Moi!

Hello and Moi!

After seven days of silence we are connected; Koas finally got our internet working!

It has been a strange and exciting adventure so far..

Our first day in Finland was probably one of the weirdest days of my life. The flights were long and exhausting! I was almost hysterical when I saw Finland.. Robert was asleep beside me while I was staring out of the window in shock. For at least 10 minutes I was sure that I had been looking at nothing but a cloudy white sky, but no, it was tundra. Hundreds of miles of perfectly white, untouched tundra! It was almost too unbelievable. I poked the woman in the seat beside us to find out if it were really true, that this was land I was looking at!

Oh my god, this is where we are going to be living!

..and of course our checked bags were left in Munich! Robert and I had a banjo and two carry-on bags full of cameras, a film scanner, microphones and a laptop! Two totally worthless bags when you are arriving in 7 degree weather without gloves, hats or scarves! Luckily we had worn our big coats and boots on the plane..

Exhausted, we set out towards the center of Helsinki searching for a cheap place to stay. We called my tutor, Hilla, and asked if she could meet us in Jyvaskyla with the key to our aparment.. she could not. Helsinki has several hostels- unfortunately we arrived on New Years Eve! The city was full of young Russians celebrating the new year, taking up all of the rooms! We walked through the city, pulling our worthless carry-on bags, searching for a place to get some rest. The silly faux-fur hood on my jacket reduces my periphereal vision to zero, so I had to rely on other pedestrians to keep me informed about the oncoming traffic.

We found a cheap place called "Hotelli Finn", situated on the top floor of a six story building with long winding staircases. A moment of strange terror came when we realized that we did not know how to open the door to the lift! There were two buttons, both labeled in Finnish. One was a bright orange and the other an even brighter red, both looked quite severe. We chose the orange button hoping that the English translation wasn't something like "drop to your death", or "lock". To our complete embarrassment a loud BURRRANNG sound overwhelmed the elevator.. we sounded the alarm! Eventually we realized that the door had to be opened manually..with a little push! Shame, shame.

The room was sixty euros and quite comfortable. We slept right through the New Year's Eve celebrations and clear through the morning! We woke up at noon and made our way back to the train-station, where we bought two tickets for the 1:06 train to Jyvaskyla (pronounced u-ves-q-lah). We quickly called Hilla to inform her of our arrival and rushed to the terminal, with one minute to spare! We missed the train.. missed the damn train! How did we miss the train, we were a minute early!!

Apparently, you are expected to be at the terminal five minutes before departure!

We exchaged our tickets and ran to the terminal- ready twenty minutes in advance.

The trains are terrifying in Finland! They remind me of my least favorite teacher in middle school, the one who stood in the doorway looking at her watch, timing my arrival. I was always late, she always closed the door and I was forced to get a late pass from the office before I could enter the class. Yes, the trains..

If you are planning to get off you had better be standing up, with all of your luggage in hand, before the train stops! Transferring is hellish! Robert and I were running frantically through the train-station, searching for our transfer terminal, knowing very damn well that if we were even close to not being early we would miss our train! The terminals are not labeled, the tickets do not tell you where to go.. you are expected to be able to

a. stop time
b. move through time
c. move at hyper-speed
d. have the ability to read employees minds
e. be competant at speaking finnish, or
f. know how to find your terminal when it is located in the most obscure location, underground then aboveground!

We attempted choice 'e'. We were able to express what we needed by urgently pointing to the name of the city. We passed the test!

The train ride was so beautiful; three hours of snowy landscapes!

It seems that trees grow in bunches here. They are so burdened by the weight of the snow that they huddle together in an attempt to disperse the weight.
Sometimes you will see a solitary little cabin pushed up against a bunch.

Hilla, my tutor, is a quiet little creature. She escorted us to our new apartment, located in the hilly outskirts of the city of Jyvaskyla. We spent a hard night with no blankets, pillows, or food, and in disgustingly dirty clothing. The next day we woke up feeling terrible. Really terrible.

We rushed from our apartment to the nearest markets where we purchased cheap bedding.. and food! Robert was feeling so awful that he threw-up on the floor of the grocery; so much for first impressions! I have never seen him that sick (or sick at all, really).

The first two days were spent in solitude. We ventured as far as the nearby stores and dared not travel past them, for fear that we would get lost and freeze to death.
The third day we were more adventurous (and bored), so we decided to find the center of the city -called "centrum". We asked passing strangers and were able to follow walking paths through pretty neighbourhoods the entire 4 kilometers! Everything was closed by the time we got there.. but we were so proud that we had found it!

Since then we have gone to the city every day, even twice some days. Its exciting! Romanian people (gypsies) ((is that politically correct?)) play accordian on the street and point to their mouths (begging for food or money), Russian women walk around in huge fur coats and high-heeled leather boots. The Finnish people are quiet.

Finland is quiet.

We have spent days saying hello, "moi," to everyone that passes only to receive no response!

Orientation began yesterday.. we had a lecture on customs, and 'quietness' was addressed. Apparently, Finnish people can "tolerate silence" better than most cultures. It is a popular stereotype to see Finnish People depicted with big X's over their mouths! We met two Italian girls, also studying this semester at the university, who were shocked by the silence! It was nice to have people to be boisterous with..

We really like it here.

It is peaceful and beautiful. Our lives are not overcrowded by things and obligations (yet). The school is a brisk 2 mile walk from our apartment.. this is exciting because I will have the ability to, truthfully, tell my children: "when I was your age I walked 2 miles in the snow, uphill, to get to school!".

It is also exciting because it is refreshing. I love having that time to look around, quietly (because people will certainly not speak to me)!

We wish that all of you were here to see how beautiful it really is (and to watch you suffer in the cold for the first few days).

Eventually you adjust.

"Moi" means hello,

"Moi Moi" means goodbye!

So..

Moi Moi for now!

We love you all.

p.s. please enjoy this claymation video we made (we were extremely bored late one night)!

p.p.s. in the next week or two we would like to take the ferry from Helsinki to Sweden.

p.p.p.s. can you believe that there is a ferry that goes to Sweden?

p.p.p.p.s. my student ID gives me a 50% discount on travel throughout Europe (train tickets, coach tickets, plane tickets..)