Elnadiomitra, BOVRIL:) and yummy cake...

Elnadiomitra (our Basilica plant)

Our Basilica plant in our apartment is growing beautifully and has really become our "pride and joy"...hehe so we decided we had to name it. How we came up with the name...? well, we took all our names (my 3 room-mates and I) and put them together and ELNADIOMITRA was born!(Elena -Italian room-mate, Naomi - my new British room-mate who arrived on Monday, Petra - Slovenian room-mate and ME = Elnadiomitra)

YAY FOR BOVRIL!!!

June's (the other South African exchange student) boyfriend arrived this past weekend from South Africa to visit her here in Finland and Amy (in the picture with both of our bovrils) and I were beaming with joy upon receiving a jar of Bovril each from him all the way from South Africa! YUM!!

Sunset!

Sunset at the lake at Linnanmaa Campus. Photographer: Paul Thomas Rees

The days in Oulu are getting much longer (almost 14hrs) and warmer now, often we are lucky to see some beautiful sunsets. Yesterday Paul and I walked to a lake nearby to watch the sunset.
Photographer: Nadine Lenhard (Dori)
Paul taking a close-up of some frozen droplets hanging from a branch, the result of which can be seen in the photo below...
Photographer: Paul Thomas Rees

At the beach!

Later that afternoon (after the lasagne and ice-cream lunch) we walked to the beach (about 5km from campus). We had planned to buy some Makkara (finnish type of sausage) to braai at the beach and watch the sunset.

We had been very lucky with warm sunny days and amazing sunsets here in Oulu this past week so we thought it would be nice to go to the beach and watch the sunset from there. Wolfi and Patrick had gone a few days ago and had witnessed an amazing sunset at the beach.From left: Patrick and Sarah, Marko (on the bike), Paul, Barbora, Wolfi and me (taking the photo)...
Wolfi, Patrick and Sarah with the map to make sure we were on the right track...Wolfi catching a lift on the bike... Arriving at the beach, rather windy, cold with dark rainclouds looking down at us...this time we were not that lucky with the weather and later on while we braaied the Makkara on the fire the rain started...the sun had tricked us with beautiful sunny weather the whole week and the day we decide to go to the beach, it decides to rain (some of the first rain drops in Oulu since we arrived). The beach...Frozen...

Hmmmm....Makkara!

Wolfi's amazing lasagne!

Yesterday afternoon for lunch a group of us met upstairs in Wolfi's flat for lasagne...YUM!
Everyone enjoying the delicious lasagne that Wolfi had prepared. After the lasagne we all still had an appetite for ice-cream so Wolfi quickly went by bike to the shops and came back with ice-cream, chocolate sauce and banana's...

And my own invention...marshmellow, chocolate sauce and banana surprise!!

Fede's amazing pizza!

On Saturday evening Federico had organised a pizza evening at his place, Petra and I went earlier to help get the food and the place ready for the party!Frederico preparing one of eight pizza's for the evening. There were eight different pizza'a each with a different topping ranging from gorgonzola & parma ham to Proscuitto, potato and brie...real gourmet style pizza!
Two of the pizza'a before going into the oven...Elena got wrapped up in some of the decorations that Petra and I had worked so hard to arrange in the place;)


For dessert we had THE best tiramisu I had ever tasted (prepared by Monica) and Orange-chocolate cake (prepared by Petra and I)...which was accompanied by some delicious dessert wine...YUM!

Pasta + cake last night and biscuits + tea today!

Last night we had a pasta evening again and this time we did a bit of a variation and made Pasta-a la-tomatie-a-la-pesto...yum! We discovered a really good Basilica pesto at the supermarket that goes very well with pasta and was nice to try a bit of a variation to the usual dish.
(In the pic: Petra, Barbora, Marko, Paul, Jakub and Daniel)
Barbora (from Prague) had baked a delicious three layered cake for dessert:)
Then this afternoon a few friends came over for some biscuits, tea and chatting... After biscuits it was over to Paul and Marko's place to plan the Halti trip and after that a half-hour session in the sauna. Phew! Another busy day coming to an end...

Long days and beautiful sunsets!

The days are getting longer and warmer quickly now and we sometimes walk down to the lake to watch the sunset over the lake. Here we saw an amazing sunset of rich orange, red and pink colours!