Halftime!

I've been counting my days of my stay here recently and it turned out that today is the day of halftime!

From now on, I will have stayed more days here than I am going to be here. It's kind of sad that the counter of days to come goes to zero now rapidly. :(
But then, on the other hand, I kinda miss my hometown and affordable beer and my friends there, of course, too. Not necessarily in this order.

There are still so many things in Finland I'd love to do and I think I can't accomplish them before my time here runs out. Which, of course, is kind of sad.
University is just eating too much of my precious free time! And I don't have enough money for the most fun stuff, too. But I'll manage, anyhow.

University-wise two courses are finished now. One new one will start next week.
In December I will then be having 4 or 5 tests, all in two weeks, so it won't be much fun. Actually I should just sit down and learn for these exams the whole november. I know that I won't do that. ;P

Time is running out.
It always happens when having fun. *sigh* So I guess it's a good sign. Perhaps. Perhaps I'm just too busy though, which would be sad.

Well, anyway, there will be much more content in the following blog posts!

Turun linna

This week is awfully dull. It's exam week and therefore there are almost no regular courses. I have a hell lot to do, but it anyhow feels rather tiring when I don't have the need to get out of the house because of a lecture. Other people I know have organized some trips to either their family or to go abroad and see Norway or Sweden or Lapland. Just I stayed here because I thought I had courses. Voi vittu!
I end up sleeping like 12 hours a day at the moment. It's just so fucking cold in my room, so I rather lay down in my bed to get warm, but then I get tired and when I wake up 12 hours have passed and I just think "what the fuck has happened?".
I'm plagued by vitutus and I think I am a bit homesick, too.

***

But then again, today I met my tandempartner (a Finnish-German tandem, yay!) and we went to Turunlinna which I haven't seen yet. It is the oldest still preserved building in whole Finland, some 700-ish years old. From the outside it looks - to me at least - rather ugly.

I just don't like how stained it looks. I'm just used to something entirely different from the German castles I often visit. Turun linna is not really comparable to these German castles.
But it's really huge!

It does not look so huge from the outside, but we spent like 2,5 hours inside and we were not reading everything, not looking to closely at everything they have exhibited there. Most interesting to me was the medieval part of the castle.

I love the decoration! :D

A model of Turunlinna in winter, apparently.

My second favourite part of the exhibition was the children's museum. I just love children's museums! Where you can open boxes to get more information, where you can touch different kinds of fabric, where you can investigate and do whatever you like. They even had a puzzle where we could dress up a knight! :D I love that!
If I should end up in a museum I will definitely want to design exhibitions for children!
They even had one area where one was able to dress up with medieval clothes and take photos. So lovely! However, we did not do that.

To sum this up, it was a very pleasent day today! :)

Tampere, Turmion Kätilöt ja Vitutus

Last friday I've been to Tampere, together with two Finnish friends who originally come from there. I asked them for a trip there because I heard that the metalscene in Tampere is supposed to be the most active. If you come to Finland as a fan of Finnish metal, you may find Turku quite disappointing since here's only two pubs having a Hevi-theme. Most of the bars here are more orientated to a mainstream audience. As far as I heard, Finnish people don't even like the music that is played in these normal clubs, still they go there and spend too much money on too expensive alcohol. Hm.

I'm rambling, so I should come back to the actual topic again: Tampere.
I imagined Tampere to be a bigger city than Turku, interesting and perhaps even more nice-looking than Turku. However, Tampere was indeed bigger and interesting, but not nice-looking. It is, in fact, Finland's oldest industrial town and therefore the shapes of industrial buildings like factories where still omnipresent in the image of the town.
Very interesting though was the dome (tuomiokirkko) of Tampere where Elina wanted to drag me at all costs. I'm glad she did because it was truly impressive! The outside looked rather medieval, although it was only built in the 20th century. And the inside was very nicely decorated! There were feathers and wings everywhere, a truly unique motive.I've never seen something like this before in a church. And there was a snake in the highest spot of the ceiling which was very interesting.

I may upload some photos later.

Also, in Tampere, I met my old friend again to whom I've lost contact for about 7-8 years. 2005 we were host-sisters in pupil's exchange. She stayed with my family and I stayed with her family for a month. It was the first time that I was living in Finland for a little while. And I loved it! It's so great to be back!
It was very nice to get into contact with her again and to meet her in Tampere. :) I hope, we'll meet again during my stay in Finland. It is already kind of loosely planned to go back to Tampere because we all wanted to visit a café which was closed last friday.

***

Yesterday I've seen a Finnish industrial metal band called Turmion Kätilöt. It was a very nice concert, I enjoyed it a lot!
Actually my plan was to get totally drunk but however I did not have enough money for that. One other day I just have to get totally wasted here, I sorta promised it. (Damn Finns that they take said things so seriously! I still have to work on that.)

Well, yes. For those who are intersted, Turmion Kätilöt played the following songs:
Verta ja lihaa
Mistä veri pakenee
Grand ball
Jalopiina
USCH
Tirehtööri
Nimi kivessä
Teurastaja
Hades
Minä määrään
Pyhä maa
Suolainen kapteeni
Vedetäänkö vai ei.

I only knew like 4 or 5 songs but still it was a hell of a concert!
I definitely want to see them again when I have the chance.

***

Vitutus. Vitutus is something very Finnish. I encountered this state of mind just recently. It is some kind of being really pissed off by something or nothing at all. You just happen to be very pissed all of a sudden.
This is what most Finnish people seem to have almost always. It has also happened to me before quite very often even in Germany, so the state of vitutus is nothing new, just the word. And I fucking like that word! It explains this feeling so well.
Friday morning, the last thing I thought in my dream was "minua vituttaa" and just then my alarm clock started to ring. I still wonder what I dreamt about that it got me so pissed.


Something very sweet was said to me yesterday by Matti and Iiris, and something similar even by Elina the day before:
All three of them have a feeling about me like I'm not a foreigner actually but rather a Finn.

Again, this is like the greatest compliment somebody can make to me! :)

There are people who feel like they are born to the wrong body, I just feel like I was born to the wrong country.

Almost halftime

It's so sad how time flies by when having fun and trust me, dear readers, I'm having a lot of fun here in Finland! Well, recently I've rather been having problems with my flunssa I've been suffering from for one week now already and it just does not seem to get any better.
That's why I unfortunatel had to miss a concert which most likely would have been just awesome. But well... Sometimes there's just nothing one can do. Unfortunately.

I'm now here for already two months - arrived at the 12th of August - and three more months are still left. I will fly back to Germany on the 12th of January. So each 12th of a month I will talk about my progression.

Between the last 12th and today a new personal goal was born: I want to become a real Finn! In the end, I'd love to live here, work here, in best cases even have a partner here and whatnot. But I won't plan this far, I'm too much of a realist for that. But I want to achieve my goal by fulfilling a few requirements.
What does it need to become a Finn?, I've been thinking. Well, this list is probably full of prejudice and mainly based on what I as a foreigner think of typical Finnishness. It may not be true at all!
Some prejudice first:
- Finns are always grumpy.
- Finns are shy and don't really talk.
- Finns love to drink booze.
- Finns are good at doing music.
- Finns go to sauna completely naked and take a bath in a frozen lake thereafter.

I may add some more to the list when more comes to my mind.

Of this list, I luckily already fulfill some prerequirements. Due to my melancholic/sanguine temperament I am on a good way already to become a Finn. This temperament makes me calm, thoughtful (mostly of heavy, depressing thoughts), slighty lazy and grumpy. And I hate people. I have a natural mistrust against people I don't know. I want my peace most of the time. According to the prejudice, this is just what a perfect Finn is like - except for the being lazy part perhaps. Let's rather say... Finns use their resources in the best way. Why take the long way if you can have a short one? Okay, I take it all back: Finns are like the laziest bunch of people I ever met... Except for the Italians, which are worse.
However, I am aware of the fact that not all Finns are like that what is depicted here. Many people I got to know here are very happy and talky and partyloving people. They're outgoing and enthusastic about everything. Some of them are able to talk for hours. And sometimes I even like to talk with them along for hours! Depending on the chemistry, of course.

Last month, I started to list what I have done so far. This time, I will rather make a list of things which I have to do and comment on their completion status here.

Become a real Finn

- Be grumpy,silent and cold on the outside, but the opposite once somebody is able to break the ice. (100% completion)*
- Speak fluently Finnish. (30% completion, perhaps)
- Fall in love with Finnish music. (100% completion)
- Go to sauna, preferably naked and with an icy lake nearby. (0% completion)
- Get drunk together with Finns (and probably totally wasted thereof
). (0% completion)
- Spend a winter in the high north or see at least some northern lights in the south. (0% completion)
- Like Finnish food and drinks. (50% completion -- I'm at the moment pretty unsure what it contains. I really love Salmiakki and Fazer chocolate and Punajuurisalaatti. But there are some things I haven't tried yet. Mämmi for example. And normal dishes, not just sweets...)

This will be probably updated. Perhaps.
*= Apparently I smile too often to be a real Finn. Damn! 

What I've done so far

- I've been to a Finnish excavation.
- I've been to Helsinki (2x).
- I've been to three concerts.
- I've been to a karaoke-bar twice.
- I met a lot of Finnish and also international metalheads \m/.
- I improved my Finnish-skill a lot!
- I've been to sauna.
- I started to learn swordfighting.

What I still have to do

- Go to Tampere (planned).
- Go to Tallinn (planned).
- Go to Stockholm.
- Go to Lapland.
- Sauna more often.
- See Ruissalo.
- Visit Turku castle.
- Visit museums in Turku.
- Become a Finn. :D
- Find a Finnish boyfriend. xD

Hevi Karaoke!

I've been to a karaoke-bar yesterday with the members of the Finnish Heavy Metal Organization of the University here.
It was pretty fun.
I actually wanted to sing something too after I had my second beer, filled out the little paper and Lorna, a scottish girl, handed it in because I was not so sure about it.
However, when I finally got called to sing, I was too sober again and was just frozen to the bench. "Nah, I can't do that, leave me here, please!", I said while a German and a Finnish guy both tried to convince me to go to the stage. I just felt like a total fool in that moment. Like a loser.
(Well, to be honest, I actually did sing something, together with Alex, who comes from Germany too, funnily not even very far from my place. I suppose it will be possible and likely that we'll somehow keep the contact!
We ended up singing Aqua's "Barbie Girl" for no particular reason. Just to blame ourselves to the bone... xD It was funny anyhow, even if I can't get rid of the feeling that the people rather made fun of us.)

I am, probably. (A loser. Referring to the paragraph before the last brackets.) It wouldn't have been half as bad as I would have imagined, I suppose. I was just way too intimidated by all the Finnish people.
You know, Finns are said to be soooo shy people who only can open up their mouths and talk to you when they're drunk. But they however can sing so astonishingly well when they had a beer or two. It was sheer amazing. Among the three dozens of people who were there there were only like one or two who did not sing so nicely, the rest was just freaking awesome.
"Each Finn does at least have two bands", said the Finn I just met yesterday. "Especially the guys who are into music. The girls may not have a single band, but all guys who are into music or Heavy Metal do at least have two bands."
That explains why so much freaking good music comes from Finland, I suppose.

Also, I can check one part of my Agenda to become a Finn I did not even have on the list until yesterday:
- Teach Finnish to a Finn. :D

It turned out that my new acquaintance just lives next door. So we went home together after we've been chatting in front of the bar for an hour maybe and ended up chatting in front of the main door of our houses again for hours. It was around 3 when I came into my room, it was a bit before 1 when I left the bar. Amazing actually how we were able to talk that long even though we just met that very evening.
Even more remarkable, that we had at least 1/3 of the conversation in Finnish! And I explained to him why the word susi (wolf) is in partitive sutta.
[The rest is boring explanation stuff, you may skip it if not interested!]
I have learned in my kielioppi-course, that the syllable "si" which can be found quite often at the end of some nouns and at the beginning of the personal pronoun sinä (you, sg.) has in old Finnish actually been a "ti".
So it was like tinä istut (you sit) instead of sinä istut. Note that the -t at the end is the usual ending for verbs in 2. ps. sg., probably still deriving from the root tinä.

Nouns however, are declined like this:
katu (nominative; street), kadun (genetive; of the street), katua (partitive; the street).
And nouns ending on -si, like vesi (water) look like this:
vesi (nominative), veden (genetive), vettä (partitive).
It does not make sense that s suddenly becomes d or tt. However, it you imagine the s formerly having been a t it does indeed make sense.

Does that make any sense to you? xD I suppose not. I should not start to teach Finnish with the most difficult parts first. You should be aware of the changing of the consonants p, k and t first, to fully understand this. I am too lazy though to explain this here.

Coffeeeeee °,..,°

I'm sort of proud of myself today!

I did not have any classses today so I used the day to get some things done I've been wanting to do for a while now. These include:
- cleaning my room
- change bedlinen
- buy water
- buy a coffeemaker and coffee
- recharge my mobile phone
- look for a new nice skirt.

So after I had lunch I went into the towncenter and first went to a Kioski, in order to get some money loaded to my mobile phone. Usually I greet the person at the counter in Finnish ("moi!") and then switch to English. Today, however, which makes me incredibly proud, I managed to say what I wanted in Finnish! I'm pretty sure that I made some grammar-mistakes or used a wrong word but the young woman did not react like "Ah, a foreigner, I better talk English to her because she does not understand my language" (usually Finns are like that), instead she continued asking for details in Finnish.

When I went to some clothing-stores to look for a nice skirt, some salespersons approached me, talking only Finnish with me.
After almost two months it anyhow feels like I'm ready for acculturisation, finally! I'm one step closer to my goal (becoming a Finn), because I start to rather speak Finnish than English when dealing with salespersons. And one other thing happens more and more often: When I'm talking with a Finnish person (usually in English), I suddenly forget English words which are then replaced by Finnish ones. Like "Last week I've been at ... uh ... keskusta together with a friend and we went to get some ... jäätelö. But we found out that it was too ... kallis...". Sort of. Finnish people can at least understand that. But I'm glad that I produce more and more full Finnish sentences instead.

Also, I have my coffeemaker now. Did you actually know that Finns are the people who drink most coffee in the whole world? Not the Italians, no, the Finns! I find this pretty remarkable. Finnish people are coffee-junkies. And now I have the possibility to become one, too, again. (I sometimes really missed my coffeemaker back home in Germany.)

However, I was not able yet to fill one part of my today's agenda: To clean up. I will probably do that tomorrow. Now first, I need to make the coffeemaker ready to go for tomorrow morning.