Vicerektorn

Jag var nyss jag inbjuden till universitets vicerektor. Vi drack kaffe och åt pepparkakor. Jag försökte vara representatibel. Jag svimmade nästan och den ryska jag kan var som bortblåst... Huuudå. Jag måste öva på att prata med auktoriteter.

Lite kyligt

Now we're talking! - 30 degrees! A fur coat and a fur cup wouldn't be so bad right now actually :)

Saturday I spent in a crowed shopping center. I wasn't really successfully in shopping. I was there for buying Christmas presents, but I mostly tried clothes, but I didn't buy anything. Clothes are quite expensive here. Same prices as in Europe, sometimes even more expensive I think. There are a lot of new shopping centers in the city and I don't really understand who buy all these clothes and shoes :) But I bought food from Ikea to give as presents to people here. They had glögg there. I bought two bottles and then a woman in the queue asked me if it's a good wine and I said “Yes, very good”, and she went for some more bottles. I have no idea if this is a good one, I have never tried it, I hope for her that it's a good one.

Sunday was absolutely fabulous. First fish pirogies and music at a friends parents' place. First live Russian music from an accordion from 1954 and then vinyl records from the '80 (Bad boy blues, Boney M, Modern Talking). Jessica in heaven! Then after that we went to another friends place for blins. Russian pancakes with caviar, fish, jam and also some kind of sweet Russian milk product. Delicious! This accompanied by guitar music and singing. I warned them before we started to eat, that I eat a lot of pancakes, but there were still quite many left when we had finished. So they were well prepared!

Кукушка

Some days ago I saw the Russian film Кукушка (Käki in Finnsih). It's a story about a Finnsih and a Russian solider (Ville Haapasalo plays the Finn) coming to a Lapp womans home. The Russian solider speaks in Russian, the Finn in Finnsih and the Lapp in Sami. So it's quite comic because they don't understand each other. I didn't understand everything because it was a version where they had recorded Russian speech over the Finnish and Sami. But you can still hear the other languages in the background. At least I understood more Russian than Sami. Hurray! I think it was a funny movie.

The record

I haven't done any kind of sports in 10 weeks. That's a new record for me. I haven't even been talking walks. In Gothenburg I walk everywhere I go. But here I walk 8 minutes to the university and maybe 12 minutes to the metro, that's all. To walk to the center takes 1h 45min. I tried that once the first week, but then they were talking about it for a week after; the strange Finnish girl who walked to the center. I just wanted to check how far it was :) But it's not really a nice route to walk. Only asphalt and cars. And you don't really feel like taking walks in order to get some fresh air here, because the air is quite polluted. A lot of industry and a lot of cars.

I was thinking about swimming in the beginning. But then they told me the the swimming baths not are very pleasant here. The time is restricted to 45 min from that you enter and and there is a strict babushka in the shower checking that you have washed yourself enough. So I decided not to try. :)

I think I feel a lack of physical exercise. So please, let it snow in Malax! I want to ski à la Julia Tchepalova during Christmas!

Grrrrr!!!

I wrote to the Finnish embassy in Moscow the first week I was here and asked them to send me some brochures of Finland that I can use in my presentations here. And they promised to send me. Now, today, I received a package with a lot of nice brochures with information and a lot of pictures. Their all in Russian. TODAY! 7 weeks later! I know that the Russian post is not that slow! But now I won't have any presentations anymore. They would have been so useful. :(

Monday again

Hurray, now I can hear knirr, knirr from my shoes when I am walking, instead of klafs, klafs. I like the knirr, knirr sound. But it also means that it's really cold. Today it's -20 degrees. Welcome winter cold! But our office is still so warm so we need to have the windows open sometimes.

Last week I watched a Swedish movie again with Josefina's Swedish students. They watched Tomten är far till alla barnen. That's an exampel of what they call Swedish family here. I had seen it before, but quite many years ago. Quite funny.

I forgot about Finland's independence day yesterday. Forgive me mother Finland! But I received a sms from Tove just before I was going to fall a sleep and she congratulated me on our independence day. So I could send some nice thoughts to my country before I fell a sleep. Somebody said here that if Finland wouldn't had got independet in 1917, we would now be like the other former Soviet republic (considering development), but problably more like the baltic countries.

Today we will have oral exams with the students in the cours cross cultural communication. Interesting. I hope I know myself what I have been talking about. They seems to mostly have oral exams here.

Give me some Christmas atmosphere! I want ginger bread, glögg, julstärnor and christmas candels. The Chrismas atmosphere in the stores I don't like.

Skitvader och elavbrott

Nu far jag sluta skryta om det fina vintervadret. Det har varit skitvader i flera dagar. Plusgrader, vilket har gjort att snon smalt och det blir sa halt och geggigt pa gatorna. De varken sandar eller saltar har sa det blir bara en enda geggamoja, som sen blir hal nar det fryser pa pa kvallarna. Man halkar omkring och skorna ser ut som tva lerklumpar. Man tar tre steg sa ar byxorna fulla med lera. Inte sa kul nar man inte har nagon tvattmaskin :(

Igarkvall fick jag reda pa att universitetet skulle vara stangt idag. Elen skulle var avstangd eller sa var det nagot som hade gatt sonder. Jaha. Trevligt med en ledig dag! Da var jag i stallet pa teater imorse. Det var en liten teater i ett gammalt hus. Det var en liten scen och plats for kanske 50 i publiken. Det var jattemysigt. Jag fattade inte sa mycket, men det var bra i alla fall. Det var Pushkins nagon pjas. Jag maste kolla upp vad den hette. Det var en generalrepetion, darfor var det kl. 11 pa morgonen och den var gratis.

Ikvall ska jag pa balett, det ar en student som bjudit mej.

Det har med att snooza . Jag har aldrig riktigt snoozat pa morgnarna innan jag stiger upp. Jag brukar stiga upp efter forsta eller andra signalen. Men har har jag borjat med nagot jattekonstigt. Jag staller klockan en timme fore jag ska stiga upp. Sen nar klockan ringer, staller jag fram den en halvtimme och sen snoozar jag den sista halvtimmen. Varje morgon samma procedur. Fattar inte var jag fatt det ifran.

Alltsa min blogg ser forfarlig ut. Nagon info om Sherbrook dar i kanten mitt i allt... Men nu orkar jag inte andra den. Ni far ursakta. Urskaktar aven om dessa inlagg ar full med stavfel. Jag ar namligen pa internetcafe och har brattom!