Thursday (30th Oct);
The English Language Circle hosted an 'international food night'. It was something we talked about it the first meeting (when there was 30 of us) but with the deteriorating numbers of people coming (about 5 a week now) I wasnt expecting much. But the response was huge. We had about 20 people sharing food from their home countries. Some put more effort into it than others (a packet of chocolate chip cookies from the supermarket to represent America?). Anyway, I decided to make Toad in the Hole, as it is a traditional popular dish of Britain. And supposedly easy to make. Although, I've never made it before it seemed to turn out pretty well. The sausages arent really as good as we have back home (they're more like frankfurters here) so was a bit worried. But people seemed to like it :) i have to say, I loved some of the other dishes. Notably the Korean rice balls, and the Finnish cinnamon buns. Very yummy :p
Friday (31st Oct);
Friends birthday. Pizza. Pub. Karaoke. Bacon. Rave. Mess.
Saturday/Sunday (1st and 2nd Nov);
4th Annual European Film festival. There must be some sort of film society at the university, and they ran the whole programme of the festival for 3 days for free! So with nothing better to do for the weekend I went along to watch a few. I saw a German film, about a guy who is so lonely that he steals a family and holds them hostage in his flat. Strange, but compelling. Had no idea where it was heading or how it would end, so kept me interested for the 90mins. Then I watched some shorts, my favourite being a British one called Speechless.
Sunday I saw an Irish film called Satalites & Meteorites. It was a love story going on in the minds of two coma patients. But it all starts to go wrong when the doctors try to wake up said coma patients. If you liked films such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (which I dont) and Science of Sleep (which I love) then you should definitely keep your eyes peeled for this one. I do hope its gets a proper release. After that I watched some more shorts (well, 2) which were very weird, and not really worth much mention.
Thursday (6th Nov);
Halloween-themed Sitz party! Seems a bit weird to still be doing Halloween the day after guy fawks night, but then thats not really a concern here I guess. Anyway, you can read about the tradition that is the Sitz party here, but the general gist is, a seated meal, with alcohol and singing. You have a 'King and Queen' who lead the singing and control the 'citizens'. We got to sing traditional Sitz songs (in both Swedish and Finnish, as well as some English and German). There is also a question set out by the 'King and Queen' which is answered going around the room at various intervals in the night. Given the American elections seeming to take over the media of every western country of late, our question was based on Obama's campaign slogan - change. Luckily I didnt have to answer in the end. Anyway, the whole thing was quite a fun idea, and I think done properly would be great. But I think it relys on the Finns nature of following rules, even when drunk, which the other Europeans *cough* Spanish *cough* dont do so well, and after a while it felt like our 'King and Queen' were losing control of the drunken masses, so we decided to duck out early (but after the punsch of course).
And thats pretty much my week summed up. Tomorrow is a jubilee concert of the Abo Akademi, where a full simphonie Ochestra will be playing some classical Finnish compositions, such as Finlandia by Sibelius. Should be a good atmosphere I think.
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