My summer plans

Hello!

Finally I have some time to sit down and write about how I am doing. Haha and I was so concerned about being bored in the spring since I do not have many courses and most of my friends are writing their bachelor's so they basically live in the library with their laptops. How wrong was I! I do not have more than 3 lectures per week to attend to but I do have a deadline in each course weekly (it takes hours writing one essay etc, god I miss Germany where we didn't have any deadlines, only the exam in the end of the course!!). I have also been working 3 days a week (no weekends), I have started to do some sports (finally I have been able to go running, oh how I love being outdoors!) and every weekend I have been travelling (only in Finland though). In the mornings I go running/for a walk, then to the lecture and lunch and then work and boom it's evening and I go to sleep! No time for boredom! :)

This weekend I didn't go anywhere but a friend of mine visited me :) We had a girls night, reunion of former kayakers! It was an awesome weekend with the best company, plenty of food and delicious drinks :) I am glad I got to know these girls while kayaking and I am excited to return back to the kayaking life; I got a summer job in a big shipping company's office in Helsinki so I'll stay in my parents house where I grew up (22km away from Helsinki city center), train the junior kayakers and possibly participate in some kayaking competitions in relay etc this summer! :) The week in pics below:

Haven't been much home... :D

Going for a run :)

This is where I run :)

Unfortunately I got a flue so my much waited training period ended up being very short. Well, now I'll rest and hope I'll be fit for VAPPU! Vappu is a traditional Finnish celebration, the best one if you ask me! I'll tell you more about it in the next post since it's a huge thing here and it definitively deserves an own post :) What I can tell you now is that we walk around on the streets wearing the high school graduation hats and enjoy the coming summer :) Unfortunately I forgot mine in Espoo at my parents' house but my mom kindly sent it so my vappu is saved!! :) There is no vappu without the hat!

The graduation hat! Still so white; the rule is that it can't be washed so you can imagine how the old people's hats look like since we party (hardy ;)) wearing those hats!:)

This is how the Finnish speaking Finns' hat looks like from the inside.
The Swedish speaking Finns have different colours in the inside.

 Oh, and I have enjoyed the company of my childhood friend (it wasn't unproblematic though since she didn't have a bottle opener so we had to watch a couple of youtube-videos of how to open a wine bottle without a bottle opener... (ei mennyt niin kuin Strömsössä ;)) and Finnish smoked salmon from the market :) Oh and we had a company excursion to PricewiterhouseCoopers which was interesting but the best part was definitively to meet friends whom I hadn't seen for a loooong time! :)

Oh so delicious fish!

Well the cork didn't come out and the wall got black....

Didn't help much...

I do not have much time left here in Turku and soon I'll start working full time (only for the summer). Now as I think of it I feel sad for not returning to the US.. But then again I won't have much spare time to think of what I am missing out of since I'll work, be a coach as a side of working, visit my my grandparents, stay in our summer cottage, go to a big concert and meet up with friends! :)
So all in all life is good and I'll have a great summer ahead - it's all about the attitude!! :)

Have a great becoming week dear friends and family! :*

Espoo and Helsinki

 Hello dear friends and family!

Last week I spent 5 days in Espoo/Helsinki and only 2 here in Turku :) I don't usually visit my family that often but now I had 2 job interviews and I had promised my sister to go and look for a wedding gown for her (or maybe she had promised me not to go with someone else; I am so fond of weddings that someone might think I am the one getting married :D).

Since there's so much to tell and a pic tells more than a thousand words instead of text I will only post pics from Espoo and Helsinki :)

My hoods :)

 

So pretty (and windy :D) up here!

A great combo: forest and the sea

This is where I always go running: the sea on the left and the forest on the right :)

Probably my favorite place on earth! So lucky I grew up by the sea

So relaxed

Judging by the pics you wouldn't believe Espoo is the second biggest city of Finland, would you? :)

My dad made soup from moose meat :)

Cinnamon roll, a traditional Finnish dessert :P

Unfortunately I do not have that many pics from Helsinki but here are some from the central parts. We have two harbors right by the city center (less than 2 km from the main street) and a couple of others a bit further away - the sea is really important here :)

A big cruise ship back there :)

A tourist in Helsinki ;D

The city hall is the light blue building behind the boat

Helsinki is on the opposite side of Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia. They are only 80km apart and Helsinki is pretty much straight above Tallinn. Actually it was built as a competitor for the Hansa city Tallinn. The sea is very important for us Finns and it makes a dominant part of the cityscape of Helsinki.

That was it for today, have a nice week! :)

Lotta :*

Finnish Easter

Easter is probably every Finnish kid's favorite holiday after Christmas. Not because the end of the fast since we Finns are mostly only officially members of the church but we never go to church unless it's someone's wedding or funeral, but because Finnish kids dress themselves as witches or Easter bunnies, decorate some willow branches and walk from door to door to say/sing a short rhyme and give away the branch to then in turn get sweets. Oh, how I loved it as a kid! Well, now that I think of it we do this one week before the actual Easter, on Palm Sunday.

Me and my friend as witches. I guess we are 4 years old?

And here again with my best friend since 1992 :D

Easter is originally one of the most important christian holidays but dressing up as witches doesn't nowadays really have with the religion to do. Atheists (even officially atheists) do it and as a kid I never though of the religious origins of Easter.
We also do buy Easter egg and decorate houses with some Easter related stuff but in my family it has never had a religious meaning. Actually most of the families take the advantage of the holidays and travel somewhere. We used to travel to Lapland in the Easter, since it's the perfect time of a year to visit Lapland: it's not too cold so you can actually be outside skiing, it's not dark 24/7 and there's still a lot of snow. On the way back from Lapland we used to stop by at my grandparents so I actually associate Easter with the witches and visiting my grandparents. My gramma used to boil eggs that we then painted and my grampa always hid a chocolate egg under his pillow and when I heard the cock crow (well not a real one, it was my grampa, but kids believe everything you tell them :D) I was allowed to search for the egg.



What else... Oh, we grow Easter grass but I don't know why ;D We even do it in the schools and kids are so proud when they see the grass they grew with their own small hands to grow :D Oh, and I almost forgot to mention one traditional Finnish Easter food. It is very delicious but to be honest... it looks like poop! Finns love it, almost all of the foreigners hate it! I'm pretty sure if it looked at all more attractive foreigners might not have huge prejudice towards it. And well, the other thing is the taste: it's made of malt just like beer so it's not really sweet but not salty either. Usually we eat it with milk/cream and maybe a little bit of sugar. It's mostly a dessert, but it can also be eaten in between the meals as a snack or to be honest, whenever you want :D So I think it's the appearance and the taste that makes mämmi so gross - if you are not used to it. I love it! :P

Easter grass in Finnish design bowls which you can find in EVERY home

Mämmi. Every Finn recognizes this box :D
There are 0ther manufacturers too, but this is the most famous

Mämmi with milk. Yummy! :)

Then there are some regional traditions, like the oven cheese (uunijussi in Finnish :)) that for example my gramma makes herself. To be honest I didn't know it was a traditional Easter food since many don't even know of it's existence (I guess it comes from western Finland) and my gramma makes it every now and then. The cheese is of milk which is not processed but straight from the cow so due to it's high fat percent it's pretty sweet. It's made in the oven and can be eaten both warm or cold.

Uunijussi / oven cheese made by my gramma

Oh, the elegance ;)

 This year my Easter consisted traditionally of visiting my grandparents and spending "quality time" with my family. The absolute highlight of this Easter was to go to Scandinavia's biggest bridal gown shop! It doesn't have anything with the Easter to do but my sister is getting married and the shop is in Tampere, the 3rd biggest city of Finland, 200km northwest from Helsinki where most of my relatives live. Oh, I have to say that me and my aunt where a lot more excited that the bride herself. It's not that she wouldn't be excited, it's because I am extremely fond of weddings :D Haha I know what I am going to do if a career as an economist isn't my thing ;D

How can you not love this?

White fur coats behind the chair....!

Unfortunately this Easter wasn't all about happiness and glory: I had totally forgotten that everything is closed in Easter and I had emptied my fridge...! Usually people end their fast in the Easter but I then again started it... At least I ate a lot at my gramma's and I do have some extra after spending the last 6 months in Germany so I will survive this compulsory fast :D (don't worry I did find something in the freezer and in situations like this I tend to be very creative ;) Happy Easter everyone!

Life in Turku

Hello!

Feels weird to write a blog here in Finland and to be honest I keep forgetting the whole blog, but here it comes again!

I was back in business (aka student life) right away after my arrival since we had the annual gentlemen's dinner two days after I arrived in Finland. It's a dinner girls arrange for the guys from our faculty. There's always a theme (dress code), food & beverage, program and on behalf of equity guys arrange a ladies' dinner then in the autumn. It's this kind of special parties/events where you get those tokens you collect and sew on the overall (lazy people use glue :D). So now I have sewing to do :)

The token. This time the theme was sailing :)

My faculty's overall from the back...

...and from the front

Actually I would say that the Finnish student life is pretty awesome! The thing is that well, yes, there is a lot of alcohol involved but there's also (non alcoholic) events during the day. Every day I can see someone walk around in the city center wearing the overall going to an event (well, the city is not very big, approximately 180 000 inhabitants and there's 2 universities, the Finnish and the Swedish and 2 polytechnics, also a Finnish and a Swedish so Turku is definitively a student city. It's not that I could see overalls every day in every Finnish city). Well, I'll tell more about the student life in another post since that's definitively a theme worth writing about - today I'll write about the city itself.

Turku is located approximately 160 km west from Helsinki. The reason why I am writing about the 6th biggest city of Finland is that I happen to study here and I really enjoy the city! :)
Turku is very old, actually the old capital of Finland before Russia moved it to Helsinki. The city is full of pretty old buildings and it's divided into two: this side of the Aura-river and the other side as they are called with a very strong Turku accent which I find extremely funny! :D Sometimes it's very hard not to laugh when business men in their suits are talking serious business with this funny accent :D I am from the capital city area so I'd say our dialect is the closest to the written language. We do have some own words but pronunciation is pretty close to the written language. Haha, I might not be objective saying this and someone might disagree but haha, that's just my point of view ;)

There are several bridges to connect the sides

The pic is taken from this side of the river towards the other side :)

So back on track: This side, where I live nowadays (I used to live on the other side) is older I guess, at least the most important parts used to be here since the dome is here, the universities are on this side and there's an old square which is called the old great square. Nowadays then again the city center and the main square are on the other side of the river. I like it how the river is a central part of the cityscape even if the river it's not as big as the Danube and the water is grey due to the thick layer of mud on the bottom :D We don't care though, (well, sober people don't swim there) when the sun is shining and it's warm enough both sides of the river are full of people having a pic nick or just enjoying the sun and all the cafes and restaurants along the river are full!

We don't really go out and eat here that much since the prices are pretty expensive so I was surprised three years ago as I arrived here to see all these crowded restaurants. Maybe the small size of the restaurants has something with the crowdedness to do ;) I love walking along the river in the evening because there are lights everywhere and it's very atmospheric! Luckily my work is by the river, 2,5km from where I live so I can take a nice walk along the river when I go to work. Well, I have to be realistic now: since we are in Finland and it's spring you never know what the weather is like. When it's raining and it blows from the sea which is 4km from the city center I hate the 2,5km walk! Waterproof mascara is definitively a thing here!

The main building of my university, Åbo Akademi

The dome in the night

Small restaurants in the old buildings by the river :)

The riverside in the dark :)

Oh, I almost forgot to mention one of the most important sights here: the castle of Turku! The castle, like all the castles in Finland, is very simple; totally different from the well known German castles like Neuschwanstein. Our castles are very old, from the medieval times, when we were a part of Sweden so they are built by the Swedish kings. Even if our castles are a lot more simple (just like the Scandinavian style all in all :D) than the famous European, they are interesting spots to
visit and they are all built by a lake or by the sea like most of our cities :)

The castle of Turku

This pic is taken last May I guess and that's why it looks so green. Actually everything is still gray and in northern Finland there's still plenty of snow. Half of my family is up there skiing atm :D  Well, this was a little sneak peek to Turku, come visit me to see more ;)

Bye bye Germany, hello Finland!

Hello dear friends!

I have been very lazy lately writing new posts, because I was on a holiday for almost 2 weeks in Bulgaria and then I had a couple of days time to clean up my room in Germany, fly to Finland, where I stayed the first night at my parents' house and the next day I moved to Turku, where I study. So it's not only laziness, I've actually been busy (too).

Well my point is, that I wasn't actually going to keep writing this blog here in Finland since it was only a travel blog where I was telling my Finnish friends and family how I was doing while traveling. Well, now I start having a big bunch of international friends and I was positively surprised when I was a couple of times asked to keep writing this blog so they could hear how I was doing in Finland :) And I mean, who knows where I'll be working in the summer so maybe I'll keep writing about my life outside of Finland anyway ;).

Since it's been a while from the last time I posted anything I'd have a lot to tell you and I wouldn't probably have problems telling about my last few weeks in one post but none would have the energy to read it all the way through so I'll tell about the last days in Germany, and maybe about my thoughts about doing an exchange in Germany all in all.

So I arrived from Istanbul to Göttingen in the evening on the 14th of March. I was pretty much the only one left in Göttingen from the exchange students (others, who stayed only one semester had left one month ago and the others were traveling since there's a long holiday now between the winter and summer semesters). Luckily my flatmates were still in town so I didn't have to party all by myself that evening. And oh how we partied :D It was a lot of fun and haha the night turned into morning way too soon. Well, my only task for the next day was to pack my stuff (not too easy!) and to clean the tiny room so I had time to sleep in. Unfortunately I wasn't able to pack everything with me so I'm waiting for the rest of the stuff to be sent to me by mail :D Haha. I managed pretty well though, but I wouldn't have done it without the help from my Colombian flatmate who turned out to be great at packing!

The last night we went out for the last supper in the Innenstadt, which was very empty once again! It was like when I arrived early in September: everyone was still on vacation and the city is almost scarily empty and quiet. Only teenage groups wandering around making me feel so old and mature :D

The next day my lovely flatmate made me probably the best (Colombian) breakfast I've ever had!


  Then it was time to return the keys and close the door behind me. Since the first post from Germany started with a pic of my empty room right after I had moved in I have to end the last post about Germany by adding a pic of my empty room right before I closed the door for the last time. So sad, but I was happy at the same time for making this little ''trip'' to Germany :)



So all in all it was a very good choice for me to go to Germany. Not only because of the language, but because I like the culture, everything works and it's unbelievably cheap not to mention its delicious beer... :P
In the beginning I heard that I live ''sooo far away from the campus and city center'' and that I definitively need a bike but it turned out to be a 15 min walk to the campus and I never ended up buying a bike for two reasons: Göttingen is full of bikes and bikers. Too many bikes to be honest!! I'm not very good at riding/driving anything with wheels so I though it would be safer for everyone that I'd not buy one. And second, the bikes were around 80e. I think it's too much for a second hand bike especially when so many bikes get stolen in Göttingen. I know I walk extremely fast so not having a bike wasn't a problem for me, but I do recommend having a bike in Göttingen :D
Living in Studentendorf was also super! I paid 180e for my room, which is a ridiculously small amount for a room, which was small but pretty fresh. The other bathroom was newly renovated and it was cleaned twice a week so it wasn't too bad at all. It was never too crowded in the small kitchen even if I shared it with 10 others. First of all I never saw half of my flatmates (we even called one the caveman since he never came out of his cave and when he did, he went to the door to get the pizza from the delivery man just to go back to his cave to eat it). And the rest of the flatmates ended up being awesome! Some of them were totally out of their minds, and one of my flatmates once told us: "Have you all lost your minds? I live with a bunch of crazy people!" :D but maybe that's exactly why we came along very well :D Anyway I'll miss them a lot and I'm pretty sure I had the best flatmates I could have asked for! I was always rescued from the huge (seriously, mega big!!) spiders, I could always have company while cooking and I was always helped when I needed something (I got something to eat even if I didn't have anything in the fridge since I kept forgetting that everything is closed on a Sunday!). I'd definitively say that my stay wouldn't have been as great as it was if I had had different flatmates :) I'll always be thankful for them!

Since this post is getting (too) long it's time to sum it up: my exchange in Germany was amazing, if anyone is hesitating, don't, just do it!!! :)

L

Cultural differences part 2

Hello!

So I went out on a walk in the forest today since I haven't been there for a while. I have a tendency to become philosophical in the woods and today was no exception. Well, it's not that I think of great  things like the world peace or the origins of the human being but being me :) And I have to say, that my life is pretty awesome! Not for any specific reason or anything, but because I have had the possibility to do the things I have wanted to and to travel and live in different countries. And this is how I started to think about the people in those countries and their manners and way of life. This is how I came to my favourite topic: cultural differences! :)

Valentine's Day: In many countries that day is full of romance and it's all about love and flowers. Well, for those who are in a relationship. For the singles it might be a little uncomfortable (haha, there's one Sex and the city -episode that popped into my mind: Miranda and Carrie are having a dinner together on Valentine's day and at some point they get really pissed because everyone thinks they are a couple when they are just two friends trying to have a nice dinner together). Well in Finland this day is actually all about friends: even the name is "the friend's day". The day is not abut lovers, it's about thanking your awesome friends for being there, maybe celebrating friendship with a bottle or two :) I have to say I love the idea! I am an awkward Finn and the over romantic dinners and flowers Valentine's day (the movie) -style are just way out of my comfort zone. So I'll keep celebrating the 14th of February as a day of friendship!

Friends since forever :)

  So here are some pics to honor the longest friendship I have  :)
 
              

Oh, those teenage years :D

My 18th Birthday :) Or was it the 17th?

Customer service culture: There are three main types of customer service: The North American, the Finnish and the German. The American customer service is something way out of this world! Especially in the Midwest! People are super, super nice and I don't know weather Americans working in customer service are scarily good actors, if they know the secrets behind up selling or if they actually enjoy talking to customers (any topic except for critic against the US is a perfect topic for having a little chat or even a longer discussion). Then the Finnish: usually the Finns don't say anything extra. They might have a very friendly tone saying "hello" (like bus drivers) - or not. But there's never any off topic discussion. My German flatmates who visited Finland were really surprised when some bus drivers barely said anything. For me it's just normal, he wasn't being rude, I mean he didn't say anything rude (because he didn't say anything :D), but the poor Germans thought it was weird when their "Good morning" wasn't answered. Haha in Finland, unlike in the US I get surprised if the employees are friendly, in the US I get surprised if they aren't :D. Then there's the German.... Well, they always greet you for sure. But they are so incredibly rude!!!!!! It seems like they have absolutely no filter, they just blurt it out! Like: "so what's your problem?" (!!!)
I am so intimidated every time I have to talk to someone who is working in customer service here! And they aren't rude only to me, they are even rude to older people. Once in a shoe shop I got shocked when the sales clerk told the older lady "You do understand the shoe can't be too tight, don't you?!" like the older lady was an idiot or something (ok it doesn't sound so bad written, but imagine the really bithcy voice saying that!). But the older lady didn't see it as rude behavior (oh gosh if I had been like that working in the US someone had probably sued me for being rude :D). It is just the German way of saying things very straight, but oh man I've gotten so mad so many times here! I don't find not saying anything (extra) rude (I mean, if you barely say anything you can't be rude either, can you? ;)), but I definitively do find it offensive when someone has this rude way of saying things you could say in for instance in a monotone bored-ish way (:D) not looking you into the eyes when talking (haha, making fun of the Finns ;)). I mean, at least none gets offended or on bad mood (well, not very happy either, but no feelings at all are better than having your day ruined). Haha, cultural differences for sure, but we even have this saying in Finnish: "Talking is silver but staying quiet is golden" :D


Colours: it's funny how in different cultures for example the color blue has a totally different meaning! For us Finns it's a symbol for calmness and harmony. For hmm was it Chinese it meant fury or anger and for another European country it was envy. (Don't take it too seriously, we talked about it over a beer or two so I can't really remember the countries, the point was, that the meanings were totally different!) Funny, isn't it? :)

Don't you get really calm only by looking at this?? :)

(Summer)job: An old topic already, but very relevant at the moment since I have once again been spending hours, no, days in front of the computer sending tens of applications! I even have my CV in Finnish, Swedish, English and German. And no, I'm not super talented in languages, since for instance students in my faculty have to study Finnish, Swedish, English and a fourth language. Anyway when it comes to summer job I can't not find one. It's during the summer we have to earn the money to be able to live during the semesters. Luckily studying in a university is free for us so unlike the students in the US (I'm trying to avoid using the word Americans when talking about the US citizens because my South American friend told me how he hates when the word America is used when talking about the US even if America is a whole continent, not the US) we don't have to work our asses of year around to be able to pay for the ridiculously high semester fees. To be honest my friends from the US are the ones who work the most (hours) of my friends because I high percentage of them work not only in the summer but aside of their studies. Many Finns do work aside of their studies (but not as many as my friends from the US) but most of the money is earned during the summer. I just checked from the websites of the trade union that the average wage for 2nd and 3rd year economy students (while working on their own field in the summer, 37,5h/week) is approximately 2000€/month (brutto), a little more in the capital city area and a little less elsewhere. So during the summer you'll earn 6000-8000 € (brutto). It might sound like a lot of money but dividing that with 9 (the next 9 months you have to live with that money) and taking all the costs in account (taxes, food, necessities...) you won't be able to save that much.



Blond hair: People, most you you have absolutely no idea what this means!!! :D Haha, my friend nce asked me: "So, all of you Finns are blond like you?". First of all: no, I am definitively not blond at the moment! My hair is light brown. Second, no, not everyone is blond. Actually most of us are hmm how would I call it... The exact translation would be grey as the road (maantienharmaa ;)), yes very depressing. This color is very boring and that's why most of us dye the hair a little. Haha, my hair is more brown than grey but still I've colored my hair many times. Actually I've been blond (well, my natural summer color is blond-ish but in the winter I'm definitively not blond!) and I've also had dark hair. I've also had short and long hair and everything in between :D

Blond

Light brown!!!

 vs.

See the difference? :DD Blond hair doesn't suite me so I'll never go back to what I had when I was 18. Well, it's better to look ridiculous but think you look cool when you are 18 that to look ridiculous but think you look cool when you are 38, right? ;)).

Well I guess that was all for today :)

L

Ps. I was dreaming of being back in Finland so maybe I'm unconsciously getting prepared for returning back :)