THE dinner of Thanksgiving

I bet you were wondering "what did Mitch eat for Thanksgiving dinner?" Good question. Since turkey, mash potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, gravy, rolls, pumpkin pie with cool whip topping, maybe some side of fruit, devil eggs with a paprika topping, side salad, and course the vegetable appetizer that my mom puts out 3-4 hours before the actual dinner wasn't available to me I had to improvise. As I told you earlier I was going to have a traditional Finnish meal or close to it. After finding an appropriate restaurant I wanted to make my experience very Finnish. So I started off with a drink that I guess was very Finnish, or so said the waitress, it was a berry flavored sparkling wine/cider with fruit inside and some vodka. It was a warm drink and very delicious, also quite spendy$$$. As for the meal I had smoked reindeer over a bed of pasta in a cheese and onion sauce. It also had some greens topping the dish. It was different to say the least. The smokeyness came out a lot and the meat was lean but some what tough. Quite the combo though with the pasta, usually reindeer is complimented in a stew traditionally, but with a budget in mind I couldn't afford the Rudolph cut so I settled for Blitzin..

Just another thing I can check off my list, I had reindeer on Thanksgiving day in Finland. Check. You know I couldn't have ever imagined experiencing a situation like that, but life is full of surprises. Now that Thanksgiving has come and gone it's now a countdown to Italy! I can't wait. The warm weather, the food, the history! So excited. So until then I will just be hanging out trying to learn some Finnish (goodluck Mitch).

Moy moy

Happy Thanksgiving

To be honest I have counted down the days to Thanksgiving. Why? I'm not quite sure, because no one knows anything about it here, it doesn't exist. There might be some other Americans here but I don't really no them. The friends I made here are from all over the world, no Americans, one Canadian though. So none of them really know how important this holiday is. The tradition of coming together as a family, or having an annual football game with your friends, the feast you can indulge yourself in. To describe what Thanksgiving is like to the Europeans I tell them its like Christmas but without Santa Clause and presents. Which for me, Christmas hasn't been about the presents, its been more of the spirit of Christmas, the family, the food, and yes a little bit of Santa Clause. So being without my family and friends for Thanksgiving is hard, but I have to realize what I'm thankful for. I'm thankful for having the opportunity to be in Europe, live in Europe, meeting people from all over the world, learning in Europe, traveling around with my best friend. I can be thankful for that. I can be thankful for my parents helping me get here. I can be thankful for a caring brother and sister. So although I can't celebrate this traditional holiday with my family and friends, I can dedicate this day to all that I'm thankful for. Its funny how you never realize how much you appreciate something until you don't have it.

Now as for what I'm going to do on this day, I am going to go out to eat and have some traditional Finnish food. What's traditional Finnish food you might ask? I don't really know..But I will find out and I will eventually find out how to cook it. Also, hopefully I can find a way to watch some football and of course talk to my family at some point. So enjoy the 3 F's that Thanksgiving is all about, food, family, and friends. I will look forward to Christmas! Go ducks!

Moy moy

Stockholm was a 'chilling' experience

Good ole Sweden. What a weekend it was in Stockholm. It started at 5 am Thursday morning, I woke up to catch my 556 am train to Turku. I was already packed and had everything I needed, the only thing I was missing was sleep. I really couldn't sleep the night before, mainly cause of excitement, which I always get when I travel. The train ride went smoothly and I hopped on my ferry to Stockholm.

The ferry ride was going to take about 10 hours, now we boarded at 845 am in Finland and was suppose to get into Sweden by about 730 am their time. The ferry is giant, has a bunch of slot machines, video game systems, a night club, karaoke bar, cafe, tax free store, and plenty of bars of course. Enough to keep you occupied for the time being. I spent most of my time either playing video games, cause i never get to in Finland, or trying to sleep. I was pretty unsuccessful sleeping so I tried to read magazines and books. Once we were in viewing distance of Stockholm I went outside to the nice, cold, and dark weather to view the city. It was pretty cool to see the city at night with the bright lights from the water.

Once I got off the boat it was time to find my hostel. Stockholm is split up into islands that are connected by bridges. The middle island is old town where the Royal Palace is located among most of the Swedish restaurants and bars. I walked through old town and caught a glimpse of Stockholm during the night time, which isn't hard to do since it starts to get dark up here in Scandinavia at about 330 pm. Continuing my trip to the hostel I went to the city hall which is a very cool sight because it lays right next to the water (dont worry i have pictures). After that I went to the hostel to get some rest and ready to meet Sean, as he was flying into Sweden at about 230 pm on Friday.

When Sean arrived we started to do some sight seeing. We went into the town central where all the shopping malls were. I had heard of a park in central city where there was ice skating, so we headed out there. We found the outdoor ice skating rink, it was pretty cool, mainly because i had never been ice skating outside, or even had seen one outside. I was a little bit rusty at first but got the hang of it, just like riding a bike. We spent about an hour skating enjoying the nice evening, but we knew we had a reservation at the ice bar that we couldnt miss so we headed out. We walked around in central city where there was alot going on. So many lights and stores. Mainly just H&M stores. Now those for you who don't know H&M is a very popular clothing store in Europe and in the U.S. It was started in Sweden, so they have these stores at like every corner, just like Starbucks but even to a further extreme. They were just everywhere I don't know what distinguished each store to the next. But anyways we went back to our hostel to make some food that we got from the grocery store. Stockholm/Sweden is a pretty expensive place, they have the Swedish Kronor for their currency. Once we finished eating we headed to the ice bar.

The ice bar was connected to this hotel. It's called the Absolut ice bar, so it belongs to the Absolut vodka company, which is Swedish for those who didn't know that. You have to make reservations in advance to get in, and it's 17 euros for entry plus one drink. Once we got in, it was pretty cool. Everything was ice. The walls, benches, tables, the bar, cups, just everything. Now they limit you to 45 mins per group, but as the time went on my hands got to be freezing cause, I mean, the cup was ice so it was holding a block of ice. Plus it is kept at -5 degrees celcius in there so its pretty hard to warm up your hands. Everything on the drink menu included vodka so we settled for the 'Absolut Cog'. It had lingonberries in it, plus there finest Absolut vodka. It was a very 'cool' experience and if you ever go to Stockholm you got to check it out.

After that we came back to the hostel to figure out what we were doing that night. We talked to a local girl that worked there and said there was places near by. We ended up choosing the Lemon bar, which was "very Swedish" she said. We waited about 20 minutes in line before we could get in but we were able to talk with some Swedish guys and girls. This is where I found out Gunther, this joke of a pop singer, was Swedish because there was a picture of him up in the bar. Once we got in we went downstairs to blasting music in Swedish. This made it a very unique experience because Sean and I could have easily been the only non-Swedish people in there. Every song was Swedish, except for two "i would walk 500 miles" and "take me down to paradise city", but other than that. We met some people and enjoyed the night. After this we made it back for some sleep, which wasnt very much, but much needed.

The next day morning we made it to our other hostel which was located in the central city and dropped off our stuff. We decided to go to a couple of museums during the day that were recommended to see. The first museum being the Vasa museum, which is the world's only surviving 17th century ship. It was preserved for 10 years before its museum opening in 1990. The boat was very detailed, there was so much craftsmenship that went into that boat. It was King Gustov and it was suppose to pick him up in Poland but it only lasted 20 minutes into sea outside of Stocholm before a large gust of wind knocked it over. Later they found out it was top heavy and not built well...But this was a nice history lesson for us about Sweden, since we had a guided tour and watched a video, we came out educated about some Sweidsh history.

The next stop was the Nobel museum. This was located in old town. By this time it was 330 and getting dark awesome...But once again inside carried a lot of information. A lot about Nobel winners, and had some important artifacts. Like Galileo's first telescope, and the document of the first patent. Plus controversial winners who didn't accept the Nobel winners, but once you have been chosen as the winner, if you accept it or not they don't change it.

After our exciting trips to the museums we made it back to our hostel for a much needed nap. We enjoyed some dinner after the nap and met some people all over the world traveling as well. A big group from Sevilla, Spain (where Sean is studying), Belgium, Australia, Holland, and even Cleveland Ohio.

We made our way out to another enjoy the night life once again, and we found a nice place to say the least. The cover charge was 16 euros...Yeah they take there clubbing very seriously in Sweden. But I will confirm the stereotype of beautiful Swedish women is true. There are lots of tall good-looking blondes. Once again in this club as well I heard the song "i would walk 500 miles" song. The Swedes love that song, so when I got back home I looked it up and the band "The Porclaimers" were Scottish. I guess they just love that song.

On my trip home from Stockholm I met these two men who made my trip home very interesting. One man born in Stockholm now lives in Finland, named Magnus, is a professor of the Swedish and Finnish language, plus a pastor in his city. He spoke 5 different languages. But that wasn't the only thing the man who he was traveling with, Originally born in Johannesburg South Africa, then lived in London for 10 years, is married to a Finnish women so he is citizen in Finland, also had lived in Portland Oregon the past year and was going back in December. Unbelievably small world. In Portland he is a pastor for a Finnish cathedral for a small Finnish community that lives in the St. John's area. There is also a larger Finnish community in Astoria. But his name was Patrick and he knew how to speak 8 different languages...Um wow...South African, English, Welch, Finnish (which tookk him 2 years to learn), Swedish, Danish, German, and Spanish. He said he could understand Estonian as well but i'm not counting that. Anyways I sat by him on the train ride from Turku to Tampere and he gave me a cultural lesson on Scandinavia and Finland. He made 2 hours go by in 15 minutes. Plus, I got to learn some Swedish and Finnish. Not much of course. But it was amazing running into these two nice gentlemen, just totally capped off my trip.

Since then I have made it back and caught up on sleep that I was deprived of the whole weekend. Sean and I agreed that Stockholm wasn't what we expected, it was that much better. Its a beautiful and elegant city that carries a lot of history I didn't know about. There is a reason why its the capital of Scandinavia. But as for me I have a test on Friday than my next trip will be to Rome, Italy on December 3rd.

I hope to be spending Thankgiving with some new friends and be eating the famous Reindeer I hear about over here. But i'm sure I will be blogging before then.

Moy Moy

My first Finnish league basketball game

Saturday morning was my first league game of the season, because I was in Munich last weekend I missed the first one. Our team is made up of one Finnish kid about my age, 2 Finnish guys in their early 30's, really old Finnish guys, and then 4 young international students (including me). Besides myself there is two Italian guys and a French guy. The team we played was definitely younger than us on average, which could of gave them an advantage. The old guys didn't really play because for obvious reasons. I was playing a lot a bit rusty, had a bad time from the foul line.. But I managed to still keep my sneaky and crafty ways that they weren't ready for. Despite the rusty trips to the line I was able to have a productive scoring and rebounding. I did injure myself in the first half which I hope to recover from soon, but I ended playing in the 2nd half because of foul troubles from the younger guys and couldn't rely on the old guys.. The guys on the other team were better than I expected, they were all kinda of thick and played rough. This also caught me off guard, of course the older guys played dirty cause of lack of athleticism. We ended up losing by 6 points or so but it was fun, our next game is next Monday so I hope I can recover from my injury by then. We will see. This week I have an exam on Tuesday, homework due by Wednesday, then Stockholm bound on Thursday.

Time is flying by now. Im almost down to only a month left, but still have places to see and school to finish. So its time to soak up the moment, causing my moments are running out.

Moy moy

The First Glimpse of Snow

Well this evening marked the first sign of snow in Finland as it started falling around 11 pm Nov 4th. I was caught by surprised as I just randomly looked out my window to a covered pavement of whiteness. I got pretty excited of course but now I realized that it will probably be here for the rest of my time here..Nevertheless it's exciting and now I guess the lake is next thing to freeze!!

Moy moy

Halloween in Munich

Well last weekend was really fun for me, I didn't want to leave so soon but school comes first. My trip started waking up at 6 a.m. so that I could comfortably catch my train to Helsinki at 7:32. I made it to the train station about 20 minutes before departure so I just hung out inside until it came. The train was fine until we kept stopping about half-way through for unknown reasons. Unknown for me because when they would update me on what was happening it would be in Finnish. The only thing I was worrying about is catching my plan on time at 1:10. The train ride ended up taking 3 hours when it was suppose to only take 2. So I arrived into Helsinki at about 10:20 and I didn't know what bus to take to the airport or where it was. I heard the bus takes about 30-45 mins to get to the airport, so I was hurrying to find out information. I tried to find an information booth, but I came about the public transportation reception desk. He told me the general area and what bus to take. I tried to follow his directions but I found myself running in a circle. I went into the Holiday Inn to find better directions and she was a lot more helpful. So it took me 30 mins to find the bus, so now it was about 11. I get there at about 11:40 and there is a huge line at the check-in, but I was smart enough to do my online check-in the night before so I had already printed off my boarding pass. So I skip the line and the security check line was very short. I happen to trigger off the metal detector, so I had to be padded down thoroughly... But I made it with plenty of time to spare before my flight boarded so I was relieved. The flight was very nice. They surprised me with a meal and great service, I was very pleased with my experience. When I arrived in Munich I contacted my two friends to let them know I flew in and to meet me at the hostel in about an hour. I found the subway that lead me to the main station, which was where my hostel was located, fairly quickly. I met this couple that helped me out with subway ticket and since they bought a short-trip ticket that includes up to 5 people they said to include me, so I rode for free. I found my hostel fairly quickly and it was very nice and accommodating. The price was very cheap for the quality we got. Once the guys got back and I put my stuff away we were off to our first destination.

We decided to go see Olympic park. Once you get off the subway and come up to street level you can see the place where the athletes stayed. This is the same place the terrorist shooting was of the Israel team. We made our way to the main area where we saw the massive swimming center, and the park outside. After searching for about 10 minutes we found where the track stadium was. By that time it was dark and the stadium was closed. But we were able to find this guy working for the catering service and he was entering the stadium to drop-off something. We asked if we could go in while he was in there and just take a couple of photos, he said he would only be 2 mins but that's fine. We ran into the stadium and checked it out. Such a sight! It was so big, seeing all the rows of empty seats and then the track, it was very cool. As we were hanging out taking pictures we hear the guy leave, so now we are locked inside. That didn't really worry us, so we just started to take more pictures. We tried to find a way onto the track (which you are not suppose to do), and were successful jumping a fence. We ran down the stadium stairs right onto the track. I ran around the track with my hands up in the air looking up at the huge empty stadium, I couldn't imagine the feeling winning the race with thousands of people watching you. I was so excited to be on the track. We took some more pictures of all of us and decided that we should probably head out since we were not suppose to be in there in the first place. We jumped the fence and proceeded to our next destination that involved beer and food. Yum!

Our next destination was the Hofbrauhaus, which was a big tourist sight and the old watering whole of Hitler's. It was very lively inside with a mixture of tourists and local Bavarians. They were wearing their traditional German outfits that you see from the movies and a live band playing the typical German music, which is just what I wanted. They just had these long benches with a long table to sit at. The whole place was full but we ended up finding one empty one. We also found some others visiting for the weekend they were studying abroad in Vienna and London and are from the East coast originally. We started our meal by ordering the darkest liter of beer they had. The waiter comes back with like 8 liter sized mugs for all of us. We cheersed or "prost" in German and enjoyed this authentic German experience. The food arrived and I ordered the pork knuckle with two dumplings, so good!!! I thought it tasted more like Turkey but nevertheless it hit the spot. The whole meal was a success and affordable which was awesome for us.

We headed back to the hostel and were looking for places to go out that night. We ended up walking around a lot not finding the destination we were looking for. We kept asking locals but we would get mixed directions and they kept recommending other places. We ended up coming back to the bar at our hostel where it was packed. Sean and I even participated in a little karaoke where we blew the crowd away. After that we headed to bed at about 3:30 am to get some rest for Halloween day.

The next day we make it out to Marienplatz (old town) to go on this free bike tour. But the guy never shows up but we did get to see the Glockenspiel in full form. Everyone in the platz gathers around to watch it go off at 12 or 5. That was a very cool experience. After the guy didn't show up we decided to go to Dachau and see the concentration camp. It's about a 15-20 min subway ride outside of the main city center. Once we got there we had the option to take a bus or walk the path the prisoners took from the train station to the concentration camp. So we chose to walk it. There were boards of information and pictures all the way down the path with tons of historical information. When we arrived at the concentration camp there had already been a ton of history thrown at us. The camp was pretty big. We started looking through the prison then main area where most on the information was. With all the disturbing history thrown at you it drains you emotionally. All of these terrible stories of torture and death, makes for a very impactfulexperience. We looked at the barracks where they lived and the Crematorium where the corpses were burned. It took about 3 hours to look at all the sites inside of the concentration camp. It's not a pleasing way to spend your day but it involves so much history that you have to see when you're visiting the Munich area.

When we got back to our hostel it was about 5:30 pm and Billy had to go back to Heidelberg. Sean and headed out to the famous English Garden. Unfortunately it was dark so I wasn't able to get some great pictures but it was a beautiful area. It was a huge park full of green grass and huge trees. The colorful leaves were scattered everywhere and there was a river/creek that ran through the park. Sean and I sat by the river with some wine and hung out for about an hour. We tried to grasp in all of the beautiful landscape the English Garden had to offer.

After the Garden we went off to get something to eat. Our destination was the Augustiner. Another really cool place with a band playing the traditional German/Bavaria music, and there was also some special party going on where once again everyone was dressed up in their traditional German outfits. Sean and I enjoyed the food, beer, and atmosphere once again it was another great experience. For dinner we got duck, pork knuckle, beef and pork bratwurst. We also had a bed of sauerkraut and red cabbage. With our 1 liter mugs of beer this was one true German/Bavarian meal. Everything was once again delicious, so we decided to get dessert. Fried apples with creme and chocolate drizzled over the top. Also very good. The Augustiner exceeded both Sean and I expectations and were very pleased with everything.

During the night we made it out to a club. Apparently there is a holiday that only Bavaria only celebrates and clubs are not suppose to be open and prevent acts of dancing. But the clubs are able to have private parties that if you send an email to them then you will be put on a guest list and that is the only way to get it. Luckily, we found a place that I guess doesn't follow those rules and we went there. At the end of night we found ourselves going to bed at 3 am again and flight left at 8:50 am... I woke up at 6:30 and made my way to the airport. Even with the lack of sleep I was able to function and make it to my flight in time with no problems again.

I took the same airlines back and they provide coffee, mochas, lattes even before you get on the plane for free! Which totally bump them a notch on in my book. The flight and service was great again, very pleased. I arrived in Helsinki without a time schedule at about 12:45 pm. I wanted to see the city thoroughly this time because I have only been able to see a glimpse before. I was able to take a bus straight to Olympic park, yes, that makes two Olympic parks in one weekend. Helsinki held the Olympics in 1952 in case you didn't know. Once again it was a very cool sight, I saw FinnAir stadium which is a huge soccer stadium. 4 practice soccer fields surround the stadium. I also got into the track stadium and onto the track once again. I just walked past the booth and no one stopped me. I proceeded out the doors and into the track stadium right onto the track. I didn't run around it this time but I was on it. After seeing Helsinki's Olympic stadium I walked all through Helsinki. Saw the nation Finnish opera house, the Senate square and cathedral (which is huge and has lots of stairs leading up to it), Kiasma-Museum of Contemporary Art, and downtown. The city is a lot bigger than Tampere, so much more going on. I walked around for about 3-4 hours before decided to take the train back to Tampere. I arrived into Tampere at about 8 pm local time. Where I proceeded to start my long sleep to make up for my lack of sleep that weekend.

This was a very cool experience I enjoyed so much I didn't want to come back to Tampere. I saw so much in the matter of 3 days and 2 nights. But now it's back to school and taking care of some business. I cannot ever forgot about this experience it was just so cool. I got the experience I wanted and then some. Plus, I got to see Sean which made it very rememberable. In 2 weeks on the 13th of November will be my next trip to Stockholm, Sweden. I will be meeting up with Sean again and hopefully we can make the most of our time there. Until then I have a paper and an exam to worry about. But at least I have something to look forward to!

Moy moy