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

Spring

 Hello folks!

This is an awful week. Tomorrow I have 9 hours of laboratory + 2 hours of English homework. I also would like to do 1 hour of English conversational course but I think it's just not possible. On Thursday I have 9 hours of laboratory again plus my last German course. On Friday I have an English exam.. I'm actually pretty sad that my language courses are ending. My last French course is next week.

My language courses are ending but my other courses aren't! My last exams is scheduled to be 22nd of June so I still have a lot to do. I have a lot of laboratory work now.

In two weeks we have a vacation that lasts 2 weeks. I'm going to see my Italian Friend Valentina in Prague, my Finnish friend Iida in Dresden and after that I'm going to go to Barcelona with my cousin :P I definitely can't complain. The last time I saw my cousin was last November when he visited me here with my mom (I wrote about it in text: "My family in Paris"). The last time I saw Iida was when she was here a couple of weeks ago. And I haven't seen Valentina since August 2011 (I wrote about it in text: "Italy"). I'm really excited about all this! I've never been to eastern Germany, Czech nor Spain! :)

Last weekend I was working both Saturday and Sunday. I had a especially "nice" first of April since the daughter of the family (4 years) locked me out from their house.. She just locked the garden doors before my very eyes! Her parents weren't too happy about her little "prank".

Last weekend I also drove a car for the first time here! Now that I think about it I'm not even sure if I'm allowed to do it.. I have a Finnish driver's licence. I hope yes and if not I'm sorry!

When I started driving I was in a total panic.. I come from a rather small city from Finland with only ~100 000 inhabitants so I'm not used to a lot of traffic. I drove during the night so it wasn't too crowded here either. I also didn't drive in the center of Paris but at the outskirts :) I would never have the guts to drive in the actual city!

 The spring have come to Paris! For the last couple of weeks we have had +20C. I think this is really funny because all my friends are telling me how much snow they have in Finland and all. Personally I find this weather annoying especially because it's too hot for me to run. But maybe I should tan a bit now that it's possible.

All the trees and flowers started blooming and I've taken a lot of pictures about that :) I shared a bit of them with you if you go down. Now I think I have to start translating laboratory stuff for tomorrow.. G'Night!

A poster for English class

New semester

Salut!

My next semester started and I'm so relaxed and enjoying it so much. This semester is much easier than the last one because we have less lessons. We are going to have a lot of laboratory courses but it's ok.

People started talking today that we are going to get the results for our exams this week.. I'm not so sure I want to see them! On the other hand I "only" have to do 45 credits this year so even if I only passed one exam worth 5 credits I'm closer to my goal.

This month I'm going back to Finland for a little trip! I can't wait to see my dog and guinea pigs.. We have our winter vacation next month and my mom needs me in Finland. We are going to have our spring break of two weeks in April and I'm planning a trip to Prague and Dresden for that. I have a friend who lives in Czech Republic and I'd like to use this opportunity because I've never been there. One of my Finnish friends is in Dresden now to do her exchange, so I'm thinking about visiting her too in spring break.

 Last week first people left for their home countries.. The farewell party was bittersweet. Especially I miss my German friend Lisa. I'm planning on visiting her in April.

As you can see from the pictures winter here in Paris is just.. awful. Now we started to have days when we actually have -1C but it's really nothing. I actually took up jogging because it's nice to run when it's not too hot. Of course every friend of mine is complaining like it would be too cold for them to be. In Finland it's -30C now and I can't wait to go there in a couple of weeks :P

All of my CAF papers are almost ready. They send me a letter that I need to give them a birth certificate (which we don't do in Finland..), a note from the University that I'm attending and a letter telling them that I have money to pay my rent. I was really amused about the last one. Like I'd tell them if I didn't have money to pay!

This week I've been sending e-mails all over Finland finding out what I have to do about this birth certificate thing. The paper has to be in French including information of my parents. First of all because we don't have birth certificates in Finland they have to give me some other paper that costs 35 €. Then to prove that this paper is good they are going to stamp it and send me another paper that costs 11 €. This is what I found out from the embassy of Finland in Paris. Then I send an e-mail to the register office in my hometown and they told me that they don't do the paper in French and asked me to send an e-mail to the capital of Finland. So now I have a letter coming from Helsinki with all of the papers that I need and I hope that I'll get this CAF-thing sorted out next week!

Yesterday I visited my friends in here and we had a little BBQ. Tomorrow I'm going to Paris for a gig of Synthetic Waterfall in "Le Klub". Enjoy my wintry pictures! ;) Adieu