Tervetuloa – Welcome

10/08-23/08

The reason why I moved to Helsinki a month before the university classes started was to take an intensive Finnish class that was offered by the Helsinki Summer School. I want to learn Finnish for several reasons, one of them is simply because I do enjoy learning new languages.

The Finnish class starts at 10am and is until 4pm. And it is super intensive! I don’t feel like I am learning anything but it will just take some time. Especially since I feel like we aren’t focusing that much on learning the language itself but mostly just the grammar rules. And Finnish has a lot of grammar rules!

My biggest problem with moving has been trying to find food. The supermarket is enormous and it takes me a while simply figuring out what food item I am holding in my hands. So basically I have survived on bread and greek yogurt. Coming from Icelandic supermarkets it is just astonishing how much food there is in the supermarkets here. But at the same time, I am not finding anything that I actually want to eat. It doesn’t help that most of the text is in Finnish and I don’t understand it.

There are though several things I have found. My classmates and I went to an Asian market and I found so many things that I love there. So that was great, I also found some pretty amazing chocolate. Which is great but not so great at the same time. I can feel my jeans getting tighter.

Lotta came to visit me and we went to the Design Museo (something that is on my bucket list for Finland). We also found an amazing sushi place (Haru) that had just the best sushi buffet. Which brings me to another discovery. I would say that almost every other restaurant is a buffet type of restaurant. I am not complaining.

On Sunday we decided to throw a brunch with my Finnish classmates and some friends. Everyone brought something, which was great. I don’t think I could have made everything. It was also so much fun since there was such a variety of dishes.

For brunch, I made pannukakku for the first time, and definitely not the last. Pannukakku is a simple, but oh so delicious, Finnish pancake. What is so genius about them is that they are baked in an oven tray! AMAZING! You then simply just add some jam on them! They are also delicious the day after.

That’s it, until next time.

Katrin