Well...Sunday marks 1 month in Helsinki, Finland. It's hard to believe! The time is totally flying. This week was pretty busy...imagine that? hahaha :D But no really...I went out to the ice skating rink with Päivi on Tuesday night and had a blast. On Wednesday, I went to a place called Tori and they had the best meatballs. I know what you are thinking but this place had even better and bigger meatballs!! I was loving it! Tuomas and I talked about other plans for after the website launch...which by the way it was a very productive week and its well on its way and then just chatted about our plans for the weekend coming up. It was a lot of fun and delicious. I was missing happy day on Thursday with Kaisa and Tiki so it was nice to go to Tori. Wednesday night i decided to go to Sea Life which is the aquarium here in Helsinki. Visitors to the SEA LIFE will journey from tropical seas to the depths of the Baltic, encountering hundreds of astonishing creatures along the way...everything from humble shrimps and starfish to sharks and stingrays. It even focuses on native Finnish freshwater species, which are under threat due to pollution in their environment. The next day I visited Päive at MTV3 which is located not too far from my office, but def outside the city. I met her at 10:00 and stayed until after 12:00. It was so great to see the office, meet some really great people and also see the studios. I met with the HR manager Leena who showed me around all over the building, from where Päivi is and the other production managers and consumer services department to the news room where they do the morning news on Monday - Friday 6:30 to 8:50 and then they do the Studio 55 show. Studio 55 is for the older crowd. They showed me the area where they do the entertainment news and current affairs and then also the kitchen where they have their cooking shows. It was so freakin cool to see and I cannot wait to get a tv next week to actually see these studios in action!! They even let me sit in the news chair and Päivi took a picture of me like I was the latest newscaster in Finland...it was great. After that they showed me the radio nova area where they host the station which by the way is the LARGEST commercial based radio station in Finland. They cover news and music and they have 4 hour slots for talk shows. MTV3 has been around for 50+ years and is the 3rd oldest in Europe with approximately 500 people employed. MTV3 started in 1957 where it offered around 10 hours of programming a week. They merged merged and merged and acquired more companies and now in 2009 have 9 channels and Radio Nova. After the tour we had lunch with Päivi and her coworker Pii who by the way was cracking me up. In the MTV3 building they have a very large cafeteria with several main meal choices and a salad bar and also a dessert bar. It was so yummy. I tried many things like their fish, some sort of meat pasta, mashed potato and then had cranberry juice. For dessert I tried a pudding type mango fruit something or other...hahaha All was good. Then after we ate I met Esko who is the Art Director for Internet and Consumer Services and has been working for the company for 9 years. It was very interesting to hear the comments he had about the deisgn of www.mtv3.fi and why they chose to put what where. Take a look if you have a sec...pretty cool! :) There also you can see all that MTV3 has to offer. From there we got to go to the MTV3 store and Päivi picked out some things to take with me. It overall was a great start for the day! I had an awesome time learning and seeing the office and meeting such talented people. They also said that I could come back on Saturday and watch a real live taping...even though its all in Finnish I said I would absolutely love to. :) i think it will be interesting just to watch. Last night I went to the Ice Hall to see Bloc Party in concert. It was so awesome and Tiki and I had the best time ever. I had been wishing for some good live music and this was it! OMG it was so fun! Here is a link so you can listen to one of my fave songs from them: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmPNuruWMTA

Ice Skating at Jääpuisto outside my house on Tuesday Night with Päivi




Sea Life Wednesday Night


MTV3 Thursday


Bloc Party Thursday Night with Tiki at the Ice Hall!! SO MUCH FUN! And I totally had to get a shirt. Aw yeah!!