Joensuu, night shifts and much more

You read that right! I finally went to visit Etti and Perttu in Joensuu. It is a four-hour journey by train, but it was definitely worth it. We had a really good time and it was nice to see Joensuu. For my Dutchies (just love to use that word), I compared Joensuu's city centre to the main city centre (the couple of shopping streets) of Roermond. The main difference you notice is the small amount of houses/flats around the city centre. Whereas Roermond is full with houses and flats and makes the city quite big, Joensuu has the city centre and a quite large area with houses around it, but there are just way less houses. (which is kind of obvious. Finland is about 8x bigger than The Netherlands, but has only 5 million people...)

After my free weekend the toughest week until now started: three night shifts. I had a night shift on wednesday, thursday and friday. This means that my shift starts at 23:00 and I finish at 6:30. The first night was quite difficult, but time flew. There is so much to do! This night my colleague mainly explained everything to me. The second night was even worse, I was exhausted. Luckily I didn't really have time to think about that. I did the tasks on my own, with help where I needed it. The third night I was full of energy: I had adapted to the new working pattern (which really was a shame, because that was already my last night). I finished work already around 3 o'clock, which was a new record. On the other hand, it was too bad, because at the moment I wasn't busy anymore I started to feel tired. Around 5 o'clock I was completely exhausted. I was thrilled to crawl into bed at 6:35! I learned a lot during these three nights, which is exactly why I requested to work some night shifts. My supervisor at school will be happy with me, haha.

Talking about supervisors... Tomorrow I will have my half-term evaluation with my supervisor here. I'm very curious about what she has to say, but I am certainly not worried about it. If they weren't happy with me they would've already told me.

A short update on my last blog: I gave up on the squat challenge (I know, I am a quitter...) and the hot yoga was terrible! It wasn't the 'hot' part, that was amazing. The moment I walked into that room I felt like I was back in Egypt. Loved it! The yoga on the other hand... Not so great! That's an understatement. That was my first and last time I did yoga. My body is not built for that. Anyway, it was a nice experience.

Last saturday I went out with two colleagues. We started the night with bowling (at which I kind of suck) and went to a bar afterwards. During the very last round of bowling I made two strikes in a row! Hah, it compensated the other rounds a little bit... Had a lot of fun! The bouncer at the bar checked my ID (front and back side), had no idea where to look for my date of birth, looked at me, gave it back and just let me in. I don't even know what the age limit was, but he let me in anyway. Awesome, a foreign ID card.

Today, I still have a day off, tomorrow work starts again. At 6:00... Bleh.. Buuuuuut only 1.5 weeks left and then the most awesome month of this internship starts! Bas is coming in 1.5 weeks and we have already made several plans, including visiting Tallinn. Can't wait to see everyone this month!

I hope time will fly... During May time will fly, I know that for sure. I hope the weather will quickly improve (no signs of that yet) and that june will fly as well. It means I can almost come home :) Looking forward to spending most of my time with my beloved family and friends <3

Love,
Anouk

Ps. 78 days left!