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.

Ten days have passed and I am slowly establishing my daily routine.  Finland is a great country to have a healthy lifestyle and be vegetarian.  The food is also cheap, at least for a student.  A full meal at any of the Sonaatti cafeterias costs only 2.50 euros.  That's about 150 pesos.  And with that amount, you get salad, drinks, bread, potatoes/rice/pasta, and the main dish.  The bread is unlimited so you can always go back to the bread station to get more.  Hopefully I can post some photos of the cafeteria food soon.

In the first few days that I was here, lunch was enough so dinner was just a small cheese and tomato sandwich.  But now with all the biking, I have felt the need to eat in the evening.  Nothing fancy has come out of the kitchen so far...  well, if you consider the many variations of fried rice fancy... then I'd say that's the best I had so far.

Here's my meal plan this week.

Breakfast at home

• coffee
• muesli and yoghurt

Lunch at Lozzi.  Here's their menu for this coming week.

• Monday - cauliflower au gratin
• Tuesday - kuskus-vegetable patties
• Wednesday - mushroom and bean stew
• Thursday - stuffed pancakes
• Friday - ratatouille

Dinner at home

• fried rice

This will be all for today.  I need to start reading.  We are required to do four 40-minute group presentations on assigned topics in our advanced knowledge in sport and exercise psychology class, and our group will present first.  Being a full time student again is exciting.

Siihen asti.  That means "until then" translated from google.  I am not sure though if they use that in the same context.  The Finnish 1 course which I am taking this term will start tomorrow so I should be able to learn proper Finnish words in the coming days.  Ciao.