Sun-deficient Sundays: The sun is trying to kill me.

Bar-B-Que and Poker: When one is immersed in the cold tundra-like atmosphere of Finland, it often leads to unimaginable or drastic reactions. It was on the 2 of march 2008, core winter, that this insane group of IMMIT Erasmus Mundus students decided to have a Bar-B-Que - in the snow! We were so missing the days of France where the weather was warm and you can do these activities without worry. Plus, we had a BBQ shed here made just for us [facilities which weren't available to us in France], so we decided to test it out!

After having gone in search of coals to several stores, groceries, and supermarkets, and being rejected, met with faces of utter amazement, and comments that "are you crazy to have a BBQ in winter, we don't have coals, and Finnish people don't BBQ in winter.", Wasiq finally found some wood that we could use as fuel. So we set out to do what no Finn has done before; we are IMMIT and we do what we want, when we want, after all "without dissent there can be no democracy". So there we were, Wasiq, Jose, and I, trying to spark up a flame in minus 5 degrees weather ;), but in the end it was a success, the fire kept the food [and us] warm, the snow kept the beers cold, and we kept the party going. After the BBQ, the guys gathered in the common room to play some very addictive poker, we even have the "chips". [more pictures of Sun-deficient Sundays: IMMIT BBQ].

Caribia: Two days after, on the 4th of March 2008, longing and craving even more for the SUN, and FUN, and the warm beaches of the Caribbean, being sun-deficient as were were, and stressed from the partying, i mean studying life, we decided to go to Caribia. "Holiday Club Turku is a spa hotel near the center of Turku. It is built around a pool area with a genuine Caribbean atmosphere - no wonder the spa hotel is also called the Caribia. The exciting pool section and pampering spa treatments guarantee that both children and adults have a memorable holiday." [source].

• eight pools
• three water slides
• warm outdoor pool with caves
• junior pool and children's pool with small water slide
• 16.7 metres (55 ft.) fitness pool
• cold pool beside the warm outdoor pool

Now that's a resort! Of course it wasn't really the REAL Caribbean, it was just a touristic stereotype, but none-the-less, it was an enjoyable time, since this is the closest [8618 km away] you can get to warm home in this cold country. The Finnish really treat their people right, offering services and facilities such as these so we don't get depressed and kill ourselves. So we had a fun, relaxing, afternoon in this spa [which Trinidadian goes to a spa man!?], for just 8 euros [quite cheap for all this]! Also interesting was the signs they had with the various Caribbean island and the distance and direction from Turku, it's always amazing to see something about Trinidad in Europe, since most people don't know that it exists. There was even an out door [heated pool] and a freezing one, where you can run out dive into the freezing one and come back to the warm one...Finnish and their traditions...I'd say, this craving and desire for the sun is going to kill me... The sunsets here, however, do get to be quite beautiful sometimes. [more pictures of Sun-deficient Sundays: Caribia].

Erasmus Mundus: The Experience of Experiences.

In the summer of 2007, my life changed dramatically. I was accepted to pursue a program, which was more diverse, more adventurous, and more incredible than I could ever have imagined. A few months before, I resigned from my job in order to gain more time to research and source universities for my post-graduate studies and thus, further my education. I would advise anyone that it is a long and difficult process. There are many forms requesting mundane information, application fees which need to be paid, and rejections that need to be faced; but in the end I assure you it is all worth the time and effort.

I was selected and offered an Erasmus Mundus scholarship of €42,000 [Euros] to study in France, Finland, and The Netherlands for 2 years to do an International Masters in Management and Information Technology [IMMIT], spending a semester in each country. An intercultural explosion of 21 people from 13 different nations [including Cambodia, China, Ethiopia, India, Malaysia, Mexico, The Netherlands, Pakistan, Portugal, Serbia, Trinidad, Vietnam, Zimbabwe], we were assembled in the beautiful Aix-en-Provence, in the south of France for the first pilot semester. The core focus of the program was to enhance international relations and cultural appreciation and promote strong global networking so that we could work better in the growing world of globalization.

IMMIT: I must say they have succeeded in this mission, since the members of my program are now so well bonded in friendship and well versed in each others cultures that we sometimes refer to ourselves as the IMMIT Family. The Erasmus student life is definitely not strictly about study – it’s about cultural explorations, parties [promoting networking and socializing], traveling, friendship, love [as I experienced in France], and discovering yourself in dynamic and different environments.

Culture: Europe is quite different from Trinidad, the Caribbean and the rest of the world including the USA. Intertwined in its old architecture, arts and people are rich and extensive histories and cultures that eagerly wait to be unfolded by any Erasmus student. We have not only the opportunity to bask in each others traditions and lifestyles but also those of each of the countries we visit, thus equipping us with an ultimate Euro-global culture portfolio. Our diverse and exciting journey through French culinary delights, cheese, wines, language, people, warmth, laid-back lifestyle [much like the Caribbean], and sitting at outdoor cafés watching the world pass-by, brought us to fall deeply in love with the country and its people. My semester on the French Riviera also revealed to me the incredible extent to which the French culture and language is embedded in that of Trinidadians’.

Travel: The obvious accessibility to the other ‘Club-Med’ countries [Spain, Italy, and Portugal] from France was also a heavenly gift of travel adventure possibilities. It is easier for anyone to travel and explore the vast continent because of the breaking down of legal barriers of travel in Europe, the ease of access between countries and growing number of low cost airlines. As students, eager and young, we did not let this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity pass us by.

Finland: At the end of the semester, however, we had to bid farewell to our beloved France and were immersed in the contrasting environment of the ‘North Pole’: Finland [for our second semester]. One of the coldest places on earth [or at least to me it is; where the temperature drops to -30 degrees Celsius in core winter, the sea freezes over and one may drive a car on it!] Finland: famous for Sauna [they invented the word], vodka, and Santa Claus. The Finnish culture is much more structured, direct and depressing than the French. It is not as bad as the rumours claim however. Although the sun is masked almost perpetually by grey clouds, and there is darkness [to the north the sun doesn’t rise sometimes for weeks] and cold, the facilities and services offered are to the utmost best. They utilize the highest technologies to deliver efficient services [we pay to do our laundry by cell phone text messaging]. Additionally, the student life is excellent, and well organized, with several cheap trips, parties and events, and an ingenious array of social programs [such as a language friend, a Finnish friend, and a tutor: to help you get settled in]. We are now nearing the end of this semester and are growing to like this Finnish lifestyle, hopefully in summer the affection will be amplified [by the sun].

Open the mind: This experience in fact opens the mind and expands the perspectives of any person. There becomes a growing international awareness, and concern is emergent for global issues that were once ignored. Take for instance the Serbia and Kosovo issue which affected our Serbian classmates deeply, and all of us were equally concerned. Most people in the western world may not even know where Serbia is. With regards to the course content, my point of view that a master’s degree required excessive studying was changed. The program is setup in such a way that no IMMIT student is forced to ‘cram’ for large exams. Conversely, group work is promoted, and the process is more about shaping the students mind, and changing their global thinking habits to that of an organizational and group-oriented manager. It is not about forcing ideas and theories into memory but about encouraging us to think differently and like managers. This thinking process will be embedded in us and allow us to make quicker managerial decisions in the future naturally.

Life Management: I believe that I have already matured significantly into a better person as a result of the entire experience and the first year is not even over yet. The Erasmus Mundus journey certainly builds the character, experience and abilities of any person. Not only regarding education, but also respecting life: living on your own, living with people, working with people, time management, travel management, event management [for parties], people management and conflict management. A student is offered comfort, leisure, friendships, love and high quality of life, and still emerges with an exceptional education. If all else fails, at least we have free accommodation offered by friends from all over the world.

In Transit: Tallinn to Helsinki [Viking Lines] [Carla's Birthday]

Well, we leave now from one party [from Hollywood in Tallinn] to a party on the Ferry from Tallinn to Helsinki. This ferry known as the Viking line, runs 3 hours and contains various pubs and bars, and a tax-free shop with alcohol. It is not allow to drink alcohol bought in the tax free shop on the ship, but solely because they want you to spend your money at their bars [which is more expensive]. But no one cares, every one is walking around carelessly and drunk with tax-free cans of beer in their hands. When entering the boat we saw several buses entering the car deck...that's amazing how a ship can support that weight and be stable. :|

After running to catch this boat, since we went to the wrong side of the port, we finally relaxed and drank our two mini bottles of tax-free wine and two cans of beer. Satisfaction and relaxation levels increased! bonus!

The best part of this boat trip was meeting this cute, semi-drunk, graphics designer, Hanna, from Hamina, Finland. Come on, it's green eyes!!!!!! Apart from her, we met two girls [sisters] from east Tallinn near the border or Russia, and they spoke Russian! At end we realized that they were in high school :S....that's to show how mature these girls look and dress...however, my heart and mind still lie elsewhere...

The trip was fun, except the boat was totally moving up and down and we felt more drunk than we were. At the end, everyone was drunk, totally falling down - men, women children, just drunk... :). And of course trolleys of beer were being shipped out...

After this, arriving in Helsinki to yet another party - the birthday of the sister of the girlfriend of Marcos [Anna's sister: Carla]. It was good went to a couple of bars [Carla's pub crawl] - bar hopping. Met Anna's dad at a bar with her mom and godfather [drinking of course, the natural Finnish way]. Her godfather actually visited Trinidad about 10-15 years ago for the carnival, how amazing! After it was to a karaoke bar, where we discovered we weren't missing anything in terms of girls from Estonia, since the beauty was still existent even in Finland...[to the right - the Finnish sisters, wow: from left-right: Milla, Carla, Anna]. Absolute Helsinki...

Above: Left-Right: There's Marcos, "The Godfather", Anna, her Mom, her Dad, et moi...

Scandinavian Trek: Riga, Lativa & Tallinn, Estonia

Ok, so being in Finland, and so close to all these Baltic countries, we decided to do a petite Scandinavian tour. After all, we are here already, and I've always wanted to go to Estonia. I mean who goes to these places [Estonia and Latvia]. As my mom put it: "I'm going to places that Patrick manning [the prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago] has never gone before". The line up is as follows:

Bus from Turku to Tampere, Plane from Tampere to Riga, Bus from Riga to Tallinn, Boat [Ferry] from Tallinn to Helsinki, Bus from Helsinki to Turku.

Turku, Finland > Tampere, Finland > Riga, Latvia > Tallinn, Estonia > Helsinki, Finland > Turku, Finland.

Tampere: we only spent one hour here, and didn't see much, but what little we saw of the city, it was beautiful and serine. The port was nice, the curches were different [orthodox] and there were many companies established here. Oh, that's another thing, currently we are all looking for summer jobs or masters thesis research internships in europe, so our entire trip was revolving around identifying potential scandinavian companies and girls to which we could apply. ;)
A few Tampere pictures are on the Tampere picasa album.

Scandinavian Trek: Riga, Latvia from the Latvian girls [although they were close to Russia...and of course Russian girls are beautiful] as much as Estonian girls; but these Lats surpassed our expectations. They were all hott, and dressed really: so, finally we touched down in Riga. I'm in Latvia, come on!! Who really visits there. We were not expecting so much "provocatively", and had very "prominent" body features ;). Slim, blond, blue eyes, tall, tall boots, pink skin. They dressed with a certain fashion - short skirts although it was freezing cold, as if they were going to a night club but it was in the middle of the day in the middle of the week. Even the moms were hott; we came across these Latvian Moms one morning. Hott! These girls asked us to help them carry their baby carriages across bare and active rail road lines. :| dangerous... but worth the risk... ;). Even the receptionists at our hostel were amazing, so friendly [almost like the Czechs], which made them more attractive than they were. Though most of the girls on the streets at nights [along with taxi drivers] are aggressively harassing you to go to a "gentleman's club" with them or "buy them a drink". Anyways, Marcos and I even met a Belarusian girl [a real girl, not one on the streets] in the hostel, so hott, now we got accommodation in Belarus hahahahahaha, who the hell visits there? who lives there?

Ok, enough about the women, let's discover the city. "Riga is the largest city in the Baltic states. The Historic Centre of Riga has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the city is particularly notable for its extensive Art Nouveau (Jugendstil) architecture, which UNESCO considers to be unparalleled anywhere in the world." [source]. The buildings, architecture and city are all beautiful, different and attractive, unlike the claim of "wikitravel guide" that they were ugly. It was a mixture of old German, Soviet, and Russian style structures, with modern New York style buildings [on the outskirts and perimeter of the old town]. Most of the steeples of many of the buildings and houses and castles possessed little weather cocks and cats and dogs perched on top. In terms of nightlife, the city was a bit dead since it was the middle of the week, so we decided to focus on the city. Oh my god! We found a casino in Riga, called "Tobago", which is actually based around my island of Tobago!! apparently we have a history with Latvians!! So strange to see something like this in Europe, since not much people know about Trinidad and Tobago. The next day we visited a bit of the preserved old style houses of the city. It was really cool, I felt like I was in the middle of the world war ages. By then we were totally hungry, starving and collapsing. We passed through by chance a typical Latvian market place and begged and hassled for two bananas from a lady with the few cents that we had, and even took her sample mandarin for free [Bonus!]. After starving for the entire day, almost fainting, we found this great cheaaaaaaap food place with wonderful Latvian styled food in a meat market near the bus station, definitely a BONUS!!! See more pictures from this trip at the Scandinavian Trek: Riga, Latvia picasa album.

Scandinavian Trek: Tallinn, Estonia: OK, after running to catch the bus from Riga to Tallinn, we were finally on our way there...tired from the trip already, we slept for what we thought was hours on the bus, but was only one hour. The four hour trip ended with excitement as we came of the bus and set foot on Estonian grounds! WOW, we were in Estonia, Capital of Prostitution! Our expectation of girls here were very high, and they were met pleasantly and even surpassed; with there tanned skin and blond hair and pink clothes and tall boots. It's final! Scandinavian girls are the hottest on this planet, I don't know why. [of course the French can't be surpassed in beauty, with their high fashion and beautiful French style ;)]. It was also determined that McDonald's [as mentioned in the previous post that there were lots of benefits] is a hot-spot and resource-pool for hott girls. We just needed to enter any McDonald's in either Riga or Tallinn and were bombarded by beauty. Our Hostel was so extravagant, covered in wood, like a sauna. And the shower was the Coolest I've seen [in our hostel], it has mirrors everywhere, jets for you to sit and relax, dual shower heads 9one to the side and one directly above], lights, radio and speakers.

Ok enough enough, now the city: "Tallinn (historically known by the German and Danish name Reval, among other names) is the capital and largest city of Estonia. It lies on the northern coast of Estonia, along the Gulf of Finland. The city is an important industrial, political and cultural center, and seaport." [source]. The city is quite small and can be covered in one day, it consists of the old medieval town surrounded by new industrial buildings and large companies and shopping centered. Quite the contrast! One really funny thing was that there was a tower named "Kiek in de Kök", pronounced "kick in the cock" :| hahahahaha. just a bit strange.

Marcos and I have grown quite fond of night tourism, which is where we sleep most of the day and go out at night, not to party, but to see the city, sightsee, take pictures etc. It's really fun, quiet and peaceful, since there are no annoying tourists, and most of the buildings look more beautiful with the night-lights than in the foggy cloud daylight. Also, we have a concept that our trips are now much like a video game where by the mission is to find the cheapest places and best deals [student way], and of course discover the regional girls. each time we succeed, we say it's a bonus! like the free medieval nuts and bread we got in Tallinn old town center. Our last night in Estonia was well spent in a night club called Hollywood, it was not as nice at Trinidad's Zen, but quite nice. We even met some [real and drunk] Estonian girls... ;).

This trip was tiring and almost over, the last day in Estonia was spent looking for a gift for Anna's sister's [Carla's] birthday. We then had lunch at a "buffet" which was not a real buffet, but just a stupid restaurant were you choose and pay for various different things, and then once again had to run to catch our ferry to Helsinki [we're always running for buses, trains, planes, and boats].

My Winter of Love: Erasmus Breaks Hearts

So, in my last days of France, I managed to acquire myself a French girlfriend. ha-ha. Marcos got himself a Finnish-girl, but I was the only one in the program with a French-girl ;). I mean who has a French girl? That's just hott! I managed also to fall in love with her, in love for the first time in my life, for real, and I can't manage to fall out of it. She's just amazing, with her cute butterfly eyes, and soft brunette hair, and intelligent independence and purpose in life, and her French accent, and her beautiful, loving, simple self.

Now that I'm in Finland, it's become a distance relationship that's piercing to both our hearts. This Europe has it's benefits, but one thing that's rising is the mobility and the breaking down of barriers and the ease with which someone can move around. This mobility makes it almost impossible for couples to have stable and normal relationships. I think I'd love her for a while... All of my memories keep you near, In silent moments imagine you'd be here.
Erasmus breaks hearts.

[Sorry for the tabanka post]

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