The Jobseeker

So here I am, in Catalonia and trying to find a job... in Finland. I guess that it is going to be tough, but I want to still try it. I just started a week and a half ago. I have been receiving some automatic replies some “no” replies and some “thank you, if you fit here we’ll contact you”. I received one interview invitation and I would like to figure out if I can go there, and see Emma again!

I am starting to be fed up with myself. I am spending everyday with me, all hours of day... and I am quite boring. Probably I am going to start to look for jobs here in Catalonia soon. I wanted to try before there, in Finland, but if it doesn’t work... I have to work here.

I am a bit afraid about everything! I really want to work, but after 7 years studying I feel that I don’t know anything. And I have to learn a new language and work in English. Of course... first of all I have to go through a selection process and interviews in English too.

I don't know if anybody trust me... I still have some hope.

And I am really happy to inform you people that I have an interview next week, Wednesday the 4th of October. Maybe it is only an interview, but it gives me the chance to travel to Finland and spend a week there with Emma!

Patience Roger... just a bit of patience!

Finland (II): the Summer Cottage

Hello again people of the world! I hope that soon I will have interesting news to tell you but before: “lo prometido es deuda” which means “the promised stuff is a debt”!

We, Emma and me, took the train from Helsinki to Imatra. The place where we spent that amazing week is between Mikkeli and Imatra, and the distance between Helsinki and that place is more or less the same. Why Imatra? I’m going to give you a good reason:

The Imatra dam

This dam reminds usually closed, but time to time they open it. And not only open it, they perform a nice show with music while the water is running. You can book it and have your own show paying a quite huge amount of money... but we were just lucky and the show happened while we where there.

Anne and Hermanni picked us up from the train station and we did a little tour through Imatra. After it we saw the show and then, let’s drive (Hermanni) to the cottage!

Emma, Anne and Hermanni having a nice walk

Driving for half an hour, use a ferry and at the end dirt track with a tricky phase at the end. Basically we were in the middle of nowhere. The first thing that I notice there is the landscape...

This is what you see just jumping out of the cottage

It is just amazing, the lake, the trees... everything is nice, quite, silent and calm. And here we have the summer cottage!

And this is the cottage

I forgot to thank Anne and Hermanni to invite us to spend that amazing week there. Amazing landscape, amazing environment, amazing food and amazing company, what else can I ask for? Running water! (I had to say it). They are so funny the Finns. They have cell phone signal everywhere, but no running water. That was a new experience for me, new and cold at some points.

The smoked sauna!

I discovered the natural sauna and the smoked sauna. I discovered the sensation of running from the sauna (80 degrees) to the lake (water at 16 degrees). I saw Hermanni smoking Salmon! And Anne made a delicious berries cake. Plus the burgers, the pork, and my omelette (hehehe).

It looks good... but i tastes better

The word that describes better that week is relax. Reading a lot (Emma more than anyone), having naps, eating, waking up late... At some point people start missing the civilization, but everything was so new for me that I didn’t miss it a lot. And here I should say again how well Anne, Hermanni and of course Emma treated me there... you are just amazing people! I helped a bit, but not much...

Me, helping a bit ...

After it, let's pack and come back to Espoo to spend some time before going to Catalonia!

And that's it!

I hate UCL Logement, Louvain-la-Neuve

Hello people !

I know that some of you are going to have the same feelings that I am suffering right now. I just received a letter from Louvain-la-Neuve (I admit that I was excited about it) and... surprise surprise! They are giving me back the deposit of the apartment! For the UCL places is 100,00 euros.

Yes, I am quite happy but... they are giving me back 16,42 euros, only. How come? Well, first of all I have to pay 28,86 euros in concept of my own room. When they checked it they only wrote 3 things on the list... I don’t want to know how much are going to pay the people which rooms were in bad shape. And now, the funny part: I have to pay 54,72 euros for the common rooms! I hope that you people remember how was my place in LLN. First of all it is not big enough to pay 191,00 euros (all the people, so dividing by 4 it’s the 54,72) in concept of... what? It wasn’t dirty, or spoiled... I just can’t understand them.

I am just pissed with them. I don’t miss UCL, and I think that I don’t miss Louvain-la-Neuve... I miss cheap beer, and I miss YOU PEOPLE!

Fuck UCL Service des Logement.

Roger.

FINLAND (I): first week

I know that it is a bit late, but I am going to write about this absolutely amazing summer, which after Paris continues in Finland.

And I am going to start from the beginning. We arrived at the Helsinki-Vanta airport and Emma’s sister and almost-brother-in-law were there waiting for us, and I met her mother too. All her family were and has been and are being still really nice to me.

Helsinki from the air.

We spent the first week between Emma’s parents place and her sister’s place, because they were on holidays and just lend it to us: I know, really nice! I had my first sauna experience, my first swimming in the lake experience, and tasted the first Finnish beers (and missing the Belgian beers). We hang out with some of Emma’s friends and again, all of them were really nice to me! Sometimes the language barrier was there, but all of them speak amazing English, so no communication problems! We had one dinner with Anna (a Finnish girl) and her boyfriend Guifré (a Catalan guy friend of mine) and it was really nice too.

And now, less people and more Finland. The summer weather is great. They were telling me that the summer was nice and hot. Fortunately for the Finns, the meaning of “hot” summer is 27 degrees (maximum) and no humidity. Then the light thing, I have to explain it. The week when we reached Finland the sunset was approximately between 11 and 12 pm, and the sun was already rising again between 3 and 4 am! The first couple of nights I woke up for a minute thinking... “oh, I’m still sleepy and it’s already 11 or 12 am”, but no, it was only 4 in the morning! The sea is nice and it doesn’t smell bad (as de Mediterranean does) and it was sunny almost all the time.

Check the Helsinki sky! So sunny, no clouds, perfect temperature and humidity...

More amazing things: you can ride a bike inside of Helsinki and you can feel like in a forest! There are lots of trees, and everything is so spread and wide. It seems that the Finns don’t like each other and they respect a lot the vital space. And they don’t like to line at all, they are silent, and quite calm while driving. A different culture!

Riding a bike through Helsinki: the capital of Suomi, and feeling the nature, great.

Let’s talk about the sauna experience then! I am going to talk here about the electric one (which we were using at Emma’s parents place) and I am saving the natural one for the next post. For me sauna made no sense: I don’t need help to sweat! But I wasn’t sweating at all there, so... The point is not to sweat, or take care of the skin-thingies (I bet that it helps) as some non-Finnish-fake-saunas pretend to. The point is to enjoy it. Good company (I had the best one, Emma), cold beer, a shower between... you have to experience it to give your opinion! It is a bit scary to be inside of a room at 80 degrees and creating steam. The steam cools down the average temperature but is the thing that it makes you feel really hot and sometimes almost burning.

Helsinki is a nice city. It doesn’t feel like a huge metropolis because of the surface, the same happens with Espoo. I am going to use the same example that I have told to everybody. Comparing Finland and Catalonia we found Espoo and Sabadell, two cities with 200.000 habitants. But, Espoo has 528 squared kilometres of surface and Sabadell only 37! It can give you and idea about the “spread” thing that I am talking about. And in Spain we don’t have a huge population density, we are quite civilized.

The fortress of Suommelinna.

We visited Suommelinna as well. That is an island in front of Helsinki where we can find a fortress. This fortress has been used by the Russians against the Swedish and by the Sweds against the Russians too. It is related to the story of this country with its neighbours. Now it’s a touristy place and we had a really nice walk there, sunbathing a bit and having fun with the old canons.

We spent the next week at Hermanni’s summer cottage!