Welcome to Tampere!

Tonight, we had a welcoming party (see photos), hosted by our faculty, and they had a lovely spread of typical Finnish food: mouth-watering Salmon, reindeer (yes, like Rudolph) rolls, fruit/veggies, karelian pasteries (rice/pastry), green salad, and these bread-like cold balls (hard to describe but tasty!) in addition to some tasty wine from the great Australian region.

Classes started yesterday and all 17 of us Erasmus Mundus scholars have reunited. It's nice to come back together, reconnect after the holidays and compare lost luggage war stories. We are a smaller class than in Oslo and I would expect that this will make for a more intimate class setting as well as a more close-knit experience (with a few dysfunctions...like any close family). We have the next 2 weeks off because our professors are traveling to China to consult...no classes...that is how they roll in Finland. So, I'm headed to Brussels, Belgium for the 20th year celebration of the Erasmus scholarship program.