First Day of Classes

Last night I knit while watching the West Wing and Sally read.  Excitedly, I was actually able to video chat with DW and with Mom and John!  After this, Sally and I ate fun food - salad with ranch dressing for me (I splurged at the grocery story) and crackers with an array of cheese and salmon.  It was quite festively cute and tastey!  Unfortunately, I don't much care for one of the cheeses which is meant to be eaten with jam...but I'll try again.

Today I took the bus to school, got my student ID card, a library card, a magnetic key to get into the architecture building, and registered for my Aalto University password.  Lunch today was quite good - potatoes, rice, bread, and some pork.  We met our studio professors again today (we've met them socially, but today was the first meeting of class) and got our first 3 assignments.  I am now assembling my 10 minute biographical presentation.  A few images particularly make me smile:

Ice Skating!

Last night Sally, Dan, and I went to a Thai restaurant a couple blocks from the apartment.  It was quite good and I definitely plan to go back at some point.  Around 8pm we started walking to the center of the city - to ice skate at the rink next to the train station.  Once we have our student cards, it will be less expensive, but to rent skates and pay for admission was 10 euro.  I never before realized how spoiled I am having my own skates which are usually quite sharp...I couldn't get an edge that felt comfortable so was a little frustrated (and felt mildly like a pre-madonna when I complained about it) but had a lot of fun.  The music choices were hilarious and surprising.  Some of the pieces were "Fat Bottomed Girls", "Gold-digger", "A Whole New World", and "Sexy Chick"...they don't edit music here in Finland apparently so I was surprised how different the words were from the radio versions.

....I don't photograph myself very well....particularly when skating backwards

After that, the four of us (Todd had met us at the rink after eating at an Italian place which is now on my list of places to try) went to a bar which had board games!  It was packed, but at some point I would like to go back and actually play Risk or something there (it was the only game I remember that I recognized).  Later, we toured Todd's apartment which is very compact but amazingly efficient in storage and nicely decorated and met up with Phillp, Saori, Matt, and Michael.

I have not found a church with english services near my apartment yet.  The plan is to still go to some of the churches in the area, but Finnish is so different from english that I don't think I could last for more than 10 minutes in a service.  Thankfully "The Journey" (my St. Louis church) has sermons online, so that was part of my morning so far.  A lot of places are closed on Sundays here, so we'll see what Sally and I find to do on our last day before classes start.  :)

Everything's an Adventure

Today started with a "language lesson".  Mostly it was a scavenger hunt, but there were quite interesting things to see.  We were put in groups and each asked to go into a Finnish design store to check out items and look at prices.  Then we walked  down the esplanad (sp) and asked who the figures were depicted in the statues down the center of the parks.

The next stop was to the ferry docks of the boat which travels to Suomenlinna multiple times a day.  At some point, probably when the weather is warmer, I would be very very excited to visit Suomenlinna: http://www.suomenlinna.fi/en/

After this adventure, we went to the market which was amazing, in my opinion.  I have never in my life seen so much salmon.  The pastries were beautiful.  There was tons and tons of rye bread.  While I have not learned much Finnish, my three words serve me very well.  I say "kiitos" a lot, it means thank you.  It is unfortunate that the Finns are not a very chatty people because there is very limited opportunity to practice, but it is a little bit wonderful because I can fake being Finnish with just this word and "hei" (a.k.a hello).  My other word is "anteeksi"which means "I'm sorry" or "excuse me" and therefore is very useful for me.  Here are my photos from the market:

As our final lesson, we went into a cafe to order in Finnish and we were supposed to have some small talk...but I think our teacher gave up on us slightly because she just chatted with us in english.  I had my second bowl of the semester of salmon soup.

The picture doesn't do it justice - sooo tasty.  Then I decided there were some stores I wanted to pop into, so wandered on my own for a bit.  The first place had these darling red boots that I had seen before.  They are a very thick felted material...I was tempted to get some slippers of the same material.  Going into the iittala store I was shocked at the price of some of the glass items in our apartment.  Next I walked through the stores at the harbor front.  One of the tents had yarn!  I think that this guy has sheep or takes wool and dyes it.  Assuming I'm correct, the price was actually reasonable, but I walked away for today because I had plans to go into the largest yarn shop in Finland (which is only a couple blocks from our apartment).

The yarn shop on the way back to my apartment did not disappoint.  There were so many options.  I did wish that there was just a table where I could sit and knit, but the store was so packed with yarn that people just kept moving.  Some brands were familar to me, so I am not sure how to tell which yarn (if any) is actually made in Finland.  What was impressive about the selection was that many types of yarn were available in up to 20 different shades/colors.  I desperately wanted to finish the projects that I have and buy new yarn to make things.  I somehow missed the knitting needles, but they must be there somewhere.

I had a load of darks to do so tried to use a washing machine for the first time in a foreign country.  The purex laundry sheet seems to be working well.  I checked on the machine after a half hour and it said there were 20 minutes to go....after and hour it was still going and my clothes are locked in there, so we'll see.  I am very excited to have a washer and a dryer in my building which I think is of no cost to me!  Now I am watching an episode of the West Wing and Sally has returned with peanut butter that she found at the grocery store!

Although I've gone on for days already, here are pictures from Thursday morning's tour of Senate Square:

This wasn't on our tour...but the light was really cool - our first day with visible sunshine.  This is St. John's church which is the largest stone church in Helsinki.

This is at the literary society (of sorts) and is the room where the folk lore of Finland is kept.

The Esplanad in the morning - the pictures do not do it justice.

We went into the main building of the University of Helsinki:

Then the library of the Helsinki University:

...which contained a Disney exhibit!

The last stop on our tour (before we went to the art museum) was the national archives: