Germany, 2

Oliver was a very good car! This is Oliver. He is a Black Opel Astra with leather seats inside. We took the liberty to rent a handheld GPS for the car because we (apparently) hate maps. So of course, in a foreign country where I hoped nothing would go wrong, the GPS decided to tell our driver to 'Make a U-turn, if possible" on one of Germany's unrestricted Autobahn sections. Umm....... no can't do that. As a result of this, I got to the airport roughly 40 minutes late, but still in time to catch the airport.You see, by the time Oliver returned to the rental place, he had apparently done over 1600km in three days.

About Oktoberfest.... It is a truly amazing sight to behold. The sheer number of people is absolutely overwhelming. The amount of beer was overwhelming, and the amount of sausages! So many good hotdogs! We waited in line for about two hours to try to get into a tent for Oktoberfest, but alas it was simply not our day.

We couldn't get in and there were just too many people... I'm pretty certain I had about two or three cigarettes worth of second hand smoke that day too. Instead of staying in Theresienwiese where Oktoberfest was held, we decided to go to downtown Munich.

Before we left, I managed to snag a shot with some German patrolmen at Oktoberfest. He initially said it was 50e to take photos with them and he had me duped for about 5 seconds. Germans have humour too!

We headed to downtown Munich for some city wandering. The centre of Munich is kind of interesting... It had a nice mix of old and new architecture. To be honest, it didn't have as much of a wow effect on me as Prague did. Nevertheless, some of the architecture there was still very beautiful. This is one of the scenes you see right away the moment you get to ground level from the underground subways. On a nice day like ours, the sight was quite breathtaking. We had lunch afterwards, and someone decided to try something that was labelled as "I'm going to splurge on lunch today".

It came out to be this dish (Apologies for the half eaten dish..)

That's right. Fresh Mozzarella cheese with a healthy portion of tomatoes. For 10e. Given that some people don't fancy cheese and certainly not tomatoes, I had to engage in a dish swap for my vegetarian pasta.

Regardless, this was basically day 2 of our trip in Germany. Photos to follow in the next few days for our very brief stint into Austria and our visit to Schloss Neuschwanstein, inspiration for Disney!

Germany

It started out with a briskly cold day (I swear it was colder than the forecasted 1c at 4 in the morning) in Helsinki, catching the 4AM bus to the airport. The bus took about half an hour to bumble toward the airport but I didn't manage to catch any sleep while on the bus. Being sick absolutely stinks when you're about to go on a trip. Ignore the man in the photo. I was too tired to take this shot with my hands or even find anything to plunk the camera onto, so pavement was fine for me. :D

Once I got to the airport, being kicked around for the check ins kind of sucked. When all was said and done, I was glad it took me a while, because this sight awaited me while I was chilling at departures.

Let's go to Germany! After a two hour flight, two sandwiches on the flight and a 15cl can of Sprite, I arrived in Stuttgart where I was to wait for a few hours for my ride toward Munich.... or so I thought. While in Stuttgart airport, there were many things for me to see! They had a flight history exhibit going on so I took a look. Wandering the airport was fun for about two hours, then I had to settle down and start working. Unfortunately, Stuttgart airport is cheap. No free wifi was available (boo!) Even at Stuttgart Airport, they care for the kids. Look!

Aside from kiddieland, there was really nothing worth looking at (lol) at Stuttgart Airport. I sat down and worked from 11AM in the morning until 6PM, when my travel buddy and her friends picked me up in a Black Opel Astra. I have nicknamed it Oliver. Oliver was a cool car! He took us to many places and we had many adventures in it. Oliver took us to our eventual hostel for the night which was another four hour drive away from Stuttgart. Oliver took us to Oktoberfest. Oliver took us to Neuschwanstein Castle too! I love Oliver. More updates to come re: Germany in the next few days! I leave you with a jaw-dropping photo of the sights we saw at 7AM in the morning at Oktoberfest.

Sunrise at Oktoberfest in Munich.

Prague and Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic

Returned from a four day long trip in Prague & a satellite town of Prague.

Prague in one word was “Golden”. The taglines that people use to describe Prague are very accurate! The city was absolutely full of spires everywhere. We stayed in the Old Town area where we saw many historical relics! Unfortunately, it was rainy for 60% of the time we were here so the photos were not very beautiful. I only caught a few with my EPL-1 but the proper DSLR didn’t arrive until it started raining.


Photo of the winding river that runs through the centre of Prague. This was from the airplane hence the blurriness.


Photo of the grand tower which the king of Prague used to cross under every time he returns to the city. It is now a huge tourist attraction with at least four spotlights illuminating it at night. The surrounding area glows like gold because of the incandescent lighting and golden reflections close to the building. Absolutely beautiful!


This sort of became my dinner for three different days. Bratwurst with Baguette style bun! They taste delicious and they’re around 50CZK ($2.50CAD). I realize these are just hot dogs, but for such a big hot dog they’re hard to resist!


The amazing hospitality at Old Prague Hostel. If you don’t mind people invading your privacy when you sleep a little bit, I highly recommend it! Cheap rooms, free breakfast, free wifi, free maps. How does a little hostel like this even survive? Sadly, I never got this guy’s name. He’s pretty cool though.


Seeing a bunch of tourists waiting in front of this building. Not too sure what kind of building it is, perhaps a hotel? This is at around 8 in the morning. Note the sun rising in the reflection and the blue skies – this was the one and only sunny morning we experienced.


Couldn’t capture much of the Prague skyline from here, but the sunrise is absolutely exquisite.


The small little creek that runs under Charles Bridge – its an offshoot of the main river. Does this look like Venice?


:O PAVOL DEMITRA! Oh wait, why’s he wearing a Canucks uniform?


The little street on the left sort of does represent Prague. The Old Town is littered with streets like that snaking all over the place. I got lost (on purpose) the morning I shot all these photos just to see if there were surprises – and there were! I went through so many narrow alleyways and walked on so many streets built from cobblestone!

People Break Things and Suomenlinna

So today was supposed to be the 'bed-bug spraying day'. Apparently people get bed bugs easily in Helsinki.

Long story short, when I came home, I found that the frame in my door had cracked wide open. They claimed they had the key.. but.. who the hell breaks a frame like this? How much force did you need to use bro?



I guess I've bee neglecting this blog lately. There's been too much work at school what with all the case studies and responses every two days. Regardless, we managed to hit Suomenlinna as a chinese tourist group on Sunday. Suomenlinna is a fortress island built in the 18th century by Sweden as an attempt to defend their waters. Read more about the Fortress here.



Oh look at that, its me on a honking huge cannon!



Isn't this beautiful? Mr. Sun decided to come out and play halfway through the day!
Tomorrow I head to Prague. I'll attempt to provide daily updates as I make my way through the historical city! There's much to be seen!

Temppeliaukio Kirkko - Rock Church

I went to a very special church today. It reminds me of a passage in the bible referring to build on a rock and not sand. This church literally shows this fact.

As you approach the church, the walk is quite steep uphill. It reminded me that being a Christian is not easy. There will be hurdles and challenges, and it will most definitely be an uphill battle. But when all is said and done, we get to revere in God's glory. Some photos to come with annotations.


The view that you get when you reach the top of the church (the church itself is underground) is basically all blue skies and nothing else. Despite the surrounding buildings being taller than the church itself, the church dominates the landscape.


A simple cross, reminding us to keep everything simple and to not be burdened with riches in this world.


This is a shot of inside the church around 11AM. The light within the building is all natural, and all the walls that we can touch and feel within the church are made of actual rock.

The overall experience at this church was downright amazing. What's great is taht I'm going to be going there every Sunday when I'm not out on a trip! How awesome is that?

First Day at School!

I really should have posted this yesterday, but I took the photos today because the weather's just much nicer!


This is a Finnish keyboard, apparently. It has very strange character sets that keep throwing me off when I try to type on it.


This is the top of one of the major shopping centres in Helsinki, Kamppi. If I paid 540e PER MONTH, I would be living here in the Studios. Uhh... no thanks.




This is a street sweeper waiting to pounce - they sweep sidewalks too! Water gets sprayed while its sweeping so the dust doesn't get kicked up all over the place, its kinda neat.




Another snippet of home - Metro!




In front Aalto University School of Economics (aka Helsinki School of Economics). The locals still call it HSE because of the branding. Apparently, HSE is a difficult school to get into. I guess either a) international students are exempt, or b) I'm awesome?


The Arkadia buildling. Another building that belongs to HSE.


Dr. Gregory House - yet another thing to remind me of home.

Finland is great so far. I'm meeting lots of international students, all with very interesting stories to tell about their own cultures and experience. I've also had the fortune to meet another student from SFU - very cool! We formed an all Canadian row in our Management of Technology class and for any group work, I think we'll be working together. It makes it a heck lot easier for us to accomplish the work.

So far my expenditures are not looking good - already spent upwards of 400e but I don't know where its gone! I must keep better track of my finances, otherwise I run the risk of being bankrupt and bankrupting my parents!

First Batch of Photos from Finland

I took my camera out today and went shuttercrazy .... .. a bit. Lets try to annotate these photos one by one, shall we? :)



This is the elevator in my apartment. Very old school! You have to pull on a door to get inside.



My apartment. I'm on the top left-most room.



Free furniture anyone? People leave furniture behind all the time and when we clean out our dorms, we're not allowed to leave things in the hallway for fire safety reasons. Everyone dumps stuff there!



Bike corral! Many of these exist throughout the streets within Helsinki and our apartments. Bikes are truly the quick way to travel on cheap. Plus, workout!



Clean my clothes here! The sauna is supposed to be here too, but I only see the one for females and not males.. Have to ask. Sauna is a highly traditional Finnish thing to do where they take their mind off everything and just relax.



Our trash facilities. I am SO not the one going to be dumping the trash in the winter. The trash facilities are only about 50m away from the exit of our apartment, but it'll be freezing cold. T_T



From left to right, Ida Aalbergintie 1C, 1B, 1A



The only Chinese restaurant I've found so far.. Its Shanghainese(??) cuisine, but I'm not sure if they can speak any Cantonese. If they can, that would be great!



Alepa, the mini supermarket which is 5 minutes away from our dorms. Has a bit of everything here, but for better shopping, go to Prisma instead.



Many Finnish roads are separated like this. The sidewalks are roughly 1.5 times the width of those we have in Canada.



Finnish highway system is very efficient. 4 lanes both ways!



Prisma - the huge supermarket where I'll be spending the majority of my daily expenses.



GUYS. ITS SCII!!!!



Hi Miche, look, its the moomins!

First Blown Fuse

Tada! Courtesy of plugging a surge protector rated for 15A/115V directly into the wall of a Finnish socket.



Today's Saturday, so it'll be a rest day ish for me. Video chatting with my family is awesome! I'll also need to replace the fuse amongst other things today. My first day of school is coming and I'm very very excited - can't wait to see what's in store for me!

I must head over to the market to replace this fuse now.

First Luggage Found!

Bag 1 Status RECEIVED AT AIRPORT

I'm very happy right now. My living conditions have improved drastically too! I now have a blanket and proper sheets for it. The mattress itself is still naked, but I'll see to that on the weekends. I went yesterday morning to buy more essentials for daily use - cup, plate, bowl, fork, spoon, knife. Notice the singular? Yep, I didn't buy any extras. LOL. There's also a pot and a pan, though I don't really need extras of those I guess.

I cooked a decent dinner last night! Fried Cabbage with a red pepper and tomatoes. You can see a photo album of everything I've taken at Helsinki so far here.

http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/1574661/1/Finland?h=ef06eb

Today is also orientation day and its supposed to last a while. I can't wait for school to get started so I start building some routine into my day - its weird not having any routine to go by especially when I'm in such a foreign environment. =\ Also to note - its quite windy here.

I'm feeling... less sad now. I want to talk to my family all the time, but at the same time this is part of the exchange experience. I really have to force myself out of this small protective cocoon and explore the limits of my personal boundaries. It may feel uncomfortable, but I believe that when this exchange term is over with, it will make me a more independent person and more rounded person (not physically..!)

Bernard

First Time Luggage Lost

As much as I don't want to post about this, I'm going to force myself to log as much as I can about the feelings from the trip.

My luggage is lost - probably stuck somewhere in Toronto. I asked the Air Canada ladies and they said that the baggage will get checked through and to expect it in Helsinki.

Yea.. no that hasn't happened yet. LOL. They're still running a trace for it... we'll see what happens! Gotta stay positive right now.