5 Good Things This Week

I totally forgot what day it was; last week was very busy and I guess it led me to think it wasn't going to end! Not that it was busy in a bad sense, I was just having a fun week. I remembered to do this last night while I was with friends, then I remembered again while I was out for a walk but that was at about kilometer 3 of my almost 8 kilometer walk. Anyways, on we go!


1) Monday and Tuesday were food making days. On Monday my friends and I made Laskiaspulla, which is a sweet cardamom bun filled with whipped cream and jam (the traditional way is with whipped cream and almond paste, so I've been told). They are on sale everywhere before Lent starts. We all wanted to try our hand at making them and they turned out fantastic! They were so yummy that my flatmate and I made some yesterday, sans filling, and we've already eaten most of them. It was also the first time I have used yeast and now I'm not afraid to use it; I even made bread from scratch on Wednesday!
Tuesday was Shrove Tuesday, which in Canada means Pancake Day! Everyone came over to my very clean apartment (my one flatmate that is not tidy at all was gone for the whole week so we had the opportunity to keep the place clean all week) and we feasted on all sorts of pancakes. Thin English pancakes with lemon and sugar, fluffy Canadian and American pancakes with various toppings, and savory German pancakes. It was a night full of yummy eats, good music, and tons of laughs

They taste better than they look. And they look amazing

ALL the pancake toppings!

First time baking bread was a success! Rosemary and garlic bread (there's none left...)

2) I went to bed and woke up at a decent time all week and it's starting to become a routine for me. I was even up and dressed before 8am on the day my flatmate and I had class at 9. Im usually up about 15 minutes before we have to leave, so being up and dressed before her and still having over and hour before the bus was nice for once.


3) I watched an awesome film this week. It's called Prisoners and just came out in late 2013 and is the first film in a long time that I want to watch again. There was so much detail to it and I don't think I absorbed it enough with just one viewing. Jake Gyllenhaal and Hugh Jackman were both phenomenal and Im so shocked it was looked over by The Oscars. I definitely recommend it.

Seriously, go watch it. *picture from Google Images*

4) Saturday was a fun filled day, and it was sunny ALL day! I met my flatmate and some other friends and we went for Nepalese food, which I had never had before and it was so yummy. Then my flatmate, another friend and I went shopping and I finally bought a new bathing suit and had some munkki and coffee from Pyynikki. And finally, my friends and I went to watch a hockey game. It was Ilves (one of the Tampere teams and the one my flatmate and I cheer for) against Blues (Espoo). Ilves lost, but it was lots of fun and we had awesome seats. We will definitely be going to another one soon.

It was very windy all day so the sun got covered by clouds from time to time, but my friends and I were sat here for 20 minutes basking the the sun when it came out. 

Half of my new bathing suit. Sv kvlt

Hockey Night in Tampere

5) Last night my flatmate and I went to a friend's place to watch a tv show that the singer from Reckless Love is in and it was hilarious. It's a sort of singing contest where the artists compete each week in a different genre and the more votes they get, the more stars they get which determines the winner in the end. Last night they did gangster rap and if you know anything about Reckless Love, you'll know how hilarious it was. 

A promo picture for the show. This photo has been on billboards in Tampere for over a week and I almost died laughing the first time I saw it. *photo from Olli Herman's Official Facebook page*

That's it for last week! This week is going to be quite busy with school but also with fun stuff. Tomorrow I'm seeing Apocalyptica perform with an orchestra at Tampere Talo (I haven't seen them live since 2008) and I think at least once this week I'll be going out for drinks with friends. Here's to fun stuff over the week!

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I'm legit now

Look what I picked up today!

That was the last bit of paperwork type stuff I had to take care of before I left Canada to head over and now I'll be allowed in the country with no problem. When I went on exchange to Helsinki I didn't have my permit before I left because I needed a new passport and didn't get that until mid-way through August (it was really just my own fault for not applying for a new passport early enough). In Canada, at the time, (and possibly elsewhere) you needed to submit your passport when you applied for the permit because they have to put the actual permit into a page on your passport (think of it like a sticker. A very important sticker) and it was going to take a month or so before I was going to be able to get my permit. It would have been cutting it really close had I had to send my new passport away to get the permit in it and it wasn't going to do me any good when I needed to catch a flight to Finland if my passport was in Ottawa! I asked both the Finnish Embassy (in Ottawa) and the Finnish Consulate (in Toronto) if I could apply for my permit in Finland. Both said yes but that I should still apply, and pay, to have it done in Canada. Now let me just say that it costs, at the time, about $345 to just apply for your permit and if you leave the country before you are approved for your permit, your application is void and you lose you money. Basically, they wanted me to apply, not get my permit on time because I've left and therefore they'd get $345 from me without having to lift a finger. LAME. I was pretty freaked out that I wouldn't be allowed into the country when I was at the airport but I had all the information necessary so they let me in! (also shows the benefits of being a Canadian and holding a Canadian passport. Sad but true fact of getting profiled at the borders. Im sure I have more stories about that to tell.)

But the fun thing about getting residence permits now is that it's no longer a sticker in your passport! It's just a little card that you can keep in your wallet. I was assured by the Finnish Embassy in Ottawa that even if, for some reason, I left before my permit was ready, I could get it sent to me in Finland and that the Embassy would write a letter for me to show the border security that I had the permit. This is SUCH a better idea than the old way. But they now make everyone applying for a residence permit visit the closest Finnish Embassy so that they can submit original copies of the requirements in person (like your degree certificate, health insurance, bank statement, acceptance letter) and also so you can submit a passport photo. I also had to get my fingerprints taken. It was a pain for me to have to go to Ottawa to get it done. It's about a 5 hour drive from downtown Toronto to Ottawa and I had to do it on about 4 hours sleep because it was the day after Mayhem Festival.While it was a pain for me just to go to Ottawa to do it, a girl in my program that is from Venezuela had to go all the way to New York to get her stuff done and another girl from Bangladesh had to go to India. I guess I shouldn't complain so much.

All in all, Im stoked to have my permit now and now it's just stickin' it out over the next few weeks and then I'll finally be back home again!

I realize that this was probably a boring post about residence permits but it'll get more interesting soon.

To tide us all over, have a picture of me being a typical tourist on a canon on Suomenlinna

Is that a canon in your pants or are you just happy to see me?

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