James is here

It is 3:25 am and we are just back at the flat after collecting James from Helsinki. He flew into Tampere on Ryanair and got the bus down. Milja, Charlotte and I were in the car waiting for about 1.5 hours for him, watching the club-goers and a drunk, naked man running around in the square. We eventually spotted James wandering around and we passed through McDonald's for a quick snack on the way home.

It is getting bright again. Well, I mean brighter. It has been light all the time. We will see the sunrise if we stay up for another 30 minutes.

Puppies

I have also uploaded some photos of the puppies on Facebook - here is the public link...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2358&l=81a33&id=500932369

Graduation photos

I have finally got round to uploading photos for the first time in 2 months. I put a few photos up from Milja's graduation day. You can browse them at zooomr.com/photos/danrowden.

Casper

Casper died this morning. Our little white fluffball has passed on.

He had been ill since yesterday and Minna took him to the vets this morning. The vets think that bacteria from his intestines (that were making him ill) got into his blood and then went to his brain. Poor guy :(

It's hard enough to leave a pet in another country and have to wait for it to come over, but to lose him in that time makes it millions of times worse.

There will never be another Casper.

Settling in

We have been back in Helsinki for 8 days now. We have spent a lot of time moving things back into the flat, painting, and fixing things, and also arranging passports, registering us and the car and going to IKEA a lot.

It is great to be back. Finnish Summer is the best.

Charlotte arrives here for her 2 week stay this evening. James comes on Friday.

Blog posts will be few and far between in the next few weeks - we still don't have internet at the flat.

Packed and set

We are leaving to the airport in about 10 minutes. We have come to the end of our African adventure.

We will be back soon.

Goodbye Africa!

2 left

This morning I had my exam. It went well, and I finished quite early. Other students in my class were at uni doing their group projects which are due next week.

Milja completed her exams on Tuesday. She has got a great set of results. She will get her final report tomorrow. Her graduation ceremony is in the morning followed by a luncheon with parents. Everyone is happy to have finished and having fun in these past few days which they have been given off after exams.

Emotions descend

The thought of leaving finally hit me this morning. These next few days are going to be very hard.

Return

Milja landed in Cape Town this morning, along with 1.9kg of Fazer chocolate, 1.2kg of liquorice (salmiakki), our The Office boxset, a new boxset of Band of Brothers and very few clothes. She left nearly all in Helsinki for next week.

Casper, technical whizz-kid

Casper from Dan on Vimeo

You can also now follow Casper's antics on twitter! :)

The Ug-mobile

Milja went to Lohja today and bought a car.

We had been hoping to buy one when we moved back to Helsinki to help get around and not depend on lifts from Raija or the use of Raija's car. I have been browsing Finnish used-car websites and we found a few that we liked the look of including an Opel Corsa, two Ford Ka's, a Peugeot 206 and a Citroen Saxo.

Milja and I both liked the look of the Ford Ka's. We chose the cheaper of the two and today Milja went to for to look at it and went for a test drive. I answered the phone this afternoon and it was Milja asking for my Finnish identity number, so I knew that she must have been in the process of buying it!

Raija and Milja drove it home and now it is sitting at Raija's house waiting for us to return. Milja loves it to bits. It is the perfect city car - small, nimble and cheap to run. I love its number plate "UGZ-803". It is from 1998 (two years after the ka was first launched) but still looking pretty.

Some quotes about the car...

"The suspension and steering settings allowed for spirited cornering and high levels of grip making it one of the best handling cars of the current generation superminis" WP

"...engine is near perfect for darting around the inner city.... A very practical and economical car with low emissions." New Car Reviews

Here are come photo taken from the car website (© Lehto-Media Oy)...







Now there's one more thing waiting for me in Finland that I can't wait to see, but this one I can drive!

End of Term

This week I had my last lecture at CPUT. I have my exam still to do, which has been moved for me to next week, so I can take it before we leave. It has been a good experience studying here, even if it was just two mornings a week. Along with the online Java course I did and the Perl I learnt with Heikki, I have done more studying than I thought I was going to at the beginning of the year, and hopefully it will all count for something when I return to EVTEK.

Milja took her Uni of Helsinki entrance exam this morning. I think she felt it went well. She wrote lots and answered all the questions. Now she has the awful wait for the results, which will come out in July. She leaves Helsinki again tomorrow afternoon.

Back in Summer

Milja is currently in Finland in order to take her entrance exam on Thursday. She arrived in Helsinki yesterday afternoon.

Apparently the weather is really summery and warm. Here, it is rainy, dull and rather quite windy. It is hard to picture sun and warmth.

Milja is enjoying being in Finland, seeing family and Helsinki again after over 10 months of being away. She managed to pack quite a lot of our stuff into her suitcase so we might just be able to take all the rest with us when we have weight allowance of two people next week.