Morning at the Student Village

We woke up today only to find a big pile of fresh snow again. Although according to the Finnish Meteorological Institute, the permanent snow cover should melt by the 31st of March which is tomorrow. For some reasons I have doubts about that. :) Anyway, it does look very good. Also there is few things better than to hear the sound of fresh snow under your boots.

view from the balcony (west)

view from the corridor (east)

wooden house in the middle of concrete blocks

Isler

28-29/03/2011

This post goes out to Sara, who I want to bake with. :) Also, you didn't come to eat them, I am disappointed...

I was following this recipe: http://desszert.eu/ischler_isler

As it turned out, it is very easy to make this kind of cookie. You only need basic ingredients and the process of making them is also easy.

The recipe of Isler

for the non-Hungarian speakers

Ingredients (for about 5 regular size islers):

for the dough:

5050 g sugar

100100 g butter/margarine

140140 g flour

5050 g crushed walnut or almond

0.50.5 teaspoon of cinammon

for the filling:

any kind of jam that you like, I used strawberry and lingonberry (not very traditional), but it is also very good with apricot jam or raspberry 

for the "cover":

200-300300 g 65% dark chocolate

the ingredients

Preparation:

1. Preheat the oven on 200°C

2. Put the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix them, then cover it and put it in the fridge for 10 minutes.

3. After the 10 minutes you can spread it in 3 mm thickness and make round shaped cookies from them. The original diameter of isler is usually 75 mms, but I also made smaller ones for tasting. Then you can put it in the preheated oven for 5-10 minutes. As soon as they start to get darker and more solid get them out of the oven immediately!

4. When they are cold enough, you can fill them with jam.

 

filled cookies

5. Put them in a cold place for a day.
6. Melt the chocolate over warm water and dip the cookies. After the solidification of the chocolate they are ready to eat.

with chocolate cover

Best pizza ever

Saturday, 26/03/2011

Today we went shopping to Länsikeskus, where finally I had the chance to eat my favorite pizza in Finland, the Berlusconi from Kotipizza. I have only waited 3 years to get to this occasion and finally it arrived! :)

my photo of Berlusconi pizza

The toppings: chanterelles/rókagomba, smoked reindeer, red onion.

photo from kotipizza website: http://online.kotipizza.fi/

For the story about the origin of the name of this pizza, you can click here.

I have to say that it was worth coming to Finland even for this one pizza. :)

Zsu's workplace

I am working in this building now in an architecture office.

It is just on the banks of the river Aura, quite a nice place to walk on every morning.

panorama from Itäinen Rantakatu

 

 chimney with numbers

It took me 5 minutes one morning to find out what the numbers are, but in my defense: it was  morning and I didn't drink coffee before! :) Anyway, this is one of the strange pieces of art that can be found in the city. Also I guess it is good to start the morning with some thinking exercise. It would have been also funny if it was changing every morning, and you would have to find out what the sequence is.

Taidekappeli, Hirvensalo

Saturday,  19/03/2011

This weekend we went to check out the chapel that I wanted to see for a very long time now. It is situated on the Hirvensalo island, you can check it out on the map here. There was a very nice lady who gave us some insight to the history of the chapel. It was a priest and artist, Hannu Konola, who came up with the idea to combine a place of worship with a place of art. His dream came true in 1996, when an architectural competition took place to design this unique place. A young architect, Matti Sanaksenaho (Sanaksenaho Architects website) won the competition with his extraordinarily-shaped building, which is somehow between the shape of a boat upside down and a whale. For years money was collected from donations, and finally in 2003 construction began. In 2005 the building was finished, and the inauguration took place.

The exterior of the building is covered with metal sheets, the interior however is made completely of wood. Natural light enters the building from the two ends. The glass-work visible on the picture below is the work of Hannu Konola himself.

from the outside

from the inside

glass-work

Dekorálnánk

Nos igen, ez most a falunk. Nem túl dekoratív, nem túl ingergazdag, és inkább a szürke felé közelít, mint a fehér irányába. Cserébe legalább mosható festék van rajta. Otthon mindenféle bekeretezett, általában építészes témájú képek voltak a falon, amik kb két évvel a beköltözés után kerültek fel. Ezzel szemben most egyszért hamarabb, másrészt más jellegű képek lesznek. Kitaláltuk, hogy minimalista, film ihletésű poszterek kerülnének fel. Például ilyenek:

 

 

Ehhez szeretném most kedves geek olvasóink segítségét kérni. Amennyiben tudtok olyan honlapokat, ahol ehhez hasonló alkotások fellelhetőek, netán olyat találtok, ami jól nézne ki a szobánk falán, akkor ne habozzatok azt megosztani egy komment erejéig. Mi addig tovább keresünk, és mindenképp értesítünk az eredményről.

Turku, csak úgy hirtelen

Sziasztok!

Végre sikerült odáig eljutnunk, hogy elindítottunk egy blogot Finnországról, másodszorra is. Az élet zajlik, már mindkettőnknek van munkája, szinte már olyan hétköznapi érzés, azt leszámítva, hogy egy csomó mindent nem értek amit mondanak nekem. De ma pl. tök jól tudtam álcázni magam finnek, megértettem, hogy a pénztáros azt mondja, hogy krumplit nem mértem le.

Itt van pár kép is a városról, hogy el tudjátok képzelni milyen is ez a város:

A szép rész

A szép rész egy ronda térrel elrontva

Nézet a ronda térről, kis piaccal, nagy szállodával

A tér túloldala