radio at work. I was never a big fan of German radio especially since they play the same songs every day and almost the same songs every hour which is so annoying when you have to listen to it 6 hours in a row. But still you start liking a few songs if you hear them on a daily basis. Well but I also checked out the latest Finnish single charts, as i always do when I need new music and there I found the perfect summer song. So perfect since summer officially starts tomorrow and the weather is getting warmer again (or let's say it was way too warm again during the last 2 days.
So here it is June's Song of the Month:
Elokuu with Saatilla. But maybe I should have waited 2 more month since elokuu actually means August. ;) And jeah the video is totally weird and well I think one shouldn't watch it, but the song is good. So close your eyes and just listen ;)

Other songs that almost made it are 'We are Young' by Fun, Marina & the Diamonds with 'Primadonna', Die Ärzte with 'M&F' (so sad that i can't go to the concert in Hannover even though I have a ticket :'( ) my favorite Finnish rapper Cheek with 'Sokka irti' and the wonderful 'Count on Me' by Bruno Mars, which just made me miss my best friends even more these past too weeks.

Feel free to share your summer songs with me. I am always up to to new stuff.

better late then never

Here a little flashback on my trip to Finland in March. I know it is already the end of May but i was busy and well better late than never :D

So from March 1st until March 8th I was in Finland, in Lahti, Turku and Helsinki to be precise. And I am so glad that I have so amazing friends there. I never had to pay for any accommodation just for trains and buses which were super expensive as always. But well it's Finland after all.

In Lahti, usual, I went to the Lahti Ski Games. Same procedure as every year you might say, just that this time I didn't have so many friends around. But well with 2 Katrins in the city I still had a fun time including a night out with dancing and watching ex-skijumpers, coaches and Nordic combined athletes getting drunk and hitting on ugly old women. Well if they need it! :D
Oh jeap and then there was 'some' wind again. looks like every 3 years or so Lahti weather just sucks. So half of my comps were canceled and this year i didn't had a press accreditation so no place to sit and warm up. Really need to work there next year to make it fun again. :)
But to spice things up I almost killed myself. Totally by accident of course! Stupid Steffi doesn't listen when people tell her: Don't walk over the frozen lake. Steffi just sees ice fishers on there and thinks: If they can do it, I can do it! I ended up ankle deep in water and knee deep in snow, made it to the shore, totally exhausted and scared as h*ll. After almost crashing my car a couple of years ago, I think this was the second near death experience in my life. I hope the last one. At least i won't go on a frozen lake ever again!

Oh and in Lahti I finally had the chance to watch an ice hockey match again (Ok not true I watched a regional league match in February in Leipzig but well that doesn't really count). It was a pretty cool game. The Pelicans from Lahti won, who later came in 2nd in the Finnish championship. Nothing compared to a match Turku but  we have the second biggest arena in the country so of course the ice hockey stadium in Lahti looked kind of cute to me. :D

And this year I got another cool souvenir from Lahti. During the last 2 years I started (thanks to my friend Katrin) collecting bibs (start numbers) from different Nordic Combined athletes. and this year I got one from my favorite ski jumper. Too bad that he fel in exactly the bib from the team competition that i got but he was Ok in the end and kind enough to sign the bib. Now i will have to frame it together with my Mikko bib from last year and then i will have some cool wall decoration in my new room.

All in all I was from Thursday till Sunday morning in Lahti. And if i say morning i mean my bus to Turku left at 4am! So after dancing half of teh night I spend the rest sleeping in the bus, or well trying.

I arrived around 7am in Turku, went straight to McDonalds, the only one in Turku and the only place open that early on a Sunday. I had 2 cocoas (I LOVE OBOY!) and killed 2 hours before surprising my friends. Oh my goodness. Who would have thought people could be so happy to see me. Surprise visits are just the best. I was for 2 more days in Turku and went on Tuesday morning to Helsinki to visit other friends. :D Seriously it is so awesome to see people again who you are so close to but haven't seen in 6 or 9 months! 
I then did some sightseeing with my friend Laura and just relaxed the last days in Helsinki.


I had to fly back early in Thursday morning. early means i had to be at the bus stop around 5AM. And of course the troubles started already there. i didn't have enough money for the bus and was almost kicked out of it again. But a nice man gave me the 15c that were missing. Can you believe it that somebody makes such a fuss about 15c. Ok in Germany nobody would have borrowed me that money and i would have been kicked out of the bus for sure but in Finland it was a surprise for me. The whole bus was full and nobody besides the driver would have checked if i paid or not and in Turku the bus driver would have taken me in for free but well Helsinki people are always different. So and then the bus driver almost drove the wrong way and we were so very late that i nearly missed my flight. So much stress so early in the morning. But also no surprise here, always when I travel everything just goes wrong. But I arrived eventually in Berlin were I spend the rest of the day.

Unfortunately the weather was really bad so i didn't really do anything besides waiting to meet another friend for diner. Around 9pm I finally caught my train back to Leipzig. Totally exhausted and somehow i caught some stomach flew on the way which made my next working day a very short one.

So much for my trip to Finland and Berlin. Don't know when I'll be back home in Suomi but everybody, especially the people in Turku told me to move back. Well if it was that easy. But I think if I ever go back for longer I might not leave again. third try is the charm, isn't it?

Next trip: Copenhagen in July. I hope! :D



 

Eurovision Song Contest 2012

Same procedure as every year. It is ESC time. Always around my b-day but I got used to it. :D

And thanks to my new very cute USB-loudspeakers, I am able to watch it at home without inviting myself to somebody with a tv or working computer. (Oh how I missed listening to music or just watching a movie or tv series)

As last year I listened to all songs and well what can I say, most of them suck of course! I have the feeling the more often I watch it, the crappier the songs get but well it is entertaining after all. But there were some great surprises as well.

So here is my TOP 5 list of the Eurovision Song Contest 2012 in Baku.

5th Place: Divided between Israel and Netherlands (Seriously I can't decide!)
Israel: Izabo - Time
What a fun song! A bit weird sounding chorus but seriously I like it. Fun to listen to even though the clowns are insane.
Netherlands: Joan Franka - You and Me
When you just listen to the song, it is a really great folk song. I like songs like that a lot. But please leave away the Pocahontas costume from the live show.  It ruins the song!
6 Points!

4th Place:  Island: Gréta Salóme & Jónsi - Never Forget
This song is exactly what I expect from Iceland. A very good song which sounds somehow familiar. And that model like singer is of course a great bonus for us girls (Nordic guys are just the best!) ;) And the video makes me want to pack my bags and fly to Iceland right away! Well next year maybe! :) 7 Points!

3rd Place:  Denmark: Soluna Samay - Should've known better
In knew I heard this song already on the radio when I listened to all ESC 2012 songs last Thursday. Really great song, weird costume the girl had in the live show but who cares if the song is nice. 8 Points!

2nd Place:  Finland: Pernilla Karlsson -Jag är blunda
Of course I always support Finland in the ESC but this year, as last year (Heja Oskar!), I am very surprised about the song and like it a lot. It is in Swedish, which hasn’t happened in a while (since 1990 precisely) and it is a very nice song. It really was my favorite until last Thursday, now it's my No. 2 and running on my mp3 player very often since I heard it for the first time. :) Kymmenen pistettä Suomeen! 10 Points to Finland! (or 11 if I could choose!)

1st Place Estonia Ott Lepland - Kuula
My undefeated Number 1 this year! The more often I listen to this song, the more I love it. Seriously can’t believe that until last Thursday I haven’t heard about it! What a great and powerful ballad. 12 Points or much much more!!!

Also nice songs this year come from Switzerland (The singer just should learn English pronunciation), Hungary (good song, could run on the radio all day long) and surprisingly Germany (But you can't go wrong with a song written by Jamie Cullum).

So and the worst songs this year, well there are so many but I am seriously disappointed by Norway (You don't have to send an Erik Saade copy since he sucked already last year and his Doppelgänger sucks even more), Sweden (I really don’t get why everybody thinks this song will win), Russia (send this Babushki back to their old people’s home!), Turkey (usually one of my favorite ESC contestants :( ) and well Austria (I can’t even put in words what I think about this song). I won't post any of the links here. I don't want to encourage bad taste ;) but you can find all the videos on youtube.

Last but not least, a bit out of the ranking for me is Slovakia. They only real rock song. Pretty OK song but what I will most remember is the gorgeous singer. Are men allowed to be that beautiful? Wow! Usually I wouldn’t say something like that, or at least not in public ;) but he is definitely a keeper. And that hair!!! I am so jealous! Definitely my highlight of this years Eurovision when it comes to looks.


And since my favorite Swedish Eurovision show did it this year es well, some highlights from the past that I like:

Brainstorm - My Star (ESC 2000- Latvia, and no i don't think the singer was on drugs ;)) 
Roger Pontare - When Spirits Are Calling My Name (ESC 2000 Sweden) 
 August & Telma - Tell Me! (ESC 2000 Iceland)
Lordi - Hard Rock Hallelujah (ESC 2006 - Finland \,,/) 
Marija Šerifović - Molitva (ESC 2007 - Serbia 
Bonaparti.lv - Questa notte (ESC  2007 - Latvia) 
Eirikur Hauksson - Valentine Lost (ESC 2007 - Iceland)
The Ark - The Worrying Kind - (ESC 2007 - Sweden) 
Boaz Mauda - The Fire In Your Eyes (ESC 2008 - Israel, my favorite ESC song ever! Knew it by heart 1 day after hearing it for the first time) 
Anonymous - Salvem el món (ESC 2007 - Andorra)
Yohanna - Is it true (ESC 2009 - Iceland) 
Urban Symphony - Rändajad (ESC 2009 - Estonia)
Tom Dice - Me and my Guitar (ESC 2010 - Belgium) 
Jon Lilygreen & The Islanders - Life Looks Better In Spring (ESC 2010 - Cyprus) 
Anna Bergendahl - This Is My Life (ESC 2010 - Sweden) 
Didrik Solli-Tangen - My Heart Is Yours (ESC 2010 - Norway)

And something really old (well one year older than me so super old :P), until last year I didn’t know that it exist but I had the chance to meet the younger brother in this group so I had to check it out. Herreys with Diggi-loo Diggi-ley. Oh and I was able to touch the golden boots! Haha funny moment indeed!

So enough for this year! now it is time to watch the shows!

Enjoy the ESC 2012 and Light your fire!

 

THE GAME IS ON!

The Ice Hockey World championships started today! After last years sensational win of the Finnish Team, the Worldchamps are taking place in Sweden and Finland this year. I don't think the Finns can repeat the victory from last year, especially with Ville Peltonen missing, but we'll see if it is enough to score a medal.

 So let the games begins!

 
 

Hauskaa Vappua! Glada Wappen!

As every year May 1st is Vappu in Finland. Too bad that i missed the craziness this year but if somebody forgot what it is all about, check last years post or ask google or auntie wiki.




PS I hope I have soon some time top write a few posts since a lot has happened during the last weeks. I got a job and a new flat but even though today I had the day off, I was just too lazy to write anything. Sorry about that!

Better late ...

than never.

So I wish everybody a belated Happy St. Nicholas Day! I hope you guys cleaned your shoes and got a little treat. I didn't cleaned my shoes but still got a chocolate Santa and some cookies from my area manager at Amazon. I really liked the idea, especially since I completely forgot that it was December 6th already. Time really flies.

So and for all the Finns and friends of Finland a belated
Hyvää Itsenäisyyspäivää!!!
It's now 94 years ago that Finland gained independence from Russia. Usually I sit (like many Finns) in front of the telly or computer to watch the Independence Day ball in the presidential palace. And like all girls i just watch it becasue of the dresses and to check how many people i know. Still surprising that the number is usually quite high even when the members of parliament are coming in. but never ask me about German politicians. ;)

Weather effects in Finland and the rest of the world

+15c Spanish wear caps, gloves and winter coats, Finns are sunbathing.

+10c French desperately try to get their central heating on. Finns plant flowers.

+5c Italian cars won't start. Finns drive with convertibles.

0c Pure water freezes. Water in river Vantaa thickens a bit.

-5c First people are found frozen in California. Finnish midsummer festival ends.

-10c Scottish turn the heat on in their houses. Finns start to use long-sleeve shirts.

-20c Swedes stay indoors. Finns are having last barbeque before winter.

-30c Half of the Greek people have frozen to death. Finns start to dry their laundry indoors.

-50c Polarbears evacuate North Pole. Finnish army starts it's winter training.

-70c Siberian people are moving to Moscow. Finns are furious since the Koskenkorva booze can't be stored outdoors anymore.

-273c Absolute Zero. Finns admit that it is quite cold outside.

-300c Hell freezes over. Finland wins the football World Cup.

Sunset and Sunrise at the Baltic Sea

So I'm back in Germany and well the way I chose this time wasn't one of my smartest ideas.

I spend my last night with a new but good friend and 2 cats. Interesting combination but it was very nice just to relax a bit.

Then I spend 26 hours on a ferry. Well it was not so nice. The ferry was very small so you couldn't really do much. And after the 4th old drunk Finnish or Russian man tried to talk to me I really had enough. And all the complaining Germans. Seriously do you have to complain when a night light isn't properly working (and it needed to be fixed right away!). Oh and i caused the biggest drama when I did put my Laptop cable across the floor. Oh how could I do that? ;) So the positive thing was that there was free Internet access on the boat, so I survived that time more or less.

We arrived on Friday night at the harbor in Rostock. I was very lucky to reach the subway in time because with my luggage AND my bike I might have just given up on the way between the harbor and the city center. Then I tried to sleep a few hours at the train station. Well it was one of the best sleeping places I had so far but unfortunately I wasn't the only one there so it wasn't really quiet. Around 5:30am I took a train to Warnemünde and had a great breakfast alone at the beach. :D The pics of that morning and the whole last week you can find under this link. I'm too lazy to upload everything a second time.

Enjoy!

PS And of course there was no Hanse Sail, it is of course this week. But it was crowded enough in Rostock.

Sun and fun in Sverige and Suomi

So I'm on the road for more than a week now and well it's been fun. I stopped counting on how many surfaces i slept. I just have to say Airports are not my favorite but at least it is not as cold as the train station in Bamberg in the end of December :D

I was in Sweden from Monday night till Saturday evening. I met a lot of great people, learned a lot and am sure that I have enough power now to survive at my parents place for a while.

On Sunday morning I arrived in Finland and well i was supported to go back to Germany on Tuesday but due to great people here I got a bed (the first real bed i slept in a week!) for 2 more nights so I had more time to meet people, buy some last minute things and just enjoy the wonderful weather. So it is Wednesday and tonight I'm going to Vantaa (next to Helsinki) to spend my last night in Finland at a friends place.
Tomorrow at 6pm my ferry to Rostock is leaving. I will be there on Friday evening, will try to find a place to sleep at the train station because thanks to the Hanse Sail you can't find a bed in the city anymore. But well at least I will get some of the atmosphere my parents experience a few times in the past.

So and i might get a job next week so everybody cross your fingers that my future-boss won't kill me when i tell him that i have to do an internship still and won't be able to work in September or October. :)

never ending nightmare

So today was the day to leave Finland. Well as always when i travel something goes wrong but today Murphy had seriously something against me. Really everything went wrong. Ok, everthing went wrong after i arrived at the airport, before that everything went just fine.

I was repacking the whole night and cleaning. and well i just had too much stuff. With 2 sleeping bags, curtains, a pillow, clothes, shoes and lots of uni papers and books I had to send some stuff to my parents. I ended up sending 2 packages with around 10kg. At 7am I was the first one at the post office and well I should have used a better scale. Thanks to 100g too much in one package (while 300g less than 10kg in the other) I had to pay 13€ more than I expected. Well that sucked but I couldn't change it. By 7:45am the whole posti-mission was done and i was already waiting at the supermarket to do some last minute chocolate shopping and to buy a bigger bag for my handluggage since my little Halti-backpack just wouldn't do it. At that time it was by the way already 19°C!! Totally crazy! So i got the bag. Really awesome in purple and super big for just about 17€! a great deal for a Finnish brand like Icepeak. So I repacked my handluggage, went then to the uni library, returned all my books and all the uni papers. I was back home by 10:30, packing the last things, eating a bit and was ready to go to the airport. Everything went acording to plan. Well this should have made me suspicious because my travel days are never acording to plan. :/

So I went to the airport. My suitcase was a bit too heavy and my handluggage, too, but i trusted my previous luck with the check-in people. Well not this time! I had to pay for an extra bag and therefore had to check in my handluggage. Great! So i was running around the whole time with my laptop in my arms since i didn't have a bigger bag to use and couldn't leave it in the bag (but the cables stayed in the purple handluggage bag - STUPID!) and a small handbag with my wallet, passport and a bottle of water. That's it. Since we had around 30°C in Finland I decided to put my jacket also into the handluggage bag (big mistake!) and off all it went into the big plane stomach.

So off we went from the great summer weather in Turku to the stopover in Copenhagen. I had about 30min to get to my next plane and i was prepared to run again over the whole airport but we were 15min early so things were working in my favor, i thought. But during the landing phase i got a very terrible sort of migraine attack or something like that in my left forehead. I though a blodvessel is going to burst. Seriously it was bad! I still feel the pain now even though the really strong pain just lasted for 20min. Anyway so i had these bad pains and of course my emergency painkillers were in the purple bag. Awesome!

Luckily I didn't had to run across the whole airport like in April. Wasn't able to do it anyway this time. But the departure gate in Copenhagen was just 100m way from the arrival gate. Finally something positive! I even had time to refill my water bottle. So the flight was ok. I didn't like it when the captain said there is rain and 15°C in Berlin but I had my fleece jacket in my purple bag so i was happy that I packed it and did not send it by post.

So we arrived in Berlin, it rained, it was cold, i wanted my jacket.

Well i didn't get it.

My luggage, both bags and the bags of all the other people who flew from Finland to Copenhagen and then to Berlin didn't get their luggage because the stupid airport people couldn't move a few suitcases in 30min about 500m to the next plane! I couldn't believe it and still can't. I just wanted to cry. Seriously everything is in these bags! Most of the papers for my final thesis, my Journal, my external harddrive, my USB stick with the uni essay i still have to finish but also with all my work for the thesis, my favorite clothes, some presents from friends and some chocolate of course. Oh jeah and my jackets and painkillers!
So the lost and found people were already waiting for us. 'Well, jeah your luggage should come tonight with the plane at 8am.' - 'But I can't wait so long, I need to go another 300km by train today.' - 'Well than we'll send it by post. You should get it by Saturday.' WTF?! So there I was, freezing without my jacket, still in pain, hungry and just really upset, holding unto my laptop. Seriously it is really heavy if you have to carry it around in your arms all day long! Well you can imagine how bad I felt. And even crying my heart out to my Mom on the phone didn't help much. The only good thing was i didn't had to carry all that heavy luggage through Berlin but seriously i would have prefered that because it had warmed me up and would not be sick tomorrow and without anything to do or wear.

I got then some bad food at the train station after i hadn't eaten all day. Should have bought the dognuts instead of the 'fish'n'chips'. Well, next time. And then i had this super 3 1/2 hour train ride ahead of me with 2 changes on the way. German trains have air conditiioning, which never works when it is hot outside but with 13°C it works of course! It was horrible! I got picked up by my Dad on an earlier trainstop so i didn't need to chance twice. Well didn't matter since I didn't have any luggage after all.
My dad laughed at me! Super! Exactly what I needed while my headache was still killing me. And my Mom was shocked when she saw that i just wore a t-shirt. What in 'We have 30°C in Finland' did she not understand when i told her on the phone that my jacket is in the luggage too. Well here i am now hoping that my stuff will arrive on Saturday. Need to get so much work done but why was i so stuipid putting my usb-stick in the purple bag? well then I just write the complain letter to the airline tomorrow!

So much for now, the pain in my head is almost gone, thanks to my mom's painklllers but the fever is coming. Thanks air conditioned trains! Let's hope the world looks a bit better tomorrow.

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.

Time to pack!

So in 35 hours I'm leaving Finland. Such a weird feeling. During the last couple of days I had to say goodbye to so many people. Seriously I just wanted to cry way too often but well at least I know I made some friends I can truly rely on for the rest of my life. :)



And well, I found something a while ago and still can't believe that somebody here is doing that: Finnish Reggae! Seriously! And the most surprising thing: it is actually good! Here is my favorite song of Jukka Poika Kylmästä Lämpimään which is so perfect for the summer. :)

Enjoy, while I try to fit my last 9 month into a suitcase. Very tricky i can tell you!

Nähdään!

Hyvää Juhannusta!

So it was Juhannus last Saturday. Or as the Swedes would say: Midsommar. Which might be more familiar to all the IKEA shoppers out there. In Denmark and Norway it's called St. Hans. So well it's all the same in the end.

And it's the same tradition i would say in most of these countries. You light bonfires on the lakes, go to dances (mostly the older generations), spend time with family and friends at your summer cottage. Have lots of bbqed food and even more to drink, go to sauna (at least here in FIN) and just have a good free day.

Juhannus starts already Friday evening like all mayor holidays here so the shops were closed by Friday afternoon and the city almost completely empty by Friday evening. It is like the whole country is outside in the countryside and the cities are practically dead!

Speaking of dead, Juhannus is also a day were a lot of people die here, either because they drown since they are so drunk, burn because the are drunk while dealing with the Juhannus fires or just have other accidents because of alcohol abuse. Although this year the number of people who died on Juhannus was pretty low with 'just' 9 people. Last year there were 23!

That's why I'm happy that me and my friends don't drink so we had nothing to worry about. I was invited to go on Saturday afternoon which a bunch of friends to the mökki (cottage) of a befriended family. We had a wonderful time with playing games, eating good food and just enjoying the good company. Unfortunately the mosquitoes enjoyed my company as well. During the 4 hours we were outside I was bitten by around 40 mosquito and ants. I counted the bites afterwards! My legs really look like a crumb cake! So bad. But besides that It was a lot of fun.

Parental visit in May

So in May my parents and my sis were here in Finland for a week. After 5 days I managed to 'escape'. :D Well or something like that. But the time together wasn't as bad as i expected. It was nice not to be the 'evil' daughter for a change. ;) My sister hasn't been the nicest person since I moved out almost 7 years ago but since she moved out a month ago, she thinks she knows everything better. Yeah, sure!

Anyway, we went to Fiskars, a little village which is famous for it's knives and scissors. Then we haded to Hämeenlinna and Lahti on the second day. Spend a relaxing Sunday at the cottage and tried to find some weird submarine place somewhere at the southern coast on a very rainy Monday. We got lost of course and ended at a military base. Well that is so typical my parents no car atlas, no real travel guide just some vague description and then they think I should know everything. Jeah, because I drove with a car on every little street in Finland. Sure! Anyway, my sort of last full day with my family was spend in Porvoo, a gorgeous little town 40km east of Helsinki. On my b-day we went back to Turku, ate in the Viking restaurant Harald (but didn't get the funny Viking hats as friends of mine did a couple of days before us). Afterwards we had a little walk on beautiful Ruissalo, the island located right in front of the harbor of Turku. Then I got rid of my parents for 1 1/2 days until Friday, when they came after my last exam, to pick up most of my stuff to drive back to Germany. Since then I have white walls again, been sleeping in a sleeping bag and have practically no clothes to wear (not that it was much different before :P). So now I'm sort of counting the days till June 30th, when I go back to Germany.




And after that? Seriously I don't know, so please everybody stop asking me!


Enjoy the pics from my travels in May.

Summer is here - jeah!!!

I hope you got the Sarcasm here.

It's unbelievable but we have around 30°C for almost a week now and I truly hate it. And if I here another person asking me 'Great weather, isn't it?' I probably going to lose it.

I just hate the heat. You are sweating all day long and when you are going everywhere by bike it is even worse. I wish I has a pool in which I could just lie all day long. But well I am definitely considering building my future summer cottage not in Finland but on Greenland or Iceland. ;)

Ok so much for now. Will try to post some pics and some stories about my parents stay here during the next days.
OH and I'm coming back to Germany on June 30th. I think. ;)

SUOMI ON UUSI MAAILMANMESTARI!!!

So after 24hours of partying I need to share this miracle also here with you. So I'm not sure if everybody has noticed but the last 2 weeks it was ice hockey world championships. And these were awesome championships. It started with Germany kicking Russia's ass with 2:0. After that amazing victory I said to many friends that now with Germany winning against Russia everything can happen including Finland winning the world championships. And what did they do?

THEY FREAKING WON!!!!!!

Seriously, we all have hoped for it but the final game was against the arch-enemy Sweden and in the past the Finnish Lions usually were really scared against the 'Tre Kronors' and played like little boys. But not this time. On Friday it was said Swedes are more afraid of Paradise Oscar (ESC) than Mikael Granlund but on Sunday it showed that they should have been truly afraid of the whole team. 6:1 was the end result!!!!! And the only goal Sweden made was by a guy called Pääjärvi, so a guy with partly Finnish blood in his veins. :D So much for that.

Today was the official party in Helsinki but there was a huge street-party already last night. Since I am in Turku and a poor student I didn't have the financial means to go to Helsinki but they put up a big screen at the market square in Turku and a few hundred mostly dunk people dressed in blue and white with flags and hockey jerseys celebrated as well. And you guess right, I was among them, not drunk but celebrating of course. It was very emotional with lots of singing and cheering and shouting and well it was 'almost' as good as being live in Helsinki. Or at least it was better than watching it on tv.

So here a few Songs that are played over and over again since last night.
The most popular one is Ihanaa, leijonat, ihanaa! from 1995 where the Finnish commentator screamed so enthusiastically that they made a song out of it. Btw 'ihana' is one of my favorite words since half a year and means 'awesome'.
Another on is Den glider in (it [the puck] goes in), especially popular since it is in Swedish and original the 1995 World Championship Song for Sweden but they lost back then against Finland and they lost this time again, so it is like a certain finger towards the Swedish team and country. But you could also hear this and Sankarit (Heros), which was sung by all the fans, the team and well just everybody today in Helsinki (and here in Turku). :D And Poika saunoo (the boy goes to the sauna) which is my discovery of the day (Kiitos Tellu!). Enjoy!


Another highlight of the tournament was a certain goal last Friday which made a 'little' 19 year old poika (boy) to become the hero of this country. Seriously when Mikael Granlund came on stage today everybody screamed louder for him than for any other player and even louder than for the President herself (and yes I was among those who screamed so loud!). So Mikke Granlund made an amazing goal on Friday and within minutes it was all over youtube. But the best version is in Finnish since there the same commentator as 1995, who is a legend himself in Finland, had one of his moments. So much for Finns never show emotions. :D So enjoy Mikke's 1:0 goal from the semi-final. And here of course as a song version. Finns are really fast with that.


Kiitos Leijonat!

Hauskaa Vappua!

Happy Vappu to you!

The most important days for Finnish students are the April 30th and May 1st! If possible, it's a week long party with lots of pick-nicks (if the weather is good), Tippaleipä (funnel cake) eating, Sima (bäähhhh) drinking, wearing student overalls and student caps. In general a crazy time where most of the people are just drunk all the time. But there is also a lot of tradition behind it. :) Finns love traditions!

Helsinki, elections and the end of winter

After the 5 days in Lahti I went for 2 days with Nina to Helsinki. I've been so many times to Hki that I stopped counting and so I think I'm the perfect guide. I've done that also many time in every season by now. :D So since Nina is going to study in Hki next spring I've just went with her to the usual spots in the city enter including the Cathedral and the Kauppahalli. Since Nina was sick and I've seen everything so often we didn't really do much outside the city center. Although the weather was so beautiful but it was still very cold and when you are sick you cannot enjoy anything anyway. So just a small sightseeing tour this time.

March was also the month of the parliament elections. And how crazy it was. For the whole month all parties had their little campaign booth so the pedestrian area looked like it was Christmas market all over again. You got flags, candy, coffee and other things for free, if you wanted too.
And seriously I didn't noticed how annoying election ads can be if you are not allowed to vote. Half of my facebook page was full with ads from different candidates. Yeap new medias are great but you can also overdo it. Funny in Finland are the election posters. In Germany they are scattered all over the city on lampposts and you have very huge billboards sometimes but here in Finland you have all election posters from all parties together and usually there are not many slogans on there but instead all candidates from each party. And seriously people are standing in front of these billboards and actually checking them out. Well I guess most of the people heard about the populist party called Perussuomalaiset (PerusS) in English often called True Finns. And well yes they got a lot of votes. Too many for my taste and I can just repeat what a good friend of mine wrote on fb after the election: 'I'm so disappointed by the Finnish people.' So by now it is still not 100% sure what the government will look like just that my second favorite Finnish politician (first one is of course Muumin mama Tarja Halonen) Jyrki Katainen (to be clear: I just like him not his party!) will be the new Prime minister (Pääministeri). But seriously it doesn't look very good. Especially since the top 3 parties of the election are so very different from each other. Kokoomus (National Coalition Party) the Party of Jyrki as a liberal-conservative party, then the Social democrats (SDP) and the right wing PersusS. Very weird combination. And it looks like they may not include the Swedish People's party in the government which I very much dislike. I should maybe add that it is very common in Finland to have multi-party coalitions. The last governments had between 3 (2003) and 4 (2007) or even 5 parties as in 1995 and 1999. So Finns are not at all afraid about different opinions and parties in the government. But well we'll see what the new government brings. Everybody is already worried about the EU politics, especially concerning the Portugal financial aid, but also about immigration and the position of the Swedish language.

Last but not least winter is over. It took a while till the snow started to melt but it eventually did when the temperature rose at the end of march. Problem was for a week the whole city was one big ice skating ring. During the day all the now was melting and doing the night everything was freezing over again. So in the morning the whole pathways where covered with ice. It was horrible. So in the morning you could barely walk without falling every two meters, then in then afternoon it was even worse because at the same time your feet where wet because half of the ice had meted and the resulting hydroplaning is seriously not much fun. But after a week that whole mess was over so no slippery pathways anymore just water, lots of water. Hurray for my rubber boots. :D
At the beginning of April then the miracle happened: The river was ice free! :D Seriously nobody could believe how fast it was going in the end but now spring is almost here.