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Yrjönkadun uimahalli

Publicerad 2014-02-28 21:06:00 i Dagens bild

I belive that I have told most people about Yrjönkadun uimahalli, nude swimming place. It is kind of a funny story. The sign outside the buliding says simhall, the Swedish word for a public swimming place, so that is how I found my way there the first time.

When I was standing in the line to pay for the entrance that first time I noticed a map with the floor plan.


It seemed like the place had an unusually open floor plan for being a swimming place. Before I got the chance to pay I had time to think "where should I change?". But then I discarded that though and was happy to discover that they had student discount. 2.50 EUR just like student lunch! I payed, took my shoes off en entered through a curtain. When I stepped through the curtains I immideiatly ended up next to the pool.

First though: "WHOA! Finns are really open with nudity!"
Second though: "Ok, if they do it, I can do it."
Third thought, after looking around a bit and taking it in: "There is only women here and some are actually wearing swimming suites".

I think Nordic people are quite open about nudity but a mixed nude public swimming pool might be a bit of a stretch. It turned out that Yrjönkadun uimahalli is a place with seperate days for women and men where you have the option to by nude or not. So by accident I arrived there on a correct day. I guess they would have denied me at the cash register otherwise. I played it safe the first time and kept my swimming suit on. The second time I went I ironically forgot my swimming suit there. So since then I have been going nude.  Seeing people with a swimming cap, goggles and then nothing more is quite a funny sight!

When Maria visited me during the fall we went  with our Finnish friend Rosa and tried a package deal. It was quite an experience. The package included:

  • a bath robe
  • a one time sauna towel
  • access to the second floor where they serve drinks
  • your own booth with bed where you could get changed and relax

AND besides the electric sauna downstairs, access to the more luxurious steem sauna and the wooden sauna. According to our Finnish sauna expert, Rosa, the wooden sauna is the best one!

I have to say that I have really learned to appriciate this strange place. It is a peaceful place.  Besides Rosa, few of my Finnish friends seem to know about its existance.
Sometimes this sign will be on the door. Then you can rent a swimming suit for free. Haha :P
 
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LEGO workshop!!

Publicerad 2014-02-27 09:55:00 i Dagens bild

I went to something called LEGO workshop: serious play. The workshop was organized as an introduction to a course that I would like take ths semester. Unfortunately they only take 15 students. Instead of the regular class sign up I had to write a motivation and list my previous experiences. Hopefully they will have me.
 Lego serious play is a method for developing and communicating ideas in regards so business and innnovation (more info about the method). My short experience is that it seem to be an effective tool to enhance team identity and effective communicaton. Even though you might not have the exact LEGO pieces, that you idealy would like, in order to describe an idea, you can quickly build a story around your creations. Tha advantage compared to pen and paper is that you easily can touch and move the objects around.
Can you imagine the  pondering giraffe and the squash playing lion above? The the following creations illustrates how we will consume and create energy in the future ;)
 
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Hufvudstatsbladet

Publicerad 2014-02-26 14:07:00 i Dagens bild

 
 

Yesterday I found a Swedish speaking café/information place/library (I do not know what to call it) in the center. I have walked past it before but never noticed it. It was a nice suprise to be able to make myself comfortable in one of their couches and flipp through a varity of Swedish newspapers and magazines.  I realized how much I have missed reading a  real newspaper. It is something special with flipping a page and see what you find on the other side. I have heard of Huvfudstadsbladet, the Swedish language newspaper for the Helsinki region, but this was the first time I got the chance to read it. I might consider subscribing to it the price is desent. When I came to the comics section, Moomin was off course one on the featured series :)
 
 


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Set up workshop with Teekkarispeksi

Publicerad 2014-02-25 18:29:00 i Dagens bild

This is what I do a couple of nights a week.
I have joined a student theatre group and help out with building what goes on
stage.

Speksi as they call it here in Finland (spex in Swedish) is as far as I know a
Swedish tradition. It is a student theatre production where the audience is
allowed to interact with the play. If the audience see something the like they
can shout "Omstart" which translates to "restart" and the
actors will repeat what just happened and usually add something funny. The
audience can also give specific instructions to the actors, for example
"do it backwards", "do it in German" or if an actor is carrying
something one can yell “heavier” and the actor has to pretend that whatever he
or she is carrying suddenly got a lot heavier. It is a lot of fun to watch. I
have seen Linköping’s student spex several times.

Joining the speksi here has been a bit tricky since it is all in Finnish. I use
Google translate for the emails that I receive but you all know it is far from
perfect. Some translations become real cryptic. Since I do not understand the
content of the play it has been difficult for me to come with ideas and input, something
that I was hoping to be able to do. It is still fun to work together towards a common goal, and I have made some friends. All I am saying I guess, is that I was hoping for it to be more creatively
stimulating.
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The right country to loose your scissors

Publicerad 2014-02-23 17:53:00 i Dagens bild


For as long as I can remember I have had a  pair of Finnish Fiskars Kids scissors. That is until about a month ago when I lost my pencil case. Today I decided it was time to give up trying to find it and move on. #Arabiaoutlet
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Icehockey: Finland vs Sweden

Publicerad 2014-02-21 21:11:00 i Dagens bild

 
Earlier today ESN encouraged us to go see the olympic icehockey semifinal between Sweden and Finland :) I was at Design Factory where they were projecting it at the stage. It was pretty strange to watch the game in the opposite country. When Sweden won I really felt like I was in the wrong place.  My friend suggested that I should jump around and express my joy but it did not feel like it was the right time and place for it. However I am very excited to see Sweden in the final!
 


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Odd Finnish sports

Publicerad 2014-02-21 09:58:39 i Finland

Yesterday in my class Get to know Finland  I learned about some odd Finnish sports. Did you know that mobile phone throwing, wife carrying and swamp soccer all originated in Finland?

Fun facts:
  •  The Finnish giant Nokia was involved in the first mobile phone throwing contest. Now the brand depends on the sponsor.
  • In the wife carrying contest the prize is usually beer equivalent to the wifes weight.
 
 
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Corridor dinner - literally speaking

Publicerad 2014-02-19 10:41:00 i Dagens bild


Corridor dinner - literally speaking. When everyone sat down you basically could not move. Getting the tables and chairs out from our rooms was like Tetris. The security guy payed us a visit at the end due to fire safety issues. Understandably. 
I have now learned  that I live in an almost all girls corridor, there is one guy. Also this corridor ended up being the Scandinavian corridor. The one guy is apparently also Swedish, I have not met hime yet though. Then there is a girl from Denmark and one from Norway. My room is the first one when you enter, the one with the fully open door, to the right, by the mail boxes.
 
Lot's of yummy food!
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Aldrig mera MAI!! :D :D

Publicerad 2014-02-18 12:45:00 i Dagens bild

Yesterday I had my final math exam. I did not know what I was doing and was flipping through the statistic formulae back and forth for ideas. I performed quite poorly. However thanks to the extended Finnish grading scale (0-5 instead of the Swedish U, 3-5) I still managed to pass in the over all course result. I even got a 2, which is better than 1, which is passing! :) This potentially meant that I would be done with all University math(!)
The catch was that this probabillity and statistics course only was 5 cr, when the one in Linköping would have been 6 cr. So before I could be super happy I had to email my faculty program director in Linköping to ask if it would be ok with one credit less. He just replied, very short and sweet:
Hej!
Det är helt ok.
Med vänlig hälsning,
Lennart

OH YES!! :D :D :D

I would also like to give a shout out to my math professor, not that he reads my blog, but anyway. He delivers results the same day! Quite impressive! He is for sure an exception. It is super nice to not have to worry about the results for weeks or months like the in other courses. I am still waiting for some feedback from before Christmas.
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Breakfast at DeFany's

Publicerad 2014-02-18 12:03:00 i Dagens bild

 
 Design Factory has its own fully equipped kitchen called Kafis,  that works as a social meeting point. It really is a nice place to hang out, refill with cheap coffee and sometimes even cook dinner or lunch. Besides that, every Tuesday morning there is a breakfast served at Design Factory. The different teams and staff that work in the facility takes turns and prepare it.
 
I have been to the breakfast a couple of times before, but today was the first time for my team to prepare it. Besides the "getting up extra early" part it was a nice way to start the day. People were happy to be served breakfast and I was happy to serve them.
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Finns love blueberries

Publicerad 2014-02-13 20:57:00 i Dagens bild

Finns love blueberries and so do I! I am very excited to try my new schampoo. The content is purple but I do not know if it contains real blueberries or not.
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Grocery shopping

Publicerad 2014-02-11 10:06:00 i Dagens bild

In Finland you have to weigh everyting, that need to be weighed Before going to the check outs. That is unless you go to Lidl (hence, Another good reason for going to Lidl besides them being cheaper). Although what Lidl is carrying is quite limited. So, back to the problem. Weighing your thing is not a hassle, it is actually quite nice to in advance find out the weight and how much you have to pay. The problem is when you arrive at the check outs and you have forgotten about weighing your things, OR due to language barriers, think that you have made the correct choice at the scale, but infact you have labeled your garlic potato without noticing.
I cannot seem to learn. I constantly have to return things because of this. Usually I will buy it the next time instead but sometimes the one who is working at the cash register is really nice and offers to run away to the scale.
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DocPoint

Publicerad 2014-02-02 22:43:00 i Dagens bild

I found another film festival in Helsinki so I spent my Sunday evening watching this:

A documentary about identical twin sisters adopted buy two different families. One by a family in rural Fredsvik, Norway, and the other one by an American family in the city of Sacramento, CA. The two girls really connect when they meet dispite having totally different lives and speaking different languages.

I noticed that svt will air the documentary this week. I can really reccomend it! Quite funny at times when Nordic and American values are compared. And Fredsvik might be one of the prettiest places on the world. I would love to go there someday!
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Kitchen activities

Publicerad 2014-02-01 11:34:00 i Dagens bild

My typical weekend breakfast. Look at that pancake! Perfection.
I thought that I was not cooking so much last semester due to the cheap Finnish school lunch but after starting to cook more again (even though I have less kitchen equipment now) I have come to the conclusion that it had to do with my tiny kitchen in the other apartment. It simply was not inspirering. 
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Hanna

Design och product development engineering student. Right now doing a year abroad in the Finnish capital. Coffee, the Swedish West coast and creative projects make me happy. I love film festivals and do some filming and video editing myself.

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