Great Accomplishments

September 7, 2009

Today was so good! I cannot wait to write about it. I woke up to see the sun shining on the building behind mine. SUNSHINE! For the first time in Oulu! At orientation, we were served tea and coffee. They called out a bunch of countries and we were supposed to stand and say “hello” in our native tongue when our country was called. We thought about saying “HOWDY!” or something ridiculous like that but when our turn came, we were so busy looking to see if there were other Americans besides us four from UNCG that we forgot to say hello at all. Turns out there were about three other Americans. One of which is in Nordic Design with me (Brittany). There were a lot from Spain and Germany and Japan… things like that.

I haven’t eaten yet today because during lunch, I was so stressed about the things I need to do and buy that I couldn’t waste time and money eating and I chose to get on my computer instead. After they finished telling us about our shy Finnish professors who think that “an Italian conversation looks like a Finnish argument”, we went downtown to the Centre.

This was the first time that many of the other architecture students had seen me since I had been hanging out mostly with Finns until today. I met Carmen and Gorka from Spain, some French girls, Maria from Ireland and some German guys as well. They were a whole lot of fun. The only problem is that I am getting better and better at other languages (Finnish and Spanish mostly) and worse and worse at English. I find myself speaking sometimes with an accent. Especially when I say the word “good”. I say it like a German would… that’s the way Finns say it too. And it’s all I hear. Plus, most of the people I talk to do not know English as a first language so I speak in ways that they can easily understand. Not grammatically correct and I do use a lot of accents when I am saying peoples’ names. It’s kind of funny. I am forgetting my American accent and it’s a little scary. I have to step aside and talk to Brittany every so often so we can regain our American-ness. Haha

After taking a bus to the Centre, we walked around and found a secondhand shop, but no bikes. Alli (my kummi) took me to the bank where I exchanged the rest of my dollars for Euros so that I have enough money to buy a bike. We then went to the PSOAS center to see if we could get my internet set up and all of the rent details and things like that for my residence. Unfortunately, we were number 89 or so and they were only on customer 68 when we went back 30 minutes before they closed, so we decided they would not have time to see us today. We then decided to go tour the architecture department. It was very cool! Nordic Design students (Me, Brittany and Maria) were down in the basement” basically on the street. The buildings were adorable and there was lots of light down there. The Monarch Architecture students were up on the top floor. I liked our studio space better.

We will probably be up there a lot to visit though. Previous exchange students had left them many bags of gifts… pillows, towels, blankets, cords, speakers, flashlights… all kinds of fun things! We, unfortunately, didn’t enter to presents. But oh well! Then Carmen, Gorka and I got on another bus and were trying to make it to Alppis secondhand store before 6pm when they closed. We got there around 5:20 and looked at a lot of bikes. Some had problems like no brakes, gears don’t work, etc. and the cheapest ones were about 60-75 Euros. I walked around for a while and looked up to see one of the workers waving at me to come over. He said, “You want to try!? I Just got it!” And I was like, “Oh, ok.” And I hopped on the bright pink bike. It rode so smooth. The gears worked. And brakes worked pretty well too. I asked him how much and he said, “65 Euros, the man just brought it”. I looked over and saw a man watching me ride the bike around. I realized that this was his bike (hopefully a daughter’s). He was smiling from ear to ear (something Finns don’t normally do haha). I told them I would take the bike and the man was so happy he went to his car and pulled out a lock and gave it to me with a set of two keys. I think he was excited that a foreigner was buying his bike… I guess I stand out that much. That took care of the next purchase I was going to make towards a bike lock. The other girls were, jealous of my bike because it was in very good condition, bright paint and worked well, and I got it for very cheap with a free lock. They all ended up getting good bikes too though, so it all worked out well. The German guys decided to introduce themselves when I was riding my little hot pink speed demon around. They thought my name was funny like Batman and rambled on and on about some famous guy with a last name of Bateman. I had no idea what they were talking about. But once they saw that, they offered to take a picture of me and my new bike (I guess my excitement showed) and I gladly agreed to.

The ride back was gorgeous. Oulu is amazing. I had never been down the bike roads before and they were simply breath-taking. It’s nothing like riding your bike in America. It feels like you are in the most gorgeous mountains (minus the hills) and there’s a light breeze blowing around the skinny green and yellow trees. I kept wanting to take pictures, but I limited myself so that I wouldn’t crash.

We rode our bikes to Prisma, which is like Wal-Mart. There, I got a few things I needed and sat outside and observed people while I waited on the others. They have these strange cages in the front next to where you park your bikes. You are supposed to put your dog in there while you shop, lock it, then come out and get your dog when you’re leaving. I guess some people carry their dogs in baskets on their bikes. It was interesting. I also just watched families. I wondered where they came from. If their dad had just gotten off of work. What it must be like to grow up as a Finn. It really has been hard for me to understand that people live here and this is the life they’ve always known. When I look at them, I think of them the way I think of Americans and I forget that they are Finns. They very well may know nothing about American life. It’s something that I found easy to understand when I was home. When all I saw of foreigners was what was on tv or in movies. But now, I’m seeing everything. And it truly is a strange feeling to feel like you are the outsider, the one who doesn’t belong in this world, in this setting. Not in a bad way. I’m just not used to being… foreign.