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.