First Indian dish in Finland... a flop

Two weeks ago, I was happy to find an Arabic shop in the city centre which sells South Asian spices.  So I bought dhal spice mix and cooked my first dhal in Finland.  Our kitchen had ventilator and I had turned it on.  However, the aroma of Indian spices still filled the small kitchen that my Dutch flatmate immediately opened the balcony door to allow the smell to dissipate.

It has been a long time since I used Indian spices so I forgot that I only needed to use half a teaspoon, or even less, of the spice mix.  So the dish ended up too spicy.  It was a flop.  I still ate some for dinner and discarded the rest.

As I was at another video on youtube, I found this.  Hope this will help in reviving my Indian cooking skills.  An inspiration from the "mother" of ashtanga herself.

Proud to be my father's son

Vegetable au gratin... and the UP Pep Squad

Vegetable au gratin is French style baked casserole.  This was served at Lozzi the previous week.  As I mentioned in the previous post, student meal is cheap at the University I have always eaten lunch on campus on weekdays.  They had a beautiful vegetable-filled pancakes and veggie patties last week but I didn't have the courage to take out my camera to take a photo of my food.  The cafeteria was full of people and I didn't want to look like an geek taking photos of his food.  Talk about self-presentation issues.

For 2.50 euros, I had two scoops of the vegetable au gratin and took as much salad as I wanted.  I also mentioned that bread is unlimited but I saw a sign in Lozzi that you can take only 3 slices of bread.  It didn't say how big a slice should be so it's rather relative.  Two slices are usually enough for me.

Life in the City of Lights

Jyväskylä is a city in Central Finland surrounded by lakes, hills, and forests.  It is known as the Athens of Finland because it is home to many schools, universities, and research institutes.  Out of the 130,000 people living in Jyväskylä, almost 40% of which are students.  Jyväskylä, Finland's City of Light, is where my journey continues.


I am here as a masters degree student at the University of  Jyväskylä's Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences.  The Faculty is composed of three departments, the Department of Health Sciences, the Department of Biology of Physical Activity, and my home unit, the Department of Sport Sciences.  I am here to study sport and exercise psychology, a relatively new but exciting field which aims to understand the effects of sport and exercise participation on psychological processes and well-being, and how psychological factors such as stress and concentration affects sport and exercise performance.  I am planning to blog more about this area here.

The Journey to Finland

Twelve hours.  That's how long I slept  last night.  I think my body hasn't fully adjusted to the time difference that I found myself  feeling sleepy at 5pm for two days.  The time difference between Finland and the Philippines is +5 hours.  I feel better now so I guess my internal clock has adjusted.

The Erasmus Student Network organized the "Ultimate Sauna Experience" yesterday but I decided to skip it because I got tired from walking the whole day.  It would have been a wonderful way to end the day but unfortunately, I would have to walk back home as I haven't bought a bike yet.  I walked a total of 16428 steps according to my pedometer.  My flat is about 3km from the university and it took me about 30 minutes to cover the distance.

Tervetuloa Jyväskylään

Welcome to Jyväskylä, my "home" for the next two years.

Jyväskylä (JYV) is the capital city of Central Finland and is located 270 kilometers north of Helsinki.  I embedded the map below to show you how I got here.  Google couldn't calculate the distance so the map just showed the travel points.  From Davao, I flew to Manila, then to Hong Kong, Helsinki, and finally Jyväskylä.  Total flight minus layovers would have been 15+ hours.  2 hours to Manila, 2 hours to Hong Kong, 10.5 hours to Helsinki, then 45 minutes to JYV.


View Larger Map

I have taken photos using my itouch since yesterday but because I don't have wifi connection, I am not able to upload the photos through itouch.  Hopefully soon I will be able to share with you the beauty of this place.

I've been here for three days already but haven't done any major cooking yet.  I do have a small and nice kitchen so for sure, more food posts will come soon.

For now...

näkemiin

Practice with awareness

My teacher Paul has a new practice guide to the primary series.

Check it out from Ashtanga.com

Namaste.