my first time in vienna

today I was going through my stuff in the basement of my mum's shop. I thought that the pictures, map and the language course material I had in vaasa were everything I had saved from my first time in vienna, but in the basement I found all my hidden treasures.

I didn't even remember being in the zoo. the most interesting "souvenirs" were:

pictures I can't remember. our floor kitchen, us (me, heather, jess, alena) and my room (I had the bed on the left side).

notes from my roommate and jess wishing me a safe journey home (and to bratislava).

my tickets. that time, too, I flew with finnair. that time, too, it was the morning flight.

a letter from the language school addressing me as "lieber siina" as if I was male. no wonder I was so scared of my roommate.

why on earth did I save this??? what was I thinking???

this wasn't the only asti bottle we emptied during that month...

map directing to a heuriger (oh, yes, I remember those nights...). railway timetables to budapest.

a postcard from the eighties. I thought they only sell those in finland but apparently not. I suppose that's why I bought it in the first place. otherwise I have no excuse.

Countdown!

it's the 29th and exactly 29 nights to go until vienna! :-)

flights!

now I've got flights to vienna! I'm flying on the 27th of august from tampere. I can't remember the last time I've actually been to the tampere airport, apart from picking up friends. the best thing about flying with finnair is that I can take my new trolley with me as hand baggage. the maximum dimensions of carry-on baggage are 56 x 45 x 25 cm, that's more than in my other options (sas, air berlin). that solves my baggage problems as I want to take my two backpacks and the trolley with me. in addition finnair was (surprisingly) able to offer me the best price, 130€ for youth from tampere to vienna.

vienna, here I come!

yes! preparations!

finally I have done something concrete for next year: I've paid my insurance (yahoo! ;-)) and applied for stundent's allowance (no starving next year!). I know, it's not fun or exciting, but they are small steps I have to take before leaving.

I also found out that the new vorlesungsverzeichnis, course catalogue is online. the only thing is that it's not complete yet and therefore not very helpful so far. yesterday I made new schedules for my home made calendar using last year's courses as a starting point. last year none of the courses (at least interesting ones) started before 9 o'clock and so my schdules start at nine. next year it'll be different. from the few german courses in the catalogue that I found interesting one starts at 8.30 and another one (get this!) at 7.45. unfortunately both of them take place on fridays and so I'll have to choose. hmm. I suppose I'm for the first one. for some reason. ;-)

I can only hope they are going to offer more courses in german, as these ones are not exactly what I'm looking for. they are also all scheduled either for tuesdays or fridays. for my soon-to-be-minor, cultural studies, they only offer three courses at the moment. that'll certainly change.

next time more good news!

treat your homesickness

first the illness. there's an article about homesickness in wikipedia (what do they not have an article about?). as one possible treatment they see "Bringing a "transitional object" (something special from home)", which leads to my remedy...

... that is Finnshop, net shop for finnish products. for 3,90€ I can get my tooth paste, for 9,90€ koskenkorva, for 11,50€ a marimekko purse. I'm happy to pay one or two euros extra if it means that I don't have to fill my suitcase (or backpack) with souvenirs. a koskenkorva bottle weighs already more than 0,5 kg and as the luggage weight is limited, I really don't need any extra kilos.

so, my friends, shop 'til you drop! oh, and kate & co, I have to disappoint you: they don't offer vanilla koskenkorva at the shop. ;-)

invitation to a job interview

I did what a laguage student should never do: I translated my job application and cv from word to word - well, almost from word to word - into german and applied for a job as a conference hostess. it was my first application ever in german and I got an invitation to a job interview.

the problem is that the interviews take place this week. they had sent the invitation in the end of last week while I was in poland and not checking my e-mails three times a day as I do at home. too bad.

today I called them and they were very understanding ("could you come next week?") and then told me to drop by once I'm in vienna. I can hardly imagine getting a job that begins two or three days after the interview, but why not give it a chance? I'd have to leave from my job in tampere a week earlier as planned and so for quite sure lose some money, but there's even the slightest chance I would find an interesting job in vienna, it's worth the risk.

I should soon buy the flight! :-D

my dear family...

I visited my uncle and his family last tuesday. they were all very worried about me going to vienna for a whole year - they'll miss me. I had to promise them (and that not only once but twice) that I'll visit them again before leaving. the funny part of the story is that before last tuesday I saw them very shortly at my cousin's confirmation party last july, so it's nothing new they won't see me for a year, but as I'm not going to vaasa but abroad, it's all different.

the situation reminded me of my exchange year in germany. two months before I was supposed to return to finland my class mates started to tell me how much they are going to miss me once I'm gone. excuse me? instead of telling me that, they could have done something with me as long as I was there, but no. it all seemed to be just a polite gesture. I just missed the politeness of it.

my granny has given up all hope with me and my cousins. the urge to see the world seems to run in the family. we're eight cousins and two of them live in sweden, one in belgium, one spent a year in luxembourg and switzerland, I spent two in germany... and all of us love travelling. my dad keeps telling her that he spends his holidays in the canary islands (even though he's in fact in thailand) because he doesn't want to worry her. it's no use: she knows the truth anyway. so, instead of worrying, she just asks me where I'm next going to and for how long.

for those who are wondering the same: on wednesday to poland for five days. ;-)