Processing your thoughts.

"Don't work too hard, because it makes us look like shit.", according to a Finnish colleague of us. Yes, one of the 35 annual selected talented persons to become an architect. Hereby I take away the doubts of some......

Processing your thoughts is certainly as important, if not even more, as being productive. At least it is more interesting for you to read what kind of situation stimulates this processing. If possible, I'll try to visualize these situations.

That's all I wanted to tell you about this week, because the climax this week was in the middle of the night at the rooftop of a six stories high student flat. Yup, we tried to get into a after after after after after party. No luck.

Kristinestad

Friday we went off to Kristiinankaupunki, Kristinestad. This town is at the west coast of Finland and the people speak here Swedish. As you may know Finland is a bilangual country. Both Swedish and Finnish are the official language.

Anyway, the journey is 350 km. The five of us, Bart, Sebastian, Janna, Ian and I, were packet in a Fiat Bravo. Our first stop was at Sebastian's Grandma's place. Her house is really impressive. It used to be a restaurant and a casino for a while. Now there is a woman of 93 living there all by her self. Which is as impressive as the house itself. After saying hi we went to Sebastian's town house to get the cottage keys. From the town to the cottage is 7km on a sandy road through the woods.

Being in the car for more more than 3 hours, even the knowledge that you've almost reached destiny can't easy the pain of your knees, ass or neck. When you look through the windows you'll be staring at a line of trees, which were situated along the 350 and 7 km road. The moment this curtain of trees opened a panoramic view appeared. My cheeck was almost touching my knees, which were suddenly free of pain. We drove onto a small grass field, which led to a lake. There was the cottage situated, facing the water.

Bart, Ian and I started fishing. In the beginning it resulted in a major loss of gear. Our clumsiness prevented us of catching the first fish which took the bite. The fish started to notice that we are kinda fishing fools, so they started to tease us. As a result that Ian's line got bitten off, so that we lost another fishing plug. In the end we caught a fish. It luckely took my bait, Sebastian brought us some tools to get it out. Ian was enjoying the killing and Bart documented the scene.

In the evening we went into the sauna. 90 degrees is a nice temperature.......for a few minutes. Luckily the lake brings enough cooling. Swiming after the sauna gives a strange feeling. Your skin and some muscels hurt by the cold water, meanwhile you don't feel cold. A relaxed feeling took over me, but that might also have been the beer. Afterwards some 'Colin McRay' guy took us to town, to the Wild Wild West square. According to Sebastian Gipsies 'own' the place. Sorry Sabby, but there is nothing to own.

The moment we entered a bar, Bart got seduced by a woman of over 40. The moment we left the bar I got threaten because of my trousers. It was around 1:30 when we entered the club (the only one in town). Deserted, that's what the place and the club is. How would you describe a bar with only drunken old men/women which try stay on there feet, they all induvidually stagger around and once in a while they accidentally bumb into eachother. 90 % change that even then they won't have any conversation. But there is also a group of young people, like us. These people just end up in a club like this because there are no other options.

The next day started with some fishing exersizing. This time nothing got lost, no teasing and no fish. In the afternoon we checked out the cultural herritage of the town. Which includes a church from the 18th century, a church from the 19th century and a beuatifull house.

Everything on the church is original, except for the roof. Check out the pictures and pay attention to the wood connection. This church is the only one in whole Finland with this kind of wood construction.

After the keykeeper guided us through the church, we went to Sebastian's girlfriend's, Jannah's, parents to have dinner. After 40 minutes driving, we stopped at a white, kind of concrete house. Having tree 3 bedrooms, open staircase with void, a jacuzzi, sauna, fitness room and area for a bar, the house can be considered as pretty big. Bart and I were a little bit dazzled by the style of the house. It is a mixture between a house of the bad guy within James Bond (Sean Connory) movies and the Thunderbird mansion.

They have this huge garage in which they prepare their 'thunderbird' cars. Jannah's dad used to be the fastes guy in the country. Which means that he won the drag racing championships back in the 80's. The Camaro is still standing in front of the house, but downtuned.

We actually started with the dinner. It was delicious and I haven't, like the most of us, eaten so much in years. Not because we were starving and rudessly emptying all the pans on the table, but because there was so much variety in dishes. When offered it is proper to accept rather than decline the food. Shrimp cocktail, fish, grilled meat, boiled meat, boiled potatos, fried potatos, some sort of rice, salad, strawberries dipped in chocolate, frozen cream with special berries, cookies and we ended with "pistace nuts".

With totally filled stomaches we returned home to have a Sauna. It took a while before the sauna was heaten up, but around 11:30 pm it was ready.... After the sauna and swimming we took some Finnish sausage with mustard.

On sunday we went for mushroom hunting. I've never seen so many different and big sized mushrooms, but they tasted together with the fish delicious!

Prohibition

Yesterday I cooked 'hutspot met worst' for Vladimi, Bart and Ian. Unfortunately I was forgotten the salt, otherwise it would have been their best meal ever. Just watch how happy they are, especially Vladimir can't wait to get started.

After the dinner we went to this sauna party.... but there is not much to say about that. The next event was better. The prohibition party. (Alcohol) Prohibition is in Finland seemingly impossible. Prohibition was together with the clothing from the 1920 the theme of the evening.

The main idea was to dress up fancy and hide some booze underneath. At the end of the evening I had to crash at Vladimir's place, because it was too late to catch a bus. I had a great evening, met Meg Ryan and woke up without a headache.

Tomorrow we'll be heading to Kristinestad, to Sebastian's summer house. We'll stay there for the weekend.

Being Positive

This time I'm going to write something positive, because I have to. "Do you actually like it in Finland" Yes I do. I highlighted some parts, because they were in my opinion quite typical. I've been accused of treating the Finnish with disregard, maybe... But at some points they do weird things. And yes again, I say this probably from a Dutch perspective.

So what did I do in this positive Era? The first event was some sort of opening party of the design week. There was this catwalk show and some art was displayed. Ever noticed what a catwalk attracts.... beautiful women..... lots of them..... (isn't that positive?) Secondly I went to this sauna party. Unfortunately not with those beautiful women. It was a party for the international students, but only a few showed up. I stayed in the sauna for a while and had some dinner with Ian and Vladimir afterwards.

Friday was stage 1 in my becoming serious progression. Sebastian took me to this underground club called "playground". The club closed at 4 am and opens again at 5 am for an after party. Drugs was offered and drugs were taken. I just took the regular one, alcohol, and watched people getting some everlasting energy boost. Yup, that was a serious party.

Sunday night we went to the Helsinki amusement park. Fun.

Monday was a moment of serious studies. The class started at 3 pm and finished around 7 pm. The teachers give interesting lectures and the exercises are some you can actually learn from. A remarkable thing is the relaxed attitude of the teachers. They are never in a hurry and not worrying about time. While TU Delft admitted this year around the 600 freshmen, these teacher are pretty shocked/surprised with 34 students in a seminar room. As time doesn't matter the teachers start discussing about the 'huge' amount of people in a room, which is to small. After 30 some minutes they conclude (like last week) that we should move to another room. 30 minutes are wasted, but none of the teachers consider to shorten their story. Best thing to do as second lecturer is to take a power nap at the front row, even though you're snoring. Things are maybe not that well organized, but flexible and relaxed.

For some of you:

Rather German than Dutch........... anyway....... we all love concrete!

ScandinAsia

Like mentioned before karaoke is also quite popular in Finland. Bart and I tried it once at the karaoke association at the campus area. Although we are gifted, the language was an obstacle. By gifted I mean Dutch enthusiasm, it is all about the performance.

So there we are, downtown Helsinki, yet again at a freshmen's party, but this time in a bit more fancy surroundings. Last week good oldy 'Captain Jack' made my feet go crazy, shaking me from left to right, left...right... left. Maybe I should have left. Last night was different. There was Ken. You remember Ken? Ken took us for about 3 minutes into the realm of Barbie. And believe me, I don't need Ken to make me realize that Finland is a neighboring country of Sweden.

Anyway, on the floor below there was this chill out area with karaoke. Bart and I decided at the end of the night to give a blasting performance. Unfortunately there was a cue of 10 persons and Bart had to catch his bus. So we left while the DJ was playing a song of the Vengaboys.... yes the absence of the Dutchmen had to be compensated.

No more chittychatty about very cosy, but a bit lame freshmen's parties. University has also begun. Our first serious lecture kept us seated from 15:00 till about 19:00. The course is about urban planning improvements in the so called 'Third World', if I still may say so. Besides, I'm accepted into the Public Building Studio, like I believe everyone is. So we are getting serious now. No introduction lectures any more, but serious ones. No introduction parties anymore, but serious ones. No lousy karaoke any more, but serious practice. Please join me in my Karaoke quest. In china they have 1.3 billion Chinese, in Finland they have 1.3 billion trees. Lets hear some signing in Holland. Our tulips will grow better, our weed will be stronger, our cheese will be better and our windmills will run faster. Perhaps we will reach the 1.3 billion with this song..........

Finnish way of partying.

The university organized a pick-nick for all the new students on Tuesday. It was on the field on front of the main building. They drove a stage on the field and I was expecting some food stands and a bar including beer pump. There was only one hot-dog stand where a single hot-dog was at least 4 Euro. Nevertheless, we didn't expect this to be our only 'dinner option' because the event was labelled as 'pick-nick'. Every guild brought their own grill and sausages. However, our guild only brought a grill, no beer and no food. So we (Barthold and me) bought our own beer in the supermarket and drunk that among the others. After a while we started to feel hungry.. and because our own architecture guild didn't bring any food we tried to get some at a guild which grill was packed. Our attempt was without any lucky, cause in Finland it seems to be that at an organized pick-nick at which you're invited, you're suppose to bring your own drinks an food. With a supermarket around this was easily solved, but we were kinda amazed.
Besides it wasn't that crowded. And I can image why when the university invites a so called 'Love Metal' band which only attracts 15 year old groupies. Anyway, we had a nice time learning some Finns with strange names: Antti, Antti-Matti, Aku, Jirre, Tuamen, Elsi and many many more which I can't remember. On the other hand Koen isn't that common as well. Usually it is written down as Kun or pronounced as Koën. Pronounced in the correct way it means 'sleepy' in Chinese, 'ass' in Afghan and 'when' in Finnish........ then there is also 'Barendregt', well I don't have to explain any further.
After the pick-nick we had an after-party in someone's dorm. This was a real 'after party', cause it wasn't particularly a party. Although this had a High-School character it was still good to meet some more Finns. Around midnight I went back home on my just rented bike. The usual 20 minutes ride took me about 1 hour cause a sign was broken off, which doesn't really help when it's your first time.

Yesterday there was this 'Fuksi' event. The Fuksi are the freshmen, after a while they are allowed to wear a cap. Therefore they need to earn points, which can be done by playing games. Barthold and I are not really interested in this cap cause it is still considerable expensive. Anyway, we did some games. Among we sang a Finnish song at the Karaoke,and acted as Mario and Luigi in a television show. The students here have their own television channel and all the activities during the last days are live broadcastings. While we were live on cam Barthold was so nice to mention 'Okenoken' which comes from the purno de purno cartoons. Meanwhile I had drunk tooo much what made me offer to explaining the game. Watch the movie and figure out whether the Finns liked it or not :S.



After the games there was a party, which again reminded me of High-School. But then again there were a lot of exchange students, so it was good evening anyway.
Tonight I take a brake, cause tomorrow is promising!