More Helsinki, Bum Knee, Speak Finish

So my mother visited for easter, and that was great. We spent a few days bumming around Jyväskylä, seeing the sites, going for bike rides, listening to choral concerts, and drinking beer. We had pretty decent weather, so that was nice. Then we headed to Helsinki for the weekend, and did a lot of sight-seeing. The best part was a visit Suomenlinna, a old military fortress on an island just off of Helsinki. The day was really warm but SUPER foggy, so being on the island seemed other-worldly, with lots of chunks of ice floating by and the city seeming centuries away. Unfortunately, I left my camera in Jyväskylä, so you'll have to wait until my mother sends me some of the photos to see what I'm talking about.

Since then, I've just been working alot. Pekka has another project for me to think about, and there are still some things to work out on the first project we had, and of course there's my dissertation to think about (oh yeah...THAT.) The weather has been really fantanstic...finally kevät tulee (spring is coming). Unfortunately, while walking in Helsinki I managed to really screw up my knee - I think that I've irritated the tendonitis I developed after the Chicago marathon a few years ago. The down side is that it is really hard to do ANYTHING in Jyväskylä without biking or walking a few miles. The up side is that I don't have to worry about running out of ice to put on my knee. Thanks for the bottle of Ibuprofen, Jess! It's been a life saver! For those of you unfamiliar with Finlanomics, a package of 10 pills of ibuprofen costs a little less than $6.

I've started attending a Finnish conversation course. It meets twice a week for 3 hours at a time, which means ALOT of speaking in Finnish. Which is good, but I find that I'm really exhausted after our course meetings. Especially since many of the people in the course have been in finland for a lot longer than I have. No niin...(yeah, well...) I'm trying.

Ok, I'm going to break the cardinal rule of blogging - don't ever say anything negative about anyone - just this once because I'm so fed up. The resident of the third room in my flat recently returned from a semester abroad in Brazil. He's a Finn. He's also the WORST FLAT MATE EVER. Loud, filthy, inconsiderate, unfriendly down right rude, and steals my food and beer. Also blatantly ignores requests to modify his behavior. What the hell? Why can't I live with any of the nice finns I've met?


Sorry. I won't let that happen again. Don't forget to check out my photo stream for some new photos, like this one!

Back in the JKL

So wow, it's been a while. Where to start? Well, after I wrote the last entry, I went straight to my birthday party. It was great. There were about 10 people there, and ALL were finnish except for Midori and I. However, Midori speaks fluent Finnish, so she gets special honorary Finnish status. I invited lots of other foreigners, but they didn't show. Anyway, the party kicked and Maria and Sanna baked a super-nami chocolate cake, and I got lots of beautiful hand-made cards. The only down side was that the party lasted until 4 am.

"Why is that a down side?", you ask? Well, because I had to be on a bus to Lapland at 9 am the next morning. That day was really rough. I wasn't exactly hungover - it was more of a lack-of-sleep issue. Anyway, we arrived in Oulu and went to a Children's Science Center, Tietomaa. It was sweet - I felt like a little kid again. Sleeping that night was in a church retreat center. We had a great sauna - one of the best I've had in finland, with lots of rolling in the snow in between. The next day we set off for Kemi and a Snow Castle. That was pretty impressive. It even included a hotel, and a bar that could fit 250 people. All of it was made only of snow and ice. Yeah, that's a finnish tourist trap... but cool anyway. Then it was back on the bus to Rovaniemi. We stopped at the Arktikum, a museum of arctic history and science. Sweet architecture. Next was a game of snow football, Jyväskylä vs. Rovaniemi. Unfortunately, our team was dreadfully outmatched - the other team appeared to actually care about the outcome, and not just about falling down in the snow and trying to confuse the other team by fashioning fake soccer balls from snow on the sideline. We had a moral victory with a final score of Rovaniemi 14, Jyväskylä 1. The next day was, filled with a trip to a reindeer farm, a tour of the university of Lapland, and cross country skiing. I went 10km and had a great time. The weather was fantastic and the surroundings were beautiful. The final day was just the bus...

After that, I had one day in Jyväskylä, and then set off for Helsinki. I had such a warm welcome from the math dept there - they set me up in a beautiful flat (way nicer than I could ever afford), and Saara, a student of Kari Astala's, was my host for the first few days. She is working on some really interesting math and is now in Ann Arbor with Juha and Co! Her boyfriend took me to a public sauna which was a really neat experience - mostly old men, and REALLY HOT (~105 C according to the thermometer). I also got to talk math with Stefen Rhode, Kari Astala, Ilkka Holopainen, and David Drasin. I also misspelled Seppo Rickman's name in front of him when I gave a talk (Rickman, not Rickmann). Oops. Luckily, he thought it was funny. Anyway, the 9 days I spent in Helsinki were really productive and I learned a lot of math. I'll go back there in May to give a talk at a small conference they are having.

Since then, I've been preparing for my mother's visit (she arrives in about 1 hour), and taking my finnish final exam. I think I rocked it. Anyway, I don't know exactly what my ma will want to do here, but I'm sure we'll figure something out, and we go to Helsinki on Saturday, so at least there will be something interesting happening there.

Don't forget to check the Photo Stream for tons more photos!

Miss you all!