It's blowing my mind a bit that it's already June. Since a month has now ended, the best month of them all I would argue, I figure it is long overdue for me to share some photos from the past 31 days. May was filled with sunshine and warm days, and plenty of smiles! The beginning of the month started out with a visit from Valeria's dad, Leif, and that was a really lovely visit. Communicating via an interpretor is pretty entertaining at times, but we managed alright and we all had a great time.
 |
| We had multiple barbecues! |
 |
| And we visited the Helsinki Russian Orthodox church. |
 |
| Sometimes I forget how cool it is that my city is on the Baltic Sea. |
We also visited Suomenlinna, which until 1918 was known as Viapori, or Sveabor. It is an inhabited sea fortress built on six islands, which now form part of the city of Helsinki. It's considered a world heritage site, and while fun to take a ferry to an island, I admittedly find forts a tad boring, but thankfully the company was great!
 |
| I'm always setting fashion trends, duh! |
Most of the month consisted of going to school, but thankfully there were some more interesting days of classes in May. We had the great pleasure, for example, of monitoring some air quality machines that two visiting professors from the United States were utilizing in Finland in order to run a cross comparison analysis, between the air quality in New York City, and in Lahti, Finland. It was a fun week of field experiments.
 |
| Vilhelmiina and Valeria monitoring the machine. |
 |
| Feeling pretty important in my vest, obviously. |
Valeria and I also got the pleasure of monitoring these same air quality monitors overnight for a bit of money. Because these machines were running 24 hours a day, they required monitoring in order to assure that they were not tampered with, and needless to say I signed up for the job when I realized there was money involved. From midnight to 6am one day Valeria and I 'guarded' one of the air quality monitors. Aka, we watched 3 movies and got paid 11 euros an hour to entertain ourselves whilst camping under the stars. Cool.
 |
| Valeria is pointing at the already rising sun, it was probably only 2am when this was taken. |
Another lovely day spent in Lahti for school, Valeria and I arrived a bit early, and we decided to sit by the lake for a bit. This massive swan decided to show off for us, it was quite amazing! I love animals and water, and when combined, well damn!
 |
| This guy. |
Speaking of school, one of our teachers, who taught us about how to calculate algal cell concentrations using a fancy machine, has a killer moustache. I have been trying to capture a decent photo of mustachio for months now, and the other day I finally got one, and this wasn't just any ordinary mustache kind of day, this was a one side up, one side out kind of day. This dude's mustache is always impecable, and I appreciated the flare it received today.
 |
| Scientist at work, watch out! |
What else, well I know what.. Finns, are, CRAZY! Let me explain. Basically, Finns are constantly living for winter is what I have discovered, and this blows my little mind. I can only relate to people who are living for summer, and therefore find it absolutely mind blowing that these people live for winter time, and furthermore winter time activities. I guess I can kind of understand the logic, because when winter time is what you experience a majority of the year in these parts, it behooves one to just embrace it and, say, fall in love with cross-country skiing. Point being, some of these nerds, errr I mean Finns, resort to roller blading with 'skiis' and poles so as to be practicing their skiing technique year round. Behold the following image..
 |
| What the what??!! |
This kind of dedication is pretty intense to me, but more power to them for having a passion I suppose. Anyways, I will stick with running, and they can have power blading.
So the city has also really been coming alive, now that the snow has finally melted, and I have been taking advantage of all of the activity! The first was where the city essentially had a huge yard sale (pihakirppis), and you could sell your things wherever you wanted!! Valeria was quick to jump to this, and set up 'shop' on the main Esplanade in downtown Helsinki. I was kind of an idiot to not do the same, and make a few euros, because in the end I only acquired new things, whoops! But it was a lot of fun!
 |
| Makin' paper |
Two weekends ago now, was the Helsinki World Village Festival, and it was a lot of fun! There were so many interesting booths, and cool happenings from all over the world. My two favorite things that we saw were a talk from the head of the Russian LGBT non-profit that is feverishly fighting outdated, and cruel legislation. I admittedly knew very little about LGBT rights in other countries, let alone in Russia, so this was very interesting to listen to. I encourage people to read more about this Human Rights issue.
 |
| Really thought provoking. |
And then, on a more fun note, we stumbled upon an amazing band, Melech Mechaya! I had really been itching to see live music, and this fulfilled the need, at least temporarily! These dudes are a gypsy band from Portugal, and they had amazing energy, it was incredible! I have a lot of respect for musicians who can get a crowd to move and sing along, when admittedly almost no one had ever heard of them. It takes a lot of guts, and it was too fun!
 |
| I need to learn how to play the fiddle, today! |
Oh and I guess May is the month of my birthday as well, eh? Well it was a lovely day, filled with making skrilla, hey I have to eat too! But more importantly, I felt so much love from all of you, and it really meant a lot. Having a birthday far away from your friends and family can be kind of lonely, but no one let me feel lonely, not even for a minute! Thank you for the birthday love, presents, and letters, they meant the world! And I have to show off what Dave gave me, because I was too psyched on it to not share!
Kuksa is the native Finnish (Sami) people's handmade drinking cup. I love these things, and had really been wanting one, and Dave is a good listener and got me one! :) He also made me a handmade spoon, so cool! Aaaaaand he got me a really nice, and legit knife! Opinel knives are so amazing! I kinda dig him! :)
 |
| I guess I can really go camping now!!! |
So last weekend I went to Dave's and it was a really nice weekend, the last I'll ever spend in Kuru, because it's almost SUMMER BREAK!!!! In a mere 11 days I will be disappearing for 2.5 months! I can't wait! First I will go to Sweden, then to Norway, then to Iceland, from there to Spain, and lastly to England! Boom! I will be sure to take lots of photos and make multiple blog posts this autumn, but for now, that's all she wrote! I hope everyone has a lovely summer, and I'll surely do the same!
Cheers to finishing my first year of grad school.. YEAH!
 |
| Someone was desperate for ketchup last weekend... |
 |
| Have you ever seen a tractor that isn't bright yellow? What's up 80's?! |
