What can one learn from another people's opinions? Decide for yourself.
Here I am in Vaasa, the sunniest town of Finland, expressing my feelings towards it.
There you are wherever you are being now, forming an attitude. Let it be!
There's a squash center in our hostel and surely I decided to play squash though I've never done it before. I rented a racket and went to the sports center having carefully chosen the time when no one else was there 'cause I didn't want people to laugh at me. It was O'K at first, I undestood the idea of the game after some 10 minutes of running to and fro the squash room trying to catch the ball. I hope you know how to play squash? - You must kick the ball with your racket, it jumps back to you from the wall, you kick again and so on. Well I managed to do it right, but… There's always a big BUT in the story when I'm concerned. There were big windows of some kind with black curtains on them in the tops of the walls, just below the ceiling, and my ball fell on the window shelf somehow!!! The shelf was about 6 meters from the floor and there was no way to get there. What would you do if you were me? I tried to kick the ball off that damned shelf with my boot. It wasn't an easy job to do, I even had to find the ladder and throw the boot standing on its last step. The ladder was too short so there wasn't much help of it, but I succeed in throwing my boot ONTO THE SHELF! After this accomplishment I had to get not only the ball but also the boot from there. I had no choice except for kicking them with my other boot. By this time I was laughing so hard I couldn't stand firmly on the ladder, and since it hurt to stand on it barefoot I put it back where it belonged. (It was to hanging on the wall of a steam machine room or something like that.) Then I was throwing my only boot again and again until the ball fell down on the floor, but the boot stayed on the shelf, and I mean the second one! It happened the day before yesterday, and as things stand at present my nice white boots are standing on the shelf in the squash hall. The girl at reception promised to do something about it, and she couldn't help laughing while I was telling her what the problem was. As for me, I made a resolution that as soon as I get my boots back I'll go and play squash !!! I like the game.
We made a presentation on International Business Operations case-study of Valio's strategy. For me it was a nightmare 'cause I was late for the class as I knew I would be - I had Deutsch from 10 to 12, and the case study began at 11 a.m. Hardly had I entered the room that Dan told me to stand up and start with our speech! And I even had no copy of my text because they had forgot to print it! Well somehow I began talking and managed to make the presentation not too bad. The other students were listening and appeared to be interested in what I said; I was talking about Valio's perspectives on SPb market. The worst part was though when I finished talking and had to stand in front of the class and listen to Phil reading aloud his fragment which had been translated by me yesterday. VERY strange feeling you get when someone is reading your words - I couldn't help smiling. It must have looked stupid, but who cares?
Yesterday I gave a presentation in English Communication course. It was about my genealogy. Did I tell you about my Polish great-grandfather and my Grandpa who disappeared during the Second World War?
If not, you can read this paper on my genealogy where I described everything I learned about my ancestors. Back to the list of stories
I've got incredible experience!!! Now I added hitchhiking to the long list of my crazy adventures, and I really liked it. It gives you a sense of freedom from everything - money, distance, expectations... Hitchhiking is being free on the road to freedom, free of charge :-)
Well, let me tell you step by step. My mother and my brother came to Vaasa on Wed morning and stayed only for one day; on the next morning they left for SPb. I probably must be ashamed but in fact I'm glad they didn't stay longer. Mom never stopped telling me what to do and how to do it in the right way, she tried to clean the room, wash the dishes etc., as if I was uncapable of doing it myself. She was nervous, too, unlike her usual self, and it wasn't much of a help for communication. If she's like that when I return to Piter, I don't see how I will stand it. I already got used to being free from good advices and control! Nevertheless, it was great to see Mom and Sashka, and it was equally nice to wave them good-bye ;-)
To finish with my folks: I showed them around the town and University, and the next morning I got up at 5.30 a.m. because my brother agreed to drive us to Tampere on his way back to Russia. "Us" goes for me & Masha; there was no place for the boys in the car. About 10 a.m. we were in Tampere which is a large city, 250 km south-east from Vaasa. First we went to Eden, sort of aqua-park, with pools, waterfalls, spiral tubes, jakuzi (how do you spell it?), wave-maker and other water amusements. It's not very large but well-designed: the building has a semisphere ceiling, half of it made of glass so that you can see the sky, and the other half mirrored (the mirrors are the windows of the hotel rooms, and the guests could watch us from their apartments). For me it was a genuine paradise! I love water in all variants - I must since I'm Aquarius! (I don't believe in horoscopes but like to read them when they are favourable.) We had lots of fun, and I was brave enough to swim for a couple of minutes in the outdoor pool, with the snow around! It was smth. to remember.
After 3 hours in Eden we wanted to go to Tampere and see the centre of the city but we missed the bus. Waiting for an hour didn't sound promising, and we went to the highway (just for fun! We weren't serious about it!) and tried hitchhiking. And it worked!!! Some guy, a psychiatric nurse to-be, gave us a lift to the shopping centre in Tampere, where we got stuck for the rest of the day.
Tampere is much bigger and more "civilized" than Vaasa. There are many beautiful streets, antique-lookin buildings, a number of shops, boutiques, night clubs, bars, while in Vaasa you can visit all of them in one day without being exausted. We hadn't time to see anything but the main street and the mall (they call it Koski-keskus which means "Large shop near the deep water"). When we finally got out of there, it was about 8 p.m. and we felt it was high time to go home. We planned to take the train or bus to Vaasa but the damned Finns never appreciate working at night as well as on Sundays! The last train left at 19.15, and the bus at 18.00. Our luck. We had no choice; hitchhiking was the only way to get to Vaasa, and we went to the road again at 10 p.m. Some night it was! We waited for about 20 minutes until we hitched a lift for some 20 km to the highway E12 - it was the one leading to Vaasa. There we stood for a minute only, and another nice guy drove us to whatever-the-name-of-the-village in 100 km from Tampere. It became cold, 10 below zero, and we had to stand on the road near a gas station for 15 minutes or even more; I was shaking of cold by the time we hiched our last lift. Have you ever been in the cabine of a truck? I have now! The man who helped us was driving a Scania truck from Helsinki to Vaasa, carrying some packages. It was so exciting to watch the night road from the cabine! At first we shared a seat with Masha, and then the driver offered me to sleep on the bed in the back of the cabine, under the poster with bare-assed girls. Some experience, huh? He drove us to the easten entrance to Vaasa and gave his phone number - just in case we need him, no dirty proposals :) Then we walked on foot for half an hour, and here we are - home, sweet home...
Once upon a time I wanted to go out and get drunk because I felt so sad and lonely... I didn't feel much desire to persuade anybody to go with me and simply went to Irish bar O'Mailey's alone. So there I was sitting at the bar drinking my coffee. Before that I had already had some Befeater Gin at home - I wanted to get drunk really badly; I guess I'm starting to have alcohol problems, and I don't like it. It hasn't gone far enough to seek for AAA help :) but I better stop drinking every day (I mean night), what do you think?
O'K, back to the story. In the bar I spotted an extraordinary good-looking guy wearing a black coat over the 3-piece suit, and a HAT! He smoke a cigar and looked at me sideways. I answered his glances until he moved closer to me and began talking. It wasn't my first success with men, when I made someone do what I wanted from him, but it happened so smoothly and dreamlike, as if in some 30s movie! We sat at the table near the window, with a candle on it, he bought me Bailey's and finally introduced himself. He's 26, working as coast guard in Finnish marine service, and not an interesting personality at all. Disappointed? That's what I felt. Good looks isn't everything, is it? I couldn't think of a topic to talk about, and felt more and more uptight.
Later we went to Fontana disco where I indulged in dancing, first alone, then with Kiiku (stupid name; but his Swedish friend has got even worse one - Nakki, like Finnish condoms brandname). That was the climax moment of the night! Every man in the club was staring at me while I danced, I could feel it with my skin, and there was tension in the air when I went away from the dance floor. Kiiku called me "Dance queen" and other names like this, and I deserved it 'cause compared with Finnish girls I really DO dance well! Maybe I should try myself in strip dancing or smth. of the kind since I enjoy people looking at me, admiring me, wanting me! :-) What a show-girl I could've made... It's that little exghibitionist inside me talking :) but the voice of reason is always stronger. I told Kiiku I didn't want to go to his place for sex, and he had to accept my "no" for an answer. However, I considered his proposal with all seriousness I could gather in my drunk mind; I decided against sleeping with him for 2 reasons: 1) I didn't much like his way of kissing; 2) Despite my "emancipated" behavoiur, I still believe in meeting someone special with whom I won't have to decide anything, with whom it will be only natural to do what both of us will want to do. I know I'm a fool, a litlle naive 20-year-old girl, but I can't help it. I don't want sex without at least pretention of love! That's it.
Last evening we spent on Silja Line ferry boat. It was meant as a trip to Umea (Sweden) and back again without leaving the boat but you can guess that the temptation to put a foot down on Swedish earth was too strong. Surely we went out in Umea but there was nothing much to see, just the smoking pipes of some plant and a shop where I stole a sticker with heraldic stamps of Swedish provinces :)
Well, as for the ferry, it wasn't as big as ones which go to Stockholm from Helsinki; ours had only 8 floors where we found cinema, a couple of buffets, bar with disco "dlja teh, komu za...", sauna+pool and of course duty-free shop. The latter is the main (the only?) thing which attracts travellers 'cause spirits and cosmetics are much cheaper there than acoast. I spent about an hour in make-up section trying on various cosmetics by Clinique (9.9 on the scale of 10!), Estee Lauder (9), Ive Saint Lauren (7?), Revlon (5), Lumene (7 for design, 10 for prices :), ? for quality - I'll find out later when using covering stick, eye cream and tonic which I bought) etc. That seemes to be the best moment of the evening-night (17.00 - 02.00) if not counting the excitiement of being in Sweden without visas (Phil even without passport!). Oh, and certainly the cinema is worth mentioning: it's situated in the frontal part of the lowest deck, and if you think of the season we have now, you can imagine the sound of breaking ice as the boat moves... No you can't, one must be there to feel the harshness and majesty of northern nature while hearing CRACK! and realizing he's caught within this man-made large steel can and there's nothing he can do against the terrific/terrifying force of ice IF... Remember Titanic? :) I also found it breath-taking to watch the partially ice-covered sea from the upper deck, by sun shining as well as at night when the line between water and sky becomes invisible. Fuck! I've always HATED the descriptions of nature in the books, and what am I doing now??? My apologies to the faithful reader ;-)
To finish with this ferry (not to be mistaken for "fairy") story, I'll tell you WHY we decided to go to Umea. We wanted to buy cheap beer, that's the reason. And we did. About 200 cans of black KOFF. No kidding! Don't worry, it's not all for us, the most part goes to international students - Michael, Mariel, Kim & C. But you just think of the picture of us carrying these blocks of beer! Phil nearly fell down with the cart on the moving staircase, and we couldn't even help him, so hard we laughed. Now, as you can calculate, we were home at 3 a.m., asleep at 4 and up at 7.30 in the morning! But the experience was certainly worth a night's sleep.
Last night I went to the techno party at Leipatehdas and danced my brains out! Finally I came to understanding why some people love this music. Personally I don't think techno should be called "music" - it's sort of a drug which you take through your ears directly to your mind instead of breathing in or injecting into veins. Anyway, it works perfectly well on me - I completely forgot myself, dissolved my Self in moving-moving-moving-never stopping-dancing-thinking of nothing, and that was great! The party was organized by students, so there was local DJ, lots of technical devices (even computers) for video and light effects, self-made video clips were on the wall screen and WEIRD people were present. You just imagine, I met there my teacher of CMC Kata who wore red sparkling pants! How can anything like this incident happen in Russia? Oh, but this one is more like teenagers' behaviour in St.Petersburg nightclubs: one guy climbed on pile of boxes, put his trousers down and danced there below the ceiling (and boy was he FAT!). I enjoyed every minute of the night. Today my feet ache, I have difficulties in controlling my body, and I can hardly keep myself from falling asleep (4 hours of sleep is never enough for me). But the game was certainly worth the candles.
I'm so excited now I can barely press the right keys! I've just been on the press conference in the Uni where the Finnish President communicated with the students, and I asked him a question! You only imagine me talking to the President!!! I addressed him in English, of course, for my Finnish is limited to the numbers and greetings. What I said was this:
"Mr.President, I apologise for not speaking Finnish because I'm an exchange student from St.Petersburg. My question is, what are your plans for the Finnish-Russian customs regulations. Is it possible that the visa requirements will be cancelled and crossing the border will be made free, like it is now between Finland and Sweden? I would appreciate your answer also in English" (the end of quotation).
Everybody was looking at me since I was the only person there speaking English (don't forget my good looks as well! :))) - I was the centre of attention, like a VIP! O'K, enough about me: the President replyed in the sense that at present the rules and regulations are as light as possible for Russian citizens, and it's unlikely for visas to be cancelled but it's no longer an obstacle for visiting Finland. I hoped for a more encouraging answer, but this one is in fact satisfactory: nowadays it's easy to get a Finnish visa though it costs FIM 100-200 :-(
What else? - The President, whatever-his-name Ahtisaari, is awfully overweighted, he can hardly walk, but has got a nice sense of humor and fluent English, what cannot be said of our own President, alas. I haven't understood a word of his speech except for the answer to my own question: the rest was in Finnish without translation. However I noticed that he was writing down the students' questions which can be an evidence of his serious attitude; otherwise, he could have been simply drawing triangles out of the boredom :-) Anyway, the public seemed to be amused by his jokes and genuinely interested in what he was telling. I quite liked Mr.Ahtisaari but even more I liked his bodyguard (cute! gorgeous!!! :)) After the conference they went to the car - Volvo 940 it was, nothing special. And I went to the computer laboratory to write this message, feeling as if floating on a cloud, so proud of myself I am! I know, I know, that's silly but I can't help it. Listen, it's not every day (not even every other day) that you get a chance to talk to a President :)))))))))))))))))))))) That's all folks!
Finns call the 1st May holiday "Vappu". I couldn't guess what it means no matter how hard I tried... The closest translation which I managed to draw out of my friends was "Labor Day" - well I rather call it Vappu. Vappu is the very day when all Finland is drunk. I mean DRUNK - everybody drinks until he rans out of money or is unable to swallow. Drunken Finns are unexpectedly nice and generous: they greet strangers on the streets like close friends and offer them drinks, talk a lot, hug and kiss each other (usually you don't even see people holding hands!). On Vappu everyone is having fun, and so was I. On Vappu eve we attended a competition in rowing (do I spell it correctly? I mean that kind of sports when people sit in the boat and try hard to get it moving faster than other boats). It was an amusing sight since most of the participants didn't know how to hold a paddle! Sometimes a boat would stop halfway to the finish point with "sportsmen" singing Finnish songs instead of paddling, and everyone was happy about it. In the evening there was a ceremony similar to American prom night one, when students gathered around a statue downtown, washed it and put a cap on its head, after which all people who graduated from high school put such caps on. The town looked like during a carnival: the streets were crowded with students wearing their university uniform - red, black, blue or white overalls - and white caps resembling some marine service hats. Even old people had these caps, no longer white but of some undefinable color, obviously having seen much since they had first been put on their owners' heads. And naturally, everyone was drunk already. For the night the most popular place was Leipatehdas - sometimes it seems to me that I actually live there! There was a big party with rock band playing and friendly faces around; I was in the company of international students. I love Finnish tradition of celebrating Vappu!