One Monthiversary

Hello! As of today I have officially been back in Finland for a whole month! It's been a month of nostalgia and new discoveries. I remember everyday how freaking lucky I am to have been able to come back here to study and, in a way, start a new chapter of my life.

We've finally been seeing some proper autumn weather here in Tampere, after about 3 gorgeous weeks of sun and cold in the morning but then being hot by afternoon temperatures. Now we've got chilly temperatures and it's been rather moist (ugh, what a horrible word). But it's making for some lovely picture taking weather and I'm loving it!

School has been going swimmingly. I have Finnish language class 4 days a week and while it's basically all the same stuff that I learned for the half year that I took Finnish at HYU, it's a really good course and my teacher is adorable, unlike the ice queen that was my last Finnish teacher. I only have class for my actual Masters program one day a week, but boy do we have a lot of work! I've got one 5 minute independent presentation next Wednesday, for which I've gotta read a whole book which I should be doing right now since Im less than 30 pages in and have got about 200 pages to read. Then I've got a group presentation for next week and then another group presentation for November. Also add in the fact that I need to start thinking about thesis ideas and do any other work he sends our way in the mean time. But I do really love my program and it's EXACTLY what I wanted.

While Im procrastinating actually doing important work, I wander around Tampere. Like yesterday, my friend and I (Hi, Fede!!) went to Messukylän vanha kirkko (but I honestly think it just gets called kivikirkko. Which makes sense since it is a stone church). It's the oldest church, and building, in Tampere. It was built in the 16th century to replace a 15th century wooden church dedicated to St. Michael. I pass it every time I take the bus to school/the city center and I've been dying to go check it out and snap a few photos. Unfortunately, we couldn't get inside, which is very unfortunate because I later saw pictures of the inside and HELLO GORGEOUS. But it's a really beautiful church from the outside and really unique compared to other buildings in Tampere and Finland. It also made me really sad I didn't see any Stave churches while I was in Norway in 2011.

All photos were taken by me, lilacviking at Messukylän vanha kirkko in Tampere, Finland on September 20, 2013

I'm hopefully gonna go to one of the lakes close to my apartment soon and then to my favourite cemetery AND Im in Helsinki in less than 2 weeks. More adventures and pictures to come!!

Remember to follow me on Tumblr under the same name, lilacviking!

Unicorn lake

So I don't know if you know this, if you are reading this blog you probably do know this, but Finland has lakes. A lot of lakes. A fuck ton of lakes. around 200 000 lakes to be a bit more exact (there is even a Finnish lake wiki). Something that you also might not know, Tampere, the city where I currently live and go to school, is in between two good sized lakes, Näsijärvi and Pyhäjarvi, with Tammerkoski connecting the two of them. I think Inari up in northern Finland has around 3000 lakes. Plain and simple, it's not hard to find a lake here. That's why I've sorta taken up a bucket list challenge to visit as many lakes as I can (and when Caitlin gets her butt back to her homeland, we will visit as many as we can and jump in all of them). On Saturday I found one of the lakes closest to my flat, with the help of one of my new friends, and it was a really lovely place, just a 20 minute or so walk from where we live. It was actually right near a mess of apartments and there is a football pitch on the other side of the trees from it but once you get there, you sort of forget that there is a Koti Pizza and S Market around the corner. My friend said it best when we finally found it on Saturday (we got a bit turned around) "so where are the unicorns?". The place looked like something from Middle Earth (I was hoping Legolas or Haldir would pop out somewhere.....maybe atop the previously mentioned unicorn? A girl can dream) and just so quiet. As someone who grew up in a rather quiet small town but just spent 4 months living at the Harbourfront in downtown Toronto, I really did miss silence in the outside world. While it was wonderful to find the lake, I was sad I didn't have my camera working. I know I've got people back home that have never been to Finland before that I want to show how beautiful Finland is, and also people back home that have never been to Finland and really want to go so I really do try to take pictures whenever I can. And I absolutely love taking pictures, especially of places like Isolammi. But I couldn't take my camera because my memory card had decided to protest and not work correctly. THANKFULLY, Anttila (a department store. sort of like a more upscale Wal-Mart) was having a sale and I manage to get an 8GB card for 10 euros! Once I snagged that I went back to Isolammi and snapped as many pictures as I could! We've been granted some really nice weather lately (minus the cold rain ona Sunday) and the sunset tonight was wonderful; there was some lovely pink colours coming off the lake. I think my friend and I are gonna try to find Kaukajärvi this weekend, which is a much bigger lake past Isolammi, and I'll be sure to take pictures there. For now enjoy some pictures from Isolammi. Please don't use the pictures unless you have permission from me. All photos were taken by me, lilacviking at Isolammi in Kaukajärvi, Tampere, Finland on September 2, 2013.

BOOM you even get a picture of me being a daredevil by sitting on branch over the lake. I did not fall in

Remember! You can follow me on Tumblr (which I update much more) and Instagram (which is not currently being used as I still haven't gotten a new smartphone) both under the username lilacviking

If you have any questions about living and studying in Finland, feel free to leave a comment on this blog or send me an ask on Tumblr (I have my anonymous ask turned on so you really shouldn't be afraid to ask. Rude people will be eaten though, keep that in mind)

Kanukki

Guess who's back, back again? Biz is back, tell a friend.

Yep, it's true! After just under 2 years, Im back in Finland! I arrived on August 21 but I've been so damn busy that this is the first time I've had a chance to sit down and write a post about it! So since I've been doing a lot since I got here on Wednesday, let's have story time. I'll wait while you get a comfy blanket and a cup of tea....ready? okay, let's go.

I left Toronto on August 20 and shed a few tears because my Dad was tearing up. He's not the type of person to do something like that but I think he was just sad about not seeing me at Christmas time since I'm going to be staying here and my Mum is coming for my birthday and Christmas. I had a good summer living with him and I think he was just sad that he wouldn't see me till April or so when he and his girlfriend possibly come over to visit (and I secretly think he was sad that he was also losing his cleaning lady). Anyway the flight was as most flights are, long and boring. THANKFULLY I was dead tired so I slept most of the flight (yay for flights that leave at 2230!) and I think I woke up when we were over Norway or something. I was in a strange mood the entire day before I had my flight. I think it was just weird excitement cause I definitely wasn't nervous about anything but, like I said, I was dead tired. I landed in Helsinki and had a little while before my connecting flight to Tampere (scoff at me getting a flight to Tampere from Helsinki but YOU try lugging 3 bags plus a purse and backpack on a bus for half an hour then on a train for 2 hours. I was not about to do that to myself. Both Tampere and Helsinki have cobblestone sidewalks which are enemies of rolly bags). I landed in Tampere, managed to get a taxi to the city (yay for sharing taxis with a bunch of people that were in Tampere for an international doctors conference!), and then I managed to get all my luggage into lockers at the train station in about an hour which meant I was able to catch a train to Pori to see one of my best friends, Lily!

Lily lives up in Pori (I guess up and over in Pori cause Pori is almost on the west coast of Finland) and I've known her for almost 2 years and even though she has been between Finland and Portugal for the past years and I've been between Finland and Canada for the past years, we've remained great friends and I was so excited to see her! I was just going to get a hotel room in Tampere for the night that I got there cause it was too late to get my apartment keys, but, Lily would hear nothing of that and basically demanded that I come up to Pori to stay with her and her boyfriend. I got there and she was waiting at the platform and once she saw me she started to play What is Love? (Baby Don't Hurt Me) by Haddaway on her phone (it's a sort of inside joke between us). As soon as we got in the car I was handed karpalo Lonkero (if you don't know Lonkero, which you might not know unless you've been to Finland or maybe Estonia, just think of alcoholic carbonated juice. Karpalo is cranberry and the best kind), which is probably the best way to be welcomed back to Finland (I also got some pulla from Lily once we got to her place). I don't think we did anything that night, other than ate yummy food made by Lily. Jetlag is a bitch and I hate it.

Thursday was quite busy for me. I had to go with Lily in the morning into Pori cause she has Finnish class in the city centre and then I had to catch the bus back to Tampere so I could get the keys to my flat then take all my stuff to my new flat (remember, my stuff was in a locker in Tampere and the lockers are only good for 24 hours so I had to go back on Thursday or else my stuff might get taken away!). There was/is track work being done at the Pori railway station so VR (the train company in Finland) had buses going from Pori to Tampere, which is the only route anyways cause Pori=tiny place. Regardless of the fact that Pori is a little city, I still managed to get lost and missed the first bus but, I made the next one. Then came the uneventful trip to Tampere where I then proceeded to get lost trying to find TOAS, the student housing organization in Tampere, thank goodness for internet on phones and my program having a Facebook group and wonderful people in my program helping me out. Getting my keys was no problem and I just bit the bullet and paid for a taxi to my place cause there was no way in hell I was going to take all my bags on the bus to try to find my apartment (my apartment complex feels like it's in the woods, I never would have found it let alone even find the bus that took me up there). I got to my apartment, which is so so much nicer than my apartment in Pasila aka the concrete trashy jungle (I NOW LIVE A 20 TO 30 MINUTE WALK FROM A LAKE. which is actually no different than my hometown where I lived 15 minutes walking distance from a freakin bay), and couldn't get the key to work in the room I was assigned but my key worked in the room next to it so I just basically threw my stuff in there and went back to the city center to catch the train back up to Pori for the weekend. I arrived in Pori and I met some of Lily and her boyfriend's friends (I think only like 2, actually) and I made fajitas and had to teach the one friend how to roll it. Finland, get on the fajita craze, you're missing out. We drank a bit and watch tv I think.....then came Friday

I think the three of us just kinda blobbed for most of the day. I basically made chili all day cause it tastes better when cooked longer and Lily hadn't had it since I last saw her when I lived in Helsinki and it is a wide known fact that my chili is the bombdiggity. Later in the day more people came over and we started drinking (or just continued drinking if you were one of the Finns) and then ended up playing  boys vs. girls trivial pursuit and it was a shit show cause I was getting tipsy and I just get loud, but it was so much fun. I have no idea at what time, but at some point we all piled into someones car and went to some pub that is close to Lily's house cause I had to lose my Pihlava bar virginity. It was basically a building in the parking lot but it had beer and good music so all was not lost. Lily and I played pool and I sucked hardcore and a creepy dude was watching us. We walked back to their place and continued to drink and it was the first time in a very long time that I have been quite drunk but it was a special occasion! This is also the day I earned my new nickname which is also the title of this entry. A few of Lily's boyfriend's friends can't speak English/can't speak English very well, and my name is actually quite hard for Finns to pronounce. So, rather than attempting to say my name, they dubbed me Kanukki because Im Canadian. I actually think it's adorable and have no problems with that as my Finnish nickname...at least it means they won't call me Piz cause they can't say Biz. It also means they can make fun of my accent more now.

Saturday=hangovers. Mine wasn't too bad but Lily didn't want to move all day. I met some people and I sorta wish we could have gone to the lake or something but I didn't want to fuck off and leave Lily to wallow in self pity.

Sunday morning we went into the city centre early cause I had to go to Anttila to get stuff for my apartment (like a blanket, etc cause they give you a bed and a desk and that's it) and then I was back to Tampere where I found out that the room I had thrown my stuff into was actually not mine and my flatmate who belonged in there was not too happy about it. Whatever, simple mistake based on the fact I couldn't get my actual room open with the key I was given. Sunday night I met almost everyone from my degree program, as well as a few others, at a bar (Cafe Europaa for those that want to know) and it was great and all the people I met are awesome! Im really excited to start school with these people and I've already made good friends with one Italian girl (hi Fede!).

Monday and Tuesday were just school orientation that I had to go to cause we get credit for it but it was really catered to exchange students. I think on Tuesday night one of my flatmates and I went to a barbeque type party near our flat and it was lots of fun and I got to meet some more new people and even met another Canadian (who is from Quebec/Nova Scotia). It was my flatmate's birthday and someone even made her a cake, how sweet!

Wednesday was orientation specific to my program and it was a lot of information but I got to meet the professor in charge and just imagine Colonel Sanders from KFC and that is what my head prof is like, and he's even from Kentucky. We had a welcome dinner for my program at a place called Telakka (yummy salmon soup which I NEED to learn to make ASAP) and were given a lot of free drink tickets so I got a tiny bit silly. It was really great that most of our program had already met for drinks on Sunday (and via the Facebook group we created back when we all got accepted. Oh social media how I love thee) cause it made the dinner that much more relaxed cause there was no need for awkward introductions.

Thursday and Friday I think I just kinda bummed around and got my room set up. I think I went out with program people on one of those nights, I wanna say it was Friday, and we found a bar that has 2,50 beer, which is a big deal where the average price is 5,00, I can't remember the name of it but it had good music and we played table football. And Thursday I went to Jack the Rooster, which has the best terrace btw, with my Italian friend and her friend that was visiting and some friendly, albeit slightly intoxicated, Finns chatted with us for awhile

Saturday Fede and I did stuff in town then went on an adventure and found one of the lakes by our flats! Sunday we ventured to Ikea and I bought the last of the things I needed for my apartment (but didn't get any 50 cent meatballs cause ew, long lines) which leads us to Monday, which is today! well, I guess Monday was yesterday since it is now 00:44 on Tuesday. Monday was officially the first day of school and I only had 1 class which was Finnish class. I've got some friend in it so it should be a good one! I only have class for my program on Wednesdays and Finnish class runs from Monday to Thursday. After class Fede and I ended up going to the city and grabbing something then we went back to the lake we had been to over the weekend so I could take pictures since I picked up a new memory card. I'll be sure to write a little blurb about my lake adventures, complete with pictures. I found out today that Finland has a freakin' lake wiki page called jarviwiki. Go check it out.

Whew! That was a lot of stuff to word vomit out! I promise I won't make a wall of text like this again! Anywhoooo that was my first week and a bit being back in Finland! Im really so happy to be back here once again and while I'd change some things, like my apartment since I can't make it my own, I am truly so excited to even be here and back in the place I love and meeting wonderful new people, both from Finland and abroad; I'm so lucky.

Remember, you can follow me on Tumblr (which I update lots more!) and Instagram (which is not currently being used cause I don't currently have a smartphone in which to use) both under the same user name, lilacviking.

PLEASE, if you want me to talk about anything in particular about living/studying in Finland (or something else), don't hesitate to leave a comment here or leave me an ask on my Tumblr (I have the anonymous turned on so you can ask even if you're shy), I don't just wanna talk about what I did during the week, BORING. I will do my best to answer any and all questions!