Raskausviikko 36.

Loppusuoralla taidetaan olla, vaikken sitä itse aina oikein ymmärräkään. Suomen loman jälkeen ollaan laitettu tätä meidän väliaikaiskämppää oman näköiseksi ja valmiiksi vauvaa varten. Lähes kaikki pienen pienet vaatteet on pesty, ne odottavat vielä lajittelua. Vaatteita on kertynyt ihan järkyttävä määrä, mistä ihmeestä ne kaikki on tullu?! :D Kaikenmaailman hilavitkuttimiakin on hankittu, todennäköisesti enemmän kuin olisi näin ensialkuun tarpeen. Syytän Wolfia, koska mitä tahansa mä sille ehdotan, se pitää tarpeellisena, eli kukaan ei oo puhumassa järkeä meille. :P

Tällä viikolla tehtiin puolen päivän reissu Augsburgiin, joka pikasilmäyksellä vaikutti ihan kivalta kaupungilta, ainakin shoppailumielessä. Mun shoppailut on tosin nyt tällä erää tehty; en osta enää yhtäkään vauvanvaatetta, eikä itselleni shoppailu tässä virtahepo-olemuksessa houkuttele ollenkaan... Olisi kiva tehdä enemmänkin lähiseutureissuja, mun jalat vaan tahtoo irtisanoutua ensimmäisen tunnin kävelyn jälkeen. Mutta jotain on kyllä keksittävä, ettei tulla ihan hulluksi tässä odotellessa. 

Keskiviikkona tavattiin taas meidän kätilö (tavattiin siis hänet ja lääkäri jo ennen Suomen-reissua), hän vaikuttaa edelleenkin oikein mukavalta ja sopivan rennolta. Käytiin myös sairaalassa ilmottautumassa ja kuultiin vähän heidän toimintatavoistaan, jotka tuntuvat mätsäävän mun toiveisiin kuin nenä päähän; sairaala ja sen kätilöt ovat erityisesti luonnollisen synnytyksen ja imettämisen puolestapuhujia. Ja tähän mennessä saksa-englanti-kommunikaatiokin on pelannut ihan kiitettävästi. Eli sairaalan ja muun hoidon puolesta on kaikki kondiksessa. Jos mitään kummenmpaa ei tapahdu, niin kahden viikon päästä olis seuraava lääkäriaika, jolloin ilmeisesti myös ultrataan (ehkä noin sadannen kerran :D) ja katsotaan vauvan kokoa (lääkärin mukaan vauva oli jo muutama viikko sitten isohko).

Jalkojen turvotusta ja ajoittaisia särkyjä ja kolotuksia kummempia vaivoja ei ole edelleenkään ollut, niimpä olen päätellyt että tämä poitsu antaa meidän odottaa ihan viimeiseen saakka. :D Kiloja on kertynyt nyt 12, niistä pari viimeistä Suomessa herkutellessa... Ilmeisesti paino on kuitenkin edelleen ihan normaalin rajoissa, mutten itse haluaisi sitä enää kovin paljoa lisää kerryttää. Osaisinpa vaan jättää herkut syömättä...

Mieliala on ollut ihan hyvä, tosin ei mitenkään ylitsepursuavan pirteä. En oikein osaa päättää olenko iloinen vai alakuloinen vai jännittynyt vai rauhallinen. Vai välinpitämätön. Ehkä tämmöiset mielialanvaihtelut kuuluvat asiaan. Muutama päivä sitten sain kyllä pienehkön hermoromahduksen; luulen sen liittyvän tähän täällä tulevaan ulkopuolisuuden tunteeseen. Ugandassa kun olemme molemmat yhtä ulkopuolisia, mutta täällä se olen vain minä. Arvostan toki sitä, että edes puolet perheestä on lähellä, ja he ovatkin aivan ihania, mutta silti.... luulen, että jokaisella, joka on viettänyt pidemmän aikaa puolisonsa perheen ja ystävien seurassa, tulee ajoittain tälläinen olo, mutta kielimuuri lisää vielä kierroksia. Onneksi mun äiskän lennot on jo varattu. :)

***

Five weeks to go! Or seven... Anyhow, the finish line getting close. I assumed that when we buy all the baby stuff and wash all the clothes, I would finally realize that the baby is coming, but no. It still seems like something somewhere far in the future. This week we have washed almost all the baby clothes and bought all the bigger things. I don't know what happened but I think we kinda lost our common sense in some point. Ok, we did not buy so many clothes, but we got A LOT for free (many thanks to our kind friends :*) and now we are drowning in them. :P We have also bought almost all possible baby equipment there is; I blame Wolfi because he is fine with anything I suggest and then there's no one left to say "no, we don't need that". :P

This week we've visited Augsburg, a close by bigger city, which seemed nice at least for shopping. But my shoppings are now done; no more baby clothes and buying clothes for myself right now seems just the stupidest idea ever. :D We wanted to do more of these short trips around here, but unfortunately my legs seem to disagree. Even after an hour in the city or the supermarket they are all swollen and hurting like hell (I'm sure I laugh at this comment in couple of weeks when I'm in labor pains). But we gotta do something, we can't just sit home and wait, so sorry poor feet, you just have to take it. We've also met our midwife ("hebamme") a few times, she seems very nice and relaxed. If nothing weird comes, the next appointment is in two weeks, when the doctor will probably make the last ultrasound to check the size of the baby. On Wednesday we visited the hospital for registration, and we heard a bit more about their practices, which seemed to be on the same line with my wishes about natural birth and breastfeeding. So far the German-English mix in communication has worked fine, so I'm not too worried about the language anymore.

Apart from the swelling and some small aches there hasn't been any signs of labor approaching, so I think Bubi is making us wait for a looong time still. :P I've now gained 12 kilos, from which the last few came during our holiday in Finland, ooops. Too much Fazer and salmiakki. The weight is still apparently normal, but I would not like to get much more. If I just knew how to stop eating sweets...

My mood has been, like most of the pregnancy, quite fine. Only the last few days it has been somehow hard to decide whether I'm happy or a bit down, excited or afraid. Or perhaps completely indifferent. I guess it's normal. On Wednesday I had a bit of a meltdown though, I think it has something to do with the feeling of being an outsider here. In Uganda we are both outsiders, but here it's only me and it can be frustrating sometimes. And it's not like people here would want to make me feel like that, Wolfi's family and friends are super nice, but it is just how it is. I'm sure anyone who has spent longer time with their partner's family know what I mean. The language barrier just adds to the effect. But luckily my mom's flights are already booked, and I can't wait for her to see this cute city. :)

Language challenges.

As you can imagine the language is quite big question in our wedding. Ceremony in Poland for German-Finnish couple who communicate mostly in English. Like there is not enough to think about in wedding planning in general. ;)

First of all, apparently due to some legal stuff, the wedding ceremony will be in Polish. In order for us both to understand where we are putting ourselfs into, there has to be sworn translator to translate the ceremony. What we are not 100% sure of is whether it could be translated in English. But as finding a German translator from Poland where the second most spoken language after Polish seems to be German is not too difficult, we will most likely have one. But. What comes to Finnish then? Well, you might already guess it is not very common in Poland to know Finnish, not even in this city that seems to be full of people who "loooove" Finland. But for objectivity I would really like to have the ceremony translated into my own language too. And also for the sake of some family members and friends whose English/German is a bit rusty.

I have been asking around in this Polish-Finnish translator matter. Belive it or not, there is a Polish person living in Wroclaw who actually really knows Finnish. But unfortunately he is not "sworn translator" in Poland. So now we will have to check if his Finnish certification would be enough.

Also I received a list of translators from the embassy of Finland in Warsaw. I have to go through those names, but none of them are here, so it might cost a LOT of money to get them travelling...

We'll see. I hope we will figure this out somehow. Maybe we will have translated leaflets of the ceremony for the guests, like subtitles. :D

In general we would like to have the wedding in two languages, i.e invitations, menu, ceremony. Of course we have to be flexible with this and for example music will propably be mostly in English.

In the end, I'm sure no matter what the mother tongue is everyone will for sure understand what we are celebrating.

www.artfire.com

Oi maamme, Suomi, synnyinmaa...

I've just now really started to realize how special language Finnish is and how unusual it is to know how to speak it. Sometime ago I was considering whether it is useful to try to learn Polish or not, since there is only about 40 million people in the world knowing that language. 40 million! That's a bit more than 5 something million Finnish speakers. :P Few weeks back I met a Polish guy who claimed he can speak in Finnish. Of course I thought that he just knows some simple sayings, why would he really know how to speak Finnish?! But there he was asking questions in Finnish and I was answering in English, because I still could not believe he actually understands me. After a while, I was conviced enough and we had pretty long conversation. In Finnish. Incredible.

Here is new awesome music from one of my favourite Finnish bands, Haloo Helsinki! While listening their new CD, I realized how much I do actually miss hearing Finnish. It has some magical power that I can't find from English. Of course I get to speak it here too with some friends and in Skype, but it's not the same as hearing it all the time. This song is not really something I can relate to right now, and I don't like the music video (clips from some new Finnish movie, I guess? Levottomat 8?), but ah, listen the beautiful, unique mother language of mine!

While travelling I've sometimes had my suspicions about the real amount of Finnish people. It seems like everywhere you go, you'll meet some of us. Even in the smallest villages on the other side of the world. You would think that this 5-point-something million people would just vanish like fart in the wind among over 7 billion. (And how much of this 5-point-something million is actually travelling?) Did you ever have the same experience? Maybe we've been cheated, and we are not such a small nation after all..?

People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day*

Long time, no see... I've had some kind of crisis about what to write here, so the result was not writing at all. Sorry. As in so many other things (believe it or not) I overthink; I come up with an idea and then abandon it because I think it's stupid, too personal or nobody cares. But I guess you would not be reading if you wouldn't be interested. ;) So I'm gonna report from here, Starbuck's, where I'm hiding our cleaning lady every Thursday. Life's tough...

Sooo, what have I been doing lately? Apart from the life that's becoming a norm for me aka housegirlfriending, I have had a real job interview! Actually two (part l & part ll), in the same company, and we are waiting for results. I have pretty good chances to get the job, since they need a Finnish speaker and there's not too many of us here. But "pessimisti ei pety" (pessimist won't get dissapointed), as the famous Finnish saying goes, so I refuse to believe I could get the place, before I'm actually writing my name in the papers. Anyway more about that if I get the job. If not, don't bother asking about it. :P

www.popscreen.com

Two weeks ago we were visiting my maybe-future-parents-in-law in Germany. It was a very nice weekend, once again I felt like in my third home. On Saturday we were in a huge techno party, and I got to know that my "good" old alcohol using habits are still there, even I've been very nicely here in Poland. I blame Finland and Finnish culture for this (not you mom and dad). So I decided to keep away from alcohol for undefined period of time, until I've learned the limits of sophisticated drinking (never?)...

www.google.com

And back to happier subjects: winter came and winter went away. Which means here is now lovely spring weather: sunny and +8 degrees. Reminds me of the winter in Cyprus. Propably the winter will "surprise" us at least once more this year, but I don't mind taking a break from it. :)

In addition to hanging out in coffee places, cooking, reading (3rd part of Hunger Games), job hunting and couchpotatoing with my love, I have finally started to refresh my memory in German. I found amazing web page, with soooo much material. Who needs expensive courses or books, when you have internet and a personal tutor. ;)

Update: I got the job!


*Quote by A. A. Milne

Mówisz po polsku?

Today I wrote fifteen sentences in Polish! Wuhuuu!

Lately I've noticed that apparently I do not look very different to Polish girls. Almost everyday somebody asks something in Polish when I'm on my way to work. Of course it could be that people are just assuming there cannot be anyone non-Polish speaker living here... But Polish girls are usually pretty, so let's stick with that theory. ;)

My answer to these questions has changed from I "I don't speak Polish" to "Nie mówie po polsku" (I don't speak Polish) and even "Nie wiem" (I don't know; because usually I have no idea where this street and that office is). I hope I'm able to develope my skills a bit more. :P

http://www.twardoch.com

 I have been told, without even exaggerating much, about hundred times how hard language Polish is. Mostly by Polish, but foreigners tell me this too. I invented my very own answer to that; "I heard Finnish is one of the hardest languages in the world, I learned that, so I think I'm able to learn Polish too". Funny or not, you can decide. Truth is that Polish is hard, like any other language I've learned (or tried to learn). There is so many rules, so much to remember, and then when you finally think you got it, "just a few" exceptions. As I might have mentioned before, the pronunciation is not so hard once you get that you are not suppose to pronounce every consonant. You can easily skip every other... :D Obviously I have no idea how good or bad my Polish sounds or if it even sounds like Polish at all, so maybe it's the safest to ask advice from someone else.

http://travelogue.travelvice.com

 Now that I've learned some useful words and phrases, I should start using them. And that is the problem for me. You see, I'm not the person who tries every new word right away like a kid. I am the person who wants it to sound perfect. And it never will. So I cannot even order my food in restaurant in Polish (or German) because I might make a mistake. That's why I like writing, I can think and check before I publish anything. So if somebody has solution for this mental problem I would be really glad to hear it. Somehow I got over this problem with English...maybe that was the exception. :D

www.talkingtotheworld.co.uk

Funny thing here (or not so funny anymore) is that often people ask if I speak German or if I'm learning it. Well of course it could sound like a rational question to some people, but lately it started to irritate me. Why would I learn German? We are in Poland, for God's sake. I'm learning Polish, isn't that obvious? And if (when) they ask this because my boyfriend is German, why nobody ever assumes him learning Finnish (except as a joke)? I'm sorry about this sudden burst of annoyance, I promise I will learn to speak German when we live there. :P (Actually I think German skills would help me to get a job here...) Anyway I enjoy studying Polish, and I'm sure I will enjoy learning German someday too. ;) Fifteen year old me would never believe her ears if she would hear this...