David goes to Finland

Stockholm! Party! Life!

2008-04-17T13:16:00.004+02:00

A weekend in Stockholm - what an experience! We started from Helsinki on Thursday around 3pm with the ferry. As I already wrote, we had the best cabins down in the ship, under the car deck. No problem, at least we had a better view with our lighthouse behind the curtains than the "better" cabins with the view of rainy Helsinki. Also I could enjoy the spacious cabin with its 7.5sqm, four beds and bathroom!
The night started as expected: drunk people everywhere, a Finn playing the guitar in our cabin and party all night. In the night club it was essential to take care of the older ladies looking for us young guys ;-).

When we arrived in Stockholm, we felt like in another world. Finally again in a western city which feels like a real western city. With life, shops, a pedestrian area, places to sit and drink outside. Now I finally know why Swedish people see Finns as terribly boring while the Finns consider them as arrogant...

Staying in Stockholm, we had to compare the prices of - like every student does - alcohol. Finding a Systembolaget (the only place where it's possible to buy drinks with more than 4.5% alc) wasn't easy and getting in was even more difficult. The shop looked like after a hoarding due to an announced attack by Russia. Many (mostly affordable) drinks were out of stock, unbelievable.

At least we were lucky and got one of the last 24-packs of Tuborg, which were in a special offer that weekend, so we could start the party in the hotel.

Unfortunately, one night in Stockholm wasn't enough to explore the nightlife sufficiently. One thing I go to know were immense prices (admission for a club of around 15 EUR are pretty normal) compared to all other things in Stockholm (in general, prices were rather low, even compared to Helsinki, but thank the strong Euro for that...).

On the way back? Nothing new... Same ferry procedure as everytime. Drunk people everywhere, party and so on. Only this time, another - strange - guy from our group was arrested for the remaining time of the cruise for being a bit unruly as a passenger ;-).

Stockholm calling!

2008-04-10T10:50:00.004+02:00

Today, Thu Apr 10th, a bigger group of students will leave for Stockholm. We'll go by ferry overnight to Stockholm, stay a night there and return then again by ferry overnight - having a nice cabin which I marked in the picture with the red circle ;-). Stories will follow after the weekend!

Heute geht die Reise nach Stockholm los; mit der Fähre über Nacht, dann eine Nacht in Stockholm und wieder über Nacht retour auf der Fähre. Der rote Kreis am Bild markiert unsere Kabinen. Den gesamten Bericht gibts dann nach dem Wochenende ;-).

A nice family visit...

2008-04-10T10:38:00.007+02:00

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ENGLISH VERSION

In der Karwoche konnte ich mich über Familienbesuch freuen. Das Wiedersehen mit der gesamten Familie nach doch einer längeren Zeit war sehr nett. Das Wetter war uns zwar nicht allzu wohlgesonnen, doch machten wir das Beste daraus; machten Ausflüge nach Tallinn bei unterhaltsamen Seegang, besichtigten die nicht allzu ansprechende Insel Suomenlinna und erkundeten gemeinsam Helsinki. Alles in allem eine wunderbare gemeinsame Woche.

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Around Easter my family came for a visit; we spent a really nice week with visits to Tallinn (including heavy sea) and Suomenlinna. All in all a wonderful week after a long time without meeting my family.

Lahti, Party and a Cancellation...

2008-03-03T14:15:00.004+01:00

On Saturday February 1st a group of students decided to join the FIS worldcup competition of ski jumping in Lahti. It's only about one hour by train (strange: regardless if you take the suburban train or the IC, it takes exactly the same time) from Helsinki and on Saturday, thousand of people were supposed to be there.

We left Helsinki about 10:00am, having already nice impressions in the train. Next to me there was a 60-year-old Finn. He obviously was still (or already - at least he still was drinking from his bottle of Whiskey) completely drunk and told us several interesting facts about Finland and the differences between Finnish and Swedish girls. In fact, everybody was happy when he left the train again after 20 minutes as we got to know what "drinking passively" means.

Arriving in Lahti, we again had to accept the fact that Finland is a terrible country concerning architecture. It seems that the geographical proximity to Russia (or - looking at the buildings - still the Soviet Union) had a huge influence on the style of Finnish architecture. The center is an accumulation of DDR-looking buildings in a terrible style. Still, it's possible that this impression was only that negative because of the terrible weather (cold, humid and windy = that's what a David doesn't like at all).

Approaching to the ski jump arena, everything got better. Thousands of people were there already in the early afternoon and it seems that especially Finnish girls have bias for Austrian ski jumpers. The secondmost flag I could see was definetely the Austrian (both in the faces and in the hands). As we luckily could get some color for our faces, everybody tried best to paint the face in the colors of the favoured country. Especially mind the Slovenian flag (I painted it - doesn't it look good?)!

Later in the afternoon, everything seemed to be ready for the competition. All the nations were already presented, the jumpers already prepared themselves. We didn't really recognize that everything was already late about one hour. Rumours went round, nobody really knew what was going on. Suddenly, the jumpers walked down again. Cancelled because of crosswinds (as aviators would say) was the thing we could hear out of the loudspeakers. DAMN!

Don't worry, be happy we thought. Just skip the competition and directly go to the aftershow. Arriving there, the next problem. No more tickets available. OK, we said, that's enough for Lahti, let's go home. A party was supposed to be in Kannelmäki, organized by some exchange students. Arriving there at 10:00pm, we had the same impression again: completely crowded, in this 80sqm flat were about 120 persons, unbelievable. Still, this party was great again (like all the time in Kannelmäki) until midnight when Helsinki Police stopped everything. Unfortunately, the Austrian method (asking policemen if they want to have something to drink - or even a soup) didn't really work but at least no more consequenced followed after promising not to be that loud anymore (which was easy because most people went to the city anyway - except me and some others who don't accept the pricing policy in Helsinki on weekends).

Tallinn at it's best

2008-02-20T11:41:00.011+01:00

It's Monday. No courses taking place on Tuesday, considerations what about to do. Finally - an idea. Let's check the weather reports. Sunny all Tuesday and the rest of the week is supposed to be snowy, cold and grey. Sure, we have to seize that possibility:

GO TO TALLINN!

Only as a group of four, we decided to take the advantage of Eckeröline's special students' offer: 18 EUR for a daytrip to Tallin, that's a deal. Early in the morning we had to get up, leaving Pasila station at 6:49 - the ferry was supposed to leave at 8:00 and boarding closed 15min prior to departure. Of course, we were in the ferry already at 7:20, much too early - at that point I say "Hello" to my grandmother who definetely knows where I got that behaviour from ;-).

The weather was even better than I expected, I already could take a load of beautiful pictures on the way to Tallinn - the sunrise was impressive, except of the temperature of about -7°C, it felt like summer on a ship somewhere in the south.

After almost exactly three hours on the ferry - having fun watching about 1.500 Finns trying to make the best of the lower prices on the ship and starting drinking early in the morning - Tallinn expected us with a wonderful day making us feel like in spring.

First way after getting to the pittoresque oldtown was a restaurant - having lunch in Tallinn isn't only much cheaper than in Helsinki (and in Austria) but also much better than most of the "I can't decide between offering italian, american or spanish food so I offer everything"-restaurants in Helsinki. Shortly after finishing our meals, we started to discover the oltown; unexpectedly there wasn't that much going on in the city, not that many beautiful estonian girls as we expected were around.

The oldtown of Tallinn is mostly still unchanged, some places really have a medieval flair and this seems to be the USP for some restaurants and bars here: dining without electric light only with candles, dark bars down in the basements, some locations really offer the feeling of the ancient times.

It's unbelievable for me how fast Estonia could develop since their 2nd attempt to get indepenent in 1991. Still, the economical situation isn't really nice for most of the population, the per-capita-income it at about 10.000 EUR/year; but this doesn't really reflect the situation you can see on the streets. Nowhere before I could see so many luxurious cars compared to the total number of cars (Estonians seem to love Audi's S- and RS-series, Hummer and muscle cars while BMW isn't -unexpectedly - that popular).

In the sector of communication, every European country still has to learn a lot from Estonia. By law, every Estonian has to have free access to the internet. Unbelievable, everywhere in the city you can have free WiFi coverage and for those who don't own a computer (still, almost every Estonian does) you can find free internet terminals all over the city in post offices, cafes and shops. Under that circumstances it's no surprise for me that some users' favourite software (Skype) was created in Estonia by Estonians. They love communication, everywhere and anytime. No wonder that Estonia has one of the best-developed E-government-solutions worldwide.

After six wonderful hours in Tallinn, the ferry took us back to Helsinki giving us a marvellous view on the sunset over Tallinn. With us most of the Finns who came here in the morning went back, loaded with tons of cheap alcohol (to be honest: also we went shopping ;-)) and drunk (we weren't). Their party went on on the ship, including Karaoke singing (everybody), dancing (for those above 70 years) and the inevitable disco (for drunk Finns from 40 to 69 years). Disembarking in Helsinki, many of them weren't really able to walk in a straight line anymore.

A weekend for the orientation...

2008-02-03T21:27:00.000+01:00

After a both busy and funny week (means: university and party), 80 mostly exchange students went to an "orientation weekend" to the countryside close to Helsinki. We spent the weekend in a boy scout camp next to a lake, the beds reminded me a bit of my time in the army but still - we're in Finland - a huge sauna was available.

We started in the afternoon with a funny quiz about Finland and some strange facts here, every team had to complete those different tasks in the forest (well, was a bit childish, but we're still young). Lateron, every team had to do a roleplay about a speciality of Finland. My team (the squirrels) had to play the Finnish drinking "culture". Nothing easier than that. We just took a barkeeper, two Finns, two Italians and two girls - and you can easily show the differences in drinking (and communication) between Finns and other people. Still, this play started around 6pm, some guys already started their party in the early afternoon - everybody can imagine the noise level and perception ;-).

A must was going to the sauna after dinner, not forgetting to take a (very short) swim in the ice-covered lake next to it. It's refreshing, I have to admit (but I'm pretty sure, still nothing for my father nor my brother ;-)).

After sauna, relaxing and so on, the party started (congratulations to the guy who took one CD! We heard the same songs about 10 times) and went on until the morning. It was great fun (including a "delicious" salmiakki liquor).

Besides all positive experiences, I got one of my opinion confirmed: French people are everything I expect from them. At home arrogant and snotnosed; away from home worse than the average Ballermann-tourist from Germany. The only language is French and everybody who refuses to speak it (like I do here because I also talk English to Austrians and Germans) is not communicable. Alcoholism is also an issue with the French (three guys took 72 litres of Vodka from a trip to Tallinn), and their behaviour when wasted is comparable to Swedish people on summer holiday in Greece.

Last but not least I have a little quiz (no prizes, sorry): The guy on the last photo is actor in some teenager movies. What's his name (in those movies)?

The Freshmen's Party

2008-02-02T08:35:00.000+01:00

After a pretty "normal" and busy week, on Thursday, we new students were introduced officially into the student life of Helsinki - the Freshmen's party took place. It's not a party only for exchange students, every first-semester student has to participate (yeah, it's a kind of the same what the crazy dudes from Leoben have in the beginning of December). And most of us took part, dressed up in crazy clothes...

The event starts at around 3:00pm, the students walk around in groups of around 10 people in the center of Helsinki. In several bars, there are different activities to do (like roleplays, singing songs and such crazy stuff). The result was unbelievable: In the center, you could see many groups of students walking around (for those who don't know: the "downtown" of Helsinki is - concerning size - comparable to Graz, means rather small), singing all kinds of songs on the way to their next stations.

After completing all the stations (and getting points for the competition), all the students moved to the DTM Club (the biggest Gay-Club in Scandinavia ;-)), where the show went on. It was a really funny afternoon, evening and night - even though I had to do lots of work for university on Friday. Now, I'm just preparing for going to the countryside, me and some friends rent a little cottage by a lake and will spend the weekend there. More stories to follow ;-).

To winter or not to winter...

2008-01-24T15:21:00.000+01:00

Looking out of the window, especially the exchange students from southern countries had several nice moments today. I didn't (neither my father would, but he's in sunny Austria now). You can imagine - it started snowing. It seems as the winter finally arrived in Helsinki.

Anyway, that's not really the winter anybody may like. It's snowing, yes, some people consider that as romantic, beautiful or whatever. Actually, I haven't that much against it, but snow coming from the front (like the rain here) together with the unevitable heavy wind isn't really comfortable for me.

Strange for me was the impression seeing Finns having accidents (three accidents during a 3-minute walk home from university) with their cars (NB: 5 centimeters of snow on the street!) like usually only people from Vienna do. I thought snow shouldn't be a big problem for them, but you always learn something new here in Helsinki.

Today I signed up for the Freshmen's party next Thursday. It's a big event for students (there are no courses on Thursday and Friday!), moving around from bar to bar in crazy clothes (my team still thinks about a good theme for that) getting the drinks there almost for free. Isn't that a nice opportunity to save money? Also, I finally got my IxESN Card (International Exchange Erasmus Student Network) which means lots of dicounts in many matters of life in Helsinki (free entrance in clubs, cheaper drinks, special offers in stores, ...).

Tallinn, the sun in Helsinki and some Ice Skating...

2008-01-21T10:30:00.000+01:00

Finally, after a quite "busy" weekend, I find some time to drop some lines again. I spent the weekend with some colleagues in Tallinn and I just love this city. It offers everything you need - life works like in Scandinavian cities but there is still a kind of the influence of eastern Europe concerning the architecture and last but not least the prices ;-). Unfortunately I don't have a single picture of Tallinn, the weather was terrible and I haven't got the indoor pictures (mainly at night) yet.

Yesterday, Sunday, the weather in Helsinki seemed to be nice for the first time. Sure, I could see the sun once before but on our yesterday's way to the icering I was missing my sunglasses for the first time, I left them in the flat. It wasn't that big problem though (we left around 4pm so you can imagine for how long we could see the sun) but me without sunglasses in sunny weather - that's nearly impossible.

Ice-Skating then was a funny experience, especially seeing all the beginners fighting against the ice, the skates and themselves. Also I had problems, Finns seem to have pretty small feet. Size 46 was much too small. But after some tries also I could try iceskating for the first time (since 1995 I guess) and also playing Icehockey. Don't worry, I still have all my teeth (and the others too, at least - if they lost one - it wasn't me!).

First day at university

2008-01-15T15:49:00.000+01:00

Today I finally had my first two courses at university. Finnish for foreigners and English in international environments. Both subjects are quite nice, especially Finnish is a bit strange at the beginnning.

I'm really happy about having chosen English in international environments. We're just a very small group of ten students, all exchange students and from lots of different countries: Netherlands, France, Spain, China, Russia and Kosovo. And there will be a lot of work to do. I like that ;-)...

Tea Party

2008-01-15T12:29:00.000+01:00

Monday is good time for tee, I decided. So what to do? Invite some other students, make some tea, add rum and sugar and here you are: really nice party with nice people from many different countries!

Sunlight in Helsinki!

2008-01-14T16:15:00.000+01:00

It wasn't really a stressful day, monday the 14th of January. Most ERASMUS students had something to do at university, but I have my free day - so relaxing again before the Finnish course starting tomorrow was just perfect for me.

In the late afternoon I could imagine that it's also sometimes sunny in Finland - at least I could see the sun shining on the building next to my flat. Anyway - with that photo you can get a clue about my room's view ;-).

Exploring Helsinki

2008-01-13T16:47:00.000+01:00

After some grey days today seemed quite a nice day to explore the city by day. I got up at 12pm (yes, it was a bit longer yesterday, photos may follow ;-)) and a bigger group, mainly consisting of Dutch, French, German and Austrian students left for Helsinki downtown.

We were looking forward to slightly better weather but in downtown it was terribly windy, raining and also a bit snowing. But still +2°C even though I always think it's much colder ;-).

All in all a very nice afternoon - we went for some coffee on a sailingboat in the harbour with quite nice prices compared to the generel level of the living costs here. At least we found out there that coffee is so much cheaper than beer...

Tomorrow university should start for me but I'm one of the lucky guys: I have course on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Finally - for the first time in my university life, I can enjoy all the advantages of 4-day-weekends every week. So university life will start on Tuesday at 10:15 with the wonderful course "Finnish for exchange students". I can only say "Kipis" to that...

Arrived!

2008-01-10T13:00:00.001+01:00

Fin(n)ally I can drop some lines here. Internet access doesn't still work in my room and I finally got my user/pass for university.

The only thing I can say until now is that the first experiences are just wonderful, my roommates are from the Finland, Germany, United States and Iran. Our flat is quite nice, (still) clean and in an area the Finnish people call "concrete hell". The surrounding buildings aren't really beautiful ;-). But: shops are close, it's 75 Meters to the university and there are trains to Helsinki center every 2 minutes.

For everybody who is caring about me: You should know that I'm feeling wonderful. It couldn't be better.

More information and of course photos will follow - as soon as I have my internet access at home.

Physical preparations begin...

2007-12-28T21:21:00.000+01:00

After Xmas, I finally started the physical preparations for moving to Helsinki. I actually found out that it's not so easy to fit everything I want to take with me in the luggage I can take with me. Air Berlin limits me to 50kg in two pieces (the normal 20kg + my 30kg "golfbag", which is transported for free), but I'm still afraid there won't be enough space. Things like a coffemaker for wonderful (what else?) Espresso are essential for me but I also need to take along a Linksys WRT54GL Router for finishing my project. Space is rare, but I finally could pack my "golfbag" almost completely: 28,5kg, looks like a precision landing.

First eye-to-eye contact to HAAGA-HELIA

2007-12-14T18:54:00.000+01:00

Today Taro Karvinen, a teacher from my university in Helsinki gave a short visit to my department at university in Austria where I had the opportunity to join a workshop about "Open content in teaching" with him. What should I say? If that's the way how students are taught at HAAGA-HELIA, I look forward to my stay even more.

Welcome!

2007-12-12T15:58:00.001+01:00

Today, on this cloudy day in Graz, I finally found the time to sign the last agreements for my semester in Finland. Both universities agreed to my stay at HAAGA-HELIA, I got a - hopefully nice - flat together with 4 other students very close to Pasila campus, ERASMUS papers are all signed and accepted and last but not least, also my flight Vienna-Berlin-Helsinki is booked.

With all that done, I can go on completing my last exams until Xmas before leaving for this beautiful view. To celebrate all that, some punch is scheduled for tonight ;-).