March pictures, part 2: Good times

The door to our apartment. 

Is there some sort of trend here?

They even have different rules for Domino!

Some of my friends.

Yours truly. 

More of my friends.

Hotta fire mek it burn

I should wash these shoes.

March pictures, part 1: New Orleans

Well, there you go!

I tried some crawfish, it was awesome!

Probably like one person in a hundred owns a bicycle in the States.

They use a tank to clean the streets!

New Orleans streetscape.

After walking around town, refreshments were due.

Carneval madness on Bourbon Street.

This gives a good example of what the carneval is about. 

Concluding March

Hello blog!

Weather in Wise is unpredictable. And that is saying a little. A couple of days ago when I left my room for breakfast at the cafeteria, there was literally 6 inches of snow on the ground. And currently, looking out from the window of my room, I see snowfall. It's practically April, and we're further South than Spain, what is this all about? It's not what I signed up for, I can tell you that!

I am kidding of course. For a Finn, the weather in here is not that harsh, but the locals seem to complain about it a lot. I do hope that I get to see the Virginia summer before I go as people tell me that it is amazing, and a lot warmer than the Finnish summer.

After this one I have four weeks of classes left. Just four weeks! I feel like the exchange period has passed by in a blink of an eye. This time next month I will be preparing for my finals, and after they are done I will stay in Wise for a week or two before setting out to conquer the world. Classes have been going well, although I have been frustrated at times for the amount of homework the lecturers give us. It seems like in here college students are not really considered responsible for their own studies but someone has to consistently watch over their shoulder to ensure that they really are studying. There's no choice but to adapt!

I seem to have forgotten about uploading the pictures, so now I will. They will be in the next post. 

Spring Break in Louisiana

Yesterday I woke up in the morning and realized that I am already halfway through my student exchange period. The abscence of blog entries from the last two weeks is due to the fact that first we had a week with exams and essay deadlines for our midterms, and last week was spring break. I used to tell my friends that one semester was a short time, and I'd be back in Finland in no time, but I guess I did not believe myself in what I was saying. Now that I have only seven weeks of classes left until the end of the semester I feel like it was only yesterday that I stepped off the plane at LaGuardia, in New York. 

During spring break, I went to New Orleans to meet up with one of my friends who had promised to provide me accommodation during the ever popular Mardi Gras, sometimes described as the "biggest free party in the world". Mardi Gras takes place every year on the Tuesday before Lent, a period in the Christian calendar during which the believers try imitate Jesus's sufferings depicted in the Bible. Many people embrace fasting and Mardi Gras is the last celebration before this period of repentance, prayer and self-denial. Although Mardi Gras itself means Fat Tuesday, the Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans lasts for almost a week, only climaxing on the Tuesday in question.

The  average Mardi Gras goer, called a reveler, usually does not care about the religious aspect of the celebration. I saw very few if any religious insignia in the city of New Orleans during this event. The celebration has during the latest years become very commercialized with various tourist shops selling cheap Mardi Gras souvenirs for masses of tourists arriving to the town just for the occasion.

The most popular attraction of the celebration were different parades advancing slowly on the streets of New Orleans, consisting of marching bands, dancers and floats of all shapes and sizes.  The people in the floats throw different items, such as cheap plastic bead necklaces to the audience, who try to catch them. You can only imagine the immense amount of garbage which has to be cleaned off the streets the following morning to make the city presentable for the people arriving to see the next day's parades. This is why the following Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent is often jokingly dubbed by New Orleans residents as Trash Wednesday.

Whoa, now that I read what I wrote it sounds overly critical of the whole event. What I really wanted to say was that I had a good time and met a lot of interesting people there. I also got a taste of the famous Southern hospitality, which in Louisiana was even more apparent than up here in Virginia. 

I will try to upload some pictures in the near future.