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

Not sleeping is the beginning of failing (A.K.A. my day at the beach)

Hi, you lovely people who actually read this crap!

It's been a long time and a lot has happened since... Thursday the somethingth? I think I'm going to tell first about my school life and then about my real life (yes, I do have one :D).

So after having the easiest school week last week, I now had the hardest school week ever. And the difficulties were caused mainly by me.

Dear diary, I might be the worst student my university has ever had. And that's quite bad because it's a pretty crappy school. Anyway, since my rhythm has been totally fucked up - every Saturday I go to sleep at 7 AM - I woke up too late on Monday and was late from school. Which started at 15.30. Yeah, I know, great. Luckily, the French system makes it easy to be late from class since there are no breaks. So when one lesson ends at 15.30, the next one starts at 15.30, making it impossible to be actually in time.

On Tuesday my school was going to start at 8.30, so I had to go to sleep early. Of course my vampire life style made it impossible so I ended up staying up whole night. And by whole night I mean THE WHOLE DAMN NIGHT! I didn't feel so good at 6 AM when I had to get up. And I really wasn't feeling any better at 13.30 when my last 2 hour lesson started. I literally kept falling asleep during the lesson. Embarrassing. I kept waking up realizing that the noise that had woken me up was the sound of my head hitting the table. I really didn't want to fall asleep. But I did, even in the middle of writing down a word. There are weird lines in the middle of the unfinished words in my notebook. I honestly don't have any memory of writing them down.

This wasn't the only proof of my bad studenthood (yes, I know it's not a real word). I was so tired and messed up - I had been awake for more than 24 hours - that I went to a wrong classroom, only to notice that the people were speaking German instead of Chinese. So I was late from that Chinese lesson too. And I skipped a lesson, due to the mistake a lovely tutor had made. Even though I had chosen the lab lesson for Chinese, she didn't add me on the course. So I spent that time at the International Affairs office where my all time favorite tutor (the annoying guy who neither speaks English nor knows how to use computers) tried to sign me in on the course. It took him an hour to find the course online. Or it would have taken for him to find it, but after the hour he let me find it for him. Took 2 minutes. And I suck at those kinds of things!

So on Tuesday I came home, said one word to my roommate Sam and fell asleep. I woke up in the middle of the night, went back to sleep and guess what! I overslept! On Wednesday I looked at my cell phone which said it was 10 past 10. My lesson started at 10.30 so I was only half an hour late. Too bad it was my first lesson of Chinese characters and I missed the whole "How to use a dictionary" thing. Luckily I have an amazing friend who offered to help me the very same night at 3 AM. It's a good thing I'm not the only one having a twisted rhythm.

Needless to say, I was late on Thursday too. And I only had one lesson! Not only am I the worst student ever, I'm also the one idiotic foreigner who speaks awful French. If I speak at all. By the way, my French literature teacher is awesome! He has travelled a lot and he thinks the French system is idiotic! I already love his lessons. And I've had one.

After that, I was late every single day. More or less. But at least I've done my homework.

So this was the long part with a lot of text and little pictures. Hang in there! There will be even a video!

So much has happened since last time I updated.  On the Friday after the last entry, we went to meet Heidi's tutor Florine. She was super cool, we talked about everything (in French!!) and walked through the whole Bordeaux center. It's a nice city. And she bought us macarons, my first macaron ever! It was really good. There were like a hundred flavors, among which also salmon flavored one!

So here's why I don't have any pics from that day: I took my camera with me but had left the memory card in my laptop. Yeah, I'm a genius.

Since we had super fun, we decided to spend Saturday night with Florine as well. There was also her friend Léa. She was great too!

Here I'm hanging out at the Place de la Victoire - once again.

It's a place for students so there's a lot of people during weekends.

Hôtel de ville and the cathedral.

A movie theater and Heidi.

I just love cities at night!

This reminds me of Jyväskylä :D

Place de la Bourse. The thing that's in most Bdx postcards.

These artworks won't be here much longer :(

Léa, Heidi and Florine. So pretty!

Then this weird castle thing again.

And some kind of arc.

The night was fun. I'd waken up at 6 PM that day.

I didn't get anything done on Sunday. Or Monday, except being late from school. Yeah, that's "something done". 

On Wednesday, after a horrible starting of the week at school of which I told you earlier, our friends from the soirée asked us to come to the beach. They were leaving at 17 and that's exactly when our last lesson started, so of course we were late from that, too. Luckily they are super nice and waited for us. I was super tired but I'm glad I went anyway.

The beach was at Lacanau and it took more than an hour to drive there. Since it was by the ocean, it was huge. And it was really difficult to walk in the sand. 

Awesome people. And me.

My jeans are not wet yet for running away from the waves.

Apparently I can jump :D

Me and Heidi.

The beautiful beach. Think about that, friends in Finland! It was the end of the september, the very same day it kinda snowed in Jyväskylä! :D It was 30 degrees!

It became really dark. It was like the winter in Finland. And the heat was like the summer. Weird.

We got hot dogs and marshmallows!

The day was great and I really needed after the horrible school experiences. I got some new friends and got to speak French, maybe I'll learn it a little better some day...

On Thursday evening we went to an English lesson arranged by the FACasso (the same people with whom we were on the beach). I'm saying this with all my love but French people really don't know how to speak English. At least the ones I've tried with. The lesson was like Finnish elementary school. It was still fun, though. Meeting friends and all.

After that, we went to a café to talk more in English. It felt so good to speak English without feeling guilty for not speaking French. I ended up explaining my views about the World War Two for hours. Weird, I'm not even into it that much! :D At least I didn't bore people again with linguistics.

On that Saturday we went to the Musée Aquitaine -the museum of our region- with Florine. It was free for students on that day!

I proved how mature I am starting from the first room.

There was lots of old stuff.

This was a chain for slaves.

This ugly statue thing resembled something Celtic, if I remember correctly. I'm not really into this kind of art. 

My favorite language! Oh, Latin, how I've missed you!

Some Roman stuff.

There has been an amphitheater in Bordeaux. Now there are only the awful ones at the university.

I like this fish thing :D

Many statues were missing their heads. Jupiter still had it.

A tombstone of a child.

Ancient French! :DD I know this isn't interesting for all of you guys but I was really excited to see this!

Probably the ugliest thing I've ever seen.

Bordeaux used to be a port for selling slaves. Such a sad part of history.

There actually were some beautiful things in the museum but it just isn't my style to put them here. That's not how I roll! So go to to check out the museum by yourselves if you're interested!

It was a rainy day so we went to Fnac! FNAC! <3

Yes, a manga about wine. So French.

I bought two books Florine recommended. They are in French and I'm pretty happy to be able to read, it has been such a long time since I've actually read something worth reading.

I also bought sports clothes so that I could finally start karate or judo again. 

We arrived in our beloved hometown Talence and took a picture of its center just like a minute before it started raining.

And when it rains in Bordeaux, it actually RAINS! It was like swimming home. Perhaps this amazingly made video will tell you more about it (if the uploading is successful, somebody please tell me how to use this sh*t):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpWKM4h--KA&feature=youtu.be

(I gave up and uploaded on YouTube, enjoy!)

If you managed to watch the video, I apologize for the Nobel winning crappiness of it. I also apologize for my transparent shirt (it kinda was raining...) and my bad accent, I'd been talking French the whole day. :D

I sacrificed my Sunday for doing homework. I get tons of it but I've got to admit I kinda like it. It makes me feel like I'm actually doing something useful for once. And even though I'm the worst student ever, I love Chinese. It takes a lot of work but I really wish that we could learn even faster. There's so much to do and so little time. Yes, I'm a nerd, haha.

I'm quite sure that I haven't told you everything but I guess it's OK. :D 

I wish I could update more often (OK, I could if I wasn't so lazy!). By the way, you are allowed to share this blog if you think it's worth reading. I love getting readers! And comments! 

Thank you for commenting, by the way <3

I'm starting to get used to the French environment but I can't help missing Jyväskylä and my awesome friends there. And some of them are around Europe. :D

So make sure to come visit me!

This was all, maybe some day you'll know what happened in Paris!

Thanks for reading

<3: Roosa

a vampire geek and a lousy student