Settling In

Today was a little more leisurely, with no buses thank goodness.

Rose and I decided that today we would attempt a little exploration of the surrounding woods. There are lots of woods here, pretty much if it isn't a building it's a tree. We quickly found ourselves coming out of the woods at Harittu, our nearest town. We didn't really find much there except houses but on reflection I think we may not have walked the length of the town like we thought.

We live next to what I can only relate to as an industrial park, except it's kinda not one. There's a big 'S-MARKET' and other restaurants and a few stores, one of which we discovered to be a massive second hand/vintage store, and it's reasonably priced! There goes all my money... It's kinda all disorganised, which just makes it more fun when you find something you like. I stumbled across this little yellow portable radio that has now made our echoey, bare kitchen rather awesome. Rose also managed to find a stack of four English books for 1,50 – bargain!

(This is where I would insert a picture of said radio, but my camera is broken, so please be patient.)

S-MARKET next for essentials, where Rose bought this weird fruit soup/smoothie thing. It tasted nice but had a texture like melted jelly – very slimy. We thought we'd try and freeze it, see if it improved, but it didn't.

A nap and a little research later, Rachel and Scott came over, only after they'd done what I had the night before and got on in the wrong direction - oops. It was nice to have company, the flat felt a little less empty as we listened to my new little yellow friend, discovered we were drinking non-alcoholic cider, swapped the stories of our day and planned the next one.

Oh, and we've already broken our toilet...

Buses

So I typed this up last night and stupidly erased it.

My first official day, the 29^th, was pretty educational, but mainly exhausting.

Up and straight into town to get official stuff done and for Scott to pick up his starter pack. After a lot of walking, Scott and I decided that we'd head back to his to drop off his pack, then go to IKEA to get other essentials.

NOTE: Kaupattori (cow-pat-tori) is the centre of everything. All of the buses go through there, so really, if you need to go anywhere, you need to go to KP first.

So from KP, Scott, Rachel (she lives near by) and I all hoped on the bus towards Scott's. After a little while we were mildly concerned that we didn't seem to be getting close to his flat. But then we started to recognise stuff, only to realise that we were pretty much back at KP. Confused, we hoped off and realised that we'd gone in the wrong direction, so got back on to continue in the right direction.

All fine, dumped stuff at the flat and got back on the bus, yes you guessed, back to KP. Whilst waiting for the IKEA bus we thought we'd try some funky chocolate; one that appeared to have a wafer in it and the other with some sort of dark centre. We opened the latter first, SALMIAKKI, only to discover it was some kind of weird salted liquorice. I wasn't too hot on it, but Scott was definitely not buying it again. We decided to wash it down with KISMET, basically a chocolate wafer, or a really flat wannabe KitKat.

After what felt like ages, looking out for giant blue and yellow-ness we eventually made it to IKEA. The usual went down and at 9pm we got the bus back to KP. Luckily for me, my number 18 was sitting waiting for me, so I hoped right on. How naïve I was... Almost instantly I realised that for the second time that day, I had got on the bus going in the wrong direction, only this time it was dark and I was alone. But, no worries, it'd just turn around and head back to KP. Oh no it wouldn't. When we finally reached the end of the line, the doors opened and the big Finnish bus driver got up, started talking and motioning for me to get off. 'Kaupattori?' was all I could utter, and to no avail. He kicked me off. Luckily, before I had time to freak out (I could feel it coming!) I caught sight of the bus timetable, and the next one was along in 5 minutes.

An hour and a half after leaving IKEA, I finally made it home.

So, I learned a lot of things today: keep a copy of your address on you at all times, you never know when you won't know where you are, or how to pronounce it; always wear sensible footwear; you can steal packets of salt and pepper from Hesburger; be able to pronounce Kaupattori, if you can make it there you are half way home and use 'kiitos' (key-etos), thank you, whenever you can, they like it when you try.

Oh and I forgot to mention that it was bucketing with rain the whole day, and we even had a little thunder and lightning accompaniment to our balcony breakfast.

Tour

So here is the video tour of my new flat as promised :)

(Ugh. And I have just inadvertantly deleted todays post. Gutted.)

HERE

Looks like I made it to Finland!

The day of the 28^th started with a 4am wake-up call turning into a mad dash of 'repack and wear what you can because it appears that we're over our 20kg limit'. Bus caught and a farewell said to Tom (cheers for the crash pad) soon left us standing a little dazed on the bus to the airport, peanut butter and jelly sandwhich in hand.

Check-in and apparently my bag would have been fine if I'd left: that extra t-shirt, a pair of shorts, a bag, cables and other micellaneous junk IN the rucksack because it only came to 17.9kg! Whereas I was freaking roasting and my carry on was now pretty hefty.

Flight was A-OK and we were greated by an intense blast of warm air. Finland was hotter and more humid than the Edinburgh we'd left behind. That extra kilgram of clothing was definitely being shed now. Next, the bus to Tampere, which was caught all very efficiently. Just missing the train from Tampere to Turku we had to sit in the train station for about 3 hours for the next one. Safe to say we did a lot of people watching.

Eventually on the train only to discover that they're epic! Double decker and all round cool. We arrived in no time and was greeted by Noora, our Finnish buddy, who took us swiftly to our new places.

The flat is what you'd expect – really white and pretty spare. As I am writing this I've just realised that I've not put up the curtains which came in my starter pack (yeah, THAT spare). This starter pack is pretty... interesting. Useful and useless all at the same time – quite the little paradox in a box. I think the tin opener is my favourite, it's like some kind of stainless steel tooth or claw. 

 

So all settled now: all unpacked, fed and even cracked open the blu-tac. I think after a much needed trip to IKEA tomorrow (bed sheets, please) I can definitely call this home. :)

(This is where I was guna upload a little video tour of my flat, but it's not letting me, so perhaps another time...)