So many worldcupz...

Hallo humans!!!

There is a worldcupz. Did you know that?
I mean....there was another one a while back with people dressed in blue and white and also other colors. But the blue and white ones were the best according to Mommy and Daddy. They are sliding around on fun white stuff or something like that and need to win something. The blue and white ones almost won, but not quite still.

Now there is green stuff instead of white stuff and the balls are much bigger.
It's called football, cause you kick the ball with the foot. I think. Daddy got a tiny football the other day and when he brought it home I tried to play with it. I kicked it with my paw. Pawball. But it was still too big, even though it is smaller than the worldcupz one and it kept rolling under my stomach and then I rolled over it and fell over.
Also, now the sticks are missing, cause they kick with the feet and they aren't so blue and white. I saw some blue and white ones and I cheered, but that was wrong apparently. I need to cheer for the ones with the white and black stuff.... and everything that is black, red and golden.
Mommy has a black, red and golden flag. It's lying on the floor. Other people have black red and golden flags on their cars. I saw them when looking outside from the window.

Mommy also has a necklace with black red and golden flowers. She put it on Ruska. Ruska didn't like it. Like really totally not.

Here is the unamused Ruska with Mommy and lots of white and black and black, red and gold.

Many other things happened, too. I went to the nice lady! It was a blast! I could drive with the red car that Daddy has. It's not his still, but I could drive with it.
The nice lady looked at me and at my pee. And she said that she really does not understand what is wrong with me. Hihi. That's because nothing is, probably. I feel fine.

Mommy said that maybe she needs to take me to the nice lady again and then the nice lady can look at my blood, too. And maybe she can then see what is wrong. I am not sure. I still feel fine.

Now I have to mentally prepare to look at the black and white humans kicking their footballs. Yes.
I promise I will write more often here again. Maybe. Or maybe not.
But Ruska will. Maybe. Or maybe not.

Bye!

-Phoebs

Mommy's strange bedtime story...

Hello!

I am still quite exhausted from that hell of a trip yesterday. My neck hurts, because that son of a dog tried to.... I don't know what she tried to do. It felt like she tried to cut my head off, but failed. Humans can't do anything right. To be honest I am not even sure if I am still alive. I guess I probably actually died. If that's the case, afterlife is quite a screw up I can tell you. Looks exactly like before. Oh well.
I can only roll my eyes about Phoebe's soft-soaping, but what does she know, she is only a kid. Anyways, the trip to the Grim Reeper is over and I hope it is the last in a long time. Though I heard something about my teeth being dirty. What an insult. My teeth are perfectly fine. I can show them.

What is true from what Phoebe told you is that things have gotten strange around here. For example in the past days, Mommy got the habit to start telling us a bedtime story. A really weird one, too. Phoebe was super excited, of course, she is always, but I really wondered why the heck she is telling me that stuff, because frankly, I just could not care less! But with time, while Phoebe was still convinced it was our amazing new evening ritual, I realized that she did not actually come up with the story to tell it to us, but to tell it to other humans! Because other humans told her to tell a story to other humans! It is totally confusing, right? Anyways, I think Mommy was pretty scared of telling her bedtime story to other humans... maybe she could read my thoughts about how incredibly irrelevant her blabla was? But she seemed almost as terrified as I am of the visits at the Grim Reeper's. Today she left to tell her story to other humans. She told us it was nice to have known us and she will die and we will never see again. Dude, you only tell a boring story to humans, my head got almost cut off! Tell me about who's dying here!

The cool thing about the horror trip is the fancy booklets we got. Mommy even pimped them, look how important we look now!

Pimped fancy booklets!

Yours, Ruska

P.S. I try to put together Mommy's bedtime story, so you can read it. Maybe you humans get the fuzz about it. Let me know. It goes like this:

Hi everyone!

My name is Anni, I am from Germany and I study Tourism here at TAMK and I will graduate this month.
It might sound like a cliché, but if someone had told me 5 years ago that I would end up standing here, in a Finnish university, in front of a bunch of people, giving a speech about "My Finland" - I would have probably thought they lost it completely. Cause I never expected this to happen.
Five years ago I was just applying for a job as an au pair here in Finland. Now all of you have probably heard the question more than once: "Why on earth would you come to Finland? You could have gone anywhere!" So why did I come here?
As ridiculous as it sounds now, 5 years ago I was totally obsessed with Finland and everything that was Finnish. I loved the music, bands like HIM, The Rasmus and Negative, I loved the nature I mostly knew from photos, I loved the language I didn't understand and the people that I didn't even know.
So it was my dream to come here. My family and friends might not have believed that I would pull it off. Maybe I didn't even believe it myself. But I got a job as an au pair in a small town called Mäntyharju, which is 200km east from Tampere. At first I was disappointed, cause I would have wanted to be in the city. Helsinki or Tampere. But I realized quickly that ending up in Mäntyharju was the best that could have happened. Because there I could experience the real Finnish "country" life. One year was not enough, so I applied for Tourism in TAMK afterwards. I got in, so here I am.

After the 4,5 years that I have been here now, there are so many impressions that I could just go on for hours. But the most impressive thing to me, still, is the nature. There is just nothing more beautiful than the typical view of the lake, with the forest in the background and some cottages. Also, even though most people are irritated by it, I love the long summer nights. Waking up at 4 a.m. and the sun is shining through your window. It's just amazing. Northern lights are something special, too. I personally am pretty unlucky with seeing them. In fact, it took me more than 3,5 years to see the first ones, but I managed. And it is just breathtaking.

Another important point of Finland is the people here. Finns are just so welcoming and would never make you feel like a stranger or foreigner. They try to include you into their lives and bring you closer to their country and culture. As you can see in this reception. They just love to show foreigners, who are interested in it, the ways of celebrating certain holidays. Also when you learn their language. It really does not matter if you can only order one beer or if you are - like me after 4,5 years - almost fluent. They know exactly how incredibly hard their language is and they honestly appreciate seeing foreigners taking the effort of learning it, no matter onto what level they get. They are also very encouraging, they would never laugh about you, when you make mistakes. I have been told many times, when I was just learning and sounded like an idiot, that mistakes don't matter, that the most important thing is that people understand what I am trying to say. And that's the best encouragement you could get.

Even Finns you don't know are very friendly, open and helpful people. You probably heard the saying that "If someone smiles at you on the street in Finland, they are either drunk or a foreigner."
That is probably true, but it does not mean Finns are antisocial people. As long as you respect their personal space, they will be happily trying to help you, for example to find the way. They might tell you they don't speak any English and then they turn out to speak better English than yourself.
If you go into a shop, the shopkeeper might have the worst day ever, but they will still be very friendly, smiling and welcoming, at least in most cases.

Then there is one thing about the communication that I love and that's the informality in which people speak. Coming from Germany it was especially surprising for me, as addressing your teacher or boss with their first name in Germany is the biggest insult anyone could imagine. They say that the reason for that is that people have to show respect and calling them Mr./Mrs. is the only way. Funnily enough, even though it is not done in Finland, I think people here have a lot more respect of their teachers as in Germany. Not because they feel forced to, but because the teachers respect them as well and they want to show respect in return. Still they know that they have to listen to what the teacher says, but the whole communication is on an equal and friendly basis.

In a way I feel I am not the right person to talk about all this. I am a bad example and will go back to Germany in 2,5 weeks. My boyfriend, who is a Finn, found a job there, so we will move to Frankfurt. I am kinda sad about it, because there is just that thing about Finland that I experienced and heard so often during my years as a tutor. No matter if you are here for 2 week holidays, for your 3 month nursing internship, for 6 month or 12 month exchange or even longer - Finland becomes home. People leave and they take a part of Finland with them, they come back for visits. Even those who had Finland as their last choice and ended up here, cause they didn't get anywhere else. They are totally annoyed at first, but when they leave they are in love with the country and so happy they ended up here. It is amazing to see this impression that Finland has on people, that manages to mesmerize them, to make them fall in love.

Obviously after 4,5 years I am back on the ground. I know there is good and bad sides about Finland, as about any country. Because it is not a dream anymore, it is reality. It is my life. When I came here I loved snow and I loved winter and I couldn't wait for the first winter here. The first winter came, the snow came too. It didn't leave. For 5 months. Now every time I see a snowflake I get a personal crisis. But that is okay, because that is how you change when you live here. And it does not mean I love Finland any less than before.

Applying for this au pair job was the best decision of my life. I have met so many incredible people here, my boyfriend, my best friend, my au pair family that turned into a second family and lots and lots of friends from Finland and all over the world. I don't know where I'd be if I hadn't applied for this job, but I am so glad I did. I had the time of my life and Finland will be always in my heart, always another home.

But I will come back here one day and maybe some of you will, too. Because, you know, we need to give Finns a reason to ask us: "Why on earth did you come here???"

So, Happy Independence Day everyone and I hope you enjoy the rest of your time here, no matter how long or short it is. Make the best out of it!

Thanks.

©Anni Dillenburger

That thing called vet...

Hello!

It's me, Phoebe. Mommy has been talking about a huge trip and adventure lately. I am not quite sure what she means by that, but it can only be a blast. Trips are one of my favorite things, so I am already pretty excited!

It was a few weeks ago when I first recognized that something was odd. Daddy all of a sudden left with a suitcase, in the middle of the night, and did not come back yet. Mommy seemed pretty sad, so I already feared he might not come back ever again! I did my best to comfort her. But I quickly realized that he wasn't really gone, but somehow got stuck in this machine here. I see his face and hear his voice every now and then, when he talks to Mommy. They talk about human stuff, about a thing called "Frankfurt", about work and flats. At some point Mommy said they found us a new place to stay and that we all would go there together. Me, Ruska, Mommy and Daddy. I'm a bit confused, I think it is quite decent here, no need to change. But that's humans, who is supposed to understand them?

Lately Mommy has been talking a lot about a thing called vet. I think I heard about it before, but it has been a while and doesn't quite ring a bell. Ruska said, vet means that we are most likely going to die. I don't believe her, she tends to exaggerate with those things. But today was the day! Mommy prepared our transport bags with warm blankets and hot water bottles and sprayed some of that stuff in there, that smells so nicely. I ran into my bag immediately when she called me, because the bags mean that we are in for something super exciting! Ruska was not that convinced, of course, but Mommy stuffed her into a bag as well. I was a little confused because we usually share a bag, so we can cuddle.

Then another human girl came and she took my bag. Mommy carried Ruska and we left the flat. Oh, it was really cold out there! And lots of the fun, strange white stuff on the ground. Too bad I was in the bag, so I could not play in it. We walked a long time through the cold and I heard how Mommy kept saying she would put Ruska on a diet, because her arm was falling off. Hihi. Ruska cried all the time and tried to get out of the bag. Then we got into a huuuuuuuuuge car, with a lot of humans in it! Wow, that was exciting! I screamed as loud as I could, because it was so much fun. Even Ruska stopped crying and stared at me. As well as all the humans on the big car. Whoops.
Then we got out of the car and Mommy and the other human girl started to look for something and kept talking about 'time' and 'too late'. They had to ask someone for help and finally we got into a warm place, that smelled funnily like cats and dogs and the stuff that Mommy sprayed into our bags.
Mommy talked to a woman there and they said something about chips. But I don't think they meant the same chips that Mommy and Daddy eat sometimes. I stole one once, they are bloody delicious!

We had to wait quite a while, there were dogs and other cats that screamed even louder than Ruska, but then a nice lady called our names and Mommy took us into a separate room. She said "Ruska first, cause she will spread terror.". And Ruska did. I was watching from the bag, you know? Ruska tried everything to get off the pretty silver table. Mommy and the nice lady had to hold her together. Then she meowed "OUCH!". Then they held her even tighter and then she screamed very loudly, said many bad, bad things in cat language and tried to bite and scratch the nice lady. But she only laughed and said "Well, now that didn't work. I'll have to sting you again."... they held even tighter, but this time Ruska didn't move or say anything at all. The nice lady stroked her with a thing and it made beep! That was funny! Then she could go back into her bag and oh boy, I have never seen her run in there so fast! Next was my turn. I was allowed to sit on the pretty table and the nice lady said what a cute and well-behaved cat I am. Needless to tell me, as if I didn't know. They held me as well and I got a sting. It was not bad at all, Ruska really is one whiny cat! Then I got the second sting and that hurt very badly!! But I was very brave and didn't cry at all. The nice lady stroked me with the thing as well and guess what!? I beeped as well! Hihiiii! I went also back into the bag and Mommy got two fancy little booklets.
Later she showed mine to her human girl friend and they laughed and said now I am not Fibi anymore, but Pheobe. I didn't get it. We went out into the cold again and Mommy said we are home soon.
Home we took even two of the huuuuuuge cars and in the second one there was a dog sitting almost next to me. He was very nice and we had a wordless conversation through the whole way.

Then we were already home and Mommy dropped onto our bed and said "Once and never again...." Weird.
I am really exhausted from this adventure and there is supposed to be an even bigger one!? Wow! I will go back to sleep and get some rest. What a day. And of course I was right... no yummy chips for us. I wonder what that was all about?

I'll keep you updated in here! And Ruska too at times. Possibly.


Yours, Phoebe



P.S. Here are pictures of the fancy booklets!!

Left is my fancy booklet, on the right is Ruska's.

This might be the reason why Mommy said I am called Pheobe now.