Feeling Hot! Hot! Hot!

So it is Monday after my second weekend here in Finland. It was a great weekend and here is what I have been up to:

1) Went to the library. I love libraries. The Suonenjoki library is great for such a small town. It is clean and has a very modern feel. One of the advantages to a Finnish library is that it has a limited selection of english books, and you are probably thinking "huh?", but because of this, the english books are all significant works of literature, that I should probably read anyway. So it really helps me narrow down what to read, whereas in an english library, the choices are endless. So I hope to read a lot this summer, if life doesn't get in the way. I also borrowed a french book and two other books entitled, "Finnish for foreigners1&2", it will be my new summer project: to learn finnish!

2) Sauna for the first time! It was Hot, hot, hot! But quite relaxing. I have to be careful next time though because midway through I noticed my glasses and hair clip were heating up very much and burning my face. But the best feeling of all is stepping out into the cool crisp air. It is just very refreshing. And surprisingly, the naked issue, well...is not an issue at all! I have never felt that way before, but you just don't think about it I guess. The hope is that you talk about more meaningful things and just don't realize you are naked, which was the case for me:).

3) We also did some home cooking this weekend: Finnish summer soup and apple cake. It was surprisingly traditional and surprisingly simple and most importantly, surprisingly delicious. And people here are quite clever, when buying herbs, they are always sure to sell it to you with the roots and a plastic pot, so you can then grow it yourself afterwards. I don't recall seeing this very often in Canadian grocery stores. Anyway, so besides a good, hearty meal, two new plants (a chive plant and a lettuce plant) have also been introduced into our home.

4) There is more for me to do in the lab now also which is a great relief. I am now amplifying the samples which takes about two days. The people in the lab are extremely, extremely nice and though it is frustrating sometimes because of the language difficulties, they are very well-natured and try hard to include me in everything they do. I am used to just tuning out when they start talking Finnish- before, I used to pretend that I was interested, but I have realized that that is just a very phoney thing to do, since everyone knows I do not have a clue!

5) Went to a horse show. It was a little disappointing because I thought it would be a little more formal, a little bigger than it actually was. But it was nice to see families out enjoying themselves with local events.

6) Had a BBQ! Though this was last week, it is definitely worth mentioning because I had too good of a time for it to go undocumented. We started a fire in the woods (in a designated area of course) and roasted some good Finnish sausages. It was delicious. Annukka and Susanna are great housemates, we do everything together! They are always keen to stay active like me and we just get along very well. How lucky I am to have them with me. We then followed up on the meal with toasted marshmellows...yummmm...

All in all, Finland is treating me well. I hope to do some more outdoor activities since the weather is beautiful here...most of the time. On Saturday, I was caught in the middle of a hail storm and got home very very wet and very very cold. I am told by locals to expect ice with the rain and even some snow this month! Funny that I left Canada when it was finally getting warm to come to a place that is colder - A very counterintuitive summer move!