the least significant bit

I’m finally back from the study abroad semester in Finland. The time went by very fast and it is hard to realize that it is actually over now. The cities mentioned in the title indicate the travel route back home.
After we came back from our Kuusamo trip we had only 1 day left to do all the pre-departure stuff: pack our bags, tidy up the flat, say good bye to everyone, …
We (Masse and me) left Oulu on January 20th by train, heading to Helsinki where we stayed at Niko’s flat. During the 2 days in Helsinki, we did a lot of exciting things like visiting the ‘Ice Bar’ (see picture) and the islands near Helsinki. Although the temperature was only about -10°C when we visited the islands, it felt more like -273,15°C because of the gusty winds and insufficient clothing. I think this was the most frosty thing I’ve ever experienced during my whole time in Finland.
Our plane from Helsinki to Berlin left on Monday at about 4pm. In Berlin, we had to switch the plane which resulted in some hours of waiting. We finally arrived in Vienna at about 8:30pm. After about 1,5 hours on the autobahn, we arrived at our final destination in Hartberg.

At the Hemingway Bar in Helsinki:


At the Ice Bar:

On the ferry from Helsinki to the islands about 2km away:


Here is the full Helsinki photo set.

From 16th to 18th January, Teemu - a finnish student who is going to do a study abroad semester in Austria - invited us to a secluded cottage on a lake near Kuusamo. We were a group of 6 people: Teemu (FIN), his girlfriend Kaarina (FIN), Masse (AUT), Benjamin (GER), Romary (FRA) and me.
Kuusamo is located about 220km from Oulu and 50km from the Arctic Circle.

The cottage:

Besides from going to the Sauna every day, we did a lot of exciting things which were quite new to me, including ice-fishing and driving with a snow-mobile.

Ice-fishing:

Driving the snow-mobile on a frozen lake:

All the other photos are available on my flickr photo-set.

Since I’m now back in Oulu I have some time to summarize the last few days. 23C3 was - as expected - very interesting and I will definitely try to visit it again next year. Apart from the numerous talks there were also some nice installations and projects in the Art & Beauty area and all around the venue.

We stayed at the St. Christopher’s Inn (formerly known as the Circus Hostel) which is located at Rosa-Luxemburg-Street opposite to the ‘Volksbühne’ building in eastern Berlin. I can totally recommend this hostel. Everything went smoothly, the price was good and also the atmosphere in the main lobby was very nice (there was free WiFi too).

On the evening of Dec 31st we wanted to go to the ‘Brandenburg Gate’ to celebrate new year’s eve. Unfortunately, it was very very very crowded so we didn’t even come close. So we decided to look for a nice place which is less cramped and eventually ended up near the bridge between the main trainstation and the government district from where we had a nice view of the fireworks et cetera.

My flight from Berlin to Helsinki departed yesterday at 11:20am (which is not the best time if you consider the fact that it was the day after new-years-eve and I had to get up pretty early to get to the airport on time). From Helsinki I took the train to Oulu which is another 6-hour-trip. Luckily, the train provided 230V power sockets so I was able to kill time by watching movies and surfing the web. I finally arrived in Oulu at about 09:30pm.

The weather is still quite warm - not a big difference in temperature to the time when I left Oulu about 2 weeks ago. However, the landscape is covered with some snow which makes the whole scenery look quite nice. The only downer is the darkness.

I will leave Oulu for good and head back to Austria in about 3 weeks so there’s not that much time left. Luckily, we have only one course (’Programming of Web and Mobile Devices’) left at University which has to be finished until our homeward journey, so I think we will also have some leisure time to do some other trips.

Sorry for not blogging since quite a long time but I’ve been pretty busy (and also a bit lazy) in the last couple of weeks. So, what happend in the 45 days since my last post?
To start off, we’ve been visiting Helsinki, Tallinn and Stockholm a few weeks ago. Photos are available here. We went to Helsinki by train where we stayed for 2 nights. Then we took a VikingLine ferry to Tallinn. I didn’t expect much from this city and also didn’t know very much about it. However, it was really awesome. Especially the old-town with its medieval buildings is definitely worth a visit. Also the nightlife and our charming little hostel (which has only 9 beds) were really nice. After two days we decided to visit Stockholm and booked a Tallink ferry (Tallink rocks because they offer free WiFi internet on their ships). Stockholm was also quite nice. Unfortunately, the weather was quite bad (rainy). We did some sightseeing by boat (which I can recommed if you’re too lazy to walk) and took a ferry back to Finland on the same evening.
When we arrived back in Oulu the landscape was covered with the first snow for this winter. In the following days it continued so snow and also got colder (about -10° to -15° C average during the day, minimum was about -23° C). However, it became quite warm again during the last days. The current temperature is -1° C.
What else happened? At university the 2nd period started which means that we got some new courses (and finished a few from the 1st period). In Finland the semester is divided into two periods. New courses for this period: Software Engineering, Body language and gestures, Business English (courses from the first period which are not finished yet: Systems Development, Programming of Web and Mobile Applications, User Interface Design, English for Engineers, International Marketing, Digital Image Processing, Symbian Programming).