Day 20

Today I started alone to work. I took the 8:50 bus , but missed the connecting metro. Since the next train was 5 minutes later I was sleepwalking in the metro towards a bench. A tall(much taller than 6 ft) German guy walked over to me and said 'boo'. He probably found it funny that I was so tiny and tried to scare me. But I was so sleepy, I just looked at him and waled away. He was smiling when I turned back to look at him.

Sharmili forgot her house keys and took my keys. I spent the whole day trying to read about soumennlina island. While reading, I came across this link where it was mentioned that an astronomer had built a model of the solar system spanning espoo and helsinki. It consists of pillars taking the positions of planets with almost the same scale. and mars and earth were near the bus stop where I get down in the evening. I thought I must check it out before I leave. I had no clue I would see it the same evening.

In the evening we started quite early as had very little work. We first went to parvez's place to collect his cam. The way to his place was scenic, we had to cross a bridge over the gulf of Helsinki. After taking the cam, we started for kamppi, we wanted to take snaps at the open air fair that was happening at kamppi. Took a lot of snaps and while walking back to kamppi mall met some old friends of parvez. We then went to McDonald's and had a chicken meal and then started for home.

On the way home, I got a call from akanksha that they were still in central. With no keys of my own I started roaming the neighbourhood. and finally stumbled upon mars.. Then walked a litle further to find earth. I knew that the otherplanets were not in the vicinity so did not proceed further. But it felt nice walking along the side of the woods. Only problem was, It was freezing outside and also I was wearing six inch heels and walking so much was killing my feet. After a while I went into a supermarket next to my place. I waled around until closing time and walked out with some ice cream and other such junk.

Had to wait outside my apartment until tese guys turned up.

Day 19

Today I had very little work. Once every thing was done left for the Indian market in hakaniemi. Once we reached there we were not sure which way to go. While going around, saw a lovely building. Must go back there in daylight and take a couple of snaps.

Got bored there and went back to kamppi mall. Got into a shop called ninja and what do I say, for me it was as if I died and reached heaven. Earrings!!! of each and every kind. They were a little expensive.. but simply amazing.. I took hours to look at each one of them and finally chose a pair that were stunning. They cost me 13 euros (almost 900 rs) but were so amazing this was something i simply could not resist. Also bought a simple bracelet for the same reason. But this was not very expensive.

Then i went all around kamppi mall and checked out the various flower bouquet shops simply because they looked so pretty. Saw them selling tiny cactus's with caps and beards like Santa Claus at 5 euros (expensive!!!)

Outside kamppi there was a roadshow happening with huge oil lamps and a lcd display which was gigantic. it was nice and warm outside thanks to those oil lamps. Plan to go back there again just to get some pics,..

Day 18

Another boring Wednesday. And done with working for another module. Back to working in my module. And lots of work again.

Today I had plans of going to kaisaniemi. There is a place called tarjostalo where you get splendid Christmas decorations. And really they were beautiful. Whenever I go shopping I make sure I get into the shops selling Christmas tree baubles. They look so beautiful. You don't get to see that kind of stuff in India. I felt like buying each one of them even though I knew I would not need any.

I reached Tarjoustalo and bought some lovely candles and flowers and stuff. A few chocolates again. Then I left for home. I never knew Helsinki has so many people. Everyone seems to be shopping these days :)

Day 17

Another day with a lot of interesting work. In the evening went to get my cam. Finally I am the proud owner of a canon a2000is. It is supposedly one of the best digicams in the market today in that category.

Had to get it duty free packed so that I will get Vat exempted which means I will get 30 euros back. Bought an MMC and a set of rechargeable batteries also. The people here seem to be in a shopping frenzy. I was number 132 that day to buy something at that mall. And I was surprised at the kind of things people were buying. Ever seen anyone take away a huge LCD TV as if it were a small package. People were buying LCDS as if they were candy. There was one guy who actually got it gift packed. The guy standing behind me had three Ipods in his hand. Gosh, I wish someone would gift me an IPOD! And one guy bought four lcd monitors. Christmas!!!

And the number of people on the roads surprise me. There are people all over the place. During weekends some people walk casually around with bottles of alcohol in their hands. It was freezing cold today and as I was waiting for the bus, I was wondering if it would feel good to have a smoke or a drink..(I got into the bus after waiting for 30 mins in the cold). Thankfully Mc chicken meal was still hot in my tummy.

Day 16

Counting down to return home, I look forward to stuff like sleeping on my own bed and eating hot pani puri on the roadside or laugh as loudly as I can, and the best part, No sweaters!! No jackets, no need to wear 2-3 layers of clothing even to get to the grocery store or to throw out the trash.

Had a lot of work but things feel good as everything works, I actually enjoyed working.

Today I went to verkkokauppa to checkout the cams one last time before I buy them. Also chose a memory card to buy along with the cam. Then I went down to K market to get some eats. This place makes me so lazy, You have escalators to go everywhere and the transport is also extremely convenient.

There are four modes of transport Bus, Metro, Tram and train and you have a common pass for all four. Buses and trams ply on the roads almost parallel. Metros go underground and the route is in the shape of a fork. Rouhoulahti, the place where my office is, is the last stop for the metro. There are metros to two destinations and both of them travel in the same route until itakeskus where they fork into two different routes. The metro travels from underground to a few levels above the road like our flyovers. It travels in an underground tunnel from rouholahti to fiskhamnen from where it comes out into the open and is on a flyover. And you barely notice that the metro has climbed up from a few stories underground to a few stories above normal level. You just feel that it is moving on a plane. I really felt amazed when the metro surfaced from the tunnel. It was as high here from the road as it was low in the underground. Almost level with a 6-7 storied building!!


Travel is free for children and those who are carrying children in prams. I did notice a few people carrying overage kids in prams to take advantage of this. I did mention earlier that pedestrians are given a lot of importance. There are wide sidewalks everywhere and another wide stripe for cyclists. the roads are not very wide, just wide enough for a bus to pass and at some places a little more for a car to pass. The people seem to be good drivers.

Day 15

Sunday!! turned out I did not have to work today. So I spent the whole day lazing around at home. Then i cooked chicken for myself and sharmili.. we had plans of going out to the park outside the building to get some quick snaps of the nice skirts and blazers these guys bought yesterday, but then we were too lazy and daylight faded at 2 pm.

I mean how lame is that, sunshine for only 3-4 hours a day. I believe in living by the sunlight like many Indians do, but here u can only live by the clock.. and if you sleep a little longer, you can never be sure if it's 4 in the morning or evening. Probably that is why these people use 24 hr time instead of 12 hour like we do.

Day 14

Saturday!! but I was supposed to be at work. I usually set my alarm for 6:50 in the morning and snooze it to wake up at 7:30. Today I suddenly felt wide awake when i checked the time. It was 8:30 AM!! and I was still in bed. On a normal Saturday i would have gone back to bed. But today, I had to rush!!! I got up and hurried with my chores packed my box with rice and ran out of the house without even bothering to button up my overcoat or tie my muffler.

I started at 9:25 and the bus was at 9:26. Thankfully, the bus was still there and I managed to get on. Once on board I buttoned up my coat and then realized why i was feeling so cold. I forgot my gloves!!!! No time to go back. So, i carried on to work.

Was busy the whole day with work. In the afternoon had a hot meal with chicken curry which parvez made(The same chicken that i tried to cook) turned out delicious.

In the evening we went to buy some chocolates to take back home. There was a wholesale candy shop at the central railway station. Some chocolates turned out to be a little more than 10 kgs between the both of us. Carried the stuff home with great difficulty. ´

Akanksha and sharmili went to Esplanadi park in the afternoon to check out the St. Thomas christmas market. It turned out a damp squib and a very expensive one too. They were cribbing ' sade se topi ke bees euro, ye log pagal ho gaye hai'

day 13

FRIDAY!!! Only one more day to go before the weekend. I hardly feltt like going to work today. When i reached our manager called us all and told us we have to work harder coz some deadlines need to be met.

So basically was working till late Friday night. In the evening I went out to check out the shopping malls in kamppi to see if i can find sharmili's web cam.

Later we went to forum to have dinner, there was a place where we could get Indian meals. But, once we were there we felt like trying Iranian cuisine. I tried a platter of rice and chicken kebabs with a vegetable salad and parvez had kebabs and french fries with salad. The kebab guy had a clever tactic to make you buy two plates. One plate would be pretty much enough for two people. Once parvez had ordered, the guy asked what would the lady like? we had no choice but to take two plates.. I managed to finish off all the pieces with great difficulty and had no place even for water. Went home quite late in the night

Day 12

I woke up late today and reached office real late. Had quite a lot of work to do. We had a popcorn party today at 4. In the evening, we went to itakeskus (again) coz akanksha broke her shoe and needed a new one.

We found a shop which was giving quite good discounts, I bought myself a pair too. They look real cool. We bought groceries for home and then returned.

I noticed something today, the hydraulic doors of the buses I was mentioning earlier, have these brushes fitted at the bottom. They clean out the bus while opening and closing. Nice idea :)

I also have to get used to the right side driving. I still keep looking left while crossing the road to realist the vehicles would come from the other side. Nothing to worry about though, as the people here give a lot of priority to pedestrians. if you have to cross the road they will stop and let you pass. I haven't yet heard anyone shout out 'andha hai kya' or 'intlo cheppe vachava'.

I guess it has to do with the weather but people are so polite: I mean even I have become a lot more polite after I have come here. Of course it does depend on the kind of people you come across every day. Even then, I guess you feel good when the weather is like this. I rarely feel like arguing or fighting even when I do get angry (there are a few ppl here whom I cannot stand).

When someone sits in the aisle in a bus and the person sitting next to you has to get down, people actually get up from their seats and lets the other person pass before they get back to their seats. I would like them to try that when they come to India. Who would get up from their seat if they are worried about losing it as soon as they get up.

Our problem seems to be the number of people in our country. Indians are nice and warm people. We could be a lot nicer, but then we would be boring :)

Day 11

I really dont remember what I did on Wednesday throughout the day.

In the evening though, we went to stockmann near central railway station as dennis had told parvez there was a sale going on there. I checked out some amazing candles and Christmas tree baubles, plan to buy them as souvenirs before i return

And all the lanes near central were stunningly decorated, even the display at stockamnn was 'BEAUTIFUL'.

Once we came out of stockmann, we lost our way back to central. Roamed around a little and ended up at esplanadi park (I was looking for this park as this place hosts the St. thomas christmas market every December). Once we found this place, we went back home.

The snow from the past few days did not melt and the route to pajamaki looks splendid since it has vast expanses of land with lots of trees. But the slush is a little irritating when u have to walk through it. My shoes look horrible thanks to all the slush I had to wade through.

We had planned to go visit stockholm by cruise but could not get tickets. So we are now looking for other options

Day 10

Today I woke up with a sore throat (rani mukherjee) Looked out of the window and saw that it had snowed last night. The whole place looked like it was dusted in talcum powder. It was going to be a real test for my shoes. thankfully they passed the test.

Today sharmili and aakanksha had a session till 9 in the night. so they were supposed to come home late. Mean while in the afternoon, it started snowing and me and parvez went downstairs to check out the snow fall. It felt amazing and awful at the same time. I was shivering while I was trying to take snaps. Then we ran upstairs.

In the evening I went to verkukauppa(electronics mall) to see if I can find a replacement to sharmili's cam. Could not find anything so went to S market and checked out the chocolates.

Later, I went home. Sharmili was really ill and had reached home early. Akanksha reached home really late at arund 10.

Day 9

Reached office a little early today and started working quickly. Did not feel like eating breakfast and somehow did not eat lunch too.

I got busy with work later and finaly had lunch at around 5 pm. Sharmili and akanksha had a training till 8 pm so I went to the market and got some tomatoes and curd.

Went home and cleaned and prepared everything for dinner. Had a huge argument about how lazy and useless I am. Bad mood today.

Read about souvenirs to take home. Heard there is a good christmas market here . Plan to visit is if anybody accompanies me. I forgot to mention earlier that the traffic flows the other way here. People drive on the right side of the road. I keep forgetting and look the wrong side before I cross the road.

Day 8

It's a week since I'm here!! time did go by fast. But I've been feeling a little homesick in the past two days. Actually feeling lonely. You know, the kind of feeling when you are surrounded by people and yet you feel all alone. Alien country, alien people, learning to get used to all this.

Today woke up and started to cook chicken coz sharmili had to leave at 11:30. Ram took her to some church where he plays the guitar. I found out he can play a little too late , he is leaving soon, or else probably would have had some jam sessions. Music has a way of making friends out of strangers.

Well i started for kamppi at 2 pm. From kamppi me and parvez left for Itakeskus (keskus means center) and roamed around until we could not walk any further. Checked out all the chocolates and candy and decided what kind I should buy while returning. There are quite a few Indian shops over here who pretend to be selling Indian wares but sell stuff which look like export rejects to me. Actually most of the stuff here is either made in Bangladesh or china. Dunno what to take back as gifts.

From Ita we went to hakeniemi to an Indian foods shop where parvez bought halal chicken. from here we went out to see the open air market but people were packing up since it was already dark.

Parvez asked me to cook the chicken for him on Monday as the festival was on Tuesday. After that we returned to kamppi from where I went back home

Parvez called up to tell me that the festival was on monday and asked me to cook the chicken today. I finished dinner and once all the cooking for the day was finished I chopped up onions and took out the chicken to realise it was a WHOLE chicken. I NEVER cooked a whole chicken and had no idea how to cut it. Neither did my roomies. So I called up parvez to ask him how. He too did not know how to cut. Meanwhile i was thawing the chicken in warm water and soaked my hands long enough to catch a cold. At the same time I realized that there were no curds at home nor tomatoes.. and it was too late to go out and buy. I called parvez to tell him and he threw a fit. Gotta see what happens

Day 7

It's a sunny day! I woke up at 10 and the sun was staring at me from out of the window. I got out of bed and got ready to go out. We had planned to go to linnanmaki which is an amusement park to see an aquarium.

I started from home at 12 pm after a breakfast of bread and butter. I reached rouhoulahti a lot earlier than parvez, so i took advantage of the opportunity and explored the whole area. It was freezing cold by the time parvez arrived.

Had lunch in McDonald's and started for linnanmaki by tram. All the shops in Helsinki were closed as today is Helsinki national day. Finally we reached the place which is up a little hill to find that it is closed. Had a little photo session there and were planning to leave when a lady turned up. We asked her if sea life was open. She did not know much English and we knew only 1-2 words of Finnish. We somehow carried a conversation with her and she told us sea life was all the way around the amusement park. She waved her hands around animatedly saying 'ush ush'. After a long while we reached the place and walked in. Entry cost 27 euros for both of us. It was an amazing place, there were fishes of all kinds, shapes sizes and colors. and also a glass tube through which you can walk while the fishes swim overhead.

And there were real cute kids all around. felt like carrying one of those kids home. After a long day there returned home at around 6:30 in the evening. I noticed water frozen around the area and was worried it was going to snow but thankfully it didn't and i reached home in one piece.

Day 6

Today I woke up a little late and was going about doing my chores when akanksha stuck her hair in the hair dryer. The hair got stuck badly so had to cut her hair. The dryer then stopped working, I had to pull out the remaining hair with a safety pin to get things working. I felt there was smoke in the house and noticed an agarbatti was lit. Later we realized there was bread on the stove and it got burnt badly. In her hurry to take it off the stove, akanksha burnt her finger had to apply burnol to the finger and asked her to be careful while traveling.

me and sharmili started a little late and noticed there were people to conduct traffic (normally there are no traffic cops) on the road , probably bcoz of yesterdays jam. We reached office and I found a mail waiting for me saying I had messed up yesterdays work. I realized it was because the person who taught me gave me only half information regarding the process. he quite conveniently forgot about the other half. He did take the blame for the mistake, but I still did not feel good for a long time. probably because it was a glaring mistake on my part and secondly, coz he owned up saying 'it was my mistake coz i did not cross verify' instead of saying 'It was my mistake coz i gave only half information'. Anyways I owned up that it was my fault and moved on. Felt really depressed that I screwed up.

Since today is Friday parvez went with other Muslims to a nearby mosque in kamppi, when he returned we had a late lunch. He plans to give a little party for bakrid on 9th.Today mom came online so we could talk a little. Then I started testing and could get some work done.

In the evening we went to itakeskus which is a huge mall, checked out stuff around there and returned home by 9.

Had a mail conversation with pinks today, she was telling me that a friend who I dont talk to anymore got a little gift for me from somewhere, but since we were not talking anymore, pinks got that gift. It kinda touched me. Pink says if I have any chocolates to give to that person, she would be more than happy to eat them on his behalf.

Tomorrow is Helsinki national day, so all shops here will be closed. plan to visit an aquarium in Helsinki and probably roam around the city,, will upload a few pics then. Still not able to decide what gifts to take for my friends and the kids.

Day 5

Today started a little late from home. Was feeling very sleepy as me and akanksha were up till 1 in the night chatting. We fell asleep in the bus, Woke up after 10 mins to realize the bus was at the same place as it was stuck in a traffic jam. :O and no body honked!!! India me there would have been chaos by that time. How can people be so silent.

Speaking of roads, here they drive on the right side of the road and it's difficult to remember to look on the wrong side while crossing the road and then there are trams to avoid. The people are good drivers but you never know when anyone gets drunk or is driving too fast. So it's always safer to use pedestrian crossing.

We had a team meeting in the afternoon, while the meeting was going on, it started raining outside and while i was watching, it started snowing. It was difficult to concentrate on whats going on in the room while you could see snow outside.

Had a lot of work and my eyes were feeling really tired. wanted to go out for a while, so me and parvez went to LIDL a grocery store kinda place, where I shopped for a little junk food and ice creams, he showed me kamppi bus station and places around it. The escalators here never seem to end. and people rarely walk, there are escalators and elevators everywhere. and the doors to all the places are fitted with sensors and they open when you walk near it. And then I traveled home alone. I wasn't sure if I was going the right way, but finally managed to reach home. Had a dinner of Maggi and grilled fish.

Day 4

Today akanksha left early and me and sharmili joined her later. Had some test cases to execute and learnt a few new techniques. Also helped prathibha to sort out which cases she can execute coz not everything is possible at offshore.

Felt good to see everything happening so smoothly. The silence is deafening though. I was so irritated with the silence. Nobody speaks up at work everybody is soooo silent. and even on the roads everything is so silent.

In fact people(Indians) here were discussing that they feel like shouting at the top of their voices or simply smash a window just to listen to some noise.

Stayed back late to finish the work I had. Today our house owner was supposed to come over to collect rent and fix a few things around the house. So me and akanksha were asked to go out and roam coz he knows that only two girls live in this place.

Sharmili and akanksha went to K market where me and parvez joined them. Sharmili left for home while me akanksha and parvez went to verkkokauppa mall and checked out the stuff there. Nice laptops and cams, gotta buy a digicam before leaving. Then we took a metro and went to central, which is a big railway station, from central we went to forum, which is a big mall. We checked out the place and went to eat in McDonald's. You cannot find vegetarian stuff here if you want to eat outside. Akanksha had to make do with an icecream and fries while we ate chicken nuggets.

The house owner hadn't come yet but it was getting real late, so we took a bus home and parvez left for his place. The bus we took would not go to our bus stop. We got down a block away and walked down to our stop for around 10 minutes. The owner still hadn't left, so we had to sit in the bus stop until he left. It was freezing outside and the time was around 9:30 and no people around. We went home as soon as we saw him leave.

Thankfully sharmili had cooked for us, so there was no need to spend more time for cooking. I still could not contact anybody at home.. they must be worried

Day 3

I had set my alarm for 6.20 in the morning but could not wake up and went back to sleep. Woke up at around 7 and rushed to take a bath and get ready. Sharmili made some curry with besan which we packed into our boxes along with rice.

Did not have much work to do and spent most of the day browsing old bugs. Had lunch with all the guys and then went down to get my picture taken for the new ID card. They had a camera installed in the office and the lady at the security office takes ur pic and prints it on a card and gives it to you in a couple of minutes.. kaash apne office wale itni jaldi kaam karte..

In the evening we went to kamppi shoping mall and just loitered around and did some window shopping. checked out bags and shoes and clothes. More or less like the stuff we get in hyderabad. But I really loved the shoes here. Plan to buy a pair for myself before leaving. And probably sweaters for mom and dad.. unless i find something else they would like.

Day 2 - bhagam bhag

Day 2 -bhagam bhag

Had to wake up early in the morning to get ready, 3 girls and one washroom, bahut na insafi hai.. finally managed to get ready by 9 and started for office. The bus stop is right opposite our building, and it also happens to be the first stop for the bus. We can watch the bus coming in to the stop before we start from home. We have a time table on our wall and follow that to catch the bus. And the buses are always bang on time.

When I went outside it was very chilly. Snow was being cleared off the roads. The snow doesn't really look that pretty when it's there for a long time.. looks dirty and brown.

The bus I had to catch was number 14. Here they do not have a separate conductor for the bus. Everyone enters from the front doors and swipes their bus pass on the fare on the machine that is next to the driver. If you dont have a pass you give the money to your driver and he gives u a ticket which is valid for an hour from that time. I had to take a ticket for the first day for 2.2 euros, had to borrow the money from sharmili as i only had hundreds and fifties with me. We took the ticket and sat in the bus. The buses have automatic doors (operated by the driver) and they close once all passengers have boarded.

The journey from pajamaki to kamppi was around 30 minutes. The route was scenic. When you get off the bus, you should get off from the doors in the middle of the bus, there is an empty place around this area with open seats where people with heavy luggage or prams can sit. Such people board the bus from these doors. The rest of us use those doors to get off the bus. There are stop buttons everywhere in the bus and the bus stops in the next stop when u press this button. You are not allowed to board or get off the bus anywhere else. People stand in the buses here too but, foot boarding is not possible as the doors are closed. Better to let go since you have a metro every 5 minutes

From kamppi we take a metro to ruoholahti where the nokia office is. The metro station is right behind the bus stop and we take escalators to go down. The escalators are very deep, like a 6-7 storied building under the ground. They never seem to end. We realised the metro was already there and we had to run down the escalator and straight into the metro. The moment i entered there was a beep sound and the doors closed. Akanksha told me that you are not supposed to enter after that beep coz the doors close and they will not open at any cost until the next stop. She was talking of a lady who tried to open the doors by sticking her bag in.. she had to leave the bag in the train.

OK so the journey from kamppi to ruoholahti takes less than a minute. They announce the name of the station before the train stops. We got out of the metro and got on to the excalator, which went up forever. One thing i forgot to mention is, you hardly see day light here and if it were not for your watch, you would never know what time it is. It was dark the day I came here when it was actually 4 in the afternoon. Things were not very different this day also. It was 9:30 and still dark.

The Nokia office is across the road from the metro and is a minute's walk away. I was wondering why there are so many busstops even within walking distance. Now I know why. People will die of cold if they go too far by walk. This place is FREEZING!!!!

We walked up to office and sharmili dropped me into my wing as I had no access. Here nobody asks you for your ID card before you enter coz the main door is access restricted. AND they dont check your bags while you are going in and out. There is no need to swipe in and out. Though the office timings are 8-4, people come and go as they please. They stick around only if they have work to do.

Parvez was already there before me and I went to meet challa(no one else had arrived). I used his laptop to check mails, and then went around to meet the other guys. I met some people I already knew like mohan, naveen and aseem and some I met for the first time, like kiran (cute smile, sadoo insaan), dennis (ok types, big biceps), utkarsh (sweet), naveen k (as i expected), basa (polite), nithin (indifferent). and then i waited for suresh(PM) to reach office. We met suresh (soft spoken, sharp eyes), and he handed over our laptops while dennis cleared a desk for me. Suresh introduced us to alex (manager).

I went down to the reception to collect my access card and found that they did not recieve any mail about my arrival. Parvez already had a card coz he was here ealier. I got a temporary card printed.

Through the first day I had very little work. We went for lunch with sharmili's lunch gang. Here there is a pantry in every wing and it is stocked with an oven, a dishwasher and a lot of cutlery, you can heat your lunch and eat in the plates provided, wash em up and put em back. There is also a coffee machine in every pantry. Here I met a few more people like ram (very sweet) and siby (dimpled). I never felt I was out of india, except when I looked out of the window and noticed the dark and gloomy weather.

In the afternoon we had to go the SSN office to get a letter for my bus pass. They usually take a SSN number, but since i was here on a BV they gave me a letter. This office shuts down at 3:15 and we started at 2:30. Suresh came to me and said , come and next min he vanished. in my hurry to follow him i forgot to take my cap nor button my jacket properly, nor to take money for the bus pass. Thankfully parvez had a muffler and enough money. We caught a bus and hurried to the SSN office where I got the letter for which they charged me 3.7 euros. When we got out there was a train on the road which we had to catch and then suresh said we'll run and catch the train. We ran for a while but my coat was very heavy and the roads wet, I was breathing very hard and told him I cannot run any further. So, we missed the train and had to wait for the next one which was in 2 mins.

We reached the central station where I got my pass made (45 euros) and then we went back to office. Finnish people pronounce 'j' as 'y' . The lady at the counter called me guyyari.

Me, sharmili and akanksha started for home at 6 in the evening. we went to buy groceries for the week. I was just amazed to see how fresh the vegetables and fruits were. They looked so flawless like the plastic ones we get to see back home. Of course they seemed very expensive, 3 euros for a kilo of brinjal... matlab almost 200 rs. :O (I must stop converting everything to rupees). Finally we bought all the stuff we needed for the week and started for home. I bought a SIM for my phone. It's very easy to get a SIM here. No identity proof required. It's just like buying anything else OTC.

Then we went home and started cooking. We had roti and alu gobi and then browsed a little on our laptops before we fell asleep.

Day 1

30 nov

Had to wake up EARLY in the morning to repack my stuff so that I can reduce the weight of my baggage. And I managed´to do so pretty well. I wore 'all' the heavy clothes i had, which meant I was wearing a pair of thermals, the heaviest pair of jeans i had, a really heavy t shirt , a sweatshirt , a quilted vest and a leather jacket with a muffler and a cap. I must have weighed more than a 100 kilos.

Our taxi arrived and we checked out of our rooms and started for the IG international airport. Found out that parvez dropped his phone the last night and messed up the display (What's with kalkaji guest house and mobile phones? ) We planned to check in as early as we could so that we can get away with the excess baggage we had. But the airport was already packed with a lot of foreigners who were is a rush to leave India after 26/11. I felt pity for these people and anger at the terrorists all at once. There were a couple of people who were coming from Mumbai and were still bruised and hurt.

At the check in, the guy was in a good mood and let us go without paying excess for the extra weight and also told me that he was giving me a window seat as I was a first time traveler. There were a lot of cute kids at the airport and it was fun to watch them. There was this 2 year old Finnish kid who was speaking a lot of Hindi words.


We boarded the plane at 10:30 and it took off at 11:05. None of the air hostesses were pretty, but the view from the window was great. After a while we were served lunch which was veg biryani and a delicious brownie ( i did not have the guts to eat the non vegetarian stuff they served) They showed two movies on the way, one was meet dave and the other one was thoda pyar thoda magic (horrible) I fell asleep for more than an hour and later when Helsinki was about an hour away they served us some sandwich which tasted like grass. Our flight went via Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Latvia and reached Helsinki. The view over Afghanistan was breathtaking. There were huge mountains as far as we could see and a few of them were snow-capped. it was amazing. I think we went over a few water bodies though I could not make them out clearly through the clouds.

The landing was fantastic, We went into a maze of clouds and suddenly we faced a beautiful view. lovely roads and cottages and snow everywhere, it was drizzling slightly. We got down from the plane and walked into the terminal collected our baggage and there we were waiting for aseem.

As we went out of the airport i noticed there was fog whenever anyone breathed out and it really was difficult to make out if people were smoking or breathing.

Aseem came to receive us and we took a cab to the place i live, the place i live is called pajamaki (pronounced payamaki) and it is on the third floor of a residential building. There was no lift and parvez had to carry my suitcase all the way up. Then he and aseem left for their flat.

I share my flat with two girls sharmili and akanksha. It's a cozy flat with one living cum bedroom and kitchen. It was boring on the first day as i had no laptop of my own. I heard it snowed on the day before and there was snow everywhere.

I was looking forward to going to office the next day. We had rotis and alu gobi the first night. I did not cook as it was my first day there. There is a grill, oven, stove and fridge in the room.'

I share the bed with akanksha while sharmili sleeps on a matress on the floor.

Travel

29 nov 2008
11:30 am..
I've been packing for a week now. Strangely the list of things to pack keeps growing longer as the d day comes closer. I've even been shopping until the last minute
1:30 pm
Lunchtime.. and somehow I don't feel hungry. Well, you wouldn't understand why I was mentioning this unless you were me. I am perpetually hungry. But today it was difficult to eat more than a few morsels.. It was the first time I was gonna live away from home.. This would probably be the last time I would eat here for months to come.. but still, I was not hungry. To top it I was seized by a panic attack every few minutes. I would feel there was still something left to be packed. Actually, I had packed in everything, right from the dry coconuts for my manager to all my clothes.
4:30 Pm
Time to leave, the cab was there. Me, mom n parvez filed into the cab and we started off to the airport. The whole neighborhood stopped to watch us load the luggage into the car. I wonder if they thought I got married and was leaving for my in laws place.
5:00 pm
Stopped at the ATM to draw a Lil money for the journey ( i call 4k a Lil money.. very funny). well then we stopped at the hospital where mom had to go. (my aunts admitted there) and from there we headed straight to the airport, somehow wasn't very excited abt reaching the airport.. was more worried. We checked in quite easily even though we had excess baggage.. We had 7 kilos extra (luggage) between the both of us.
7:00
I love shamshabad airport.. It's clean, huge and simply amazing. I've seen a couple of other airports but i just love this airport. We sat down to eat an early dinner of chicken biryani and masala dosa.. and that cost us a bomb. Soon we boarded the flight to Delhi(jet airways) . The last time i traveled by jet, they had a little monitor on every seat where we could watch movies\songs\cartoons of our choice or play some games.. this plane did not have those.. to top it there was an extremely noisy kid next to us. Thankfully, the plane was relatively empty so we could manage to get seats at the back (I'd prefer sitting next to the washroom to noisy kids). Finally it was time for food.. a juice and a little rice with dal and palak chicken (YUCK)!!!! I never expected such horrible food from jet. but I must say, the guys in the crew looked great.
10:00
After a flight of two hours reached Delhi. The plane Taxied for a looong time and finally stopped. We got down and got into a bus which took us to the terminal. We had to wait to collect our baggage. We took a taxi and started for kalkaji guest house. We got rooms on the first floor (Thankfully). and that was the beginning of my journey to this city.

Helsinki

A new place.. new friends, a whole new experience.. and yeah.. a new keyboard layout.. I was worried I'd forget this experience. So i'm keying it all down..