June 2005

June 30, 2005
Thursday:

I didn’t do anything exciting again today. I had noodles and a roast pork sandwich for lunch, then took the laundry to the laundry room and washed it. I studied Chinese next to the dryer while the clothes spent an hour in it, then I continued studying for a while longer after I had brought them home and put them away. I put a new video online later in the afternoon. It shows some animals I filmed in the US and Finland. I especially like the giant Finnish rabbit footage. It was cloudy and cool again almost all day, and it rained lightly for brief periods.
I made dinner for Johanna and myself when she got home from work. I toasted pork roast sandwiches and made semi-mashed potatoes. We went to Satu’s apartment shortly after the meal. There, we ate a lot of popcorn and drank some wine and some kind of bottled alcoholic energy drink that we brought back from Estonia last weekend. We watched the Simsons and South Park and listened to music. I left at 9 o’clock because I wanted to come home and watch what I thought was the last episode of the series, Taken, which I have been watching lately. Johanna had told me it was only 3 episodes, but that didn’t seem right after the show tonight, so I got online and discovered that there are actually 10 episodes.
Johanna got home sometime around 10. I saw her walking outside towards the apartment, so I hid by the stairs and scared her again. It started raining heavily around 11 o’clock, and I took some pictures of the sky because I thought it looked nice.
This may be the last weblog entry until Monday, as I am spending the weekend in Helsinki. Johanna and I will be staying in her sister´s boyfriend´s apartment while he is out of town. I will have my phone with me.

June 29, 2005
Wednesday:

I had French fries for breakfast this morning and some leftover pork roast for lunch. I did not leave the apartment until Johanna got home from work. Nothing new or exciting happened during that time, but I stayed busy doing the same things I always do when I am home alone here. Johanna called me from work and we arranged some details about our late-July trip to St. Petersburg, Russia. Through a travel agency, she got the 4-day trip for less than $400 each. It only includes one meal per day, so we will have to pay a little more for food. A big part of that cost for me is a $100 visa. It costs a lot more for Americans then it does Europeans. I expected Russia to be a cheaper place to visit, but I will pay because I have always been interested in the country.
I met Johanna in front of her school after she got off work. We then walked downtown and ate pizza at the same cheap restaurant we went to a couple weeks ago. It began raining as we arrived and the rain became intense while we sat inside and ate our pizza. It was still raining hard after we had both eaten our pizza. So, we had to sit in the restaurant for about 10 minutes and be subjected to Melrose Place on the TV. We also admired the incredibly tacky decorations of the foreign owned restaurant, which remind me of things I have seen in Chinese restaurants in the US. The walls are covered with many different lighted pictures that are all fading and partly broken. The walls in the dining room have waterfall pictures that will probably never flow again. Behind the counter is a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge with flashing lights all over it. Strung around the ceiling are Christmas lights and old artificial foliage. And, by a pillar in the middle of the building, is an old fountain that barely even trickles anymore, but it fits in perfectly with the dead waterfalls on the walls.
We walked to the theatre downtown after the rain quit falling. There, we bought 3 tickets for War of the Worlds. We had to wait until 7:30 to see the show, so we first walked over to the Stockmanns mall. I quickly got bored because Johanna was just looking at clothes, so we walked back outside. She then suggested that we go to a bar and drink a cider, so we went to the same one that I have been to on two other occasions, Bohemia, which has a wooden interior and lots of big plush benches.
We next went across the street to some kind of bank machine that allowed Johanna to transfer money from her account into the account of one of the guys that drives her car pool to work. We then went to a supermarket and bought some packages of instant noodles before going on to the theatre and meeting Mari, who was joining us for the movie. Like last time we all three went to a movie, Johanna and Mari went to the nearby candy store and stocked up before the show started.
Seating at the theatre is assigned and our seats were in the middle of the 4th row. The seats were too close to the screen, but our seating options had been limited because so many tickets had already been sold by the time we got ours. I liked the movie, but some of the things that were supposed to be serious made me laugh, like the way that the alien machines operated. I also thought that the crowd’s reaction to a line in the movie was particularly interesting. When the machines first appear in the movie, Tom Cruise’s son asks him if the machines were sent by terrorists. Cruise replies, “No, they are from somewhere else”. The son then says, “Where? Europe?”. That last question got a very hysterical laugh out of everyone in the theatre. They all seemed to really like the idea of Europe attacking the US. Interesting.
Rain was again lightly falling after the movie, so Johanna and I decided to take the bus back home. I scared her at the bus stop using a storefront display with a very scary looking plaster manikin. The manikin was right behind the glass window, in the corner of the store. Before she had seen the manikin, I asked her to slowly walk in front of the glass, then I turned her to face it. The plan worked and she jumped back when she saw it.

June 28, 2005
Tuesday:

I ate some leftover spaghetti for breakfast today, then spent some time cleaning up the apartment. It was the second cool and cloudy day in a row, with temperatures not getting above 55 degrees. Later in the week is supposed to be at least partly sunny and in the 60’s. I spent a few hours in the afternoon studying Chinese and working more on the video of Mike and Carolyn’s graduation party.
I recorded myself scaring Johanna when she came home from work. She always gets home at almost exactly the same time, so I hid on the front balcony walkway of the building and waited with the camera running for her to come around the corner. She was really scared, but she didn’t scream, so I don’t know how good the video will turn out. I thought that she was mad at me for scaring her, but she said she wasn’t. I think she was lying.
After both having the rest of the leftover spaghetti as a snack and putting a pork roast in the oven to slow cook, we went for a longer walk on the same route we had taken last night, which was up a nearby hill and into an wooded area with old farms. Today I realized that the most of the area was some kind of park. The trail we took today had signs along it that described the nature that was around. Sheep and horses are being raised in the fields of the park. I could not tell it was a park before because it is not maintained to look like a park. The paths around the animals were barely wide enough for one person and had grass growing above waist height on both sides. We stopped next to the animals for a few minutes and watched a dozen sheep wildly running back and forth from one end of their cage to the other. We stopped to try and feed grass to a black horse and a brown horse. The black one seemed happy to have us around, but as Johanna said, the brown one was “psychotic”. It would not even look at us and would start acting very strange and hyper when we gave it any attention.
I took quite a few good pictures as we continued walking through the fields along the river and then into the woods. As we neared the end of our walk, we passed an old log cabin that was in a rather secluded area by itself, which was well off the main trail. The back of the cabin was painted red and it appeared that it had been maintained over the years. I walked around to the front of the building and was surprised to see that it was open to the air and the building was falling apart inside. The cabin was just one room with a brick and stone fireplace on the back wall. There was a metal device attached to the side of the door that looked kind of like part of a grape press or something. The floor was littered with random rusty pieces of metal and wood. I took a few pictures inside, then went to get Johanna so I could show her. The first thing she noticed was the date 1881 scratched onto one of the log beams in the wall. The numbers were big, so I was surprised that I had already spent several minutes inside without noticing them.
As we were walking back towards home, we saw one of the elusive red and brown pheasants crossing the road by the dam. The bird was just like the one that lives in the field by the apartment. We tried to cut it off by both walking a different way, but it got in front of Johanna and ran back off the road.
Back at home, we still had another hour before our pork roast was done. We had bought it for half price last night at the store and today was its expiration day. We ate at 8 o’clock and had four small potatoes with our meat, which was fatty but good. We watched the Simpsons after the meal, then I finished working on the video of Mike and Carolyn’s graduation. I thought it was a good idea to split it up into a family friendly version and a less family friendly version. I then watched the X-files at 10 o’clock and went to sleep at 11.

June 27, 2005
Monday:

I spent a couple hours in the morning and early afternoon writing journals from my trip this weekend and getting my pictures ready to put online. I saw the giant rabbit hop by the window around 3 o’clock, so I went outside to try and film it again. I have seen it late at night a couple times before, but never during the day. Today I found it hiding in some tall grass next to a pedestrian area. I was able to film from very close up before it realized it was being watched. It then ran up the small hill nearby and I followed. I found it again and started recording, then it ran higher up the hill. I again followed and it ran down the hill and back down to the lawn of the apartment building. This is where I got the best shots. It sat in the lawn with its entire body exposed as I zoomed in close. After a couple seconds it ran into the middle of the apartment complex, which consists of several dozen buildings. I found it a fourth time as I searched around the buildings, but it ran too quickly that time for me to get another shot. It didn’t seem to mind when people were walking by not paying attention to it, but it didn’t like me at all. I was continuing my search when a girl stopped and said something to me in Finnish as she held a small bag of trash up. I asked her to speak English and then she asked me if I knew where the dumpsters were. I walked her to the trash receptacles and did not continue the rabbit hunt after that.
When Johanna got home from work we had a snack, then later walked to the nearest store to buy some material to make spaghetti for dinner. Rain began falling as we were walking. Back at home, the rain fell harder and I cooked the spaghetti and some mixed vegetables. We decided to take a walk after the Simpsons ended at 9 o’clock and the rain stopped. We walked in an area that I have not been before, which is across the river and up a hill where there are some very old farm buildings. There is a walking trail there which winds through some of the buildings, which could easily be at least 150 years old or more. The trail goes into the woods after passing by the farms. We walked for a few minutes into the woods, then decided to come back home. I will definitely have to go back to that spot soon.
Johanna went to sleep soon after we arrived home, and I stayed up for a few more hours. I watched the X-files, then finished getting my pictures online. I spent the last hour I was awake watching random videos on the Internet.

June 26, 2005
Sunday:

Johanna and I got up at 10 and went into the kitchen to make breakfast of pork chops and potatoes. Everyone else was there eating also and Anni asked me to get my camera and play the footage from last night. Cabin cleaning started immediately after breakfast because we needed to be on the road by noon to catch a 1 o’clock ferry back to the mainland. I took all the sheets and pillowcases off of the bed that Johanna and I slept in, then went out to help Tuomo and Anni clean the sauna. There, I helped pick up some trash and put a broken door handle back on. I then went with Tuomo to take a carload of trash to a nearby dumpster. Two old ladies were going through the trash and one of them pointed to a large empty water jug that I was about to throw away. She said something to me in Estonian, then I handed her the jug and she looked happy about it.
We then went back to the cabin and everyone packed all their things into the cars. I though I had lost my cell phone, but Johanna called it and I heard it ringing in my backpack. We arrived at the ferry terminal at 1 o’clock, but there was a huge line of cars there and a two hour wait. We were getting worried that we could have missed our 6 o’clock ferry back to Finland because we still had a 2 and a half hour drive after this ferry trip, but things worked out when we finally got on board at 3 o’clock. While we waited, I walked to a concession stand and bought some water, and Johanna and I walked into the ferry terminal and bought a bag of potato chips and some gum. I also bought a pack of cigarettes for about a dollar.
On the 30 minute ride back to the mainland, Johanna and I sat in the lobby inside the boat. I bought a bottle of water from the store there and we watched people playing with giant Lego-type blocks in a children’s area. The children kept building large towers with the blocks until they would collapse onto all the people sitting around the crowded area. A father then joined the kids to build a super-tower all the way to the ceiling. The structure suddenly failed in two places as he was eagerly putting the last block on the top. Blocks flew everywhere and all the old women sitting around the tower screamed.
Johanna and I slept for the rest of the trip back to the Tallinn ferry terminal. Tuomo, Sammi and Anni did not get on the ferry with the rest of us because there was no room for any more cars. They had known about this beforehand and were planning on spending the night in the city then leaving at 7 o’clock tomorrow morning. Johanna and I gave our remaining 600 Kroon to Tuomo because he had agreed to buy us alcohol with it and take it back to Finland so we could pick it up from him at a later date. We asked him to get a big bottle of wiskey and as much beer and cider as he could with the money.
We then said goodbye and Johanna, Kaisa, Mari and I got on the ferry back to Finland, which turned out to be quite a wild ride. The ship was supposed to make the trip in half the time that the one we came on took. The ship accelerated to its cruising speed as soon as we got into open water, which caused it to rock violently. There were at least 500 people on board and they were being thrown into the walls as the ship rocked at extremely sharp angles. We were sitting next to the store at the center of the ship, which had hundreds of liquor bottles that were shaking and falling over. A speaker came on the intercom about 45 minutes into the voyage and said that the ship had to be slowed because of rough seas, which would delay us 30 minutes. At that time, the girls told me about a 1994 disaster in which almost 900 passengers were killed on a bigger luxury ferry when its car door came open on a voyage from Tallin to Stockholm.
While we waited to arrive back in Finland, we first all got sandwiches from the concession area and ate them back in our seats. I went outside on the deck after that. This was before the ship had been slowed and the top part of the ship was even more violent. It was impossible to walk without holding onto things. There were a couple dozen other people out on the deck that were smoking and loving the wild ride. Not only was the deck rocking, but wind was hitting it in gusts up to about 60MPH. I went to the very back of the ship and could barely even stand up. I filmed the huge wake that the ship was making and was surprised when a wave unexpectedly splashed up onto the deck. I was looking off the side of the ship when the wave hit me right in the face. It was great.
I went back downstairs to get Johanna so I could show her the deck, then went back inside and filmed people falling down and liquor bottles falling over in the store. We arrived back in Helsinki around 8 o’clock, then took a bus downtown to the train station. There, Kaisa got on a bus back to the city of Pori, and Mari, Johanna and I got on a train back to Turku. The 2 hour ride went very quickly because we spent the entire time talking. I told the girls all the stories I could remember about weird and crazy events from the news in the US. They seem to like those stories.
We arrived back in Turku around 11, then said goodbye to Mari and walked 15 minutes home. The heavy plastic bags of liquor we were carrying were very difficult to hold, but will be worth the trouble. The trip was a complete success.

June 25, 2005
Saturday:

Everyone except Tuomo started to get up about 10 o’clock this morning. He said he had already been outside drinking coffee since 8 o’clock. I first took my camcorder and Johanna’s camera outside so I could take some pictures of the area and shoot some video. I walked just a few feet out into the flowery fields and was “attacked” by plants. I had felt the small spikes of one kind of plant rubbing against my legs, but I didn’t think anything of it because it didn’t hurt. My legs started to itch, burn and swell up a few seconds later. Small blisters started to form on the swelled areas. Johanna came outside and told me that I had touched a certain kind of poison plant. All of the swelling and blisters then completely disappeared within a few minutes. I can only imagine what would happen to an extremely allergic person if they fell into a large amount of these bushes. Tuomo later told me that some people have to be very careful around these plants. Weird.
Everyone ate some sandwiches and other things for breakfast together before getting into the cars and leaving to go explore the island after 11 o’clock. It took just about 15 minutes to drive into the biggest town on the island, called Kuressaare, which has a population of about 15,000. There, we first went into a small store to buy some drinks. I got two ciders and a pair of yellow socks to make a coozie with. There was no line at the register when we arrived at the store, but a line of about 15 customers when it came time to check out a couple minutes later. Just across the street from the store was a medieval castle with a moat around it. The moat had some little islands in it and the castle was surrounded by high stone walls. We decided to come back and go to the castle later because everyone first wanted to go to a beach.
Finding a beach turned out to be no easy task because we first accidentally ended up going to two spots where no beach existed. The first time we drove down a bumpy gravel road and came to a spot with just a bit of sand, a couple fisherman and a bunch of weeds. We then drove on to a place along the road that had a parking area and a sign which showed that beaches existed down a long pedestrian trail. So, we parked the cars and spent about 20 minutes walking down the trail. Dozens of large horse flies dive-bombed us during the entire walk, then we came to the water and there was no beach. There was just a marsh of weeds and even more horse flies. It appeared that hundreds of large swans were living in the area, as they could be seen floating in the water as far out as I could see, but none of them were close to shore. Sammi agreed to walk back to the parking lot and bring one of the cars back to pick everyone up. No cars were allowed on the trail, but we didn’t care since the sign had said that a nonexistent beach was at the end of the trail. Sammi did not want everyone to get in the car at once because the car was small and the road was in really bad shape. The shocks on the car were already making noise and he didn’t know if they could handle all the weight, so Kaisa, Johanna and I walked towards the parking lot until the car could make a second trip to come get us. The horse flies were even worse along the walk back. Kaisa seemed to have some kind of weird power over them, though, and they did not seem to bother her at all. Maybe she just doesn’t taste good because she is a vegetarian.
The third time at looking for a beach was a charm because some people that had passed us on bikes on the trail told us where to go. The language of Finland and Estonia is a bit different, but none of the people in my group ever seemed to have any problems communicating with the locals. We parked in a hotel parking lot when we arrived at the beach. There was a group of teenage boys standing at the lot entrance that were charging each car 50 Kroon, which is about $4. The boys said that all cars not belonging to hotel guests had to pay the fee, but they looked like they might have just been scamming people. The sun went behind clouds just after we arrived at the beach. Tuomo and Anni immediately went into the water. I tried to go back into the woods barefoot to change into my swimming trunks, but I had to go back for my shoes because of some razor-like leaves that the weeds had. I then started to head out into the water to meet Tuomo and Sammi, but decided against it after I got just a couple feet deep. The water was only about 60 degrees at the most, and the sun didn’t appear like it was going to come back. We all sat together on a blanket for about an hour and a half and talked. Our main subject of discussion was ideas for starting a cult. Mari had the great idea of a sand worshipping group, with the leader being called the Sandman. She was the only person who went into the water during the rest of our beach visit, and she made fun of me for only going out two feet. She now says I always have an excuse for not swimming. Not true.
We went back to the castle after leaving the beach. We crossed the moat on a bridge, then had to go into a tunnel to get through the stone walls. An elementary school concert was going on inside the castle grounds. A group of kids was singing when we arrived, then a group of girls got on stage and did a choreographed dance routine. We did not go into the castle, but walked around it and on top of the wall that surrounded it. Cold rain began falling after a few minutes and we headed back to the cars. When we passed the kids, they were doing some kind of a dance routine with foam pool worms.
We next went to a supermarket and bought more food and alcohol. Johanna and I bought extra drinks to take back to Finland with us. I got two bottles of wine for about $4 each and Johanna got two large bottles of Vodka for less than $10 each. I bought bratwurst and chips for dinner.
The rain continued on the ride back to the cabin and for a couple hours after we arrived. Toumo and I went out to collect firewood to build a fire in the living room fireplace. We at first couldn’t find any, then found thousands of pieces in a shed attached to the house. Once we had a fire going, he and Johanna cooked sausages in the fireplace by putting them on the end of sticks. The sausage was precooked, but was excellent. I cooked my bratwurst in the oven, but they didn’t turn out very good. We spent the next couple hours playing games. We started out with a couple staring competitions, then played the card game Circle of Death. Nobody remembered the regular rules to the game, so Kaisa and I came up with our own. The cards are put into a circle and the person drawing a card or the group must do a certain thing each time a certain card is drawn. For example, any person drawing one number had to give a 15 second lap dance to another person. The most entertaining card turned out to be the one minute solo dance, which I never drew but filmed when anyone else did. Everyone wore party hats during the game, which Tuomo had had the foresight to buy during our first shopping trip in Tallin. We were one hat short, so Mari and I made an extra one out of an old bread sack. The bread sack hat then had to be worn by any person picking up a certain card in the Circle of Death. Sammi had the brilliant idea to tape cheese puff horns to his hat. I copied him and taped a bratwurst to the top of my hat. The bratwurst turned out to be too heavy, so I later took it off and replaced it with a piece of bread that had two cheese puffs sticking in it.
The rain quit falling around 10:30 and the breaking clouds made for a very long and very nice sunset. The sky was red and purple for over an hour. Tuomo, Sammi and I headed to the sauna around 11. We had invited all the girls to come with us for a unisex sauna, but they didn’t immediately warm up to the idea. Johanna and Mari then came into the sauna wearing their bathing suits while Sammi and I were in there waiting for Tuomo to come meet us. Sammi left the building right away because Johanna and Mari had come in with clothes. I just went into the other room and then came back with my towel. Johanna and Mari better lock the door next time they are in a sauna together.

June 24, 2005
Friday:

Johanna and I got up at 7:30 this morning so we could pack our things and be ready to leave town by 8:30, which was when Mari#1 and her friend Tuomo were supposed to be here to pick us and Kaisa up. Kaisa came to meet us just after 8 o’clock, but Mari called at that time to say that she and Tuomo were running late. Kaisa, Johanna and I went outside to wait for them around nine o’clock, and they showed up in Tuomo’s car about 15 minutes later.
We then had to drive to Helsinki and stop on the way to meet Tuomo’s cousin Sammi and Sammi’s girlfriend Anni. The place we met them was a house at a rural area in a forest. They were planning on driving Sammi’s car and following us, but the brakes on his car had just locked up. We were worried that we might have to continue the trip with 7 people in Tuomo’s small car, but they were able to borrow another car from Sammi’s stepfather. A bee got in Tuomo’s car while we were waiting on a decision to be made on the other car. Johanna and Mari jumped out of the car and it appeared that Mari was trying to use a banana as a weapon against the bee. I got out my camera.
The total travel time to Helsinki was about 2 hours. The downtown area of the city was full of people out enjoying the holiday weekend. The holiday is called Midsummer and is in celebration of the longest day of the year. I guess it makes since to celebrate the longest day of the year in a part of the world where 3/4ths of the year is freezing cold.
We arrived at the port around 11:30 and had some more problems there. We needed to put both of the cars on the ship we were taking to Estonia, but the border patrol agents would not at first let Sammi put the car he was driving onto the ship because it was not registered in his name. The agents allowed him to call his stepfather and have him tell them that it was OK.
We had both cars on the ship by noon and our 3 hour trip across the Gulf of Finland to Estonia started at 12:30. The boat we traveled on was not quite as large as a full size cruise ship, but was also not small by any means. It had a large store at the center of it and a bar and restaurant near the store. We first sat out on the sundeck at the rear of the ship and each ordered one drink from a concession stand there. A few dozen seagulls followed the ship as it left the port, and some of them kept following long into the trip. They were hovering just above the people’s heads on the sundeck. They knew how to use the aerodynamics of the ship to just hover in the same spot without flapping their wings. It appeared that they could do this for as long as they wished to. I am sure that there have been many occasions when the birds relieved themselves onto passengers.
We only stayed on the sundeck for one drink because the wind was terrible once we got out onto the open water. Even plastic deck chairs were blowing around. The temperature was in the mid 60’s, but it felt quite cold with the wind. We next went into the store at the center of the ship and bought some snacks. Johanna and I had a giant candy bar and some chips. We all sat at some tables by the store while we ate, then most of us retired to a comfortable movie room to take a nap. Johanna and I fell asleep for a while, then went back out to the sundeck, but this time we sat at a wooden picnic table that was situated in a much less windy area. We sat there until the ship arrived in the Estonian capital, Tallinn.
It was then time to get back in the cars and finish our drive to the cabin we would be staying at in the country. Johanna and I were going to ride with Sammi and Anni to make the other car less crowded, but we discovered that each car had to leave the ship with the same number of occupants that arrived in it. After passing through customs, we went to a mall on the edge of the city. There, we ate dinner and bought some food and drinks for the evening. The restaurant we went to served different dishes inside pita breads. Johanna and I at first decided not eat at the restaurant because we were not sure if we would like the food. Mari came to us as we were walking away and described a good-looking dish that she had just seen one of the others order, so we went back and tried it. While we were eating, Johanna pointed out to me that a piece of equipment in the restaurant had a sticker on it that stated it was made in Wisconsin.
We next went into a supermarket that was attached to the restaurant. Everything there appeared to much cheaper than it is in Finland, especially alcohol, which is about half price. I bought some sandwich material, vodka, cranberry juice, ice making bags, energy drinks and cider.
Johanna and I then rode with Sammi and Anni for the rest of the journey. Passing through the city of Tallinn, it appeared that this country was much poorer than Finland. Many buildings were abandoned and some of the infrastructure seemed to be in disrepair. I thought we had only another hour to travel after leaving Tallinn, but it was actually 3 hours through rural farming areas. These areas also appeared to be poor and had many abandoned farm buildings. I wrapped the sandwich meat into my shirt and Johanna’s jacket so it would not get too warm. After traveling for two hours, we had to get onto another ferry boat and go to a large island. We arrived at the ferry terminal at 7 o’clock, hoping to get right on a ferry. But, one of the two boats appeared to be broken down and we had to wait until 8 o’clock to get onboard. There were at least 50 other cars waiting in a line with us, and everyone left their cars and walked around as they waited. I went into a small store there to buy a soda and use the bathroom. There was a sign on the outside of the building showing a map of the island, which is called Saaremaa. The 3000 square kilometer island lies in the Baltic sea and has a population of about 40,000. It consists mostly of rural areas, but does have a few small towns. Its touristh attractions are diverse, with a medieval castle and meteorite crater.
We got on the ferry at 8 o’clock and it took only 30 minutes to get to the island. A bridge could have easily spanned the distance. The ship had birds nests on it and the birds flew within a couple feet of our heads as they went to and from their nest. Johanna pointed out that it was strange for a bird to have a moving nest. We wondered how they keep track of their home’s location. The inside of the ship had a lounge, small store and concession stand. I sat inside for a while and talked to Tuomo until the ship arrived. It was another hour of driving once we landed on the island. I don’t think we ever passed through another town after we left the coastline. We arrived at the cabin around 9:30, and it was a very pleasant surprise. It is built on a gravel road that is surrounded by open fields of flowers. Only a couple other homes can be seen in the distance, and a large wooden windmill stands near one of those homes. The outside of the cabin appeared nothing like the interior. The yard was not moved and the outside of the building did not appear much different than any of the other farming houses we had seen. A loosely piled stone fence covered with weeds ran across the front of the property. Tuomo told me that the outside of the cabin was intentionally kept in this condition out of robbery fears. A log cabin was built next to the house. The interior of the house was almost entirely stained pine wood. The ceiling, floor and walls of the large living room were all pine. That room also had pine bunk beds in a corner and a pine table, along with 3 couches and a couple other pieces of furniture. The rest of the cabin consisted of a coat and shoe room, bathroom, kitchen and two bedrooms. Every room of the house was in almost perfect condition. Johanna and I were given one of the bedrooms and Sammi and Anni were given the other one.
I first put the food away I had bought, then made ice with the ice bags I had earlier bought. I had to wait for Tuomo to call his family and ask if the water was drinkable. The ice bags I used were similar to the ones I used when Johanna and I stayed in her sister’s apartment a couple weeks ago, but this time they were self sealing. I was trying to figure out how to seal them when Anni pointed this out to me. The self seal did not work perfectly, but it was good enough. I took all 12 bags a chest freezer in the coat and shoe room after I had them filled.
After getting settled in, we all sat in the living room and talked as we drank some of the cheap alcohol we had purchased. The inconspicuous log cabin next to the house contained a very nice sauna, which had an interior that was built with the same pine wood that the inside of the house was. The girls all went to the sauna together around 11, then Tuomo, Sunni and I went after them. We spent two hours going between the sauna and some plastic lawn chairs outside of it. We would stay in the heat for about 15 minutes, then go outside and sit in the cool air for a few minutes. We went back and forth at least 6 times. I thought the sky looked really cool at about 3 o’clock, so I went inside to get the camera and take a picture of it. I was really glad to be getting along so well with Tuomo and Sammi at the end of the day. We spent hours talking about all kinds of things. Tuomo does some of the same work I do in a supermarket and goes to school. Sammi is going to a military officers school and his girlfriend is studying Russian.
The first day was the beginning of a very good trip.

June 23, 2005
Thursday:

I ate a pizza for breakfast this morning. It was one of the microwavable ones from last night, but I cooked this one in the oven, which was better. I was planning on doing laundry after lunch, so I walked to the nearby store and bought some more detergent. I came back home to get the laundry after buying the detergent. On the walk home, I noticed that the red and brown pheasant that lives in the field by the apartment now has a girlfriend. It appeared to be showing off for her because it barely moved when I passed nearby it. It usually runs when it even sees me from a distance.
As I was getting ready to leave the apartment with the laundry, I realized that Johanna had forgotten to leave her bank card here, which is the only form of payment that the washing machines take.
So, I just stayed home and continued working on the video I am making from Mike and Carolyn’s graduation party. Johanna called a bit after 2 to say that she would be leaving work early and wanted to meet me downtown at 3 so we could exchange money for our planned trip to Estonia this weekend. She had taken the train to work this morning because her car pool drivers did not work today.
We met downtown at the marketplace and went to a currency exchange business across the street. I got 990 Krooni in exchange for 65 Euros. Johanna next wanted to go shopping for shorts, so I decided to walk around and look at other things while she shopped. I first walked through the marketplace and bought two keychains at a booth because Nikki had asked me to bring some back for her as a souvenir because she collects them. I then went on to a block that had several second hand stores on it. I went into a couple stores selling clothing and random junk, and one music store. The clothing store had terribly overpriced clothes, with some old jackets priced at over fifty dollars. One store I went into had seven levels of junk for sale, with everything from socks to old computers.
Johanna called me after she had found the shorts she wanted, then we stopped to look inside the big church on the walk home. It is the biggest old church I think I have ever been in, with seating for probably a thousand. The incredibly high ceilings are all vaulted and painted, some of which had detailed artwork. The side walls of the church were lined with several rooms that had graves in them. The wall of these rooms that faced the pews was just made of bars, so the caskets and other burial chambers inside could be seen.
After leaving the church, we sat in the sun on the grass by the river, which is just a couple hundred feet from the church. We continued walking towards home after sitting there for about 30 minutes. Our only other stop was a grocery store to buy dinner, where we bought some things for dinner and 4 ciders. I cooked the food as soon as we arrived home. We had pasta, baked potatoes and asparagus.
Johanna left after dinner to put the laundry into a machine. She then left again to go on a walk with Satu. I thought she was going to put the laundry into the dryer during her walk with Satu, and I went to pick it up at 8 o’clock. But, it was just wet and piled on a table in the laundry room, so I put it into the dryer then came home. Johanna came back home soon afterwards and we watched the Simpsons together. I went and brought the laundry back home at 9. We then watched ER before going to sleep at 10.

June 22, 2005
Wednesday:

I felt like I was getting up at noon or later today, but it was actually still before 10 o’clock. I can always tell about what time it is during the day without looking at clocks, but sometimes the mornings fool me.
For breakfast, I had the rest of the beef that was left over from last night. I left the apartment sometime around noon and walked to a wooded hill that is about quarter mile from the apartment. It can be seen from the window of the apartment, and I have been wanting to walk over there the past couple weeks because I could see large rocks sticking out of the treeline. There is a pedestrian path that runs along the base of the hill, and from there I found a narrow dirt path leading up the hill. The ground turned to stone just a few feet up the path, and stayed that way till the top of the hill. The whole hill appeared to be just one big stone. The rock was mostly worn flat, but there were some places with sharp drops, boulders and formations that looked like big bubbles. It all looked like sandstone, but I am not positive about that. The rock at first appeared to be empty of any other people, but I then I saw two kids having a mock sword fight with sticks as I neared the top. From the very top of the hill, most of the city could be seen. I sat at a spot there with my Chinese book and studied for about 30 minutes before the wind made me decide to find a less windy spot. I went to a side of the hill that the wind was not blowing against and found a perfectly wind protected formation in the rocks. The formation looked like the corner of a room, with two walls that rose straight up for a couple feet before continuing to rise up the hill at a steep angle. The “room” was right on the edge of a pine forest. I sat there for another 45 minutes or so and studied. I heard more people at one point, and looked up to see two more boys, both of with appeared to be no older than 13. The smaller one had on a black ski mask, which was odd considering that the temperature was in the 60’s.
I decided to walk around the hill more when I was done studying. I knew that the area was surrounded by the city, and that my walk could only take me a short distance. I came upon more weird children as I walked along the top of the hill. I kid in a yellow shirt jumped off the base of a high tension power pole as I approached it, then he ran away into the woods. As he ran, I noticed another or the same kid with a ski mask hiding in the bushes and watching. I am not sure what the kids were playing, but it appeared that the power pole may have been some kind of base they were “protecting”.
I walked on and quickly ran into civilization again at the base of the hill, so I turned back around and walked the way I had come. On the walk back, I was thinking that the whole area just appeared to be a big playground for kids. Here and there were piles of snack food packaging and old fireworks. Some spots looked like the same kids had been coming for years and leaving their garbage, because there were dozens of the same kinds of candy wrappers there.
I got home around 3 o’clock and started working on a new video at my computer. It is the footage I shot from Mike and Carolyn’s graduation party. I might finish it tomorrow, but maybe not till next week, as I am leaving Friday morning for the weekend to take a trip to Estonia.
After Johanna got home from work, we left on a rollerblading trip at 6 o’clock. I wanted to go in a different direction today, but it turned out to be a bad choice becaue the asphalt was in bad shape, which made using rollerblades very difficult. We eventually came to a better path and used it to get back home. We skated less than an hour today, which is less than usual, but I think we were both feeling tired and not in a skating mood.
We still needed to find something to eat for the evening and we did not feel like going out and walked to the stores. We debated ordering a pizza, but then just decided to walk to the nearest store. There, we bought microwavable pizza’s, which I didn’t know existed in the form of a whole pizza. We also bought some Vienetta ice cream and two tubes of toothpaste(to use as a topping).
Johanna and I bought 4 of the microwave pizzas because they were quite cheap. There are two left, and after cooking the first two in the microwave tonight, I will cook the other two in the oven. Coming out of the microwave, they didn’t taste much like pizzas at all. The packaging does say that they can also be cooked in the oven, so that’s what’s going to happen.
We watched a Finnish documentary about America after dinner. It was narrated in Finnish, but all the interviews with Americans were in English and had Finnish subtitles, so I could understand what was going on. The shows main point was to try and show that kids in the US are being brainwashed by churches, I think. The camera crew followed around a Christian Youth group as they went around the country and talked to other groups of kids about sex. The camera people recorded every embarrassing moment that they could, for example, they showed a girl blowing bubbles with her gum during a prayer. I have long heard that Europeans think Americans practice religion in an unusual manner, and this show proves that they think that way. Johanna said she has recently seen other shows like this that center on the same subjects. Interesting.

June 21, 2005
Tuesday:

Today was not an exciting day, but I did accomplish a couple things. I had a ham and cheese sandwich, a hot dog and cheese sandwich and a banana for breakfast, then I spent almost the whole day at the desk in the apartment. I always read the news on the Internet in the morning and write my journal from the previous day. I will sometimes spend a couple hours doing those things if I don’t have anything else to do. I then study Chinese for one to two hours, sometimes using the Internet to listen to audio clips from passages in my textbook. Next, I will take showers, run errands, etc. Weekends are different, but 90 percent of weekdays have been like this, and today was just the same. After I finished studying Chinese, I spent about 3 hours trying to fix a lingering problem on my website….the message board. I used a free message board hosting service when I originally set up my site, because I could not figure out how to make my own message board. The problems were that annoying advertisements would pop up, and more recently, I could not log on to the administration panel, which I sometimes needed to back up the board or delete posts(I only ever deleted one post). Last week, I noticed that the company which hosts my website started offering free installation of message boards, so I decided it was time to get my own board.
After I got the new board installed, I decided to see if I could figure out how to save the information on the old one. Not that there is anything important there, just mostly nonsense, but it’s history that I don’t want to loose. I spent a while online looking for a free downloadable program that would copy a webpage and all the links on it, because that would allow me to copy the board and every message on it. There were not a lot of programs like that, and the first couple I tried would not work correctly unless they were paid for. I did eventually find a free one that I got to work after some experimenting. I was able to save the whole message board to my hard drive, then upload it to the website and put a link to it on the new message board. It felt good to see it in place after I had just spent 3 hours thinking it would never work. Now I never have to mess with the message board again, at least not more than a couple minutes of messing at a time.
Johanna called me around 4 o’clock and said that she would not be coming home until 7 because she would be going shopping with Mari#1 downtown. I left the apartment about 6 and headed to the grocery store in search of our dinner. I ended up buying a sirloin roast that weighed one kilo, a bag of pasta mix and a can of peas. I started cooking the meat as soon as I arrived home, then started the other dishes about 30 minutes later. Johanna got home at 7:40 and the food was done at that time. The meat turned out a little dry because Johanna likes her’s well done, and I just don’t know how to cook non-dry well done meat. I had been periodically putting a marinade on it as it cooked, but it didn’t seem to help much.
We watched the Simpsons after the meal, the Wacking Day episode. We then watched the English reality show where two families have to follow each other on vacation. This week, there was one family that wanted to go to Disneyworld in Paris, and another that wanted to look at art galleries in Paris. Each family was asked about the worst possible vacation scenario before they knew the destination that the other family would be taking them. The mother of the family that wanted to go to Disneyland had said that she would commit suicide on television if she had to go to an art gallery. She then had to go to art galleries for 3 days, but never did kill herself as she had promised. After this show I spent one more hour watching the x-files before going to bed.

June 20, 2005
Monday:

I got up this morning when Johanna left for work, and I ate a ham and cheese sandwiche and leftover spaghetti for breakfast. I left the apartment at 11:20 and met Satu outside. Today, we went to take a tour of the castle, which we had been talking about doing for the past couple weeks. We took buses there and back because the walk would have been quite long. We had to change buses once downtown. I learned that you only have to pay one time every two hours as long as you keep the receipt that the driver gives you. You just have to show the receipt to the driver of the next bus that you get on, and he will check the time to make sure it has been less than two hours since you last paid a bus fare.
We arrived at the castle at 12:30. We wanted to take a guided tour, but a tour had already started and another did not start for two hours. So, we just paid 5.50E to take a self-guided tour. We then ran into the guided-tour group a couple minutes after we started walking through the castle passageways. They were in a room where the walls were lined with handless statues, and the guide was explaining why all the hands were missing. The guide looked like she came straight from the Middle Ages because of her huge, long, red and bushy hair and the period dress she was wearing. She was taller than me and probably about 50 years old. She turned her attention to Satu and I after she noticed we had decided to join her tour. As about 20 tourists watched and listened, she told us that the tour cost an extra 1.50E, and that we would have to pay as soon as the tour was finished. I told her that would be fine, then she led everyone into the next room.
The tour lasted about an hour as we were led around from room to room. We were told that construction on the castle started in the late 13th century. The exterior stone walls are about 6 feet thick and most of the windows are just narrow slits because that design deterred against attack. The castle must have been a terrible place to spend Finnish winters. We also learned a couple interesting random facts, like that men used to drink the water in a handwashing basin after a woman they were attracted to had washed their hands, even if that woman was the 100th person to wash their hands in the water. We also learned that people used to sleep in a sitting position because they did not want their body fluid to mix together overnight. I wonder what we do now that people will look back at and think is so stupid. The last part of the tour showed the dungeon, which is just a narrow 20 foot deep hole in the floor that leads to a small dirt and stone room. The one way in was to get thrown down the hole, and the only way out was with help.
The guide was quick to escort Satu and I to the cashier after the tour was over. We each paid for the tour, then walked through the museum area of the castle, which turned out to be at least a couple dozen rooms. Each room either had display cases of artifacts or was set up to look like the room would have a few hundred years ago. The museum had lots of good displays which featured things from both the castle and other periods of Finnish history, but all of the signs explaining things were in Finnish. Just a few displays had a notebook with English translations next to them.
After leaving the museum, Satu and I walked into the courtyard of the castle for a few minutes before getting back on a bus. I switched buses downtown to come home, but Satu decided to stay there for a while. Back at home, I made myself a sandwich and noodles for lunch. I left again at 4:30 because Johanna asked me to meet by her school after she got off work so we could go downtown together. On the walk there, I noticed that a car in a parking lot I pass almost every day had all of its windows smashed out and the rest of its exterior and interior beaten badly.
I found Johanna walking towards my direction as I was walking towards her school. We then headed downtown, stopping at a grocery store along the way to get a couple ice cream bars. We then bought a soda by the river and sat there for about 20 minutes until the sun went behind clouds. During that time, I was playing with a new phone she got today from work. Her old one had broken, so they gave her this new one. I reset her ringtone to my recorded voice yelling, “HEY! PICK UP THE PHONE! PICK UP THE PHONE NOW! NOW! SOMEBODY IS WAITING ON YOU TO PICK UP THE PHONE! WHAT HAVE YOU GOT BETTER TO DO! PICK UP THE PHONE NOW! NOW!” She told me she really liked the new ringtone.
We next went to the Stockmann mall so she could look for new pairs of shorts. She couldn’t find what she wanted, then we went to the grocery store in the basement of Stockmans to buy some things for dinner. We had decided to walk home after that, but Johanna changed her mind and decided she wanted to take the bus. I cooked our food as soon as we arrived home. We had salmon, baked potatoes and salad. We had bought a watermelon for desert, but we were too full to eat it. I further modified the settings of Johanna’s phone while I waited on the food to cook. Now when she gets a text message, my voice comes on and sings “You have a message”. I made my tone sound kind of like a coo-coo clock or something. She liked it. Next, I will soon add my voice to the alarm sound she uses to wake up every morning.
Johanna left to go on a walk with Mari#1 soon after dinner. I watched the Simsons while she was gone, then used the computer for a while. She got back around 9 o’clock. I then watched an episode of the X-Files before going to bed.

June 19, 2005
Sunday:

Johanna and I slept in till 11 o’clock today. I then had two ham and cheese sandwiches for breakfast and she had a piece of bread with ham and cucumber on it and a bowl of instant noodles. We went out on a 10-mile(16 kilometer) rollerblading trip to another town after that. We had talked about going there last weekend, but never made it because my skates had been hurting my feet. Today we made it all they way with little problems. Johanna knew that the terrain all the way there was skateable because she had worked in the town last summer and had ridden her bike to work on a few occasions. There is a system of paved trails that goes all the way to the town, so we did not ever have to use the roads once we got out of the city. The trails were in surprisingly good shape the whole way there, too. There was not a single place that was impassible by rollerblades, which are very sensitive to any loose gravel at all. The trails also offer a nice scenic route in most places, which is away from the highways and into the woods and fields.
It took us probably an hour and a half or more to get all the way to the other town. We passed through a couple smaller towns on the way there, and we also saw a port where cruise ships were being built. The name of the town we went to is Naantali, and like Turku, it is on the sea that separates Finland from Sweden. We stopped at a supermarket as we first arrived into the town. We rode our skates into the store and bought 4 ciders before skating on downtown. There were hundreds of local tourists all over the downtown area, especially along the water. The big main church in the center of town looked even older than the ones I have seen in the other towns here. We stopped at a bench next to the piers to take off our skates, then walked along the water looking for a good spot to sit for a while and rest. We ended up finding the perfect spot on top a big dome shaped rock formation along the water. The rock was about 50 feet high and several hundred feet in diameter. Getting to the top was a bit of a steep climb, but the top was a gradual incline. The top was also in places covered by soft moss and yellow, white and red flowers. We sat at a soft, mossy spot on the very top, which gave us a view of the entire city and harbor area. It was the perfect spot and the weather was perfect too, with just a couple small clouds and temperatures around 65-70. We did see a couple other people on the rock, but it was so big that we barely noticed them. We sat there for about two hours while we talked and drank the ciders we had bought. We needed some sunscreen to deal with the sun, but everything was really perfect. The moss we sat on was like a blanket and not a single bug bothered us the whole time.
We decided to leave our spot at 5:30 and go find out what time the bus back to Turku was leaving town. We talked about possibly skating back, but my skates were again starting to give me blisters and Johanna’s legs were very tired. We walked for about 15 minutes through the town to get to the bus station. We thought we would have to wait for a bus and that we would get dinner while we waited, but a bus just happened to be about ready to leave when we arrived. The ride back cost 3.70E per person, lasted about 30 minutes and was almost completely full. I think Johanna fell asleep on the ride, and I almost did.
We tried to get off the bus near the bus station in Turku, but the driver shut the door and moved on before we could get off at the stop we wanted to. We got off at the next stop, then put our rollerblades back on for the ride home. We stopped at a supermarket along the way to buy dinner. There was a picture of a rollerblade with a cross through it on the front door of the store, but we rode them in because we didn’t feel like taking them off again. We then bought a couple dozen very small potatoes, some reduced chicken breasts and salad material for dinner. We also got 4 more ciders. I think some employees gave us bad looks because we were on our rollerblades, but I might have just been imagining it.
We cooked and ate our meal soon after arriving home. I realized that we had forgotten lettuce for our salad as soon as I tried to start making it. Johanna went ahead and made the salad with just cucumbers and tomatoes. We watched Cheaters after eating. A cheating woman on medication threatened to jump off a roof during a thunderstorm when she was confronted by all the cameras, and the host had to pull her off the ledge. We also watched Taken after Cheaters was over. When I was getting ready for bed, I noticed that the sun was still over the horizon at 11 o’clock. The longest day of the year will be this Saturday, then I hear that the days will quickly become shorter.

June 18, 2005
Saturday:

Johanna and I left the apartment around 11:30 and headed downtown on our rollerblades. We first stopped at the store we had bought the fan yesterday, Clas Ohlsen, so we could exchange the part that was incorrect. We rode our skates right into the mall that is underneath the store and changed into our shoes there. We couldn’t ride the skates into Clas Ohlsen because there is an escalator. The spot where we changed into our shoes has a very interesting piece of art. Mostly everyone has seen the small marble balls that sit on top of a fountain and spin from the water pressure underneath them, but I had never seen one with a boulder-size ball until going into this mall for the first time. The display is about 7 feet tall and the ball must weigh over a ton, but it works just like the smaller version. Johanna and I had pushed on the ball yesterday and got it to spin in other directions. It takes a lot of force to move it, but it does move.
We were able to exchange our fan part at Clas Ohlsen with no troubles. We went to the service desk and talked to an employee, then another employee came with another fan box and opened it to give us the right part. I had brought the wrong part with me in my backpack and I gave it back to the store. The parts were both long bars that stuck out of my backpack over a foot.
We ate at a Hesburger restaurant in the mall after leaving Clas Ohlsen. We had to pay full price for our meals because Johanna had not brought any of her Hesburger coupons or her Hesburger discount card. It cost over $15 for us to eat, which is a lot more than I am used to paying for two people to eat at a fast food restaurant. Johanna ordered two extra packets of mayonnaise with the meal and we were charged an extra Euro. Sounds like a lot for mayonnaise. And to top it off, there are no free refills in this country.
We both ate a chicken sandwich meal, then walked to another nearby department store to buy a bottle of sunscreen. We put our rollerblades back on in that store then skated to a public swimming pool that is on a hill above the river. There is a pedestrian path that leads up the steep hill and we left our skates on as we went up it, which was extremely difficult because of the bumpiness of the path and steepness of the hill. The cashier at the pool accepted my SIU ID card for a student rate of 2 Euros. I then tried to go into a revolving door that leads into the men’s locker room, but it would not budge. I noticed a very young boy laughing at me and pointing at a regular door that led into the room, so I went that way. I next figured out on my own that a 50 cent piece had to be put into a slot inside of the lockers to remove the key.
The pool turned out to be a very crowded place. I was surprised at the amount of people as I walked up out of the locker room and into the main area. Bleachers are on one side of the pool, and on two other sides are tiered sunbathing areas that are 3 to 4 levels high. There were a couple hundred people on the bleachers and tiers, then at least a hundred more on grassy areas and in a children’s pool higher up the hill. Johanna and I went into the grassy area and laid our towels down just as the sun went behind clouds for one of the first times all day. Mari#1 met us there about 25 minutes after we arrived. We had seen her come out of the locker room and start searching the crowd for us. We both waved our hands in the air as she looked around, but she did not notice us until she was just a few feet away. The sun came out again just as she arrived, so we moved our towels to the tiered area by the pool. Those spots had been full when we had first arrived, but the short period of cloudiness had caused quite a few people to leave already.
I went swimming with Johanna soon after we moved. Half of the pool was separated into 4 swimming lanes and the rest was just an open area. Johanna wanted to swim in the lane closest to the edge of the pool. I went in with her and swam, but not for long. I only did one lap before I got tired, because I am such a terrible swimmer. We raced for a few feet and I was faster than her, but only for a couple seconds, then I got tired and she passed me. I soon got out of the pool and she did several more laps by herself. She then got out and tried to get me to swim more laps, but I declined, so she went back in and kept swimming by herself.
Rain clouds were moving in as I laid on my towel. I was looking up at the low clouds and I noticed that some birds were actually flying high enough to be moving in and out of the clouds.
Everybody at the pool packed up and left as soon as the rain drops started falling, which were very big and cold. I went outside and waited for Johanna and Mari after I changed and got my things from the locker room. Mari did not come out with Johanna because she had decided to swim some more. I waited until the bottom of the hill to put my skates on because I was not sure I could stop on the wet pavement.
Soon after we arrived back at the apartment, we left again to go to the nearest grocery store. We took our empty cans and bottles with us that a deposit is given on. I then saw how the recycling machines work when we got to the store. I had been wondering what keeps the automatic machines from being fooled about what is depositable and what is not, and I saw how the system worked today. Each can or bottle is put into a hole with a conveyor belt in it. It then appears to be scanned by laser beams at is goes through the tube and into a collection tub. Each beer bottle was worth ten cents, but some of the larger plastic bottles were worth 40 cents. The machine gives a receipt showing the total amount after all the recyclable objects have been run through it. The receipt is then taken to the cashier and exchanged for either cash or credit on a purchase.
After depositing our cans and bottles, we bought materials to make spaghetti for dinner. Back at the apartment, I began making the food after Johanna and I took a short nap. She made some chocolate mouse for dessert as I cooked the main dish. The spaghetti turned out pretty good and we both had 2 bowls of it. We watched some videos on the Internet as we ate our desert. One of them showed one of those spinning carnival rides with swings hanging off long chains. You see the ride spinning normally for a moment, then all of the swings fall to the ground just before the top part of the ride come smashing down on top of everyone. Great to watch while eating.
We went over to Satu’s apartment after cleaning up the kitchen. There, we watched the movie “Mullholland Drive”, which is quite weird and hard to follow. I liked it despite that fact that I am not sure what really happened. After the movie we watched some videos of the band “Him” that Satu had on DVD.

June 17, 2005
Friday:

Johanna did not go to work this morning because she had an accounting test at 9 o’clock. I got up late and ate a hot dog for breakfast, then spent time on the Internet until Johanna called me after her test. She had planned on maybe taking the train to work after the test, but decided against it. I agreed to walk and meet her at the building where she had taken the test, but she surprised me and showed up in a gravel parking lot about half way there.
We first walked downtown and bought pizza from a cheap restaurant.. We both had a large pizza(very thin) to ourselves for 3.50E each. We took the pizzas to a grassy slope along the river, where a couple dozen people were laying out on blankets. Clouds covered the sun by the time we finished the pizza, which ran off about half of the sunbathers.
We went fan shopping after the meal. The apartment has already been getting a little hot at times, even though the temperature has not ever risen above 65 degrees. We quickly found a fan we liked at the store Clas Ohlsen, but decided to walk around downtown some more before buying it. We next went to the store Stockman and the mall that surrounds it. We went to a travel agency in the mall that was advertising day trips to an island between Finland and Sweden for 25E. The island is technically part of Finland, but is kind of like Puerto Rico is to the United States, as it has a somewhat independent government. The trip turned out to not really be what we were looking for, as there was not even enough time to get off the boat before it returned home. We would have had to stay overnight if we wanted to see anything, so we decided to wait until another weekend to do it.
We next walked through Stockman for a bit before returning to Clas Ohlsen and buying a fan. I talked Johanna into buying one that was a bit bigger than the small one she had originally picked out. We decided to take a bus back home instead of walking because the fan box was large and Johanna was wearing a new pair of black sandals that were hurting her feet badly.
I tried putting together the fan as soon as we arrived back at the apartment, but there was a problem. It is the kind of fan that sits on top a short pole and is supported by a base of two shorter poles that cross each other on the floor. One of the base poles is supposed to have a groove in the middle of it so the top of the base will be a flat surface when the other pole is laid into the grove. Unfortunately, our fan had two base poles without groves. At my request, Johanna called the store and told them that she did not have a car and did not want to have to bring the entire fan back. She asked if we could just exchange our incorrect part for the correct part out of another fan box at the store. The person on the phone agreed to our request, so we will probably go back tomorrow and get our part.
Johanna and I next took a nap for about an hour and a half. Mari#1 called Johanna at 6 o’clock and asked if we would like to go see the movie ‘Mr. And Mrs. Smith’ with her. We then left the apartment about 6:30 and walk downtown to meet her near the theatre. We first bought our tickets, which were much cheaper because we bought all three at the same time. We paid 6.50E each by buying them together, but they would have cost about 10E to buy separately. We walked to a nearby candy store before the movie started. The store had a couple hundred different kinds of candy in small bins. All of the candies are the same price, so customers can just get a bag and mix all of the different kinds they want into the same bag, then the entire bag is weighed at the checkout. I decided to not get candy because the cashier at the movie theatre had given us coupons for popcorn and soda.
Back at the theatre, I got my popcorn and soda, then we all went into the room where our movie was showing. It was quite a bit larger than any theatre rooms I have been to in the US, as it could have held several hundred people. It was only about 10% full tonight.
We decided to go have a drink at one of the boats on the river after the movie was over. I had first seen the boats last week when Johanna and I were rollerblading there, and had been wanting to go ever since. Along a long stretch of river, there are many permanently docked ships that have been converted to bars and restaurants. The first one we tried to get on was too full, but the second one had a couple tables available. There was one kind of beer that was on sale for 2.40E, so we all had that. I went up to the bar a second time by myself to get another drink and the bartender did not seem to understand a word I was saying, so another bartender had to translate for us.
We left the ship around 11 and all walked home. A few minutes away from the apartment, Johanna and I passed a group of drunken guys that put on a show for us. One guy came up behind another and pulled his trousers down. The guy with the downed trousers just stood there without doing anything, so then the other guy pulled down his underwear too. They all seemed really proud that other people(us) had been walking by to see the show.

June 16, 2005
Thurday:

I went to the supermarket this morning to use the ATM machine there. Johanna had asked me to take 20E out of her account and go pay a bill at the apartment office. It wasn’t easy for me to get the money. The ATM machine I used has two card slots, one for magnetic cards and another for cards with a electronic chip in them. Johanna’s has a chip and I guessed which slot to put it in on the first try. The next problem was that I could not read anything on the screen because it was all in Finnish. I choose one unknown option, but I was given even more options that I didn’t understand, so I decided to call Johanna and ask her what the words on the screen meant. There were other people waiting to use the machine, so I took the card out while I tried to get ahold of her. I tried calling both of her phone numbers two times, but got no answer. I decided to try the card again and choose another option on the screen. I luckily just happened to hit the Finnish word for ‘withdrawal’ that time, so I took out 20E.
I then went into the supermarket to buy a bag of tobacco for making cigarettes. I had brought supplies from home to make them while I am here, but I recently ran out of tobacco. There is a machine at each of the grocery store checkout lanes where you press a picture of the brand of cigarette you want, then it comes out of the machine on a little conveyor belt. I asked the cashier if the machine had any bags of loose tobacco in it, but she didn’t understand, so I bought a little box of Marlboro Lights that had 10 cigarettes in it.
I was getting ready to leave the supermarket when Johanna returned my call and asked me to take out another 20E from her account and pay a second bill at the apartment office. I got the money, then rode to the office. There was one employee waiting on people at the building, and he looked like a student. I took a number from a machine, but I didn’t have to wait because only one person was in front of me, who was finishing up as I came in the door. I told the cashier that I was paying bills for my friend because she works during office hours. The first bill I paid, for 15E, was for the service of opening the apartment door on the night I arrived in Finland. Johanna had thought she lost her key on that night, but it had actually been in her pocket the entire time. The second bill, for 17E, was for a new key. I had been in to get a new key a couple weeks ago, but they misunderstood and thought I was asking to temporarily borrow a spare key. Johanna received a letter in the mail a few days ago asking her to return the spare. The cashier today told me that he was not supposed to give out second keys to the apartment, but I just told him that the first one had been lost. That looked like the truth since I had also paid a door-opening fee, but I think the man might have been suspicious because a secretary behind him said something in Finnish and he unsuccessfully tried to keep himself from laughing. The second key is mine, so I will eventually pay Johanna back for it. I used her money today because I don’t have any extra cash until I get a loan from my family deposited into my bank account. I will pay back the loan when I return to the states and get my student money next semester. That’s how I pay for these trips, student loans.
I came back to the apartment after paying the bills. After an hour at home, I decided to leave again so I could sit outside and study Chinese. I had planned on taking the bike to a hill with bluffs on it that I can see in the distance from the apartment window. But, I got on the bike and it had a flat tire, so I decided to sit on the rocky hill that is just beside the apartment building. There was some bird drama as I was going up the hill. A baby bird was in the grass and it could not fly. A bunch of adult birds started circling me and screaming because they thought I was going to eat their baby. I took a close up picture of their bird, then left it alone. I sat on the hill for about an hour and little green bees kept landing on me. I also saw a few red bumblebees, but they fortunately did not try to land on me.
I went back into the house about 4 o’clock and continued studying for few more minutes before Johanna got home. She always eats instant noodles when she gets home, and she was disappointed today because we only had shrimp flavor, which she has been avoiding ever since we bought it. I told her that the flavoring is just some artificial powder that does not really taste like anything. She tried it and agreed with me.
I left the apartment at 6 and walked back to the same supermarket I had been to earlier. There, I bought some things for dinner tonight, along with some beer, chips and lemonade. Most produce bought in this country must be self-weighed before going to the checkout. I have remembered this on every other visit, but I forgot to weigh a cucumber and a tomato tonight. The cashier first noticed the cucumber, which I ran back and quickly weighed in the produce department. She handed me the tomato when I returned and I told her I would just leave it because people were waiting in line behind me.
I saw a bird chasing a cat while I was walking back to the apartment. A large brownish-yellow cat was crossing the street and a large black bird was screaming and following while periodically charging from behind. The cat didn’t even bother to speed up or turn around and look at the bird. The cat was probably carrying a baby bird in its mouth, but I was too far away to tell.
Back at the apartment, I cooked pork chops that I had just bought. I also made some macaroni and cheese that was in the apartment, and a salad. The pork chops turned out to not be pork chops at all. They were finely ground pork formed into the shape of pork chops, but they were marinated so heavily that it was impossible to tell without actually touching the meat. Looks like a conspiracy to trick foreigners.
Johanna studied for her test again this evening, which is at 9 o’clock tomorrow morning. She did take a break to watch the Simpsons. I also watched Fear Factor after that. One of the girls on the show said she was going to give the money to her family in Vietnam, who runs stores, but are so poor that their stores do not have windows or doors, so they have to sleep there every night so nobody steals their things. She said that it costs only $7000 to build a house in Vietnam, so she was going to build houses for all of them. But, she couldn’t retrieve 8 boots from the bottom of a 6-feet deep bubbling tank of rotting fish guts fast enough. A large black man who spoke in tongues ended up winning.

June 15, 2005
Wednesday:

I took some food and my Chinese book to the river with me this morning and sat on a bench there for an hour while I ate and studied. I had a leftover hamburger and a ham sandwich. The river is in a gorge that is about 25 feet deeper than the rest of the land. There is a wide gravel trail that runs along the top of the gorge and some narrow fishing trails through the grass on the slopes. I walked the bike down one of the fishing trails to a spot where I had seen a red bench along the water yesterday. The bench looked like something from an old waiting room that a fisherman had brought there. I took some pictures and video of the area after I ate, then studied. The sun was so intense that I had to change positions a few times, but it was nice. There were a couple bugs that bothered me, but I never did get bitten by anything.
I next came back home and continued studying there for another hour. I spent the afternoon putting some pictures and a new video from the last two weeks on the website. Johanna got home from work at the normal time and we walked to her school so she could run some errands. We first went into the library to return books, then went to a computer lab so she could print some things out that she needed to study for her accounting test, which is on this Friday. The printer ran out of paper and there were no employees around to fix it, so we had to refill it with the clean side other people’s abandoned printouts.
We then came back to the apartment so Johanna could spend the evening studying. I made us a frozen pizza and baked potatoes for dinner. Johanna took a little break to watch part of the Simpsons at 8:30, but otherwise continued studying until about 10:30. I watched the movie ‘Gladiator’ after the Simpsons. The movie ended about 11:45 and I then sat by the window to see if I could catch another glimpse of that 20 pound rabbit I had seen last night. It looks like the rabbit has a schedule because it was there in the field again tonight. I actually was able to film it from the window, but I don’t think the tape will turn out great because I was far away and zoomed in close. I only got to watch the creature for about a minute because a guy rode a bike through the field and the rabbit went nuts running in every direction before disappearing completely.

June 14, 2005
Tuesday:

Johanna left this morning for an overnight trip for her job at Nokia. She said she will be staying in a hotel with a group of about 20 other employees who are doing “team building” activities…….sounds suspicious. The “team building” activities are supposed to last all day and into the evening, then continue all day tomorrow. The event was voluntary and she was considering to going because I could get “bored”, but I insisted that I wouldn’t.
I got up when she left for work and ate a ham sandwich and a hot dog sandwich for breakfast. I turned on the radio and heard the name ‘Micheal Jackson’ thrown the Finnish that the DJ was speaking. They must have been talking about the verdict. Sometimes I don’t feel very far away from home. Johanna left me her bank card so I could do laundry today(the machines only take bank cards). I couldn’t start washing clothes until noon because Johanna could not remember the code to the laundry room, so I had to send a message to Satu’s phone asking her what it was. I needed to use both of the 2 washing machines that is available and one of them was full of somebody elses clothes. Each person who uses machines mush sign a sheet, and I noticed that the last person using the machine had put the clothes in at 8AM, which was 4 hours ago. I was about to take the clothes out myself when a Spanish-looking man came in to get them. He could not figure out how to get the door of the machine open and I think he asked me how to open it in Spanish. I was wondering why he would think that I would know Spanish, but I am not positive he was even speaking Spanish. He didn’t appear to know any English.
The weather was very nice and sunny today, so I sat outside and studied Chinese while I waited on my clothes to wash. I had to wait on the “Spanish” guy and his girlfriend to get their clothes out of the dryer before I could put mine in. I then went back out and studied more while the dryer did its job. I had the clothes back in the apartment and put away by 4 o’clock, then I fell asleep for an hour.
I decided to take a ride on the bike at 5:30. I rode on a gravel path that runs along the river next to the apartment building. I took my camcorder along for the ride and filmed underneath some bridges looking for trolls. My dad has been telling me to look out for them, but I couldn’t find any in this town at least. On my search I noticed that a dam next the bridge nearest my apartment is more than a dam. I read a sign that says it has some kind of device that allows fish to swim upstream. I was looking at the device and could not comprehend how it would possible allow a fish to swim up it. I also noticed a leash free dog area near the apartment. It is a fenced in area where about a dozen people had their dogs running around. This city is sometimes just like a big dog show. I am always seeing people walking all kind of strange breeds that I have never seen before. Lots of people have huge dogs, which must be difficult considering that many of them live in small apartments.
Before returning to the apartment, I stopped at the supermarket and bought some food for dinner tonight and all day tomorrow. I then came home and cooked hamburgers and fries for dinner. Johanna would have probably complained about that fast-food style dinner, which is why I choose to cook it when she was out of town. I ate one hamburger tonight and saved the other two for tomorrow.
I sat around for the next couple hours and drank beer and watched TV, fitting the American stereotype perfectly. Johanna called me and talked about her day “team building” at 10 o’clock. The first part of the day was boring lectures, but then they were taken to an island winery in the evening. All food and drinks were free all day.
I was standing on the balcony around 11 o’clock when I saw the biggest rabbit that I have ever seen. It was dog-sized and probably weighed 20 pounds. It hopped through the yard, then over to the soccer field nearby. I got out the camera to film it, but it was gone by the time I got started filming, so I decided to go outside and see if I could find it. I walked around the field where I had last seen if for a few minutes, then walked down to the river hoping to find it or some animal activity there. There were many gulls at the river, but nothing else, so I walked back home.

June 13, 2005
Monday:

I woke up this morning and spent an hour cleaning the entire apartment after eating a banana and some leftover pastries for breakfast. I didn’t leave the apartment until Johanna came home from work. The weather was cloudy and cool until late afternoon, when the sky cleared up and the temperature rose to about 65.
Johanna and I left for a long rollerblading trip as soon as she arrived home. We went all the way out of the city and into a wooded park, where she said that there was a beach and that concerts were held. Unfortunately, most of the paths in the park were gravel, so we could not ride very far before we had to turn around and come home. Our trip there and back lasted about two hours. We passed through many industrial areas on the edges of town, and she showed me a second giant church that is near those areas. It is a bit smaller than the one in the center of town, but is still huge and is in much better shape than the one in the center. I will get some pictures soon. I have also seen giant churches in other cities I have been through here, so it seems like the norm. My rollerblades were again badly hurting my feet by the end of the trip, even though I had worn an extra pair of socks. I actually got blisters from them this time, so I may not be using them much any more if I can’t figure something out. I got them for a good price online, but it appears that it may have been a bad idea.
We arrived back at the apartment around 7:30, then had dinner. We didn’t have much to eat, but we didn’t feel like going out shopping, so we just ate what we had. I made 2 egg sandwiches for myself, but Johanna didn’t want any, so she had instant noodles. She is in love with instant noodles. After the meal, we watched the episode of the Simpsons where the sherrif’s son falls in love with Lisa.

June 12, 2005
Sunday:

Johanna and I slept until almost 1 o’clock today because of the late night out. For breakfast/lunch, we ate instant noodles and some kind of strange pastries that we had bought at the grocery store last night. They have a rice and milk filling. We were supposed to take them to Mari#1’s house last night and have them as snacks there, but we forgot.
Johanna spent almost the entire afternoon studying for her accounting test, which is on Friday. I spent my time using the computer and taking a nap later in the afternoon. We took a rollerblading trip at 6 o’clock to pick up my backpack and camera from Mari#1’s house and get some food at City Market. The weather was again almost perfect this evening. Mari brought my bag down to the front of her building so Johanna and I did not have to take our rollerblades off. We then went on to City Market and spent about 30 minutes buying marinated drumsticks, instant noodles, bananas and concentrated pear juice mix.
We arrived home just before 8 o’clock and put our drumsticks into the oven. I tried drinking some of the pear juice and it tasted like chemicals. We watched ‘Cheaters’ before and during our meal, then watched the 2-hour pilot episode of Stephen Spielberg’s ‘Taken’. Some of the shows being played on TV here were played in the US years ago. For example, I have been seeing advertisements announcing that the mid-90’s ABC Superman series will begin playing here soon.

June 11, 2005
Saturday: (I now have posted my new address and phone number in my contact info)

Johanna and I left the apartment around noon today and walked to the only Mcdonalds in town, which is next to the bus station. On the walk there, she told me that there used to be 3 other Mcdonalds in town, but they had all closed down over the past few years. The weather this morning was cloudy and cool, so we had both worn our jackets on the walk, but the sun began coming out as soon as we left and we got hot and ended up carrying the jackets.
Today was the first time I had eaten Mcdonalds since arriving in Finland. I ordered a Big Mac meal and Johanna had a 6-piece chicken nugget meal. A child kept staring at us in line when ever we would speak. I was able to read a sign in Finnish that said “Don’t forget the dip”.
After our meal, we walked into the downtown area so I could finally buy a SIM card for my phone. We purchased one from a store in the mall next to Stockmans(dept. store). The girl that sold it to us looked just like the poster-child that is in the ads for the store, but I think it was just a coincidence.
After getting the card, we walked through the marketplace and Johanna bought a bag of strawberries for 1E. We then took our strawberries to the river and sat on a hillside while we ate them. I only ate one because they were very damaged and mashed, but it was good. There was a group of birds eating some birdseed on the ground near where we were sitting. There were about a dozen frantic pigeons in the group and one very composed white bird of some kind with very good posture. I wanted to throw a strawberry to the group, but Johanna told me that birds didn’t eat strawberries. I knew that wasn’t true, so I threw one to the birds so I could prove it to her. The berry landed near the flock and they all flew away. They slowly started coming back to eat their birdseed, but completely ignored the strawberry. The composed white bird just stood near us the whole time and stared at us. Every few minutes, I would talk to the bird and try to coax it into eating the berry because I didn’t want Johanna to think I was wrong about birds eating them. Eventually, the bird slowly walked over to the berry and pecked it once. Johanna then told me that it only pecked once because it decided it didn’t like it. Then, it pecked two more times before leaving, and I was satisfied. Johanna responded that that bird was not included in our bet, and that only the pigeons counted. I told her that the bird had originally been standing with the pigeons, so it was included. She knew she had lost the bet and was just being difficult.
We ran into Kaisa and her friend Mari on the way back. Johanna and Kaisa both have friends named Mari, so I will call this one Mari#2 from now on. They told us that they were considering BBQing later and agreed to call and let us know(they didn’t end up doing it). Back at the apartment, Johanna studied for her accounting exam and I fell asleep for an hour. We both walked to a supermarket later in the afternoon so we could buy a frozen pizza for dinner, some food for tomorrow, and some beer, chips and bread to take to Mari#1’s house later tonight.
I cooked the pizza when we arrived home, and Johanna had an audio conversation with Maria(sister) online. Maria told her that her boyfriend was on a train coming to visit her today when a man jumped out in front of it to commit suicide. The man died and the train was delayed several hours. I was thinking that jumping in front of the train is a very rude way to kill oneself. There are plenty of more private and less complicated ways to do it that would not disrupt other people’s lives. The man could have jumped off a cliff in the countryside, for example.
We walked to Mari#1’s apartment at 8 o’clock and it took at least 30 minutes to get there. She lives on the 7th floor of a building near the downtown area. We sat around the table there for about 4 hours while we ate chips and bread and drank wine, cider and beer. Johanna had told me on the walk over that almost nobody ever serves more than 20 years for any crime in this country. Mari is a law student, so I asked her about it at the table tonight. She told me that some violent criminals are sentenced to life, but in reality, almost none actually serve that much. It is normal procedure for the president to pardon life sentences after 20 years. I asked her about the possible scenario of a person opening fire in a public area and killing a bunch of people, but she still insisted that the person would be pardoned after 20 years if their behavior in prison was good.
Kaisa and Mari#2 came over after 11 o’clock. We all sat around and talked for about 30 minutes, then headed out to find a nightclub to go to. It was raining very hard outside and we were all getting soaked, except for Mari#1, who had brought an umbrella. We stopped at an ATM machine, then tried to get into a night club. The entry age for most nightclubs is 22, and Mari#1 is only 21, so the bouncer would not let her in. So, we walked to the bar that Johanna, Mari#1 and I had been in earlier in the week. A guy started following us on the way there. He had heard me speaking American English and said that it was not fair that a foreigner was going out alone with five girls. He was just joking.
Johanna and I decided to go home after drinking one cider in the bar. It was still raining and we wanted to take a taxi, but we ended up walking because the line at the downtown taxi stand had about 75 people in it. The walk home was about 30 minutes and it was miserable. The rain seemed to come down harder as we walked farther. The water was not too cold, but it wasn’t at all warm either. I didn’t even bother to put on my jacket because it was already soaked from the walk to the bar. We arrived home around 4 AM.

June 10, 2005
Friday:

I got up at 10 o’clock this morning and made another omelet from the extra omelet material that I had prepared last night. More military aircraft flew over the apartment around noon. I had seen two low-flying fighter jets last week, and today there were two propeller driven airplanes flying in formation with two helicopters.
I left the apartment in the afternoon to mail off a CD of the wedding video I had made for Randy and Lisa. I stopped at a grocery store on the way there and bought a box of candy to send with the package, and some toothpaste for myself. The candy was made to look like different kinds of pills. It would be perfect for anyone wishing to smuggle pills.
I was getting on the bike outside of the store and a girl came up to me and said something in Finnish. The only word I understood was ‘anteeksi’, which I think means excuse me. I said ‘english’ and she then told me that I had left my sunglasses inside. Another customer brought them out to me as I was getting ready to go back inside.
I then went to the post office and found a box that I could fit the things into I wanted to mail. I also bought another bag of candy to put inside it, which I requested that Randy and Lisa give to Cindy W. at Schnuck’s for using my camera to film during the wedding ceremony. The candy she is getting is called ‘Assa’. I hope it doesn’t taste like Ass. I also included an extra CD for Randy and Lisa to give her. I put everything into the box after I had paid for it and the other bag of candy, then gave the box to a clerk. While she was weighing it, I realized that I had forgotten to bring both Randy and Lisa’s address and my own return address. So, I rode back home to get that information. I was sitting at the desk in the apartment writing it down when I realized that I did not remember how to spell Randy and Lisa’s last name. Luckily, my online bank account has a feature that allows me to look at scanned copies of old checks. So, I just looked at a check I had written to Randy’s mother for the cost of my tuxedo.
I almost saw a little girl get run over by a semi-truck on the way back to the post office. There was a mother and two small children all riding on bikes together on the sidewalk next to a busy highway. The mother was about 15 feet ahead of the children, who did not appear to be older than 4 years old. The children were playfully swerving at each other as they rode side-by-side. The girl was very close to the curb and the cars were also very close to the curb. I was noticing how dangerous it looked when the semi-truck approached the girl from behind at about 45MPH. Oblivious of the truck, the boy swerved at her at the moment the truck was passing. She swerved away from him and a rear tire of her tricycle was within an inch of going over the steep curb. The truck was within a foot of the curb. She then heard the engine noise and let out a little scream before moving away from the truck. The mother was so far ahead that she did not even know it happened. I then went back into to the post office and successfully mailed the box. I was planning on shipping it by airmail, but it was going to cost over 20E, so I sent it by ship, which costs half the price, but takes a month to reach its destination.
When Johanna got home from work, I made dinner for us by heating up the remaining half of the omelet I had eaten earlier. I also made instant noodles and heated up two hot dogs. While the hot dogs were in the microwave, I noticed that our buns had mold growing on them. I was entertaining myself by hitting Johanna and the walls with the bag of buns, and the bag exploded and got moldy bun pieces all over the apartment.
We took a long rollerblading trip after our meal. We rode through the city for about two hours, passing many interesting areas that I had not seen before. We went all the way to the bay of the sea that separates Finland and Sweden. Getting there, we traveled on pedestrian paths that run along a canal. Along the canal are dozens of permanently docked ships that have been converted to bars. There were thousands of people out walking the paths and sitting in the bars. Closer to the bay is the city’s medieval castle, which is probably the most famous thing in town. Johanna and I sat in the grass on a hill in front of it for a while, where we just took a skating break and took some pictures.
My rollerblades were hurting my feet by the time we made it to the bay. It was the longest trip I had ever made in them and I will have to wear two pairs of socks on the future because they were rubbing my feet badly.
We talked about taking a bus back, but only had two Euros between the two of us, so only one of us could have taken the bus. I thought I would have bad blisters by the time we returned, but I actually turned out fine.
Back at the apartment, we watched the Simpsons, then walked to a nearby pub. Johanna had been telling me that she thought it was a ‘hillbilly’ pub, so we wanted to go and see for ourselves. It turned out to be only half-hillbilly because it was very clean. But, it was just a few old men sitting around chainsmoking and watching TV. The only other female in the bar was the bartender, who was older. Johanna and I each had a pear cider and sat in a booth in the corner. The bar was very small and two men came to share our booth soon after we sat down. Johanna told me that one of the men was showing the other tattered photocopies of a book he had written. The bartender did not have a lot of work to do, so she sat with the men and watched TV most of the time. At one point, two men came in and talked to her. They looked at Johanna and I during their conversation and laughed. Johanna started laughing too, but would not tell me why until we left about 10 minutes later. She told me that one of the men had complained to the bartender that there were no women customers in the bar. The bartender then pointed at Johanna and said that there was a woman in the corner. The guy then said that that woman was too closely guarded(I had my arm around her).

June 9, 2005
Thursday:

I ate some of last night’s leftover spaghetti noodles for breakfast this morning. I left the apartment on the bike at noon and went to City Market because I needed to buy a pair of swimming trunks so Johanna and I could go swimming tonight. The weather was beautiful today and I was able to wear just a t-shirt for one of the first times. I rode through a large park next to the store, and hundreds of children were there enjoying the weather.
In City Market, I first decided to look for a new pair of shoes. There were few in my size, but I eventually found a light brown Doc-Martin style pair I liked for 39 Euros. I decided not to buy it soon after I picked it out because I thought it would be a good idea to wait and see if I still had the money closer to the time I leave Finland. My current shoes are starting to wear, and I think they will be just about done for after I finish my planned 1 week backpacking trip in August. I also decided not to buy the pair of swimming trunks that I came for. The cheapest pairs were 15 Euros, and I have a pair of shorts at home that look like swimming trunks. I did buy some potatoes, eggs, ham and mushrooms to make dinner tonight.
I stopped in the park and took some pictures and video after leaving the store. I first went into a large fenced-in bird habitat area. The fences were just regular height and the birds did not appear to have their wings clipped. I think the reason that they stay is that because people feed them massive amounts. There are a dozen or more different kinds of birds living there, mostly swans, geese, ducks, chickens, pigeons and gulls. There were also a few of some kinds of birds that I did not recognize. Large bird brawls happened several times as I was walking through the area. The fights started every time a new piece of bread was thrown into the enclosure.
In other areas of the park, kids were riding around rental bicycle powered cars. The cars were big enough to fit 6 kids in, and some of the kids were driving crazy. There was also a race track were smaller kids could race smaller bicycle cars. There was a trolley going around the park that was designed to look like a train. The two conductors driving it were my age or younger, and were dressed like an old man and woman. They both had wigs, black frame glasses, etc. The woman made clown faces and spoke gibberish at me as I walked by her.
I broke the lock on the bike as I was leaving the park. Bikes here are almost always just locked by just securing the rear tire to the frame, so the tire will not turn. I forgot I had the lock attached this way when I got on the bike. I stopped as soon as I heard crunching plastic. The lock still works perfectly, but the plastic frame that covered it is no more.
Back at the apartment, I spent a couple hours studying Chinese before Johanna got home. We decided not to go swimming because the pool was outdoors and we thought it would be too cold. She instead wanted to take a nap because we were planning on going out with Satu later. I fell asleep with her for a few minutes, then got up and made our dinner. We had ham and mushroom omelets with baked potatoes. I was prepared to make two omelets, but decided to only make one when I saw how big the first one was. I had the second one all ready to pour into the pan, but just saved it for tomorrow.
We left the apartment soon after finishing our meal. We first went into the nearest grocery store to buy some beer and snacks. Twelve packs were on sale for 9 Euros, but they only had one chilled one left, which was missing 4 of its beers, so I just took some unchilled bottles off a shelf and put them into the 12 pack box. We arrived at Satu’s apartment(almost next door to ours) at almost exactly 8 o’clock and spent two hours there. We watched South Park and the Simpson, then watched a DVD on the computer of a Finnish band called Placebo. The cheese puffs that Johanna and I had just bought at the store smelled completely rotten, but she said they smelled completely fine and ate some of them. I had popcorn that Satu made for us.
We left the apartment at a quarter after 10 and took a bus downtown. The sun was still above the horizon at that time. We got of the bus by the marketplace, then walked a couple more minutes, stopping once so Johanna could use an ATM. The place we went to appears to be just for concerts. It is a big room that has a bar, stage, high ceiling and dance floor. We paid 6 Euros to get in, and the price included a coat check. It was happy hour until 11 o’clock, which offered cider for 2.50E. We all ordered 2 ciders so we would not have to pay 4.50E after 11. We had come because Satu wanted to see the last of 3 bands that was playing, whom she had been hearing on the radio. All of the bands that played were alternative rock, and the first two were not very good, but they were also not terrible. The last band, Lapko, made the wait worthwhile, as the music was good and the lead singer was very entertaining to watch. He had large dreadlocks and the faces he made while he sang made him look unhuman. I once saw him stick cheek out with his tongue, then slap himself to push it back in. His voice had a wide range and he could make himself sound like a heavy metal singer or a girl. I thought the highlight of the show was when he screamed the words “Fuck, Kill” over and over with his eyes and veins bulging out. Here is a link to a video of thier´s that I found online -Click Here-, but the song is not the best example of the singer´s voice.
The show ended around 2 o’clock and we left at that time. Johanna had trouble finding the tag she was given to retrieve her coat, but eventually found it after unloading all of her wallets many excess contents onto a table. We took a 30 minute walk home and could not decide if the sun was going down or coming up. Johanna thought it was coming up, but I wasn’t sure I believed her. It looked like it had just gone down or was just about to come up.

May 8, 2005
Wednesday:

The weather was better again today. The temperature was about 60 degrees and it was mostly sunny. At 10 o’clock, I saw a guy stuck in a lift at a construction project across the street. He was about 25 feet in the air in a bucket, and a whole crew of people was on the ground trying to fix the machine.
Johanna got home from work an hour early today. We first walked to the nearest grocery store and bought some food. On the walk there, Johanna started tagging me and running away, so I tagged her back and told her I wouldn’t allow her to tag me again until I tagged the grocery store. I was able to get there without being tagged, but she once backed me into a corner and I had to jump a fence to get away from her.
After purchasing our food, we came back and cooked it. We had spaghetti noodles in a white sauce with mushrooms, and broccoli. We went rollerblading for an hour after we finished the meal. We went a different direction this time, which had lots of long up and downhills. I seem to be getting much better at braking, but still not on the big downhills. We took a break in the middle of our rollerblading session to sit in a green field for a few minutes, then sat on the steep rocky hill behind the apartment when we got back. We kept our rollerblades on when we went up and down the hill, which was not easy.
We spent the rest of the evening back in the apartment. Johanna studied for her bookkeeping test while I edited the video of Ryan, Mike and I shooting gun, which I just posted. Johanna also watched a Finnish TV show called ‘America’s Fattest City, Houston’, and we both watched ‘The Simsons’ together.

June 7, 2005
Tuesday:

The weather was a little bit brighter and warmer today. It was nothing close to what I would be seeing in Carbondale, but it was at least an improvement. I spent this morning and afternoon doing the same things I have been since I got here. I got a new video online from footage I shot this past weekend when Johanna and I visited her hometown.
The first time I left the apartment all day was when Johanna got home from work. We went to an Italian restaurant for dinner. This was the first time I had been to a descent restaurant since arriving in Finland, and I probably won’t be going to many more real restaurants because it was expensive. Johanna ordered a pizza with her typical ham and mushroom toppings, and I ordered a salad and a salmon pasta plate. I was surprised to find raw salmon in my dish, but I ate it and it was good. The only problem was that the portion was small and it cost 10 Euros. The salad was not included.
After our meal, we walked to a nice and plush bar in the center of the city. We sat in a wrap-around booth by a window and met Johanna’s friend Mari. I had seen pictures of Mari before, but had never met her. She was Johanna’s next-door neighbor growing up, and they have been friends almost their whole lives. She is a pretty and friendly law student who likes to play the piano. She invited Johanna and I to go to the country of Estonia in a couple weeks and stay in a nice rural cabin for the weekend with her and several friends. Sounds fun.
We had a few pear ciders at the bar while we talked, then left about 9 o’clock. Johanna and I decided to take the bus home. Her friend Satu just happened to get on the same bus that we did. Her and I talked about going to visit a castle in town together next week. The castle is probably the most famous tourist attraction in town. Last week, Satu said she would go there with me sometime because she has not been since she was a child.
Back at the apartment, Johanna and I watched a documentary about a 70lb two-year-old boy who has a condition called MoMO. He was eight pounds when he was born, but has been growing insanely ever since.

June 6, 2005
Monday:

I got up at 10 o’clock this morning and ate a meatloaf patty, hot dog with cheese on it and a pear for breakfast. I then spent some time catching up on journal entries from the weekend. Johanna left one of her phones home today so I could call the office that is in charge of the apartment’s Internet connections. Our connection began working again early this morning, exactly one week after it had been shut off for violating rules. I called the office around noon and asked a foreign student that answered the phone why our service had been shut off in the first place. They had sent an email to Johanna last week explaining why, but she did not understand the terminology, and I couldn’t read the email because it was in Finnish. The man I talked to today was helpful, and he explained that the Internet access of other users in the apartments was disturbed because we had networked two computers together and shared the Internet connection. The man told me that we could use a router to hook two computers up to the same connection, but not a network. I have no idea why it should make a difference, but at least I now know what not to do. Second offenses result it getting the connection shut off for one month.
The weather today was the worst it has been since I arrived. The sky was very cloudy and the temperature was only 48 degrees(9 celcius). I stayed in the apartment all afternoon. I spent my time studying Chinese and editing the video I shot this weekend, and I ate instant noodles for lunch. I used the Finnish dictionary I borrowed from Johanna’s parents to write ‘put in trash can when finished’ on the top tissue in a stack of unused tissues on the computer desk. I did this because I have been finding them all over the apartment.
Johanna and I took a rollerblading trip when she came home from work. We planned on going downtown and putting our regular shoes back on, then buying a SIM card for my phone. Unfortunately, all the phone stores were closed downtown except the one that failed to activate the SIM card Johanna bought from them last week. I decided I would not go to that store again. So, Johanna and I put our skates back on and arrived back at the apartment around 7:30. I then cooked us Kraft Shells and Cheese and potatoes for dinner. Johanna had brought the Kraft Shells and Cheese back from the States in March. She brought back several boxes, but had not eaten all of them because they were ‘too cheesy’. She loved them when I cooked them tonight, and I think that the reason the ones she had cooked were ‘too cheesy’ was because she did not understand how to measure amounts of milk and butter in cups and tablespoons. I can imagine that mac and cheese would taste pretty bad with mostly just cheese powder, and very little butter and milk.
Johanna spent some time studying for a bookkeeping test before and after dinner. The test is next Friday. We both drank a couple beers and watched the Simsons at 8:30. I then spent the last couple hours I was awake kind of watching TV and kind of using my computer.

June 5, 2005
Sunday:

Johanna and I got up at 10:30 this morning and began preparing to leave her sister’s apartment. After packing our things and picking up the apartment, we walked to her parent’s home, which was about 30 minutes away. We arrived there at 1 o’clock. Leena and Jaakko had prepared a lunch of mashed potatoes, salad and meatloaf stuffed with vegetables. After that, we had a desert of ice cream topped with a berry and gelatin mixture. Johanna and I then spent some time resting in her room upstairs. I saw a Finnish-English dictionary in the bookcase of the den and her parents told me I could borrow it while I am here. We went back downstairs at 2:30 and had coffee, cheese, pie and berries with her parents. The cheese was a kind that I have never had before. It was white and had the consistency and taste of cottage cheese kernels. They had picked the berries last season from the woods around their cabin in the north of the country.
At 3 o’clock, we all took a picture together out in their garden, then Jaakko drove Johanna and I to the bus station. Our bus left at 3:15 and the ride back to Turku lasted about 2 hours 15 minutes. The ride back was a bit longer than the ride there had been because we had taken an express bus on the way there. We took the non-express today because the express did not leave until 6PM.
It was raining when we arrived it Turku and the temperature was in the 50’s(as usual). We stopped at a supermarket on the walk back to the apartment and bought some things for dinner and the rest of the week. We arrived back at the apartment sometime around 6 o’clock and Johanna prepared dinner soon afterwards. We ate some meatloaf patties that her mom had given us, along with some noodles and mixed vegetables that we had just purchased from the supermarket.
Johanna watched TV and ate popcorn after the meal, and I used my computer. We later both watched the last hour of a movie together. Johanna went to bed around 10 and I stayed up and watched the last hour of another movie, Panic Room.

June 4, 2005
Saturday:

Johanna and I slept in until about 11 o’clock this morning at her sister’s apartment, then ate some food for breakfast that her mom had sent with us last night. I had strawberry yogurt, two pieces of toasted bread and a banana. I spent some time after that using the Internet and studying Chinese. We left the apartment and went for a walk in the city after that. All of the lights in the hallways of the apartment building are automated and will only come on when you are walking through.
The apartment building is just on the edge of the downtown area. We walked though the market in the center of the city as it was being dismantled for the day. We went onto a large mall and tried to buy a SIM card for my phone, but they were too expensive there, so we went to another phone store nearby. That phone store and the others like it had just closed at two o’clock, so we went to a pizza restaurant and ordered a ham and mushroom pizza for 7 Euros. It was a very thin pizza, but even the crust tasted good. Next, we walked to a liquor store and bought a bottle of Vodka for later tonight. We then went to a department store after that and bought a toothbrush for Johanna because she had forgotten hers. The department store also had a pharmacy and a grocery store in it, so we bought some pain killers, cranberry juice and ice bags. The ice bags appeared to be the only way to get ice here. None of the stores were selling premade ice or trays for making it. Each of the bags contains about a dozen ice cube size voids that make ice when the bag is filled with water and frozen. I filled the bags with water when we got back to the apartment at about 3 o’clock. There were ten bags in the box and I ruined a couple of them before I figured out how they were supposed to be filled and tied off.
Johanna and I fell asleep from 4 till 5, then her parent came to pick us up. They took us to their cabin in town that is beside a river. The property there is very nice, but the weather today was terrible. The sky was dark and cloudy and the temperature was never above 60 degrees. It began raining about the time we got to the cabin, and it continued all afternoon and evening.
Leena(mom) spent her time at the cabin tending to her gardens. I offered to help her, but she said she didn’t want me to help while the weather was so ugly. Jaakko fired up the stove that heats the sauna building next to the house, then Johanna, him and I made Vihta. Vihta is a bundle of birch branches that you tie together and then take in the sauna and beat yourself or others with. Johanna and I got into the sauna after we had made our vihta. A thermometer inside the building said that it was almost 80 degrees Celcius, which is over 170 degrees farenheight. I had never been in a sauna that hot. Johanna put water on the coals to fill the room with steam, which felt like it was actually burning my skin at times. There were large buckets of cool and warm water in the room, and I sometimes had to use the cool water when my skin felt like it was burning. We only stayed in the sauna for about 5 minutes at a time, then took breaks sitting outside on the porch of the building. It felt really nice to go back and fourth from the hot to the cold.
We went back into the house after finishing our sauna. Leena put some coffee on the pot, then her and Jaakko went out into the sauna. She jumped in the ice cold river during one of her sauna breaks. We all left the cabin together as soon as Leena and Jaakko finished their sauna.
Back at Johanna’s sister’s apartment, I tried to remove the ice from the bags I had frozen it in earlier in the day. I was very inefficient with the first couple, then discovered that it was easy if a knife was used to cut a slit in the plastic over each cube. Not all the ice had frozen solid yet, but about half of it had. I next used the ice I removed from the bags to make cranberry and vodka’s for Johanna and I. Kaisa came to the apartment about 30 minutes after we had arrived. We all spent a couple hours talking, watching TV and having our drinks, then we headed downtown.
The city was full of fresh high school graduates who were wearing their graduation caps, which look like the dress caps that the US Marines wear. Every bar was full of these drunken students, as the drinking age here is 18. The first bar we went into was too full to sit down, so we headed to another bar that Johanna and Kaisa said was less classy. I girl puked right next to me as soon as I sat down, then about a dozen people walked in the puddle before someone came to clean it. After having one drink at this bar, we headed to another one, which appeared to be a little more up-scale. We all ordered one drink and the bar was closing around us by the time we finished it.
It was now about 3 AM and already starting to get light outside. We walked to a Hesburger restaurant in the very center of the town, were a couple dozen drunks were eating their munchies. The restaurant had no indoor seating, so everyone was just sitting around on benches outside and eating. The area was trashed with food and food wrappers, and the animals were moving in to clean up the mess. Pigeons were fearlessly walking between the drunks and small mice were joining in the feast as well. After eating our meal, we walked with Kaisa to where she had parked her bike, then Johanna and I said goodbye to her and walked back to her sister’s apartment.

June 3, 2005
Friday:

I got up this morning at 9:30 when Johanna called me from work. She had left one of her two phones here so Satu could call me today and show me how to use the apartment’s laundry facilities.
I first spent some time cleaning up the apartment from our dinner last night, then ate leftover salmon and a banana for breakfast. I next went to the library across the street so I could use the Internet. Satu called me about the laundry just after I signed in and began using a computer. I asked the librarian if I could come back later and sign in again, and she told me that I could make a reservation. I told her to sign me up for two o’clock, and she asked me how to spell my name. I spelled it to her and she struggled to remember the English alphabet. She eventually got everything but the ‘h’ on her own.
I came back home and picked up my laundry, then met Satu at the laundry building. She showed me how to enter a code on a keypad to get in the door, then we went up to a room with washing machines on the second floor. I had brought a liquid detergent with me and she told me that one of those plastic ball devices is needed to use liquid in the machines. I went back to the apartment to look for a ball, but could only find half of one. Satu waited in the laundry room while I went looking for it. We then decided to try washing the clothes without using the ball.
The washing machines only accept a certain kind of bank card for payment, which is the main reason that Satu had come to help me. Money must be transferred from a bank account to the cards at ATM machines, and Johanna had forgotten to do that for the past three days. Satu had agreed to help me today because Johanna and I are leaving for the weekend and we needed clean clothes. So, Satu showed me how to put the bank card into a machine in the laundry room and get the machines working.
The banking system here seems much more advanced than the systems at home. Bank cards can be used to pay for all sorts of things that require cash in the US, and people can also transfer money directly from their account to another persons account when they owe them money. Johanna even uses this system to pay for the car pool that she uses to get to work. There are two men that drive on alternating days, and she just transfers money into their accounts each week to pay for the rides.
I came back to the apartment and used my computer while I was waiting for the laundry to finish. I went to retrieve the laundry at 12:30 and noticed that a large dryer was available for free use. I put the clothes in the dryer, then went to get my Chinese book out of the apartment so I could study while I waited. I took the clothes out of the dryer at 1:30, then went back to the apartment and put them away.
Next, I went back to the library to use the Internet at my reserved time. I came back to the apartment at 3 o’clock and made myself instant noodles and a hot dog for lunch as I watched the end of a stupid movie on TV(only 4 channels because of an old TV). I packed my bag for the weekend after that.
Johanna packed her things as soon as she got home from work, then we took the 30 minute walk to the bus station at 5:30. We walked a different route than I have been before, where some of the streets are made out of very large stones. We arrived at the bus station just before 6 o’clock, as our bus was just pulling in and boarding.
The bus left right at 6 and we began the two hour ride to the city of Pori, which is where Johanna’s family lives. A girl came around collecting money a few minutes into the trip, and I used the student card I got yesterday to get my ticket half price, which was only 10.70 Euros.
The entire drive from Turku to Pori was through rural areas and forests. I was surprised to see that the forests had been thoroughly logged along almost the entire route the bus took. Most areas were just selectively cut, but some were completely cleared of all trees. But, the countryside was so nice that the missing trees were not all that noticeable. The land is a series of rolling hills, which are covered in green farms and forests.
Johanna and I both fell asleep for a while during the trip, then we arrived in Pori just before 8 o’clock. The population of the city is about 75,000, so it is a huge town compared to the surrounding areas. Johanna’s dad was at the bus station waiting for us in his car. His name is Jaakko(pronounced Yawkoe) and he a tall, thin public defense lawyer. He said hello to me at the bus stop, then Johanna and I put our bags into the car and he drove us to his house. Along the way, he asked me what I thought of Finland, and I told him it was nice and peaceful.
The house Johanna’s mother and father live in is a nice looking duplex with a well manicured lawn and garden. I met her mother, Leena, as soon as we entered the house. Her English was not as good as Jaakko’s, but she was able to make herself well understood because she was not shy about it. She had prepared a dinner for us, which we ate shortly after arriving. It consisted of a shredded potato dish with fish in it, salad and different kinds of bread. Johanna had earlier told me that the potato dish was no good, but I ended up liking it alot. I also thought that Johanna’s parents and I got along quite well, and that they reminded me alot of my own family because of thier interest in gardening and making their own foods. We had ice cream and homemade rhubarb pie for desert. I had not eaten a rhubarb pie since my mother used to make it when I was a child. I have noticed the plant grow all over the place since arriving in Finland.
Johanna and I left after dinner because she had made us plans for 9 o’clock. So, her dad took us in his car to Johanna’s sister’s apartment, which was just a few minutes away. Her sister was not there for the weekend because she was on a vacation in northern Africa with her boyfriend. She had told Johanna and I that we could stay at her apartment while she was gone. It is a small but nice studio apartment on the 4th floor of a brand new building. Kaisa arrived to meet us about 30 minutes after we got there. (Kaisa was also an exchange student in Macau last fall, I had not seen her since she and Johanna left the Hong Kong airport on Christmas day.)
So, Johanna, Kaisa and I spent the evening in the apartment, just talking and drinking some beer and cider. We listened to some music and watched some MTV and Conan Obrien. Johanna and Kaisa want to go to New York and see Conan Obrien in person. We also watched two Jackass type show on MTV. Kaisa left around 2 a.m.

June 2, 2005
Thursday:

I got up this morning when Johanna went to work. I was surprised to find that my phone was still not working. Johanna bought the SIM card for it on Tuesday night and it was supposed to be working that evening or next morning at the latest.
This morning was perfectly sunny and warmer, unlike the past few days, which have been cold and rainy. I ate leftover chicken nuggets and a banana for breakfast, then rode the bike over to the library so I could use the Internet for an hour. I came back home after that and was able to use some information I found on the Internet to get my new wireless keyboard and mouse working. It turns out that I had to use the tip of a pin to push a small button on the bottoms of them.
Next, I put on my rollerblades and went out in search of the bus and train stations so I could try to get a student card, which would make my fares half price. I had been to the bus station when I first arrived in Turku, so that was easy to find. A cashier there told me I could get the card if I showed a student ID and had a passport sized photo. I had the student ID with me and I had the photo made at a photo booth in the bus station. The picture cost 5 Euros and so did the card. I will save that much when I buy my first ticket on Friday night, when Johanna and I go to see her parents.
The train station was just a few blocks away from the bus station. I decided to walk there instead of going to the trouble to put on my rollerblades again. A passenger at the train station told me I should wait in the regular ticket line to ask about student cards. There was a machine that gave out numbers and I was 89. They were serving number 73 when I got the slip, so I had to wait about 10 minutes. I then found that I had been wasting my time because the cashier told me that only students studying in Finland are allowed to get student cards.
I then put back on my rollerblades and headed towards City Market. I had been to that store a few times already, but I wasn’t exactly sure how to get there from the train station. On the way, I went through the crowded downtown area on my rollerblades. I saw some people staring and laughing at me because I sometimes still appear kind of unbalanced when I skate. I asked a couple people downtown what direction I should go to get to City Market and they though I was talking about the outdoor market in the center of the city. I let the first two people I asked point me in the wrong direction because I did not know any better. The third person I asked also told me the wrong way and I explained to her that I was not looking for the outdoor market. She the said, “OH! City Market”, with a very strong accent on the word ‘city’. I guess I need to learn how to say it that way.
I then found City Market about 5 minutes away. There were a couple very large hills on the way there that made it impossible for me to stop on my rollerblades. I used my brakes as much as possible, then just grabbed lamp posts at the bottom. In City Market, I just needed to buy a baked potato and salmon for the dinner with Satu tonight. Salmon was on sale for 7.49 Euros per Kilo. The prepackaged containers were not big enough, so I went to a counter where they cut it to order. I did not know that customers had to take a number before being waited on. I realized this after I had been waiting a while, then an old lady insisted that I trade numbers with her because she had come there after me. I don’t think she spoke any English. I ordered 1.5 kilos of salmon, which was almost two feet of fish. It was a bit more than I expected because I was thinking in pounds, but it was great when we had it last week, so eating it will be no problem. The huge piece of salmon was less than 10 Euros, which is a whole lot cheaper than it would be in the US. I next got three potatoes and a Sprite before leaving the store and rollerblading home. I took the route home that Johanna and I had taken when we were at City Market a couple days ago, which was much shorter than the way I had came.
Back at the apartment I found that my phone was still not working, almost 48 hours after it was supposed to. The Internet was also still shut down. Johanna has requested that our punishment be reduced because she was never informed that we were doing anything wrong by hooking up a network in the apartment, but they have not responded to her request so far.
I studied Chinese for an hour and a half from 3 till 4:30. I then made 3 bowls of salad for our dinner tonight and got 3 potatoes ready to cook. Johanna came home from work at 5 and we started cooking our 1.5 kilo piece of salmon at about 5:30. My phone was still not working at that time, so I had Johanna call the place she bought the SIM card from and cancel the order because I did not think they deserved any of my money. I will get a new SIM card next week.
Johanna’s friend Satu arrived at 6. Satu lives in an apartment building in the same complex that Johanna does, and the two of them have been friends since they were children.
Satu brought a bottle of wine, and Johanna and I also had one. Before dinner, Satu told us some things about her job cleaning up the passenger ships that carry people between here and Sweden. She cleans the cabins and gets an extra 10 Euros whenever she cleans up a large puddle of vomit. She does not get any extra money for small puddles. We finished eating around 7, then had our desert at 7:30. Johanna had made chocolate mouse and separated it into three bowls. I had put the bowls into the freezer and forgotten about them, which froze them solid. But, they were fine once they thawed a bit. We ran out of wine at 8:30 and I went to the nearest grocery store to buy a 12 pack of beer. We then all watched the Simpson’s and part of a movie about vampires. Satu left about 9:30 and Johanna and I went to sleep soon afterwards.

June 1, 2005
Wednesday:

I slept until almost 11 o’clock today, then ate a piece of leftover pizza, a hot dog and a pear for breakfast. My phone was supposed to be working this morning at the latest, but it still wasn’t. I rode the bike to the university at noon so I could use the computer lab. Johanna had left her username and password for me when she went to work this morning. She is going to call the apartment’s management today and try to get our Internet connection reconnected.
At the computer lab, I could not log on to her account. She had either written her information wrong, or I could not read her hand writing. I asked a student in the building where I could find a water fountain, and he led me outside to a statue of 2 eagles that had water flowing from the bottom of them. I didn’t bother to tell him what I was really looking for, I just said thanks.
I next went to a library just across the street from the apartment building. There, I signed a sheet which allowed me to use the Internet for one hour. It is difficult to use the computers there becuase the keyboard and all the software is in Finnish. I came back home after my hour was up and spent an hour and a half studying Chinese. I then used my computer to combine a bunch of still pictures into an animation. While I was living in Macau, I had taken pictures of a large building being constructed across the street from my apartment. I took pictures on about 30 occasions over 3 months. Each picture was taken from the exact same spot so I could later make a rough time-lapse image of the building process. I had forgotten about the project up until now, but ran across the pictures on my computer this morning and decided that I needed to finish it after having gone to the trouble of taking the pictures. It didn’t turn out perfect, but I was able to get it looking about as good as I expected it too. I will get it on the website as soon as the computer nerds here decide that our punishment is over and turn back on our Internet service. I am using the library until then, and they only allow a limited time on the Internet.(OH, NEVER MIND, GOT IT UP ALREADY)
Johanna and I walked to a grocery store after she got home from work. We go out every night looking for food, and she takes me to a different store each time. Today I learned that only one company is allowed to sell liquor over 4.7 % alcohol content. I had already noticed that the grocery stores only sold beer and cider, and that the other liquors were separated and had to be paid for separately. I had also noticed that the word ‘Alco’ was written above the liquor section. I had just thought that the word meant ‘alcohol’, but it turns out that it is the name of a government owned company, which has a complete monopoly on the wine and liquor market.
Johanna and I were shopping for both tonight’s dinner and tomorrow’s. Her friend Satu is coming over to eat tomorrow. We ended up buy some chicken nuggets and pear flavored cider for tonight and some wine for tomorrow. I decided to go out and buy some salmon tomorrow for the dinner with Satu because they didn’t have anything we wanted at the store tonight.
Back at the apartment we ate our nuggets and drank our pear cider. The cider was much better than I expected. All kinds of cider are popular to drink here, and there is a fairly large section devoted to it at the supermarkets. It is kind of expensive, though, at about 2.50 Euros per bottle.
We watched part of the movie ‘Deep Blue Sea’ after eating. The new SIM card I put into my phone never did start working all day, so Johanna called the place she bought it and was told that a computer problem was keeping them from activating new cards until tomorrow.