Dancing with zombies, partying with Huns

Dear everybody,

It's been over a month since I last wrote, sorry for that. I've had a lot of school stuff to do, French school=not easy. On top of that, my internet didn't work for two weeks which was nice since I had to write an 8 page essay on the subject "Are all the French-speaking literatures part of a national literature?" and I didn't even have a dictionary. So, it turned out awesome, of course.

I've had problems with my Finnish credit card since the bank decided to block it because they forgot to send me the bill. Now they haven't done anything to fix the situation even though my mom paid the bill and I contacted them. As a result, I couldn't pay my phone bill (which is as expensive as 2 whole euros!!) here in France and they almost shut it. Luckily, I got to use Heidi's card and I got out of the huge debt. I was so annoyed when I didn't have Internet, I couldn't solve my bank problems and I kept receiving text messages about my unpaid phone bill. I was tempted to just go to the Free office and throw a 2 euro coin on their desk!!

By the way, I made a new record in sleeping too much. A Wednesday I had a Chinese exam. I actually knew every character I was supposed to know so I would have nailed it. Too bad I woke up at 11.30, the EXACT MINUTE THE TEST HAD ENDED! So I got a zero. And now, for the first time in my life, I actually have to be worried about passing the course. So... awesome.

I was reminded of this delightful event on my super fun day, Thursday the 12th (which is like Friday the 13th for me). I had to wake up early-ish since I had to be in the apartment to receive our new washing machine - our old one was broken and we had to cope without one for a few weeks which was a blast. Well, I am sick -again!! - and I slept a bit longer which left to the guys ringing the doorbell while I was in shower. I ran from the shower to my room, put on nothing but jeans and a hoodie and ran to open the door. The guys weren't there anymore so I put shoes on and ran outside.

There I was, soaking wet with wet jeans, hoodie and shoes with laces open. I asked the men (with my crappy French) if they were there for the washing machine and they said yes. Then I noticed our roommate Sam was there as well. I'm a master of looking ridiculous when he's around. And he was probably pissed off since I'd been taking a shower when I was supposed to open the door. He didn't look like it though, but that's because he's super nice.

After the washing machine episode I was supposed to text my written Chinese teacher to get the grade. I misinterpreted the number she'd given to me and ended up sending the same message to 4 different numbers. I guess there will be French people laughing at me somewhere...

The teacher texted me back during my ONLY LESSON THAT DAY, asking if I could meet her in 10 minutes. I raised my hand and you can imagine how disappointed the teacher was when I didn't ask a question about linguistics but if I could leave the class for a few minutes. She gave me permission but told me I could have picked another time to have a meeting. I said: "Yeah I know but... yeah."

Of course, I went to a wrong building and then finally got to see the teacher. She said I did fine in the second test and asked what I'd got from the first one. I told her I wasn't there so 0. She wasn't happy. She said I might fail the course. I knew that, it all depended on the test I was going to have the next day, same course but a different teacher.

After that, I met Hannah and she really made my day :) . We talked outside (where by the way it's as warm as in Finland in May - and it's December!!).

I went home and got to open the door again, this time for firemen! I was like "What have I done wrong?!" and they rolled their eyes like I was stupid. I told them I'm not French and they were like "Oh now I get it!". They probably thought I was an idiot. Turned out they were selling calendars. I went to the living room where Sam and his friends were laughing at me. Best. Day. Ever.

Otherwise I've done well at school - I've even managed to get best grades at class. I would probably be better if I wouldn't sleep past the exams. I've also gone to judo twice a week but I suck at it because it's sports.

Other than that, I've visited Hannah and Grace and met other friends. And been to a lot of parties!

During the Autumn vacation (when I last updated...) I went to a Halloween party. I was late because I woke up like at 6 PM which felt difficult because I usually woke up at 8 PM.

Here's me before the party:

The best costume winner got to break the piñata thing:

It was fun dancing with zombies :D

It was held in this American bar. The music was awesome. Sounded like my MP3.

We got blood on our faces :D

Grrr :P

We were also in an Asian soirée which was -needless to say- awesome. I got to know a lot about Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea. Also, I met some great people. I don't have any pics cuz I was too genius to take a camera with me.

We went to the movies with Heidi and Florine to see Le Majordome - The Buttler. It wasn't dubbed!! But, unfortunately, that was the only good thing in the movie. The script was bad and the ending was idiotic, like "everything's fine now in the great country of USA". Well let me tell you something: it isn't.

We went to eat galettes after that:

I love Breton food!

Since we realized the 6th of December - the Independence day of Finland! - was coming, we decided to have a party - 2 days before the day. Some people even came to that random event!

I baked buns! But after punching the pastry it just grimaced to me! Evil pastry...

International guests. France, Vietnam, Romania and Germany represented in this one. And everyone is part of our work camp making Finnish flags.

Instead of staying in the huge living room we decided to go to the small kitchen.

Luckily, the Romanian girl knew how to bake. I hate baking!! I almost forgot to add the butter... Well, this is how our working camp continued.

Finnish food. The famous bins on the left.

Alcohol. And stuff :D 

Sweet girls!

By the way finding blue candles was impossible! Seriously! Do the French think they are cursed or what?! We found them in the 5th shop we went to!!

Here's the making of the notorious Finnish Christmas mince pies. They are a hundreds of years old tradition and now the Swedish media decided they look like swastikas...

An enthusiastic baker :D

Me after the party...

Last Thursday we were in the last English lesson this year :'( And in the cafe after that:

Fiona and Heidi

Hannah and a glass of fine

Me and Hannah's hand

By the way I was sick and my voice was awful.

After the awful day, Thursday the 12th, was the best day - Friday the 13th!

First of all, I didn't sleep past the exam because I woke up in Hannah's text message in which she invited us to celebrate Luca's name day. I'm so grateful because - as you know - I would have failed the course without that. The test was easy so I'm glad I was... you know, there :D

We went to celebrate Luca's name day - which, by the way, is Lucia day in Finland - in a restaurant called "Entrecote". They only serve entrecote and fries (and salad) so I liked it - I didn't have to choose :D. The restaurant is probably the best one in Bordeaux - you have to stand in line in order to get in. But, since it was our lucky day, we got in really fast. 

Here are the Hungarian people: 

Luca and Kozima. By the way, Luca means "light", cool or what!

Here's the entrecote.

Luca had lost her earring but when we went back outside, Kozima found it!! Lucky day!!!

After the restaurant we headed to Hannah's place to a party. There were a lot of great people. We compared our languages with Kozima and turned out there actually might be some kind of similarities with Hungarian and Finnish :D. So we're like family. Also, both countries were on the wrong side in the WW2. I learned lots of things about Hungary, like ball point pen has been invented there!

Me at the end of the party. I had tea because I sounded like McLovin.

The next day, although I was sick, we went to do some Christmas shopping. Bordeaux has put some effort to make the place look christmassy: 

Motorcycle gang - all dressed as Santas XD

The hotel in front of Grand Théâtre

Florine and Heidi :D

The cathedral, Hôtel de ville and a Christmas tree

And we went to KFC! Why don't we have that in Finland?!?!?

Next week we're having an awesome party at our place! And Terhi's coming here for 3 weeks!! Yay!

I've probably finally used to living here. It's becoming easier to use French, I even went to "Google traduction" instead of "Google translate"!! You can see how I wrote my essay... The people here are really nice and I'm glad I came here. I'm mostly just really happy for no reason, maybe I've been replaced by an alien :DD. 

I miss everyone a lot and I'm gonna miss my new friends who return to their countries. Please feel free to contact me whenever you want, even after a long time, I don't want to forget anyone!

Thank you for reading this blog and I really hope I'll be able to update this more often!! Remember to comment and complain how I'm not interesting enough :DD

À la prochaine!

-Mimmi

PS: Don't forget to check out my other blog http://falloutspam.tumblr.com/, there's a new layout coming up and I've even got some fans :DD Yes, this is an ad :P 

PPS: Can you imagine that Patrick has a beard?!?!?!? 

  

Hey, Metromies! Where's the new blog entry?

Hi guys!

Yes, it's been too long. I see that some of you have still come here to check if there was a new update. What great fans I have! Well, now your wait will (hopefully) pay off!

I have been very busy with school and a thing called "life". Needless to say, I have barely slept due to my rhythm that still doesn't match with the one of the French society. I simply can't go to sleep before 3 AM and I have been epically late from school. My record was a Tuesday when I woke up half an hour after the lesson had started and decided to skip the whole lesson. That night I stayed up late in order to study Chinese characters for the following day's exam. As a result, I overslept and missed the exam. But those mornings were only slightly less bad than the others. In the weekends, I have usually waken up at 18-20. So, hopeless.

Don't worry, I'm not going to explain everything that has happened to me day by day as I've done before. I'm just going to mention the main stuff (whatever that is). So here it goes!

I have attended the English course every Thursday to enjoy the exhilarating level the French people speak English. Not that my French would have gotten any better. It totally hasn't.

Of course, I'm usually late from there too, even though it's in the evening. So shame on me. One time I had a pretty good reason, though. We were in the bank making a thing called "virement" to pay our rent, since France hasn't updated to the 21st century where people can actually pay their rent online. When we left the bank, we bumped into this event they were having in the Place de la Victoire - some kind of Pays Basque theme thing.

Since it was free for students, we decided to check it out.

It was the kind of crazy thing where students voluntarily run away from a bull and there was also a swimming pool included. Yeah, that's how much I understood!

So there I was, sitting in the audience. It's amazing how the can fit that kind of huge thing in the Place de la Victoire!

Different games were included, the first one was to get the bull jump into the pool. Crazy people, some fell and got run by the bull!

There was also some kind of donkey riding for girls. It turned out to be difficult for most of them.

This was a game where one person had to stay inside a bag holding a ring and the other one had to get the bull run through the ring. By the way, I don't think the toros were harmed in any of these games.

The audience were cheering for their own teams. Note the beautiful sunset. 

In the last game there was an angry bull that decided to nudge the people into the pool one at a time and the last one remaining would win. The bull wasn't so angry after all, so for some reason the guys decided to take off all their clothes. 

We have been very active with our social lives with Heidi. We went to a British soirée (yeah, speaking English all the time is exactly the reason I came to France). It was held in our friends' house and it was a lot of fun! There was a quiz and I surprised myself not knowing anything but questions about astronomy!! What the fuck?! 

Anyway, since I'm totally intelligent, I forgot to take pictures from there, but instead we took some while we were waiting for the bus to get there:

That day (and night) was quite cold (not cold cold as winter in Finland!) so we felt home. It was like autumn'd finally come. Of course now it's over 20 degrees again :D. We miss Finland a lot. 

Another thing I'm good at is getting lost. On a Thursday I was alone in the Bordeaux center, which led to me walking for an hour trying to find Fnac but ending up in the same places all over again! Seriously, why do all the buildings look exactly the same and why can't I see anything 3-dimensional!? 

Before that, after getting lost in Talence as well (yes, that is possible), I'd gone to a huge book store to buy a book of French grammar - finally, something to do with French! In the dictionary section I heard a guy asking for Finnish dictionary! Of course I had to talk to him an offer my help with his studies of my native language. He gave me his number and we agreed to meet on Sunday.

That was the first Sunday here when I woke up before 6 PM and actually had time to go to the center. Heidi came with me and we met the guy who told us he'd only just started learning Finnish - for fun! Yeah, it's probably really "fun" to learn all the 15 cases... Anyway, he knew a lot about Finnish language and other stuff as well, so I had a great time walking through Bordeaux center (again) and talking to him (in French!). By the way, there aren't many Finns here in Bordeaux, so it was quite a lucky coincidence that he found us :D.

Since I already wasn't busy enough, I decided to start judo with Heidi. It turned out to be awesome and now I'm going there twice a week. All the people there are really nice and eager to give me advice because I really don't know any techniques. Of course, I fail to understand everything since it's in French. 

We even bought crappy judo suits that were far too expensive compared to their quality:

Yes, my hair is epic. It just pisses me off that I had to buy a suit like this while I have two quality karate suits in Finland!!

And now a happy announcement: Fall Out Boy is touring in Europe again! Save Rock And Roll Tour! And guess who's going there!

When I was in Finland, I decided to go to the Paris concert. So now when I'm in France where FOB has several concerts, I logically decided to go to... Cologne, Germany! I'm going to stay at the awesome Germans  I met in the Paris concert! Ain't that awesome?!

For some reason it was cheaper to order the concert ticket to Finland that to France (from Germany, what the fuck?!) so my mom sent the ticket for me! It looks awesome! As do my new sunglasses I got in the same packet.

This weekend, Mira came to visit us! She's having her exchange year in Poitiers (it's in France in case you didn't know) so it isn't too far from us. Anyway, having a visitor meant one thing: we had to finally clean up the apartment! So we asked our roommate Sam to bring us a vacuum cleaner - which he eventually did. The vacuum cleaner actually worked, apart from that it was falling into pieces all the time. It was still better than the one in our apartment that could only make a noise that made our ears bleed. You know things are bad when you're happy to receive a constantly breaking vacuum cleaner!

So now, for the first time, our apartment is clean! You're welcome to visit here! It just feels so weird going to the kitchen and actually wanting to stay there for a while.

By the way, we have enormous spiders here. Nice.

But now, with that lovely image on your heads, I'm going to tell about our weekend with Mira.

Mira arrived on Friday and we went to buy us a huge amount of sweets "because we're on vacation". We spend the night in our apartment, talking and watching Taistelu-Jaska (a great video, check it out on You Tube XD). Apparently Mira isn't a vampire so she went to bed "early". Heidi and I were up until 8 AM. I woke up when Mira knocked my door at 4 PM. So 8 hour sleep! F*ck yeah!

We went shopping in Mériadeck shopping center!

I love New Yorker! I spend over 50 euros there buying shirts. And now I realized that I need more jeans. So I guess I'm gonna have to spend another 50 :D.

Since we woke up at decent vampire time, the night fell quickly. Here we are at the Bordeaux gate thing.

We went to eat in a Chinese restaurant and posed really beautifully XD.

Gangztaz in front of the Grand Théâtre. Note that I changed my shirt. It says "The night is young".

And I totally knew about this carnival thing and that is why I led us there, not because I got lost trying to find something else.

But the kids were happy.

And the statue didn't approve the American flag.

There was this Sponge Bob you could win and it reminded me of us trying to win Sponge Bob every year in a Finnish carnival, failing due to the expensive and impossible games. I will get you, Sponge Bob! Some day...

The pâtisseries weren't open but luckily we found some super healthy churros and Nutella.

This boutique provided the most unhealthy things you could imagine. Like a fritter filled with Nutella and sugar. Deep fried, of course.

Posing in front of the Ferris wheel. Real original.

Mira with a lovely statue of some guy (Neptune, maybe?) and horses with water coming from their noses. Seriously, who comes up with these?

The coolest pose evah!

Gambetta. Love Heidi's face lol.

Heidi and I got really excited...

...because we found a new Subway! The smoke-looking thing is a proof that Mira was still breathing.

Japanese pose and a pink arch.

Yeah, we have already Christmas decorations. Great...

Epic fail trying to take a picture of the cathedral. Luckily Mira and Heidi know how to smile prettily.

Another pink arch.

"The other side". I've never crossed that bridge.

The carnival.

A moon that looks like a blood orange.

The next day I woke up at 12(AM)!! Against my own will, of course. But we had to wake up early so that Mira could see more Bdx before she left for La Rochelle. So after having sung in the shower I joined my friends to go to Fnac. I ended up spending too much money again. But I finally got Too Weird To Live, Too Rare To Die! It's an awesome album, you all should listen to it! After Fnac, we went to this amazing tea place Verde Nero.

Mira was really happy, because the tea was really good. In the back you can see the various tea flavors!! We got even professional guidance in choosing the right one!

They had delicious chocolate fondant and genius cup/tea pot things. 

After the tea party. The music was great, too!

Finally we had to leave Mira in the Gare St. Jean.

I hope she'll come back soon!

So that's most of the thing's that I've been doing. Now I'm on vacation so hopefully there will be more updates. Even the Paris stuff! 

It's 8 AM now and I can assure you that it's not morning for me! So be grateful for this crap! By the way, if these entries seem too long to read, keep in mind that I don't publish them that often :D.

Thanks for reading this and asking for more. I miss you guys and look forward to seeing you again! It feels like I've been here for ages now! 

See you soon! I promise! 

-Metromies