Settling In

July 22, 2011
We have been here only two days, but it seems like a week - there is so much information to process - we aren't used to having to pay attention to every word, nuance and gesture. 

Our current apartment is on a busy city street in a 7 story building.  It is hot and humid but luckily there are windows on both sides of the apartment so a nice breeze blows through.

We are finally learning when to turn right and left to get to the place we want to be - kitchen, living room etc - everything is different from home.  Everyone is on vacation right now, so it will be a couple weeks before we can get hooked into wireless, but we have DSL so one computer at a time can be connected to the internet.

We have a TV - hooked to cable, but as far as we can tell there are a lot of bad programs - well maybe better if understood anything - I can understand the Spanish telenovelas but who wants to?  There is news in various languages and the best news comes from Al Jazeerah English

Yesterday we walked downtown about a mile away to start to get oriented and try to take care of some details. There were thunderstorms in the morning, but it cleared up by 10:30 and no return of rain except for about a half hour in the afternoon when we were in the library reading newspapers.  We also walked along river and across to a different part of town where we will move in October - quieter streets called 'University Hill"  : )  Tonight there will be some kind of special event along the water using colored spheres which will then be in an installation in a park for about a month.

The market square, as it is called, truly lives up to its name, there are vendors of all types, food, clothes, household goods for most of the day.   What's in season you ask?  Right now everyone has peas, peas, peas.  Gigantic pods, delicious even raw.  And there are raspberries and strawberries and all kinds of mushrooms.  There are also the regular things - tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage all looking local and fresh, there are also bananas, pineapples, melons and more that are obviously imported - People are careful to note what is locally grown (suomalainen - Finnish).   There are cafes (little outposts really) around the square - but it seems too hot to us to sit and drink in the sun. 

In the afternoon yesterday we were met by Henna Jesaksen - our "tutor" - guide really - assigned to us by the summer school.  It is her job to help orient us to the town.  She is wonderful - a 23 year old geography student - who has a terrible time with maps.   She pointed out a lot of places around the center of town and then helped us get monthly bus passes (one of the few official things you can get without a Registration Number) and then we took a bus out to a shopping mall of sorts.  The first stop was an indoor flea market where we picked up a couple of things for the kitchen, and then a Target like store for a couple of other things we needed.   She also pointed out in the bus schedule book how to get to some other "malls" including where IKEA is - though I can't imagine they have anything we need or could use right now.  The busses go everywhere, but it is going to take some work to figure out which buses go to where we need to get to.

She will also help us find the right place to buy a used bike and where I can find some needlepoint patterns.

Lunch is the big meal of the day - the first day we made a bad choice - thought we were getting felafel, but it was iffy schwarma in a red sauce with blue cheese coated potatoes - yesterday we had beautiful salads at a place called GreenZ and today a buffet at Cafe RIco  I had reindeer today though the waitress said it was moose - I don't think so and Ken, salmon (I promised this won't be a daily food journal - only the interesting parts) 

We then shopped at the open market and a local store for provisions for the house and lugged it all home (including paper for the printer, and a couple plastic cups etc.  Amazing what you take for granted is around the house.

I need to have a FInnish I.D. number which required an appointment with the magistrate and all my paperwork from the Fulbright which I hadn't thought of carrying around with me, so we went again today.  Then I opened a bank account so that my scholarship can be deposited automatically.  There was so much paperwork - all beginning with the registration number and ending with about a dozen sheets of documents to verify all the steps and obligations and regulations. But I am set - we are getting used to converting to Euros - things are about the same prices at home - a little more expensive for some things, less for others - we definitely have to stop eating out so often - but we are on vacation for the next week or so.

I left my camera in the states and Ken keeps forgetting to bring his Ipod but one of these days soon we will get it together to take and upload a few pictures.