And it gets darker...

Fields and Farmhouse near Kuopio

So, my to do list is growing...and I'm procrastinating.  Apparently not much has changed since my undergrad...or highschool....or life inbetween.  That being said, blogging is on my list and I am currently accomplishing it.  Learning Finnish will never be off my to do list while I am here, unless by some strange event I start speaking it.  And some things just aren't getting done (room cleaning).  Oh well, here's my next (and slightly late) blog update!

Mmm...Thanksgiving dinner in the making! €8 for a pumpkin!

Since returning from Lapland, not a whole lot has happened.  A few hours of class every day, running around town, riding my bike through the cold fog, homework, and oh yes...social events.  Since I'm studying abroad, it would be irresponsible of me not to partake in social gatherings.  About a week and a half ago, April and I made a Thanksgiving dinner to share with some Finnish Friends.  It was amazing.  Last week, all the forestry students in Joensuu held a "Suomi Parti" at the local yacht club's house near the water.  "Yacht Club" makes it sound like a classy event...ummm, sure.  Dress code: anything finnish, blue and white, ridiculous, comfortable, or any of the above in any combination.  Welcome drink: vodka shot with a slice of cold hotdog on the rim, which was drizzled with hot sinappi (mustard).  Dancing was not ballroom: check out an example of the Fine Finnish Tunes that were played.  And, of course, there was a sauna.  :-)

A very colourful, slightly abandoned farmhouse

However, what was much more interesting was hunting this past weekend.  My friend Aku invited me to his home where he grew up, about 130km West of Joensuu.  I took the bus out on Friday night, we spent Saturday in the forest and came back yesterday, Sunday.  I would like to describe Saturday as the ultimate Suomi Saturday, the only thing it was missing was excessive quantities of coffee (I don't drink it).  It started with a light breakfast before sunrise, followed by a few practice rounds.

We then spent the morning trying to flush jänikset (rabbits) from the bush and into the field (preferably) where we would then (theoretically) take our shot.  It never happened, we didn't see a rabbit all day.  I did, however, run into 3 moose, but, alas we were not moose hunting.  Just before lunch, Aku tried his whistle for pyy (hazel grouse).  Success!  One came to the call and Aku got it with a clean shot.  Nice.  We made a fire (nuotio) for lunch and roasted sausages (makkara).  Oh yes, and had a celebratory beer.  After a leisurely lunch we continued to look for pyy.  We had lots of success calling them in, but they all stayed out of sight.  And they got really quiet when a hawk cruised the forest.  We also ran into a fourth moose. Very cool.  I don't think I've seen that many moose in the bush in a day in Canada.  I have seen a lot more moose in a day, but from the road, which doesn't count.  Dusk started to settle in (it was 16:30) and so we headed back for the day.

mmm....pyy for dinner this week!

There was home-made moose soup waiting for us at home, which was fantastic!  We heated the sauna up (of course) and each took a turn basking in the heat.  Finally we wrapped up the day by heading into the town of Kuopio and having a few drinks.  Definitely a fantastic metsäterapia päivää, or forest therapy day.  That was something I made up - it's not actually a thing, though it should be.  A great break from school and general daily life in Joensuu!

Fields, birch and Norway spruce.  The only thing missing from this photo is a lake...it's just to the right about 0.5km

My Fun Finnish Fact for the week is about a product that is involved in many aspects of life in Finland and has been for centuries: terva.  Tar.  In addition to what we may consider "standard" uses, in Finland it is also used in medicine, saunas, food, alcohol...skin creme...candy...Really.  Seriously.  Don't believe me?  Wikipedia will confirm. After all, "if sauna, viina, and terva don't help, the disease is surely fatal."  This past weekend I enjoyed tar in a licorice-flavored candy and as a sauna water additive.  It was...interesting.  Kind of a smokey flavour and smell...but not like wood smoke and not like burning plastic.  Apparently, the EU is trying to ban it claiming that tar is carcinogenic.  Guess what the Finn's reaction is?  Of course: the crazy Europeans don't know what they're talking about - Why are we involved with those guys anyways?  It makes me laugh a little...or at least smile to myself.

They certainly grow large carrots here!!

I've been really bad about photos recently.  I haven't gone on that many exciting adventures in the past couple of weeks and I never remember to bring my camera into town with me.  I'll spend a day and take some more photos around Joensuu before the snow flies!

North of 66° 36'

Herd crossing!

I think we have now past the point of no return on autumn weather here in Joensuu; there will be no more summer-like days occasionally to get our hopes up about a glimpse of temperatures near 10°C. Nope, it is now well into October weather where the temperatures drift between 0° and 7° with daily rain showers and possible frost.  The Finnish word for October is Lokakuu, which translates roughly to "mire moon."  All of the months end in kuu (moon), but the beginning of each month has a descriptive (or irrelevant) name for the month; October (Loka) happens to be mud, mire, or a semi-frozen dirty sleet mixture.  Nice.

Believe it or not, this is the light at noon in Ivalo.  The sun probably doesn't get more than 15 degrees above the horizon already, combined with clouds and rain make for a dark day!

Last weekend (well...Thursday to Monday) I was off on exciting adventures in Lapland (Lappi), North of the Arctic Circle.  After class on Thursday, three of us (John, his wife Emily, and I) and all our gear crammed into a tiny little Nissan Micra equipped with studded tires and headed off into the wilderness...well...sort of.  I would call it wilderness by any European standard, but we were never more than an hour from civilization.

The arctic circle and me...in Finland

The first night we rented a little cabin with its own sauna and electric heating (hooray!).  Whenever you ask if a cabin or residence is equipped with a sauna you are usually met with dumbfounded look...of course!  Every small cabin or residence is equipped with at least one sauna.  Probably more.  We woke up to a hard frost on Friday morning, which was spectacular, but a little cold - my first real sub-zero temperatures so far.

Feather-like ice crystals on the lake at sunrise (8:30am)

The skies were clear and the air was crisp as we headed out into the arctic fells (hills) for our second night in a more remote hut in a National Park.  It was an 11km hike in over gentle terrain to the day-hut that we had decided to overnight in.  The lady at the information counter discouraged us from trying to spend the night in a day hut...no sleeping spaces, others may be there, you are only really supposed to overnight in these huts if it is an emergency, you should bring a tent....However, she assured us that it was equipped with a cookstove, a woodstove, and it would provide adequate shelter if required.  So we went for it.  The hike was spectacular, the weather was fantastic, the trail was well-marked, and we were surrounded by reindeer, ptarmigans and lemmings the entire way.  We found the SMALL (10m square?) cabin (with 3 perfect built-in benches for sleeping) on the edge of a small lake without incidence and started up an outdoor fire to make dinner.  As we were finishing dinner, two people came up the trail, obviously intent on spending the night in the cabin as well.  Ok. 5 people total, the cabin is small, but it will be do-able.  Then, another 3 came up the trail, now we had a total of 8 people to accommodate in 1 small cabin...it was...cozy? It turns out it was a group of 5 international students from Joensuu (2 from Russia, 3 from Czech Republic) who were planning on camping in the park for 4 nights, but were so frozen on their first night that they re-routed to spend the weekend in huts.  It was easy to see why they froze in their tents on the first night that easily reached -5...they were equipped with jeans, t-shirts, sweaters, and summer sleeping bags.  Some had raingear, I'm not sure if others did.  I have no doubt that I was wearing more wool at one time than they all had combined.  The raingear certainly would've been handy the next morning.  We woke up to -2 and horizontal freezing rain.  ugh.  Fortunately it stopped before we set out, but it was just enough to glaze all of the rocks, boardwalks and bridges along the path to an absolutely lethal degree!

Cabin we stayed at in the park

After skating out of the park, we drove further North to the town of Inari where we were to spend the next 2 nights in a well-equipped, but off-the-grid cabin.  Sauna (of course), wood stove, outhouse, water from the nearby river, and a rowboat.  From this base we carried out our activities for the next couple of days: the local (excellent) museum on the arctic and Sámi culture, a wilderness church, and walks on nearby trails.

Sphag and such.  A pretty typical scene in Lapland....forest...lake...swamp

On the way home we stopped in Rovaniemi to attend a few mandatory tourist attractions.  The arctic circle line was the first on my priority list.  The Marttiini knife company was first on John's priority list. Fantastic.  Now...here's the fun fact: contrary to popular belief, Santa does not reside at the North Pole. Instead, Santa lives on the Arctic Circle in Rovaniemi.  It's true, I saw him with my own eyes.  Don't believe me?  I had my photo taken with him...but I can't show you because I don't have the photo...because it cost €20 at a minimum to get a copy of this photo.  I could've had a €60 poster printed.  I guess Santa has to pay his elves somehow!  The Santa village itself was a little creepy when we were there:  a large commercial setup (akin to Disney without the rides), in cold dense fog, with Christmas music drifting between the nearly abandoned buildings.  Apparently it's not Santa's busy season yet!

The wildnerness church.  They still hold midsummer services and weddings.  4.5km hike each way or a boat ride and 2.5km hike.  It certainly is scenic!

Overall, an amazing trip that was some of what I expected and more.  Some surprises for me:
- There are trees and forests all the way up past the Arctic Circle.  I was expecting tundra at some point, but never encountered it.  That being said, the tree line was about 50m above the valley bottoms and any small hill ("fell") was treeless.
-  I was hoping to see a reindeer and was surprised by their abundance.  On the road, on the mountains, in the forest, by the cabin.  They were like the UVic bunnies of the boreal.
-  Lemmings, lemmings everywhere!
- None of the buildings are very old and they're mostly constructed of wood.  Most towns and infrastructure were burnt in WWII with the retreat of Germany from Lapland in what is known as Lapland's war.
-  Some of the Reindeer management techniques as follows...

What are they doing in figure I.  ???

Ohh...that doesn't make sense....

Anyways...That was about all of the excitement in my weekend.  If you ever have the opportunity to...
1) come to Finland (preferrably while I am still here)
2) visit Lapland (the summer may be a little better, but apparently winter is spectacular too...if you don't mind aurora borealis as your main source of light....

check out the photo blog if you want more pictures!
Fun Finnish Fact: eggs come in sets of 10, not 12

Snowmobile parking outside the Lapland Shop, Inari

Things I love about Finland...and other things

Fallen leaf drifting in the reflections on the lake

Last weekend, a group of international students (including me) ventured up to Koli National Park for yet another amazing weekend.  We rented a cabin on a lakeshore that had a sauna (of course) and a rowboat.  Most of the weekend was spent taking walks along the many kilometers of trails, relaxing on the dock, sauna-ing, cooking and eating, and retrieving the sunken rowboat.  The weather worked out perfectly for us and we couldn't have asked for a more ideal autumn weekend.  There was ice on the puddles in the morning, but each day was cool, breezy and blue.  The fall colours (or Ruska) were simply fantastic.

Lakeshore walk in Koli

This week, we (April and I) had 2 visitors in town: Miriam, another transformer in our program who is studying in Freiburg; and Jorma, the program coordinator from UBC.  It was really amazing to go for dinner with these two friends, but it also had a strange feeling to it.  It is really hard to describe, but Miriam and I agreed that it happens often when you have good friends that you associate with a certain situation, then you see them in a completely different context.  The friendship hasn't changed; it's still great to see them, but it feels although there is a certain disconnect because of the huge jump in situation.  "It's soo great to see you...in Joensuu!?!?"

Sunlight droplets of melted frost on a fallen aspen leaf

I realize that I have been posting a lot of rants recently...although it may not appear this way, I really do like Finland.  Every time I meet a Finn for the first time I am asked this, and they look surprised when I say that I have enjoyed myself here so far and am looking forward to many things in the coming year.  In fact, I am already dreading leaving and moving back to Canada where everything is so...Canadian. So here is a list of a few things I have come to really enjoy about living and studying in Finland.

Sunlight birches and scots pine

Finnish: I really do enjoy learning the language.  It is so different from anything else that I know, which makes it an exciting challenge.  I also enjoy how words are constructed (ie compound words) and related to each other. For example:
ampua - to shoot
ampumahiihto - shooting skiing - biathon
ampumarata - shooting lane/track - shooting range
ampumahauta - shooting grave - trench (like from WWII)

Managed scots pine forest in the park

Forests and People: People in Finalnd (generally) are connected to the forest in some way, shape, or form.  More than 50% of the forest is privately owned by almost 1million individual land owners.  This means that almost 20% (1 in 5) of Finns actually own forest land.  In addition to this, there are forest workers, forest industry workers, recreation-ists...you would have a very hard time finding a Finn who does not have a personal connection to the forest, forest land, or forest resources.  There is a general awareness, knowledge and support for forests and the forest management that I do not see at home in Canada.


Clothing:  It's cool to be practical. Or should I say, it's warm to be practical.  Rubber boots, rainpants, touques (bipo), long underwear, woolens and other practical clothing are typically worn and not scoffed at when the weather turns inclement.  Function plays a large role in fashion as the weather gets colder and wetter.  Although I can't say that this statement is entirely true for high school girls...

The rowboat that came with the cabin took on a little water during the day.  This was the first rescue attempt.  It took perseverance and resulted in Brian losing feeling in most of his extremities, but eventually the boat was retrieved and draining safely onshore.

Sauna:  What's not to like?  Take off all your clothes and sweat it out!  Sauna temperatures here are considered nice around 80 degrees Celsius, which you may need some time to work yourself towards because it is hot.  Once you acquire a tase for hot saunas, anything else is a little weak and totally unsatisfying.  It is amazing to be in an environment where you can just relax and be too hot when it is cold and wet outside.

Lisa basking in the fall sunlight on the dock

Food:  It may help if you already have a taste for Scandinavian cooking, but I think there are some really fantastic things that are done here.  Really, it's the rye bread that I am after, but there are some other great Finnish food features too. There is cardamom in almost all sweet baked goods (buns, cinnmon rolls, cakes...).  Yogurt is consumed very regularly.  The potatoes aren't over-cooked.  BERRIES!  lingonberries, cranberries, blueberries, cloudberries; all used in baking, jams, or fresh. They sell chanterelles at the grocery store.  cheese is cheap.

Freetime...sounds like a pretty good place to be.  To bad it's 7km away!

Student Support:  This holds true for international and Finnish students alike.  Everything from subsidized meals, to finding local "friends" to help you adjust to the culture.  The Finnish system really makes an effort to see that every student has the best possible opportunities to excel in their education.

So that's a quick list of a few of the things I have really grown to appreciate over the past few weeks.  I can only guess that this list will continue to grow and develop as time goes on.

The Brazilian tastes some wild Finnish water and suffers no ill consequences.

I wrote my first exam this week, which brings me to my Fun Finnish Fact of the week.  You get multiple attempts at writing an exam.  If you fail, or are just unhappy with your mark, you can re-write the exam.  Up to 5 re-writes (I think) and then you have to re-take the course if you still haven't managed to pass.  If you pass, but want to improve your mark, they will take your best mark of all the times you have attempted to write the exam, not just the most recent one.  I like this system.  I think I will be re-writing that exam I just attempted... :-)

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!  Have a fantastic long weekend all you Canadian residents!

Some of our Koli crew. Nations represented: Germany, Ireland, Brazil (x2), Canada (x2), and Spain

Umeå and the "Suomi System"

floating bastu (Swedish Sauna) in Umeå

During our field course across Canada, I made some fantastic new friends.  We all formed a pretty close bond after 3 weeks of travelling, learning, and relaxing together.  Perhaps there may have been a few cultural evenings as well...however, since the field course has ended, we have all dispersed across Europe and Canada.  This has left me missing all the fantastic people I had gotten to know so well...

Jen, April, Robyn and I made waffles for Andreas' birthday...too bad he's in Vancouver!

A couple of weekends ago, one of my new friends, Jen, was celebrating her birthday in Umeå, Sweden and we (April and I) just had to join her...so we did!  With the help of Robyn (also in Umeå), we planned a surprise weekend for Jen and flew out to Umeå so that we could all be together for her birthday!  She was surprised. Like, REALLY, surprised.  We accosted her as she was on her way to lunch and things just picked up from there.  Biking, eating, trail running, eating, cooking, eating, sauna, eating...we had a fantastic weekend.  We were sad to have to say goodbye to Jen and Robyn again, but they promise to come to Joensuu for our birthdays (April and I are 4 days apart!).  On our return trip, April and I had 9 hours to spend in Stockholm.  What a fascinating city!  It is built on 14 islands with bridges, ferries, and tunnels connecting them.  The buildings are colourful and have beautiful architecture.  The boats have so much character...sailboats, yachts, fishing boats, house boats, new boats, old boats, wooden boats, fiberglass boats, restaurant boats, hotel boats, museum boats...the list goes on!  Finally we had to leave Stockholm and continued the long trek back to Joensuu.

I couldn't resist tweaking the steeple! (Stockholm)

It was fantastic to see friends and have a relaxing weekend, but some things about the journey were a little trying to say the least.  Allow me to introduce the "Suomi System," pronounced "SOO-oh-mee SOO-steh-meh"  aka the Finland system.  Things are done a certain way because it is the way they are done; it is simply the system. logical or not.  For example...

Along the Umeå River

In order to get to Umeå, we had to take a train to Helsinki.  A 50% discount is available to students with a students card, however due to the system of obtaining a student card, I do not yet have one.  Without a student card we are issued a certificate of student status, which provides us with a discount at the cafeteria, for tickets to shows...most places.  However, we showed up at the train station with our certificate and were told that was not sufficient.  We needed either a) a student card, or b) another form to be filled out, signed and stamped, and pay €8 for a new card specifically to prove you are a student for the railway company.  So we took the new forms and trekked back to the university to get our stamp and signature.  We had already missed the first train at this point.  Naturally, the student services office was "closed" (it was after 3pm), but the door was ajar, so April went in to investigate.  She was rapidly shooed out and scolded...we would receive no assistance that day because it was after hours, even if there was a person physically there and able to help us. We head over to the forestry building (Borealis) and April managed to sweet talk the head of forest sciences into signing and stamping these forms. Awesome.  But he then asked us about our passport photos...what??  The railway did not mention this.  Oh well, I have a camera, the computer lab has printers...this problem can be solved. Photos were taken, cropped and printed and we rush back across town to get our €8 train cards.  Our photos are rejected.  We did not follow the guidelines in the system (copies are no good).  The photo studios are closed. We end up catching a train 3 hours late for the full price. This was frustrating to say the least.

The playgrounds here are awesome...no lame, "safe," North American jungle gym

Fun Finnish Fact: Yogurt aka "Jogurtti"

You may be asking "how is yogurt a fun finnish fact?" It's true, yogurt is not unique to Finland, nor is it fun...until things go wrong.  But, before I get into how yogurt can go wrong, I'll go over some differences that I've noticed here.  Yogurt comes in cartons (just like milk!) and is measured not by grams, millilitres, or litres; instead, it is measured in kilograms. Interesting. Now, when yogurt goes wrong....

Does this really need an explanation?

April and I missed a train in Helsinki, so we had an hour to spare at 7am in Helsinki and we needed some breakfast, and lunch too for that matter.  So, being practical, we headed to the nearest grocery store (ruokakauppa) and grabbed some supplies: bread, cheese, pears, tomatos, salami, and yogurt...or so we thought.  The packages were not your standard carton, instead we chose small plastic containers with foil lids, just like individual-serving sized yogurts that you may find anywhere else I've purchased yogurt.  We didn't read the sides to check if it actually was yogurt, but it was beside all of the proper yogurt cartons and had pictures of fruit and spoonfulls of tasty-looking dairy products on the package.  Well...we got on the train and opened up our breakfast ready to dig in (with no spoons may I add...) and ended up eyeing the contents of our packages...hmmm...My product had the texture of yogurt-mucous...kind of gelatinous and slimy...maybe even stringy if you could describe yogurt that way.  April's was the opposite.  It was white...and solid...and smelt strongly of cheese, like a tub of cream cheese, but not quite.  It turns out I selected something called viili, or "long sour milk" and April had selected maidon juustoaine, or milk curds.  Interesting.

Bastu-ing in the middle of the lake.  Awesome!

Moral of the story: read the label first!! even if it is a foreign language, there's probably some sort of clue on the label as to what it is!

Friends!!