Trial and Error

September 6, 2009

Today was a very good day. I woke up and went to Rebekah’s room. She told me that she and Sarah found out that there is internet in this museum on campus that was open. We went there for a little while before we met Timo at 3:00pm for a campus tour. It brightened my day to be able to connect to people for just that little while. After our tour, we met Edgar (from Namibia in Africa) and Ville. We all went to Sale (the grocery store) and the Finnish guys were telling us how to buy things and what certain things were. They mentioned some things I was skeptical about, but also showed us where common things were. I bought some stuff to make ham and cheese sandwiches, some chips, some little soft raspberry cake cookies, CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM, and some of this strange potato bread stuff they said was good. I may try more exotic foods after I get my stipend from the school.

After the grocery store, Ville invited us to his apartment for coffee and tea. We put away our groceries and went upstairs where they had been cooking sausages and eggs and all sorts of other foods. Charles was eating a boiled egg with raw Herring on top of a piece of flat brown bread commonly used over here. They began having us try an assortment of foods. I drank this thick, sour milk and it was not my favorite thing. I also ate some of the sausage and raw Herring. Those weren’t so bad. The worst thing was this candy they had me try. It was tiny, the size of a pill and tasted like straight sulfur. I had to use my coffee to help get it down. I also tried this sort of old yogurt that was a bit sour. Naturally, they called all of this food by the Finnish names for them, but I am not so good at remembering. This boy, Tero, came in a bit later and laughed at us saying they could get us to eat anything and we would never know. He said his name with a Finnish accent and said that nobody can ever say it. So I looked at him and said it with a Finnish accent. And he shrugged his shoulders and said, “so, you’re the first one.” I think I do accents pretty well and I’m trying to say my Finnish words correctly. Then Timo wanted to show me some Suomi Rap. Suomi means Finnish… in Finnish. He told me that the kids in Finland try to be “Hip-Hoppers” and he finds it funny. He says that Suomi Rappers try to be “gangster” talking about how they are from the eastside of Helsinki. He laughed and said, “It’s not nice, but it’s nothing like Compton.” The other Finns laughed when they heard the Suomi Rap. It was about Ice Hockey Championships. The rappers were I guess talking about how good their team was. Classic Finns. We then listened to some other Finnish music and watched some Finnish short movies and movie trailers. They would describe things as, “depressing… even for a Finnish movie” implying that most Finnish entertainment is quite depressing. Donald Duck is a sort of icon for Finland. They said that Donald Duck has a brother who is always lucky and Donald tends to fail at everything so people describe Finland as the “Donald Duck”. There’s something uplifting for you! Haha

Tero decided to leave for the grocery store and asked if Rebekah and Sarah and I would like to go to Uni later. Of course, we accepted because we want to use the internet. Tero has a key to Uni because I guess he helps out or something. He actually studied abroad in Charlotte last semester, so I guess he likes those of us from Greensboro. I am having trouble remembering everybody’s name because they are so different. This one guy, though, that has been with us all day was trying to teach us how to say numbers in Finnish. I already forgot 1 through 3 and I assure you each word was about 18 letters long as most Finnish words are. Apparently it is the SECOND hardest language to learn after some form of Chinese or something. That’s always encouraging. I just ate a ham sandwich and I am waiting on Sarah to get out of the shower (she JUST got her luggage) so that we can go to Uni with Tero. Ville and Timo and the other Finnish guy invited us to go to karaoke tonight, so I may do that later. Apparently it is very funny to watch Finnish karaoke because they usually have had a lot to drink and sing very depressing songs. I thought it would be funny to sing Finnish karaoke because I would literally be up there just saying jibberish. I guess we will see though.

I just got my phone working. Eric suggested that I try some standard codes and Tero told me to try 1234... it worked! I now can call and receive calls (within Finland) and that is a relief. I will probably have to buy more minutes for it soon, though. I am excited for tomorrow's orientation and the flea market. I hope to find a bike at it. Anyways, I am keeping Tero and Sarah and Rebekah so I suppose I will write more later. It was a good full day in Finland and I am really enjoying learning words. For instance:

1 is yksi

2 is kaksi

3 is kolme

4 is neljä

5 is viisi

6 is kuusi

7 is seitsemän

8 is kahdeksan

9 is yhdeksän

10 is kymmenen

And the coolest part about this is that I learned how to type those "a"s with the dots over them. hehe!

More to come. Hei Hei (bye)