It's over...for now.

I should be packing right now. Or finishing the paper I need to turn in before I leave in 11 hours. But I can't pack up my last things until I sort through all my random papers, including the notes I need for my essay. And I'm listening to a really good album right now, and singing along is not conducive to writing an academic essay. So it's time for one last blog.


Here is the obligatory "I can't believe it's over!" and "It went so fast!", but really, this semester flew by.  In a lot of ways I'm glad because I'm really ready to go conquer my last semester of undergrad.  And if I don't see my family soon I might cry; there's nothing like being thousands of miles away for months to make you appreciate your family.  It doesn't help that the holidays are here and I'm a sucker for family traditions.  I can't wait to go on a Christmas lights ride and probably make a fool out of myself singing at my church's Christmas Eve service (thanks a lot, Mom). I also have 4 months worth of starbucks to drink and 4 months of gossip to catch up on with my friends; luckily the two go together perfectly. Anyways, I'm very ready to go home.


Buuuuut I'm going to miss Finland a whole lot.  I'll admit that this was not my first (or second, third, or fourth) choice of place to study abroad, but it was my fifth choice and I'm infinitely glad that there was no room for me in the UK universities! I've always been really bad at stepping out of my comfort zone, and this experience   pushed me to do that in a way that no university in an English-speaking country would have.  I met some really fantastic people, and learned to slow down a little instead of always rushing around like a stupid American.  One of the biggest changes is that I'm no longer wedded to the idea of living in a big city forever.  It's funny, because all the Finnish people I met referred to Jyväskylä as a city, and it definitely is by Finnish standards, but it was a big step down from Chicago. And believe me, I miss Chicago like crazy and am super excited to be going back for one more semester. But I enjoyed this cute little city a lot.  The past week or so there has been a little Christmas market type thing set up on the main street of the city centre, and it was super cute.  Erin and I were walking past this red van the other day when Erin all of a sudden said "Oh!" and stopped.  I was confused as to what the hold up was until I looked into the van.

I don't really get it, but whatever works. The sheep seemed pretty happy to be in the van, and they certainly wouldn't come out and let me pet them, which was too bad. I only wish they had been llamas...

Finland also left me feeling really multilingual; as I've discussed (or complained about?) many times, I took both a Finnish and a Chinese class this semester.  At the end of the day, I'm glad I took them both, but it's going to be interesting to see what, if anything, I do with either of those.  It shouldn't be too hard to keep up my mad Chinese skillz in America-Chinatown anyone?- but a quick google search the other day told me that there's not a whole lot of Finnish classes offered around Chicago. I mean, voin puhua vähän suomea (I can speak a little Finnish), but that's not going to stick if I don't keep learning in some way.  So the only logical thing to do is come back to Finland, right?  Right.  I'm applying for a couple master's degree programs here and believe me, I'm as shocked about that as anyone.  But I really enjoy the culture, the country, and the language here, and I found the coolest study program.  It's in Tampere, which is a bigger city about an hour and a half from here. The program is called Peace, Mediation, and Conflict Research.  It's a multi-disciplinary program that looks at the history of conflict and lots of theories of mediation, and they want people with a bachelor's degree in psychology, which God willing I will have in 5 months.  Obviously there's a good chance that I'll do what I do best and change my mind, but at the moment it is something I could definitely see myself doing and liking a lot. 

That's probably about it for the moment (the album is over so I'm out of excuses not to write my essay), but thank you all so much for the thoughts and prayers I know you've been sending my way all semester.  I've had so many cool experiences and learned so much that a blog just doesn't cut it to explain, and if I tried to I would just ramble on all day. So instead you can find me and I can ramble at you in person!

Lost in Helsinki

This all started in April. Some of you may know about my slight crush on Adam Levine. Some of you may have never heard of Adam Levine.  But back in the spring when Erin and I were busy both adjusting to the fact that we were going to Finland and being in love with The Voice, some random googling told us that Maroon 5 was coming to Finland while we were here. It seemed serendipitous, and the plotting began. So this has been in the works for about 6 or 7 months now. Well, yesterday was the big day, and it turned out to be a much longer day than either of us expected.


Let me start by saying that Erin and I are two of the biggest planners I know.  We both like to know what's going on and have a plan at all times.  So you'd think we would have had the day planned to the minute.  But we decided that we were just going to go down to Helsinki (it's a 3 1/2 hour train ride) in the late morning and explore the city until the concert. Of course we got there and it was pouring rain and blowing wind all over the place.  So we wandered around the city center for a bit, and realized that it was very near where we had explored last month on our way to Russia. No problem, since it was gross out anyways- we found a McDonalds (one of about 12 in the city center) and I google mapped our route to the concert venue.


We set out for the venue, which was called the Cable Factory- because that's what it used to be.  Eventually we get to an incredibly shady complex of buildings that includes several people doing graffiti along a giant wall. Turns out they were allowed to be there; it was even marked on the map of the complex. We were early so we figured that there was just nobody there yet. Weelll, after about an hour more of confusion and wandering Erin found someone to ask, and learned that there are 2 places in Helsinki called the Cable Factory, and they are on opposite sides of the city. Naturally, we had gone to the wrong one. So we booked it back to the city center, quickly learned how to use the Metro system, and found the right venue. Then we waited in the cold for another 45 minutes.

Number 14: Graffiti 

Quick observation here: Finnish people really like to pregame things. And then throw their empty cans everywhere. I'm not saying all Finnish people, but these ones. Which is funny because Finland on the whole seems pretty environmentally friendly. Oh, and they also like to clap in unison, sing karaoke to house music, and pass out- all of these things I witnessed at the concert.


The show itself was great; it only started an hour after the ticket time so that was a fun wait, but once it got going it was wonderful. The opener was mediocre but not bad, and Maroon 5 was everything I dreamed of. Let me just show you my favorite video that I took. I dare you not to fall a little in love with Adam Levine.

After Adam finished conducting the audience, we peaced out and had a couple hours to kill before our 1:30am bus back to Jyväskylä.  Erin and I both really wanted to go to the well known ice bar in Helsinki so we wandered back to the city center to find it. When I say wander, at this point I mean hobble, because we had already walked several miles and then stood for 3 hours. The ice bar turned out to be really difficult to find, and was closed when we did find it- it's only open 2 days a week in the winter, probably because you could take a beer outside anywhere in Finland and make your own ice bar. So we hobbled back to the same McDonalds and killed time until about 1:10. Then we tried to find our bus. Except that clearly it wasn't that easy. We went to the wrong bus station and missed our bus. Which meant we found the correct bus station (only about a 3 minute walk from where we were- so close!) and continued killing time until 3:00am, when the next bus left. Things I learned during that time- Finland has some very drunk people, and of all the foreign languages that a man could start muttering to nobody in particular, Russian is the scariest. 


Fast forward to 7:45, and we made it back to Jyväskylä.  Then a quick bike ride home, finished some homework, took a shower, and I was ready to face the day on 2 hours of dozing. A day that included a Finnish exam. So clearly, Erin and I are magnificent planners, and I am way too old to be running around on these adventures. But I'll leave you with this and say it was worth it. :)

PS totally off topic, but it snowed for the first time the other night! It was so pretty! Until I realized that Finnish people believe neither in shoveling nor salting. But they do throw gravel down, which seems to do nothing but make my bike tires veer in even more odd directions than they usually do. And then it melted. The snow, not the gravel. That appears to be sticking around until... Spring? I may never know.