work & what not

Heyy!

Haha, I'm not very active here bit that's not my point either :) The last few weeks I have started working, moved away from Turku back to my parents (so far so good :)) and done school stuff (the Finnish uni is so much more demanding that the German!). Well, I might have underestimated the courses I chose here in Finland as well, I chose "easy" courses like marketing and HRM and, well they were easy but deadlines all the time. Essays and stuff which I am not used to do since my major is economics :D It was a slap in my face :D

My last night in Turku, going to the theater

Ugh...

Wood anemone :) (probably the only plant I know...)

What I then again have been positively surprised of is how good it has been to live here with my parents. No conflicts yet and there's always food! A lot of it! :) (my mom told my sister: "it doesn't matter anymore if there's leftovers, Lotta will eat it all anyway! Well... problem solved I guess.. :D). There's also always a car available since there's the 3 of us sharing 3 cars (I prefers mom's car though, it's small and handy, even I can park it :)) and 4 bikes (which are more or less rusty or dusty :D).
And the best part is the nature of course! It is like living in the country side :)

Woods, for the sauna owen ofc :)

The fish nets

Ahh so calm....

This is where I go running

Probably Finland's best driver! :D

My favourite part on my running route :)

When it comes to my job, I like it :) The work itself is not that special, but my co-workers are really nice as well as the managers and I am satisfied with the wage :) Haha the main thing I do is to tell customers how to pay for their purchase or to talk about expanding the due date. Basically sitting by the laptop and talking on the phone. Oh, and we do not only have overlook to the sea in the actual office, but also in the bathrooms :D

:D

So there's nothing to complain about :) Of course this summer will not be as fun as the previous ones in the US but it's up to the attitude how it will be like! At least I hope I can learn something from my mom about plants... I¨m not really a gardener... :DD

The only green thing I had in my apartment...

vs. some of mom's hundreds of flowers....

First of May aka Vappu!

Hello! Now that I have recovered from the First of May celebrations it's time to write about it :)  We call it vappu and I will stick to that name because First of May is a little misleading since the actual day we celebrate it is the 30th of April (the First of May is a holiday). And to be honest many university students celebrate all week, some celebrate two weeks and in Eastern Finland they celebrate three whole weeks. Especially the students in the technical universities party hardy. I was very sick in the beginning of the week and to be honest I think one day was enough for me anyway!

Vappu has long traditions and it is known all around Europe but it has a special meaning here in Finland. It is not a christian celebration and actually it is know for being a day of Finnish labour. Anyway nowadays it is not a celebration for a specific group of people, it's a celebration for kids, old people, students...everyone! :) We also have some traditional foods and drinks: we eat something that looks like a brain (!!) called tippaleipä, which is like funnel cake, and we drink sima, which is a mild citrus alcohol drink. Sima doesn't contain much alcohol but still you need to be 18 to buy it. The idea with sima is not to get drunk and you wouldn't even get drunk from the sima you can buy in the shops the idea is just to enjoy the taste. Anyway my mom makes the best sima I've ever tried!! :)

Sima

Tippaleipä

Our faculty's "official" vappu is only one week (wine tasting, parties... happenings for every week day) even if there are a lot of happenings all April. The whole Turku is full of students walking around in their overalls 2 weeks before vappu :)








Since the First of May is a holiday people celebrate on the 30th and they walk around wearing the high school graduation hats (it's funny how even retired people walk around in their already yellow-ish hats with a glass of champagne in their hands :)). Even one of the most well known statues in Helsinki gets an own graduation hat and thousands of people gather by the statue to watch her get the hat. Kids then again get big balloons and if the weather is good enough (which you can't be sure about since it's Finland) the parks are full of people having nice picnics on the 1st of May.

Helsinki

Now to my vappu celebrations:

~ 13.00 (1 PM): we went to the river to watch a rowing competition. Haha it wasn't a hc sports event and I do not know weather the audience or the participants were more drunk :D Dresscode was the overall :)

The sun was shining and  burned my face!

The eventful competition :DD

Balloons everywhere!

Every student walks around wearing the overalls :)

~14.30 I went home to prepare food and myself for the evening. Dresscode: something fancier, usually girls wear dresses and heels :)

Ready for the evening :)

~ 18.00 everyone (from kids to grammas!) gathered in a park, the Finnish speaking on the other side of the river and the Swedish speaking on the other side :D Then we were "officially" allowed to place the graduation hats on our heads and walk around the next 24 hours wearing the hat :D

The "official" part of the event

The park was full of people!

Hats & sparkling :)

~ 19.00 Vappu dinner at a friend's. Everyone had brought food and snacks and oh, how we ate (and drank ;))

~ 23.00 we went to our uni with hundreds of others to celebrate! (Still wearing the hats!). The good (or the bad :D) thing about celebrating at the uni is that we can stay there as long as we want so often the night turns into morning before the last ones leave... :D

The night turns into morning. I love the Finnish spring/summer nights!
So light after 6 months of complete darkness :)

The next day we, like everyone else, went on a picnic to a park. Dress code: the graduation hat, overalls and make up from the last night :D It was a great, sunny day but oh lord I was tired! At around 16 o'clock people started to walk home/somewhere where they could watch the ice hockey world champs: Finland vs USA. Unfortunately we lost. BIG time... Anyway the next 2 games were a lot better ;)

Picnic: Doughnuts, banana bread, meat balls, candy, grapes, chips, cookies.... ;P

Since the ice hockey world champs are on I'll try to watch as many games as possible and cheer Finland towards the gold medals! ;)