Finnish Weather

+15°C / 59°F
This is as warm as it gets in Finland, so we'll start here.
People in Spain wear winter coats and gloves.
The Finns are out in the sun, getting a tan.

+10°C / 50°F
The French are trying in vain to start their central heating.
The Finns plant flowers in their gardens.

+5°C / 41°F
Italian cars won't start.
The Finns are cruising in Cabriolets.

0°C / 32°F
Distilled water freezes.
The water in the Vanda river (in Finland) gets a little thicker.

-5°C / 23°F
People in California almost freeze to death.
The Finns have their final barbecue before winter.

-10°C / 14°F
The Brits start the heat in their houses.
The Finns start using long sleeves.

-20°C / -4°F
Eskimos hibernate.
The Finns end their Midsummer celebrations. Autumn is here.

-30°C / -22°F
People in Greece die from the cold and disappear from the face of the earth.
The Finns start drying their laundry indoors.

-40°C / -40°F
The Eiffel Tower starts cracking in the cold.
The Finns stand in line at the "grilli-kioski."

-50°C / -58°F
Polar bears start evacuating the North Pole.
The Finnish army postpones their winter survival training awaiting real winter weather.

-60°C / -76°F
Korvatunturi (Santa Claus's home) freezes.
The Finns rent a movie and stay indoors.

-70°C / -94°F
The false Santa moves south.
The Finns get frustrated since they can't store their vodka outdoors.

-183°C / -297.4°F
Microbes in food don't survive.
The Finnish cows complain that the farmers' hands are cold.

-273°C / -459.4°F
Absolute zero: all atom-based movement halts.
Finns say "Perkele, it's cold outside today."

We Survived Finnish!

Survival Finnish, that is. We took our final exam on Thursday, and, even though we both thought it was super hard - and even kind of tricky (mean!) in some places - we have not only passed, but passed with flying colors.

Nuppu, our Finnish teacher, emailed us this afternoon with our exam grades. We were surprised that she didn't email us individually - instead, she sent one email to the entire class with everyone's grades! Our grades also appear in Korppi, our online course management system, in which we can look at how well all the Survival Finnish classes did.

Laura, if you are reading this, we can converse with you in Finnish now.
Loppu hyvin, kaikki hyvin.

Our Recurring Grocery List

Every time (3 days max.)
Skim Milk
Elizabeth can go through a carton a day. Not quite, but close. Hence milk every time.
Juice
Let's just say the same applies here for Jaime. We try to limit ourselves. Really. Most of the time. Sometimes. Occasionally. But the Light Orange-Raspberry juice - no sugar added! - is soooo addicting.
Chicken in sauce
We don't know what the sauce is. But it makes cooking chicken super easy for Elizabeth, cause it's already marinated.

Every other time (5 days max.)
Tortillas
Jaime is the tortilla queen. Elizabeth is the napkin queen, but that's another story.
Chocolate
Well duh.
Cheddar cheese
In the Venn Diagram of Cheese Preference, this is where we overlap. And American. Too bad they don't have that here.
Onions
We're not really sure how we go through so many of these, but we always have to buy a few more.
Salsa
We're not really sure about this one either. Suffice it to say that it goes "missing" relatively often.
Muesli
The staple food. Elizabeth loves it with yogurt and frozen fruit. Jaime likes it with milk. This is our hot meal replacement.
Frozen pulla
PULLA PULLA PULLA PULLA ROCKIN EVERYWHERE

Operation: Paketti

TIME: 1521
LOCATION: 2 krs. Vasarakatu 8 40320 Jyväskylä Finland
AGENTS INVOLVED: ElmaCott, JachGres
MISSION PRIORITY: Retrieve Package from Hostage Situation
TARGET COORDINATES: 62N15'37.86" 25E46'21.52"
ENEMY IDENTIFICATION: Tulli/Customs
ENEMY CLASSIFICATION: Hostile
LENGTH OF MISSION: 2 hrs.

DESCRIPTION OF MISSION:
Ransom note was delivered to agent headquarters 3-4 days prior to reconnaissance. The note was encrypted; translation was obtained through Finnish special agent LauraGoddess. Note revealed that a gift from the mother of agent ElmaCott was being held hostage by the Finnish Customs office. The office was identified as hostile, requiring agents to penetrate the compound by a designated date in order to negotiate the return of the hostage. Reconnaissance was completed on 20-02-2009, and attack routes were established, though target location eluded agents. Operation began at 1400 hrs., and agents successfully located and stormed building in which package was being held hostage. Agents discarded arctic gear upon entry due to toxic heat conditions, and proceeded to the second level, where they encountered the enemy. Negotiations ensued; the enemy demanded identification, and required limited search of the package in question. Release papers were signed, and the enemy relinquished its hostage. During interrogation, the enemy confessed that the crime was of a random nature; neither agents nor contents of the package were being profiled. Package measurements were underestimated, causing agents to resort to guerrilla tactics of transport by hand. Having attained the target, agents returned to central base for refueling.

MISSION STATUS: COMPLETE

Satellite Map of Target Location

Note here that we get significantly more creative as schoolwork looms. For the record, our Finnish exam is at 2:00 - sorry, fourteen hundred hours - tomorrow. Wish us luck!

Our Travel Plans

Over the last week, we have been working on solidifying our travel plans for the next two months. Our plans so far include:

March 13 - 18: Dublin, Ireland
We are planning to meet up here with some friends from UNC Asheville to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. We're super excited because we got plane tickets for approximately $80 each, direct from Finland to Ireland.

March 23 - 29: Lapland, Northern Finland
This is a student trip hosted by the Erasmus Student Network. Our itinerary includes visiting the Kemi Snow Castle, the REAL Santa's village (Rovaniemi), going to a reindeer farm, taking an artic survival course (ice fishing, igloo building, and snowshoeing), dogsledding, and, if we're lucky, seeing the Northern Lights!
April 3 - 15: TBA
Our families are coming to visit!
We're not sure where we'll be going yet, but we're sure it will be fun.

     
Elizabeth's typical family portrait                         Jaime's family "tree"... har har

April 16 - 20: St. Petersburg, Russia
This is another student trip hosted by ESN. We got lucky and the earlier trip got cancelled, which means that we're getting a 5-day trip during a more convenient time for our original 4-day price! We'll get to visit Catherine's Palace, Church on Spilt Blood, Peter and Paul Fortress, St. Isaac's Cathedral, the State Hermitage Museum, and the Winterpalace. Unfortunately, for Americans, the Russian visa requirements are not only complicated but excessively pricey when compared to other countries. We think Russia still harbors a grudge...



All this being said, we are WIDE OPEN for May, with sparse class activity, and would love visitors and/or travel companions!! If you would like to submit an application to travel with us, please let us know your suggested destination, intended timetable, and how much you're willing to spend on us. We'll get back to you in 5-10 business days. Unless you're Russian, in which case it'll be at least a month and cost you 10 euros.

Nalle

We would like to introduce you to our newest flatmate, Nalle. He arrived week or a so ago in a little brown box, sent to us as part of a project that one of the girls in our sorority is doing for class. Our responsibility, as we have unofficially adopted him, is to allow him to accompany us on all our best adventures, and document them both in photos and his little journal.

Nalle is a 3-inch yellow floral Vera Bradley patterned teddy bear. We have decided that Nalle must be the resident man, to balance out the lack of testosterone in the flat. It is Nalle's duty to squish any bugs, should we find any, change the lightbulbs, bring home the bacon, and talk incessantly about rugby (though we're not sure his plushy physique is really cut out for the sport).

Nalle arrived to us nameless, and of course, he needed a Finnish name. Not being particularly familiar with Finnish names, we approached Nuppu, our Finnish teacher, who most conveniently has a 2-year old child. She knew what to name him immediately: "Nalle" is the Finnish equivalent of "Teddy."

Despite being a bear, Nalle was not quite used to the chilly climate, so Elizabeth revved up her knitting skills to make the tiniest hat and scarf ever. Incidentally, the only color of yarn she had was purple, so Nalle is looking especially masculine in his fringed purple scarf and pom-pommed purple hat.

Jach and Elma

As with most universities, JYU's online course management system has assigned us usernames. Korppi has decided that we should be called: jachgres and elmacott. These names are an endless source of entertainment. Also of amusement to us are the following pictures:









We are sharing this with you under the strictest of confidence.

happy 21st birthday to me :)

so today elizabeth and i went in the morning to the posti to get my package from my mom but unforunately i was looking at the phone number hours instead of the posti hours and the posti was actually not open on saturday. so then we went to lunch at a cute little cafe that served pasta and salad and had this strange water that had berries floating in it. elizabeth got carbonara pasta and i got "forest light" pasta (which turned out to be random (but good) vegetable) pasta, and they were both very good. the cafe had a really nice cozy ambiance.

after that, we went grocery shopping - elizabeth insisted on buying birthday cake, definitely a good call on her part. we actually just had some of the cake, called "zebra cake," which is not like little debra zebra cakes but more like marble pound cake rolled up with chocolate frosting filling. we also went to our favorite candy store.

we both came back to the flat and had a rest time, then elizabeth cooked us a yummy dinner, besides the rice, which she made me cook. i can't figure out why, though, because not only is rice easy but i also spilled it in the sink whilst attempting to drain it with the pot lid because we don't have a calender. i would feel stupider about this except elizabeth totally did it before with the corn. that was funny too. then we had a race to see if i could clean up the kitchen faster or if she could shower faster (but we both loose if she gets hurt so she couldn't hurt herself.) we were getting ready to go out to the nightclub, kharma, which i had never been to before but elizabeth enjoyed.

elizabeth won our race even though i maintain that i won by simple fact that it is my birthday. (was my birthday, since it's past 5am in the morning.) then we had to call a taxi (taksi) to our room but couldn't find a number, so i was sneaky and called a hotel and convinced them to give me a taxi number, which worked. the club, kharma, was pretty inside with comfortable couch seats around one of the dance floors, and several dance floors. obviously, at elizabeth's provocation and my complete agreement, elizabeth told the bartender that it was my birthday and we needed something fruity and sweet. she made a great cocktail and we had several.

i hope this post does not sound as completley ridicouls as elizabeth's laughter is making it sound. but i blame most of this on her because she treated for first drinks and also because she won't let me fix any of my mistakes. actually mostly she won't point out any of my mistakes. i appear to be a bit tipsy lol.

i have had a very good birthday and i am done with this post now. :)

Package Hunt

Seeing as the mail slots in our apartment are only large enough to, at most, slip a manila envelope through, we must be present at the apartment to receive packages. Unfortunately, one is never informed of when one will be receiving a visit from the package person. (And, even more unfortunately, one occasionally does have class, -cough- Patricia, -cough- Cynthia.) Therefore, over the past week, both Elizabeth and Jaime received slips informing us that we have gotten packages.


Love of our lives
On Thursday morning, we attended our final two hours of class, took part in giving our final 10-minute group presentations, said goodbye to our professor, and thereby successfully completed (at least, we hope) our first Psychology class. Upon leaving, we caught the bus downtown to the tourist office, where we needed to request directions. Though Jaime's package was simply being held at the downtown Posti, aka post office, Elizabeth's package, for some reason, had been detained by Customs, and sent to a location that not even Laura knew.

Once in the tourist office, we spoke to a couple of Finnish ladies who were very friendly but a bit oblivious of time. When we first entered the office it was around 2:10, and they pointed to us that we could take the 2:30 bus, but they happened to chat in Finnish through the half hour, so we had to take the 3:00 instead. This wouldn't have been of concern to us, except, in line with most crazy Finnish business hours, Customs closed at 3:30.

So finally, we caught the 25K, a bus we haven't taken yet, to the northeastern side of town. We should mention here that we live in the southwestern part of town, so this was about as far away from our apartment in Jyväskylä as we could get.
It was already around 3, and though the ladies at the tourist office said we had to walk 2 blocks down, 1 block left, and then 2 blocks up, we figured we would try to cut through. As pointed out by one of the girls in our Cultural Psychology class, Finnish people tend to see rules as things that one simply follows for the good of everyone. However, we are rebellious Americans, so we decided to slip behind a large grocery store.

After walking all the way through a long parking lot, weaving our way around huge delivery trucks, and picking our way down a somewhat-icy hill, we were finally confronted with a 7-foot chain link fence. At this point, it was 3:15, and we knew that Customs, while only meters away, was on the second floor of a yet-to-be-identified building. We would never make it there walking on time, especially given Elizabeth's foot, and after 2 bus rides, a discussion with the bus driver, half an hour in the tourist office, and one very long and fast-paced trek, there was no way we were giving up. And suddenly, there it was: opportunity in the form of a particularly high pile of snow and an extra diagonal beam running up to the corner of the fence.

Elizabeth slipped her student ID and package slip over to Jaime, who tightened her backpack straps, pulled on her hat and scarf, and prepared herself to vault over 7 feet of wire fence. Jaime fought her way up the snow pile, and attempted to chuck her backpack over the fence, though Elizabeth quickly called out that it might be a good idea to make sure Jaime herself could make it over first before sacrificing all her worldly belongings to a large snow drift. Jaime grabbed the wire links and pulled herself up and over, a clumsy affair with no less than 5 layers of clothing, 3-pound snow boots, and a great sense of urgency. Feeling a moment of ecstasy upon having made it to the top, Jaime paused for just a second, and then made her way down the other side. She hadn't realized yet that anything was wrong...

Elizabeth picked up Jaime's backpack, watching as she began climbing the chain links up to the top. Suspended momentarily, face triumphant, Jaime swung her leg over, only to have the material of her pants leg catch the rough metal link ends at the upper edge of the fence. Momentum carrying her over, Jaime slid down the fence, grasping for handholds, as the fabric of her cloth pants stretched further and further, finally tearing as she neared the ground, and leaving a little 2-inch flag of black cloth still attached to the top of the fence.

Realizing that she was now firmly on the ground, Jaime recognized that she'd heard a ripping sound, and looked around to see what was wrong... which was when she noticed the tear in her pants and Elizabeth laughing. We were both dying of laughter and Jaime was rather thankful that she had two layers of pants on, but there was no time to waste. Elizabeth threw Jaime's backpack to her, and, seeing the street only a few meters away, Jaime took off at a run.

Sadly, despite our best efforts, we were unable to find Customs in time. As a matter of fact, despite asking multiple Finns (who were very eager to help but kept directing us back to the Posti), we were unable to find Customs, period. We have now spent a half-hour session on Google Maps, and feel slightly more confident. Also, we plan to give ourselves plenty of time to find Customs on our next journey.

Still, you can't say that we didn't try.

PS - Don't let this post deter you from sending us packages! TOTALLY WORTH IT. :)

Photos! Mattilaniemi and Jyväsjärvi

A few of the bikes parked outside the Mattilaniemi campus buildings... there are actually way more that you can't even see. The last time we saw this many bikes was when we visited Elizabeth's Momma at a Cycle North Carolina ride


Looking up on the bridge over Jyväsjärvi


The lakeshore... you can't tell where the land ends and water (ice) begins


Part of the 3-mile ice skating circuit around the lake


Another view of the bridge over Jyväsjärvi lake, facing the third JYU campus


Closer...


Keskusta skyline (Keskusta is the "City Center," our "downtown" equivalent)


People walk across the lake between the two campuses, and to get home from class!

Our first Psychology class

Today was our second day of "real class!" By which we mean "3 credits for 16 contact hours of class," by which we mean "such a win."

The class is called Cultural Human Development and is taught by a visiting professor from Portugal. He is super laid back and our final exam is actually a 15-minute group presentation. We really can't rave any more about this class; it's relaxed, the subject is interesting, and our professor is entertaining (especially since we are pronunciation advisers for particularly tricky English words.) We have students in the class from countries all over the world (but mainly Europe) and it's neat to be able to talk about culture, cultural differences, and our perspectives with them. Though we had a hard time trying to explain the apparently very American institution of small talk!

We were actually a little early getting to class today, so we went outside and took a few photos. Our Psychology classes are on a different campus - the Mattilaniemi campus - in a different part of the city than our Finnish classes. The Mattilaniemi campus sits right on the shore of Jyväsjärvi, the huge lake on the east side of the city, and there's a bridge that spans across it to the University of Jyväskylä's third campus. There are also always TONS of bikes parked outside.

Legends of the Hidden Mailbox

Mailboxes: an ordinary, everyday object. Useful, but not meriting a terrific amount of cognition on one's part. That is, until you can't find one.

It was a dark and snowy day. Jaime and Elizabeth were just getting out of Survival Finnish class and were ready to set out on their next objective: to find a mailbox. Slowly making their way down the icy hill, not expecting the mission to be difficult, they kept their eyes peeled for a chest high, blue letter repository. Nevertheless, it was no where to be found. Exceedingly distressed, they turned to their only available option: they returned home, disappointed. Next Finnish class, they bashfully approached their Finnish professor, Nuppu, with the slightly embarrassing question.

As it turns out, mailboxes in Finland are not chest high, blue letter repositories. Instead, they are belly high, orange letter repositories.


Caution: Events in story may be more exaggerated than they appear.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Hyvää Ystävänpäivää:
Happy Valentine's Day from Finland!

Here, Valentine's Day is more about friendship than romance;
the compound word "ystävänpäivää" literally means "friend day."

Thanks for being such good friends and keeping up with our adventures!!!

Hope you have a wonderful Valentine's Day!
♥♥♥

Mystery Meat

In our quest to expand our dinner menu, we look for chicken that comes in assorted sauces, meaning more flavorful meat with less work for us. Unfortunately, recently, Jaime went to the packaged meat aisle only to discover that almost all the chicken packages were open and leaking, and had to search elsewhere. Resorting to the meat counter, she ordered, with broken Finnish and pointing, two filets of "broileri," the word that's on many of our chicken packages. And they did look like chicken, despite being rolled up and spiked with a toothpick. Jaime just figured that was a pretty way of presenting them.

Later that evening, it was Elizabeth's turn to cook dinner (if Jaime has her way it's always Elizabeth's turn to cook dinner hehehe - and conveniently our kitchen only has room for one chef), and she began setting up, chopping vegetables and getting out pans, preparing the broth for the risotto and beginning to sauté the onions. As the vegetables cooked and the risotto simmered, Elizabeth headed over to the refrigerator to pull out the alleged chicken-in-sauce. Setting the paper-wrapped package on the counter, she turned back to her other work. Several minutes later, it was finally time, and she unwrapped the small package to reveal two little red-sauced cutlets of... something. With some kind of filling. White filling, maybe the consistency of soft cream cheese. It totally looked like a meat canoli.

Perplexed by this foreign style of meat preparation, Elizabeth took a moment to consider her options: 1. slip mystery meat back into fridge for Jaime's night, and try again, or 2. stay the course. Given the fact that there was no other unfrozen protein source available, Elizabeth resigned herself to option 2: determined not to let the meat get the best of her, and not being the daughter of a restaurant manager for nothing, Elizabeth cooked it. And cooked it. And, finally, cut it, to reveal... pork?

Actually, we really just hope it's pork. We have no idea. Laura, if you're reading this, please assure us that we did not accidentally ingest something icky. Though, it having tasted fine, and this having been a few nights ago, we think we're okay. (We made the executive decision not to write about this until we were sure we would survive.)

Not Quite Finnished

Deciding it was about time that we experienced true Finnish fast food, we caught a bus downtown this afternoon to our local Hesburger. We ordered in partial Finnish, and the cashiers seemed to think it was kind of cute that we tried. Elizabeth got an oblong but otherwise fairly normal chicken sandwich; Jaime got a Greek salad with some unexpected (but good) sundried tomatoes and the ubiquitous clone feta cubes, reminiscent of the ubiquitous clone meatballs. Also, Elizabeth tried to use the ketchup machine, but it popped and spurted air at her so she (probably wisely) slowly backed away and left it alone.

After feeling a little more Finnish, being full of Finnish fast food, we headed to the Sokos, our local department store, to find the really cute little reflectors that we've seen around. Thanks to a little Wikipedia research, we have discovered that these reflectors, about the size of a large keychain and typically attached to one's jacket with a safety pin and string, are, in fact, a purely Finnish invention. They were created by a farmer with the intent of protecting his horses, and are now a pedestrian safety-device-slash-fashion-statement, coming in fun shapes and colors such as Elizabeth's pretty little blue-striped butterfly and Jaime's cute little silver ghost.

But the Sokos is a very large department store, with 3 floors and departments ranging from a little cafe to a large magazine section, and unfortunately we had no idea where to go about looking for these reflectors. We've had a little (this is an understatement) difficulty with getting directions within the Sokos in the past, but eventually we decided to give in and ask the very-nice-but-slightly-directionally-challenged cashiers to point us toward the reflectors anyway. The first cashier Elizabeth asked seemed helpful, and directed us to the third floor. However, when we got there, we were promptly directed down to the first floor. Had this been an isolated incident, we probably wouldn't have taken much notice, but we think from now on we're just going to go the opposite direction of where they point us.

Anyway, as for the reflectors, according to the packaging, they're worn on the right side at about mid-thigh level. We have clipped them on at the appropriate locations and we are now both safe and Finnish-fashion-forward.

We also were able to get some new makeup for ourselves. Jaime was super excited that not only did they have makeup that matched her skin tone, which is unusual, since she's very fair but olive-skinned, but it was even not the lightest shade available! The colors out on display included just about every shade of "really pale" in existence, with soothing names like "Vanilla," "Milk," "Cream," "Neutral," and our shade, "Honey Beige." (We say "our" shade because, to both of our surprise, Elizabeth ended up being the same color too... though we've both noted that we're at our palest, and will probably be on completely opposite ends of the fairly-light-skin color spectrum come August.)

So, total Being Finnish Score? 3 out of 4. We are now reflectored, pale, and full of Hesburger... now if only we could actually pronounce Finnish words.

Go Heels and Bulldogs!

24-hr access to ESPN 360 Europe: 9 euros
Post-midnight snacks for the game: 5 euros
Elizabeth's 800mg Ibuprofen for class tomorrow: 6 euros
Staying up all night to watch Carolina beat Duke at Cameron while in Finland: Priceless

Carolina beats Duke 101-87

UNC Asheville beats Gardner-Webb 87-78

Hospital Trip #3

It's a new record: in, through, and out of the hospital in 30 minutes flat. The only minor bump along the way was when the doctor said he needed to consult a surgeon about Elizabeth's x-rays, which gave Elizabeth a little bit of a heart attack, but the surgeon cleared her to graduate from non-weight-bearing to 2 weeks of partial-weight-bearing! Yay!

Ode to Pulla

Over the years, a very select few have been granted the privilege of receiving one of our most gifted poems. They have all loved theirs (or at least they didn't complain too much), so we hope you'll enjoy this one.



O Pulla,
For 20 years I have lived without you! Such hollow existence it was,
Without your warm and sticky goo, ready at the oven's buzz.
O Pulla, your steaming folds hide such a tasty and soft filling!
And as for me, yummy Pulla? Well, I am always willing.
Your golden brown mounds of goodness, piled high inside the store,
Make me come here so often, so ready for some more.
Frozen from a plastic bag or warm from a cardboard box,
From long braided pulla ropes to short squat pulla blocks,
Fresh and new and sweet, or just a slight bit old,
O Pulla Leftovers, I'll just make sure you don't have mold.
Pulla for my breakfast, and pulla for my lunch!
Pulla for my dinner (and dessert!), and pulla for my brunch!
How will I leave thee, O Pulla, in 111 short days?
I'm afraid that rolling me out the door might be the only way…

Finnish dinner, and our first sauna

Tonight we attended a dinner party and get-together with our Finnish moms. Ritva and her husband invited us over to their house, where we had a wonderful homemade dinner, and we got to experience Finnish sauna for the very first time.

Most houses in Finland have saunas, which are small (closet-sized) wooden rooms, with two levels of wooden benches and a radiator with a bed of hot stones on top of it. The sauna is dark except for a single low light, and to create steam and heat we had to take a ladle, dip it into a bucket of water, and pour it on top of the hot stones. The heat was a little oppressive at first, but after a few minutes it became soothing, and actually enjoyable. The sauna door opened into a small shower room, where we rinsed off afterwards. Though traditional Finnish sauna is experienced naked, and we've even heard that some Finns find it awkward when people cover themselves up, we have to admit that, being Americans, we snuck in our swimsuits and towels. We are happy to report that we emerged intact and unshriveled, though a bit pink.

After that, we headed up to the dining room, where Ritva and her husband served us a delicious home-cooked meal. We've heard a lot of rumors about Finnish cuisine not being up to par, but, so far, the Finns have totally proven this wrong. (Jacques Chirac even said it was the worst in Europe, but for a man whose country eats frog legs, tongue, raw meat, and snails, we don't really know who he's trying to kid.)

Dinner started out with seeded homemade rolls and a thick, creamy sweet potato soup, then salmon with wild mushrooms, broccoli with parmesan, mashed potatoes, and a Greek salad, all with rosemary water and white wine to drink. We'd like to point out that Elizabeth doesn't normally like sweet potato much and Jaime doesn't normally like salmon or mushrooms much, and the food was still awesome. The rosemary water was really interesting, too. You couldn't taste the rosemary in the water itself, but it filled your mouth afterwards.

After that was dessert, bitter cranberries with warm white chocolate sauce to pour on them, though we quickly realized that our ratios of chocolate-to-berry should have been much heavier on the chocolate side. We thought the meal was over at that point, but then, to our surprise, out came a berry-flavored black tea and homemade pulla, really awesome Finnish cardamom pastries, accompanied by hjortronparfaittårta, really awesome Swedish cloudberry cake. (Fortunately it's also known as "Brita cake" - we don't even try to pronounce hjor... tro... something.)

All in all, our night was really enjoyable, and we really love our Finnish moms. We're already excited for next weekend, when they're taking us to the city of Jämsä. Though, they've given us a really funny dialogue to present - we think - to the Finnish-American Society there. We've got to get practicing!

One Month in Finland!

Pictures of the boreal forest surrounding our apartment.
Saturday, Feb 7th at 4:08 pm. Overcast and snowing.

Dispelling Rumors

Myth: We only get a few hours of daylight.
Fact: Though Jyväskylä gets only 5 hours of daylight in midwinter, with its shortest day being the Winter Solstice on December 21, the days lengthen rapidly into the Spring. We're currently getting about 8 hours of daylight, with sunrise around 8:30 and sunset a little past 4:30. This page has some neat graphics showing the differences in daylight times throughout the year.

Myth: We have dyed our hair blond.
Fact: Unfortunately (fortunately?), we're not quite that daring. We did want to see what we looked like blonde, though, so Jaime photoshopped that "photo" of us. Here's the real one -


Myth: We are north of the Arctic Circle.
Fact: Jyväskylä is located at 62°15'36" N latitude, which puts us solidly south of the Arctic Circle at 66°33′39″ N. We're about on par with south-central Alaska, northern Canada, most of Russia, and Iceland.

Myth: We are here on vacation.
Fact: Sadly, we had class yesterday, will have class on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and start another course on the 16th. Given, it only lasts four days, but we will (probably) have to write a lengthy paper for it.

Myth: We're planning on staying in Jyväskylä for the next four months.
Fact: Speaking of the Arctic Circle, we're working on scheduling a trip to Lapland for sometime in late February or early March. We're also signing up for a student trip to St. Petersburg, Russia in late March, and we're heading to Dublin, Ireland to meet up with friends and celebrate St. Patrick's Day!

Sanatesti

Jaime and I took our first Survival Finnish quiz on Tuesday. We might have over prepared a bit, but our teacher told us the quiz was on “vocabulary” and neglected to specify that only the food vocabulary would be tested.

Despite the confusion, we both got As… and we both missed the same questions. Neither of us could remember the word for "fish"- kala (Nuppu didn’t accept “meat”-liha instead) or correctly spell "ice cream"- jäätelö (I gave it a shot and got half credit while Jaime went with the word for dessert and got half credit too).



Outside our apartment building

On Cute Little Kids

Little kids here are the cutest thing ever. Especially toddlers. First of all, they all have giant shiny blue eyes, rosy pink cheeks, and tufts of white-blond hair that stick out from under their ridiculous amounts of snow clothing. They have bright-colored hats in every shape imaginable, bright-colored onesie snowsuits, bright-colored mittens usually bigger than their heads, and giant boots that anchor them to the ground despite the slippery ice and snow.

We’ve run across a few notables, including two little girls in hot-pink, matching snowsuits racing each other home down the icy sidewalk the other day. Elizabeth got her hands on an especially cute one yesterday riding home on the bus; the toddler in question was sitting next to his father, jabbering away to a stranger nearby in cute high-pitched Finnish. The bus was packed, and while the dad was struggling to get down the stairs with both toddler and stroller, Elizabeth leaned over and plucked the kid off the stairs, and deposited him on the ground next to her (the dad responded with a kiitos and a grin.)

Tonight was a particularly good night for cute-Finnish-kid sightings. We tagged along with Laura to a Christian youth service – it actually turned out to be a bit more like a rock concert (which was awesome) with a sermon in the middle. There was a family sitting near us with a handful (maybe 5?) of little kids running around, doing cute things like dancing to the music and not-so-cute things like screeching to the music. Other than that, we really enjoyed the music, and Elizabeth was actually familiar with one of the songs (though they were singing it in Finnish.)

Interesting Gross Foods

Okay. We're just going to be honest here. Most of the food we've eaten has been great, but there have been a few distinct losers. These include:

Seafood Lasagna
Jaime encountered this one after a long day of walking, which was really the only reason she was okay with trying it. Shrimp, tuna, feta, swiss, and pasta is a really weird combination.

Salmiakki: Really Salty Licorice
This came in little black candy pieces about 2 centimeters in diameter, passed around by our Survival Finnish teacher. Neither of us really like licorice, but we decided we'd try it anyway. Jaime convinced Elizabeth to try it first; seeing Elizabeth's less-than-pleased expression, then Elizabeth grabbing her water bottle and swallowing the candy whole, Jaime was a little wary and tentatively licked hers before slipping it into a piece of paper destined for the trash can.

Burnt Pulla
Let's just say that Jaime may not have realized that the degrees on the oven are in Celsius, not Fahrenheit. The pulla was a bit... well. Smokey?

Becherovka
If you like bitter liquid cinnamon fire, then this liquor from the Czech Republic is for you.

Clone Meatballs
They're actually quite tasty, but we've encountered these meatballs in numerous places and they're all exactly the same. It's creepy.

Weird Dreams

Interestingly enough, within the last few days, we both have been dreaming very vividly. More specifically, dreaming about weddings... our weddings. Disastrous weddings with the predominant emotions being distress and desperation.

We don't really know what this means. Maybe we've been watching too many movies. Either that or it's the pulla.

Bus Fail

After our two successful complicated trips to the hospital, as well as plenty of simple trips downtown and to campus, we’ve been feeling pretty good about our bus-catching skills. Up until last night.

Upon her return from Paris, our favorite Finnish goddess invited us and a few other girls over to her flat for dinner yesterday. It wasn’t too far from our own apartment complex, but because we wanted to minimize Elizabeth’s walking distance, we decided to catch a bus downtown and then catch a second bus that would put us closer to Laura’s street. So we caught the 12 downtown, and went in search of the shelter where we could wait for the 15. Unfortunately, that was where our adventure began.

As it turned out, we had just – and we mean just - missed the 15, and quickly realized that we were stuck downtown for the next 40 minutes, until the next bus left. We figured, hey, it’s Saturday night, it shouldn’t be too hard to amuse ourselves for that long… except we sort of forgot Finland is weird and closes down at 6 on Saturday night. (We still aren’t sure what people do, get drunk, maybe…) Also, it was really cold. As in really really cold. As in -20.

So finally the bus came, and, as we have done several times in the past, we asked the driver to let us know when he got to our stop. We happily plopped down in a pair of seats and waited… and waited… and waited… and started noticing as the number of bus riders dwindled from 7… to 5… to 3… to us. And that we were in the middle of nowhere. And that the bus had stopped. And that the driver was poking his head around the corner and giving us a look that said, “weren’t you supposed to get off 6 stops ago?”

And that was when we realized that he didn’t speak English. He pointed to himself, and said, “suomi.” And then pointed to Jaime, who said, “englanti.” And then he laughed, and pointed to himself again. “Ahhh. No englanti.” And suddenly it made a lot of sense as to why he didn’t let us know when he’d reached our stop. But he was very nice, and thanks to him, a pair of Finnish girls riding the bus, and of course Laura, we finally found our stop.