Do they have McDonald's in Lithuania?

Although I have so many things to talk about since I wrote my last last blog, I didn't find the time yet to amuse you all with yet another episode in my amazing Finnish adventure.

Sanne, you asleep?

Last week we made a great trip to Estonia and Lithuania. We left on Friday morning quite early, and because I'm  not yet very familiar with the "actually making homework for school" system, and my assignment had to be finished on Friday, It became a very short night. Nevertheless, we got up at 5 and headed off to Helsinki. Fortunately we we're able to catch some sleep in the car.

Hannes saying: "Oh there's no wifi on
the boat, that sucks, let's go back !

We arrived in Helsinki quite early so we had to wait a little bit to get on the ferry which would sail us safely to Estonia. On the ferry everyone could take place wherever they wanted, and when we realized that with our still half-sleeping faces, the only place left was a uncomfortable table in the middle of the bar with horrible 80's music. But we explored the ship a little further and watched to beautiful Helsinki harbor and its gorgeous small islands from the deck.

Sanne saying: When god created Finland,
he gave them lots of useless islands!

Of course it also didn't take us long to find the ferry tax free shop.


After singing loudly and making some stupid dance moves on the lower deck where the car was parked we entered the Estonian harbor. Markus, an other exchange student, born and raised in Tallin took us under his wings and decided to spend the day showing us this beautiful Estonian City. It was really nice knowing where to go (or not to go) and having someone guiding you around. Tallin surprised us again every single minute with its magnificent buildings and culture and definitely not to forget its (recent) history.

Old city - new city - old-Soviet-city

 When we talk or learn about history back home or at school, we study about the World Wars and French, German, Italian, American, etc history, but less or even never about Baltic countries. It was then very shocking, but astonishing to learn something more over this beautiful, young country and its recent past with the Soviet-Union. Hearing a 22 year old talk about the foundation of his country that's even younger than himself, and having it hard to control him emotions was very touching.
After the short and great history lesson we went to a pancake place and enjoyed a real Estonian diner.

Estonian pancakes, with meat

When we went back to the hostel, 3 other students, who hitchhiked there way to Tallin arrived as well. We then got ready for the music concert of Chase and Status. (That actually was our main reason for the trip). After missing Chase and Status myself two times during the summer holiday, I was very much looking forward to eventually seeing them. We then arrived at the concert hall and saw a few thousand people standing outside and in line to get in. After 30-45 minutes of pushing and pushing nothing changed and people started to get angry with each other and trowing a kinds of stuff. The entrance was maybe 8 meters wide and doors kept closed the whole time, entrance and exit, same way in and out. Eventually some people came out saying it was a madhouse inside. All together we decided not to wait any longer and to not take any more risks, and went safely back home.

Vilnius sleeping place

The day after we had a nice breakfast and visited the old town again. In the evening we took the night bus 700 km south to Vilnius. After not sleeping for almost the whole night we arrived in Lithuania. Of course the first question was: "Do they have McDo in Lithuania?". Luckily for us, they did, and with a menu costing only half the price you pay in Finland (or Belgium), we had a decent, real Lithuanian breakfast!

Do you where your teenager is at 5am
in the morning? Mac-MacDoncald's !

Diana, a girl from Lithuania, guided us around in Vilnius and provided us with an awesome sleeping place a little bit out of the city center. We could sleep with a guy who build his own music studio in his house, fully equipped with music instruments, a true heaven for 7 Music and Media students! That night he invited us to an incredible Raggae-DnB party in the underground scene of Vilnius. Afterwards we took the taxi home, but first stopped at the Mcdo drive-in (open 24/7!) and spent our last "Lollars" (how we called the Lithuanian money) on cheap burgers, without thinking about having to pay the taxi. That of course leaded  to a hilarious situation, but still we managed to get home safely. the day after we took the night bus again to Tallin and headed back home.

The same day two Belgian friends arrived, and still very tired from the sleepless last 7 days we started partying again in Jyväskylä. Wednesday we were able to catch a match of the Jyväskylän icehockey team. It was the first time in my life and definitely not the last!

JKL icehockey ring (© Michel Aubroeck)

But every amazing and good story has to come to and end... After my friends leaving back for Belgium, I started to feel a little bit sick and tired.
Must be the combination of to much sleep, not enough partying and not enough alcohol!


ps: For those who have a lot of time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WpS5o9by70
the first day of our trip in 15 minutes
Thanks to Sanne Rogier !

Blogger de blogger de blog !

Dear bloggers.

Where shall I begin this?

Squirrel eating barbecue left-overs  

Last week flew by so fast (again), and I have to admit, it's not easy to finish my blog on time every week. There are so many thing to do around here. Also going to the supermarket, preparing food and cleaning up take much more time then I would've imagined a month ago. But no worries, I'm not starving over here, and I do manage to keep my room clean, sort off...



Laundry day!
This week it was the first time that I did my own laundry. I was very nervous and couldn't get any sleep the day before. But it wasn't as hard as I imagined. Non of my clothes shrunk or changed colors. And of course I could not let this special occasion pass by unnoticed. So I had no other choice then organize a real "Laundry day after-party". A lot of people showed up, in clean clothes of course, and it was a great time to talk about my frightening experience with the washer and dryer that day.


Wednesday we had our first course of visual communication. Although I'm not very creative myself and I have no knowledge of any visual creating programs, the teacher was very convincing. I really want to learn more about this and maybe eventually see things in a different perspective, like I never saw them before.

Thursday I had my first course of "Español 3". It actually went very smooth and I was surprised that after 4 months of not speaking a single word in Spanish, the beautiful language is still somewhere present inside of my head. I also met a very nice Spanish girl called María, since her English is not that good (yet), and my Spanish can always use some support, we decided to come together on several occasions and help each other to improve our knowledge of both languages.
We normally only have 1h30 of 2h of each course every week, but the downside is that we always have to prepare something for the next. "Homework" they call it, sounds so 2000. But fine, it compensates with the nice and friendly teachers and the interesting lectures we get!

Drinking wine in class?

Thursday afternoon our "Basics of wine and other alcohol beverages"-course started. And yes, it was as fun as it sounds. We had to taste 40 wines over these 3 days. Because it was an intensive course, we also had to go on Saturday. Of course Friday evening is party-night, so we really needed to go out. Apparently the last bus back to our apartment is at 2h05 and NOT 2h15. I missed my last bus, so I had no other choice than going back to the party and not have fun at all... Thus, Saturday morning it was quite hard to get to school at 9, but the tasting of the sparkling wines certainly helped me to wake up!

Chris (crazy German guy), and me :)

Kozzmozz, Retro Acid, Star Warz
We promote !

Saturday evening we found the first dubstep/drum&bass party here in Jyväskylä, since our arrival a few weeks ago. It was really nice to finally here some not commercial dance or RnB music the Finnish people (and clubs) are so fond off. Still, the party ending before 3 o'clock and no after-party? Not getting used to that.

Maybe I do miss Belgium a little bit?

  Ps: Mam: I'm really not starving, I even managed to make some bacon and eggs  

Ps: Dad: 4.26€ for ONE Orval! You would be ruined...

Moi, mun nimi on Daan (Hi, my name is Daan)

Monday’s still are pretty much the same as back in Belgium. You have to wake up to early, and you forgot to buy milk and cereals, because you were in a party mood all weekend and didn’t go to the supermarket, so there is nothing to eat… The good thing is I survived the weekend and I was really looking forward to our first Finnish lesson. After a few minutes I realized, that learning the language would be even harder than I imagined. You can’t relate to any language and it’s really hard to pronounce any word at all. The teacher didn’t speak English very well, so that makes it even harder to understand anything at all! But we did enjoy it, and a Spanish guy trying to pronounce the Finnish “J” as in “Javier”, is pretty funny as well.

Erasmus people hanging out

Warming up for footbal game

Italian pasta and sausage

The best thing here in Jyväskylä is that you’ll never get bored. Every single day someone throws a party or organizes an activity. Last week for example on Sunday we gathered to play some football and eventually we ended up playing against a local Finnish children’s team.
This week we also had an international diner. But because we can’t make any French fries here and you can’t find any high-value Belgian beers in the supermarkets, we decided to arrive an hour late (typically Belgian!) and just bring some chocolate.
Last weekend we went to bar Ruma (literally means “Ugly”), and for the first time I was surprised that they do know some good music around here as well. And not only the commercial dance and RnB. Afterwards we ended up at the Italian’s place, where he started to make a late-night pasta meal for 8 people.

Finnish nature on way to supermarket

Last week we didn’t have a lot of courses yet. Monday and Tuesday we still had a day off, and when we arrived at school on Wednesday at 8am, we discovered that our teacher was sick and that none of the exchange students got informed about it. The course that we were going to take on Wednesday afternoon, “Safety & Security”, got cancelled for the whole semester because not enough students enrolled for it. The first real lesson we had was the “Sports marketing and mass media”. After the introduction we realized that it was not going to be so much about the sports itself but more the commercial side and even how politics are involved in all these major sporting events. Next week we’re going to start with “Visual communication” and “Basics of wine and other alcohol beverages”, which I’m really looking forward to!


  
 Moikka! (Finnish way to say goodbye)

ps: a quote to end with
Spanish guy saying: "Alcohol is so expensive over here, I started trying to drink these cleaning products we have."