Maria, Kerstin, Ema and I on the cruise ship the first night!

Coffee shop in Talliin. This was a really cool city. Small, but very personable.

Loris and I. Just being silly.

Street in Talliin. We only had about 3 hours in Talliin, so we mostly walked around, had lunch at the Architecture school, and grabbed a cup of coffee. Elen, a girl in my architecture program, is from Estonia and goes to school in Talliin so she gave a tour of the city.

Street in Stockholm. I loved this city, they had many small side roads filled with shops, cafes, bars, etc. I wished we could have stayed for the night. But it was really nice, and the people were very friendly!

Our Cruise ship for Sea Battle.

View in Stockholm.

The whole group in St. Petersburg!

Inside Catherine's Palace!

Jumping picture in front of St. Basil's Cathedral was absolutely crucial!

...and at night was so beautiful!

Aida and I at the Kremlin in Moscow.

Circus in Moscow. This was really funny and very unique. They had all types of animals...tigers, lions, parrots, zebras, giraffes, cats walking on their two front legs, dancing seals, monkeys. It was really neat!

The Russians were very scrict on a lot of things, especially taking pictures. Visiting the Lenin monument was crazy...hands had to be by your side, no cameras even allowed inside the building, and couldn't speak to anyone while inside the building. So this was a difficult time for the spanish because it's close to impossible for them to stay quiet. haha

The group at the Russian dinner party...vodka shots...sad to say I was not very fond of the Russian food.

"Swan Lake" Ballet in Moscow. Amazing!

Party Bus in Moscow!

We were able to go to the top of the Hermitage Museum where there was a very nice view of the city in St. Petersburg.

Just got out of my first critique for Contemporary Architecture IV and it went pretty well. A bit easier on me than the ones from ECU but I think it's because they don't know me very well yet!

This past week was "exam week." No classes were held therefore we were able to catch up on some work which is what I did for the most part. Usually we all will go to the market and pick up bread, vegetables, fruits, and cheeses and just make sandwiches for lunch and dinner on Sundays since most of the shops are closed.
We stayed in the studio for long hours and after awhile started to become a bit delerious and goof off (of course). I am going to Russia this friday for the next which I am soooo excited about. Hints why I was in the studio this whole week, so it will be nice to have a long break. My roommate Alma is going along with some of the other international students from Oulu and Helsinki. We are visiting Moscow and St. Petersburg!

The whole MonArch group with Santa in Rovaniemi.

This past weekend a bunch of the international students took a hiking trip in Pilpasuo. It was about a 10 kilometer trail. We stopped about halfway to cook saugages and eat lunch. We also picked lingenberries and cranberries along the way. I have noticed Finland residents have some of the prettiest dogs I have ever seen. So many different ones and they are all so cute too!

Sarah, Me, Ema (Portugal) and Carmen (Spain) all hanging out at Kersten's apartment before hitting the city for her birthday!

It was Kersten's (Germany) 24th birthday last week so we all got together and had a surprise party for her after class. The two girls from Italy baked the goodies which were deee-light-ful!
You can't really too much but this is the studio where we do most of our work. It's really nice, lots of windows and we each have our own personal table.

Tuesday Leena, our coordinator, took the international architecture students for a trip to Rovaniemi which is in Lapland. We first arrived to Lapland University where we heard an English lecture from Jonathan Sands, the CEO of Elmwood and Alexander Stubb, the foreign minister of Finland. The lecture was very interesting and they even brought up Second Life! It was a program I worked for last year at ECU. Afterwards, we visited the Library and Theatre designed by Finnish archtiect, Aalto Alvar. We visited the Artikum, where we saw a "Northern Light" show, "Arctic Zone", where you experience a taste of how cold it is further up into Lapland. They also had a show about the process of slaughtering reindeer (I didn't watch too much of this one). Afterwards, we went to Santa Clause village where we were able to see Santa and take a picture. Santa Clause spoke to all of us in our own language which was really cool. We all took a good photo with him and I'll have to post it as soon as I get a copy.

Albert, one of the guys from Beligum, took this shot of me. He had a heavy duty camera and was taking pictures of pretty much everything!

Picture of us attempting an action shot crossing over the Artic Circle at Santa Clause village.

Very long day and once again Albert capturing the moment...

Monday, we did something called a "City Rally" where all the exchange students were asked to form groups and journey throughout the city, taking stops at different areas and performing tasks. We had to sing and dance to a Finnish song, act out Finnish events and rituals, and try some of the strange food that the Finns love! Sarah and I were grouped with mostly Germans and here we are taking photo of some European celebrity who is famous for wearing a scary mask, which was also a task.

Kerstin, Sarah and I at the hockey game.

And other architecture classmates in the picture below.

Went to the Oulu Karapats and Helsinki Jokeritts Hockey game last week, which turned out to be very good! The score was tied after the third period and then still tied after overtime. It went into shoot outs in which Oulu won.