Sight seeing, part 2

Well, the party last night was a success! We had about 20 people over with 8 different countries represented. There was lots of different kinds of food and drink from all over (including cola+red wine, which is popular in Spain), and general merriment was had by all. I would have said that the fun party turned my day around, and was enough to cancel out the 4 hours at Immigration Services earlier, but the last thing that happened that night was I closed the door to my room; from outside of my room; with the keys still inside; and the doors in this building lock automatically. So at 1:00am I had to wake-up the caretaker (after knocking on his apartment door for awhile I eventually had to go outside the building and ring the buzzer, pretending like I had been out and forgotten my key), have him unlock the door for me, and worst of all, pay him 20 euros (it costs 10 during working hours, but 20 on nights and weekends. Considering it was only Friday, I had no other option). So that kind of ended the day on a sour note. I'd say overall though it still came out in the black.

This morning I went on the "Survival Shopping" tour of Finnish grocery stores. For the most part, it wasn't very informative. I did learn that Finland has something called sour milk that I'm excited to try, and the weird toothpaste style tubes of food are as I imagined: caviar paste. "quite good on bread with hard boiled eggs" said our tour guide. Mmmm....

I experienced a strange coincidence today. Two in fact. The first one happened while I was waiting for the shopping tour to begin. There were about 10 of us who went on it out of all the thousands of new students at UH. The majority of them were undergrads and knew either other already from sharing dorms, etc. So they were talking and I was kind of just standing there waiting to get this over with so I could get on with my day. Then one of the girls turned to me and asked, "Where are you from?" I had kind of spaced out and didn't realize at first that she was talking to me. I collected myself and reply, "uh, the US. North Carolina." "Where in NC?" she asked. Not wanting to admit Raleigh had been the last place I had lived I said, "Asheville." "Oh," she said, "I know Asheville. I went to school there. Have you heard of Warren Wilson?" I almost just felt like, "okay, I'm throwing in the towel. Universe, what are you trying to do to me?" What are the statistical odds of talking to someone in the Helsinki Metro station, and finding you went to the same college of 800 people, in Asheville, NC? Totally improbable, that's what. Turns out her name was Jane and she had been at WWC all last year but transfered (although she said not because she didn't love it there) and had just started at UH. She had been on Landscaping crew.

The other coincidence I had (which is not nearly as improbable, but was exciting for me nonetheless) also happened on the Metro (maybe I should start taking the Metro more often). The shopping center we had done the tour at was in the far eastern outskirts of Helsinki. And since I had never been in those parts before, I decided to do some exploring. I was aimlessly riding around, looking casually out the window, when suddenly I saw this!

Now to most people, this probably doesn't look like much. But I instantly recognized it as the Roihuvuori Water Tower that I've been pretty obsessed with (as for as water towers go) for some time now. I knew it was in Finland, but I had no idea where! If I would have been on anything besides a subway I would have jumped out right then and there. I got off at the next stop, but by that point I couldn't locate it. But I will try again! When Pinky comes to visit me in March we are going to do a tour of water towers in Nordic and Baltic Eurasia . Look for the coffee table book coming to a store near you.

Now, to view a photo journal of the rest of my sight seeing today, click the link below:

Eastern Helsinki

And this was on my return trip home. People ice skating at the Central Railway Station square in downtown Helsinki.