Halloween

This post has got nothing to do with Halloween even though the topic might bring that idea to someone's mind. This post is actually most likely about nothing much. It will maybe start out by telling you about the troubles the writer is having with finding time to go to the grocery store. Then it may go ahead and tell about the thing relating to this, which is how the writer has decided to try to eat more protein. She will not go on any special diet but will just try to eat something known to contain protein every day. This list does not contain cheese although cheese probably has some protein in it. It will include soy and fish. This new rise in protein intake is meant to be an experiment the writer is conducting on herself. The results will be held secret until a patent can be written on them.

The writer of this post has an important presentation coming up on Friday. She will have to tell all about the things she's been researching (at work only) since she got here. To her bosses that is. Thankfully there are a lot of interesting results so she will have lots to talk about. The only thing troubling her, in addition to not feeling that she is feeling nervous enough or actually not at all really, is the fact that she has never really made a presentation this big. The last presentation she made was done two and a half years ago to a class of four people plus a teacher (professor). The last presentaiton was kind of annoying since she had a quite terrible cough at the time. And by terrible I mean terrible as in she coughed more than spoke during the presentation. Other than that it apparently went well since she got an A for that course.

The writer has been reading Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy and is truly enjoying it. It is not as psychedelic as the tv miniseries movie thing that she has seen of at least the first two volumes of it. This is a good thing.

Five o'clock on friday

I was listening to the new Nada Surf cd on Elina's mp3-player in the train and one of their songs goes "oh fuck it, I'm gonna have a party...". I had this huge flash and was like "yeah, oh fuck it, I'm gonna have a party". Then I told about my idea to Elina with the head phones on and the whole train must have got at least part of the message rather clearly. I think I'll call or send a message to my friend and tell him to come over on Saturday with his flatmates if they want to play the dancing game. That's it. If they have other plans then I'll just "oh fuck it" and have myself a party. Gotta love the Disney Rave mix.

Traveling with Elina was great. As we are the girl with all the luck (knock on wood), the sun was shining, it was warm and even though we missed one train because the other was late we got back just like 30 minutes later. What luck. I saw more castles and more of the ones I'd seen earlier, mostly from the train windows. Soon I'll be able to tell people stories of the castles while driving past or such. I'll also be able to translate the tours rather well. I have thought on more than one occasion that I might have made a good travel guide. Or else that was just some sort of dream of mine. I'd get to carry a stick/umbrella with a frog on the end and tell people to keep up with the group. I'd get to spend most my time in some cool resort and live in hotels. I could tell all sorts of fun facts about the places I take my groups and would not care if anyone listened but maybe one person in the group. (This is sort of like my vision of being a university professor who just gives lectures of the same subject year after year and keeps being way interested in the subject though most the students could care less. Too bad I'd kind of have to be a man for this part since weird professor men are charmant but women are just crazy.)

I think going to the store and cleaning my place and doing the dishes will take most of tonight. Thus I have to get going home to actually have the energy to do all the stuff I "have to". Staying on this computer for just a while longer seems like a good idea right now. A little pause before going out into the city. Oh and I have to pay my rent too.

All is well

I'm taking two days off to go look at castles with my sister. A different one this time...:)

Yesterday we went to the big markets and bought me a smoothie maker (also called a blender) so I can have a healthier diet. I like drinking fruit but eating it is just not as much fun. Healthier life, here I come.

We also bougth this pineapple that was as big as our heads. Then we sang "I've got a lovely bunch of pineapples... ... as big as your head" like the bird in Lion King with just pineapples and not the original coconuts.

There was this huge pet market and we spent like ages in there. (Partly waiting for price checks from Finland.) They had sharks and lots of little fish. I miss my little fish - the way they noticed when I came home and thought of me as only a big thing outside their world that signaled feeding at time when coming back after not being there for the past seconds that they could remember.

But off I go.

No more problems

Yesterday as I was coming home from work the house master (or one of them, the nicer one that is not so authoritive looking) was in his little booth and after stopping to think for a while I asked him to sell me some washing tokens for the laundry machines. He did. I bought five washes and three dryings. Now my only problem - not being able to buy more wasking tokens - is solved. So I officially have no problems at this point. I got in the elevator after getting the tokens and felt sort of empty though happy. I really can't think of any problems. I mean there's things that could be better or different but nothing that just can't be dealt with. I should not linger on this thought pattern for too long, though, since eventually I am sure I'll think of something. Today I will finally wash to machines of laundry, with the last tokens I had before buying new ones, and know I'll have more tokens in the future. It will be a nice Friday night. I "might" even read more from this book I've been reading. I don't feel like going anywhere with anybody.

Elina is coming tomorrow. Fun, fun, fun. Though it's sort of sudden I'm sure it will be nice. No need to plan too much since there's no time to plan really. I'm going to Frankfurt tomorrow to pick her up from the airport and then we are planning to spend some time shopping and looking at the city. She's coming in the afternoon so we haven't got much time but it doesn't really matter. "It's the thought that counts." The train ticket is not much more expensive for me to go there than for her to just come here anyway. 30eur for both of us for the whole day on regional trains and 20eur for her to take the InterCity train here (14eur on regionals). I could even take a few friends with me on the ticket I'm going to buy. It's the "beautiful weekend"-ticket for up to five people for one day. (Maybe I could make some new friends if someone comes to check tickets. They hardly ever do and it's kind of weird.) Yes, this is a commercial for the German rail system. Die Bahn. It is "the railway".

Nice weekend everyone!

Plastics, chemicals and food

Today I learned about plastics at this company. It was quite interesting and even though it was in German I understood most of what they were saying. Or at least I think I did. After that I've jsut not really been doing anything smart. I just could not start working after spending most the day going round the factory. Well I knew this would happen but it is still annoying to just surf the net. Well I was looking for career opportunities so I guess it is not the same as chatting or something but it is still not work. I did not find any jobs for me. Not that I need one for the next half year or so I guess.

I don't know what it is but it seems things don't really work here in Germany. Chemicals, that is. Yesterday I finally bought NaOH to clear my drain, which would not work properly with the bio-drain cleaner I've been using. Well the things is, I followed the directions but the drain would just not clear. I really hate playing around with NaOH (solid) so I only tried twice. I guess I'll have to try again today. At home I would just manually clean the hairs out but I won't do that here. Besides at home the drain is plastic so it does not require tools to open. But the point is that the thing did not work. I thought that was weird but it's not the only time this has happened. I bought nail polish remover (npr) this summer. I got the one with acetone since I thought that there is no point being afraid of the stuff since I have played with it for a few years at work already. But the thing is that the npr did not really work at removing nail polish. I mean really. I finally just gave up and decided to let the nail polish remove itself in time.

But what is the point of having npr that does not remove nail polish? What does it do then? I've once used npr to remove the stickiness left in a text book cover by the price tag. Maybe the stuff I bought could accomplish this. Have they not tested the product at all before putting it in the stores? "It has acetone - it will work." The thing must consist of mostly water or something. Acetone would work.

Yes. In Finland npr and drain cleaners work... - Things are better in Finland...;) In Finland I have an oven and don't have to dread going to the store because I just can't figure out what I want to eat or what would also be healthy to eat. (Yes. Sometimes it's fun to do the "where I come from everything is better" -thing) Yesterday I found this new section at the supermarket and bought vegetarian gordon bleau (or however you spell it or what ever the name is since I'm sure I'm remembering wrong. the chicken? patties things with ham and cheese in them). I don't really like to buy things like those since they are ready-made and I like cooking but I thought they would have protein since they were apparently made of soy. The weird part is that why would anyone want to eat vegetarian gordon bleau. The thing consisted of cheese-substitute, ham-substitute and chicken-substitute and then the stuff on top of it all. Could they not make some other thing that would not have to consist of substitutes but like things that vegetarians can really it. Like for instance the cheese could be substituted for by carrot stuff and the ham with maybe potatoe stuff and then the chicken could just be substituted with textured soy. Why on earth does the thing have to be called and look like a food vegetarians have given up for some reason or another. If one want to eat gordon bleau then why not just buy the the real thing and if not then just have something else. I felt really silly buying them yesterday but at least I got some protein I guess. I don't have to try those again. (Though I do like tomorrow and the day after since there was three of them in the package and I don't really want to throw them out. But that's what one gets for trying new things.)

As a funny end note. I actually wrote on my shopping list yesterday - Ei karkkia! (No candy!) And no I did not buy any.

Trees and castles

The weekend was great. It being two days longer might have also contributed. Me and Maria rented a car and drove around to nice places. (Ok, so technically Maria rented the car and Maria drove around. I was just the map reader and hopefully also good company.) It is quite amazing how much there is to see just an hour or two hours trip from where I live. We saw the Schwarzwald (Black Forest) which was quite dark at places even though I do not really know where the name comes from. We also saw like at least ten castles in the Rhine valley north of here. We even had time to take tours of two of them. Quite nice I should say. If anyone is into castles like me then there are still like ten castles I haven't seen at all and almost ten I haven't been very close to. The people that built them had way too much money on their hands and apparently nothing better to do than build bigger castles than their neighbors.

One of the funnest things was when we went around this one little lake in the Schwarzwald in a pedal boat. The steering was impossible and at one time we thought we would never get it back to where we got it from. Eventually we did and got off safely on to the shore again. I had not been on a pedal boat in like at least ten years. It is doing little unexpected things like going on a pedal boat that make a vacation a vacation.

We also saw lots of other things but I'll have to save those for later (or never) and get going home to eat before my German class.

No opinions from me

I feel like as a blogger I should be writing my opinions on some matter or another as that is what most bloggers apparently do. As I am in no way aware of what is going on in the world I can not write about current events (except the ones happening personally to me of course). It is weird not knowing things about the world. Like where people are having wars, elections or revolutions of some sort. I'd like to be able to talk intellectually about other countries, or even my own, but I find I just know a whole lot. Like for instance how laws are made in Finland. Now at this point I usually blame moving around as a kid and never actually learning these things in school of or the fact that I could not even remedy that in highschool having had lots of science but onely one course in history and social studies. And the course was about cultural history (a very ingenious choice, I'm sure).

Of course I could write about movies or such but I just don't have that analytical approach that some people have. I either like a movie a bit or more, really enjoy watching it or don't. Usually I just don't have an opinion I could express in an assertive manner. "Oh, it was good. I kind of liked the story." Other people actually pay attention to the director and compare the atmosphere to other movies the same person directed, or have noticed some weird camera angles "that brought the message across culturally more attuned to...". Well you might get the point. I just don't bother thinking about such things. I just let it all sink in as it is, not bothering to analyze too much. It's like with food. Some people can distinguish the different spices the food has but I just don't care. Food is either really good, good, edible or bad.

Maybe I just don't have the drive to tell people my opinions. It might be kind of like competitiveness. I like winning and all but losing isn't that bad if I have some fun. (Well ok, it might be that I just don't have feelings or I have trained myself not to show express them.) But as it is I think I want to remedy this lack of opinionated blog entries. I will pick some subject that I care about and write my opinion on it. Next time, that is.

I have till next tuesday at least to think of a subject since I won't be writing before that. Maria is coming tomorrow and I'm taking Friday and Monday off work. It should be a fun weekend. I've been looking at places we could go and today at lunch actually got excited about the trip. Fun, fun, fun. Now I'm off home.

The new look

No, I did not get my hair done. I should but it's all too scary trying to find a hairdresser when I don't even remember the word for "cut" in German (I do have a dictionary but haven't gotten around to it). I miss my hairdresser, Kalle. He was so nice and I never had to fear my hair would be awful. It didn't hurt having a good looking bloke massaging my head while washing my hair. Now that's something I can pay for. But I should get my hair cut (Even Kalle said I should have it done while away.). I have not had hair this long in years, like in the first years of highschool maybe. Not that I'm really measuring so I might be wrong.

You might have noticed that it's the blog with the new look. I got tired of the old one and I don't think they even had this green one when I was choosing the templates. I think it looks nice. I got links to all the blogs of my siblings, in case someone has not noticed. And don't forget to get a quote from Mr. Spock. My favorite: "After a time, you may find that 'having' is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as 'wanting.' It is not logical, but it is often true.", "Amok Time," stardate 3372.7.

Well yeah. Have to get going. Time for lentil soup again I guess. Yesterday I took the fried rice at Kim's Fastfood and the serving size was huge. It was really annoying just eating and eating the the plate still being full. The amount I finally could not eat would have been enough for me. Have to try other chinese places and remember that I apparently don't like sweet and sour. Or at least the one in Kim's. Tried that last week and it just was not working for me (just was not good). I think I may have had the same happen to me in another restaurant. Oh but I am waiting for Maria to come over this weekend. I'll take her to my favorite restaurant. German food and three (3 = a lot) vegetarian dishes of which I have actually just had one though I have been there at least twice. It was so good I wanted it again. And probably again the next time around...:)

Monday

Well it is monday again. I was supposed to do all these things during the weekend but I seem to have forgotten most of them. Or as it is I might only be trying to tell myself that I forgot when the real reason is that I was simply too lazy to do anything worthwhile. I don't know why forgetting seems to be the better excuse. I guess it seems somehow better to come across absentminded than lazy. Not that I really want to be either.

The weekend was nice however. Looking back it seemed kind of surreal but that might be just because of spending too much time on the internet doing nothing or actually chatting with friends. Or having watched two movies (Hide&Seek and Munich) my brain was just getting too much stimuli. It's not used to moving pictures and too much internet these days. In the end I think I was feeling mostly asocial which was a shame. I had some nice walks with the dogs when I let the big one loose in the forest and kept throwing a stick for her. Even got the small one to quiet down at times.

Now my brain just seems utterly void of anything to write so I guess I'll have to continue with this blog later in the week.

Watching the dogs

Here I am at my bosses place watching her dogs. One of them is a small brazilian terrier that barks at just about everything and the bigger one pulls constantly while being walked. Otherwise they're quite nice. I will most likely let the big one out of its leash today just so my hands won't suffer too much. I've got permission to do so. She shouldn't run away unless there is a bunny and even then she should come back in ten minutes or so.

I think I'll bake something today. Or well I'm thinking of buying a cakemix or something so it is not really baking. Then I'll just have to figure out how I'll get it all eaten but I guess I can just eat as much as I want and then throw the rest out in a day or two.

I was surfing the net all last night and then just before going to sleep I remembered my book and was too tired to read. That was quite dissappointing since I noticed reading the book would probably have been lots more fun. I guess it is good that I don't have internet at my place. I'd just get back problems or something and get upset when my friends had lives back home and I was just on the net trying to bother them into entertaining me.

I don't even miss tv. Not really. In Prague we were in this bar chilling out and there was this big screen with mtv on tv. I just kept laughing at the commercials and the stupid reality show on. It was American girls trying to get to Puffy's band or something. It was so ridiculous but I guess it was all their dream to be in a girl band. If I knew that winning some reality tv show would make me happy I'd probably go on too. "Win an interesting career, good friends you have time for, exciting but relaxing vacations in good company and a nice place to live with room for aquariums and maybe a dog." I don't think they have shows like that. Though I would not know since I haven't been watching like any tv for the past 4 months.

Crawling around Prague

On our way to Prague one of my friends said she wanted to see the castle. I was like "there's a castle?". This is funny because I had been there before. Well I ended up remembering the castle one I remember the trip up there on the tram and the freezing weather and trying to take refuge from it in a church. The thing is that the Prague castle is not so much like a castle as one would think but a collection of old buildings and I would probably call the actual castle more of a palace. It seemed weird to be in Prague after four years of thinking "been there, done that - no reason to go back". It was a big city with loads of old buildings. I do have to say they all started looking the same after a while. I might have also been in a weird mood and not feeling the wonder other people where.

I think I like looking at great landscapes and such better than buildings in a city. Canyons and such are way great. I also liked looking at the lakes on the way there from the train windows. At some places it almost felt like I was just on a train to Jyväskylä. I think at the moment I actually rather wanted to be going there.

My travel companions walk slowly. I mean really slowly. I know I have a habit of walking at a reasonable speed but that just wasn't it. I was trying to "keep down" (opposite of keepin up) with the group but it was just impossible. I tried doing the Thunderbirds -walk even making "the puppet" trip once in a while, I tried doing my very slow sunday stroll walk and even tried to just walk very slowly but nothing worked. My legs started hurting because of walking too slow even though I had to stop like every five meters to wait for the group. I did even try to converse with the group to want to keep with them but they did not get my tourist attitude. I even stopped to buy ice cream or gaze into shop windows but they were still not keeping up with me. At one point I suspected they might be doing it on purpose but that just could not be it. Or who knows. (There were seven of us all together and you might guess I was the outsider not that I'm not used to such groups.) And yes while I was walking as slow as I could all the rest of the people on the streets were walking at twice the speed. I'm not in the habit of exaggerating.

I did not get my travel companions. They did not want to go for coffee and thus take it easy or go round like crazy seeing everything. Or they did want to see everything but did it in the snail pace I could not keep down with. Most of the group also apparently did not need food at all. After six hours of going around the castle and surrounding area some people were "not really hungry" and the ones that were did not voice their opinion on wanting a break for food and since I was the only one casually saying I could use food, nothing came of it. Oh why can't seeing the sites be pleasant. It could be. I know. I've had pleasant tourism experiences at times. I do not need to wake up at 8 in the morning just to see the sites. I can skip a few buildings to have a pleasant moment in a cafe watching other people walk by looking tired.

I did maybe have some fun or at least I can say that I've been there and done that twice - no need to go again. It was weird having memories of the last trip flashing back when I saw places. It was quite disturbing at times. No need to have that happening again.

The surreal part of the trip was when finally after 12 hours of traveling on trains we finally got back here and got off the last train. Suddenly, like magic, my travel companions had learned to walk at a regular pace and were trailing off toward their home with just a few bothering to wave me goodbye. I just had to laugh. It was quite ironic. After that I went to get my bike and cycled home in the pouring rain. I will most likely travel with these people again.