I mean business

This post will be a bit of a shocker. It is neither about blogging or the EU. Well it is kinda now. Sorry.

ANYWAY, it's back to work here in Cardiff. We just had a session on what we're meant to do this semester and it seems pretty intense. On friday we're meant to pitch our idea for our own magazine. Mine is, as you might have deduced if you've seen it on facebook, an Erasmus magazine.

The idea is that it's a magazine for all those UK-based people thinking about going on Eramus. So not for example a magazine for all the people on Erasmus at a particular university. So it'll be a rather a lot to cover in terms of people, universities and cities but I envision it to be like an enteraining travel magazine except more in-depth (travellers obviously don't need a "how to" section on red tape in different countries etc.)

If you haven't filled out the survey yet and have been on Erasmus, now is your last chance!

On a slightly related note, I'm now off to see Helen. I met her in Helsinki where she is on Erasmus (her tutor is my friend Reeta) but she's actually from Wales. Funny how things go, we completely crossed our ways there. She's in Cardiff today as she's still on Christmas break but will go back to Finlandia on Sunday.

I think I might interview her for my magazine...

That's what I'm like these days by the way, I make use of all of my friends all the time for my coursework and interviews. And I carry around a notepad to take down notes. As visible from my quote blog.

15 minutes of fame

Yesterday it happened. The Euro-blogging community discovered me. Big time.

I was mentioned in one major EU blog, they dedicated an entire blog post to my arrival in the scene. Then others started noticing and I was all over twitter.

I now know some EU-professionals and even EU professors reading my blog. They commented on how interesting and funny it was.

One girl said, and I quote, that I'm fabulous.

This makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside because I love my EU blog. And the fact they think I know about stuff but tell it in an amusing way is the best.

Blogging, gotta love it.

Something to cheer you up

If you're ever in a bad mood, watch this



Riikka, the girl in the video, was trying to tell a story on how she could hear her father snoring despite having earplugs. Half way through she realized how unfunny the story was but couldn't stop laughing. Jenna and Minna then suggest she should have made up stuff to spice up the story like adding a fart joke or something.

Enjoy!

Failure avoided, success?

I managed to cook everything. I even liked some of them, boys claim they loved all of them. So I am happy with my attempt at international cooking.

On Thursday we had the Nepalese dumplings and Micronesian chicken. The dumplings were my absolute favourite though they took a while to make, Damien's ricecooker also doubled as a steamer but could only fit in three or four dumplings at a time.

Being a complete novice with beers I chose Brains beer to marinade the chicken in (as the recipe only said beer). I thought an ale would be best because we don't need the fizzyness and thought I'd support local beer. I didn't think how well it would go with lemon.

I mean Ole, Chris, Mark and Damien liked it but I thought it was horrible. So either they were being nice (which would be a first) or they just have a different taste palette.


What I did like but thought I wouldn't, was the Macedonian (or FYROM as Chris and I argued over the name - still not convinced it's worthwhile to fight over a name) soup. I had my doubts over boiling the eggs and the soup mainly consisting of water, flour and paprika. But it was delicious. More so than the picture leads on at least.


The Irish dish, beef in Guinness was something your grandparents would make. Real sturdy, that's the only way I can describe it. Again, not really my favourite but I think once again cooking it in beer just wasn't my thing.

Next week will be rather African. I have Tunisia, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Maldives. I'll be making desserts this time. Fingers crossed everyone!

Aside from cooking my life currently consists of articles and thinking about revision. Actual revision will start on Monday. So cooking is the only legitimate form of procrastination I can justify.

Menu

Right, I decided I wasn't going to wait for people to suggest me themes. Instead I picked a random country, thanks to the spin the globe website I picked a country and then googled their food and recipes and I got my menu. It's my turn to cook on Thursday and Friday and the menu is as follows:

Thursday
Nepalese momos (meat dumplings)
Micronesian chicken

Friday
Macedonian chorbur soup
Irish beef in Guinness

So I'm doing a starter and a main course. I have no idea how this will turn out but if I manage to make them and they're edible, I will do this every week.

Food

Back in Cardiff the food supply is low. All I have in my fridge is lactose-free milk. In my cupboard I have remnants of ingredients, none of which constitute a meal.

So we have been eating out a lot. Yet I find it funny how I always go for similar dishes. I would love to try something new but I just know my palette perhaps too well and stick to the familiar dishes. I love pesto, I love cheese, I love beef.

Every time when I'm hungry, I start watching cooking shows. In the past three days I have watched the entire sixth season of Top Chef. This has, as it always does, inspired me to cook so I browse online for all these new recipes.

But there is a problem. I'm not a good cook. I can cook, for sure. But I'm not experienced. I'm scared of cooking meat. And particularly here in Cardiff I don't want to be too experimental as I'm also cooking for other people.

So instead of cooking new exciting things the same thing happens as it does in restaurants, I just stick to the same old stuff.

The favourite thing I ever cooked was for an article, I made Welsh and New Zealand lamb dishes. It was miles off my comfort zone yet I cooked all day and actually enjoyed it. I think other people did as well.

This leads me to conclude that somebody should just tell me what to cook, give me a theme or something and then I would cook it. So I'm going to make this my challenge for this month. Every week I cook one dish according to a theme that other people tell me to took.

I'm not turning this into a cooking blog (heaven forbid!) but just challenging myself and blogging about it. So, fire away, what should I cook?

Lohja's nightlife

Now I'm not a big fan of going out in Lohja. The Finnish anti-social mentality is very obvious in bars. You only approach people you know. In Lohja that is practically everyone; so most people actually have a blast meeting their old friends. This is why everyone goes out on Christmas Day. But I don't know anyone outside my circle of friends. I did my high school in Helsinki and then went to uni to another country. So I didn't really had the chance to stay in touch with a lot of people.

Aside from this, going out in Lohja is a bit of a sham because the places here are complete dives. You pay sometimes up to 8 euros to enter what elsewhere in the world would be where the drunks and homeless people hang out.

But yesterday, I had a blast. I expected nothing, knowing from experience it would most likely suck. We had some friends over at our place and then continued to a new club that just opened in Lohja, Prime. We even had one of our friends, Laura (the one who's just turned 18 and loves to drive) being the designated driver because it was snowing and freezing cold outside.

We queued to get in to Prime, met some funny people already in the queue. Nothing like bonding over bashing the bouncer.

And then inside it was fantastic. It was a real club. Far from being the swankiest I've ever seen but for Lohja's standards it was amazing. It was really new so didn't smell of vomit either, always a plus.

They played regular club music and had a decent enough dance floor. And I even met Annukka who I met in Newcastle in 2005, the only Lohja person I've met on my time abroad.

So I just really hope people keep going to Prime because I want the only decent place in town to remain open until the next time I'm in Finland.

On Christmas

Perhaps not in the proper holiday spirit but I'm all about keeping it real so here's:

Top 4 reasons why I dislike Christmas

1. Obsessing over cleaning. Now I don't enjoy cleaning anyway but particularly over Christmas my sister gets obsessed about it. In what I consider to be a perfectly clean and tidy house, she feels the urge to clean. Fine if she would do it herself but noooo, she expects everyone to participate.
2. Too much food. I don't get it why we need to stuff ourselves on Christmas. My family buys food like there would be eight of us eating when there's only three, possibly four. I go to the shop with them and tell them to stop buying stuff but then they get angry at me for spoiling their fun.
3. Complicated family relations. People not getting along, awkward new family relations, who should go where. It's complicated enough as it is without the whole holiday-who-visits-who-at-what-time hassle.
   
4. Presents. Now I bought mine over the autumn, when I saw something I knew someone would like, I bought it. So by the time I was going home, I had everyone's presents all wrapped up and everything. Then I come here and all people talk about is how they haven't bought any yet, how they don't know what to buy and the ones they bought they feel aren't sufficient.

None of this is making me feel particularly festive. In fact, I think next year it'll be me alone on a tropical island.

Here I am!

I'd completely forgotten that I hadn't updated this space since my arrival, which by the way went rather smoothly.

So here I am, in Lohja. It's cold and snowy, just how I like it. The darkness is getting to me though. I sleep like a hibernating bear.

All is going rather smoothly. Riikka is recovering from her toncils operation so we keep her company. Meaning we go to her place and make fun of the fact she can't speak. We're not nice people.

Hope you all have a lovely Christmas and I'll get back to you at some point. Probably before next year but who knows.

Home is where my luggage is

Tomorrow Finland is once again calling me. At 10.45am I will start my journey towards Lohja and if all goes according to plans, I will be back home around 1am (GTM +2).

Why does it take me 12 hours to get from Cardiff to Lohja you may ask. It's because I'm taking a bus to Heathrow. These buses are notorious for breaking down so I'm leaving myself around four hours extra to make it to the airport. But even if that were to happen, Heathrow is not my favourite airport and I'm sure my flight will be delayed even though I'm flying with British Airways. In addition to this, I don't know whether the whole luggage-handling strike has been sorted out in Helsinki so might well be that it will take me longer.

I just needed to write down all the things I can think of that can go wrong, just because I like saying "I told you so."

In the meanwhile, things here in Cardiff are good. I managed to finish everything in time so I'm now up to date with my school deadlines. Even got a brilliant idea for a magazine I could pitch next term. I might ask your opinion on in Facebook sometime over the holidays so I would love it if you could contribute.

I've also got my luggage full of presents. So much so that I had to literally stuff the few clothes I'm taking and I'm not sure how am I going to fit my toiletries and make-up with me as well. Damn stupid liquid rules for carry-on luggage!

This time around going on holidays is a bit different. I've got no goodbyes to say to anyone, we'll all be back in a few weeks time. And I'm also only going for a few weeks instead of the month I'm usually away.

Going back is extra fun this time as I get to see all my Lohja-peeps: Minna, Jenna, Riikka, Anne and Laura. Laura has turned 18, Anne will come back from her Erasmus, Riikka from Sweden and Jenna has graduated. It's all pretty momentous. We've already planned a big pile-up.

In case I don't find the time to update this space, I wish you all a merry Christmas and see you next year! I'll be coming back to Cardiff on the 29th, assuming the BA strike doesn't affect my flights...