Today I Ate Reindeer

I've been fairly scholastically focused the last couple days both because we have become a little less tourist feeling and have some design assignments.  Plus, it's been considerably more chilly than the rest of my time here.  Although it's a balmy 10 degrees Fahrenheit (as opposed to home where it's been -10 quite often), that feels a lot colder on my 20-30 minute walk to the Kampii station.

Most exciting thing over the last couple days was getting my Finnish bank card!  It has a chip in it so now I can not look like an annoying American in stores and automatically take money from my Nordea bank account - no more extra charges!

Last night we went to a restaurant called Bali-Hai which Todd learned about in the Wallpaper guide to Helsinki.  It was small and very nice with quite a diverse menu.  They do, unfortunately for me, love their goat cheese here in Finland.  I got pan fried potatoes, beef (kind of steak like but very thin), and bacon...plus cream cheese.  It looked lovely and tasted quite good.  I'm excited for us to go back at some point.  I didn't finish my meal which meant today I heated it in a fry pan along with some olive oil, garlic, and snap peas - actually better than in the restaurant!!!!  After the restaurant I walked home my leftovers (it was only about four blocks) and then met everybody at a bar called "We've Got Beef".  They had the least expensive soda I've gotten outside of a grocery store in Finland - only 2,50 euro...I try to limit myself to soda in the apartment.  Otherwise...the music was a little loud and blatty.

Today I stayed in the apartment and worked on a 3d model of a pavilion that is due on Wednesday.  Sally left to get some groceries and picked us up some pastries - they were fantastic!  I hadn't had a cinnamon roll in a very long time.  This evening Sally, Todd, and I met Dan at his apartment (it's new and very nice) and he gave us a tour of his neighborhood (which is near ours).  The four of us went to a restaurant that apparently was in some Japanese movie.  It felt very, very local (the Finns did not seem to appreciate our English yammering).  I got reindeer which came in a bowl of sorts with broth.  Next to it was a potato salad with cucumber in dill sauce and pickles.  The best part of the meal were the mashed potatoes.  They were just as good as potatoes at home.  I would go back just for the potatoes.  The fruit in lots of sugary juice was also quite good.  At some point I should try reindeer again, but Sally's meatballs were better.

Now I'm back in the apartment trying to stay warm and trying to find cheap flights for two weekends from now.  Our teacher will be out of town on that Thursday so we have a four day weekend and would like to travel somewhere.  Places we've discussed are London, Paris, Prague, and the Alps...but finding cheap flights is getting more and more tricky it seems.  I am quite excited (but a little nervous about the cold) to be going to Roveneimi next weekend!!!