Lähdin Heidelbergiin maanantaina ja keskiviikona Studentenwerk, joka hoittaa eniten asuntolaa, soitti minun vanhemmien paikalle. Vanhemmani ovat lomalla. Ja olin asuntoa etsimässä Heidelbergissä. Studentenwerkin siihteri halusi sanoa että voin saada huoneen asuntolassa, koska joku ei ollut halunut sen. 10 päivää päästä soitin hänelle ja huone oli vielä vapa, siksi asun nyt kuitenkin opiskelijan-asuntolassa. Se sijaitsee Neckarin ja Yliopiston välissä, joki Neckar on noin 50-100m päässä talosta.

Olen nyt Heidelbergissä ja etsin asuntoa. Asuin tänä aikana Schwetzingenissä ystävän ja hänen tyttöystävän – ei, vaimon paikassa. (Se oli heidän häät frankfurtissa mihin olin kutsunut pari päivää minun saksaan palaamisen jälkeen) Toisena päivänä jolla olin siellä kertoin simasta ja Vapusta Suomessa heille. Ystäväni on tavallisesti utelias, siis me tehdimme simaa, neljä litraa hunaajasimaa. Se oli hyvä minusta, mutta en tiennyt varmasti mitä mieltä he olivat. Mutta kaksi päivää sitten ystäväni sanoi että se ei ole hyvää että meillä ei ole enää simaa jääkaapissa ja hän alkoi tehdä uutta simaa noin keskiyönä. Luulen että hän pitää siitä – ja hän sanoi että hän aikoo käytää seuravana kerrana isomman kattilan  Uusi sima on piparminttusima, olen löytänyt pari toista versioa internetissä, esim. myös mustaherukanlehdin kanssa *g*.
Ja me tehdimme myös karjalanpiirakkaa, on aina hauska nähdä millainen ihmiset tekevät eli yritävät tehdä sen ensi kerran. Illalla söimme niin piirakkaa, simaa ja salaattia

Bin momentan in Heidelberg, Wohnung suchen. Wohne in Schwetzingen bei einem Mitstudenten und seiner Freundin -äh Frau. Die die ich auch kurz nach meiner Rückkehr nach Deutschland in Frankfurt an der Oder besucht hatte.
Ich erzählte hier natürlich von Finnland, u.a. von unseren dortigen Simaversuchen, und da Marco meist neugierig ist, mussten wir das natürlich ausprobieren. 4l Honigsima. Mittlerweile wieder neuer angesetzt weil es ja schlimm ist keinen Sima im Kühlschrank zu haben. Diesmal mit Pfefferminze.
Auch mal Karjalanpiirakka gemacht, immer wieder lustig zuzugucken wie die aussehen wenn man noch nicht viele gemacht hat. Dann mit Salat und Sima gegessen

Zweisprachige Posts hier sind übrigens keine Übersetzungen von einer Sprache in die andere, nur so grob vom Sinn her.

Als ich gestern insb. das Bild hier auf hs.fi gesehen habe … ich glaub das nennt man Heimweh *g* (koti-ikävä)

Eigentlich wollte ich ja das mal wieder auf finnisch schreiben, aber mir das momentan zu spät. Morgen geht’s nach Heidelberg, Wohnung suchen. Nunja, muss ja. Gestern war ich zu faul mal kurz nach Kiel zu fahren und mir die Taufe von der Color Magic im Kieler Hafen anzugucken (übrigens in Turku gebaut, genauso wie ihr leicht kleineres Schwesterschiff), aber irgendwann wird man ja eh mal wieder eine von denen im Hafen sehen.
Ansonsten heute Bürgermeisterwahl in Preetz. Grandiose Wahlbeteiligung, wie das bei sowas halt üblich ist. Aber man kommt sich auch leicht bescheuert vor zu so einer Wahl zu gehen, wenn man gerade mal zwei Wochen zuhause ist. Aber soweit ich weiß hat das Bürgeramt hier sowieso nichts davon mitbekommen, dass ich meinen Wohnsitz in Helsinki angemeldet hatte, soweit ist das wohl noch nicht mit Europa und so.

Heute mal wieder laufen gewesen, daher die Bilder hier. Mal was aktuelles … und schöne Laufstrecken gibt’s hier ja auch.

Next stop was Coimbra. Rita’s current hometown, from her balcony she has quite a nice view towards the University of Coimbra, which was founded 1290 and is thus oldest university in Portugal and one of the oldest in Europe.
At Rita’s home we were all welcomed by her mother and Napoleão, their/Rita’s dog. Her mother had cooked nice food, but we could have been 8 people and it would’ve been enough. And Napoleão didn’t seem as weird as Rita had described him at first.

Already at the first evening we saw parts of the university quarter of the town, when we drove to a bar on the riverside. But the next day we spent more time there, although nobody of us was really keen on going somewhere inside and spent some more money, already having visited tons of stuff the days before. But the weather was really nice, blue sky, temperatures which were more or less ok, we rather stayed outside and enjoyed the view down on the city and its river Mondego.

In the afternoon we left Gernot to recover for the evening behind, visited a nice park presenting itself in nice colors, everything just in walking distance from Rita’s place.

Behind the park which also provided some shadow, a little playground with simple but still nice experiments, the possibility for Andreu to make some music and …

… a cushioned cone where 2 people could go around at the same time, more or less controlled.

On the way back throught a botanic garden which was officially already being closed, somewhen in the late afternoon - as opposed to shopping malls as we saw later that evening.

Going down the stairs in front of the university to get some icecream. At a lot of places Rita was able to tell some stories, as here, about the big stony balls on top of the stairs of the leftovers from the last big student party hanging in some tree along the way. (Some of those stuff could have been already in her blog)

After eating icecream and waking up Gernot we ate this evening a bit outside the town ‘Spanferkel’ (leo translates it as sucking-pig. sounds weird. netmot doesn’t even know the german term for it …)

On the way back to town we stopped at a big mall which is situated at the border of the town, thus providing a nice view over the town from its terrace. The mall was opened until midnight, and a lot of people even used this late time for shopping.
And it was dark. Really dark. Two weeks before in Hki, it was still somehow not that dark. maybe also due to the city lights and some dust in the air – middle of august should’ve been already far enough away from Juhannus …

And yes, after this (I actually just checked the dates of the photos, that’s all so much, but yes, we did) we went to a small bar were Rita obviously knew the owner. Drinking something there and some time later we then continued through the town towards some bakery selling different food throught some backdoor. Very nice idea

In Coimbra we stayed at a 3rooms+kitchen+bath flat of Rita’s family, in the same building as her grandmother’s flat. A nice and quiet place.
Andreu, the tallest of all of us, insisted on throwing a coin on who had to use the couch – and he ended up sleeping there. In Germany there is a saying: ‘Stupidity has to be punished’ …

The next day we spent some time in the town and in the afternoon we went to Figueira da Foz, to the coast of the Atlantic. To go swimming. The weather looked first as if it would rain, but actually it didn’t.

But as Rita said, the air temperature of 24°C was already so cold that she felt stupid going to the beach. No real portuguese obviously would go to the beach at such temperatures …
I was the only one going swimming, the water was not really warm, but nice to swim and no problem to go in, at least it made the impression to me - but except me there havn’t been any people inside the water within sight at that time, so it was somehow weird, together with the big waves.
My parents said that we had also been in Figueira da Foz about 18-19 years ago for an afternoon, but I really cannot remember that big houses near to the beach … or we just had been some km north or south of it.
Due to the weather we had really nice and intersting light, wind and clouds.

After swimming and/or sitting at the beach and maybe putting some toes into the water we went to eat some grilled fish. We ordered 5 different sorts, we actually got 7 sorts and we payed half of the price you might pay in Germany for a normal meal in a restaurant.
Very nice fish, maybe except for that sort of ‘squid’, I think I don’t really need that again …

what was the name of this again ? definately stronger than 50% vodka or pillepalle

Portuguese coffee. No finnish coffee. But I think portuguese coffee in the quantities that had been drunk in the acclab in Helsinki would have killed you. Even Helga’s first lab coffee was still far away from this.

And before going back to the train, some Caipirinha and for Rita the sweeter variant.

Back on the train, I had the stupid idea to write a postcard. But not the normal way, no. Everybody should write 3 words. It worked in finnish with Maria and Antonia, but never do this with drunk people – I should have known. But this way a former flatmate got 2 cards – this one and a normal one … It was funny anyway.

… and again a trainstation, this time waiting for the train to Lisboa.

Nyt olen jo yksi kuukausi pois Suomesta. Mutta en ole ollut vielä paljon enemmän kuin yksi viikko samassa paikassa – ja ensi viikolla minun täytyy mennä Heidelbergiin etsimään asuntoa. Heinäkuussa laitoin hakemuksen opiskelijan-asunnolle ja tavallisesti entinen vaihto-opiskelijoita saavat paikkaa, mutta eilen sain viestin että tänä syksynä on erilainen koska Heidelbergissä on enemmän BAföG-opiskelijat kuin opiskelijan asunnon paikkoita (enkä saanut vielä minun hakemuksen valmiksi). Siis minun täytyy etsiä asuntoa itse nyt nopeasti. Talossa missä asuin ennen kuin menen Suomeen on vielä kaksi vapaat huoneet, mutta en halua asua siellä uudelleen. Talo on noin sata metriä korkeampi keskustaa ja siksi se oli ihan hiljainen, ehkä liian hiljainen. VAK:lla oli niin kuin sen vastakohta.
Mutta on hyvä että voin vierailla pari ystäväni, esim. ystävä joka meni naimisiin viime kuukaussa asuu nyt uudessa asunossa missä en ole ollut vielä.
Ensi huomenna Lyypekkiin grillaamaan

On the airport in Porto Marianne and Rita met us, Jasmin, Gernot, Andreu and me. Then we drove to a flat of Rita’s friend, who thankfully offered all of us to stay there while she was away, where we all had enough place to stay at. Rita had already prepared food for the evening, Bacalhau casserole, I think no comment is needed for anybody knowing Rita’s cooking skills.
The next day we went to a museum in Porto, but either I was to tired to get anything out of it, or everything was just as or less interesting as this staircase.

But the gardens around were nice, as was the weather.


Then we went down through the old town, down to the river side, to enjoy the sun and write the first postcards.

In the evening I decided to cook, the result was ok regarding the little time on our hands. And to search more positive points about it: it was quite suitable to be eaten after going out to some bar that evening.

The car was relatively crowded on the way back from shopping ….

That evening we went to a nice bar in Porto, nice wooden floor, an old house which was not too obvious seeing it from the street. In the backyard there were a lot of tables below palms. There we all sat at one table, all of us exchange students having been in Finland. Then some guy asked if he could sit down there. Some not so portugese looking one. Actually he was a finn, who moved from Rovaniemi to Porto about 20 years ago. Unfortunately most of the others of us were not really able to talk in finnish, but all of them had been only half a year at different places in Finland. But I could actually talk again some finnish … a week after having left Finland.
Back in the flat, icecream and spinnage-foccacio were decimated.

Ingredients for Rita’s casserole everywhere …

Having seen this church already on a lot of postcards … and on this photo even the construction site in front of it is not visible. At other places in the city we also saw otherwise rather ordinary houses being decorated with these sort of tiles.

towards the big bridge … some of us didn’t like that you could look directly downwards between the metal plates …

… but the view from both sides was really nice. One week later this area was used for the redbull airrace.

… finally we were on our way to Coimbra. The train station in the city was really impressive, because the tracks were directly going to a tunnel, the train station itself was surrounded by houses.

After I arrived sunday(19.08) morning night in Preetz again after having been on the wedding of another student from Heidelberg, I had some hours to pack my stuff and leave in the afternoon from Hamburg to Barcelona. Andreu (former flatmate from Oulu) picked me up at the nearest metro station to his place – the streets of Barcelona are almost all perpendicular to each other, thus it looks nice on the map, but when you have to find something, I’d rather prefer ‘normal’ streets.

Andreu lives some blocks away from the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, i.e. it’s not far to walk to the center nor the beach.
The first evening we just went to eat something and then back ‘home’, the others had been out quite a lot already the days before, so they were probably as tired as I was.

The next day we fetched a box from Rita from Portugal from the post office, she couldn’t come to Barcelona. The girls got some selfmade earrings, and there were 2 bottles of quite good portugese wine, but actually we didn’t manage to drink it before we all left to Portugal, thus Andreu and me had to drink it later.

The temperatures in Barcelona were similar to those in Helsinki one week before, slightly below 30°C. Thus not too warm and we were walking  from Arc de Triomf through some parc, to the beach, and several times along the Sagrada Familia.

The beach was not as crowded as expected, I have seen Hietsu more crowded

The following night everbody stayed up until around 3 so that everybody could bring Kerstin to the busstation to Girona and say goodbye.

On the busstation Gernot cleaned quite a part of the busses windows with Andreus help saying goodbye …

Later on Tuesday we were leaving from the same station to Girona, to fly to Porto. (with Ryanair, therefore not from Barcelonas airport)

Viime maanantaina saavuin Hampuriin Barcelonasta. Mutta sitten olin vähän sairas, lämmönnousua jne., ja nukkuin ihan paljon tänä viikona. Mutta en ole nukkunut paljon espanjassa enkä portugaliassakaan
On kiva mutta myös stressaava minun vanhemmien paikassa. Heillä on paljon työtä tällä hetkellä, siis kaikki ei ole aina rauhallinen täällä ja olen jo vähän onnellinen että he menevät uudelleen lomalle ensi viikolla Ja kaikki täällä on niin kuin pari vuotta sitten, se ei ole aina niin helposti käsitä. Mutta tämä on sama ongelma kuin ennen olin ollut Suomessa *g*.
Aion kirjoittaa tekstiä lomasta seuraavina päivinä, toivon että onnistun
Ensi kuva tehtiin mun vanhemmien autotalin katolla. Toinen kuva näyttää missä olin viime 4 viikkoa.

Die Woche jetzt viel geschlafen und ein wenig krank gewesen, aber schon Bilder von den letzten Wochen durchgeguckt. Plane die nächsten Tage was dazu zu schreiben. Das Bild zeigt wo ich in den letzten 4 Wochen war.

Andreu hat schonmal ein paar Bilder aus Barcelona und Portugal hochgeladen.