Johannes H. Glitsch — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 15:00:19 +0000

This has been a very sad day in a way, but the ice is melting under one’s skates. In most parts of the ice place the top-most layer was a bit like snow – you went into the ice a centimeter or so. Not nice to skate on. Anyway, we kind of managed to play in the shade where the ice was better … At last, it was fun for a last time

So let’s all say good bye to the good times of ice hockey …

Johannes H. Glitsch — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 20:00:13 +0000

… or playing ice hockey for a last time? Ice and snow are gradually disappearing over here. That makes us wonder how long the ice hockey place will stay open. As it is open-air we worry with every bit of snow and ice that goes away.

That last game has been pretty intense at some points we have to say. Johannes has been hit in the face just once and fallen on his own or caused by others a bit, but Verena has rather hard been hit on or run over for at least 3 times But it was fun as always. Hope, we can go again and the season does not end now.

Verena Hausmann — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 22:55:29 +0000

Tonight we went bowling. This has been like the first in years (at least it feels like it ) and it definitely the first bowling in Turku. Why did we meet? Well, see Dave (big guy with red hair)? It’s his birthday.

He invited many people and asked them to invite whoever … that was 101 invites at the end (okay, Dave was one of them) and we met with about 40 people there. We had loads of fun and also a bit of a private feeling. There were only 5 lanes and we had them all. We probably were the only guests that night

Besides the fun Dave hated us for singing “Happy Birthday” to him, I think But he got a nice card from us all at the end

Verena Hausmann — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 19:42:58 +0000

Together with 5 other erasmus students we took the bus today to get to the island Hirvensalo just out of Turku (if you wouldn’t know you would rather say there is a big river that divides it from the main land instead of the sea!). Even though they just have a very small hill they have two skiing lifts and three slopes there. So we decided to ski for 2 hours. It was really expensive and for Johannes probably not as funny because he can ski quite good. But Verena tried to ski today again after 8 years not standing on skis and doing snowboarding instead. That was quite interesting. Even though she had troubles going down the slope the first times she did better than somebody who hadn’t stood on skis before. That’s what it looked like:

Verena Hausmann — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 21:08:57 +0000

The shrove Tuesday (in Germany Aschermittwoch) is called laskiainen in Finnish. On this day Finns also celebrate some sort of carnival, just different. On this day, it is special to eat laskiaispulla. It is a sweet bun with cream and jam. But besides this, there were several winter ‘sports’ events today. We first went to FASTlaskiainen. At on one of the hills in the city, all the different student unions here competed in sledding. But not with normal sleds, no… they tried to build their own cool sleds. This was really funny to see, even though most of them had problems going down the hill completely

Laskiainen (Video)

In the afternoon we drove to Hirvensalo, an island just 5 km from town. They have a small hill which has two different slopes. People competed there in making stunts with skis and snowboards. That was really nice to watch. Beside there was a place where we could go sledding. Real fun I can say!

Verena Hausmann — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 16:32:44 +0000

Hi everyone,
We are now here for more than one and a half month and we didn’t go out to jog yet. But I finally made it today and it wasn’t as cold or slippery as I expected it to be. Okay, I just walked for 3 kilometers, but come on, that’s better than nothing. After that I had a sauna so that I am now refreshed for studying
Johannes is sick, so didn’t go with me… But he also is studying now.
Cheers
Verena

Verena Hausmann — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 17:41:24 +0000

On our last day in Levi we again went skiing/snowboarding. It snowed the whole night before so that the slopes were kind of covert and we had the feeling of going deep snow skiing. Also during the day it went on snowing, but the view was a little bit better than on Thursday… Today we were even able to see the trees beside the slope

But, with -20°C on the top of the mountain and a very strong wind it was freezingly cold. We all had the ice on our face and actually the water within our bag got completely frozen. We skied until 4 and after a short shopping tour in the center we went back to our cottage and had a nice and warm sauna to recover.

Verena Hausmann — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 15:14:06 +0000

Today we went with some peoples from our floor to the north of Turku and had a fun day doing cross-country skiing. The weather was perfect, not too cold and blue sky. As nearly none of us had ever done it before or could remember the last time he/she did it, it was fun seeing how all the people did it.
Here is a picture of us after we had finished two rounds in the forest.

Johannes H. Glitsch — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 20:33:50 +0000

After our first ice hockey experience last week we had the chance to get a short introduction to some basic ice hockey. That included skating, stopping, retrieving the puk and playing it properly. But just the basic way As the entrance fee to the ice ring is only EUR 1,-, but the rent for skates is EUR 4,- we bought some nice ice skates today just before that. Actually, those were only EUR 25,- and work really well. Here you can see our new and awesome treasures.

Johannes H. Glitsch — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 20:01:05 +0000

This afternoon we spent a little bit differently. Even though we both are not talented in ice skating (despite practicing on the sidewalks and streets all the time) we went for a little game of hockey. This has been organized by some students. The ice field (or whatever you call it) is located not too far away from the Student Village towards the city center. After renting the gear we were divided in several teams and had fun playing for about two hours. The result: hurting feet, tail bone and wrist, but other than that it was great fun