the trip over & upon arrival...

well, it didn't start out very smoothly. hotwire neglected to attach my e-ticket to my itinerary (not to mention they didn't update the ticket information to the current itinerary). it was a good thing my mom got me to the airport as early as she did. otherwise, i would have missed my flight. other than that, everything went as smoothly as possible. there was snow on the ground in munich (i was hoping to take pictures, but we were in "all electronics turned off" mode whenever we were under the cloud cover). my passport was stamped for the first time in munich, but not in finland - strange. all of my luggage arrived w/ only a couple of minor losses within. i loaded up three carts & had to transport them myself (there weren't any porters there...) & oddly enough, i didn't have to go through customs. since i didn't know if i needed to declare anything or not, i was planning on going through the "redline", but there wasn't anybody there. upon going through the non-declare exit, that's all it was - an exit.

i hired a taxi - minibus - & arrived at my apartment shortly thereafter....for those of you who have been wondering, finns drive the same way we do: same driver's side, same side of the road. my roommate was surprised by all of my luggage, but was very kind & gracious & helped me carry everything upstairs. my roommate, eno, is actually a single father, not a single mother (he only sent me 1 picture w/ him in it, in profile w/ his curly hair covering a lot of his face, & the picture quality was poor...). unfortunately, he smokes & smokes indoors, so my lungs are struggling a bit. and, i've been keeping my window open (it actually isn't as cold as i thought it would be - but still cold).

everything was going well getting unpacked & settled in until i tried to use my computers. first unpacked was my laptop. i attempted to connect to the internet w/ no luck (i assumed the wired connection wouldn't work since it hadn't before). however, it wouldn't connect wirelessly either - dammit! so, i kept unpacking & came to my pc; then it all just got fucked up. when i plugged in my surge protector, it blew the circuit. then, eno & i went through the rest of my electronics to see what would work....not much. my bass speaker blew the circuit as did my pc. so, eno changed the voltage on my pc to the higher amount (115 - 230) & upon plugging it in, my power supply blew up (in my defense, i assumed it wouldn't work, but he was 95% sure it would...). so now, i have to get a new power supply (ironically enough, when we connected a spare supply eno has that runs @ 230 volts, it worked). it, however, does not fit inside my chassis; eno wanted to cut out the back, but i'm not so keen on that idea. i also have to get new voltage converters for my smaller electronics since they all run on too much voltage as well (we plugged one in & it started smoking, so i'll have to replace that one when i get back to the states as well).

eno gave me the name of an electronics store so i can purchase said items, but his directions weren't very clear. he's from paris & doesn't speak finnish well & doesn't remember how to spell words....he told me to take the metro to ruohalahti (or ruoholahti) & go to verko kauppa (it's actually verkkokauppa - a best buy-like store). at the bus stop, there wasn't anything similar to "ruohalahti"; i don't know what ruohalahti is close to; how much public transit costs or if they give back change, but i assume not (the smallest bill i have is 5e). plus, my gps isn't working properly. it won't get a satellite signal & it still has me located in portland....not very helpful in finding where anything is in relation to where i currently am. i tried to get a route between my apartment & ruohalahti (& ruoholahti), but neither one of those (street names?) were recognized (my street, svanstrominkuja, was)....so, today was basically a waste (other than a lot of reading).

i also haven't been sleeping; i barely slept on any of my flights & wasn't able to fall asleep until about 8am this morning...& then only for a few hours. since i wasn't able to go anywhere this afternoon, i decided to try to take a nap & actually did sleep for about 4hrs....finally, i was able to get my laptop to accept the fact that there was a network cable plugged in & connected to the internet - yay!

tomorrow afternoon, eno will actually take me downtown, show me around a bit, & take me to the different places i need to go: electronics store, grocery store, thrift store (to buy a comforter/blanket), & currencty exchange. at least then i'll know how the metro works & hopefully buy a pass.