Hating, loving France

One wall of my room

Hello cupcakes!

I have been reading other exchange blogs and I think I should have a map here from where I am and so on. Also I would like to show pictures of the campus and my room. I should make a round soon with my camera :)

Well. I'm having problems with courses again. On Thursday in the lecture of inorganic chemistry the professor started writing gibberish on the blackboard. It turns out that there has been a course of symmetry that has ended already and the teachers are now using it as a base for the other courses. I talked with the professor of inorganic chemistry and she said that symmetry is a really important course and I should have taken it. WELL the exams are in one week and I should study this course of symmetry on top of all the other courses. And even if I study the symmetry stuff I'm not going to get credits for it because half of the exam has already been held.

I was really pissed about this because at least 3 people have seen my learning agreement and they didn't tell me that I should take the course of symmetry. I calculated the credits that I might be able to get and it seems like I'd be getting 15 credits instead of 32 that I was planning to have. I have to get 45 credits this year so I was really upset about this discovery. Next semester I should pass all my exams to get 30 credits if I get only 15 now - moreover what courses can I take in spring if I don't pass the courses now?

In Finland the courses are independent so we can take the courses in any order AND if there is a course you should take before some other course it's written in the info of the course. Nice to know that this isn't the case here 2 month too late.. Also in Finland the lectures and practises aren't compulsory and we can sign in to any exam, so it's really easy to replace credits if you don't pass one course. Also in Finland we can try the exam 3 times for every course. In here this kind of a system is unknown. I think in spring there might be renewal exams here too but I'm not sure. I'd prefer passing the exams now.

It's irritating me so much that stuff in this country don't work! I'm still wating for my ImagineR.. We talked to one guy from the office with my friend and we should send the letter for getting the card again.  I just might go yealling to some other office. It's really irritating not to be able to go anywhere from here without paying.

Then to some happier stuff: they put on the heating in our building!! Oh the joy. I was sleeping with 3 blankets and sitting in my room with shoes and jackets and everything on so I'm really happy.

 



I'm also really happy to realize how my French skills are advancing! Now I have been studying verbes every evening. Nowadays I also read out loud all the sentences from books when I know the meaning. I have also noticed that now I can most likely reason the meaning of some word when I don't know the meaning. I also talked with my mom and we discussed the possibility of me moving to study here permanately. I don't know what I want to study and in France there are more options than in Finland. I have to see what happens.

But I'm off to reading to my exams. Like I told you, the partials are in one week :P

Bisous!

DisneyLand Paris + my b-day

The entrance

 Hello pumkins!

In my feverish fumbling I've come to you today to talk about DisneyLand Paris <3 We went there with my Erasmus friends on Sunday. There was a special offer for the inhabitants of region of Ile-De-France which said: "30 euros on working days or 40 euros on weekends/ one park". We decided to visit the park this semester and next semester we are going to visit Disney Studios.

I was so excited to go there! I've seen the commercial on the beginning of every Disney movie since I was a child. The glory was diminished a bit by the fact that my throat was hurting and I didn't have any voice in the morning but since I already paid for the tickets I decided to go with my friends.

Sleepin Beauty Castle

We took a train 08H30 from our place to go to Châletes Les Halle and took RER (logal train) A to direction Marne-La-Vallée. The jurney took 1H30 but it was totally worth it. DisneyLand is exactly there when you walk out of the RER station. We saw the entrance gates when we came out and went in. The lines for the tickets were really short and we got in almost immidiately.

In the beginning I was jumping up and down like a little child. To my fortune so where everybody else. The main street of DisneyLand is filled with stores and food places. From one of the stores I bought Minnie ears with one of my friend. I actually wore them the whole day (because I'm such an adult). There was a live band playing music from Disney movies in Town Square. With our group of 10 people we decided to take a group picture in front of Sleeping Beauty Castle so that we could divide into groups and do what we wanted.

We reached the Central Plaza and there was a show going on with the Disney caracters including for example Cruella DeVille, Red Queen, Maleficent and Jafar. We figured that it would be easier to take the picture later so we went for our first ride: Space Mountain: Mission 2 which is a roller coasted with a lot of spinning, turns, breaks and speed. This turned out to be the best ride! It's also the best roller-coaster I've ever been to! My friends visited it 3 times. Usually the wating times to best rides are 45-55min but because it was so early and everyone else were watching the performance we got in in 20 minutes.

To the best rides there was a fast ticket option. It means that you take a piece of paper near the ride and it tells you a time to be at the ride for cutting the line. I think this is a really good invention and it saves you a lot of queuing. I took this fast ticket only once but my friends were using it a lot.

After the first rides we went and took the group picture and then divided up to groups. I went to Fantasyland with an English and a Turkish girl. Fantasyland is the side of the park mostly for little kids but we wanted to see the Disney stuff instead of going to every ride like the others.

My Minnie ears

First we saw the Sleeping Beauty Castle. It was a really pretty place with nice pictures telling the story of the Sleeping Beauty.

In Fantasyland we saw Snow White, Rapunzel, The Mad Hatter and the twins from Alice in Wonderland (whose names I don't remember). We also saw Alice's Curious Labyrinth and Mad Hatter's Tea Cups. Alice's Curious Labyrinth stood by its name by being really weird maze. We actually did get lost with my friends and when it was time to get out it took quite some time to find out way out. There was no line for the labyrinth when we got there so we just walked in. Mad Hatter's Tea Cups was an ok ride - normal tea cups with his name on it. The cups we were sitting in were cute though. The wating time for Tea Cups was aroung 15min.

The Parade

 After we had seen the Fantasyland we saw our friends for eating.The food was really expensive and I've had better, but it's not possible to survive from the day without eating. A couple of my friend were wise and took food with them to the park, which I highly recommend. I also had a little snack with me so that I didn't have to spend a fortune for food in the park.

After eating with my two friends we headed towards Discoveryland. Here we visited Star Tours which I likes really much since I like Star Wars. It was a room with a big screen and the room moved accordingly to what happened in the screen and it made you feel like you were in a spaceship. We wated for 15min to get into this one. We then visited Pirates of the Caribbean in Adventureland. It was a boat trip indoors that was really well made. It was the best pirate ride I've ever been to! When you went indoors it was so well made that I forgot that I was indoors. We queued maybe for 20 min to get to the boat trip. And what's best when we came out from the ride we saw Jack Sparrow! Aftere we purchased fastpass tickets to Buzz Lightyear Blast and went to other end of the park called Frontierland.

In Frontierland we visited Phantom Manor. The beginning was really interesting when they put us into a room that expanded. After that it was just a normal ride in a wagon. It was really nice though. After this it was just running around the park and seeing all the rest of the rides. We visited Indiana Jones and the Temple of Peril which was a really nice ride. And we only had to queue for 5min! We practically just walked in there. The second last ride was Peter Pan's Flight which I enjoyed almost the most. It was really unique and well done: in the ride you were in a boat flying over London during night. All the stars and miniatures were really well made. The wating time for this one was 30min but we got in in 20minutes. It would have also been a good ending, but we went to use our fastpass tickets and hit the last ride: Buzz Lightyear Blast. The story behind this ride was of course Toy Story. We had nice weapons and the aim was to get as many points as we can by shooting targets while the wagon was moving. I think that this was a good last ride and left me with a good feeling to go home with.

In all this ride hopping and tunning we managed to see the Disney Parade (most of the pictures are from there). It takes place every day at 5pm. We saw all the caracters and the parade was really enjoyable. I think all the people were acting their caracters really well. Especially Jack Sparrow was so good! And also the Mad Hatter, he was so funny.

When we left the park around 8H30 I had a fever and when we got home around 10H30 I was really dead. On monday morning I was really sick too, I was totally in my own universe in the morning.. But I wouldn't have missed DisneyLand for anything!!

And then to other things: today was my birthday. I'm still a bit sick, but today I went to my lessons unlike on monday and tuesday. The highlight of today was when four of my friends came to my door singing "joyeux anniversaire" with a cake! It was such a surprise, I was in my pyjamas and all :) They really made this day feel like my birthday.

We are having partial exams in 2 weeks and I'm starting to be really stressed about them.. I really feel like my French is not strong enough to do them. But I'll try my best and I'll study so hard!!

By the way people are telling me every day that they can hear how my French is getting better :) yesterday I went to a pharmacy with a German girl and when I talked with the pharmacist she said "Wow! Impressive!". She has heard my weak attemps of talking French at first so I really liked it. Also today I practised with my tenses for telling the future and the past and instantly one of my French friends told me that she can hear the difference. It's really couraging to hear people tell you that you are improving. So all you people there studying some language, go and talk with a native speaker! :P

I think this was most of the stuff I wanted to say :) take care and kisses! Enjoy the pictures I took for you.

The Mad Hatter

On top of the Minnie ears I bought lollipops :) I'm a sugar tooth..

The winter is approaching..

What do foreign people think about Finnish people? We are shy, not talkative, we drink too much, we are monsters bacause we eat Rudolf (reindeer) and no matter how many minus degrees there is we never feel cold. I've have heard the last one here so many times during the past weeks when it has been around +15C. What  can I say.. I come from a city where it can be -35C druing winter and +30 during summer. And unlike many people think we go on with our daily lives when it's -30C ;)


The winter is approaching.. (in Celsius)
+10° French people turn the heat on. People in northern Finland are planting flowers.
+5° Finnish people are sunbathing if the Sun happens to rise above horizon.
+2° Cars made in Italy won't start.
0° Distilled water freezes.
-1° You can see your breath. It's time to plan a vacation to the Mediterranean Sea. Finnish people are eating ice cream and drinking cold beer.
-4° The cat wants to sleep in the same bed with you.
-10° Time to plan a vacation to Africa. Finnish people go swimming.
-12° Too cold for it to snow.
-15° Cars made in France don't start.
-18° People in Helsinki turn the heat on.
-20° You can hear your breathing.
-22° Cars made in America won't start. It's too cold to ice skate.
-23° Politicians start to worry about homeless people.
-24° Cars made in Japan won't start.
-26° You can cut the vapour of you breath to build an iglu.
-29° The cat wants to sleep in the same pajamas.
-30° Cars made in Germany won't start. Finnish people swear, kick their cars and go start their Ladas.
-31° It's too cold to kiss because your lips would freeze together. Finnish football teams start practises for the next season.
-35° Time to plan a hot bath for two weeks. Finnish people are shoveling snow.
-39° Mercury freezes. It's too cold to think. Finnish people button up their shirts.
-40° The car wants to sleep in the same bed with you. Finnish people put on pullovers.
-45° Finnish people close the windows.
-50° Sea lions abandon Greenland. Finnish people start using gloves.
-70° Polar bears abandon the North Pole. In the University of Lapland in northern Finland they have a sports day.
-75° Santa Claus leaves the polar circle. Finnish people put on a hat.
-250° Alcohol freezes. This makes Finnish people really upset.
-268° Helium turns liquid.
-270° Hell freezes over.
-273,15° Absolute zero. All particles stop moving. Finnish people admit that it's starting to be a bit cold and pour another shot.

About languages and winter

Timmy playing in snow in Finland

 I started thinking about languages today while giving a Finnish lesson to a French guy. He is a professor in this Uni and for some unknown reason he wants to study Finnish. He has already learned Swedish so he wanted to study something harder.

How difficult can it be to tell the difference between conjugations in your own native language? I really had to think a lot for good examples and such. I've already taught him the alphabets and prononciation and now I should move on to teaching verbs and such. Moreover I'm trying to teach him in French so at the momen it feels like too much work!

I'm thinking like crazy during the lessons trying to translate all the Finnish cases to French when they don't actually exist in French. It's giving me a headache even to think about it now. For tomorrow's lesson I have to think of good examples of conjugation and I'll teach him how to tell the time. Pfff...

Also tomorrow I have my German course after the Finnish course so I'll be happily in confusion when I go there :D

 The pictures don't have anything to do with languages - I know, but I also started to think about winter. I really miss it! Now in Finland it's around +5C and here it's +15C.  I'm already missing snow. And also a funny fact that I realized: people are using winter clother right now! I've seen people wearing same clothing that I use when it's more than -15C and I'm taking the dog out for a long walk. I find it so comical because I think those shoes are too warm to were when it's warmer than -15C :D Timmy in the pictures is my dog btw.

 A list of things that I miss at the moment:

- sauna
- polite people

- Finnish

- salmiakki!!

- my pets

- snow

- most of my clothes

- ease of studying

- hanging out with my friends

I miss Finnish sauna even though I almost never go there.. It's because it's so cold in my room and taking showers here doesn't guarantee that there is any warm water.

Polite people is on the list bacause today my copying card for printing and taking photocopies was stolen. I forgot it in the copying machine and when I remembered that I forgot it (less than 10 minutes later) it was already gone. In Finland I'm sure that someone would have just put it on top of the machine or taken it to someone in the library where I can pick it up later. 

Finnish is on the list because I miss speaking a language where I don't have to think so much about the words or be afraid all the time that I make a bad mistake. Unlike almost all the other exchange students here I don't have anyone to speak my mother tongue with. Of course it's easier for me to also study in Finnish and I miss studying with a language from which I understand all the words.

 Salmiakki, my clother and my pets, oh well. I can't have them here and that's why it's kinda hard. The same applies to being with my friends. I especially miss stuff that doesn't include alcohol or partying. For counterbalance I think I'm going to miss French cheese and living in a huge city.

Well I think I'd better go prepare my Finnish lesson for tomorrow. Ciao ciao!

Oh so French

Today I returned my CAF (local housing allowance) papers. I'll see the results in TEN TO TWELVE WEEKS. Jesus I was so surprised when they told me that it's going to take so long. No worries, I didn't need the money anyway.. In Finland it's illegal if it takes more than two weeks of the offices to handle your papers about allowances. I guess I won't be wining about those two weeks when I got back to Finland.

I'm really starting to get a handle of my French needed in lectures Now I can sometimes even understand what the professor is telling on the lectures without studying like crazy after the lesson. It's actually really funny that I can talk about wave functions and Gibbs free energy in French but I can't tell about my life or use different tenses well. I'm really gratefull to my friend K who has helped me a lot with my homeworks. She is always so patient and helps me with my French too. Yesterday we went to the libryary of Pompidou and calculated Quantum Chemistry for 3 hours. She would have been so much quicker without me but she explained all the stuff that I didn't get. Long live friendly people!

Talking about friendly people the family whose children I watch asked me, my mom and my aunt to join them for dinner when my mom and aunt come to France next month. My mom and aunt were so excited about it :) I'm also really happy to see my relatives. I hope mom brings me a lot of salty liqourice, I miss it so much! Last Friday I realized in a store that I didn't want to eat chocolate nor salty snacks but I wanted to eat somehing good: salmiakki! (which is the Finnish word for salty liqourice) I tried to buy black Mentos but these taste more like liqourice and these are actaully really bad..

I'm still wating for my ImagineR. I have a friend who has wated for more than a month now for hers. I'm going to send my papers again this week because that's what they asked my friend to do when she went asking about her card.  It really sucks not to have it because every weekend I could go for free to Paris but now I have to pay 7e/day for a weekend ticket.

I've bought a couple of shirt and vests here. I'm really good at buying useless shoes so I bought a pair yesterday. I just couldn't leave them to the store! Belleville is a good place to stop for shopping. I should find something for winter because I've left almost all my winter clothes to Finland. Also when I try to sleep I always wish I had pyjamas becuse a top isn't just enough. I'm sleeping with woolen socks. I think this is really interesting. In Finland it's not this cold indoors when it's -30C outdoors! Moreover I always feel like it's colder inside than it's outside. I really miss Finnish insulation materials.. AND I don't have a radiator in my room! It's now +15C outside and I'm freezing in here. I'm really looking forward to winter :D

While I'm at it I could talk about living here. This residence universitairé is just a huge building with 5 floors full of rooms where students live. We have shared toilets and a shared kitchen. I hate it when people run around the corridors after 12 in the evening when I'm trying to sleep. Also talking in the corridor instead of inside the rooms seems to be a nice sport for everyone. Also during weekends they have competiotions of who has the loudest party while their door is open. People also smoke cigarettes and weed in their rooms and the corridor smells really lovely after that. I feel like I'm the nagging neighbour if I go complain about everything all te time so most of the time I let it be. But oh my when I once wanted to sing in my room at 15H00 on Sunday there was immidiately someone telling me to shut up! It's actually sad that my singing voice bothers people more than weed :D

Last weekend was also really interesting because for some reason out kitchen was sealed off. I was really happy when I came home on Friday and realized that the kitchen is locked. I couldn't cook at all last weekend and I couldn't have tea this morning before going to lectures. Now the kitchen is open again. I think that the cleaner just forgot (or "forgot") to open it before going away for the weekend.

Anyhow I think that's all folks! Now I'm off to buy my tickets for DisneyLand Paris where we are going 16th of October! Wuhuu!

Autumun never comes

Defacto présente Le Petit Prince

Hello and welcome to enjoy the weather of +25C in the beginning of October! This is so not true! All my friends are enjoying the mild temperatures of +4 - +8 in Finland and I'm here.

Talking of mild temperatures there was HOT WATER in the shower! Party time! The most irritating thing I've grown to almost hate in here is taking a shower. This building is really old and I think there is something wrong with the pipes bacause there isn't enough hot water for the showers.

When you are in the shower when someone turns the tab on in any part of this building (with maybe 80 people living in it) hot water turns off and the water pressure goes down. I've experiances hell in here when taking a hot shower; in a couple of seconds hot water turns into a water from Antarctica. It's especially irritating when I've been jogging and feeling hot I take a shower. After sports it's nice to take a cold shower but I don't want to have a frostbite while at it.
 Ok I'm exaggarating a lot but it really pisses me off because I'm a friend of warm showers.

 Well what else have happened here. I've gotten new French friends and I'm really happy to practise my French with someone. After 3 weeks of courses I can now write my notes and listen to the professor at the same time without lifting my head to see what the professor is writing. I was so happy when I realized that! Also I've started to use new French words more and even when I'm not sure of the right word it usually comes to my mind. I still have problems with conjugation but I'll learn I'm sure of it.

I'm still wating for my ImagineR card for metro.. I'm paying them starting from October (this month!) so I'm wating to see it soon. Although I know that French system is slover than a dead snail I really hope to get my card so that I can go to work and to stores whenever I need to without paying extra!

 Oh yeah that reminds me: I got a job :) I'm a babysitter for a French family and I'm teaching English to the children. I'm taking care for an adorable 1-year-old boy and his 4-year-old sister. It's a bit of a trouble to travel there because it takes 50nminutes by metro and a buss but it's totally worth it. I didn't like children at all when I came here and now I'm taking care of them. I knew exchange changes people but this is so unbeliavable!

And then to things we have done with my friends: we visited "Spectacle : Defacto présente Le Petit Prince" meaning a show of the story of Little Prince with lights, pyrotechnics and fireworks (24.09.2011). Oh my God what a show it was! The story was told in French so I didn't get every word but I could keep track of the plot. The pictures were reflected on a side of a building in metro station La Défense. I included a link of the show from Youtube if someone is interested to see some parts :) There are also pictures included if you look the beginning of the text.

Le Jardin du château de Versailles

 The following day from the spectacle of Little Prince (and after only 4 hours of sleep..) we visited Le Jardin du château de Versailles with Erasmus students. Our intention was to go inside the castle but we ended up wondering around the garden and seeing Domaine de Marie-Antoinette. We saw like 1/5 of the garden it was so huge! It was nothing breath-taking but it was beautifull. We are going to visit the castle some other day. It was Sunday so the lines were awfull. Pictures from the garden are included around this text.

Domaine de Marie-Antoinette

Domaine de Marie-Antoinette

 Tomorrow I'm going to keep my first Finnish course to one professor who wants to learn Finnish. I find it really weird that someone wants to learn Finnish.. It's not exactly too usefull. But in return he is going to teach me French so I'm happy about that. I need help with my prononciation and there are also so many words to learn. I always tend to forget the genre of the words and the whole sentence is ruined if you have feminine and masculine stuff incorrectly in there..

 Speaking of languages I took up German. My German courses are on Thursday from 5.30pm to 07.30pm making Thusday officially my favorite day of the week with 11 hours of lectures. By the time German starts my brain is hurting from all the French I've heard that day and I should learn morea languages. Of course I'm starting with the beginners course so all the stuff is really easy. Actually sometimes I have to think if the teacher is speaking German or French because I understand both so well that I can't make the difference! :D

I'm still wating from my CAF (local housing allowance) on top of ImagineR. I thought getting it would be really hard but actually there was a generator in the interenet that filled the papers for you. But at least I got all my bank stuff in order. I got two bank cards and a cheque book from BNP Paribas. It's like I've gone 30 years back in time because now I can use cheques.

I think today I reached the ultimate Frenchness: when making notes I started writing Finnish with accent marks :D Also sometimes when I speak with my mom on Skype I start to answer her sentences in French without realizing.

I end this lovely little writing thanking MikGo for correcting my mistakes in spelling! His name is link to his blog (in Finnish). Thank you, it's nice to know that there is at least one person reading this! ^^

// Riikka helped me with mistakes in spelling. Thank you!