Finnish delegation

I just have to tell about the Finnish delegation who was supposed to come here the same day as me. They were supposed to stay for some days for discussing possibilities for an exchange between their school and this university. Their flight arrived 15 minutes after mine, so my supervisor was going to pick up all of us at the same time. We were waiting and waiting for them in the arrival hall. After 40 minutes my supervisor called them. Then they still were in the passport control, since on of the them had not applied for a visa. This person had just brought the invitation. So after a while they called us and said that they had to take the next flight back to Finland... You can say that that was a short visit in Ekaterinburg :) How they had managed to get on the plane in Helsinki without visa is a mystery. Instead they sent their power point presentation by e-mail :)

Gaaahh!

There is no real coffee at the university!!! Only Nescafé! How will I survive? No more happy- flying- high-moments?

What am I doing here?

Yes, sometimes I wonder myself :) In August I applied for this internship within the organization CIMO. They accepted me even if I told them I that I don't know any Russian. To get a VISA to Russia you need an invitation from the host organization and it took about one month for it to arrive. So during that time I started a course in Russian at the university in Gothenburg. I will be here in Ekaterinburg for almost three months. The name of the city is in Russian Ekatrinburg, in Swedish Jekatrinburg and in English Yekaterinburg. It's situated close to the Ural mountains and it's in the Asian part of Russia. The map that I have on the blog isn't the best, but there it's written Yekatrinburg and it's quite close to the border of Kazakhstan.

I'm working in a univeristy in the office for international relation and my tasks are for example to promote opportunities of international education among the students, development cooperation with Finnish universities, promote Finnish/Swedish language and Finnish/Swedish culture and I will also give a course in cross-cultural communication. I should also participate in the daily work in the office, but that's a little bit difficult with my level of Russian.

So that's in short what brought me here and what I'm doing.

From Russia with love

I have successfully arrived to Ekaterinburg. The flight here was a long trip with many hours of waiting at the airport in Moscow. This is my third day here and I'm totally lost, because my Russian sucks... but my supervisor Anna is an angel helping me a lot. Today I got internet at my computer at work, so I'll try to update you a little bit more in the future.

A comment to the video below is that I in Moscow paid overweight for my luggage for the first time in my life... even if I have had overweight a lot of times.

Excuse my russian-canadian mix at the blog, I'll fix it soon. Or maybe my super-blog-secretary Jenna, who is authorized to make changes on my blog, will do it?

I'll be back.

Mot Jekaterinburg

Nu går sista visan

Klockan är 4:18. Jag har nästan packat klart. 3 timmar till avfärd. Hejdå Quebec! Det har varit en underbar hösttermin med många nya intryck och massor med underbara människor. Nu är det Finland som gäller. Ska bli bra att få träffa alla där hemma igen.

À la prochaine!
Jeskopesko

Saku Koivu

Nu har jag sett till så att jag får återvända hem till Finland. Innan jag åkte iväg hit i somrast så sa min morbror Stefan att jag inte får komma hem innan jag har sett Saku Koivu spela. Det har jag gjort nu, så jag kommer hem om tretton dagar!

Förra veckan var jag i Montréal tre dagar eftersom min kompis Anna från Göteborg var där och hälsade på sin en kompis. Anna som kom från varmare breddgrader, nämligen Spaninen där hon gjör en utbytestermin, anlände till värsta kylan och snön. Vi hade nermot -20 grader förra veckan + att vi fick en hel massa snö!

En kväll gick vi alltså till Centre Bell för att se Montreal Canadiens mot Detroit Red Wings. Min landsman Saku Koivu är alltså kapten för Montreal och när jag presnterar mej för människor här och säger att jag kommer från Finland så brukar de utbrista "Ahh! Saku Koivu!". Montreal förlorade tyvärr med 3-1. Men Koivu passade till Montreals mål och var inblandad i de flesta av slagsmålen, så jag fick i alla fall se honom i action. Anna var nöjd med Detroits vinst eftersom det typ fanns sex svenskar i Detroit plus att de gjorde mål också. Det var häftigt att äntligen se en match! Vi var också och kikade på casinot i Montreal och vi var också och tittade på udda djur i Biodomen.

Jag har två tenter och ett inlämningsarbete kvar. Sedan bär det av hem till Finland den 22 december.

Jag vill ha luciatåg på torsdag! Vet inte hur jag ska få det fixat, har inte så mycket rekvisita här...

Ha det gött i julruschen!
Jessica







Slagsmål!!!












Pingviner i Biodomen












Ute och går och muciserar i -20 graders kyla på berget som ligger nära universitet. Mina korridorsvänner Mike och Julien utövar krigskonster eller något liknande...