Monthly Archives: May 2012

The square in Vasaa.

The square in Vasaa.

Err…Kokkola? No,Vaasa? Wait.. is it Seinäjoki?

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So, my excruciating  journey to Kokkola started from Tikkurila in Vantaa. I had my ticket , and was good  to go.

I was not so secure about it since I needed to travel on my own by train ( mind you, more then 400km away!)

‘Cause this was actually just my second day in Finland, and I was a lost cause.

Luckily, a girl from Greece named Anastasia was coming my way on the arrival ON-arrival training organised by CIMO.

Need I say that we entered in the wrong wagon?We crashed into the deluxe section, and got immediately chased away :)))

Of course we needed to walk up to the last wagon and sit through the road. To make things worse, we didn’t ‘hear’ the conductor ( with his exquisite English I must add..) saying that we need to move to another wagon.

We didn’t hear it… and we ended up in…. Vaasa? Last station, and just for a tiny bit we could have went to Lapland :))

Vaasa was a pretty dandy city, really clean and up and running. It had a very modern flavor to it.

However, one of the conductors understood that we are lost in space, so he gave us a DELUXE ticket for two for Seinäjoki! Guilty as charged 🙂

So with a lot of effort , we came to Kokkola, us being the last people to arrive!

We are accommodated in a lovely villa called Elba, a little bit outside Kokkola.

I met people from all around the world:  France, Sweden, Georgia, Ukraine,Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Hungary, Ireland, Portugal and many more…

It is only my first day, and I love it!

Of course it’s 1:48AM and it’s still not dark. *slightly moves head.

I call it a day now, 4 more days left.

hei hei 🙂

Tervetuloa Suomeen!

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After changing 3 flights and seeing all sorts of freaks in the transfer zone, I’m in my country 🙂  I’m in Vantaa for the day.

I had the chance to visit my host family, they are too kind and adorable, a true spirited Finnish family.

Least to say, I’m homesick… but satisfied from what I’ve seen.  All the lush greenery!

  And the sun not leaving the sky,that alone is quite disturbing. :-))

Tomorrow I’m proceeding to Kokkola, a city located in the west of Finland, where as there will be a camp for all of the volunteers from all around the world in Finland, organized by CIMO.

 

Until then, comment don’t be a stranger! 🙂

“The forms of a language inevitably have repercussions upon the speaker, it is they which mould his face, his land, his habits, where he lives, what he eats. The foreigner learning Finnish distorts his own bodily features; he moves away from his original self, may indeed no longer recognize it. This does not happen studying other languages, because other languages are merely temporary scaffolding for meaning. Not so for Finnish: Finnish was not invented. The sounds of our language were around us, in nature, in the woods, in the pull of the sea, in the call of the wild, in the sound of the falling snow. All we did was to bring them together and bend them to our needs.”

– Diego Marani, New Finnish Grammar

Karoliina Kantelinen “Soittelen soutusalmen suorimaista”

Karoliina Kantelinen is a singer and an ethnomusicologist from Helsinki who specializes in different ethnic singing styles. Her doctoral dissertation is on the old yoik tradition from Russian Karelia, formerly a Finnish territory. She currently teaches folk music at the department of musicology in the University of Helsinki. Known for challenging the old established ideas and concepts of interpreting Viena Karelian yoiks, she uses the traditional Kalevala style as her inspiration for new contemporary folk-based compositions

Muumi | Mumintroll <3

 

The Moomins (Swedish: Mumintroll, Finnish: Muumi) are the central characters in a series of books and a comic strip by Swedish-Finn illustrator and writer Tove Jansson, originally published in Swedish by Schildts in Finland. They are a family of trolls who are white and roundish, with large snouts that make them resemble hippopotamuses. The carefree and adventurous family live in their house in Moominvalley, in the forests of Finland, though in the past their temporary residences have included a lighthouse and a theatre. They have many adventures along with their various friends.