When my boyfriend visited I decided I could not deny him the beauty of Seurasaari Island, so we went there again, and I exhausted my camera once again. I just wish I could catch it all and save it for later. But photos simply do not capture it all. It's just such a nice atmosphere. You're in nature, there are no cars or any other vehicles. Just the sounds of wildlife roaming in the trees and the sea brushing the shore. To let you get an impression of what I'm talking about, here's another gallery of one of Helsinki's gems:
There was another one of those free-admission days at the zoo in Helsinki. We decided to go there, but apparently so did half of Helsinki. The roads were blocked by so many cars, we were stuck in traffic even though we were two islands away from the island the zoo is located on. To avoid the masses of people, my roommate had the idea to visit Seurasaari Island instead. Seurasaari is basically an Open-Air Museum, which consists of old, mainly wooden buildings transplanted from elsewhere in Finland and placed in the dense forest landscape of the island. It is simply beautiful. If you ever want to take nice long walks, see some of Finnland's history and watch countless birds and eager squirrels, this is the place to go! This will be one of those posts where I let the photos speak instead of my words. I'm simply in love with this island! I could hardly choose which photos I wanted to show you. As a student in Helsinki (but also as a regular tourist) it's really worth checking out the various free-entrance-days. I like to keep myself informed by facebook, or rather I let facebook inform me about all the free-admission days to Helsinki's museums, zoo, or other fun activities. So on October 2nd (it's been a while, I know) my roommate and I went to the 'night at the museum' at Kiasma - Finnish National Gallery. The exhibition is called 'School of Disobedience' and features Jani Leinonen who wants to promote critical thinking with his art. The title piece of the exhibition invites the audience to question the basic assumptions of society and to change the world. For his art, Leinonen uses elements of packages, logos and mascots of famous brands. Like pop artists in the 1960's, he recycles images of popular culture and gives them new meanings. Through his work, Leinonen criticises corporate practices and the market economy. Although he is said to have admitted that he is himself part of the capitalist system. Here's the main piece of the exhibition: The gigantic text piece proclaims: "The most terrible things war, genocide and slavery have resulted not from disobedience but from obedience." The sentence is originally from the American historian and human right activist Howard Zinn. Leinonen has magnified the text so that it is readable from as far as Mannerheimintie (street) or the Parliament building. There's another work that shows an installation that resembles the counter of a Burger King restaurant. This 'restaurant' is called Hunger King. The name refers to a global problem and the names of the soft drinks refer to mortal sins. This installation is a variation of a project that Leinonen carried out in 2014 in Budapest. He opened a Hunger King restaurant in a vacant office space. There were two entrances to the restaurant: one for the poor, one for the rich. The poor stood in line to receive burger boxes with money inside. The amount equalled the Hungarian minimum wage for 6 hours of work. The rich could walk in on a red carpet and buy Leinonen's Burger Art. The work was a statement that criticised a new Hungarian law that criminalized homelessness. Inside the restaurant visitors were offered information about the plight of the homelessness in Hungary, and could even send messages to the Hungarian government. The works are not only relevant to Hungary alone. Income disparity divides people all over the world. Food is the biggest cause of climate change, lifestyle diseases, and economic as well as social inequality in the world. When we solve the food problem, we solve everything. Jani Leinonen
Maybe I'm a wimp, but I feel like I am drowning in work. At least I was, until I decided to drop one course out of 7...I know it does not sound much at all, but it feels like so much more work, compared to my home university. And in Dortmund I usually have about 10 courses per semester. The difference here is that everybody wants you to write learning diaries for every seminar, read several texts per seminar per week and also prepare essays for almost every course. In U.S. Politics and Cultures after 9/11, the course which I decided to quit, was really interesting, but we had to read 4-5 longer texts every week, and read them so well, that we could write a summary on whichever text the lecturer would randomly pick at the beginning of the class. For that course, we'd have to write 2 essays, one in the middle of the semester, one at the end. In Germany, we usually have time at the end of the semester, after all the lectures, to write our papers. Here, you do it next to everything else. How do they do it? How do they have a life next to school?! Anyway, I don't want to complain a whole blog post long. Let's move on to better news. Visiting Eila-tätiLast weekend I visited my Finnish aunt, together with my cousin and his fiancé. Sadly I was quickly at the end of my language skills. I like my language course, but it's really going awfully slow. I feel like it was so much easier to learn a new language when I was younger. Or maybe it's just because Finnish is this crazy language with almost no similarities to German or English or any other language I know, for that matter. If you want to use the negative form of a verb for example, you need to use a different form for each freaking person! Who does that?! Anyway, by last Saturday I had learned exactly two verbs: to be and to speak. Try to make a conversation out of that! So I know my numbers, and the days of the week, can say my name and age and which languages I speak, but that's about it. Well, by now we have learned some new verbs, but still wish we could just insert a memory stick in our brain and copy all the knowledge at once. That would be neat. But this way, at the end of this course I can tell people: "I speak Finnish, what's your superpower?" Well, I feel like I'm drifting off topic. So at first, by cousin (who is also pretty fluent in English and German) translated everything for me and back, but after a while they just talked in Finnish. And sometimes I even understood what they were talking about but at other times I felt like they were in a secret language club I wasn't a member of. I bet it would be so much faster to develop Finnish skills if you were constantly among Finnish speaking people. That way you'd be forced to learn. It was a really nice day: we had Finnish salmon soup (except that mine was without salmon because minä onlen kasvissyöjä) and blueberry pie...nom nom nom. Also, I went home with a new plant to freshen the air and a vacuum :). I really missed having a vacuum. This is so awesome! And my aunt gave me a carpet, because the floors are getting cold in winter. I feel like it's already getting cold inside my room, since they only turn on the heating when the temperature drops under an average outside temperature of 15 degrees Celsius. brrr. Hello OctoberThis month is going to be so eventful! :) First, my mom and dad are going to visit for a week, then my boyfriend is coming to Helsinki. Shortly after we have one week free of classes during which I am planning to explore the city a bit more. First I was going to take a trip to Lapland but now I'm thinking, I barely have time to get to know the city during the semester, so I might as well take the chance and do it then. The week after that I've decided to live a little, so I booked a 5-day-trip to St. Petersburg. I will be missing class, but since we're allowed to miss 2 classes of each course, I hope it will be ok. It's crazy here though, one teacher even lowers your final grade over 10 points for every session you miss. Unthinkable in Germany! But I think in this case - although I hate to say this cheesy sentence - you only live once, right? So sometimes you need to take the chances you're offered and miss a little school. We probably learn much more by traveling than we ever would in a classroom.
Let this be the word for tonight. You'll hear from me again soon. |
About
I am currently studying applied cultural studies at the TU Dortmund and I will spend my 5th semester in Helsinki, at the Helsingin Yliopisto in Finnland, the the country known for its many lakes. Archives
November 2015
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