Last week I posted about my impending grad school career and strangely a lot has changed between then and now.

I received acceptance letters from not only Emerson but also DePaul University and American University, who has offered me a full scholarship.

This has put me in a bit of a bind unfortunately. Emerson was always my number one choice, but it was definitely my ‘reach’ school (along with American for that matter). They have the exact program I want and it is in Boston, which is where I ultimately wanted to live for at least the next two years. But now that American has offered me a ton of money I feel compelled to at least see what they have to offer.

So, within the next few weeks I am off to get the sales pitch from both schools and hopefully upon my return I will know what I am doing with my life next year.

I suppose I shouldn’t be complaining, because ultimately this is what I wanted all along.

The big boss has been in town this week, so it is a lot of running around and staffing special events. This generally has been leading to long hours and general brain exhaustion from talking to a million people.

Beyond the fact that I am exhausted when I get home, I have been meeting amazing people, left and right.

With graduation quickly approaching like a speeding train, I feel like I need to make as many contacts as humanly possible.

Schedule for the week: Today-Women’s Leadership Luncheon and then a reception with Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (awesome)

Tomorrow-Congressional Art Competition

Let the schmoozing begin!

I have always had a soft spot in my heart for small, underrepresented European countries (which makes sense, seeing as how I spent 4 months in Finland)

I especially love when people from said underrepresented countries find themselves thrust into the international spotlight. There is no better example of this than my most favorite Blazer of all time (along with Clyde of course) Arvydas Sabonis.

This giant, white, Lithuanian man with a funny shaped head was a strangely integral part of my childhood.

While Sabonis played a number of good years with the Blazers, it was his unsung achievements overseas that really demonstrated this Lithuanian ogre’s athletic prowess. Come on, can Brandon Roy proudly say that he was crowned Mr. Europa, two times running?! (no disrespect, I am an avid watcher of The Brandon Roy Show)

Finally, this year America took note of the amazing man, with the unmistakable haircut, that is Arvydas Sabonis, by inducting him into the hall of fame.

I couldn’t be more proud.

Breakfast is easily my favorite meal of the day and over the course of the past week I have been eating my favorite breakfast-type foods much more frequently than usual.

While my sudden uptake in scrambled eggs could usuall be attributed to a whole slew of environmental factors, this week it is Passover. While most Jews in America use this week to stuff their bellies full of cardboard-like matzo in all its ‘tasty’ forms, I use it as an excuse to eat eggs multiple times a day.

One of my favorite places to look for breakfast themed inspiration is on the blog Simply Breakfast. I try to only read it around a meal time because to be honest, any time I look at pictures of food for an extended period of time I end up getting pretty famished (or at least I convince myself that I’m famished; a skill I seem to have perfected after 21 years of living with a Jewish mother).

While Passover is one of my favorite Jewish holidays, I can’t wait to be able to eat some good old-fashioned oatmeal.

I can't tell time so I may as well blog.

Hyvaa Huomenta blogosphere!

if you couldn't tell I have begun my Finnish course here at the university and although I cannot say much of anything, I have been walking around Tampere spouting Finnish like it is my job.  It's been awhile since I posted last, and since then I have had many more gypsy sightings, one being of the same woman AGAIN! What are the odds, I take it as a sign that maybe the gypsies and I are on the same wavelength with one another.  I have also seen gypsy children, and gypsy men.  All equally as exciting as the last, but nothing tops my first sighting.

This weekend I am currently planning a trip to Estonia to visit the medieval town of Tallinn.  I am very excited to see what countries neighbor me here in Finland, and also to see all of the cool things.  Because as much as I love Tampere there certainly isn't much to do as far as looking at beautiful buildings and history goes.  There are also no souvenirs.  which is really my main problem, even more so than the hisory.

besides that, I am simply a 2 hour train ride and a 1 hour ferry ride away from Estonia.  

I have been trying to plan out as many fun activities that I can, trying to fill my weekends with going to different places as often as possible, rather than most people here that seem pretty content with staying in Tampere and just getting drunk.  and while that is most appealing in certain ways, my philosophy is that I have already been drunk in Finland, Lets more on to the next country already :)  

needless to say I am in the process of planning trips to estonia/helsinki this weekend, munich, back to helsinki, russia, and then hopefully to spain.  all of this just in the first half of the semester!

I will keep you all posted on my travels!  

The woman was a gypsy

so, I have now been in finland for a total of 2 whole days, and I must say that it is not at all what I was expecting.  The people here are quite the interesting lot, they don't really look at anyone, except to stare at me while passing in a car.  They also don't see the purpose of the phrase 'excuse me'  but not in the way that other cultures don't.  So far in my experience if a Finn is trying to get something that you are blocking, they will simply loom over you until you realize that they are there and then you have to play a game of 'guess what the Finn wants' without actually saying anything.  It's really quite annoying, but they literally will not speak to you in public if they don't know you.  They also look at you like you are the devil/crazy if you say excuse me, because as you know now any sort of public interaction with strangers is completely weird.

Now, although most Finns are strange to me in a cultural sort of way, I have recently learned of a Finnish subgroup that is strange in a cultural way that is completely different.  To set the scene, it is my 2nd day in Tampere and I am casually standing at the bus stop downtown waiting for my buss to arrive, when a woman walked up to the bus shelter, house thing.  The woman was accompanied by a very small skinny man, who most closely resembled a cross between a string bean and a who from who-ville.  The woman on the other hand must have been about 400 pounds, with greasy hair, and a comb stuck into the top of her hair, and the icing on the top of the cake was that she was wearing a giant black crushed velvet gown with white ruffles all along the sleeves and the chest.  Now, combining the factors that it was sunday and that I am a stupid foreigner to these people, I just assumed that this form of dress was some type of traditional finnish church going attire.  this was a completely rational thought process.  Right after I decided that this woman must just love jesus (because who else would wear something that ugly by choice) and that I shouldn't laugh/be afraid that she would eat me. Her partner stringbean pulled a beer out of his front pocket of his jeans and handed it to cro-magnan and asked her to take the top off.  The woman then proceeded to open the bottle with her teeth, at the bus stop.  IT WAS 11:00 IN THE MORNING!  I simultaneously tried to hold in my laughter, keep my jaw closed, and not stare directly at this monstrosity that was taking place in broad daylight in downtown finland.  Now I know you all think that that was a funny story.  As did I, Until last night.

I met up with my friend Antti and we were going to go to a sauna with some of his friends from work (they work at an amusement park!).  I told him this story because I thought it was hilarious and he did too.  But as soon as I explained what she was wearing he goes "oh she's a gypsy that makes total sense!" thats right ladies and gentleman there is an apparently huge FINNISH GYPSY population.  They are shady here too, thus the teeth opener. 

I was floored, but I suppose I am learning more and more every day that I am here.  I will write more about the swimming party at a later date! 

canned pineapple diaries

So, as many of you know, I have quite the soft spot for pineapple in a can.  I have also proven to myself that I can live off of the pineapple alone when aided by some cereal and an occasional burrito, which is besides the point.  I have always liked canned fruit, but it was not until my dorm days as a freshman that I realized that I hated the dorm food so much that I would rather just eat heaps of pineapple than even think about digesting another bite of food provided to me by the meal plan. 

So, I am currently in Finland, Tampere to be exact.  I took a train in from Helsinki and my lovely school sanctioned friend met me at the train station.  We proceeded to take a bus from the train station to the stop that we believed would lead us to my dorm building.  we quickly realized as the bus left us in the dust that this was not our stop at all.  So instead of waiting for the next bus we decided to trek the rest of the way.  In general this would not be a funny/awful experience, but seeing as how I am here for quite some time, and I am not a light packer by any means, this became a bit difficult.  I was assured that it was right up the road, and off we went.  Two sidewalks, one gravel road, and about a pint of sweat later we arrived at my dorm, which from the inside hallways looks almost completely like a prison, not the converted hotel that I was led to imagine.  Regardless my room is cute, and the best part its a single!  Another good thing, the entire building is full of singles, so it  doesn't look like I am the totally antisocial girl in the single, VICTORY!

once I found my room safely, we went off on an outing to find me a bus pass some linens, and to show me the city.  it was a success, the only downside to all of this is that I am starving.  My body refuses to sleep but it seems to be that it is trying to replace sleeping with eating. downside to consuming more food than a small nation every 3 hours with people you don't know?  they obviously think that your a giant fatty American.  Also, people in this country resemble gnomes in their size so this does not help.  Regardless, after I was left alone to fend for myself, armed only with my buss pass, bus schedule, and one finnish word, I headed straight for the nearest department/food store.  I got my much needed bedding, and soap before heading downstairs to the 'cellar level' to buy some food.  problem #1 europeans buy about 2 items per shopping trip, most likely because they don't have real jobs so they can just spend all their time going grocery shopping for the amount of food to feed an ant, but I digress.  I bought 6 items and it clearly was the most amount out on anyone.  Of this shopping trip, you can bet your twin  sister that I bought myself not one but 2 cans of canned pineapple.

Thats where the story begins again.  Once again two years later I am sitting in my dorm room eating canned pineapple, out of the can, with my fingers, because buying a plastic fork would obviously up my item count to 7 thus making it near impossible for me to show my face again at the market.  Old habits die hard.