OD

My bags are so full so I probably cannot take much salmiakki with me to Portugal. So I'm eating it as much as I can these days, today maybe a bit too much, I'm feeling awful.

Homeless

I said goodbye to my beautiful home on Wednesday :(. On Friday I read in the newspaper that in the supermarket that is downstairs of my flat, there was a man raging with a drug needle, and the police caught him with a Tazer. I miss Kallio already.

But now I'm in Töölö. It's very nice here actually, beautiful and quiet. Today I'll move to Ruskeasuo. I'm lucky to have my amazing, bold & beautiful friends who host me, so I don't end up under the bridge.

Engineer

Greetings from our meeting with the production. I'm sitting here with 10 engineers. I was just thinking how boring it was (they were) and how I wished the meeting to be over already, when I realized that in 3 weeks I'll be surrounded by thousands of them. And in 2 years I'll become one of them.

From an accountant to an engineer, did I really think this through?

Buddy

So I got a buddy! A guy named João ( I can write it here, because seems that half of the people are called that. The other half is called Nuno). He seems to be a very nice and helpful guy, he said he could help with finding a room and stuff, apparently his duty is also to pick me up from the airport. What he doesn't know yet, is that my flight will arrive to Porto at 11.35 PM on a Saturday night. He would be the most devoted mentor ever, if he wants to show up there at that time.

My life in 20kg

Well, almost. One big bag of 20kg and six small bags that I don't know what to do with. I'll have to polish my strategy a bit, how to smuggle all of those into the airplane.

Sauna

Spent the weekend in a place called Rilax. It was very nice to get something else to think about. I went to a PERFECT sauna and swam in the see, that I'll definitely miss in PT.

Now I'm back home, no more messages from my neighbours. I'm cleaning my flat like crazy, from Wednesday on I'll be homeless.

Pen pal

I'm exchanging notes with my neighbours. This one is really friendly, let's see if there is more when I get back from the forest tomorrow.

(some idiot has put his stuff to my attic closet and put his own lock there. I'm super annoyed)

Moving, part 2

Pile number three needs to be brought to the attic. It's s spooky place so I'm waiting for some reinforcements.

Moving, part 1

I'm sorting out stuff to five different piles:

1. Things I want to take with me to Porto
2. Things I will bring to my parent's, so I can take them to Porto when I get back for Christmas.
3. Things I don't want to throw away quite yet.
4. Clothes to be donated.
5. Trash (well this is like 7 different piles, recycling a lot)

I should be done by tomorrow. Now it's 11.30pm and I'm not quite there yet, the flat looks if I was robbed. And it's going really slowly, because I'm having too many emotional moments saying goodbye to shoes. And t-shirts. Handbags. Postcards. Hairpins. You name it.

Portto

Hehehehhehehehe.

Already heard about 20 jokes about this.

Still nothing close to the amount of jokes that I've heard about my last name. If you have a new one, do share.

Cats

Every nice room that I find in Porto, there is a cat in the apartment. Can't do.

Patience

I finally got my Certificate of Registration in English. That only required around 20 emails and calls to the student services office and one strongly-worded email to the head of the programme.

The email was so efficient that now I have his private mobile number as well.

Erasmus wannabe

Since I'm not an Erasmus student, it's a bit trickier to organize everything (especially when I don't know what all I should organize). There is a ESN (Erasmus Student Network) office in Porto, I saw in their webpage that they organise local students to be mentors or "buddies" for Erasmus students, helping out with all kinds of stuff in the beginning of the stay. I asked if I could get one even if I'm not Erasmus but a normal degree student, the reply was (after congratulating me of choosing FEUP which is "really good faculty"): "We don't really care about those formalities we are here to help students so it doesn't matter you aren't an erasmus. Register for a Buddy and we'll award you one :)"

Cool.

Of course I haven't heard of them since, but the thought was nice at least.

Flat 2

Ah, not going well with finding a room in Porto. Maybe I'll just do something very not typical of me and worry about it once I get there. Very Portuguese of me.

Ummikko

The result of my ad in the housing webpage resulted to many emails in Portuguese. Now I have emailed one (in English) and I'm waiting for a reply. But actually the perfect deal would be to live with some Portuguese people who don't speak a word English. I would learn the language super fast. Or become silent, fast.

Flat 1

So my beautiful flat is kind of rented now. The new tenant is not exactly a student of Theology (what I was secretly hoping for)  but hopefully he'll take good care of my precious little home.


The first one to end up after-partying at my place during the next year wins a special price.

One-Eyed Emilia

Today I've been awake for around two hours, I've got an eye inflammation and I'm feeling like a vampire staying indoors with the curtain closed and the lights off. Maybe I'll get something done during the night.

This reminds me that I need to pay a visit to my insurance company and get my travel insurance fixed.

To-Do 2

Today I went to get the moisturizing facial treatment, I can check that off the loooooooong list. Now there is only annoying things left there.

My friend Panic, where are you?

One month

I'm useless here at the office. USELESS.

And I'm a bit sad that I'll miss all the budgeting drama in October. That's the only time when there is some action at the accounting department.

Dear fellow students, I'm so sorry!

"The MESG programme will be in English as there will be a few students attending it that cannot speak Portuguese. Some elective courses may be in Portuguese if there are no foreign students attending them (lecturers know that they must teach in English if there is at least one student that is not fluent in Portuguese)."

I'm going to be SOOOOOO popular.

Gémeos

I'm planning to organize myself a flat or a room in a shared flat only once I arrive to Porto. But when I was browsing through some ads for flats I thought I would leave there my own "searching for a room" ad as well. Cool that you can choose the horoscope as well. I'd rather have the opportunity to choose "a normal peroson" as a criteria.

Family Affair 2

...and there she is. Moi äiti!

Family Affair

My blog has two followers. Both of them are my sisters. My mom is supposed to join as well.

UFF

These are the clothes from my first wardrobe that I'm going to donate to charity. Now I know what you're all thinking: "OMG. She has some colourful clothes." And it may seem that I'm getting rid of all the coloured ones now and keeping the black ones only, but that is not correct: I saved one red and one green shirt.

P. S: women in Helsinki: If you want to go throught the pile and see if there is something you'd like, come over and dig in.

One-way ticket to Porto and back

Another item on the To-Do list was to "book flights". I used all my creativity yesterday when searching for good and cheap flights, but seems that the connection between Helsinki and Porto is not the most popular one. No direct flights, but I managed to find something. So on Saturday 10.9. I'll be on my way.

It's a little bit strange with one-way flights though, I wanted to buy one-way only but that didn't make any sense. I don't understand the logic of return ticket costing 300€ and one-way ticket costing 450€. What are those people supposed to do, who cannot plan that much ahead to know when they return? How about those ones, who cannot find an English version of the Academic calendar in the University webpage, and don't know when the Christmas holidays begin?? Just asking.

To-Do

Yesterday I wrote a To-Do list of all the things I must take care of before I leave. It's five pages long. So far I have managed to cross off one item: I booked an appointment for a moisturizing facial treatment. With massage for face.

Challenger 1

I'm assuming that if in the programme description it says "Languages: English and Portuguese", it means mostly English. Otherwise the studies will be a bit more challenging.

Long story short

I needed an adventure so here we go: in September I'll start my studies in the Faculty of Engineering in the University of Porto. I started this blog to save my Facebook friends from overdosing on my fb-statuses about Portugal (there will still be some), so the ones who want to read what's up in Porto can come read about it here. I've never written a blog before - don't exactly how this will turn out but I'm assuming it'll be about traveling, cultural differences and the freaks of Porto. They'll find me, sooner or later.