Ok, so its about time that I update my blog again:)

The weekend of Oct. 8th I decided to have a Thanksgiving dinner. Well, it was more difficult then I thought it would be because I still can't figure out what everything is. Some of the stuff like poultry seasoning they don't have....and turkeys are few and far between and the ones that I did find were 7 euros a kilo and BIG BUCKS!!!! I finally broke down and bought one though :) Vesa took me out on Thursday night to buy everything, so I didn't have to carry it all around...I think everything turned out pretty good. There were 9 people at dinner and no one really complained and I don't think anyone was sick afterwards:) It would have been nice to have an apple pie or something, but they don't have bloody pies here anywhere....not even pie shells, and it would have been too much work to make one that probably won't turn out anyways. Oh yea, and I thought finding a turkey was hard! Finding a pan to cook it in was another thing. I bought small aluminum ones and cut them and attached them together with like a roll of tin foil. Yea, it was kind of messy....

The next week (Oct 13), I went to the movies with Teemu. It was 5 euro night on Thursday :) We saw "The 40 Year-Old Virgin" which was retardly funny. Then on Friday, I left work at 4pm and went to the cottage with Teemu and a bunch of his friends. I have no idea where it even was, but it was somewhere in central Finland. It was such a long drive. The scenery was nice, pretty much the same as home though...trees and lakes. All the leaves are changing colour, so Fall is definately here! I read my UK edition of Cosmo from back to front....quite an interesting read. We stopped at a groccery store on the way there and picked up some groceries...which took forever, by the way, because there was 5 of us...and 4 of us were Finns and are EXTREMELY SLOW. Anyways, when we got there food was already made for us by a mom:) Mom's are great aren't they ??? The cottage was more like a cabin. It was small, but had a loft with lots of beds in it, so luckily I did not have to sleep on the floor...It was also heated, and hotter then a dirty rig on a Saturday night! The first night, the guys went fishing and I tried sauna. On Sat., we went fishing all day. It was bloody cold out. I had on three pairs of socks, long johns, jeans, a long sleeve sweater, my cord jacket, Azadeh's winter coat, 2 toques....yes 2!!!, a pair of gloves, scarf, and coveralls, and I was still cold:) GEESH I should be used to this....At least, we caught 4 rainbow trout. The dad smoked them for us and they were pretty good...even though I don't eat fish that often. That night, all that we did was sit around and talk. I, of course, was extremely bored because none of this was in English. I think I began to study/memorize my Cosmo as this is now my second time through it. It is like 6 pm on a Saturday night and I'm sleeping!!!! I think I developed an imaginary friend or another personality from talking to myself so much. I made the mistake of drinking a lot of beer that night....maybe to satisfy my alter ego....but instead it ran right through me and I had to get up like 3 times to pee....yep, they can have a sauna in the house, but not a bathroom...I had to walk outside in the cold...down the very long driveway in my skivvies to pee:(

Sunday, it was extremely windy out, so we did not go fishing. Eveyrone was lazy and woke up at like 11 am. I had some weird horse meat for breakfast and then we sat around waitng for 4 Finns to make up their mind what the hell they were going to do. I, of course, had no idea what they were talking about. But finally, after 4 hours!!!!!, we decided to go for a walk...and of course there was 5 of us and there was just enough room on the trail for 4 across, so I walked ahead with my alter ego. I think Kathy (the other part of my brain) likes to walk fast because when I turned around all the Finns were like 1 km behind....no I think they are just slow:) but at least I got to talk to Kathy a little bit. After we did a short jaunt....it seemed like we were gone for 5 minutes....we were finnished our walk!!!! Kathy and I could have went for at least an hour. Kathy got really angry too because no one was talking to her--poor Teemu. He had to deal with the wrath of Kathy. We left at about 3 pm for our long ride home. Kathy and I slept most of it. But we stopped at some locks on the way home. It was very pretty.

Well nothing really new and exciting happened to me this week. On Sat. morning (Oct. 22), I went to the Science Centre (Heureka) with Vesa. All the exhibits were pretty kiddish, but I did see a IMAX like film. It wasn't exactly like IMAX but close enough. It was on Chimpanzees....Jane Goodall one....Of course she narrated it, but since the Science Centre is for kids, and kids are dumb and can't read sub-titles :), they dubbed it over in bloody Finnish. They gave me an interpretor like ear piece, which only went in one ear, so I could hear both languages at the same time. It was quite an interesting experience, but I enjoyed the film anyways. After the Science centre, Vesa made me lunch and then I went shopping with Azadeh. She bought a sweater and I bought some little souvenirs. We then went to happy hour and met Teemu and had some 90 cent wine:) After that, it was nachos at Santa Fe (this Mexican joint). Yesterday, was laundry day. I keep meaning to go do a walking tour of Helsinki, but the last 2 days it has been raining, so when I got to the city centre, I didn't really feel like walking in that kind of weather, so I went to a fancy little coffee shop and had a really good muffin and some hot chocolate with Teemu....it still doesn't compare to Tim Hortens though :) We picked up some grocceries and made steak and potatoes last night and then watched Deuce Bigelow European Gígelow which was kind of retarded...

Today, it is 0 C out. Good thing, I finally broke down and bought a coat. I went and got it wrapped for tax free shopping, and they put like 2 pieces of tape on the bag because your not allowed to use it or open in while in Finland to get the tax break. I was like oh this is a cinch....I got three pieces of tape off no prob...and the last one on the end was a bit more tricky...so I thought I could just leave it and sneak the coat out....but I RIPPED IT!!!! BASTARDS:....oh well, it was worth a try! It was only 17 euros that I would get back in tax, but its like free money so it was worth a try:)

I haven't heard from Kathy in awhile....

Anyways, thats all for now!

XOXOXO
Krissy