Supsup folks! Finally done with finals, pheew that was quite intense but against all odds it seems I did quite well. Two As and two Bs, hell that’s way better than my grades back home. Not bad even though I say so myself. My flight is leaving from JFK in two days time, before that I still hope to enjoy the NYC (note NY and NYC are two different things) the upstate world and the City life differ like night and day. While Oneonta is about the size of my home village of Muurame (although the population here is comprised of 90% students) NYC is THE place to be with all the grandeur of the Manhattan skyscrapers to the hipster streets of Soho all the way to the rather omnious back alleys of Bronx (a place you don’t want to get lost in trust me).
The thing about NYC that I love so much is that it’s like the city is alive. There’s all kinds of cool stuff happening constantly that in Finland you would only hear from in the news. A while back I noticed that Alec Baldwin was standing in line behind me at a Manhattan Subway waiting to get a nice sandwich. Also there are several consecutive movie/tv projects going on all the time. I stumbled through Law and Order: SVU scene while walking the streets of Lower Manhattan. And they were shooting Bourne Legacy at a random subway station. So if you’re interested in seeing this kind of stuff New York is the place for you. I absolutely love it, all in all I think culturally NYC stands almost unrivaled. MoMa, The Met, Times Square (with the amazing iMax movie theatres), the clubs, restaurants, Carnegie Hall, USS Intrepid (anchored in the Hudson Bay) the list goes on and on and on. It would take years to experience everything this place has to offer. I WILL absolutely return one day.
Someone once said that “when the darkness fell, New York City became something else, any old Sinatra song notwithstanding.” But this sentiment can be pretty much thrown out the window these days. Of course the City is alive and beautiful but also in some places (Queens, Bronx, parts of Brooklyn) dirty and dangerous. Common sense will get you far. I wholeheartedly recommend travelling to NYC, it’s quite the inspiring experience.
So long New York, this is not a goodbye… But a see ya
Peace!
Hey’ey people! So Spring has finally kicked into fifth gear here in Oneonta with temperatures around +20 degrees and a lot of sun. Really liking this, it’s apparently kinda rare to get this kind of a early Spring around here but hey! I’m lovin’ it 
The midterm grades are in and I surprised myself to say the least. Four courses and four A’s?! What, I honestly am not sure how that happened but I’m not going to complain one bit. Tomorrow is the final day of school (or would be if our classes weren’t cancelled) before the week long break. I need to leave Sherman Hall for the week but thankfully I’ve made some good friends who will let me stay with them during the break. So what are my vacation plans you ask? Well…
First exploring NYC with the dedication it deserves and on Thursday me and a couple of friends will grab a car and go accross the border into Canada. Montreal to be more specific for some nice, laidback funtime!
So all’s good in Oneonta, really enjoying myself here! Good times.
So February is drawing to a close and March is nearly here and with March, Spring Break is also right around the corner. Me and a couple of friends were at first planning to go to Mexico for the week but the prices hiked a bit too much over the past few weeks.. Change of plans, we’re going to Montreal, should be good fun and it will be interesting to see a piece of Canada during my stay here.
Some exams and project returns still remain for the next two weeks, but so far the classes have been relatively smooth sailing for me. The subjects are fascinating and I can’t really complain about anything!
My new dorm (Sherman Hall) is nice and it’s really a major step up from the previous one; Hulbert. Nice people here and the location couldn’t be better. The weather is unpredictable to say the least; some days are warm, sunny and nice while others are filled with snow storms and bone-chilling winds 
Well, it’s not called the city of the hills for nothing I quess..
The year started rather badly on my part; I was unlucky enough to be hospitalized on the 1st of January because of an extremely painful case of kidney stones. Nothing serious, just inconvienient and irratating, anyways now that it’s out of the way I can keep packing and making arrengements for the exchange period…
I finally got the flights (it’s way cheaper to book them two-way instead of just one-way) so I’m leaving on the 19th of January and possibly returning on the 31st of May. Even as I got my flights on the cheap they still didn’t come for free, I had to dish out a rather hefty sum of 760 euros on them. Everything should now be in place for my departure, I have to switch flights at Paris, CDG which is notoriously hard to navigate but let’s keep our fingers crossed now shall we?
I have to thank the people at SUNY for being extremely nice and fast to respond to any of my problems, they even arrenged a pick-up for me at Albany int. to take me straight to the campus free of charge, that’s pretty cool! I still have no idea who my room-mate will be or in which residence hall I will be staying but hey, I quess it only adds to the excitement.
Peace out!
Why hello there audience!
In the past few months I have gone through quite a tremendous amount of surprises and trouble involved in the process of going on exchange to the States. From getting the State University New York’s acceptance to being granted a visa is a long and rocky road if one is not prepared for it. I for one was prepared for a LOT of paperwork but I was still in awe by the amount of documentation and stuff it takes to clear the path to USA. There are times when I think that I should’ve just settled with going to the UK for example instead of the US but my will wasn’t that easily broken…
So now I finally have the required documents (acceptance, visa etc.) it’s been quite a challenge and I do hope it will be worth it all! I even had to go to Helsinki to visit the US consulate for a personal mandatory interview, if I would’ve forgotten even one paper that they wanted to see I would have been sent home empty handed. I was fortunate enough to pass it without a hitch though.
Hopefully it will be more or less smooth sailing from now on (bureaucracywise at least). I’m leaving for SUNY Oneonta on January 19th. Fingers crossed!
Peace out!
