August 3-4

      Today Sandra and I met up with Sanaa downtown to have coffee at 1pm. After we bought our drinks, we went to the Moomin museum that was located in the basement of the Tampere library. I was quite excited as I had watched cartoons about the Muminki (Polish way of saying Moomin) when I was younger in Poland and read books abut them as well. The museum contained different mini models of scenes from different Moomin episodes as well as sketches and drawings by the author, Tove Jansson. After we walked through the museum, we headed  back to town and spent some time in the bookstore. Soon Saana had to leave us to meet with a friend and then with Sandra, we went to the library and spent some time there before Sandra had to go to her Spanish course at 5pm.
     After Esko and I picked Sandra up from her Spanish course and ate dinner, Sandra and I left for her friend's house around 9pm, where we would sleep overnight in a big tent. There were seven of us there, most whom I have met previously a couple days ago by the lake. It was fun; we had a bunch of candy and chips and talked. We ended up going to bed after 5pm (we thought that we could pull an all-nighter, but it didn't work out). We woke up around 10, but we basically moped around, ate candy, and napped some more until we finally put away the tent around 1. Soon after that, one of Sandra's friends gave us a ride home. After we had washed up and ate, Sandra left for town to meet with friends and then later to her spanish classes, while I hit the Werstal museum downtown (in order to go through it thoruouhly and not leave any descriptions and whatnot unread). After that I walked around town before heading back home. When I arrived, Lina was already back from her trip and Joonas was there as well. We decided to make blueberry/raspberry muffins and even though we added 2x a much berries as we were suppose too and forgot to add the 2 eggs, they turned out pretty good. When Sandra came back, we went back to town as it was the day of events in Tampere, and first we saw this popping-hip-hop street dance performance and then later a fire performance in the park. We also met a few of Sandra's friends. We walked back home after 11 and went to sleep soon after that since we didn't really sleep too much last night.

July 29

This day had so much excitement that I have to break it up into 2 parts:

Part 1:

     We attempt to wake up pretty early so we could have a tourists' day in Tampere and manage to do everything before 3:07pm, when Sandra and I have to catch the train to Helsinki. First we go to an art museum where there was an exhibition titled: Is This for Real?. The exhibition basically went through the history of Tampere, including various native paintings, while also going into the future and predicting the art of the future. It was interesting although it was slightly annoying that all museum workers on the floor watched your every move, giddy inside, waiting for that moment to say 'don't touch!' (Sandra said that school trips to the museum are very common, so summers can be quite slow). Anyways, after that we stopped by a cathedral which had paintings from a famous Finnish painter before going to a museum  (Finnish Labour Museum: Werstas) for a tour in English at 1pm. (We also stopped for ice cream along the way.) As it turned out, Sandra, Anita, and I were the only ones waiting for the tour, so in a sense, we had our own private tour guide. Our tour guide took us through a museum which was basically about the workers in an enormous factory, Finlayson, in Tampere during the early 1900's(Tampere used to be a major industrial city). The museum was divided into general outlook of life and jobs of labourers in Tampere, textile industry, food of Tampere, and steam engine (in the factory). At the end of the tour, we got samples of the barely bread that was common among the workers during that time. After that, we went to Sokos (a department store) to eat lunch before we quickly bought a camera bag for Sandra's new camera and then ran off to the train. We had 3 minutes to go before the train zoomed off; Sandra said we were early (contrary to the popular stereotype, I have noted in several occasions that Finnish people are not for the most part so punctual (we were told at several orientations that Finns valued punctuality, so much in fact, that they are usually early)

Part 2:

     Beyond all, the reason why we went to Helsinki was because one of Sandra's friends, Veris, wanted to see a band that was playing at a festival in a park in Helsinki, so she asked us to join her. When we got to our stop in Helsinki (or rather a stop before the main Helsinki stop, since the park was on the outskirt of Helsinki), Veris was there waiting for us (she came a hour or 2 before us). We were there around 5pm, and the first band  that we wanted to see played at 7:30, so we had some time to spare. We went into town to buy some food for a picnic, and Veris and Sandra also bought a tube of Ben and Jerry's ice cream (I refuse to indulge in any American food while in Finland) so we went to a playground and sat on the ground to eat ice cream. After that, we walked around a bit, but decided that it was too far to walk to the center of Helsinki, so we walked back to the park so that we could begin our picnic. A band began playing at 7:30, but the band that we came specifically to see started at 9:00 (the bands were kind of electronic/pop/techno). When that time came, several people went to dance up in front of the stage, so we decided to go as well. It was fun, since there were several hippies and drunks with unique and funky dance moves, so no one judged how you danced. Eventually, we had to leave since the band stopped playing at around 9:45, and we wanted to catch the next train to Tampere, which was at 10:12. We made it, and after the apprx. 2 hour ride, Veris' father picked us up and drove us home.