It is over ;(

The captain leaves the sinking ship as last. Ok, maybe I'm not the captain, but in the end I also have to leave Lappeenranta for good.

Tomorrow on 31st of December I will go to Helsinki to celebrate the New year there with my friends and also Roman has some friends there who are joining us.

I don't know if and when I have a possibility to write the next entry, so in the worst case I can write it on 5.1, because then I'm back in Austria. On 2.1 we will go by ferry to Travemünde, which we will reach on 3.1 and on 4.1 we will go by train to Vienna.

I will not write my Finland summary now, so be patient. I really need time to write one and I'm not ready at the moment to accept that I have to leave.

See you soon, and if there is no possibility to write an entry before,
HAPPY NEW YEAR 2008 !!!!

Austrians and Gigglin

A new wave of Austrian friends (Maxx, Roli) arrived at 27.12. I fetched them from the airport in Helsinki. The rest of the first day we spent with changing news from home, initial shopping and a welcome beer.

Next "morning" we went to the city center to do the sightseeing program, as usual, and go for coffee and shopping. Actually the original plan was to go to Savonlinna to make a tour through the castle. The bad thing is, that it is closed from 15 - 31.12.

Maxx and Roland at the harbor:


And relaxing at the fortress cafeteria:

Of course if it comes to the night program, on Fridays, guess what, Gigglin Marlin *gg*
We missed the bus at 23, even with spontaneous sporting afford by me, we missed it :)
(Perkele !!)

Ok, back to the flat and taking the next bus. Finally we arrive in Gigglin and the party started. It was really funny and we enjoyed it a lot. Drinking and a lot of dancing and even more fun.


more impressions ? :) ( the time on the photos is Austrian time, so one hour more to calculate)


We met a lot of nice girls and we left the Gigglin after it closed, but finished the night in my flat with some breakfast at 530. And yes, we slept long ;)

One last photo, because I like it a lot, Maxx coming straight from hell *g*:


The rest of the photos is in my Webalbum.

Christmas Eve

Finally Christmas eve arrived and we spent it with a lot of cooking and baking. I already mentioned the menu plans before, so I will show you here how it looked like in the end ;)

I already started my preparations in the morning, because the dough for the Apfelstrudel has to be made earlier to rest a bit. After that Martin and I cooked the potatoes and eggs for the (Slovakian) potato salad.

At 1330 we started cooking and begin with cutting all the ingredients for the onion soup and the potato salad. No, nobody was hurt in the end. The onion soup was Romans responsibility. After finishing the soup we put it in the oven to bake it with bread and cheese and in the end the first meal of the day looked like this:

Meanwhile Martin was already finishing his (Slovakian) potato salad.


We made "Wiener Schnitzel" to the salad. The strange thing when it comes to breadcrumbs in Finland is, that they don't have them the way we do at home. The breadcrumbs here are flavored, so you have to choose between breadcrumbs for meat or for sweets.

We were already nearly full after the soup, but of course we also had to eat the main meal. And it was also very delicious, like the soup.

As dessert I planned a Apfelstrudel. Directly after lunch I started to make it. After putting the ingredients for the first of two Apfelstrudels on the dough, Roman read what was written on the description for the breadcrumbs, which should be for sweets. One of the ingredients in the breadcrumbs was Paprika !! LOOoOOL
Ok, a bit nervous now, because I already put it in, I just put more cinnamon and sugar on it :) In the end there was no difference and it was very good.

The skin was a bit too crusty, because I left it too long in the oven, but for next time I know a trick to solve this problem.

So we were finally finished with all the eating, we made a small break and after this break I started to bake some cookies for the party in the evening.

First of all I wanted to bake some "Vanillekipferl" (vanilla rolls) and secondly I baked some "Nußhäufchen" (nut something).

Me rolling the vanilla rolls:

So at the end when we were nearly finished, it looked like this:

Yeah, I know, we are damn good ;)

So finally the Christmas party took place at Evi's flat. There have been surprisingly less people, so that we have to start with 6 people, but later on fortunately we were 10 people. Actually I thought that all the Chinese will come, but they did their own party with only Chinese people allowed ;(

Nevertheless, it was a very nice evening even when we were a bit tired sometimes because of that much work, but my conclusion is, that it was a good Christmas evening worth to spend. Luca also brought some self made Tiramisu and Jose brought some Finnish pulla both have been also very delicious .

The party ended at 230. Thanks all for coming and sharing Christmas with me/us.

All the photos are online in my Web album as usual, have fun!!

Christmas plans

After another good bye evening yesterday, we planned our Christmas day/evening.
The actual plan is, that we (Martin, Roman, Jose and I) will start cooking at 13o'clock at my place. We bought everything today at Prisma, which took us about 2h15.

Our Christmas lunch will be:

1. onion soup (with bread and cheese baked)
   
2. wiener schnitzel with potato salad
3. apfelstrudel

We never made this things on our own, so I think it will be a very interesting experience *gg*.

Afterwards we will bake some cookies for the Christmas party, which should take place at Evi's place. Wish us luck with the cookies also *g*
There should be a lot people there, hopefully!

For all my people at home and friends all over the country:

Frohe Weihnachten !!
Merry Christmas !!!
Hyvää joulua !!

Enjoy the day and enjoy the life ;) (even when I'm not near :)

Bad start in a weekend

Staying longer in Finland than it would be necessary is normally a good thing. The bad thing is, that you are the last man standing and that you have to manage a lot of good bye's.

After a heavily celebrated Farewell Party in Gigglin Marlin the first huge wave left on Thursday, continued yesterday when I brought Chris and Arno to the train station and still continued today when more then 10 people left Lappeenranta for good.

Before Gigglin we met at Chris and Martin's place to talk and make a pre-farewell-party, nice as usual. Where we also continued to decorate their Christmas tree.



Let me give you some impressions from the last Gigglin Marlin (you will find more photos online soon):





On Friday some of us met for the last time in the nice cafeteria at the fortress. At the start we planned four persons and in the end we were about 14. It was also very nice last "Kaffeeklatsch".

It was "funny" to see how all people especially the girls tried to not cry at the train station. I think if they would play "Time to say good bye" through the speakers everyone would let it go ;)
Ok, maybe even I would loose that fight then *g*

I am sad, but I know that I can and will stay in contact and hopefully some day we meet again, somewhere in the world.
So for all that already left and of course for my dearest friends, thanks for everything it was an honor to meet you and share an Erasmus semester with you.

Good Bye's and the last Uni stuff

The last few days the first people already left Lappeenranta to go back to their home countries. In the next few days a lot more people are following and also leaving Lappeenranta for good.

This means, beginning with Saturday we are all alone ;(
Ok, not so alone, because there are still people left, but not much and nearly all people I hung around have left then. Therefore today will be the last real party in Gigglin Marlin, maybe a smaller one also on Friday.

The stuff for the university is nearly done. There is still the documentation for project02 in parallel computing to write, a paper for Finish-German Tandem and last but not least the Finnish For Foreigners exam on Friday. But I think that I maybe will not make the exam, I'm thinking about it. Because I have a lot more points that I need for Erasmus so it would be not necessary and I could focus on the other stuff including my project work for my home university. But I will decide on a short term, so we will see. (needed ECTS 15 - at the moment I have 19 without FFF2 exam)

I already mentioned my project for the home university, where still a lot of work is to do. I will focus on that for the rest of the time I stay here or at least until my next visitors come from Austria on 27.12.

Nothing more to say for today, this will maybe change after the party tonight and the farewell evening with our Tutor Tuija tomorrow.

Nähdään!

A week in the cottage and around Finland

I haven't written for quite some time now, but there is a good reason for that behavior. I had some visitors from Austria, what I already mentioned in the blog entry before. I will describe you the week and apologize before hand, if it is a lot to read ;)

Before I started my week with my friends, I had to finish the Parallel Computing Take Home exam first. We got it on Tuesday and I nearly spent 10 hours a day from Wednesday to Saturday to finish it as early as possible.

Day 1 - Helsinki / Arrival
Günther, Silvia and Claudia arrived last Saturday the 8.12, but I couldn't join so early because I had to finish my exam as I already mentioned.
So on Sunday at 830 in the morning, I drove to Helsinki to meet them. It took some time to find the hotel, because nobody told me that there are 1000000 hotels called Scandic something *g*. And it became more difficult, because Günther described me the way from their point of view when the arrived with the taxi. Unfortunately the taxi drove in the other direction *ggg*.
In the end I found it and I finally can greet my first Austrian visitors.



On the first day we walked around Helsinki to see some sights and enjoy the town. We were really lucky, because all days before it always rained the whole day, but on this day and the whole week we always had nice weather and even sunshine. You don't believe it, here is a picture (the rest of the pictures is already online):


We visited a lot of places and in the evening it was time to board the ferry to Tallinn. We decided to go to Tallinn with the last Ferry at 21:45 and stay the night on board in a cabin. The funny thing is, that it would have cost 218€ all together with 2 cabins + 4 persons to Tallinn and only 4 persons back, BUT with 2 cabins + 4 persons to Tallinn and 1 cabin + 4 persons back it cost us 66€ all together, LOOL. Don't ask me how this is possible, but it is!!
We had a rough sea and that's why Günther was most of the time of the cruise on the "sun"-deck to get fresh air and not vomiting. *gg*

Day 2 - Tallinn
At 7 in the morning we left the ferry to walk to the historic center of Tallinn, which is also on the UNESCO heritage list for it's historical value.
I can understand why it is on this list, it is a really nice town.
When we start walking through the center it was still dark and we got impressions like it would be already night. During I checked a picture I made the minute before and I saw some smoke in it. I asked my friends, who the hell blew smoke in my view.... actually nobody was smoking. In the end I recognized that something in the inside of my camera burned down, because I also had to reset it and initialized it again. The funny part is, it is still working. Here is the picture with the smoke:

We moved on to the center where we found a really cute cafeteria at the marketplace. It calls itself "Tallinn's best cafe" and I would believe it, it was really very nice with a lot of delicious cakes.
After again walking around, because still nothing has opened so far, we visited the christmas market, which is also situated on the marketplace. Of course I bought some presents for my parents. The market was nice, but Estonian didn't bargain, that was the bad part.
Of course we saw a lot of sights again, here we are on the "top" of Tallinn with probably the best view over the old town:


After lunch and again a lot of shopping and sightseeing, we went to our ferry with which we left Tallinn at 1645 to go back to Helsinki. We were very tired so we slept a bit in the cabin.

Back in Helsinki we drove up north to Lappeenranta directly to our cottage.

We rented a cottage near Lappeenranta (14km) in Mehrenlehti. It cost us 450€ from Monday to Sunday, not much for 4 persons in my opinion. The cottage and the sauna was already heated up when we arrive at 2345. The owners showed us everything and after that, Günther and I decided to have our first sauna turn at 2 in the morning. It was great, I don't know why I haven't visit Sauna earlier *gg*, yes, it was my first time in 4 month.

Day 3 - The cottage
In the morning we had the first chance to see our cottage at daylight and also the nice scenery, which welcomes us with mythic fog all over the lake. But have a look on your own:

The cottage (left), with sauna (middle) and grilling place (right):

The lake:

We went to Lappeenranta city center to do some walking, talking and shopping. But resting for the rest of the day.

On this day I brought my Take home exam to my professor, where he can have a look and tell me if a passed or not. The first thing he said was something like "..dare you, you wrote so much.." hahaha,.... yes, I had like 17 pages for 4 questions and for the first one 5 and the second one 4 pages. In the end I passed, thank god ;) But I didn't get the points so far, because he said he had to read it carefully, because I took a very different approach than anybody else. ;)

Day 4 - Lappeenranta
The plan was to see the sights of Lappeenranta. It has not much sights, so we weren't in a hurry *gg*. The morning started even better than the morning before, sunshine :)
You don't believe it, look at this picture I made in the harbor of Lappeenranta:

Ok, sunshine doesn't mean that it is warm *gg*. However, we spent a nice day walking through Lappeenranta. We visited the old cafe at the fortress of Lappeenranta, wow they had delicious cakes *gg*

We also visited the oldest orthodox church in Finland, which was the first time opened since I'm here to visit it. Ok, maybe we should have ask the group inside if they paid for the tour *g*

In the evening we went to the christmas party at Gigglin Marlin (after sauna), which was organized by the student union. A very funny night with a special appearance from a girls dance group. You maybe can guess why I really liked it *g*



Day 5 - Long sleep and Ylämaa

After a long night, we had a longer sleep, ok for some it wasn't even long enough *g*.
The program for this day was a visit in Ylämaa. It is a small town with a big mining history. Because in Ylämaa there is a rich deposit of spectrolite and other stones.

The first impression was not very good, because everything was closed and the "town" was extremely small. After some time and questions we head back to the "stone city" and fortunately the before closed shop was open now. I bought me a ring for my thumb and the others also bought some stuff. The ring is made from bloodstone. It breaks very easy, as Günther recognized after 3 minutes. He unpacked the ring, dropped it, broken *ggg*, not even once weared *gg*. But the lady behind the desk was nice enough to give him a new one for free.

After some shopping and grilling in the evening we went to bed.

Day 6 - Very long sleep and shopping
Nothing special on day number 5, just more sleep and relaxing and do some shopping in the center of Lappeenranta.

Day 7 - Imatra and Ruokolahti
We went to Imatra to see the rapid canyon. Afterwards we went to the church hill in Ruokolahti, just to visit the wooden bell tower and the church there. Which looks like that (bell tower)

After the usual sightseeing we went back to the cottage to spend the last evening there. We also walked on the frozen lake.

Today I brought them back to Helsinki Airport, where they left at 16 o'clock.
Thank you three for the visit, it was really a very nice week with you and I enjoyed it a lot.

A lot of photos of this week are online in my gallery.

Holiday, Friends and take home exam

Terve!
Let's start with the heavy part of the topic, the take home exam.
At the moment it seems that I'm quite good in time. I worked the last days nearly around the clock to finish it as soon as possible. There is just one task I haven't done yet, the others should be solved or fine. My plan is to be finished tomorrow night, that I can start with my holiday.

And there is the second and third topic of my title. On Saturday my friends Günther, Silvia and Claudia arrive in Helsinki and on Sunday I will join them in Helsinki to spend a whole week with them. It is my first visit from Austria and I'm really looking forward to it.

I will give you a list of what we have planned:

• Sunday night, going with the ferry to Tallinn
• Monday, spending the day in Tallinn and going back in the late afternoon
• Arriving in Lappeenranta where we rent a very nice cottage on the saimaa lake
• On Tuesday we will have a look at Lappeenranta, and I also have to bring my take home exam on that day to university.
• The rest of the week we will visit: Savonlina, Mikkeli, Ruokolahti, Imatra, Ylämaa

As you can see, a lot to do for one week.
I'm very happy and looking forward to this week, hopefully everything is fine and we can enjoy a week with friends.

Nuku hyvin ja hyvää viikonlopua!

Take home exam and other stuff

Moi out there!
I haven't written for days and the main reason for that is, that I have a lot of work to do for the university. I have to mention this sometimes, so that you don't think I'm doing nothing ;)

On Monday we finished our project 01 for Parallel Computing, which was a program including PVM functions. The main job of the program was the multiplication of matrices. So the master process sends the values to the slaves, they calculate it and send the result back. (short version of the function) Of course we also had to write a documentation for it.

Today I had my final presentation in "Presenting in English". It was about traveling in Europe and I in my opinion my partner Mikko and I did quite well. The final task will be an analysis of our own presentation.

Ok, and last but not least we got our take home exam in Parallel Computing yesterday. Yes you read correctly, it is a exam which you can take home and fill it at home. Of course it is more difficult then a normal exam and believe me it takes a looooot of time. I hope I can finish it soon enough, because on Sunday I will meet Günther, Silvia and Claudia in Helsinki to spend the week with them. That means that two of my days for the exam are lost, therefore I have to do it faster, that means.. At the moment I do nothing else, except writing this blog entry, which by the way is part of my small break.

We had to send our pre-master project report for our home university yesterday. There is not really much movement in the project, mostly because there is just no time at the moment. But as far as I know, I am not the only one who has a slow start. I have to invest the whole January for it to catch up and of course the next semester for my master thesis. First of all I have to read a lot, I mean A LOT and that actually takes time. So, hopefully after the take home exam and my "holiday" week with my friends from Austria, I will find the time to really start through. There is "only" Finnish for Foreigners exam left on 21.12 and the second project for Parallel Computing until 23.12.

moi moi

Facebook Security Issues

Facebook is a broadly used and well known community site and I know that a lot of you people outside are using it. I am also a user and therefore I have some suggestions for you to make it more secure.

Lately Facebook made some bad news with tracking the surfing behavior of its users, even when you are not on Facebook.
Nate Weiner made a very nice blog entry, which describes the whole issue in detail. If your are interested in reading it, you will find this blog entry here.

To secure yourself it is not necessary to read the whole article, because I will give you a shortcut what to do right now.

1. First of all, to use this security tools, you have to use Firefox, because the following tool is a plug-in for it.
2. Install the BlockSite add-on / plugin
3. After restarting Firefox, which is necessary to activate it
4. Open the options of the add-on, you can find it in the list of add-ons
5. There you enter this URL to block: http://www.facebook.com/beacon/*
6. Confirm it with ok and be safe

For those people who are not so familiar with Security and FireFox plug-ins, I also would recommend you the following plug-ins, which I'm using and also suggested by the Network Security Blogwriter Martin McKeay:

• NoScript
• which is very good, it protects you from any kind of scripts and ads. It blocks them in default, and you can temporarily or permanent allow sites and scripts. Very useful!
• GreaseMonkey
• is for using user scripts, I would suggest it only for advanced users. It is used to activate some userscripts, for more information you should read the description. As I said, maybe better for advanced users.
  
• CustomizeGoogle
• also suggested by McKeay, and honestly I didn't know it before, but will also use it, sounds very nice.

I'm using some more add-ons, but they are not all just for security.
Use Firefox and use the add-ons from above and you will be much more safer !!

Middle of the Weekend Report

Why do I again report in the middle of the weekend? Easy, because I think nothing more interesting will happen, because today I'm just relaxing.

On Friday we went again to the swim hall, this time Martin and Florian joined us, before that I met with my Finnish partner to finalize our presentation. It will be held on Wednesday. In the evening there would have been the birthday party of Iris (Happy Birthday again!). Why "would have been"? Because I thought, having a Glühwein party before, would be a nice idea. Actually it was a nice idea, but it ended too late for me to join the birthday party, because they already left to the nightclub.

As I already mentioned, Roman, Martin, Florian, I and later on Martti had a Glühwein party and played some cards (president and asshole). Not much of them drank the alcohol, therefore Roman and I had to finish it. This was also the reason why Roman didn't join me when I went to the nightclub to meet the others ;)

Arrived in the nightclub at midnight, the rest of the birthday party was a bit drunken. Ok, let's say they were near the coma ?! ;) I will not comment the condition and behavior of some of those girls, I will just say "some girls shouldn't drink that much".

However, I joined the group with the guys from Nepal, Japanese, India,... . It was nice and I enjoyed to ask the Japanese guy some questions about Japan, which are reeeealy very important.... ok, for me *g*. You can maybe imagine ;) I hope I didn't bother him too much. By the way, Japanese names are sometimes not that easy to remember :)

After nightclubbing, I went home. When I walked to my place, I saw that there is still a party going on at Chris place. So I went there and joined them. Some of them were also a bit drunk, but the behavior is much more nicer and funnier then from some other people I already mentioned. For example running some rounds naked in the public *gg*
We also played some Rugby, or let's say just throw some rugby ball. After the final snowball fight I went to my room, kind of watched a movie and fell asleep.

The rest of the weekend I will relax and do some stuff for the university. There is still some stuff to do, because this week I have my final presentation in "Presenting in English" and I have to finish the document for Parallel Computing Project 1.
But the really worse thing is coming Tuesday or Wednesday, then we get our "Take Home" exam in Parallel Computing, for which we have one week time to finish. Don't think that this will be an easy task. More on this later.

Hyvää viikonlopua !!

A new grade and new Vocabulary

Yesterday we got the second grade for this semester. It is the grade for Mobility Management, what is worth 4 ECTS. You can remember?! The lecture with the project where we have to use this damn network simulator and the always the "same tone" voice of the lecturer, which is a kind of hypnosis to fall a sleep.
However, the content was quite interesting and I finally got my first 5 grade in LUT. Nooo, don't worry, 5 in Finland is not the same like in Austria *gg*. Actually last time when i described the grade scale it was not exactly correct, therefor I will explain it again.

5 excellent ?
4 very good 1 in Austria
3 good 2 in Austria
2 satisfactory 3 in Austria
1 passed 4 in Austria
0 failed 5 in Austria

ok, that's how I would translate it. We will see if our University also see it this way, I have to ask.

There is nothing else to report at the moment, this week I have again some work to do, like Parallel Computing Projects, Presentation for Presenting in English and some other stuff.

Vocabulary of the day - Wednesday and Thursday this time adjectives:

• hoikka - slim, thin - schlank, dünn
• laiha - skinny, thin - mager, dünn
• lihava - thick - dick
• pitkä - tall, long - groß, lang
• lyhyt - short - kurz, klein

• sievä - pretty, cute - hübsch, niedlich
• nätti - pretty, cute
• komea - handsome - gut aussehend, attraktiv
• laiska - lazy - faul
• iloinen - happy, glad - glücklich

Something to think about

Two days ago I read an article. In this article the author mentioned, that the British government warns the youth to put too much private information on social network sites like facebook.

In a survey the found out that a lot of people put their private pictures (parties and so on) on this sites. They also warn them, that a lot of companies look through the internet for information about a person before the hiring and that some didn't get a good job or have no chance for a career because the company found a "bad" picture in the internet.

This is maybe possible. I also have a lot of pictures in the internet and some of them are surely not bootlicking. If a company decides to not give me a job, because they found a bad photo of me in the Internet (with bad I mean a photo from a party for example, dancing on the table or whatever...), is it really that bad? I mean, of course it is not very funny if I do not get the job because of that.

BUT, ask yourself. Do you really wanna work in a company which makes their opinion about a person on a lousy picture of you. Where skill doesn't matter, but one picture ruins everything? Ok, a picture of you killing someone, or being part of a Nazi group may be considered as good evidence, but a picture of you drunken at a party ?!
This is what you are and if you really have to change that all for being part of a company, it is your choice.
Maybe it will become more important if you are really in a high position like CEO, Politician or whatever you define as a high position, but to get a job?
I even would accept when I get the job and they ask me afterwards, if it is ok for me to remove the pictures, because it maybe doesn't look that good. I would accept that, I would delete them.
But before hand, just to avoid being kicked out before I'm in?!

Think about it and tell me what you think.

I also started a poll on that question, let's see how it will end.



To not make a own entry, I will put the vocabulary of the day here:

• puhdistaa - to clean - reinigen, säubern
• pestä - to wash - waschen
• siivota - to clean up - aufräumen
• levätä - to rest - rasten, ausruhen
• levähtää - to make a rest - sich ausrasten

btw. Date, Sunrise and Sunset and Daylight :

Nov 28, 2007

8:44 AM

3:06 PM

6h 22m 24s

Vocabulary of the day - Friday and Monday

Hello again, friends of the Finnish language. As you already recognized, there were no vocables on Friday. It was because of our spontaneous trip to Joensuu. However, of course I have them here and will write it right now:

Vocabulary of the day - Friday:

• lainata - to lend, borrow - ausleihen, borgen
• maksa - to pay, cost - zahlen, kostet
• sovittaa - to try (on) - probieren, anprobieren
• kuvato - to describe - beschreiben
• varata - to book, reserve - buchen, reservieren

Vocabulary of the day - Monday:

• ottaa - to take - nehmen
• kuunnella - to listen to - zuhören, anhören
• häiritä - to disturb - stören
• opetella - to learn - lernen
• opettaa - to teach - lehren

There is nothing else to tell for today. Pidä hauskaa !!

Joensuu Trip - Team Vessapaperi Reunion

On Friday I didn't went to Finnish for Foreigners, because it was to hard to get up and it would had started at 830,... I decided to sleep a bit longer and make something else useful.
During the morning I talked with Dimitris and Zdenek when they have time for us. They had time this weekend, so I decided spontaneously that we (Roman and I) go to Joensuu for the weekend, to reunite team vessapaperi for the last time in Finland.

As Roman is not the spontaneous guy he was not really happy about changing all his plans on a short term, but I knew that he will also join, so I made the decision for us *gg*

We left Lappeenranta about 1430 and had a 3 hours drive to Joensuu, where I slept at Dimitris place and Roman at Zdenek's place. First of all, thanks guys for your hospitality, kiitos paljon!!! (Also thanks to Dimitris Flatmate Tobias)

We arranged a party at Dimitris place to celebrate the reunion. I can not much say about this party, the only thing I can say "it was hell of fun" *gg*. We wasted a lot lot of alcohol, including my two liters Schnapps which I brought with me. Some more people joined Magda, James, Ula, Björn and so on.... Thanks to all of those people, it was hell of fun !!

We also went to another party in the house, it was kind of a costume party. It was ok, but not that fun. We made on this evening with my camera 172 photos, so you can imagen how much stupid photos there are, lol, and on the next day after checking those pictures, a lot of funny stuff appears.

On Saturday we (Roman, Zdenek, I and the hangover) went to the center to eat. On the afternoon the rest and I went for a coffee and in the evening we decided to spend it comfortable like watching a movie and being lazy. Before that we also visited Tobias, not Dimitris Flatmate, another Tobias from EILC. There would have been a small party at Gosias place, but I really needed no more alcohol on this weekend. Sorry for not coming to Gosia, Emily and Kuba, but gladly we met in St. Petersburg before.

After breakfast we left today. Thanks to all for this nice weekend, I hope we will meet in the near future again and I hope we will stay in contact. THANKS !!!
For all those people who I didn't meet and greet, sorry !! Special sorry to Veera, the hangover was just too bad and on the day before nobody went to the center ;(

Ps: I'm thinking about, not publishing the photos... some are just too bad *gg*, and at the moment I'm just too lazy to separate them.

UPDATE: photos are now online, I hope I removed the worst and only the most harmless are online.... if you find one, which is not, tell me, I will remove it!

Vocabulary of the day - Thursday

Hello fans of the Finnish - language *gg*, because I think nobody else will read my "Vocabulary of the day" blog entries ;)

However, who thinks that I already know all the vocabulary of the days before is wrong *g*, it needs time :)

I don't wanna waste your time, so here are the five vocables:

• tajuta - to understand - verstehen
• voida - to can - können
• palella - to freeze - frieren
• kääntää - to turn, translate - umdrehen, übersetzen
• hakea - to fetch, get - abholen, holen

There is not much more to say for today.
I'm still looking for an accommodation for Günther, Silvia and Claudia who are coming on 9th of December. So if you have any suggestions, write me.
Roman and I also are nearly finished with our challenge for Parallel Computing seminar.

Nähdään ja nuku hyvin!

Finnish Tandem Dinner - Finns cooking

After swimming on afternoon, it was time for another evening with our Finnish-German Tandem group. This time it was time for the Finns to cook something for us. I can say it was very good. They cooked "Aidin hyvät lihapallot", what translated means "mothers best meatballs".

Which looked like this:



Niko and Nikita in action:


I was the whole time so f****** tired, that I sometimes nearly felt asleep, all because of the swimming *gg*.

However, they also made some dessert:

Kiitos paljon! for this very nice evening, sorry that I was soooo tired ;) Good that I didn't felt asleep, because they would have painted my face *g*.



At the end of course, the vocabulary of the day:

• pudota - to fall - stürzen, fallen
• keittää - to cook - kochen
• vihata - to hate - hassen
• kysyä - to ask - fragen
• vastata - to answer - antworten

Nähdään ja nuku hyvin !

Vocabulary of the day - Tuesday

I will continue posting my Vocabulary of the day, I hope it doesn't bother you ;)
I also decided to write the German translation too.

For today I will continue with some verbs:

• pitää - to keep (pidä hauskaa! -- have/keep fun !) - haben, behalten (pidä hauskaa! -- Hab Spaß!)
  
• tehdä - to do/to make - tun, machen
  
• jättää - to leave something somewhere /allow - etwas wo lassen, erlauben
  
• tuoda - to bring - bringen
• käydä - to visit - besuchen
  

Pidä hauskaa !!

Swimming and Vocabulary of the day

Today Roman and I finally were swimming in one of the two swim halls in Lappeenranta.
(Lappeenrannan Uimahalli)
We talked about this since a very long time and today we went there. It was very nice, even when the swim hall is not that big. The main pool is 25m with 6 lanes. However, it was good to make some activity and hopefully we will continue it.

Another thing I want to start today and hopefully also continue, is the "vocabulary of the day". I want to choose five different Finnish vocables each day, which I want to learn. At the beginning I will start with verbs.
So here are the first five vocables for today - Monday:

• antaa - to give - geben
  
• kirjoittaa - to write - schreiben
  
• uida - to swim - schwimmen
  
• esittää - to present - präsentieren
  
• ohjelmoida - to programm - programmieren
  

Weekend report

Ok, the weekend is not over but I just have time to write something. The whole week was quite stressing, first we (Roman and I) had to finish our Seminar work in Parallel Computing, including a 20 minutes presentation, until Tuesday. Then I had to make my Mobility Management project. Where we had to "code" a scenario into NetworkSimulator2-Mobiwan and writing a documentation for it.

So yesterday we had finally the Parallel Computing presentation and I think it was good. Our challenge is "Differences in application development using BOINC and PVM". We have one week to write a document for this challenge.

At last I finished my Mobility Management project yesterday at 1930 o'clock and sent both, the project code and the documentary to the lecturer. The documentation still got 13 pages, so quite more then I originally expected. By the way, the NS2 program just sucks !!!! It cost me a lot of nerves. It really was just a pain in the ass. (figure is the ns topology)



Of course after so much work, I earned a nice evening with some friends and a good party. Fortunately Inga made her birthday party yesterday. (She had birthday on Wednesday, happy birthday, again...) I went to her place where Esther and Iris and a lot of other people already partied (Robert, Ayu, Andrea and many more). I came too late because before that I was at Chris and Martins place to drink some Glühwein and Nussschnaps. Finally Austrian culture found its way to Finland.

After some time and some drinking and some really funny happenings, we went to the nightclub Gigglin Marlin. It was a very nice and funny evening/night. Thanks for that!! There are some good pics, but I will get them soonest tomorrow.

Update: The first wave of pictures, those from Inga are in my gallery online.

Finnish Tandem Dinner

Today evening we had our "Finnish/German Tandem"-Dinner. We were in Lemi, which is situated about 25 km from Lappeenranta, a very very small village. Nevertheless we have been there for Dinner, we ate lamb. And it was delicious.


We had to sing a Finnish Christmas song, which actually is a song for children ;). But ok, our Finnish is like that from children *g*
We talked a lot, of course in German, but we also asked some things to refresh our Finnish.
It was a nice place there, the atmosphere was like a "Almhütte" in Austria, even when it is 2000m less high ;)


We had some funny discussions about the German language ;) The evening was nice and some more pictures are in my gallery. Now I really have to do my project stuff, grrrr, so see you!

Birthday and Study abroad fair

Last Friday was the birthday party of Anna (Spain) and Vanessa (France) in the basement at Teknoligianpuistonkatu.

Before we went there, Roman and I made us some original Austrian Glühwein. Therefore i bought red wine and Stroh rum. Meanwhile we found out that they also have some kind of Glühwein here in Finland, it is called Glögi. You just have to be careful when you buy some, because some are without alcohol, some with 4.7% and I think there should be some with more alcohol.

After that I went to Esther&Iris place, where I didn't spend much time, because some already wanted to go to the birthday party, what we finally did.
It was very nice and a lot of people were there.
But that was not all for the evening, with the bus at midnight we went to the nightclub "Gigglin Marlin", where we spent the rest of the night 'til 4. There I also met our Finnish teacher Elina, who talked of course in Finnish to me *gg*, I think I wasn't that bad, I understood it mostly, hopefully.... she didn't correct me, so ;)

I have much to do, so there was nothing else until yesterday.
There we had the "study abroad fair" day at the university, where we presented our university and of course our country. The bad thing was, we had to share our stand with the germans, urgs! ;). The polish stand cheated, because they had a handful attractive girls there, so the had of course the most visitors ;)
Ok, i visited them too, but just because I'm interested... *gg* of course in Poland, what do you think :)

The Fins were quite uninterested, not much came to see the stands anyway.

But it was nice, I like this kind of thing. We had some nice posters from Austria and some other useless stuff. Thanks to Austria tourism, who send us some material and gave us a free account to download high quality pictures from there online gallery. Thanks!


More photos in my online gallery. From all other stands, and the best stand France *gg*. They had the biggest stand, but no people to present (out of 20) and no material, lol.

Kurzeinführung in Finnish local cases

This blog entry is for my german speaking friends at home, so it will be in german.

Also, wieder einmal ein Eintrag auf Deutsch.
Möcht heute mal eine kurze Einleitung in "Local Cases" (lol, mir fallt der deutsche Begriff dazu net ein) in der Finischen Sprache geben. Was auch soviel heißt wie, ... in Finisch kann ich inzwischen schon mehr Grammatik als in Deutsch ;) (aja, und in Finisch kann ich eigentlich nix *g*)

Es geht also darum:
Wo? Woher? Wohin?
Missä? Mistä? Mihin?

Unterschieden werden generell mal zwei Arten von Orten. "Geschlossene" Orte und Offene Orte. Bei einem geschlossenen Ort ist man "drin", geht "hinein" oder geht "hinaus".
Bei offenen Orten ist man "drauf", geht "rauf" oder geht "runter"

Als erstes Beispiel werd ich mal Städtenamen verwenden.

Man hat zum Beispiel die Stadt Lappeenranta. (ist als geschlossener Ort zu bezeichnen, aber VORSICHT, in Finnland ist nicht jede Stadt als geschlossener Ort zu sehen. Warum? Das wissen die Finnen selber nicht)

Nun fragt man Wo bist du? Woher kommst du? und Wohin gehst du?

In Lappeenranta. Von Lappeenranta. Nach Lappeenranta.
Das wären mal die kurz gehaltenen Antworten auf Deutsch.

Finnen benützen diese Form des Ausdruckes nicht, die hängen einfach eine passende Endung an das Wort und schon heißt es was anderes. Die Endungen für geschlossene Orte in der Reihenfolge passend zu den Fragewörtern sind: -ssa/ssä -sta/stä -Vn/-hVn/-seen

Missä? ---> Lappeenrannassa (nt wird zu nn wegen kpt-change, andere grammatikregel)
Mistä? ---> Lappeenrannasta (wieder nt zu nn wegen kpt-change)
Mihin? ---> Lappeenrantaan (hier kein kpt-change, weil Mihin immer strong grade verlangt)

Es bedarf also nur Lappeenrannassa, um auszudrücken, dass man in Lappeenranta ist.

Es gibt jetzt noch die offenen Plätze. Zum Beispiel ein Martkplatz. (tori) Die Endungen für offene Orte in der Reihenfolge passend zu den Fragewörtern sind: -lla/llä -lta/ltä -lle
Missä? ---> Torilla (auf dem Marktplatz)
Mistä? ---> Torilta (vom Marktplatz)
Mihin? ---> Torille (zum Marktplatz)

Ok, das war mal zum aufwärmen. Da ihr jetzt Spezialisten seits, werd ich euch folgende Aufgabe stellen: (matkusta = reisen, Itävalta= Österreich, lentokone= Flugzeug)
Minä matkustan Itävallaan lentokonella. (heißt?)

Ich reise nach Österreich mit dem Flugzeug.

Haha, ich weiß, fieees dass ich jetzt auch noch das Flugzeug ins Spiel gebracht hab. Aber Fahrzeuge werden in der Regel auch als "Plätze" beschrieben. Wichtig ist hier nur der Unterschied: Jemand ist im Flugzeug (lentokonessa), oder jemand kommt mit dem Flugzeug (lentokonella).

Also würd ich zum Beispiel fragen:
Miten menet yliopistoon? (Wie "gehst" du zur Universität)
Minä menen bussilla. (Ich fahre mit dem Bus)

Missä Harald on? (Wo ist Harald?)
Harald on bussista. (Harald ist im Bus)

Am Schluß geb ich euch jetzt noch eine kleine Reiseroute, die ihr versuchen könnts zu übersetzen. Vorsicht! ein paar kleine Gemeinheiten sind eingebaut:

Minä olen Suomessa. Minä matkustan venäjälle bussilla. Sitten lennän islantiin. Menen islannissa autolla. Matkustan laivalla irlantiin, siellä käyn galwayssa. Sen Jälkeen lennän puolaan. Lopuski matkustan puolasta junalla suomeen.

Viel Spaß beim übersetzen, verzeiht mir bitte falls ich selber einen Fehler gemacht hab, bin ja auch nur ein Mensch ;)
Übrigens: Sonnenaufgang ist jetzt um 7:57 und Sonnenuntergang um 15:44. Pro Tag verlieren wir in etwa 6 Minuten Tageslicht. (Vergleich Linz 7:02 und Untergang 16:31 und. ca 3-4 Minuten pro Tag)

Snow and Schnaps

It is snowing and finally we also had some snow on the ground. It is not that much at the moment, but enough to cover the nature in a shade of winter. It is nice and I like it. I also tried to drive today and it was ok, but not because of the Finnish Snow cleaning troop. I haven't seen even one car and the streets are not cleaned at all. No salt no pebble; maybe they wait 'til it is one meter or more, I don't know. In Austria they start to put salt on the street before it starts snowing. (picture entrance hall of the university, stolen from Paul's Blog, thanks ;) )



Nevertheless, the snow came to the right moment, because I got again a package from home. It includes four liters of real Austrian Schnaps (nuts, plum, pear, blackberry). Thanks to Max for that nice package. (Where's the Stroh Rum ?? ;) )

It was not the first package I got, I also got one from my parents with a lot of useful stuff inside. Of course a lot of chocolate, but I donate the most of it to other people, because it was just too much. But one other important thing in that package was the "Glühfix" ingredients for real Austrian Glühwein. Thx Mom and Dad!!

So I have now Schnaps and Glühwein, and the winter can come !!!! (As it already does)

St. Petersburg - Photos online

All together we have about ~1000 photos, so I decided NOT to give all of those in my online gallery. Instead i made a collection of about "only" ~300 photos which I put in my Webalbum.

This photos includes: The Russian Evening, Catherine Palace, Neva River night boat trip, St. Isaacs Cathedral, Cathedral of the Spilled blood, State Hermitage Museum and some others.

Some are a bit too dark, and maybe some are not sharp enough, sorry for that, but I think you will get a good impression of St. Petersburg.

Enjoy them !!!

St. Petersburg – Day 4 - the last day

Wake up time was at 830 o’clock. After a nice breakfast I bought me the last Souvenirs in the hotel and I also sent some postcards to Austria. (breakfast photo is from another day)


After packing my stuff, including a hotel towel (oops *g*), I went down to check-out. Nearly all were already in the bus and the other busses have already left, we still waited for four people. Two Polish guys (Bonzcek and Szimon) and two German guys were still missing. Bonczek and Szimon came after a couple of minutes, but the others didn’t, because they felt asleep again *gg*. So Robert woke them up, they hadn’t even packed their stuff so far. I think we left half an hour too late.

The next stop was at a huge supermarket in Vyborg, where we bought food and alcohol for taking home. I bought me a bottle of Vodka with two glasses and 48 0.5 litre cans of Russian beer and last but not least a carton of cigarettes. Of course this was not for me; I just took it to sell it in Finland for hopefully a good price. Whoever wants some Marlboro lights, make me an offer between 2 and 3 Euros per package.

After passing the first Russian checkpoint we came again to the border house. It was really bad, because we had three other busses before us. It took hell lot of time to pass all the checkpoints and the border, I think this time we had been checked four times.

In the No-Man’s land between the borders we had the last change to buy some stuff in a duty-free shop. They also had Finnish beer there and it cost half of the price in Finland. At the Finnish border we waited again ‘til it was our turn. Normally the Finnish border patrol check all the luggage for too much alcohol and cigarettes, but in our case they didn’t even check one bag. That’s why we were quite fast through the check.

At 19 o’clock we arrived in Lappeenranta where I have to remove a lot of frost from the glass of my car. After heading home I spent some time on my computer, but I felt asleep quite soon.

As resume I want to say:
St. Petersburg is a very beautiful town for sightseeing and clubbing. It is surely not the cheapest place in Russia, but in comparison to other countries, like Finland, it is still quite cheap. The trip was very well organized and the stuff was nice. The hotel also was nice and the people from three different universities also did their best to make this weekend to one of the best weekends in this semester. Thanks a lot!

Money I spent in 4 days:
159€ for the trip including the hotel (double room)
45€ for the Visa
82€ for the optional program (20€ Russian dinner, 20€ Catherine palace, 15€ River and canal cruise, 7€ State Hermitage, 7€ St. Isaacs, 7€ Cathedral of the Resurrection, 6€ photo admissions)
200€ for the rest, like souvenirs, clubbing, eating, alcohol, metro, and so on...

St. Petersburg – Day 3

Day number three again started at 8 o’clock. In the original schedule there would have been a bus sight-seeing tour through St. Petersburg. We (Hannes, Robert, Pia, Ayu, Iris, Esther, Felix and I) decided not to go on the bus but go on our own, because bus driving inside of the down is very annoying thing.

So we went to the metro station next to our hotel. We already heard that metro stations in St. Petersburg are very deep, but wow, this was really deep. I didn’t take time, but I think it took us some minutes with the escalator. They stations are that deep because the Neva River is very deep, and of course the metro is going under the river.

We drove to St. Peter and Pauls fortress to walk through it on our own. There again is a very nice cathredral. As I already mentioned before this was the very first building in St. Petersburg.


More information about the fortress and the included cathedral:

• St. Peter and Pauls fortress in English
• St. Peter und Paul Festung in Deutsch

Afterwards we walked to our next target, the St. Isaac’s Cathedral. On the way there we passed dozens, even hundreds of police and military men. Later we heard that they have to guard a demonstration of the communists. On the way we also passed a very nice ship which was nearly new, but build like ships from the 17th century. When I took a closer look I recognized that it was some kind of wellness and fitness area. Wow, really a good location, it looked great, but I think you have to have a lot of money to be member of that club.



It was a nice walk, but in the end we had to hurry a bit, because we wanted to join the bus group at the Cathedral for the guided tour. In the cathedral you have to pay again an extra fee of 50 Rubels to get the admission to take photos.

I will not say much about this cathedral, because the description would be always the same, because all the buildings where really amazing and impressive. Just take a look on your own in my photo gallery, as soon as the photos are online.

More information about St. Isaacs Cathedral:

• St. Isaacs Cathedral in English
• St. Isaacs Kathedrale in Deutsch

After we had lunch (170 Rubel = ~4,80€) we went to the State Hermitage Museum which is really close to the cathedral. A really huge building and it is one of the biggest museums in the world. There we are, jumping around again, with Hermitage in the background. Again a fee was necessary to take pictures, it was 100 Rubel, actually I was the only dumb who paid, because everybody else just took pictures without paying.




They have a lot, lot, lot, ... paintings from artists like Renoir, Leonardo da Vinci, Rembrandt, and so on.. . For me there were too much paintings *gg*, so my main interests were the building itself and sculptures and so on.. . Unfortunately, the main topic of the guided tour was the paintings, arg!! It was a bit surprising that the security measures for the paintings weren’t that obvious. If you want to ruin one, it would be no problem I think, quite strange if you look at the value of such a painting.

One painting was really interesting, it should be the most controversial painting in hermitage, because it's kind of funny, it is called "The punishment of a Hunter". On the surroundings you can see what hunters do to animals, and in the middle is the revenge of the animals.



My feet hurt like hell after the tour. We went for a coffee and after that we dropped the Ballet fans at the Mikhailovsky Theatre. No, I did not go to the Ballet.

More information about the State Hermitage Museum:

• State Hermitage Museum in English
• Eremitage Museum in Deutsch
  

At 23 o’clock it was again time to go to the nightclub. This time it was the Havana Club and we all went there by metro. This club has three dance floors. The first one was part of the Karaoke bar, the second one was for dance music and the third one was for techno music. We spent some time in each of the areas. They also had some show program, like all the clubs.

It started with a chest measurement contest for the girls. So in the end there were three girls on the stage with the biggest breasts. Unfortunately just one of those girls has also a nice face and body *gg*. They had now to dance a bit, and after that it was time to get rid of the shirts and of the bra. Unfortunately, the good looking girl decided not to take of the shirt, so we were forced to look at those ugly girls dancing barely naked, arg! Believe me, I do not want to see this again, that’s why I fled as soon as possible.

I really wanted to visit a real Russian striptease bar, but no one wanted to follow me, except Pia. Again at 3 o’clock we left the bar and took again a Lada Taxi, which cost this time 200 Rubels.

One more day to come.

St. Petersburg – Day 2

Before I describe this day, I will give you some input about St. Petersburg:

Area: 1439 km²
Inhabitants: 4.580.620 (2006)
27^th May 1703 the town was founded and the first building of the town, the St. Peter and Pauls fortress was build from “Peter the Great”. He travelled a lot through Europe, studied in the Netherlands and spent some time in Britain. He wanted to build another, better Amsterdam. That’s why St. Petersburg has a lot of water channels. In the history of architecture in St. Petersburg there has always been European influence, because they invited a lot of European architects to build their castles, cathedrals and so on.

Find more information about St. Petersburg in the following links:

• Sankt Petersburg auf Deutsch
  
• Saint Petersburg in English
  

Our day started at 8 o’clock. We had our breakfast and after that at 930 o’clock the next optional trip was scheduled. It was the guided tour to and through the Catherine palace. First of all, I was not very lucky, because I forgot my jacket in my room and there was no time left to fetch it. I was forced to spent nearly the whole day with my t-shirt and believe me, it was fucking cold. Fortunatly we spent a lot of the time on the inside.

Catherine palace was originally built from Peter the Great for his wife Katherine. Every following generation extended the building a bit with its own influence in architecture and design. This building is really very impressive as you can see on my pictures in my gallery. The tour was very interesting, even when the guide uses always the same expressions when it comes to Russian people or buildings, words like stunning, handsome, extremely beautiful and marvellous and so on... (Btw she used it all three days long) I just asked myself, where did they lose all this marvellous and stunning genes. (I make an exception for the Russian girls).

After the guided tour we could walk around on our own. Pia, Hannes, Iris and I took this chance to get in the park of the castle. There we took some funny photos, but also some nice photos from the park area. The reaction of the Russian people, when they saw me running around in a t-shirt was really funny ;) (There is also a jumping photo of me, believe it or not, but the girls will need some time to send me their photos, hurry up girls !!)

Find more information about Catherine Palace, Catherine the Great and Peter the Great:

• Catherine the Great in English
• Katharina die Große in Deutsch
• Peter the Great in English
• Peter der Große in Deutsch
• Catherine Palace in English
• Katharinen Palast in Deutsch
  

After Catherine palace we went to the “Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ” (in German: Christi-Auferstehungs Kirche) but mostly it is called the “Cathedral on the spilled blood” (in German: Blutkirche). This was the place where Alexander II of Russia was mortally wounded. They built this Russian Orthodox church at this place. From the outside it is already again very impressive and on the inside even more. I can’t describe all the details; see it on your own in my gallery. (For photos you have to pay additionally 50 rubels ~1,5€.


More information on the cathedral:

• Church of the Savior on Blood in English
  
• Blutkirche
  

There was also a big souvenir marketplace nearby, so we went after lunch to this market to get some souvenirs. When Russian see tourists, they always start with extremely high prices. For example, I wanted to buy me a “Flachmann” and the seller started with 1000 Rubels (~30€). Even in Austria you will never pay this. That’s why you have always to bargain for a good price. In the end I paid 1000 Rubels for two. (In my opinion, it would have been possible to bargain even a lower price) On that day I bought nothing else.

After that we went back to the Hotel to prepare ourselves (for example getting a jacket) for the night cruise on the Neva River. (Another optional program)
We already had an idea of how great St. Petersburg is at night, but it was even better. Under the influence of Russian Champagne and Russian Vodka, the lights of the buildings along the river were even more intensive. I really loved that trip and in my opinion, if I have to decide which the best part of the weekend was, it would have been this boat trip. (Sorry no good photo at the moment, I will wait for the girls before I post one)

It was Friday night, so after the boat trip we were dropped at the next nightclub. Let’s say only those people who were interested in spending the night in the nightclub. So I left the bus ;) and went to the nightclub Revolution. The entry fee was about 250 Rubels (~7,5€). In every nightclub they have some kind of face control, that doesn’t mean that you have to look good, but if you are already too drunk, you will not be allowed to enter. The beer cost 90 Rubels (~2,7€). We met a nice couple from Austria at the bar (where else ;) ) from Pichl bei Wels. What is located really near to my hometown. The club has two different dance floors and a chill-out zone. It was a good evening, at 3 o’clock we went home, and that for we took the first time a “Lada-Taxi”.

So, what is a Lada-Taxi? In St. Petersburg everybody can effort a Taxi license, because it doesn’t cost much, so they main idea was, hey why shouldn’t everyone be able to play taxi. Therefore you just hold your hand with the thumb to the floor straight, and someone will stop to bring you where ever you want. At the beginning we were sceptic about this, but in the end it was an experience and really funny. It will not even take a minute ‘til someone stops. First you have to make clear where you want to go, then you ask for the price and of course bargain again. Take only taxis where only one person is inside, that’s the main rule, you shouldn’t take the “official” taxis. On this evening we paid 150 Rubels for the whole car (~4,5€). By the way, if you are afraid of St. Petersburg, you should be more afraid of the traffic then of the people, because the traffic is really really crazy !!

That was the second day, another day to come.

St. Petersburg – Day 1

Hello my friends, as you can see, I’m back from Russia. I will write one blog entry for each day of the trip, because if i put everything in one entry, it will be just too much to read at once.

Day 1:

The departure of the bus was planned for 10:30 at the university. I stood up at 8 o’clock to have no stress in the morning. I packed my stuff already on the evening before, so there should have been enough time to take a relaxing shower and so on. As you maybe can already imagine, things sometimes come other then they are planned.

I went to the shower in my shorts, no T-shirt needed. So I close the door of my room and in the same second, oooh shit, I forgot my key again (!) in my room so I was locked out for the third time in this semester. I had only my shorts and no T-shirt. Gladly I had my jacket, so I put my jacket on and walked in my shorts to the elders flat. (Because my phone was also in the room)

I rang the doorbell for about 10 minutes, nobody answered. I went to Bonczek and Martin’s place to ask for a phone to call the house elder, but he wasn’t reachable. Slowly I became a bit nervous. The next thing I tried is to call the LOAS office. Fortunately they already were at work. The woman sent me the key service. Normally you pay 4€ to the house elder if he opens the door and 15€ for the key service. After opening my door I asked the worker how much it is and he answered “nothing, it is service”, wooow, great, thanks a lot.

After that I finished my things and left with the car to the university. Roman wasn’t on that trip because he met with some friends in London. The bus trip started about 1040, because Andresz was a bit late. We shared our bus with some students from Jyväskylä university.

Until the border there was nothing special happening, we got some introduction for the border and for some other useful stuff. The Finnish border was quite fast. As you maybe already guessed, the Russian border wasn’t fast at all. You have to pass the first checkpoint, where they enter the bus and check the passports and the visa in it. After that you come to the real border. There you have to leave the bus and enter the building, where they again check the passport and the immigration paper. (Yes, you have to fill out an extra immigration paper) This check took a bit longer. After that we were ready to leave for St. Petersburg, but of course not before we passed another checkpoint where again somebody entered the bus and checked the passports and stamps again.

We arrived at the hotel about 17 o’clock and we checked in for our rooms. My roommate was Hannes, and our room had a real good view to the backyard of the hotel *g*, nevertheless the room itself was nice.

In the evening the first optional event took place, the “Russian evening” with some traditional food and of course a lot of vodka. After some introduction in “How to drink vodka” we ate a really good soup and some other stuff which I don’t remember the names. After a lot of vodka there was some live music and interaction with the guests (dancing, aso..), it was quite funny, but the last 15 minutes was just getting boring, maybe not enough vodka at all.

Everyone was quite tired, so we decided not to go to the nightclubs in the first night. I went to the hotel bar to drink a beer with James and his friend. After some talking I wanted to go to my room. On the way there I heard some noise out of one room. Some familiar voices, so I knocked on the door. It was the Polish party were I would have been invited earlier, but I didn’t know where it took place, lucky boy. I joined this party, where some of my friends from Joensuu also were guests. At about 3 in the morning I went to bed.

The first day was over, and a lot more to come.

Birthday party and first grade in LUT

First of all, happy birthday Esther !!
Thanks for the birthday party, it was a nice and comfortable evening. The topics we discussed were thrilling and funny like always. I don't really know why we always end talking about dirty stuff, weird *gg*
I hope you enjoy my self-made deep frozen cake ;)
We also tried some "glögi", which is the Finnish kind of "Glühwein/Punsch". It's very sweet and has not much alcohol, that's why you have to put some vodka in it.

HA, i got my first grade here in LUT. We got our grades in Finnish for Foreigners today. I have a 4 !! In Austria i would be a bit disappointed about that, but here in Finland it is the second best grade, so in an Austrian context it is 2. Actually I'm not very happy with it, because i wanted a 5, but it is ok, i made some stupid mistakes so i have to be punished. ;(

Weekend report and upcoming Trip

Another weekend is over and for those who don't know, we are in Finland now since 3 months and we will stay 2 months more. We didn't really celebrate the half-time so far, but i tried to combine the birthday party form Michael (Poland) last Friday with my half-time anniversary. I know that it is already more then half, but hei, there is always a reason to celebrate.

As i already mentioned there was a birthday party on Friday. Fortunately it was in our home area Karankokatu in a common room. This rooms are for rent. They include a kitchen and couches, tables and so on... It was the first time that someone rented the common room here, as far as i know, because Karankokatu is the only student home where you have to pay to rent the common room. (10€)

There where about 40 people, so you can imagine that the party was really good, i enjoyed it a lot. A lot of those 40 people went also to the nightclub or city center, but other ones, including me stood in the common room and partied on. So in the end we were about 15 people left and the party ended for me at 330. Normally the common rooms have to close at midnight, but who cares ;), one reason why the house elder was invited *gg*

On Saturday i stood up at noon, and the first thing i had to do, was getting rid of Jehovas Witnesses. I didn't know that the have them here, but as you see, they have, and they are the same annoying as they are in Austria.
The rest of the day i spent with doing nothing. Ok, not the whole day. At the evening i read a bit out of BS25999 for my pre-master project.

On Sunday i spent some time with reading about BOINC, which is our topic in Parallel Computing. I didn't really start writing so far, but i have to get some input first. Roman already started to write, but he is a bit party lazy the last days/weeks, so he has nothing else to do *gg*.
I also thought he got maybe a bit depressed, but he looks ok, but i will watch you Roman ;)
I will do more this week, because we have to finish the Seminar-work until 9.11.

What else is new? Easy, new lectures started today. I now attend "Presenting in English", "Finnish for Foreigners 2" and the ongoing lecture "Parallel Computing". As you can see, i do more then I had originally planned, I don't really now why, but hei! it's just for fun!!!

This Thursday I will go to St. Petersburg. This trip is organized by the Student-Union and a Travel agency. I'm really looking forward to this trip, i waited a long time to do this !!! And another great thing is, that my friends, or let's say some of my friends, from Joensuu are on this trip as well. GREAT!!!
So you will hear nothing from me beginning with Thursday to Sunday. I will make a report as soon as I'm back from St. Petersburg.

It's decided

Today we made the final decision. Roman and I will stay in Finland until 2.1.2008. As you can see, we will spend Christmas here and the new year in Helsinki. The main reason is of course, that some of our friends will come to stay with us in the new years night. My friends will arrive at 27.12 and Roman's will arrive at 31.12.

Everyone who wants to join us during the Christmas holidays, contact me, would be nice.

Sorry to my parents and relatives for not being at home for Christmas. There will hopefully a lot of other upcoming Christmas evenings which we can spend together, i think it will be a boring Christmas evening here, but we will handle it.

Exam week

This week is exam week. As I already mentioned in the entry before, the week were i have to study. I'm not really amused about this, but as you see, even in study abroad sometimes it is necessary to learn and work. (unfortunately)

However, today we had our first exam in Mobility Management. It was the first time that i had an exam together with a lot of students from different lectures. There wasn't only the Mobility Management exam, also six or seven others. So all together there were about 286 students.

You have to look at the table which color your exam has, and sit afterwards to a correct desk/exam. You are not allowed to bring anything except something to write. If there are other exceptions like dictionary, they are announced separately. In our case there was no exception. After the exam you have to show your student card or ID and subscribe.

One nice thing here in this university is, that you have the possibility to check all the exams from the years before online. So you get on one side a clue how the teacher used to ask, and for the lazy guys you also can guess which questions are coming. I don't trust teachers when it comes to exams, so i learned like i always do. But two days ago, we decided to check the old exams, to try one or two to check our knowledge so far. The bad thing was, the lecture is the first time in English, so we didn't find the exam on the first try. But after some translation we found it. Of course exams were in Finnish, thanks to one of my Tandem partners (Niko) this was not really a problem.

And guess what, the exam today was not really a big difference to those which are already published. ;)
So i started to write, and write and write.... After 45 minutes, i was at question 3 of 5, three people left with their MM exam. I just thought, what the fuck, i write like hell and they are already finished? But after some discussion with Flo it seems that they just don't know something and therefore left. (of course we discussed after the exam *gg*)

Normally there would be three hours time (!!!) for this exam. In a Hagenberger way we were finished after ~1,5h and left simultaneously. So in my opinion it should be ok, hope the lecturer also decides this way.

The next exam is on Friday, it is Finnish for Foreigners 1. I started studying yesterday and will continue tomorrow, maybe a bit today evening, i will see.

Short sign of life

Moi ja anteeksi!

Sorry for posting this entry so late, but there are some good reasons which i will explain later.
Before that let's have a look what I did on my weekend.
At Friday evening i was invited at Esther and Iris place, because there should be a party. So I went there with the bus and entered the flat.... ööhm, party!? *gg* there were 4 persons sitting, I thought about 10 people *gg*.
Nevertheless it was getting better and better. There were Esther, Iris, Doris (friend of Esther, from Austria but actually in Rovaniemi), two Finnish guys (sry, forgot the names already) and I.
We had a lot of fun, i just say "voi" (butter),.... it's an insider joke, so don't try to understand it.

After that party we went to the Diva (nightclub). Actually i do not like the Diva very much, but on that evening it was very funny. Of course it depended on the people in that case. On one dance floor in the Diva there was a Live Rap-Concert with a lot of different Finnish rappers. I don't like Rap music, but with the Finnish language it sound not that bad, quite funny.
But mostly we spent our time in the chilling area, where Esther and Iris practicing their kind of integrating in Finland, no it's not speaking or learning Finnish, and no it's not traveling around, there motivation is, .. get a Finnish boy and do some practical work, ok!? *gg* I would like this kind of practice with a Finnish girl, but the girls are not so easy like the Finnish boys *g*. However, it was a good night and we left the Diva about 315 with the taxi. (I will put a photo here, as soon as Iris or Esther are willing to send me one or more)

On Saturday the girls decided to eat at a Greek restaurant in the center, I was invited so joined them. The first surprise for me was in the bus. Five girls ... and me?! (Inga, Andrea, Iris, Esther and Doris) Ok, normally i have no problem with that *gg*, but i wished there was some male support when one of the girls started to talk about "Gute Zeiten, schlechte Zeiten" (german soap opera on TV). *gg*

So we arrived at the center and walked to the Greek Restaurant which is located next to the Canibalis (Metal bar). But we didn't enter, because the prices were to high for some girls. (average 16€, in my opinion, not that expensive for Finland). So we went to a Pizza/Kepab restaurant on the opposite side of the road. There they had Kepab lunch for 5€ and pizza for 7€, and wow it was a lot to eat. A really huge pizza, and the "Rula Kepab" (Dürüm) where minimum 2times bigger then in Austria. It was really good, even when the waiter wasn't that happy about working.
After that we went to the coffee house and drink some coffee. We went back by foot, it really was necessary after eating so much. We talked a lot about everything including Finland. More about my opinion on Finland later on. When we reached my home place, Esther asked me where I have my rucksack ..... OK !!! So, getting my keys for my car, driving back and fetch my rucksack from the coffee house. In Finland it is not really a problem forgetting or loosing some stuff. Finnish people are very honest. Chris for example lost his wallet with all the cards and money in it and it was no problem to get it back on the same day, even with all the money in it.

Ok, so why did it take me so long to post some new news. That's easy to explain. Because this week is exam week. In my case that means that i have two exams. Tomorrow i have my exam in Mobility Management, what is quite a lot stuff to learn, and on Friday i will have my exam in Finnish for Foreigners 1. Believe it or not, I have also to learn for FFF1, even after the EILC course. Some things are not that easy to remember after two month and there is also some new stuff which i didn't have in the EILC course, but there is also some stuff we had in EILC but we didn't have it in FFF1. That was one reason why i took FFF1 even after the EILC, because you can never know which kind of teaching the teacher in Lappeenranta is using.

So, as you can see, i have to learn, or probably i should learn, but not this evening *g*, i have to catch up with Prison Break S03E05 ;) Those who know, will understand me.

Kiitos, nuku hyvin! moi moi ja nähdään !

Tandem Afternoon - Topic: German/Austrian Cooking

Hyvää päivä!

Yesterday we had our second meeting with our "Finnish-German Tandem". Paul and I decided to cook some German and Austrian specialties. Paul made some "Reibekuchen" and I made "Apfelmus" and "Salzburger Nockerl".

Recipe for Reibekuchen

5 lbs white potatoes
4 medium yellow onions
4 eggs
1 Tbsp salt, or to taste
sunflower oil or other neutral oil for frying

Coarsely grate potatoes and onions (a food processor saves a great deal of time).
Salt the potato mixture to taste.
Drain salted grated potatoes and onions in a sieve or colander, trying to reserve as much potato starch as possible. Discard liquid.
Mix in eggs.
Pour in just enough oil to cover the bottom of a nonstick frying pan.
Place the pan over medium-high heat. When the oil is hot, drop heaping tablespoonfuls of the potato mixture into the pan and flatten.
Cook until golden-brown, approximately 3 minutes, depending on the stove. Flip and cook until the other side is also browned and crisp.
Drain on a paper towel covered plate and keep warm in the oven.
Replenish oil and repeat until all the batter is gone. Avoid using any liquid that accumulates in the bottom of the bowl.
Serve with applesauce, sour cream, or smoked salmon.

Applesauce recipe:

Apples (how much you want or need)
Cinnamon and sugar

1. peel the apples and cut them into four pieces, remove the core.
2. put some water and the apple pieces into a pan and cook them 'till they are soft.
3. crunch them
4. put cinnamon and sugar to the crunched apples and mix it.
Decide yourself how much you wanna put in, start with less and put more if needed.

Salzburger Nockerln:

There are a lot of different recipes for those, i put you one for example.

serves 4 as dessert
• 5 eggs
• ½ cup milk
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1 tablespoon Butter
• Vanilla aroma
• grated skin of ½ lemon
• less than a pinch of salt
• icing sugar

Preheat oven to 245°C or 470°F.

Divide the eggs into yolks and whites and beat the egg whites with salt and little sugar for one minute. Add rest of sugar and beat egg whites until stiff.

Put the egg yolks into a mixing bowl and add ¼ of the stiffly beaten egg whites. With a whisk mix this quite well. Add rest of egg whites, sieved flour, Vanilla and lemon skin and carefully mix this, fold it in more than mixing it.

You need a heat proofed dish in which you put in the butter and milk and let this come to a boil. Spoon 3 or 4 big dumplings onto the hot milk-butter and put it into the oven.

Bake until golden brown, this takes not more than five minutes. Sprinkle with icing sugar and serve immediately.

Ok, some of you maybe already have experienced the difficulty of Salzburger Nockerl ;)
I never did it before, so i was not expecting anything *gg*. At the end it didn't look like Salzburger Nockerl, but it was ok to eat ;)
I will give it another try soon.

The Reibekuchen and the Apfelmus was very good and only Niko and Paul had some accident with the muller (?), they needed some plaster to stop the bleeding *gg*. I think they just did it, so that i have to do all the washing afterwards, grrr.

At the end all of us were leaving with a full stomack. We are looking forward to our Finnish cooking evening, hopefully i will stay alive :)

The days before there was nothing special to report, just trying to do some useful stuff for the university, more or less with success.
I've also learned the Finnish expression for "2 left handed", but i don't remember, i will post it later.

Update: I have now the Finnish phrase, it is "peukalo keskellä kämmentä". In English it means something like "thumb in the middle of the hand" and in German as whole sentence it is "Jemand hat einen Daumen in der Mitte der Handfläche". *gg*

Nähdään !