Bed Betatesting

I finally buy my new bed! It's because we want to share one of our (mine) room with Arthuro (exchange student from Mexico). He will pay for my room and I with Slado will share the other one. It's because of prices. Lot of people do it that way here in Tekla. I hope that's not such a big secret.

I buy inflatable model. It is very big like you can see on the pictures and it have even built-in electric air pump. Price for all that fun was 60€. Plus 15€ for that stylish cover with dog. PIMP my bed is not cheap thing. But it is still cheaper like paying for whole room.

Finally snow

After all catastrophic visions of global warming, after tangible sad of Finns, after cold darkness in the north... finally it's here. The Snow! It came with promis of light and fun.

Today weather was even ideal for taking pictures. Sun was shining and red sky maked Finland prettier. Most nearly to my imaginations before this stay. So let's enjoy the short seizures of beauty.

Sunday surfeit

Today was right time for another kind of sin. We decided to celebrate this Sunday by cooking and feeding our uncared-for stomaches. Today menu is garlic soup and grilled broiler with potatoes croquets.

And this is Slaďo's recipe of garlic soup:

Ingredients (for two people)

• 1/2 garlic (peeled or cutted into small pieces)
• 1 beef-tea (we used Euro Shopper Chicken Stock Cubes)
• 1 litre water
• 2 middle sized potatoes (cutted into cubes)
• Sunflower oil
• Salt

Preparation

Warm up oil in a pot. Add smashed garlic and fry for very short moment. Then add water, beef-tea and bit of a salt. Wait for boiling and then add potatoes cutted to cubes. Simmer slowly until potatoes will be tender. Serve with slices of bread eventually with cheese.

Another dish was even easier. Everybody knows how to do chips, but only for sure.

Ingredients (for two people)

• 1/2 kg potatoes (cutted into croquets)
• Sunflower oil

Preparation

Warm up oil in a frying pan. Add potatoes and fry with rotating until they will be little coloured. You can use same oil more than once.

And what about chicken? Go to mal and buy it :). We bought it in Minimani because it's closest to Teklas. This grilled broilers are pretty cheap and you don't need to warm it up because there are selled in thermopackages.

Foreign attendants

We are social creatures (especially Slaďo), so we does some actions in our apartment. First was small group of alcohol fans on Tuesday - Januray the 9th. It was evening full of little shy conversation (about school systems and another crap). We used vodka, whiskey and beer for courage increasing. In the crew belongs Polish girls Ania and Magda. Then Slovenian girls Lea and Staša, Frank and Florian from France and in the end Ilaria from Italy. And don't forget about handsome boys from Slovakia - Slaďo, Cuni and of course me. As we saw not only Slovak teenagers are identify with positive effects of ethyl alcohol. Everyone was skilled veteran but there was not enough of wonder potions and party ended early.

Enlighted from first try we organized another party on Sabbath - January the 13th. We used our free room to make place for visitors. There was circle from chairs, table with some snacks and music from laptop. Everyone brought also liquid spirit risers. Staff was little bigger. Again Ania and Magda from Poland, Lili from Slovenia, Teresa from Spain, Arturo and Fernanda from Mexico, Nathalie from Belgium and me, Slaďo, Cuni, Michal and Lucka from Slovakia. Our trust obtained the Czech beer Velkopovicky Kozel and some another distilled treasures. We talked mainly about Polish guys. Strange, I know. This experiment again expose on the lack of alcohol. Student's consumption is bigger than expectations. Yes, we are definitelly future leaders of this world.

Superstereo fever

Today was big party for exchange students in disco club Superstereo. The entrance was for free, but using of cloak-room was for 2€. Main reason for going there was low prices of alcohol. One 4cl beer or longdrink (gin + grapefruit tonic) was costed only 50 cents. Some shots was for 50 cents too.

Longdrinks was good, but they contained only a few tears of gin. Beer was Finnish thus I didn't enjoyed it. But the worst was shots because all of them was mixed from the salmiakki. It's a black vodka cocktail with taste of salt liquorice. It sounds strange but the taste is even worse. This poison named after ammonium chloride becames trendy for teenagers in Finland. It's also very suitable to shocking tourists.

So alcohol wasn't nothing special for Slovaks but music was pretty good. Small dancefloor was full of exchange students and hunting Finnish girls. I even heard pieces like Prodigy or Chemical Brothers. And this kind of music makes me crazy to dance. We spended hours by dancing. It was fair trade for 2€.

My antiracism t-shirt makes little attention. So I had handshake with some people with suchlike opinion. I had to translate Slovak writing from my back. It says in English: Everyone is different but we all are equal. I met really nice people with open mind. Therefore this evening was worth the effort and money.

Polish party

From yesterday night until late morning today was held our first international party. It was organized by Polish girls - Ania and Magda (on the picture).

I must say all was prety well-advised. Everything began in girls room. It was decorated by baloons. There was made place for dancing or some games, ready refrigerator (for some alcohol) and snacks.

All of tutors and echange studets (holded in Finland for one semester) was invited to this party. Meeting and knowing each other was evidently the main purpouse of this event.

When we came to party, we obtained the labels with names. Actuallly this is best way how to remember face and name. We have taken some Czech beers - mark Staropramen. Yes, you can buy it also in Finland! Some alcohol games was played and we listened to Finnish music - Metal, of course. Everything is easier with fire water...

Part of visitors decided to continue in Superstereo somewhen about 02:00 PM. Others stayed in room and continued having fun. I stayed too. Party continues and people was getting little drunk. As you can see on the pictures. There was some trying of polish-slovak communication. You know, our languages is quite similar. People leaved stepwise, so I was one of last men. I can say, it was great party with feel of international compendancy.

Sorry for lame quality

Vaasa excursion

Today was sight-seeing tour around Vaasa's surroundings by bus. It was free journey organized by University of Vaasa for new exchange students. It was great opportunity to learn something about Vaasa city and it's neighbourhood. We had very jokeful tourist guide that makes fun from boring facts and we were lucky with weather. Because the weather in this time is usually very cold in Finland. That makes finnish people little sad. But I'm glad.

What have I learned about Vaasa?
First notices about Vaasa (or Mustasaari - in Swedish Korsholm, which is fractured archipelago here in Ostrobothnia) is dated to 14th century. The city was founded in 1606 by king Charles IX of Sweden. In 1613 the town was renamed after the Royal House of Vasa.

In 17th century citizens lived upon tar trade and town was growing. But in 1852 breaked out the big town fire and mostly wooden Vaasa was almost destroyed. Then in 1962 started building new town named Nikolainkaupunki (in Sweden Nikolaistad) about seven kilometers from burned town. Nikolainkaupunki was systematically designed to prevent from fire disasters. After overthrowning of Tsar Nicholas II in 1917 was city renamed to Vaasa.

During the Finnish Civil War in 1918 Vaasa was capitol of Finlad for about four months. Now Vaasa is the city of universities and industry.

Vaasa have three universities:

• University of Vaasa - headquarter in Vaasa (naturally);
• Åbo Akademi - headquarter in Turku;
• Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration - headquarter in Helsinki.

Main employers of Vaasa are:

• Asea Brown Boveri - production of industrial and power electronics and automation equipment;
• Wärtsilä - manufacturer of large (diesel) engines and power plants;
• Vacon - electronics company that manufactures AC drives and frequency converters;
• TeliaSonera - dominant telephone company and mobile network operator.

Something about neighbourhood:
During the bus excursion we visited some places near Vaasa in Ostrobothnia. We saw parts of the archipelago belong to the UNESCO World Heritage Site named Kvarken. It was added in 2006. We also visited Finland's longest bridge named Replot bridge. It connects the island of Raippaluoto (in Sweden Replot) to the mainland. We had opportunity to walk around the ruins of Saint Mary's Church from middle of 14th century. It was destroyed by town fire.