Update!

This week everyone is working hard on finishing their Northern Cultures and Societies essays as well as studing for the Finnish exam which we write on Thursday morning 8:30am. Some people have been more productive than others and have already finished their essays but that is unfortunately not the case for me. However, I have found out that my productivity levels are considerably higher in the library...who would've thought!;) So will be spending a considerable amount of my time there...

Just to give a quick update on what has happened the past couple of days, and over the weekend. On Friday I spent a wonderful afternoon and evening at my Kummi family. We chatted for hours while looking at photos. We also went to the son's "elders ball" where everyone was dressed elegantly in beautiful ball gowns and tuxedos.
Then on Saturday we went into Oulu market place for the ski-jump competition. They had built a snow ramp in the market place of Oulu town especially for the competition which took place from 18:00-19:00.

Sunday 8 of us drove to Kemi to visit the ice-castle. Four of us travelled in Daniel's car and the other four in Patrick's car. It took about 1,5hrs to get to Kemi. The ice-castle was not exactly what we expected (a bit dissapointing) but it was nice to see anyway. There were some impressive ice-sculptures inside castle. The interior temperature was an ice -8 degrees so by the end of our exploration through the castle we retired to a souvenir and coffee shop for some "luke warm" coffee and hot chocolate.
Walking on the Baltic Sea...












Inside the ice-castle...

The ice-bar in Kemi ice-castle...After exploring the ice-castle we drove about 6km to see the ice-breaker, unfortunately we were too late as the ice-breaker was not there anymore when arrived...

On our way back to Oulu we stopped over in town for some coffee and pulla in our second favourite coffee restuarant "cafe bisketti". We have all become very fond of Pulla and try and taste all the different pullas whenever we go out for coffee.

Anti-valentines Party!

We decided to celebrate valentines a bit differently this year...by having an "anti-valentines" party. The rules:
1. Know one was allowed to say the "L" word
2. Know one was allowed to wear the colours pink or red
3. No mentioning of flowers, slices or pulla
4. No mention of the "V" word allowed

Petra and I made pancakes that evening for the party. The ingredients: 15 eggs, 2 litres of milk and 1,5kg...which is the equivalent of about 150 pancakes!!
Petra and Elena (our new roommate from Italy who arrived on Sunday). Petra making pancakes and Elena making dinner.
Paul and Marko making (of what would be one of many...) gin and tonics!

Hmmmmm...strawberry and mayonnaise pancakes! Marko and I trying our new combination...Petra, Lind and Amy...after one too many glasses of wine...Later we moved from mine and Petra's apartment to Marko's and Paul's place...and the party continues...Needless to say, the next day was a bit "tough" after the hectic night especially since we had Finnish survival course at 8:30...

Busy Monday!

I usually have a boring breakfast of toast and margerine, but after spending the whole morning in the laundry room (from 8am-10am), watching and waiting for the clothes to finish washing and drying, Daniel and I decided to make a yummy breakfast of toast, finish bread with egg and tea...as we were starving by the time our laundry was done and we thought we deserved a good breakfast before our 4 hour long "Introduction to Saami culture" lecture that would start at 12:15pm. Just before class I went to the library to search for books that I could use for my Northern Cultures and societies essay. My essay is titled "Finnish Magic" and I will be writing about the history of Finnish folklore, fairytales and witchcraft. I was able to get 5 useful books from the library.

At 6:30 this evening, Marco and Paul pitched up at our flat, pleading to use our kitchen to make dinner- pasta (of course!) with pesto- as their kitchen was being used by tons of people their roommate had invited...of course, Petra and I borrowed them the use of our kitchen.

After dinner was biscuit time again! Marco and I had a new topping for our biscuits that we wanted to try...pesto ...unbelievable as it may sound, it turned out to be a really good combination...YUM!First I tried just a little dab of pesto, to test the combination...so as not to ruin the whole biscuit in case the combination failed.

Marco and I munching on our chocolate-pesto biscuit! Curious to try the combination, Paul joins us with the chocolate pesto tasting session. We still have to find a combination that we do not like...;)



Then during our chocolate-pesto tasting session, Lind arrived with her laptop. She had borrowed the laptop to her roommate and later when she tried to login, it wouldn't let her. Daniel and Wolfi came over to assess the problem. Unfortunately it didn't look like good news...a virus!

The rest of the evening until 10pm, Daniel and Wolfi tried to recover some data and fix the problem. A worried Lind, sitting beside Daniel trying his best to solve the problem.


Wolfi was also called to the rescue...but unfortunately by the end of the evening, the problem had not been solved.

Sunday afternoon coffee and pasta dinner!

This afternoon at 3:30pm we decided try a new coffee place in town called "coffee bisketti" (or something like that...can't exactly remember the name)...anyway, we enjoyed some good coffee/hot chocolate and Pulla. Afterwards I met Sarah and Patrick at "St Michaels"...an Irish pub in town where they were playing live Irish music. It is a really warm cosy pub with a warm friendly atmosphere.
When we arrived back, Marco, Amy, Paul and Daniel came over for dinner...we made our "favourite " pasta a la tomatie...Marco trying to multi-task... dishing out the food while at the same time holding a fork in his mouth (tough task;).












A hungry Amy,Daniel and Paul tucking into their pasta...













For dessert: our favourite Finnish chocolate biscuits with jam!
Marco demonstrates how it is done...
First you spread it...

















Then you eat it...
and don't forget your "bib", in case you mess some jam on yourself (which was the case for Marco...)














Daniel and Paul (evidently still hungry...)

Afternoon with my Kummi family!

Yesterday afternoon at 2pm, Seppo (my "kummi dad") and Milla (my "kummi sister"), came to fetch me from my apartment. We then drove to their house, about 20km from the university. When I arrived I was welcomed in with a big hug by Marjatta (my kummi mom) who was preparing food. For lunch we ate a delicious chicken and rice dish, 8 of us sat around the family dining table eating and chatting the whole afternoon. My kummi family reminds me a lot of my family at home so it was wonderful to spend the afternoon and evening chatting and being "part of a family" again. For dessert we had a typical Finnish berry dessert, which I was very excited about...I always love trying new things especially food! So I ate a dessert of cloudberries with sugar for the first time...very delicious! After dessert we had tea, coffee and the Milktart that I had prepared for my kummi family. As I hoped, everyone really enjoyed the Milktart, and Seppo even tried a mixture of Milktart and cloudberries, which according to him, was a really good combination.

I arrived back at 8:45, and headed straight to Wolfi's place where he had organised a "eating of his Plan A - cake "flop" evening that had started at 8:30pm. Wolfi's "flop" of a cake actually turned out really well and was so good that we recommended that he has to make the "flop" again sometime...hehe!
The "the Plan A, flop cake"...it consisted of a layer of cake, covered by a layer of cream filling, covered by a layer of whipped cream and finally covered by chocolate sauce! Everyone else proceeded to play a game of Carcassonne while I indulged myself, devouring the "flop cake".

International Dinner Party!

Yesterday was a day of preparing,baking, cooking, and eating and eating and more eating of lots of food! By the afternoon, delicious aromas of different foods were wafting through our building as everyone in our building was busy baking/cooking their dish/cake they were going to bring for the international dinner party that would start at 6pm that evening.

I had decided to make "vetkoek" as my traditional South African dish and Amy had decided to make Melktert for her dish...YUM! However, both of us were also going to go to our kummi families on Saturday afternoon so we decided to bake a Melktert for our Kummi families. After lunch we went to Amy's flat to make the Melkterts. Amy and I pressing the Melktert dough base into the baking trays.
Our final product! The only thing missing was still the cinnamon to be dusted on top of the cakes.
After our hard work, Petra came by and we enjoyed some tea and milktart cup cakes (we had also made three small milktart cupcakes from some leftover milktart dough and filling.)

Baking Task 2:
I had prepared the vetkoek dough earlier in the morning as it still had to stand and rise so all we had left to do by the afternoon was to shape them into small balls, deep fry them and fill them.
Hmmmmmmmmmm!!! Petra was the "vetkoek ball former" and I was the "vetkoek deep fryer...
while Amy was the "vetkoek filler"...
Karolina (my Polish roommate) and Daria (Polish) joined us later in the kitchen, they were preparing a traditional Polish dish of potato dumplings for the international dinner party.

Once the vetkoek was ready I popped into my neighbours to see how their preparations were going...
Patrick, Sarah and Daniel had baked a delicious "Zwiebelkuchen" (onion tart).

Across the corridor from us, Ben (Australian) and Marcus (German) were preparing schnitzel and lemmingtons...My last visit was at Wolfi's flat on the top floor. Sarah and I decided to "pop in" when we heard that Wolfi's preparations were not going so well...Wolfi's "plan B cake" ( thanx to Sarah and I, and with some improvisation we were able to "revive" the cake after "plan A cake" not "working out" as expected...)
Finally at 6pm basically our whole building met outside the flat and we all walked (food in hand) to the party venue (a 5 minute walk from our flat). There were five tables filled of all different foods imaginable and I have never tasted such a variety of food before.
Wolfi's invention: Austrian farmers biscuit!
Our always "ever so photogenic boys": Daniel and Wolfi posing for the camera...
Wolfi, Petra and Amy chatting and laughing away...

"After party" and chilling at Kaio...

After the dinner party, Petra, Wolfi, Sarah, Patrick and I decided to go to Kaio (a local hang-out place/pub a few hundred meters from where we had the dinner party), we also joined up with some other exchange students inside...

Wolfi and I downed a Salmiakki shot...didn't think I would like it becuase it was liqourice flavoured and everyone warned me that it was really vile...
...but I ended up finding the taste not that bad!;)


We had an especially heated topic (excuse the pun!) about suana's and my fears about mixed sauna's...

...other topics of conversation ranged from "what to wear when climbing" to "salmiakki sweets" (salt ammonuim chloride candy- only the finnish could possibly invent something like that!)

Late night with Pulla, tea & friends

Tonight Daniel, Wolfi, Petra and I enjoy some late night "Pulla" eating accompanied by tea, chatting and lots of laughs...














Wolfi munching away...


















Chatting away...

Frozen Day!

This morning's temperature.... -29 DEGREES!! and the 5 min walk to the university at 8:15am seemed much longer, as it always does when one is trying to get to the warm campus interior as fast as possible before your whole body freezes up! It "warmed" up to -24 degrees by the afternoon, and although icy cold, it ended up being a beautiful sunny day. I have learned to appreciate every single sunbeam and sunray that shines down from above;)...in the words of Wolfi: "the sunbeams were kissing down on us!"...hehe

Later in the afternoon (after class), Petra, Daniel and I sat around our kitchen table drinking tea and eating "yummy" warm biscuits that had just come out of the oven...hmmmmmmmmmm! Petra had the urge to bake some biscuits and Daniel and I were lucky enough to be on the receiving end...

Wolfi, Daniel and I spent the rest of the evening, in Wolfi's flat, lazily watching episode after episode of the first season of "scrubs". Daniel had never seen an episode before, but was hooked after the first few episodes! We are planning to have a "scrubs session" once a week where we laze in front of the laptop watching "scrubs" episodes...we have 4 seasons we have to get through!

The crazy Finns!

One thing I can't understand about the Finns...they cycle everywhere no matter how cold the weather. Petra and I did a really Finnish thing today and decided to cycle into town (6km) in -20 DEGREES weather!! I have never felt so cold in my life !! Crazy Finns!
(Cycling with just jeans and no thermals was not a smart idea either...NOTE TO SELF: always, ALWAYS wear thermals!).

Petra and I borrowed some bikes from Wolfi (Austrian) and Karolina (our Polish housemate). Petra (with Karolina's bike) and I (with "Jacqueline"...i.e. Wolfi's bike) on the bridge nearby Oulu town centre.
We had to go into town to Nordea bank as Petra had to open up a bank account and I had to activate my internet banking so that i can pay my rent for this month which is due today. Even though the weather was cold, it ended up being a beautiful day, the sun was shining brightly all day! and it was still quite an experience cycling into town in -20 degrees weather!!

When we arrived back at 6pm we were starving and frozen. Wolfi came over and made a delicious "Bratwurst", scrambled eggs with salami for dinner. While Chef Wolfi was preparing dinner, we warmed ourselves with some much deserved and needed tea and chocolate biscuits!
A happy and warmer Petra, relieved to be back in our comfy, warm flat!
Our gourmet meal!
A very hungry Dori (aka ME) and Wolfi...