I saw this when I was shopping yesterday. Kite Runner in Finnish?
Big ups HSU English Department!
Big ups HSU English Department!
27.2.08
23.2.08
Naantali Adventure
This morning I took the bus with Natalia and her friend Aga, who is visiting from Poland, to Naantali. The town is famous for its old wooden buildings, but it is even more famous for its theme park: Moominworld. I had considered going to Moominworld, but after talking to some people that went last week I decided against it. It costs 14 euros, and it is only for really little kids anyway. Naantali, and its wooden houses, forest, and oceanside are reason enough to go. The sky was really clear today too, which made everything look even better, but, unfortunately, the clear sky also made the weather quite cold, but this is Finland, right.
22.2.08
Insomnia Finlandia
I drank a pot of coffee after I came home from uni today, and now, of course, I'm too awake to go to sleep, and all of my friends back home are online now. I don't have class on Friday, so it doesn't really matter. The past couple of weeks I've kind of fallen into a routine of general lethargy, but I'm finally starting to come out of it now that the first period is over. Semesters here are broken into two periods, and next week is reserved for final exams. All of my classes are for the entire semester, except for my Finnish language class, so I only have one exam next week, leaving the rest of the week free. Of course, I will be very busy with homework, but in my spare time I might take the bus to a neighboring city. I've heard nice things about Naantali, but I kind of want to save the really nice places for the spring time. Maybe I will go farther north, and try to find snow.
Speaking of places that are farther north, I've actually made Finnish friends (!) and one of them has invited me to go with her and her boyfriend to Lapland for Easter break. I'd given up on trying to go to Lapland, but this seems like an opportunity that is too good to give up. I've been looking at train prices and they're not too bad for students. The only downside is that the train ride is really long. The trip is about 9 and a half hours with the fastest combination of trains from Turku to Rovaniemi. Once I get to Rovaniemi I will have to take another bus for 180 miles. Of course, traveling north of the Arctic Circle is something I have to do.
And here is a random piece of knowledge I just picked up: the animal that I (and other North Americans) call a moose is known in Europe as an elk. They don't have North American elk in Europe, but they have reindeer at the supermarket (in Finland).
Well, staring at the computer screen has made my eyes tired enough to let me go to sleep. And now I can fall asleep with a clearer conscious, knowing that I have finally updated.
Speaking of places that are farther north, I've actually made Finnish friends (!) and one of them has invited me to go with her and her boyfriend to Lapland for Easter break. I'd given up on trying to go to Lapland, but this seems like an opportunity that is too good to give up. I've been looking at train prices and they're not too bad for students. The only downside is that the train ride is really long. The trip is about 9 and a half hours with the fastest combination of trains from Turku to Rovaniemi. Once I get to Rovaniemi I will have to take another bus for 180 miles. Of course, traveling north of the Arctic Circle is something I have to do.
And here is a random piece of knowledge I just picked up: the animal that I (and other North Americans) call a moose is known in Europe as an elk. They don't have North American elk in Europe, but they have reindeer at the supermarket (in Finland).
Well, staring at the computer screen has made my eyes tired enough to let me go to sleep. And now I can fall asleep with a clearer conscious, knowing that I have finally updated.
More Riga
I guess this always happens with blogs after the first month, but I've become really lazy with my updates. Actually, the past couple weeks I've just been lazy overall, but I'm going to try and work on it. Here are the rest of my pictures from Riga.
This is for Mom. Woohoo, grape graffiti!
Hannah, you would have loved this place. They were blasting country music so loud that I could hear it from down the street!
This is a wooden carving of the founder of Riga, looking over the river.
And lastly, these chips cracked me up... I bought a bag to see if they really tasted like San Diego, but, alas, they do not. It's still a cool bag though...
This is for Mom. Woohoo, grape graffiti!
Hannah, you would have loved this place. They were blasting country music so loud that I could hear it from down the street!
This is a wooden carving of the founder of Riga, looking over the river.
And lastly, these chips cracked me up... I bought a bag to see if they really tasted like San Diego, but, alas, they do not. It's still a cool bag though...
13.2.08
Latvia: The obvious choice
As promised, here’s a fuller description of my fabulous trip to Latvia. On Friday Leila and I left the Student Village at 7 in the morning (ugh!) to catch the bus to the train station where we met up with Kristen, who also came with us. One of the annoying things about my time in Finland so far has been this endless cycle of paying fees and getting receipts and so on. One of the fees I had to pay was for the student union, which gives me the right to buy a student card, which lets me get 50% off long-distance trains around Finland. Unfortunately, most of these bureaucratic things tend to take a long time, and I still haven’t received my student card. For another train discount card, one can get a letter of enrollment from the University and bring a picture to the train station and get another discount card (for 6 euros). Since the trains are fairly expensive, it was worth it for me to buy this other discount card. Luckily, I was able to get my picture printed from the kiosk and get the discount card in time to catch the 8 AM train to Helsinki. Once we arrived in Helsinki we caught the bus to the airport and spent some time wandering around the little shops in the airport (including the Moomin shop!) before our flight. As you can see in my last post, our plane wasn’t very fancy, but the flight wasn’t too bad overall. AirBaltic makes you pay for coffee or tea though, which is pretty lame. The bus from the Riga airport to the city center was only 80 American cents, which was amazing since all the buses in Finland are at least $3.25 (the airport bus is more) for a two-hour period. Here in Finland I’ve been trying to ride my bike or walk to save money, but when it’s extra cold outside, or I have to go across town it’s not really possible. Before I came here I expected that bus travel would be more inexpensive, especially for students, so the cheap bus price in Latvia was very refreshing.
Leaving Helsinki
Latvia has a pretty unique ticket buying system on buses. Instead of giving the driver money, you just get on the bus and a conductor walks up and down the bus selling tickets. It seems slightly inefficient, but most of the buses are two or three cars long (kind of like the buses in San Francisco), so I guess it’s the only way to prevent people from getting on the bus without paying. On the way to the city center the bus drove by lots of poor-looking neighborhoods with old, crumbling buildings, which is something I haven’t seen in Finland, but it wasn’t that different from any urban area in California. Think K Street and Downtown Sacramento about 5 years ago. There were also a lot of beautiful buildings that looked like they were undergoing restoration, and the Old Town part of Riga is absolutely gorgeous.
On the way to the flea market
Once we checked into the hostel we went to Stockmann’s to buy some food, since we mainly cooked food at the hostel to save money. Stockmann’s is a Finnish department store, which is also in Latvia, apparently. A big thing here in Northern Europe is hiding the grocery stores within the city center inside department stores, especially in the basement of department stores. Don’t ask me why. In Finland, however, you would never get a free sample of whisky at the grocery store. In Latvia, it’s a different story. They also had free samples of vermouth. That was probably our first “we’re not in Finland anymore” moment. Later that evening we went out for dinner at an Ayearvedic Vegetarian restaurant. The food was decent, but the inside of the restaurant was beautiful. I didn’t know what kind of prices to expect in Riga, just that they would be lower than Finland. Looking back I think prices are probably similar to the United States. In Finland, going out to eat is incredibly expensive, and fairly uncommon among people that live here, whereas restaurant prices in Riga were reasonable, and when you've been in Finland for over a month reasonable becomes very exciting.
The next morning we decided to try out some of the markets that were recommended on Wikitravel. The Central Market next to the train station was great. There were tons of stands selling handicrafts, vegetables, flowers, and clothes. One stand, in particular, had beautiful Russian dolls (look up name!!), scarves, and wool socks. After we had spent a fair amount of time wandering around the market we went to a flea market that was recommended online. The walk to the flea market was interesting because we got to see a bit of Riga that’s outside of the Old Town, along with a beautiful Russian Orthodox Church (there’s a picture in my last post) and the Latvian Holocaust Memorial. The flea market was really just a crowd of people standing around a building selling random things, from bootleg software to tools and computer parts. There was also an older man selling pins from the Soviet occupation. Leila was really keen on buying something Soviet, so we spent a while looking at the pins. Some of them were quite nice, and they were only about 40 cents each, so I ended up buying two as well. The funniest part about our experience at the flea market, though, was that the man selling the pins spoke to us in German, and I didn’t realize he was speaking German until he said “Danke schön.”
The Central Market
Latvian Holocaust Memorial
After our shopping extravaganza we went to the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, which is a really well put together museum about the Nazi and Soviet occupations of Latvia, and then we walked around Riga more and enjoyed the sunshine. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t very nice on Sunday, but we still managed to visit more cathedrals and see the “Three Brothers,” which are the oldest houses in Riga. It’s incredibly easy to get lost in Old Town Riga, especially when you base your location off of cathedrals. For example, we were staying at the Doma Hostel, which is next to the Doma Cathedral, so every time we got lost we would go to the nearest cathedral, which always ended up being the wrong cathedral.
The Museum of the Occupation of Latvia
The Three Brothers
Doma Cathedral
I feel like I’m starting to run out of things to say...uh oh... I felt like we spent a little too much time shopping on this trip (yes, Grandma, I know you’ll find that hard to believe), and we didn’t get to see as many museums as I had wanted to, but we also had to contend with winter museum hours and weather. Another thing that was amazing about Riga is that shops are not only open on Sundays, which is practically unheard of in Finland, but also, they’re open until 9 or 10 PM. The pace of life in Riga felt much faster than in Finland, which is something that I miss. The hostel we stayed in was pleasantly relaxed though. We met some other exchange students that are studying in a different Finnish student, along with an exchange student studying in Estonia. Well, I need to get to sleep soon, but I wanted to update before I forget everything (I also wanted to give Grandma something to read at work : ) If I get around to it, I’ll write more later, but I also have to save some of it for the post cards I bought!
Kristen and I
Leila and I
(descending into a medieval-themed establishment)
note: looking through my pictures I've realized that I will have to make another post because there are so many that I want to share. Bare with me.
Leaving Helsinki
Latvia has a pretty unique ticket buying system on buses. Instead of giving the driver money, you just get on the bus and a conductor walks up and down the bus selling tickets. It seems slightly inefficient, but most of the buses are two or three cars long (kind of like the buses in San Francisco), so I guess it’s the only way to prevent people from getting on the bus without paying. On the way to the city center the bus drove by lots of poor-looking neighborhoods with old, crumbling buildings, which is something I haven’t seen in Finland, but it wasn’t that different from any urban area in California. Think K Street and Downtown Sacramento about 5 years ago. There were also a lot of beautiful buildings that looked like they were undergoing restoration, and the Old Town part of Riga is absolutely gorgeous.
On the way to the flea market
Once we checked into the hostel we went to Stockmann’s to buy some food, since we mainly cooked food at the hostel to save money. Stockmann’s is a Finnish department store, which is also in Latvia, apparently. A big thing here in Northern Europe is hiding the grocery stores within the city center inside department stores, especially in the basement of department stores. Don’t ask me why. In Finland, however, you would never get a free sample of whisky at the grocery store. In Latvia, it’s a different story. They also had free samples of vermouth. That was probably our first “we’re not in Finland anymore” moment. Later that evening we went out for dinner at an Ayearvedic Vegetarian restaurant. The food was decent, but the inside of the restaurant was beautiful. I didn’t know what kind of prices to expect in Riga, just that they would be lower than Finland. Looking back I think prices are probably similar to the United States. In Finland, going out to eat is incredibly expensive, and fairly uncommon among people that live here, whereas restaurant prices in Riga were reasonable, and when you've been in Finland for over a month reasonable becomes very exciting.
The next morning we decided to try out some of the markets that were recommended on Wikitravel. The Central Market next to the train station was great. There were tons of stands selling handicrafts, vegetables, flowers, and clothes. One stand, in particular, had beautiful Russian dolls (look up name!!), scarves, and wool socks. After we had spent a fair amount of time wandering around the market we went to a flea market that was recommended online. The walk to the flea market was interesting because we got to see a bit of Riga that’s outside of the Old Town, along with a beautiful Russian Orthodox Church (there’s a picture in my last post) and the Latvian Holocaust Memorial. The flea market was really just a crowd of people standing around a building selling random things, from bootleg software to tools and computer parts. There was also an older man selling pins from the Soviet occupation. Leila was really keen on buying something Soviet, so we spent a while looking at the pins. Some of them were quite nice, and they were only about 40 cents each, so I ended up buying two as well. The funniest part about our experience at the flea market, though, was that the man selling the pins spoke to us in German, and I didn’t realize he was speaking German until he said “Danke schön.”
The Central Market
Latvian Holocaust MemorialAfter our shopping extravaganza we went to the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia, which is a really well put together museum about the Nazi and Soviet occupations of Latvia, and then we walked around Riga more and enjoyed the sunshine. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t very nice on Sunday, but we still managed to visit more cathedrals and see the “Three Brothers,” which are the oldest houses in Riga. It’s incredibly easy to get lost in Old Town Riga, especially when you base your location off of cathedrals. For example, we were staying at the Doma Hostel, which is next to the Doma Cathedral, so every time we got lost we would go to the nearest cathedral, which always ended up being the wrong cathedral.
The Museum of the Occupation of Latvia
The Three Brothers
Doma Cathedral
I feel like I’m starting to run out of things to say...uh oh... I felt like we spent a little too much time shopping on this trip (yes, Grandma, I know you’ll find that hard to believe), and we didn’t get to see as many museums as I had wanted to, but we also had to contend with winter museum hours and weather. Another thing that was amazing about Riga is that shops are not only open on Sundays, which is practically unheard of in Finland, but also, they’re open until 9 or 10 PM. The pace of life in Riga felt much faster than in Finland, which is something that I miss. The hostel we stayed in was pleasantly relaxed though. We met some other exchange students that are studying in a different Finnish student, along with an exchange student studying in Estonia. Well, I need to get to sleep soon, but I wanted to update before I forget everything (I also wanted to give Grandma something to read at work : ) If I get around to it, I’ll write more later, but I also have to save some of it for the post cards I bought!
Kristen and I
Leila and I
(descending into a medieval-themed establishment)
note: looking through my pictures I've realized that I will have to make another post because there are so many that I want to share. Bare with me.
11.2.08
Riga Riga Riga!
I'm back from Riga, and I'm exhausted, but that's ok because I had a wonderful time... Even though we rode in the saddest looking plane this side of Kaliningrad (as you can see above). I have a lot to write about, and many pictures to share, but don't expect them tonight. I have to catch up on homework and get some sleep. Apparently I'm supposed to be doing some kind of university thing while I'm here. That's too bad. I'd much rather travel in the Baltic states. And if you ever get the chance, you should do it too!
Here are a couple pictures of Riga. I have more that I want to share, and of course, I'll write about the city too, but I really should go to sleep, so this is all I'm going to put up at the moment.
7.2.08
Runebergin Päivä ja Laskiaistiistai
This past Tuesday there were two holidays on the same day, Runebergin Päivä (Runeberg's Day) and Laskiaistiistai, or Shrove Tuesday. Runeberg's Day is a celebration of the birthday of Finland's national poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg, while Shrove Tuesday marks the beginning of Lent. For Runeberg's Day people eat little tarts called Runeberg's tart, or Runeberg's cupcakes. You can find a recipe for them here. I bought some at the supermarket, they were alright, but I liked the Shrove buns better, because yes, Shrove Tuesday also has an official desert. Here is another recipe if you're curious, but I think the Shrove bun that I bought looks a little nicer.
Another Finnish tradition on Shrove Tuesday is sledding. The University of Turku, along with Åbo Akademi, the Swedish-speaking university, hold a sledding competition ever year. Different student groups build crazy sleds and compete against each other to which group can make the most creative sled. This year there were sauna, pirate ship, and car sleds among others. Almost all of the students wear their student overalls to this event as well.
I'd like to write more, but I have to get ready for my trip to Latvia tomorrow. Leila and I are catching the 7:05 bus to the train station tomorrow, so we can get to Helsinki by 10, and then we should have enough time to get to the airport. Another exchange student is meeting us at the train station, so there will be three of us, which I think is the perfect number for a weekend trip. I'll let you know how it goes, and hopefully you'll have a nice weekend too! And here are some photos from the sledding event:
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