time for the music - & other activities

i went to my first violin class on mon. it was the first time i played my grandfather's violin & the first time i've played the violin in 17 years! i did okay - not that much worse than the other students in the class (who were all beginners). the teacher, kukka (flower), was very nice & helpful - she tuned my violin for me...i told her it had recently been "restrung" & she didn't know what i meant, so i said "got new strings". we worked on a polska, which is a very important style of traditional music. hopefully, we'll be working on the same piece next week, so i can ask her some more questions regarding it (like the key signature - it didn't follow traditional western form). she invited me to stay for the following class, which is more advanced, to watch. but i needed to do some grocery shopping. so next week, i plan to stay & will bring my camera so i can take some pictures & video; maybe i'll bring my recorder as well.

last night, i went to a traditional finnish food restaurant w/ elise called "sea horse". i was hoping to try the vorschmack since it is a very traditional food, but it has meat in it. so, i had vegetarian cabbage rolls (stuffed w/ mushrooms - finely chopped - & rice); other options were creamy vegetable soup & omelette w/ vegetables. it was very good. there was lindonberry jam on the side, but since i don't mix sweet w/ savory, i didn't put it on my food. i tried a bite of it & it was really sugary; i was getting desert, so i didn't eat it. for desert, i had fried camambert cheese w/ cloudberry jam. the cheese tasted similar to mozzarella, but more "dessert - like" (not sure what that means other than it wasn't the same as mozzarella sticks). cloudberries are weird; i bought a pack of frozen cloudberries & have been putting them in my yogurt. they don't taste like fruit to me. they aren't bad or gross, just weird to me. the cloudberry jam & camambert cheese is a very good combination, though. other options for dessert were finnish pancakes w/ strawberry jam & traditional finnish icecream, frosted cranberries & hot caramel sauce, cheesecake w/ raspberry something (i forget the word), & coffee & cognag. the camambert cheese was the most unusual to me, so i went w/ that.

tonight, i go to my first folk singing class (other than the kalevalan singing class, which was different)...oh, one of the girls in the kalevalan singing class had hair down to her ankles!!! my hair is "only" down to the small of my back; i'd have to keep growing my hair for another 6 years at least - but i'm not, i have other plans for it in two years. anywho, i don't have anything to say about the class, 'cause i don't know what it's going to be like, but i'm excited!...

last sat. night, i went to a 60's/70's/hippie themed couchsurfing event (i didn't get dressed up). i got some pictures & - begrudgingly - handed my camera to other people to take pictures of me - i'll post them this weekend sometime. while there, janna (pronounced yahnnna) told me there was a cancellation on the cs stockholm cruise next weekend. since it was in her cabin, she wanted to give me an opportunity to sign up before mentioning it to the people on the wait list. so, i'll be going to stockholm next weekend (the ship leaves fri. evening & then we return sat. night); we'll be spending about 9 hrs or so in stockholm on sat. i signed up to go to the vassa museum (a refurbished sunken viking ship), so that's one thing i can mark of my list of things to do while i'm in stockholm next month. plus, i'll be able to get a better idea of the city & figure out what to do on my longer stay. i'd also like to get a swedish massage while i'm there, so i'll see if i can't schedule an appointment next weekend for april.

i finally went through the folk music event calendar & have marked all the events i can attend & will decide shortly which ones i will go to (i figure i might as well go to all the free ones). there's one this fri. evening & i think i will go to that one.

then, on sat. night is fight festival! outi hurt her knee last fri., but it's good now. jamba is out for two months, so he won't be fighting. :{ the same guy, petsku, hurt both of them; i sparred w/ him on fri. as well. when we were done, he apologized if he was hitting too hard (he wasn't, but i wasn't moving my head like i should have). i told him i liked his speed & he said he didn't really like his technique; "i did that (pointing to jamba) & that (pointing to outi). hopefully, i'll do the same to my opponent". outi invited me to go out w/ them after the fights as well! i don't have a very good seat, but hopefully i'll still be able to get some good pictures.