Paris, I'm going to miss you

 Oh my I just realized that I've lived in Paris for 10 months and I don't have a picture with the Eiffel-tower! It's something to add to my never ending "to do"-list :)

Last time I told you how I miss Finland. Well, this post is dedicaded to all the things I'm going to miss from France!

First of all I'm going to miss the language. Especially in the beginning I got better and better every day and I really liked that. Now when I start a new conversation with somone they don't even start talking in English like in the beginning. I guess that my French is understandable :) of course I don't have as much vocabularly as I would like to have but I just have to sturdy, study some more and use the language. For some reason I loved to have the lessons in French but if I could chose I'd have the exams in Finnish...

I'm going to miss my job! I've been a babysitter in a French family and it has been such a joy to see the children grow and see how the younger one learns new things all the time. I'm happy that I'm going to see them a couple of times before I leave France and I hope that they'd visit my family in Finland some day like my family and friend have visited them. I'm really grateful for them for doing stuff with me outside of babysitting. The picture of me playing piano is from their place.

I'm going to miss French food. All this pasta, snails, sea food, pain du chocola (that I hated in the beginning and now I love it), French onion soup, baguette and all these delicious desserts. I'm really French now since every time I eat I HAVE to get a dessert :) and oh my God all the cheese and creps that I'm going to miss in Finland. And macarons! All and all the bakery here is so different from the Finnish one that I can't tell in detail all the things that I'm going to miss.

Here I love the fact that I live near Paris but not exactly in the center. Orsay is really safe and I can hop in a train whenever I want and be in Paris in 30min. In Finland I live in the north and the closest big city is like 6 hours away. I can't describe the joy that I feel when living here because I can find everything I need from Paris.

Of course I'm going to miss all the friends I've made here but I miss my Finnish friends too! And now all my Erasmus friends have left for their homes so they aren't exactly here in Paris. But I really with to see them at some point :) I've made plans to go to Germany and Mardrid, I just have to see when I have money and time to do that. I hope that as many of them as possible will visit me in Finland.

I'm going to miss the train and metro system. In Finland we have metros and trams only in Helsinki, not where I live. Of course they have had many strikes here and the trains are late a lot but still. In Oulun we have only busses which go once in 30min or an hour. I've became so impatient here! All my friends laught at me when I go "Shoot!! We have to wait 2 minutes??" because in my hometown we go "Oh nice only 15 minutes to wait". I love living in a bigger city.

I'm also going to miss all the stuff we can do here. In Paris you can just take a metro and go to a new location and there is something to see. In Oulu you call your friends and you are like "yeah... well.. I don't know.. How about a coffee?". With my friends we even drive out of the city to get a coffee somewhere far so that we can pass the time that way. I'm going to miss this city so much...

Oh yeah and then a bit off-topic: They payd my CAF (it was about time..) and I didn't have to pay my rent this month :P Les Halles here I come! I'm going to buy all the books that I want.

Feeling homesick

I have less than 2 months left here and I'm feeling a bit sad. But also today I felt something for the first time in France: I'm homesick. I miss Finland. I miss exams in Finnish. I miss my pets, my friends and my studies. I miss winter! The winter here was so lame that I was almost depressed. I miss Finnish candy. I miss exchange students in Finland and having fun with them. I miss life where my grandmother was the only person to come to me and say "I don't like the pink part in your hair".

I'm sad that I had to realize that it was a wise decision to color my pink hair partly black before coming here. France lacks some kind of tolerance and is too old-fashioned for the hair that I had for 5 years. I had a friend who after 6 months came to me and told me that now she was used to my hair. I still have friends who say "it's not natural, dye it brown". I'm happy to go back to Finland and I'm already thinking of dying my hair pink again :) I miss a country where my personality was more important than my haircolor.

I miss knowing what I have to do when I get sick or something. I miss the feeling of knowing that the system works. I miss speaking a language that I can actually speak. I miss knowing that I'll pass my exams if I study. I miss having 3 hours to do each and every exam. I miss being able to have pets in my student apartment. I miss Finnish food (karjalanpiirakka!!). I miss less expensive calls and text messages. I miss a system where being on strike is rare. I miss a system where everything is based on trust and people want to help you.

I miss a system where they inform you if a class is cancelled and you'll find all the information on the internet. I miss being able to do my exams as many times as I wish without any penalty. I miss being able to surbscribe to exams and courses over the internet. I miss Finnish flexibility alltogether when it comes to studying. I miss people speaking foreign anguages. I miss a country where you can say your opinion about religion without someone getting hurt.

Well. I think I could come up with a longer list but I give up :) that's how I see Finland now. Open-minded, understanding young people, flexibility with studies and a working system. I'm not saying that I wouldn't live abroad anymore, the contrary :) I would love to live in other countries again some day. This is just a fraction of all the stuff that I'm going to miss when I leave Finland. Maybe next I'll do a list about what I'm going to miss from Paris :)

The cats in the picture are my future roommate's (but I <3 them so much)

Exam month

Hello guys. Why is it that always when I want to update my blog something comes up and I don't?

Well anyhow. My old computer broke.. So I'm not going to update things from my trip to Barcelona because I don't have any pictures. I also can't get pictures from my phone nor from my camera to this laptop I'm using. I'm sorry! Plus to top it all Blogger refuses to add images for some reason :D

I can't believe I have one month left in here! And for these 4 weeks it's all about exams. My last exam is scheduled to be 22.06 and then I'm free for my summer vacation.

I made a list of all the places that I want to visit before going to Finland. My list has now: the cemetary of Père Lachaise, Musée Carnavalet, Parc des Buttes-Chaumont and Arènes de Lutèce. I also want to visit the catacombs under Paris. Anyhow now all my plans are on hold because my feet is broken. I have stress fraction and I'm using crutches. Last week we had every day more than 25C and I didn't leave my room because it's too much trouble :D also I don't like it that I have to ask my friends to go to a store for me and so on.

Lately we have had a lot of farewell parties and now this building feels so empty.. Two of my best friends from this floor left recently and it's not the same when leaving my room. Almost everyone leaves this month and I'll be here with my French friends untill the end.

Now the plan is that my momo is going to get me with a car from Finland :) She is coming here in the beginning of July and then we do a roadtrip of 3 weeks around Europe! The current plan is the following: I meet my mom in Hamburg and we continue from there to Dresden - Prague - Bratislava - Wien - Innsbruck - Switcherland - Lyon - Paris - Hamburg. Also from one city in Germany I'm going to get some guinea pigs and bring them to Finland :) I can't wait, I miss pets so much!

With one of my best friends we got an apartement from Finland and we'll be living there in a 60 square meters apartment. I'm really happy about that. I also bought a car and my mom is taking care of it atm.  I'm also getting a puppy when my friends dog has puppies next time! My plan is to also start breeding guinea pigs. Everything is falling in place.

Oh yeah I almost forgot: I got my CAF! After fighting with them for 7 months! Go France..

I'm going to miss Paris a lot so I'll try and enjoy my last month here :) Pusuja!

Dresden

 Hi cookies!

It has been forever.. But to be fair it wasnt possible for me to update the blog because my computer broke down. I was really upset because I just bought it last year. One of my Spanish friends lend me his computer (thank you Alvaro!) and then I had to wait for the university to fix my internet connection to this computer. Now all my pictures and everything are in Finland with my computer because I send it there to be fixed.

Before I start talking about Dresden I d like to than all these people who have left comments on my blog! It is really nice to know that some people are actually reading this :)

 Well then. About Dresden. I spent 5 days there after spending time with my friend in Czech. And oh my is Dresden gorgeous or what! All those old buildings and beautiful landscapes. It was also really warm when I was there and I liked it a lot. It was also easy because my friend was with me and she spoke German :) I'm supposed to talk a little but actually I didn't talk almost at all. But with her friends I was happy to realize that I undestand German quite well.

Dresden is rather small city but I liked it a lot. I could imagine myself living there. Especially the Dresden Castle (Dresden Scgloss) was amazing. Most of the time we just walked around there so I didn't know where we were. The tram system was quite good but mostly we just walked with my friend. I was really happy to talk Finnish again with a Finnish person even though after spending 8 months abroad both of us talked "Finglish" :D It was funny to realize how you forget your own mother tongue.

One day I went to the university of Dresden with my friend. She is studying chemistry there. The university was really well orginized and all the professors talked English. I was amused to realize that in Germany the professors have an assistant who whipe the blackboard for them! I wish they had the same system in France. In Finland we use whiteboards so the broblem is not huge when the professor whipes it clean in a hurry. Here in France when they "clean" the blackboard and they write with white on white it´s impossible to read sometimes.

One day we met this man that was collectin money for his bachelor party. He was selling little stuff like condoms and alcohol and we could cut pieces from his jeans. With my friend we learned that this is a normal thing in Germany and we bought stuff from him and signed his t-shirt. I think this is a nice way to get money for a bachelor party and I hope it will come to Finland at some point.

And then to the present: I had a French exam yesterday and it was awful. They gave us 14 pages of grammar, 4 reading comprehensions, 5 listening comprehensions and an essay of 200 words in 2 hours. This French system with the exams is really over the top, I'm not even sure a French person could have finished all that work in 2 hours. I didn't have time to do all the exorcises so I think I didn't do too well. But as long as I get the credits I can take the worse mark.

Enjoy the pictures taken from Dresden :) I'll try to figure out this Spanish keyboard and then I'll try to get the pictures from my camera that I can write the story from Barcelona! Take care.

Prostějov

Ostrava

 Hello folks!

Last Sunday after Prague I went to Prostějov in Czech. It is a smaller town around 3 hours from Prague. My Italian friend is living there and I spent 5 days at her place. I liked Prostějov a lot. It was a small town and everything was in walking distance (and bus costed 9 CZK if we were lazy).

My friend works at a local school and I went to work with her a couple of times. I visited English, Czech and Italian lessons there. I thought the children were really nice and at least in the Italian class they were also really good at languages. All the teachers I met there spoke English and it was nice to talk with them. 

Ostrava

My friend is working there through EVS - European Voluntary Service. This is like Erasmus but with workplaces. The people at her school explained it to me a bit more and if I have a chance in the future I would like to try it. You can also choose a destination from a country with a language that you don't speak and you'll get language courses. The roommate of my friend didn't speak any Czech and he was still working in the same school as my friend. I would like to do the same: choose a country where I can learn a new language. If you are interested about this you should look it up, the name of the program is a link to the site.

Within the 5 days I was in Prostějov I recovered form flue and after that I visited Ostrava. Ostrava is a city really close to Slovakia. I have a friend in Ostrava and it was really nice to see him too :) but I wasn't in Ostrava just to see him: I was there to buy rats for my friend. We tried to buy them from Prostějov too but every petstore in town was out of rats so I volunteered to go to a bigger city to get them. The two rats I bought (Alexandra and Anastasia) were the first pets my friend ever had so she was pretty happy that I was there to show her how to take care of them.

A local train in Czech

I have to say that Czech local trains are just.. horrible. Also smaller railwaystations there are awful for foreigners. All the announcements were only in Czech and they didn't have any platforms at the station! It was really awfull to try and find a correct platfrom when there were only railway tracks without any numbers or signs. Also there were many trains leaving at the same time and no one spoke English. I went to each train and asked someone if they go to my destination. I can't recommend this to anyone if they don't speak Czech but it was still manageable :) Now I have to brag that I bought the tickets in Czech from the station.


Traveling by train in Czech was pretty cheap. They count the price from the amount of kilometers so the prices are fixed for everyone.

 For my last day in Prostějov the school were my friend worked asked me to go with them on a classtrip to see Adršpašské and Teplické rocks and caves (don't worry I don't know how to pronounce them either). The school payed for this. Thank you! Also this day what the last day of school and the students of the shcool celebrated by dressing up, making nose and drawing stuff on faces of innocent bystanders. The costumes were pretty amazing. The students were also throwing water, vinegar and ugly parfumes on people and my friend got her share of vinegar. I survived with getting only a heart drawn on my cheek.

The caves were really amazing! Of course the tunnels made in them were artificial but all the naturally formed things were awsome. The guide spoke only in Czech but I had one of the teachers translating for me. If you ever have a chance go and take a look.

Then three days ago I took a train from Prostějov to Dresden to visit another friend. I really like it here! The day after tomorrow I'm leaving for Paris and on Thursday I'll go to Barcelona for 5 days :) I'm looking forward to that especially because my cousin is coming with me! After Barcelona I continue my studies again in Paris.

See you later! Bizous!

Alexandra and Anastasia :)

Prague

Hello cupcakes!

Oh my the pause between my posts has been horribly long again! I apologise! To my defense I've been really busy and I've been sick too.

Well anyway last weekend I was in Prague! It was my first time in Czech Republic and I have to say I really enjoyed it. Everything was so cheap and the quality was still good! Czech food was amazing.

The days in Prague I spent in an hostel and the rest of the time in Czech I was in my friend's house. I originally went to Czech to see her and I was with her for a week :) it was really nice to be with her for the last time I saw her was in August.

Church of Our Lady Before Tyn

Church of Our Lady Before Tyn

Church of Our Lady Before Tyn

Church of Our Lady Before Tyn

I flew to Prague with EasyJet on Friday and we left Prague on Sunday. On Friday night we saw many of the main sights and our idea was to visit them on Saturday. However I managed to get a bad case of a flue and on Saturday I was sleeping in a coma at the hostel. So in the end we saw all the attractions from outside and we could visit only a couple of them. On Sunday we visited the Petřin-tower and the castle of Prague.

Everything in Prague is in a walking-distance and I really liked this about the city. There were restaurantd everywhere and we ate each night in a different place. I don't normally like beer but in Czech especially the dark ones were amazing.

The currency in Czech is "Czech koruna" and ~25CZK = 1 €. Everything was so cheap!! I recommend visiting Czech at some point. My prejudice was that the country would be a miserable undeveloped dumb but actually it was really modern and lovely. I could see myseld living there.

People didn't speak too much English and this was a problem at some points. Czech people were trying to get money from me and my friend because of this. Most of the people were really nice but some shopkeepers were really greedy. I talked with a Czech friend of mine and he told me that Czech is a really safe country but corruption and taking money from foreigners are big problems.

I think that Czech is pretty hard to learn. The language has some special sounds that don't exist in other languages and the grammar is really different from English. During this one week in Czech I managed to pick up how to say "good day", "hello", "thank you", "please" and "bye" but they are really hard. I also find the writing really interesting. What I like in Czech are the long vowels that exist in Finnish too. It's almost a shame that were I live in Finland it's not possible to take Czech lessons.

On Sunday last week we left Prague behind and headed to Prostějov but that's worth an own post :)

Enjoy the pictures!

The Castle of Prague

Pink painkillers!

Gulasch

Main railwaystation

Easter

Hello lovers :)

Easter holidays are over and tomorrow it's time to go back to my courses. Unlike in Finland we had only Monday as a bank holiday and not Friday too (I didn't like that!). But in the end I'm not complaining because I'm skipping lessons on Friday to go to the Czech Republic! :P

Last Friday the woman taking care of the international things in our Uni just came to my English class and proposed to me that I'd spent the Easter with them. She just thought that 3 days alone wasn't good for me and decided to ask :) It was awfully nice of her and I spent one night with her family. On Sunday they had a big family meeting with 14 people and I was there speaking French with all the guests. On Sunday evening the husband of the family made me taste seafood :D Picture included! It was the first time ever for me. I quite liked it.

And this is not all - my English teacher at the Uni heard about this and invited me over to her house for one night! I was there from Saturday to Sunday. I was glad that I had my English exam on Friday because it was a bit awkward at first. She also had a Finnish neighbor and I was able to speak some Finnish :)

All and all everything is absolutely gorgeous here! The flowers are blooming and the trees are pushing leaves. Now it has been a bit colder: today it was only +13C. I hope that it gets better before we go to Barcelona with my cousin!

Only 4 days left before I go to Prague! :P I ordered some trousers from England and I really hope they come before my trip.. I didn't even think about Easter when I placed the order :/

Be safe and take care! :P

French Sunday dinner