The End

My last week consisted of packing and cleaning. On Monday I went shopping for things I need to bring home. Tuesday I packed and that night Deirdre and I got a mattress from the hallway and she slept over. On Wednseday Jackie got back from her trip and we cleaned the apartment. Deirdre spent the night again. On Thursday we went into school to Lozzi for our last lunch then into the center for a coffee. I finished packing and cleaning and hung out with Jim for the rest of the night. We got our taxi at 1:30am and were on the bus leaving Jyvaskyla at 2:05am. We got into Helsinki around 5:30am and my flight was at 7:05. I got into Detroit at 4:00pm yesterday.

It is a bit stange to be back and there are a lot of things to get used to. For example, flushing the toilet has been one of the more difficult things to adjust to because the flusher is a tab to pull up on the top of the toilet in Finland. Last night it was pitch black outside by 10pm, I haven't seen it that dark, or dark at all, in over a month. And of course, jetlag is wonderful, as always.

Green Finland

Spring in Finland

at 2:00am its that bright

Keränen

Marjukka, my tutor, properly saying Keränen. She said if she had heard me say it how we do, she wouldn't have recognized it as being the same name.

I've tried to say it and to me it sounds right, but I usually end up getting laughed at :)

Last Weekend!

I got back into Finland for my last week the day before my birthday. I knew a lot of people had gone home while I was in Spain; but I didn’t expect it to be so empty. Here is a quick run down of my last weekend...probably the most eventful 4 straight days ever :-D

Thursday 5/21 (my birthday!): Deirdre made me some chicken and onions with rice for lunch. After that Merel came over and we watched ‘chocolat’, and English movie. She had gotten me a crown since it was my golden birthday (21 on the 21st) and a jar from the Netherlands that is very common to have there. We went for pizza with Deirdre for dinner and they made me wear the crown. The place we went is always empty but of course that day it was packed and I had the crown! From there, we got ready to go to the bar. We walked to the city center with Nikos at 11:30 and it was still fairly bright outside. We met the group of exchange students that is still here but lives on the other side of town (and were celebrating Gunter’s birthday there) at Kharma night club...and they made me wear the crown there, too. One of the girls didn’t have the right ID so we went to Katze pub instead. We stayed for a while then walked home just after before 3am and in broad day light. Walking to the bar in daylight and walking home in daylight, I felt like I had been there for an extremely long time. But, Finland only has about 3 hours of actual darkness right now, from 11:30ish until 2:30ish.

Zdeneck, Nikos and Merel at Katze...Merel wearing my crown

Friday 5/22: I met with my Finnish mom today so she could show me how to make Pulla! (little did we know, they had planned for us to make a huge meal) We went to a HUGE kitchen at the city library. Elizabeth and Jaime and their Finnish mother’s, Perjo and Marja-Leena came, as well. When I got there Ritva, my Finnish mom, was pulling tons and tons of food out of her bag. We started the pulla and while the dough was doing something (raising, fluffing…I don’t know, getting bigger) on a pot of hot water, we started to peel potatoes. In the meantime, Perjo was making Finnish pancakes; Marja-Leena was making Lingon porridge...all for desert. Ritva was making bread rolls, cooked carrots and cucumbers. After our pulla dough finished on the water, we took our dough to the counter. Marja-Leena showed me how to roll it and what we could put in it. We had combinations with cinnamon, sugar, almonds, raisins, walnuts and applesauce. She also showed me the different ways to roll them. Then, we put the egg wash on top and cooked them. As soon as our pulla was done the Finnish moms had finished the rest of the meal. We had deer (that Ritva’s husband had shot), carrots, cucumbers, potatoes, salad, butter, rolls and gravy for dinner and pancakes, pulla and porridge for desert…all made from scratch…even the butter. We were cooking for about 4.5 hours. I was so full but as we were eating, our Finnish mom’s kept putting food on our plates when we would look away.
After dinner, I went to Jim’s(France) for his going away party/mine and Shane’s birthday party. After being there for about an hour, I noticed 3 guys picking up Shane off of a chair by his arms and legs and then the lights went off. Within a few seconds they had dropped Shane onto my lap then Deirdre and Jim came out singing with a cake for us. Deirdre also had a book for each of us that had pictures from the semester and everyone wrote in them earlier that day.

My pullas!

Pulla making

Saturday 5/23: I went over to Roninmaki for a BBQ and to watch a Rugby match. The match was Ireland vs. England. I have never watched rugby before, Marco (Italy) tried to explain it to me, I understood a bit but it is confusing. After, we had a bbq with me, Shane, Deirdre, Jim, Thaibault, Marco and a few others. We had a lot of food, sausage sandwiches, chicken wings, bacon, pork from Spain, and French fries. Jim made a sandwich with bacon and fries and referred to it as an American sandwich. I kinda looked at him funny and he said “this is what we associate with American foods” I told him that it wasn’t American and no one puts French fries on their sandwiches haha He picked up a french fry and asked me what we call it because the are not French. The guys have a map of Europe on the wall and everyone who comes over put a push pin where they are from. I had been there before but never put my self on the map because I’m not on the map. So, Marco drew the US on a piece of paper and put in on the wall way down from the Europe map so I could pin myself. We walked to Bar 14 after the bbq. Last time we tried to go here, I got a concussion, which of course made for jokes for the entire night :) But, that meant that everyone had to walk with me or ride their bikes slowly because I didn’t have a bike with me. As we were walking, Shane insisted to reenact my accident right where it happened. We stayed at the bar for a bit; I played pool with Jim and Thaibout for a while.

Sunday 5/24: Ritva picked me up around 2:00pm to go to her summer house with Perjio, Marja-Leena, Elizabeth and Jaime for the day. As I was waiting for them to pick me up, it started to hail. We drove for about a half hour then pulled over on the side of the street by a lake. The Finnish mom’s pulled a bunch of extremely small life vests out of the car and told us to put them on. We went to the lake and got in paddle boats and paddled our way out to an island where their house is…it is still raining. (We did not know we would be doing any of this…so as it was happening we were really confused) My Finnish mom did not think I had enough clothes on so she insisted that I put on one of her husbands sweaters…one that matched the one she had on. The moms had me, Jaime and Elizabeth make a cake when we got there. Then, the three of us went to the sauna they had on the island then we layed on the beach for a bit. The island is really pretty. My Finnish dad made sausages for dinner and Ritva made us some salad. We rowed back and our 3 Finnish moms sang “row row row your boat” the whole way back.
Jaime, Elizabeth and I refer to our times with our Finnish moms as “adventures with the Finnish moms” because we really never have any idea what to expect. They tell us when they will pick us up and from there we are just along for the ride; although, it is never a dull moment with them. For example, a conversation with my Finnish mom the other day:
Ritva: “Erin, what is your father’s name?”
Me: “Theodore”
Ritva: “Oh yes, I remember now, I looked him up in the white pages”
But they are wonderful ladies!

Us with our Finnish moms at the summer house

Me and Elizabeth with my Finnish dad

Perjio, Ritva and Marja-Leena paddling and singing :)

London and Spain 5/12-5/20

We flew from London to Tampere on Tuesday night and spent the night in the London airport. On Wednesday morning we got up at 6am and went into London for the day. The weather was crappy and I overall wasn’t too impressed with the city, I think because it wasn’t really what I expected. But, we walked to the London Bridge, Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, and Platform 9 ¾ from the Harry Potter movies. We were only there for around 8 hours but I was surprised at how much ground we covered in such little time. Our flight from London to Madrid was at 7pm that night. This is the second time that I had flown through London and I noticed their security is pretty intense. I, for some reason, always get tagged in security and I am very well used to the security pat down searches I have done every time I fly. BUT, this time the pat down was more like a 2-3 minute rub down from the security lady. I was really freaked out after and felt extremely violated, I even called my dad. Jackie was watching and a few other people stopped to watch, as well…Jackie said it was disgusting to watch and looked like she was giving me a bath with my clothes on and no water.
We landed in Madrid around 10:30pm and went straight to the hostel. I was a little nervous because the hostel was run by a bunch of young Spanish guys. It was fine though…I think I pin young Spanish/Mexican looking guys as shady just from stereotype, but they were really nice. We had people from all over the world in our hostel, Argentina, Australia, Austria, etc and seven of the eight beds in our room were filled. The next morning, I found 2 maps of Madrid and found the places we wanted to go. We went to a monument called Plaza de Espana, the Palacio Real where the King lives, the Catedral de la Viaducto, Puerto del Sol, Plaza Mayor, Banco de Espana, Puerto de Alcala and the Parque del Retrio. The Parque del Retrio was really nice, that was my favorite part of the trip and we stayed there for a while that day. In the mix of seeing all of those things, I got a 1E heart shaped croissant covered in chocolate that was almost the size of my face….amazing :) On the way back to the hostel we walked down Gran Via, the main street for shopping in Madrid. That night we stayed in the hostel and talked with the new people that got there. Turns out there were 3 other girls from Michigan and only 2 of them came together; one girl lives with 2 girls who graduated from my high school at MSU, small world. I talked with them for a while. Talking with them was actually like something that was “really familiar yet really different” because it has been so long since I’ve talked with someone face to face that has the same accent, uses the same slang, talks just as fast and has the same kind of “broken English” as I do. It was cool to notice that it was strange to hear someone talk they way I do.
The next morning, we met Walter, an extremely flamboyant guy from LA. He came to get coffee with Jackie and I (by the way, the coffee in Spain is better than any other coffee that I’ve had) We wandered around Madrid for a while with Walter then the 3 of us went to Parque del Retrio and rented a paddle boat. On the way to the park, Jackie noticed a 50E bill missing from her wallet; I checked mine and noticed that I had 50E missing as well. We sat down on a bench to figure out what happened and as we were panicking 3 Asian women come up to us saying “massage? massage?” we told them no over and over, but they did anyways. We were too worried about the money to deal with the Asian women. So now, we are panicking in the middle of a market with Asian women rubbing our backs and digging their elbows into us...and Walter too. After a few minutes we realized it had to have been a girl in the hostel who took the money because no one else was there (she took our toothpaste, too). Then, as we were walking we saw a bunch of African American guys selling knock off designer purses and sunglass on the street. The police drove up and they all ran, probably 20-30 of them. But, one police officer walks up to Walter, he is African American too. Walter says to the office “nu uhh, I’m from L.A” while waving his finger like a teenage girl with an attitude. Needless to say, this was not what the officer expected. After the park, we met with Steven, our French friend who was in Finland with us and also responsible for my concussion haha, and his friend Damian who is also French and studying in Madrid. The five of us went to eat; Jackie and I got paella, a Spanish dish with rice, vegetables and some kind of meat. We ordered ours with chicken but instead they brought us some kind of dead sea creature. I really had a hard time eating it because I’m not a fan of creepy crawlies in my food! Then, we went to an old Egyptian prison, the guys loved it, I didn’t find it all too exciting but the view of Madrid was really nice! We wandered around a little more and Walter left to find his friend. We went into a Ham Museum…a shop where everything is pork…sandwiches, dinners, full pigs, etc (and not a real museum). The place was huge and all of the walls were lined with dead pigs. Good thing you can’t get swine flu from being around dead pigs or Spain would have a problem. I found it disgusting, especially since I don’t like pork. We later realized that there are shops like this all over Spain, but Spanish ham is really popular, although it looks raw. We went to the hostel to grab our bags and went to the bar for a beer with Steven and Damian; just like the coffee, the beer was probably the best beer I’ve had…not that I’ve had a lot ;-) At around 1am, Jackie and I headed back to the airport. We tried to sleep but it was too cold.
We flew into Barcelona the next morning. Our hostel was hard to find and I found a little old man on the street corner to help us. I noticed he would stomp his foot after every English word he said correctly. After he showed us where to go, he kept pinching my cheek and I was getting laughed at by everyone sitting at a red light at the intersection but I thought he was really funny. That day we went to the Gothic part of the city and down to the beach. We stopped for churros, which they dip in melted warm chocolate. Then we walked to the board walk and back to the hostel. That night we went for a walk with Emilia and Maxim (Emilia is from South Carolina and Maxim is German) they were also in our hostel. I was warned by the owner of this hostel that I stick out like a sore thumb with my blonde hair and pale skin. He also told me that the Spanish guys will be looking at us because they never see blonde hair. After a few days, I learned that if I speak Finnish to them then they leave automatically because they assume I can’t speak English or Spanish. After a while we would just count in Finnish and see how long it took them to leave and they had no idea we were even counting.
The next day we walked to the Sagrada Familia, a church designed by Gaudi. Then we walked by a monument that is on every postcard but it just looked like a huge bullet in the ground. On our way back we walked through a really nice park and got some dinner.
The next morning, I had really had enough of Jackie. We planned to go to the beach that day but she decided she wanted to go to Starbucks and shopping (both of which I don’t like). So, she went on her own and I planned to meet Mark, an Australian guy in our hostel, at the beach. I got to the beach and was slightly concerned with the weirdos walking around. So, I found the part of the beach that had a ton of old people. I layed down between 2 old naked women; I figured they would be the last people to bother me and no one else would come over if I was between 2 old women who had nothing on. And, I was right. After and hour or so, I went back to shower. I tried to stay in doors for the rest of the day because the sun was so intense down there. That night, we went for beers with some people from our hostel…a Swiss girl, a German girl, an Italian guy who are all studying in Portugal and a Canadian girl who is working in Ireland.
We checked out of our hostel the next morning and tried to walk to the Olympic Stadium where they Olympics here in 1992, I believe. I made the mistake of giving Jackie the map and we got lost. So, we had just enough time to find our way back to the hostel for our bags and to get to the bus station to go to the airport and never made it to the stadium. We flew from Barcelona to Bremen, Germany that night. The flight was rough, we hit 2 air pockets which drops the plane a bit and it feels like the plane could crash. I hate flying, although I’ve gotten better with all the flying I’ve done since I’ve been here, but after that I was ready to get off. We met Greg in the airport because he and Jackie are going to Amsterdam and Paris and Marjukka (my tutor) her 2 friends and her mom, they were visiting her brother in southern Spain. We all stayed in the airport that night. One of Marjukka’s friends had a blow up chair for the water that we blew up and 2 people slept on. Marjukka’s mom was so lost in the airport because she only speaks Finnish and that was the first time she had ever left Finland. We flew from Bremen to Finland at 6:30am then took a train and a bus back to Jyvaskyla. Marjukka’s dad picked her, her mom and I up from the train station and he drove me to my apartment.
Overall, the trip was really nice. The weather was around 80-85 degrees and sunny the whole time!
Only 9 days left in Finland!
When I peaked in my mail box today I saw a stack of colored envelopes, which were all birthday cards! Thanks to everyone who sent one :)

London Pictures

London Bridge

London

Big Ben

Westminster Abbey

Buckingham Palace

Where the Harry Potter movies were shot

Spain Pictures!!

Parque del Retrio (Madrid)

Banco de Espana (Madrid)

Walking down the street in Madrid

Where the King lives (Madrid)

Barcelona

Barcelona

Sagrada Familia

Near the beach in Barcelona

Onnelliset äidit Päivä (Happy Mothers Day)

I have a Mothers Day story
Last weekend I bought a Mothers Day card to send home to my mom. There was no one around the store to translate, so I just picked a cute one. When we were eating, I was writing in the card and I ask a woman to tell me what it said so I could write the translation. Turns out the card says "Flowers for Grandma". I know the word for grandma, but in Finnish they add their prepositions onto the end of other words, in this case 'for' was added onto 'grandma' so the word looked totally different to me.