Between the times

Moi ystävät,

now some days went by and lots of things happened here.

The school just started and last week were the orientations. First two days were not too spectacular since there were only some speeches and campus introductions. We got some information about planned trips to e. g. Stockholm and Saint Petersburg. Unfortunately I can't take part in the Stockholm trip which is held on 12th of September where I'm gonna be in Berlin.

On Wednesday a bus sightseeing trip was organised by TAMK to get a first impression of Tampere city. It was quite nice too see different places but the guide was talking her head off so it was a bit exhausting. We also went into a church and visited a very beautiful lake nearby.

On Thursday was the first big exchange party in a club called "Onnela". Before we went there I took part in "Bubi Rundi" (or Pub Crawl) with Emil (my tutor) and Carolina (his other tutoree) which was very funny. We had to go to 10 (!!) different bars and in every bar you could have a drink at a low price. Actually I haven't managed to finish 10 drinks but of course the Finns did. :D As you can imagine after several Beers, Salmiakki, Caribbean Pussy (!), Lonkero and Cider we were a bit... well. No need to continue this sentence. ;) After that we went to Onnela. Even though we had already bought the entrance tickets we had to wait in the queue and it has been sooo freakin cold already. The music in the club was...well... marginal.. but okay. Probably I was not drunk enough to stand it. :D After that night I had a really bad day since I got the fever and headache so I stayed in bed the whole Friday.

Ahh...by the way..we also went to the Moomin museum on Thursday...this was too cute. And we visited the ALKO store...these state-owned alcohol stores...the only place where you can buy all the booze you want. The prices are really high. A bottle of sparkling wine costs around 7 Euros. (at least the cheapest one)

On Saturday we went to Särkänniemi, this adventure park here in Tampere. It was cold, it was raining but we had lots of fun there! Rollercoasters and dolphin show, fireworks and Uniklubi (a finnish-speaking band) live. We spent there around 9 hours and after that we were done with everything. :D

Today I had my first Finnish lesson and I've actually found an intermediary course taught in English. However, the teacher spoke almost only in Finnish and explained only grammar and stuff in English. I can proudly say that I understood almost everything. :)

That's been my time in Tampere so far. I'm quite tired so it's not too much text right now.

I'm enjoying everything here and looking forward to all the forthcoming activities.

Best wishes,

Sylvi