David's Blog

23 September 2009

Welcome, Welkom, Tervetuloa, Välkommen, Bienvenue...

Hi, welcome and thank you for checking out my blog.

Since August I am living in the French city of Lille as an exchange student, despite being only 3 hours away by car from where I was born, life and culture here are quite different. Lots of stuff to have to learn to deal with.

The summer months in both Finland and the Netherlands have been really nice and enjoyable, it has been a lovely summer. Now it is back to school, or at least that is what should happen right around October 1st.

You know what's a nice bonus of living here? It is only 1 hour away from Disneyland Paris by TGV train. Awesome! °o°

I hope to be reporting on the events right here. :)

Please scroll on down for the stories :)

Thanks for visiting. Enjoy!

David Habnit

"The Whole Earth is your Fatherland"

David...

follow me on Twitter

Lille...we have lift off!

By now you had probably already given up on ever reading a blog post from me again, I don't blame you because it has been a very long time. So I have settled down in the French city of Lille or, as the Flemish and sometimes the Dutch call it, Rijsel. Which both in French as in Dutch refers to an island (French: L'ille, Dutch: Ter IJssel) on which a castle was built [NL-WIKI]. Probably this already tells you that the city has changed ownership over time.

Anyway, that as a side note. To quickly cover my arrival: I came with my folks to here the last weekend of August. We got to spend some time here, make sure some stuff was taken care off, enjoy the French food, etc... On the Monday I had to visit my school here to get some papers in order. I was outside within 5 minutes with a registration form and no new wisdom other than the start date of the French crash course. This is what is called "a sign". A sign about the dealings of the French, and we are only getting started.

The French crash course started Wednesday that week with a test to determine one's French level. Of course, makes sense. I got placed in intermediate class, which was quite tough but I got through it. The course lasted until the Tuesday after and ended with another exam. Don't know the grade, nobody told me where I can pick it up.

That weekend in between Lille had its annual braderie. An insane event where the whole city turns into a big market place and where the meal of the day is "Moules aux Frites" or mussels and fries. A very jummy dish if made well, just remember to avoid eating mussels that haven't opened up while cooking because that will make you sick. If you ever come to Lille for the braderie, may I advice you to avoid the main streets as people sell new crappy stuff over there. Go away from the beaten path and take the other streets as there people will sell their own old stuff which is more interesting, I think.

Part of the French experience is opening a bank account. Well, that is a long process with many papers to sign and an even longer process to get your actual bank card. September 1^st I opened my bank account, September 8^th I got a pick-up notice, and until today I have no bank card because of all the regulatory approval necessary. Now they said it is ready on Monday, well... we'll see. The French tend to say: "Oh, in 3 or 4 days." Eventually they will be right! :)

Another fine example of French culture turned out to be the school, what can I say...I was born in a Germanic culture. Upon arrival the course guides weren't finished, the schedules unknown, yet the learning agreements had to be handed in already. Up to this day I am not sure if I have scheduling conflicts in my roster and up to this day some confusion pops up pretty much every day among the exchange students on how to proceed. As for me, I decided to choose courses of the 2nd master year. Guess what....courses don't start 'till October. Yes you read that correctly, so what I am doing here? Well, thankfully the 1st master year has already started so I am sitting in in some marketing classes, which have been fun and interactive....and it just made me realize I have home work for tomorrow. Don't worry, I'll get to that.

Lille is a very important TGV (High Speed Train) hub, from here Paris is only about 1 hour away. Which is great because that also means that Disneyland Paris is about 1 hour away. As I had some spare time last week I decided to go on Thursday. Happily joined by a fellow exchange student from Spain and one from Mexico. One of the best things to do is to visit Disneyland with a newbee which the Mexican girl was. Armed with my SNCF 12-25 discount card and a pre-paid annual pass we went for a day of Disney magic. I have had a brilliant day, it was so nice to be back in one of the Magic Kingdoms. I guess I got a little whiff of what I hadn't seen in the last 2 years. I'll write some more about Disney later.

Last weekend Brian and Cindy came over, they were really fast but I was very happy they came. It made a fun weekend, and it is fun to see Cindy eat French food because she really is walking on clouds. To top the weekend off, we went to Disneyland on Sunday. Talk about making sure you get your annual passes' worth, twice in one week is a good score I reckon. Brian also bought an annual pass, so I may see him come back also for Disneyland. Later that day we met up with a Dutch guy who was a cast member in Walt Disney World and just had taken up an internship 2 weeks earlier and is now a cast member in Disneyland Paris. It was an extraordinary feeling meeting up with him and hanging out with other current cast members.

That night I drove to Lille and Cindy and Brian continued their journey back to The Netherlands. A fine new week had started in France.

CSI Netherlands

I found this really cool clip about CSI (or NFI) in The Netherlands. Enjoy!

Source:http://english.forensischinstituut.nl/about_nfi/corporate_film/

Some Photos of June

Moving to Tampere 01 June 2009

Juhannus 18-21 June 2009

Midsummer and Questionnairing

Midsummer is a big event up North, at least in Europe it is. With the people I have talked to here it seems that the conviction is that summer is half way. Of course they are very right, I mean the longest day of the year is called Midsummer. It is really funny to me since I grew up that the summer wasn't half gone in the middle of June but that the summer was only starting in July, the warmest months all over Europe. I guess light is just a more important factor the more North you go than the temperature actually is.

No wonder that Midsummer is widely celebrated. As part of my Nordic experience I got to celebrate Midsummer (Juhannus in Finland) with friends at one of their parent's cabins by a lake a little bit North of the city of Jämsä.

View Himos Area in a larger map

For those who have been following my Twitter you probably noticed that if you are away from the city in Finland you will have to deal with mosquitoes. How grateful was I that I had my repellent zoomer thingy with me, I've had comfortable nights without the evil things trying to suck up my blood. Ok, so that is a negative...but that is pretty much the only negative I have about my Midsummer.

The cabin was nice and cosy and it was very comfortable with a stunning view of the lake. Of course there was forest around it, in which we played a little game I like to call: forest-obstacle-croquet. Fun, but don't get your car near it, plus be ready to loose from the well trained Finns. I think I have lost in every single game. If you feel like making it more challenging try playing midnight-forest-obstacle-lake-croquet in the rain. Still the Finns win! Despite the rain it was a lot of fun playing it.

That long weekend out by the cabin was ultimately good for my stomach! I have had lots of wonderful food! There was this big salmon, so delicious! Very nice! It was a feast, and that every single meal! I think I need to take a week of post-Juhannus food restrictions to compensate.

Of course a Finnish Midsummer experience is not complete without a sauna. This cabin also featured one! We went in once, it was lovely just unwinding and having some good talks. Yes, I got the complete Midsummer package. Oh, sunset...well it is just always a little light. Perhaps it would have been very bright though if it weren't for the clouds and rain.

After a lovely relaxing Juhannus it was back to reality on Monday. It has been my worst day in Finland yet! The first day of presenting people with my questionnaire resulted in a meagre three responses. The whole day all I got to hear was NO! (or 'Ei!' in Finnish). It felt like an enormous set-back and it got me sad. I went home at 3:30 in the afternoon. At some point everybody just felt hostile and it was just nasty even to try.

Today however was a lot better. Friendlier people and I have more than doubled the responses to 7. Ok, so it may not seem as a huge triumph of the 20 pieces I was planning on doing. But it did lift the spirits and with this new strategy I think I may be able to improve a lot in the coming days.

As your Finnish link I would like to present you with the following clip from PMMP which currently is a huge hit here in Finland. It is on the radio all the time

I will add some photos later 【ツ】

...oh yeah, I have some internet connectivity issues. Don't understand how...but oh well!

Three Weeks of Särkänniemi and Tampere Already Passed

Ok, so I have been doing a terrible job at writing stuff down. Time does fly and I mean concord speed, the third week being here in Tampere is about to fin(n)ish off, and in my thoughts I only arrived here yesterday. Since I haven't told you anything about what is going on...let me go back to three weeks ago when I left Jönköping.

The journey I took was pretty smooth, actually really smooth! I desperately tried to rebook my train ticket the day before since I was worried I wouldn't have enough transition time, but it didn't work and in the end it worked out so well. The connection from bus to train, train to bus, bus to plane, plane to plane, plane to bus (actually shocking if you sum that up like that) was incredibly smooth. I arrived in Tampere in the late afternoon with a bag that was waaaay to heavy (had to pay excess weight :s for the flight). Anyway, when I arrived I went straight to my friend's work place and met up with my company supervisor. Tiring but productive day!

The next day I got inaugurated into Särkänniemi and got my company ID (up to this day no employee has questioned why I don't speak Finnish and still have an ID) and I got a shirt and cap and a "comp" tour including lunch :) that was good. To some employees I am known as the laminator guy as I am seated at a desk next to the machine. After the first week I felt that I needed to get an ice breaker going because I am the strange one in the offices, so I baked a cake and that helped break the ice. A great opportunity to talk with the people on this floor to get to know each other a little better and to explain what I am doing here.

In the last three weeks I have been working on my questionnaire together with my company supervisor and I like the result so far. It is done now and starting on Monday I am going to be out in the park to hand them out. This is going to be quite a challenge, because to make sure I don't scare people off too much I need to learn this Finnish sentence...yikes. Actually in an attempt to learn some Finnish I have put stickers all through the apartment naming the objects in Finnish. I think it does help! Don't expect me to speak fluent Finnish by the end of these 2 months though!

Before I get to walk around the park and get to work I first still have a relaxing weekend about an hour North in the Jämsä area for a Midsummer celebration. One of my friends here invited me over to his parent's place by a lake. Really curious about my first ever Midsummer celebration. We are leaving in the late afternoon / early evening today. There is only one problem...they are expecting rain!

Have a great weekend!! 【ツ】

The Bullet Has Gone Through the Church

It is a Dutch saying, I know it may sound a little strange..."The Bullet Has Gone Through the Church" means that the decisions have been made. For me that means that right now that I will actually be spending two months in the Finnish city of Tampere to do research for my master thesis.

The Finnish park Särkänniemi is kind enough to assist me in my research, perhaps you know how this all came to be, but the story is a little too long for right now. I am extremely happy and thankful that they opened their gates for me.

This is fun, and it is a little scary since this feels like it is heading towards me like a French TGV double deck train at full speed (yes it is a specific description, and yes TGV double deck trains do exist). In other words, so much to do and so little time. Today I booked my flight to Finland and in about 1 month I need to be ready to start the research I intend to do. That means double pace, reading books on questionnaires, surveys, research, and on top of that I need to finalize two subjects here at JIBS (of which one unfortunately is quite awful).

As another stress factor I don't seem to be able to find someone who is willing to rent my room for 1 semester. This is really getting on my nerve since I do want to come back to this place after I am done in France (yes, that is even further ahead). That needs to be arranged as well.

A fun activity that will also be time consuming will be that some of my friends are visiting this month. We will be spending some days in Stockholm which should be good! It is double time, and perhaps if worse comes to worse...midnight oil.

Like I mentioned before on Twitter: it is really happening and it is happening really fast!!

Perhaps I should also introduce my research topic here. I want to investigate the impact of theming on attractions in an amusement park. Will the appreciation of people actually go up, and do people believe a well themed attraction is worth spending more money on. Well, that is the brief version anyway. If you are interested in my research proposal, just drop me a line.

Ok, so it is back to work for now! Like I said, double time!!

Steamy Pants

When I left The Netherlands in Janaury to go back to Jönköping I had promissed a friend, Arthur, that I would blog about my vacation in Holland. Of course, as you can see...I didn't. Still in the months after I promised I would time after time.

This morning I put on my pants, and they turned out to be still moist. Aha! That was the encouragement I needed to blog about my vacation in The Netherlands. I loved spending time in my own country for vacation, and for the most part it was seeing old friends and spending time with family. Together with Arthur and my brother we decided to go to the Winter Efteling.

When you are hanging out with Arthur you know unexpected things should be expected. In the morning I drove with my brother up to his place to pick him up. Since he wasn't outside yet I decided to go up to his door. Right at the moment I reached the top of the stairs, he opened his door. I thought he was expecting me and that is why he opened the door. Actually this turned out to be the wrong assumption, in shock he shouted something and smacked the door in my face. To me this was quite hilarious, after a minute or so he opened the door and we went on our way to the Efteling.

During the nice hour and a half (including traffic jam) through a bright and sunny but icy-cold Dutch landscape Arthur mentioned he had put on some pants that were freshly washed and still a bit wet. Upon arrival, when we disembarked the car, I looked at Arthur. For a moment I didn't understand what was going on, but then I almost ended on the floor laughing like mad! Arthur was standing in a cloud of steam and it didn't look like it was going to end soon. Because of the really cold weather, and that his wet pants got warmed up really well during our journey in the car, this amazing effect was achieved. My brother got a great laugh out of it as well, we decided to run inside as soon as possible to make the effect stop and end the, perhaps a little bit awkward situation. After a nice hot beverage we resumed towards the park's entrance...with dry pants.

One of the crazy highlights was getting up on stage to take part in the wonderful Salzburgerland Efteling Quiz Thingy. Boy, I made a fool out of myself (even though it was a lot of fun)! It was a privilege to be on stage with Arthur and enjoy this new experience. Thankfully my brother made some pictures. I know there is a video of it as well, good luck to the one who wants to look for it. It is online :D It appears that dancing this particular dance we had to do during the show was not something Arthur or myself excelled in.

That day was an amazing Winter Efteling day, surely the Efteling is one of my favorite parks still. After all this time it is still enjoyable to be there once or twice a year. To finish of this wonderful day we took something to drink in the nearby Efteling Hotel.

My mom's car has an interesting new feature since this winter. When it is quite cold to passenger door doesn't close. That day, and that night it was freezing and that meant that the best way to get in the car was to use the driver's door. After we all went in, I drove the car for a bit and then we decided to put stuff in the truck. Little did we know that the trunk would have gotten the same feature as the passenger door. When trying to close the trunk, it didn't. As hilarious as this was, Arthur decided to lend me a hand...he opened the passenger door. This third instance of expect unexpected things I actually was laughing on the floor. Now there were 2 problematic doors and they were both open. After I was done laughing the three of us still managed to get all doors closed (there is a little trick...at least for the passenger door). And it was back to The Hague.

This was a great memory, and a great day of Efteling. I greatly appreciate being in the company of my brother and Arthur on this day out.

Pictures Winter Efteling 30 December 2008

P.s. One of my Finnish friends wanted to come over for New Years to take a New Year's dive in Scheveningen. Temperatures were so low (for Dutch standards in recent history, I am really glad this idea got postponed!! Ehm...yes, this was a side story :p

Douce France

Some people may find my decision to spend my next semester in France quite a strange one. Of course, I do understand that I am a foreigner studying in Sweden so going to France somehow makes me a double foreigner. Perhaps even more surprising is that some 99% of my class are foreigners (only one Swede) and that the majority is actually going on exchange. What can I say there is a certain excitement about going "abroad" for a while.

When I visited my family last week for Easter we decided to go and take a look at my future home town, Lille. After all, Lille is only about 2 and a half hour drive from The Hague. The fun thing when you go expecting nothing you can find yourself being amazed by what you are seeing or experiencing. A similar feeling was there about Lille. The city is a lot bigger then expected and there are a lot of old nice buildings as well as a modern mall in the center between the 2 main stations. Definitely one of those cities that wouldn't be on your "to visit-list" but worth a day trip!

For more information about Lille be sure to visit: http://www.lilletourism.com/

Please feel free to walk around in Lille thanks to the wonderful technology of Google Maps:

View Larger Map

European Anthem Muppets Style

Enjoy the European Anthem (or Ode to Joy) in this wonderful Muppets kinda way. :)

The Quarterlife Crisis

Surely people would suggest that I am in denial; you see, I don't think I have a Quarterlife Crisis but the test results of Dutch public broadcaster AVRO suggest that I do. I would like to mention that the questions that were asked during the test may not be as reliable as some people may assume it to be. I think any granny's score will also result into a Quarterlife Crisis. I got maximum points for being interested in religion, wanting to see the world, being open for great new job offers, and not being able to make an instant decision in the video rental store. I think this is more of a personality thing than a sign of crisis, additionally I haven't rented a DVD (let alone a video) in ages.

So, the main thing with this Quarterlife Crisis is that we need to make an abundance of choice and decisions at this age. I am sure all of the people in the same age group face the same problems. I would not say it is a crisis, it is just that phase in life. Perhaps it is more difficult than a decade or so ago, more choices, more possibilities. I can understand that, a decade ago it was probably hardly possible to easily study in other countries and go on exchange. And I am sure today we have more choice in pudding than ever before, I ate pudding last night.

This scrumptious vanilla pudding (with whipped cream) was consumed while watching 'Samantha Who?' a series about a girl who was in a car accident, now has amnesia and gets to have a fresh start in life with the occasional intermingle of her past in which she was a really nasty person. She desperately tries to be the best she can be, to make up for her past and at the same time working on her future. There is a girl in a Quarterlife Crisis, and because of it she often just misses out what is right in front of her, probably the love of her life. Anyway, the series is a lot of fun, and Christina Applegate plays an excellent role!

Another TV show that caught my attention is 'The Taste of Life'. It is broadcast on the Dutch version of RTL and is probably one of those shows that in the end turns out to have been underrated. In this show 2 hosts, of which one is a chef, travel the world looking for different foods and trying to give reasonably easy to make recipes to some of the famous local dishes. Currently the 3^rd season is on, which has a slightly different (but better) format from the others. One of the destinations in this season turns out to have been Stockholm. They have been able to show Stockholm as a great, and wonderful city. Besides this it made me realize how little I know about Sweden and Swedish culture. Perhaps Jönköping has not been the right city to promote Sweden or perhaps it was my own fault not having taken more interest and looking for what Sweden actually is. See here, the 1^st part of the Taste of Life Stockholm (Dutch only, but images say more than 1000 words!):

The Taste of Life

If you would be interested in the second part as well, please make your way here: The Taste of Life Stockholm Part 2.

After these episodes I decided to take a look at some episodes related to my next destination: France. Well, of course they have episodes about Paris but it took them 3 season to get there. This show is so wonderful, it is inspiring both to travel and to eat! There are so many awesome places to see and to experience. Havind seen this (and another RTL favorite called Camping Life) I have to say that most of us Europeans really underrate the beauty of this continent. We are always looking for far away adventure and excitement, Asia has been really attracting many of us in recent years, but there is such a wonderful and interesting world to discover in our own backyard. Let's try not to forget that.

Now that I have seen this I want to scavanger around in my own backyard, see that what Europe has to offer. This is such a culturally diverse continent. I wonder if they consider that desire part of a Quarterlife Crisis as well.

P.s. for my folks and others: I still love the US as well (very much), also there is so much to see and discover there. It is just that we often forget to look around where we live :)