Edinburgh Exchanges

So, I know I said that I had written my last blog for this year, but I've been thinking a lot about Helsinki over the last week I've been in Edinburgh. I've realised that I have actually become more European, and even more surprisingly, more Finnish than I thought!

One: I genuinely have no idea which way the cars drive on the road. Marchmont Road in particular have stumped me every single time, and I can not for the life of me establish which way the cars will come until there is one nearly hitting me. I suppose 8 months (travelling before Finland) of living in countries where they drive on the right took it's toll.

Two: I will not cross a road unless there is a green man. I will now quite happily stand and wait for the minute or two that it takes for the light to change rather than wandering across if the road was clear at any point. I now give a Finnish glare at anyone crossing the other way who dares to step one little foot into the road whilst it is on green.

Three: On a similar note, I am apparently incapable of crossing the road even when it is on green unless the crossing is going "tick, tick, tick, tick" to tell me I can cross. I actually missed the green man on Melville Drive because I was waiting for the ticking, and sadly, in the UK it's more of a silent affair!

Four: "Kiitos" and "Anteksii" are part of my normal vocabularly and I will do a Finnish "thank you" or "excuse me" with anyone and everyone, including my mum, shop assistants, the bus driver and anyone I meet in life. When I first got to Finland I could only think in Mongolian, so "bayyacla" and "uchlarai" have now left my vocabulary for the most part.

Five: Today in Primark I desperately tried to stand my ground when I became concerned that someone was attempting to push in front of me in the queue. Then I remembered we were in the UK and we don't do pushing in as everyone is quite happy to wait.

Six: This is the worst one: I paid for my train ticket today even though I didn't have to because the ticket office was out of order so if you didn't have one they just asked you to speak up on the train. If this were 8 months ago I'd have kept quiet and loved the free journey, however, Finnish honesty got the better of me and I wandered up to buy my ticket. Which cost €4.60.

Seven: I just wrote the euro sign in the above point, instead of a pound one.

Eight: I can understand EVERYTHING which is being said to me, around me, and written on signs. Which has resulted in me appearing very rude in the shop as I acknowledge everything with a nod coupled with "ahh" or an unintelligible noise in the hope that this is the answer the shop assistant is needing.

Nine: Today I wrote my Christmas cards then realised I was going to have to spend a hell of a lot on postage to send them to 8 different EU countries. And spend the entire time saying "oh, *insert any EU country*?! where abouts? I have a friend from there!" whenever people tell me about their holiday plans.

Ten: I've started saying "I live in Finland/Helsinki"

So this will be my last blog entry for 2008 - which is really weird! The past few weeks here have been quite strange. Like everyone else, I've been counting down the days before I go home and so the past couple of weeks have gone fairly slowly. I can't believe it's nearly Christmas and as much as I'm looking forward to going home and seeing all of my friends and family again, I can't help but wonder what it will be like - how things will have changed or if they have changed. It's like the first taster of what things will be like after spending a year here.

I have to say I could never have imagined, back in September, feeling so at home here - when I landed in Vienna after coming back from Basel two weeks ago, it felt like coming home... but not quite. I'm so settled here but I was also so settled in Edinburgh and so it feels like I'm torn between the two slightly, especially since I have some really close friends here, closer than I could ever have hoped for but I still miss my Scottish friends. It's all a bit confusing!

After Christmas, it will only be 3 weeks before a lot of my friends here go home for good, and I'm going to miss them all so much! I know I'll see them again but it'll be weird to be in Vienna without them. Luckily Sarah will be moving into the same building as I live in in February so that will be fun! Since I've been here, I decided to try to organise a teaching placement with the British Council in Vienna. In February I will be working in two schools in Vienna and so next semester really does feel like starting all over again! There is a lot to look forward to until the sad goodbyes at the end of the semester though.

On friday I will be flying to Paris to meet up with my friends from home, apart from Hannah, I haven't seen any of them in three months so I'm really looking forward to that! On tuesday, I fly home for Christmas with my family and Hogmanay in Edinburgh which again I'm really excited about! After Christmas, a couple of friends and I are planning a trip to Innsbruck for a few days before returning in time for the Wirtschafts-Universitaet (another University in Vienna) Ball in the Hofburg which will be amazing! I can't imagine another chance to go to a ball in the Hofburg and it's amazing that Erasmus lets you experience these things. After that I will be getting my head down for exams at the end of January.

I received my Zeugnis for my language course on monday and so now I have 4 ECTS down which is a bit of a relief! It's also nice to know that I have actually, officially, gone up a level in German. I think I can see the improvement myself but it's difficult to tell on a day-to-day basis.

I was reading some of the other blogs and their comments about Christmas in the various towns. I have to say that Vienna somewhat bucks the trend. Christmas here is BIG! It is definitely a major tourist highlight and the population of tourists has been greatly increasing since the start of november as they descend upon the Christmas markets. Vienna has been spectacularly lit up since the beginning of November and the markets all opened around about the 15th of November. It's great for the tourists but it does mean that, living here, you do overdose on 'Weihnachtsstimmung' even before Advent begins.

Anyway this has become somewhat of a rambling blog since I don't have very much to talk about other than going home! So I'll leave it as it is and wish you all a very Merry Christmas and here's hoping 2009 is even more awesome than 2008!

Time has gone so quickly since we got back from Basel and Dijon is getting ready for Christmas. Other people have mentioned in their blogs that Christmas in Europe isn’t as commercial as it is at home. In Scotland, often the Christmas merchandise starts appearing in shops before Halloween, but here it’s different. The Christmas lights weren’t switched on until December 6th which meant that when we left for Basel there was no sign of the approaching festive season and when we got back there were lights and Christmas trees everywhere! The town looks absolutely gorgeous and it’s all really tastefully done. We also have a Christmas market and an outdoor ice rink in the main square as well as a Ferris wheel and a few more markets in one of the other squares. I was surprised that such a small place would put in so much effort for Christmas – Dijon’s better decorated than Edinburgh usually is! I quite like that there wasn’t as much of a build up as usual because we didn’t have time to get bored Christmas before it’s even begun! So saying, though, there are two vital things missing from the run up to the big day that mean it just doesn’t quite feel like Christmas yet – mince pies and carols. France doesn’t seem to do either. I think with the carols it might just be that most carols are in English and so they don’t get played in shops as much as they do at home and a quick wiki search tells me that mince pies are essentially a British thing and even Americans don’t really have them. Another interesting fact is that officially it is illegal to eat them on Christmas day because an old law by Oliver Cromwell that banned many different foods so that people would think about religion and not food has never been revoked. Don’t say I never teach you anything!

Life seems to have been very busy this last week but I can’t really remember doing much. Switzerland has given everyone a taste for fondue so we bought packet fondue mix on Thursday and made our own. It wasn’t as good as the stuff we had in Basel – mainly because we had no way of keeping it hot so we had to just eat it as quickly as possible before it went all thick and gloopy! I have to say, disgusting as it sounds, a baguette each and a vat of cheese makes for a fantastic dinner! Mmm…
After our cheese-fest we decided to go out to Le Chat Noir which lets students in for free on a Thursday instead of charging the usual 11 euros. We arrived to find it completely deserted so we jumped in a taxi and headed to another of the four clubs Dijon has to offer (Le Carré) which was closed. We eventually found one that was open and asked someone why it had been so difficult to find somewhere for a drink on a Thursday night. We were informed that when one of the clubs is putting on a big student night or an Erasmus party, all the other ones close because they won’t get enough clientele to justify opening. Sometimes I really wish I was doing my year abroad somewhere a bit more lively! We had a good night out nonetheless and Friday was a bit of a write-off! On Saturday we went out to Toison D’Or, a shopping centre about half an hour away from the main town. It has a few clothes shops that the town centre doesn’t have, but the main attraction is Carrefour, the supermarket. When I called my boyfriend the night before and told him that our plans for the next day involved taking two buses to go to a supermarket when we didn’t even need to buy anything he was a bit bemused, but as they say, we have to make our own entertainment! Anyway, Carrefour is huge and has a Playstation 3 equipped with Guitar Hero World Tour, so we pushed some small children aside and had a pleasant few hours with that! It was quite good to spend time somewhere other than halls or the town square at the weekend. I think Dijon would be a really good place to come for a holiday, but living here you really run out of things to do. I will definitely need to plan some more trips away for next semester!

So now it’s nearly the end of term and people are starting to head home for the holidays. Nearly all of the British Erasmus students will still be here next semester and everyone has to come back in January for exams anyway, so there are no sad farewells needing to be done! It is a bit weird to think that if my plans hadn’t changed, I would only have two weeks here after Christmas and would then be heading to Marseille to be a teaching assistant. Although part of me kind of wishes that I was heading to pastures new, I know I made the right decision about it and I’m also glad that I don’t have to start all over again somewhere new. Everyone’s getting so excited about going home now – everyone’s Facebook status involves mentions of home and quite often a countdown of days. Our night out on Thursday was to mark that it was now single figures until we went home and conversations revolve around how good it will be to eat bacon sandwiches (you can only get bacon cubes here, not rashers, and it’s also hard to find sliced bread), watch English TV and have showers that don’t require you to press the button every five second and whose temperature you can regulate (the showers in halls are like the ones you get in swimming pools that have a push button and no temperature control.) I realise that all of this might make it seem as though I don’t like Dijon, which really isn’t the case. I’ve had a fantastic three months here and I’ve met so many fantastic people and done so many brilliant things and I’ve loved feeling myself get more and more independent and my French getting better and better, but it’s true what they say – there really is no place like home!

Merry Christmas!

I’m not sure how but I don’t even seem to have the time to write my blog anymore- terrible isn’t it? I guess it’s hardly surprising; we’re trying to fit so much in before we go home and weekends just aren’t long enough. I feel like I’m behind on so much in the lab because I have so many experiments to do, every time I sit down to write them up Lydie worries I don’t have enough and shows me even more but I’m not going to moan.

I have really landed on my feet here; it may have been a rocky start but I feel like I’m on borrowed luck or something, work wise things couldn’t be better! I have a supervisor who gives me so much work that I always have things to do; she is always willing to help and even though I feel bad when I ask for advice Lydie makes me feel better. She has allowed me to do my literature review on antidepressants and has even given me some synthesis to do even though it’s not strictly my work here.

On top of that I’m learning Japanese which is something I am so glad of, I have some great friends here and although I am so ready to go home for Christmas I can’t help but feel that I have more than I could ever deserve. What’s the catch?

I guess it’s been a long week, lots and lots to do, I can’t even remember all that happened but I know I had some nice early nights for a change. Friday we finally got in some Christmas shopping and I managed to get everyone’s presents (Rachel, Andrew, Sarah, Rob)- we’re having a Christmas meal and exchanging presents on Wednesday- yay exciting. Sarah came shopping with us, and we came home feeling bedraggled and very cold but we had to get to bed early because Saturday we were shopping in Paris.

Living the life of Riley(- whoever that is, Ill have to find out where that comes from, I’ll let you know if I do…), Paris is only an hour (and a small fortune) on the train but it is so worth it! We met Rachel’s mum and her mum’s friend; we wandered up the Champs Elysées all the way from Concorde to L’Arc de Triomphe then went and had a hot chocolate by Notre Dame de Paris- which was well needed, it was so bitterly cold.

A long lunch later- and I will thank Rachel’s mum here because she was very kind to invite me along and I had a wonderful day- we found ourselves in La Galleries Lafayette, it was very busy but worth a wander, especially to see the dome and the suspended Christmas tree. We just had time to see the blue Eiffel tower before we left, we stood at Concorde and saw it in the distance to the side of the big wheel, in front of us the Champs Elysées glittered with lights.

Even though we were home by nine it felt as if it were midnight so we all went straight to bed, the shops were open this Sunday due to the proximity of Christmas so we were up early to buy our bits for the Sunday meal. I had a bad feeling about the nut roast from the start- all I’m going to say is don’t do it in a microwave… it doesn’t work! So we had lots of alcohol and a burnt nut roast; Rachel did a marvellous rice pudding with stewed apple so that made up for my disaster, and her mulled wine went down a treat too…

The end of the weekend- again- and I’m more tired than when it started, oh well it’s the last week and already I’m dreading it. I think someone else is teaching us in Japanese class, there’s the work Christmas party- potential social suicide- the end of term meal cooked by Rob, hosted ‘chez nous’ with skating after wards- potential suicide in general! Last minute shopping, packing, trains to catch…

Help me!

(P.S the title- made sense after a few glasses of wine; it refers to the sum total of our cooking equipment, (one of my hobs doesn’t work) and I thought it sounded like the name of a tacky sitcom- possibly one based on Erasmus students in Lille…)

(P.P.S ‘M’oven’ microwave/oven)

Late again, well sort of. The problem is I can’t remember as far back as last week, I’ll try… so it’s December already, Christmas again, shops aren’t as insane here as they are back in Scotland, thing’s are only just starting to get Christmassy with the Christmas markets opening and decorations going up. There is a huge ‘big wheel’ in La Grand Place, Centre Lille, like the one in Edinburgh but not as dramatic.

Adam, my boyfriend, was here until Wednesday so we went out on Tuesday night to the ‘Flammekeuche’ place, again, where I learnt how to say Bailey’s in French- ‘beylez’- because it’s actually really hard… It was nicer this time, the waiter was really friendly and I actually felt more like a British person living in France than a tourist- which was nice, I think my French is actually improving.

It’s been a fairly average week labs wise, things I thought weren’t working turned out alright and despite a brief altercation with the woman in the international office it was all fairly calm. I was quite impressed I could argue in French, I only wanted to tell her that I wasn’t going on the visit to the factory- I’m not a student here, not really, I don’t know how I got enrolled in this much stuff- but she was determined that I had to do exams and get good grades and that Europe was funding my placement. I told her I didn’t, I argued my corner fairly confident that exams were not on the agenda but she made me panic so I sent a hasty e-mail to Dr. Henderson (my supervisor in Edinburgh), just to check.

All is good as it turns out; no exams so yay for me, the week could carry on without incident, Thursday we, Rachel and I, went into Lille after labs because I wanted to buy a dress for our Champagne party on Friday. I couldn’t find the one I wanted which was a shame but good for my bank balance as I technically had an outfit I could wear.

That was the main event this week; our champagne party, loads of Erasmus people came and as always we were talking a French/English mix which some how works although by the end of the night I was frazzled because I had to be a translator even though there were many people more capable than me. Two of the guests couldn’t speak English and one couldn’t speak French, of course they decided they wanted to discuss politics and religion so there I was translating and being told off because I was too fast or too slow! You can never win, I am in no doubt that my French has improved, there’s no way I could have done that even a month ago!

The party was in aid of Champagne (sparkling wine) and to relax after the French test (oh yeah- that was alright, I think) but also to say goodbye to half of our Erasmus friends, they are off to Antwerp (okay so it’s not that far) after Christmas which is sad, but we’ve had fun.

The weekend was fairly uneventful, we were meant to go Christmas shopping on Saturday but we ended up watching a film instead- it was a Dutch film, dubbed in French, a very Christmassy one, it was a kids’ film really but it was so cute. Oh the bane and joy of having television (its Andrew’s)!

Sunday was equally as relaxing; we made our usual three course meal and watched Love Actually to really get into the Christmas spirit. It’s definitely getting there now… I’m almost Christmassy… Rachel and Andrew got me a calendar so that’s also helping. Anyway, Paris again next weekend, and I have to do some Christmas shopping, and pay my rent and attempt to cook a nut roast in a microwave… should be interesting!

It has been called to my attention (by my family, no less), that I tend not to focus on the academic side of life at Haverford, and instead exclusively deal in lurid depictions of drunken debauchery. At Haverford, as I have mentioned previously, we work very hard, and as a response we play hard too, but this week will be focused on the working, rather than the playing.

This week, in fact, I have barely spent any time in my room, what with one thing or another. Days are spent in class or the library, nights are spent at friends’ apartments, and the stack of books I have to read and the list of papers I have to write seem to be growing daily. Classes finished this week, which was sad as I have really enjoyed all of them, even the class on Monday nights from 7:30-10pm about the use of trauma in literature.

My professors have been universally willing and able to meet to discuss problems even outside of their office hours, and have taken advice from the class on the structure and content of their courses. Whilst I have had some excellent teachers at Edinburgh (especially my history tutors – Drs. Bowd, Hilfrich and Harding), I have often been struck by the lack of involvement in class by professors, and by their unwillingness to change. Haverford, therefore, has been a revelation.

The professor for my Sound, Writing and Modernity class, Gus Stadler, was happy to indulge his class’s three students’ idea to undertake a practical project rather than a final exam. Consequently, the three of us are creating a sound installation which will exemplify some of the theories of sound we’ve been reading this semester, and will hopefully be exhibited in the college in the new year. In between bouts of essay planning and writing, I am recording as many different sounds as possible, which has earned me a few odd looks (especially when I stood in the middle of the Coop – a café at Haverford – recording the sound of TV adverts).

My other three classes (British Empire, Trauma and Literature, and Atomic America) are all more traditional in their structure, and I have a number of lengthy essays to write before noon on Friday. That two of these essays are fifteen to twenty pages long each (4500-6000 words) means I don’t forsee much daytime fun happening this week. The nights, of course, are a different story, with Haverford hosting events (such as a midnight breakfast) to help us through finals week, and other social events also occurring.

In fact, on Wednesday, there is a farewell party at Apartment 10 as almost everyone there is leaving to go abroad. I am certainly going to miss London, Pat, Sarah, Noel, Lindsay, Carrie and Annie, and it’s a shame that they’re leaving, although they, of course, are all very excited about departing on their various trips to China, Italy, Spain and Ireland.

I have to get back to writing and reading and planning and despairing (only slightly), now, but remember to join me next week for my final blog of 2008.

How time really really flies. Less than a month till my exams start (uh oh!) and less than a fortnight till I'll be nipping back to Scotland for Crimbo. It will be good to have that cosy-homely-Christmassy feeling, and all that omgIamSoNotReadyForThisExam stress in between. Ah well, at least there'll be family, turkey, parties, ceilidhs, Edinburgh and Inverurie!

So now it's Tuesday, yesterday was a holiday because it was the Día De La Constitución! On Friday I asked people what the holiday was about, nobody really had much of a clue. All people are really bothered about is the fact that it means we can squeeze in another night of fiesta! So I'll start with the weekend and work backwards.

On Friday, as always I had my operating systems lab. As always, it was like... 2 days' work jam-packed into 2 hours - it's stressful! Because what we do actually counts towards our final marks, and I spend half the time being like? "Huh? What does he want us to do?" After that it was off home for a wee siesta (which I needed because I'd had a tiring week and wanted to be awake at night) and then some more studying.

Went out for "sopar" with the usual suspects, and then onwards to the discotecas. Naturally, because it was a holiday weekend, it cost 1€ more to get in. Pah. But still, you get a beastin' large drink for free, so never mind. It was a really good night though, everyone was really up for it. Got home rather late. Early. Umm, people on their way to work kinda early. This song is everywhere right now, I don't think it would be possible to go to any club in Spain without hearing it at least once. On Friday, it was 4 times.

Here's a few paaactures! (My nights-out photography skills have gone waaay downhill since first year!)

What else? So I spent Saturday (the awake part) and Sunday working away at my desk, although I had a wee wander to the shops too. Wild. But necessary.

On Sunday night I went to this bar called Infussion (yes, I know that's not how it's supposed to be spelled) which was funky! It was quite small, and a bit far out from the centre, but really well decorated in an Arabic kinda way and the cocktails were goo-hood. Cleverly, I only took a picture of the roof. Well done, Fraser. See? (Why I've uploaded this I have no idea...)

We then went to El Gato Negro for a bit (and a chupito or two), then off to a club. I got home before 5 though, so it wasn't quite so hardcore! Plus there were only 2 prostitutes to shoo out of the way on the way home.

Here's another comment about languages. Before I came here, my biggest concern was about how I'd cope with the languages, but that hasn't been a problem, I'm doing more than fine in that department. I really like Catalan and I'm enjoying living the tri-lingual life (oh yes I say!), but I can't help but find it a bit rude when there's an obviously non-Catalan lecturer (eg. South American) who asks someone a question in Spanish, and they reply in Catalan. It's like... come off it, every single person here speaks Spanish as a native language, why? It just causes unnecessary confusion for the lecturer and is a bit disrespectful in my opinion. So, so many people do it though. If I was at school, and, for example, an American asked me a question in English, I wouldn't reply in broad Scots Doric just because I could.

It's going to be a bit strange after Christmas, lots of the other Erasmus students are only here for one semester and they'll be beetling off home or onwards to their next destinations! So does that mean things will change and I'll be back at all the Erasmus nights with the bright-eyed newbies? Hmm, we'll see. I do know for sure that the people in the rooms closest to mine are all going to be replaced, so it'll be new year, new neighbours! I'm looking forward to getting a change of courses (I can't wait to get rid of Operating Systems!) and having a break after my exams to see some more España.

What else is there to tell? Umm. El Bosc De Les Fades! (The Forest Of The Faries) Another really cool bar I went to after a dinner-and-drinks-travaganza on Tuesday which is decorated like some enchanted forest, with trees and a wee waterfall and stuff. I'll put up a photo in my next entry!

I've recently realised that I want the October weather back... although it's still bright and sunny, it can be pretty airy first thing in the morning. I wouldn't bother going out to lie in the sun any more!

Random things! There are signs everywhere which say "Bones Festes" - basically Seasons Greetings, but it always conjures up images of dancing skeletons in my head. Why do they turn the Christmas lights off at like 11pm!? Why is the fine for smoking on the metro €40 if you go on without a ticket and €30.05 if you smoke? 30 euros, 5 cents?! Why is the staircase closest to Palau Reial in building A6 so smelly? Why do I hear an ominous bugle call from my PCD lectures at 7pm? Why do all my blog entries seem to include recommendations for bars? I suppose it is Bar-celona.

Bye bye

As keen readers among you may remember, in the second week of my exchange I nearly went to Bâle by mistake when I got on the wrong train from Strasburg on my way to Stuttgart. So it sort of felt like it was meant to be when we heard that the Christmas markets in Basel are some of the best around. At first there were six of us planning to go, but the time we left there were closer to twenty! Miraculously we managed to get all of us into the same hostel, which was the cleanest, friendliest, loveliest hotel I’ve ever stayed in! There was some drama at the start when I couldn’t get in touch with Max or find out where she was or when she was arriving, but as she’s already explained in her blog, she sorted herself out in the end and arrived just in time for a nap!

Basel is in north-west Switzerland and borders both France and Germany, so although it is technically in the German-speaking part of the country, people used a lot of French words in their speech and spoke with a strange mixture of the two accents. Everyone had trouble understanding what was going on, and this was a particular problem at Blindekuh, the restaurant run by a charity for the blind and visually impaired where your entire meal takes place in the dark. For a full description of what the restaurant is like, there’s a review at http://www.justhungry.com/2006/02/restaurant_blin.html or just check out Max’s blog! For me, it was a real surprise to find out just how many things get immeasurably harder when you can’t see. Obviously I expected to have difficulty in pouring myself a drink and using a knife and fork to cut food I couldn’t locate on my plate, but I didn’t realise that conversation would be so difficult when you don’t know where to turn your face as you speak or whether people are listening to what you’re saying. I also didn’t think of the difficulties of signalling to the waiter that you want something or relying on him for absolutely everything. Our waiter had to lead each of us individually to our seats and take our hands and use them to show us where our glasses and cutlery were, and we couldn’t leave the restaurant without his help. It was strange to be so utterly helpless, especially since the only means of communication left to us was speech, and we couldn’t even use that because the majority of us spoke no German. It was undoubtedly one the strangest experiences of my life, but it was also really good fun. I don’t think a meal has ever caused so much noise or hilarity before! I’m not sure how it happened, but we really seemed to be the only ones causing a scene throughout our meal. We came in in our conga line shrieking and stumbling, immediately smashed a wine glass and then squealed and giggled our way through two delicious courses of food, then half of us let go of the conga line on the way out and were stranded in the middle of a pitch dark room screaming for the rest of us to go back and get them. Needless to say, we tipped!

The main reason for the trip was to go to the Christmas markets, which we did on Saturday morning. The markets were lovely, so pretty and busy and festive – they really injected some Christmas cheer! I didn’t end up buying any Christmas presents there, but I enjoyed the atmosphere and I did get some glühwein, which was awesome! We spent quite a while at the markets and then had a look around the town, which is just so Swiss! I always think it’s a shame that thanks to globalisation, no matter where you are, especially in Europe and America, you can buy the same clothes and eat in the same restaurants, so it’s nice when places still have their own unique feel about them. I think that if someone teleported you to Basel, you’d know you were in Switzerland straight away! I found it strange that with it being so close to France (you can literally walk from Basel to France in under an hour) it was completely different. The entire culture and way of life was much more like Germany than it was like France, and it felt completely foreign. The mix between the two cultures gave Max and I the opportunity to compare the French way of life with the Austrian one, and it made for an interesting discussion!

We made the most of our time in Basel and I think we managed to see everything it had to offer, the town hall was spectacular and also quite festive as it is red, green and gold! There was a massive Christmas tree inside and also a huge book where everyone could write their Christmas wishes, which I thought was a really lovely idea. We visited the Minster and took a walk around the Erasmus trail (I had done some wiki research beforehand and discovered that Erasmus, who the exchange program is named after, was born in Basel and was the first scholar to be sponsored to do his studies in different European countries. When he died he left his fortune to Basel university, which was basically built with his money.) We also took full advantage of the amazing chocolate shops and gorged ourselves on truffles and delicious things all weekend!

Max signing the wish book at the Rathaus

When we went home on Sunday night it was such a relief to hear French again and understand everything going on around me. The last time I went to a different country from France, it left me really homesick and miserable because the country I was coming ‘home’ to was just as bewildering and unfamiliar as the one I had just left. This time though it was different and I was pleased to find that France did actually feel like coming home. It also showed me just how much my French has improved since I arrived, as I definitely didn’t feel relieved to hear people speaking French again after my trip to Germany in October!

I was exhausted when we got back, but excited to think that now there’s only one more weekend until I meet up with all my friends in Paris before we go home for Christmas! I’m so excited!

This is my final Helsinki blog for 2008. I'm going back to Edinburgh on Saturday and won't be returning until the 8th January, which feels strange seeing as I have totally become used to living in Finland now.

On Sunday, we went to a traditional Finnish sauna party organised by the ESN in Helsinki. It was in a log cottage near the sea around 30 minutes outside of Helsinki in Espoo, meaning it is actually the furthest I have been in Finland bar the couple of hours on the bus to the Russian border. Next semester I am going to endevour to actually see some of the country which has been my home for the last three and a half months.

The sauna party started off pretty relaxed as it was females only until 8pm, so us girls arrived a little bit earlier than the boys so we could have some chilling time before they imposed themselves upon us. Then it got to 8 o'clock, and wow, how things changed. In Finland, men generally go to sauna parties naked. That's right, actually naked. And as a result I certainly saw more naked men on sunday night than I have ever seen in my life! It was so embarassing, as all of the girls wear bikinis in the sauna if it is mixed, so we were all fine, and then the guys were just wandering around with everything on show. It's actually rather difficult to engage in conversation with a naked man in a sauna as you have no idea where to look, or where not to look as the case may be. So we started to panic: what if our guys came naked?? (they didn't arrive bang on 8) how would we talk to them? we couldn't talk to them! we'd never be able to be friends with them again if we saw them naked... and so on! until they finally arrived, and we realised, much to our relief that they were wearing their boxer shorts, and had apparently had a similar discussion resulting in wearing clothes for 'the girls'. It seemed that as more erasmus students arrived, the ratio of nude to clothed men became more of a 60:40 split in preference to the nakedness, rather than the 100% rate we had earlier in the night. Clearly the UK isn't the only country where wearing clothes in a MIXED sauna is the thing to do! The irony is, they had mixed changing rooms and showers too, so even if the guys did wear something in the sauna we all had to get changed together anyway.

So nudity is a big part of Finnish sauna, as is running outside and jumping straight into the freezing sea. Given we'd successfully achieved the naked part (there were way more men than girls there) we felt it would make us even more Finnish if we went straight for the cold water. This was hilarious, as it involved running out of the cottage and about 200m down a jetty right out into the sea. The jetty was covered in ice, and it was about -2'c and we were wearing bikinis (which is a little more than some people were sporting). The first time, we chickened out because you could experience the cold without actually getting wet- our bodies were steaming with all of the heat evaporating off us. The second time however, we had to do it, given that we'd already told the boys we'd been in before they arrived. And my god, it was the coldest thing I have ever experienced in my life. You jump in and your entire body prickles up and just turns to ice, then you get back out and back into the sauna as quick as possible. So we went in, and then later, guess which idiots thought it'd be clever to go back out and actually go swimming?? Yep, us! So we dutifully went back outside again to swim for about 10-20 seconds in the sea. I can't believe I refused to go swimming in the sea in October due to it being too cold when it was still about 12'c, yet in sub zero temperaures I am apparently happy to do so!

Then after we'd finally had enough of the sauna antics we sat in the cottage, drank glogi and ate Christmas food. Eventually we got the bus back to Helsinki and embarked upon our next destination: Onnella, which is a club rather like Espionage in terms of the gentelmen desperate for sex clientelle it attracts. However, they do have 1 euro drinks until 1am on a Sunday and its only 5 minutes from our accommodation. So we went to Onnella, drank copious amounts of cider in a bid to get as much as possible before 1am, and then experience males in another way. This time clothed, but they may as well not be. Thus me, and my 3 girl friends spent the night running away from various crazy guys who tried to dance/god knows whatever else with us, as the boys spent the evening moving from girl to girl to be the boyfriend who isn't impressed with this new guy. If anyone had been playing that much attention we'd have looked strange, as by the end of the night all 8 of us had been going out with all of the others!

They also played Katy Perry - I kissed a girl ... which is THE song of our Helsinki erasmus, autumn semester 2008. The guys love it, and us girls think its funny, meaning whereever we are this song is always requested (or wished for if you're German, they're so cute) and loved by everyone.

Which I guess brings me to the end in more ways than one - I've still got an exam and an essay to write before Friday. And more importantly, way too many amazing people to say goodbye to - luckily, most of my close friends is only until January. We've already started on the goodbyes as people are going home at different times. It sucks. I guess an appropriate phrase to use is "heres hoping its au revior and not goodbye" which is from a WW1 poem, but feels totally appropriate to an erasmus situation.

A few months ago, Hannah informed me that she would be descending upon Basel, Switzerland with a number of fellow British erasmus students from Dijon, which for them is a fairly cheap train journey away. I decided that it would be equally easy for me to meet them there and so booked flights to Zurich and allowed myself to become incredibly excited about the prospect of Basel Christmas markets, meeting up with Hannah and all things Swiss.

However, when Friday the 5th rolled round, I realised I should perhaps have researched this one a little better. Getting from Vienna to Zurich was fairly easy, despite sleeping in, I was at the airport in plenty of time and discovered the whole solo flying thing is now second nature to me - I even contemplated having a haircut while I waited since the hairdresser at Vienna Schwechat International Airport would be the most likely to speak English and therefore understand that I don't actually want all of my hair cut off and dyed green.

My lack of organisation only affected me when I landed in Zurich, having no idea how to get to Basel and for some reason, even though I had both Austrian and UK phones with me, no phones which would send or receive calls. Luckily for me, they speak German in Zurich and so I soon found myself on a train to Basel, hoping that I would bump into Hannah and her friends eventually.

I arrived at the Hostel and discovered that my bed had been paid for and that Hannah and her friends were in my room, napping. Interrupting their nap-time I was soon settled and caught up and we prepared ourselves for the next big adventure of the evening - der Blindekuh restaurant (the blind cow and also the german name for 'Blind Man's Bluff') where we would be eating our meal in the dark in order to experience what it is like to be blind. This was an extremely surreal experience. We arrived in the well lit lobby and the woman there explained how it would work, in German, so it was then up to me and the only other girl in the group who speaks German to translate. We left all of our things in the lockers outside (we weren't allowed to take bags or coats in, in case people tripped over them) and awaited our waiter, Patrick, to lead us to our seats in a conga-line. With a little bit of chaos we managed to find our seats and immediately smashed a wine glass to the floor. We were told not to move anything on the tables and Patrick went to get our drinks - we had to pour our own water and put our fingers in the glass to tell when it was full, we all got the hang of that one pretty quickly - the difficulty would come with the main course. I wasn't expecting the room to be as dark as it was, in a normal dark room you can generally make out shapes but there was really no difference between having your eyes open or closed. You had absolutely no sense of how much time had passed and we found moments where the conversation just stopped because no one could play off of each other's facial expressions or body language - we couldn't tell whose turn it was to speak.

Eating wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be but then because no one could see you, we did resort to eating steak with our fingers and poking around on our plates to see if there was any food left. The first thing I did upon receiving my plate was to send brocolli flying across the room. Pudding was easier and by that time we had the hang of it. It's really strange how much detail your mind fills in when you can't see - we all imagined what colour the chairs, napkins and place mats were, how big the room was and whereabouts we were seated within it - the strangest thing is that we all tended to guess the same things, we were all sure the chairs were red, for example.

Leaving seemed to be the most difficult part - Patrick came to collect us and guided us each from our chairs but the three on the other side of the table caught on to the end of the line and walked around the table when the waiter had wanted to go and collect them - he was rather confused as to where they had gone, which was both funny and a bit of a shame. On our way out, our conga-line ended up getting separated and three of our party was left stranded in the middle of the restaurant making a rather loud fuss and the waiter had to go back to find them. The whole experience was really strange but it also made you appreciate how difficult it must be for blind people and just how much people are capable of doing without sight - cleaning up the glass from the broken wine-glass and the dozens of other plates and glasses we heard smash while there, for example.

The rest of the weekend was spent at the Christmas market and discovering Basel. Apparantly Erasmus himself was from Basel and we went on an Erasmus walk which sent us around the main buildings - my favourite was the Rathaus which was bright red and ornately decorated with a massive Christmas tree and Christmas wish book in the middle. We also visited the Puppenhaus Museum (doll's house) which was really good and full of bears and toys from all over Europe. The weekend was really lovely - it was great to see Hannah again and I'm always so happy to know that we can just pick up exactly where we left off with absolutely no effort whatsoever, as though we haven't just spent weeks apart.

The way home was slightly more problematic, misjudging my timing slightly I nearly missed my flight home and ended up racing through the airport as they announced the final boarding call (I believe it may have been karma for laughing at the hundreds of people doing just that in Vienna airport) I had also left my keys with Ellis so that she could use my room while her sister stayed in her's and not having a working phone meant I was locked out of my building. Luckily I found a girl from my corridor in the cafe downstairs and she let me in. I then discovered the lengths to which Ellis had gone to reach me so she could give me my keys, including msning my brother in Wales from my computer to find Hannah's number to reach me, but I got home eventually, even beating Hannah home by about 20 minutes.

Yesterday was a bit of a loss, it was a public holiday here anyway so classes were cancelled and shops were all closed. Ellis and I spent the day watching harry potter and catching up before going out for dinner and to the cinema to watch Madagascar 2 (in English because dubbed films just aren't the same!). Today I really need to do the homework I neglected yesterday, but my only lecture today was also cancelled.

It's now only 10 days before term finishes and I head to Paris on the way home, which I'm really looking forward to! Before then I have to register as proper Viennese resident who is staying for longer than 3 months but I plan to recruit Sarah to go with me because she still has to do it as well and I've heard it involves an hour and half wait. Luckily I have no more exams until the end of January so the time before the holidays is all about winding down and I have to say I'm really enjoying it!

Actually it’s the weekend, I’m fed up of having to wait until Monday to post a blog about what happened over a week ago so I’m writing one for the weekend and then will stat writing from Monday to Monday.

I wish I could stop pressing ‘q’ instead of ‘a’ and stop holding down shift when I want to use a full stop. I guess it’s because I’m using the lab computers so much which obviously have French keypads so I apologise for any typos, it’s because I’m confused…

The 29th my boyfriend and I went to Paris, it’s only an hour away but you have to take the TGV so it’s quite expensive, for me it was €48.00 return for me because I have a rail card but for Adam it was €66.00 but it’s so worth it, we had to get up at seven which was not fun after being out late the night before but as I said well worth it.

We went to ‘La Gare du Nord’ but immediately jumped on the metro to Notre Dame de Paris, Adam has never been before so I tried hard to remember the stop that brings you up in the middle of the flower market (Cité) because it feels very Parisian. We only had a look around inside and then went down into the Crypts which are out on the square in front, we wanted to climb the tower but it was busy so instead we stopped for lunch- sitting outside- and then headed to the Eiffel Tower.

A must I think, not only because I live in bat. Gustav Eiffel, but the view is amazing and the sun came out as we reached the top which was perfect. You can only climb to the second floor, you have to take the lift to the top which is a very long way… We planned to stop for a drink but we just got too carried away and walked to Trocadero (good view), then to L’Arc de Triomphe built after the battle of Austerlitz and commissioned by Napoleon it was based on the Arch of Titus in Rome, it is now a memorial to the unknown soldier immortalising all those that died on the battle field but were never found.

You get a good view down the Champs-Elysées from the top of the Arch and I can ever get bored of watching the cars circle l’étoile desperately trying to get off the roundabout and failing. It’s a death trap I swear and when we were there a police officer was standing in the middle directing traffic! I can only assume he has really good insurance…

We proceeded to walk the length of the Champs-Elysées all the way to the Louvre- a nice walk if you have a lot of time because the shops are distracting, of course we had a look in Cartier (well through the window actually the security guard looked like he wouldn’t let mere mortals through the door), and the Ferrari shop… There is a Christmas market lading down to La Place Concorde, it was rather impressive with stalls from all over Europe.

It was getting late by this point so we headed to Les Halles quarter to find a restaurant, I found a Macaron shop, La Duree is apparently the best but we found ‘Pierre Herme’ just off the main road so I couldn’t resist temptation…

We found a Belgian restaurant to get Moules Frites and manged to get on the metro at l’Opéra and make our train in perfect time… We were exhausted by the time we got back but didn’t care, it was a great day.

Sunday was leisurely, it had to be after the craziness of Paris but we celebrated St. Andrew’s day with a Scotch broth and a vegetarian version of Haggis… Sarah and Rob came over and we wiled away the evening chatting and relaxing, I think we watched a film, oh yeah, we watched Aladdin, Adam had to bring it over specially because everyone loves it!

Anyway, I guess I’ve rambled a lot for one weekend; I’m going to have to write this week’s one soon, it’s gone so quick again, well in some ways at least. Seven weeks isn’t that long but I feel like I’ve been here for ever! Not necessarily a bad thing, I feel like I’m living the life of Riley at the minute (and no I don’t know what the even means), we’re having a Champagne party on the 5th and then Christmas shopping (yay) on the 6th… The week after we’re going x-mas shopping in Paris! I feel so spoiled!

As we are now officially in December I think its ok for me to start talking about all things Christmas.  Yesterday we celebrated Sinterklaas (the birthday of Saint Nicholas, patron saint of children) with our friends from Belgium complete with secret Santa (or not so secret).  It was also one of the last times we’ll all be together as a group as three of our friends are returning home over the holidays and will start back at their normal universities in January.  It’ll be sad to see them go but at the same time I am so excited to finish this semester as it has been pretty lengthy and rather excessive on the work side of things.  In my procrastination I calculated that in the 13 weeks of class I had 24 deadlines (some more significant that others!) all followed nicely by 3 weeks of exams.  I think it’s fair to say this is all rather a lot more than the Edinburgh terms I’m used to and so 3 weeks of holidays are definitely something to look forward to. 

While the UBC campus seems to have failed in embracing the festive cheer Vancouver is now a city full of lights and Christmas trees.  Stanley park, which is a usually a vast area of trees and tranquillity, has suddenly produced a massive display area of all things Santa and Rudolf.  With the exception of maybe Scrooge and the Grinch I don’t think there’s a single person that can walk around all the Christmas decorations and lights without a smile on their face.  One of the downtown hotels now hosts the largest gingerbread house I’ve ever seen and all the shops are overflowing with Christmas songs, presents and unfortunately shoppers! 

Over the weekend in my attempt to be organised from afar I completed all the present shopping that needs to be posted to the UK and managed to buy a few gifts to myself! My snowboard is now all set to go with new boots and bindings and as Whistler is now open to the masses I’m hoping to get out on the snow soon (although apparently there really isn’t that much compared to usual standards!) Slightly inconvenient all this falling in the middle of exams but seeing as I’ll be there for two weeks over the holidays with my friends from Edinburgh I can’t really complain.  Just one more essay and one more exam to go!!!!

I think the most original final I’ve done so far was singing in the Choral Union concert last weekend.  As the course is purely graded on attendance being at the concert equates to being in an exam.  The UBC music department is really fortunate to have a fantastic concert hall on campus which is often used by the professional orchestras in Vancouver.  The Chan Centre rather looks like a pile of concrete from the outside (i.e. not so attractive) but from the inside it’s spectacular.  Sitting the choir stalls performing the Brahms requiem in front of 1000 people made the hours of rehearsals worth every minute. 

Today I have spent vast quantities of time correcting my own silly mistakes; apparently Canada Post charge more to send mini Christmas cards than normal sized ones which meant I spent a good half hour readdressing new envelopes which now contain teeny tiny cards.  I also ended up on a trip to the airport in order to persuade US customs that I did actually leave the States a fair few months ago (despite having failed to hand in my visa waiver card) and that I’m not still there.  Hopefully I was convincing and they won’t be utterly confused when I turn up at the border on my way down to Oregon next Thursday! Fingers crossed, and maybe toes too….

A week ago, I awoke after partying, hurriedly handed in an essay, took a train to Philadelphia, and then, finally, boarded an Amtrak to Greensburgh (just outside of Pittsburgh, PA) in order to spend Thanksgiving with some of my extended family. I was staying with my Aunt Carla’s sister Dilly and Dilly’s husband Don, but Carla, my uncle Kurt and my cousins Julie and Leah were also there, as were many other family members and friends.

Dilly and Don’s house is amazing. Located in the town of Irwin, it belonged to Colonel Irwin (after whom the town is named), and I got to sleep in his old, supposedly haunted, bedroom. Despite being over two hundred years old, it’s in fantastic shape, especially since Don and Dilly have lovingly restored it so that it is a beautiful version of an eighteenth-century American house. I had actually been to this house once before, although I don’t remember it – this was where, at two years old, I learned how to climb stairs by hauling myself up the impressive staircase.

Thanksgiving dinner was preceded by hors d’oeuvres – figs wrapped in pancetta, and baked pita bread with goats’ cheese, fennel, anchovies and dill. I had to be careful not to eat too much as the vast amounts of food being prepared around me told me just how big Thanksgiving dinner would be.

At last, after much conversation and consumption, dinner was called. This was the big moment – and I, as a relative newcomer to this feast (I had actually had my first Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday, fantastically cooked by the excellent people in Apartment 10), was not disappointed. The dining-room table was soon piled with dishes of mashed potato, baked apple sauce, stuffing, sweet potatoes, corn pudding, corn bread, bread rolls, mashed swede (called ‘rutabaga’ here), and, of course, the turkey. As plates were passed and helpings piled up, I truly was thankful. Aside from enjoying any holiday that is centred around food and eating, it is nice that there is a day when people give thanks for their family, friends and loved-ones, as well as for many other things. When back in Edinburgh next year, I aim on cooking my own Thanksgiving feast.

After dinner came desert. Pumpkin pie, berry pie, apple pie, ice cream, I didn’t think that I could eat anything after gorging myself on dinner, but I valiantly tried. The fourteen of us around the table sat there, unable to move except to do dishes, and the conversation was lively and interesting. Having never met half of the people there, I had been worried that I, as the outside, would not fit in, but everyone made me very welcome.

Throughout the day, I had been receiving texts from my friends at other Thanksgiving dinners across America. My friends were split between those who went home and those who went to others homes, and it seems that many American families had agreed to take in their children’s friends this holiday.

After all of that food, I wasn’t hungry until dinner the next day (I wasn’t even really hungry then, but Dilly is a fabulous cook and I didn’t want to miss out on her delicious putanesca sauce).

So, thank you to all those who have taken me in during my first semester here. There are only two weeks left, and I am already spending very little time in my room due to the horrendous number of essay deadlines that are fast approaching.

Saturday (22nd Nov.) we were all up at seven; not a time I like very much on a Saturday but we had to be at the station by nine so we (Rachel, Andrew, Sarah and I) were all up and ready- of course we got to the metro when Rachel realised she didn’t have her 12-25 card so we had to run back but we still made the train. It was only about an hour and a half before we were there; the walk to town wasn’t far and was a bit like going back in time. Old houses lined the streets, the paths were narrow and icy and to finish the picture horse and traps kept passing us.

To finish the picture it started snowing! Then raining… we hid in a café to warm up but eventually we had to find the town centre where Rachel wanted to re-enact the filn ‘In Bruges’, I’ve never seen it but I know all about it, even that Fleur DeLacoeur is in it… Rachel pointed out houses along the canals that looked like hotels in the film and we stopped to have ‘frites’- a must in Belgium. We climbed the ‘belfroi’ in the centre of town, the square is flanked by restaurants and chocolate shops and the Christmas market was being set up in the centre. The tower was high and the stairs most definitely would not pass British health and safety conditions- it was just robdonkulous!

We went up anyway even though it was very windy and freezing cold at the top- it was like paying to torture yourself! We came down quickly and stayed firmly at floor level, I didn’t buy any chocolate but I did buy a tea cosy- I know no need for the English jokes- and some Christmas tea.
We had a good day but the hail and snow got a bit much by the end and we were glad to come home to a warm cup of tea and dry clothes. Sunday in Lille it snowed all day and it continued on and off for the rest of the week, I knew Lille was cold but it’s snowing, next time I get to go away somewhere remind me to pick somewhere warm.

I willed the week away this week as my boyfriend arrived on Wednesday, his course is winding down in Edinburgh, and I’m only half way through! Although I don’t mind any more, labs are enough to keep my busy, overly so in fact as I’m struggling to do my assignments, I try to do them well but I’ve always got so much on and the labs are so cold that I really can’t concentrate.

I’m beginning to think that we won’t be getting the internet back ‘chez nous’ which is disappointing but I don’t mind, we’re (Rachel, Andy and I) always together in the evenings anyway and although Facebook is being completely ignored by me it really doesn’t bother me.

Anyway I felt bad being in labs all day and leaving my boyfriend (Adam) in my room but he had stuff to do too for Uni and I couldn’t really miss any time, I have loads of experiments going on and loads more to do before the holidays… Three weeks away and I have too much to do…

To make up for leaving him alone we went out on the Friday night to a restaurant Andrew and Rachel knew, Rachel’s brother was visiting so he came too and Sarah and Rob, it was very British. We did manage to take a peek at the disappointing Christmas Market and realise that Lille is overrun with English speakers at the moment and I finally made it to the Citadel and walked around the wall, it was nearly dark at the time and fairly eerie- I’m glad I wasn’t alone.

Anyway, I know I’m posting this late but it can’t be helped, I think I will write from Monday to Monday now instead so next post will be about this weekend- St. Andrew’s day and our trip to Paris.

Until next time…

First, I must apologise for not posting last week. In my defence, I was in Pittsburgh for Thanksgiving, and was busy eating, drinking and being generally merry.

This week, I’m covering American drinking culture. Drinking, as all British students know (even if they do not themselves partake), is a large part of university life. Whether or not you subscribe to the stereotype of the binge-drinking student missing lectures due to hangovers and rampaging drunkenly through town centres, being a student means that you will, probably, do at least one of those aforementioned things.

Being a student at an American college is no different. The legal drinking age is twenty-one, but as countless films, TV shows and books have shown us, drinking is endemic in American student life. Maybe it’s the illegality (although I am twenty-one) that makes drinking here more exciting – the prospect of running from the police has provided an added thrill on at least one occasion. But I think that it’s the drinking games.

Drinking games are a staple of American student drinking. As most college students can’t go out to a bar or a club to drink, due to being under-age (and fake IDs being expensive, hard to obtain, and illegal), the majority of drinking takes place when pre-gaming (drinking before going out to parties) or at house parties.

Pre-gaming begins an hour or two before leaving for the actual party, and is often done with liquor rather than beer. This is because pre-gaming is designed to get you drunk, as the sheer numbers of people at parties means that it is often either difficult to get to the alcohol provided or there is no alcohol left when you arrive. So the pre-gaming becomes like a small (or not so small) party. And, as when you were between the ages of five and fifteen, no party is complete without games. The two most common games are:

1) Beer Pong.
The staple game, and one almost everyone here seems to inherently know how to play. Two teams of two people stand at opposite ends of a table and alternately attempt to throw ping-pong balls into the other teams triangle of beer-filled cups. When a ball goes into a cup, the team whose cup that is must drink the beer. In order to prevent everything getting too beery, the ball is washed after successful throws. One “re-rack” can occur per game – this is when the remaining cups can be arranged into any shape wanted. The winner is the team who first eliminates all of their opponents’ cups.

Midway through beer pong.

2) Kings/Kings Cup/Ring of Fire
A cup is placed in the centre of a ring of facedown cards. Each card has an action/consequence attached to it; these vary vastly depending on where and when you first learned how to play – to explain these variations would be impossible. The one commonality is that for the first three times a King is picked up, the player who picked it must empty some of their drink into the central cup, and whoever picks the fourth King must drink the mixture. The players take turns in picking up a card and doing whatever is required of them. There is no winner, and the game only ends when all of the cards have been played.

There are many other games, such as Power-Hour, Up-And-Down the River (thanks to Pat and London for teaching me these) and flipcup, but beer pong and Kings are the two most often played, as they are known by all and require little preparation.

Have fun!

This time in two weeks I'll be in Edinburgh for Christmas, which means this time next week we will be in the final week. Now it is December it's really started to hit everyone, as about 50% of people are not coming back to Helsinki in January. This means some of my best friends are going back to their home university and it really sucks. It feels like we've only just started to get really close and understand each other, given all of the language/cultural difficulties at the start of term. Now it's great and I can mess around with my friends here in the same way I have jokey relationships with my friends at home, which revolve around declaring our love for each other whilst being incredibly sarcastic about everything. But in 10 days all of that will be over.

It has been an interesting three months, and I've loved it. There have been a few instances where I've really wanted to be back in Edinburgh, or even, just to go home for the weekend but overall, I've been happy here. I really wish I could go back this weekend as my EGP group are having a reunion as it's the 4th years graduation, and I won't be there for it because I can't get out of Helsinki until the following week. That's the most annoying thing about being on exchange I think, that even though you're having a great time being away, you know that you're missing out on certain things at home which you'd love to be there for but can't due to distance/cost/time. I was contemplating only coming to Helsinki for one semester but now I am here, I would have hated to be doing so. When we arrived in August, December seemed so far away but it has come around so soon and I couldn't imagine leaving my life here when I've only just begun to feel at home and comfortable here. But instead, others are the ones leaving me. And those of us in the group who are staying next semester. It will be so strange coming back and having certain rooms with different people calling it 'their' room, and certain people who are ALWAYS part of your friendship group gone. Those of us who are staying - which is probably all but one or two of my group best friends of about ten people, but a lot of my friend-friends (if that makes sense!) - will really feel the fact that the others aren't here.

My friends here are amazing. I feel like I've talked about them a lot in passing, but not really specifically about the group. We're a very international group by Helsinki standards as many of the erasmus students seem to have their best friends from their own country. Thus, the French come as a collective group, as do the Spanish, the Germans and the Swiss. I suppose its hard for the German speakers because about 50% of the erasmus population here is from Germany, and then there are more from Austria and German speaking Switzerland. But anyway, a lot of people have stuck together with people from their own language. Our group on the other hand contains an array of nationalities and languages: German (Austrian and German), English (UK and Australian), Italian, French, Russian and Turkish. I love this as it means you are constantly learning things about different cultures and places, and the non-native English speakers love it because they are friends with the native English speakers so they're accent/vocabulary/everything improves much more than if they were speaking French the entire time. As the collective French group do! Although this isn't the reason we're all friends though (I hope) as it just ended up this way and I love them.

We've got some crazy German ladies who spend their entire time drunk and smoking... they have ackquired the nack of sarcasm wonderfully which makes them even more fantastic. They come with an equally drunk Austrian girlie. Then we've got our Italians with a fear of anything edible which isn't made in Italy - 2 guys who are hilarious with their Italian mannerisms converted into English, one of whom is dating the Russian, and a girl from Rome who is also hilarious. The French comes next, she is a medic, and just damn cool. Plus the Turks who get way too much erasmus grant at 600 euros per month, but are great dancers so I'll let them off! And then we've got our token Aussie who speaks 3 languages fluently, plus possibly the most typical drunken English guy ever who plays with the fire extinguisher whilst drunk, thereby setting the fire alarm off. Finally, clearly the coolest people in the group are me and the others from Scotland. Edinburgh in particular.

I feel like we have such an erasmus style friendship group in that respect, and god knows how I met these people, but I did and its been a really fun three months. All we've got to do now is meet all of the deadlines, and then we can have a final few days of fun before everyone heads home. At least the ones who aren't coming back to study have already booked flights to come and see us in Febuary. We're going to Lapland!

As predicted, the past week has been pretty uneventful. Tomorrow evening I have my german language exam but apart from that everything is just the same as usual.

On Saturday I went shopping with a couple of friends for a New Year's outfit and I bought an amazing dress - I'm so excited about it! Afterwards we decided to head to Schoenbrunn to investigate the Christmas market there. There are Christmas markets spread throughout Vienna, some are really massive ones whereas others are just a few stalls set up in a square, I've visited three of the main ones so far and they each have their own unique atmosphere which I love! The biggest market at the Rathaus is generally very busy and has a fun, festive atmosphere - its carnival quality is helped along by the sideshows aimed very much at young children - pony rides, a lit up Santa's grotto and tacky decorations. The stalls also tend to sell cheaper, more modern gifts than the other markets and there are plenty of light-up santa hats to keep us amused!

I've also briefly visited the market in the Museum quarter - nestled between the Natural History and the History of Art Museums, this one has a really quaint, old-fashioned, wholesome charm. It represents everything Christmas is supposed to be, the type of Christmas everyone has in their heads but is very rarely realised. I have to say it has been my favourite so far - even though the one at Schoenbrunn also has a traditional Christmas feel to it, I can't escape the fact that it's very much out of my price range!

Despite that, Schoenbrunn is an amazing setting for a Christmas Market, the stalls are set up at the front of the palace with a massive Christmas tree and a stage for choirs singing English Carols. The stalls all sell amazing, very expensive ornaments and toys which are nice to look at even if I'd never be able to afford them! It also does the most amazing hot chocolate - made with real melted chocolate. I have quite a collection of Gluehwein mugs now! I have to say though that Baileys-punsch is really disgusting - despite our best efforts to drink it all, having paid over 5 euros for it! This particular Christmas market is also totally over-run by tourists, since it is at one of the main tourist sights of Vienna. The other Christmas markets do seem to attract more locals, which is good.

This weekend I'm heading to Basel to meet up with Hannah - to visit the Christmas market there and try out our first blind restaurant - der Blindekuh, where we will be attempting to eat our meal in a pitch-black room. I'll let you know how that one goes!