Despite this virus, I read a short books (long stories/short books?) for my lit class. They're both a bit hard to understand, but I just have to keep reading and eventually I get the main point. I did a presentation on one of them, Annette Droste-Huelshoff's "Die Judenbuche," this evening. I don't usually volunteer to do those kinds of things before other people in the class, but I thought I could manage it, and I'm glad it's done. Then, of course, I found out that I didn't need to have had "Bahnwaehrter Thiel" read for today, even though I was rushing to get that done in addition to my presentation. I guess I'm just ready for next week now.
I (finally) got to the Naschmarkt this weekend. It was pretty crowded, since it was Saturday, but it's a good place to get vegetables and spices. The produce prices are actually similar to those in the discount grocery stores, but the selection is better. The spices, however, are much cheaper, and this was the first place I found ground cumin in Austria. I was surprised how many people were selling olives or stuffed jalepenos. While I definitely enjoy olives, as anyone in my family can tell you, I wasn't sure how all of Vienna could begin to consume all of those olives. I plan to bring my camera the next time I go to there.
On Sunday night my friends from my student home and I went to the Nordic Film Festival, so I got to see a Norwegian film (in Norwegian) called The Art of Negative Thinking. It had German subtitles, and since that's all dialogue, I was able to understand it all pretty easily. I just noticed it took a lot more time for me to read than English subtitles, which isn't really a surprise. I think it's a lot easier than trying to understand German through spoken dialects.
This is a week overdue or so, but here are some pictures from the second half of my spring break in Finland and Estonia:
Helsinki
People stick-walking (sauvakaevelle), which is popular in Finland and Sweden
President Tarja Halonen's house
Cruise Ships on the Baltic
A statue for a czarina who visited quite a long time ago...
The central train station in Helsinki
The EU--with a Finnish language twist
The Baltic Sea
The ferry we took to Estonia
Inside the ferry
Goodbye, Finland.
Hello, Estonia (Tallinn).
Paernu by day
Paernu by night
A beach in Paernu-in March-on the Gulf of Riga
Estonian is very close to Finnish; "Rannas" would be "Ranta" in Finnish, which means "beach." "Puhtust" means "clean" but I'm not exactly sure how it would be written in Finnish. "Puhtain" in Finnish means "the cleanest," so that's as close as I can get.
Estonians enjoying the park
Susanna, Juuli, Niina, and Verneri at Pappa Pizza
It was almost always snowing in Paernu. That didn't stop us from making use of the playground.
Verneri trying to figure out what to do with Estonian coins the Finnish exchange wouldn't exchange on the ferry.
We decided to glue the money to a postcard.
The University in Pori
Yet another stick-walker... They weren't kidding at Salolampi when they told us it was popular in Finland.
This is Pori's equivalent of Duluth's Bayfront music festival area. They have a big Jazz festival in the summer.
A beach on the Baltic Sea, outside of Pomarkku, which is close to Pori
University cafeteria food in Pori, which, thanks to government subsidies, only cost two or three euros. They still bring it to you at your table, like in a restaurant.
"Eeen Feeenland, Vee play ice hockey."
Downtown Pori
Verneri and Turkka
At a heavy metal karoake bar--something you can (thankfully) only find in Finland...
The kesamoekki, where we went to have a real Finnish sauna
Keppa checking out the ice-hole situation
Verneri and Turkka measured the water depth to see if it was deep enough for the ladder.
The pages from this Sudoku book are used to get the fire started. I guess if you can solve the puzzles, you can at least use them to get warm.
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