Finally figured out how to load pictures on here, so I can show some of the stuff I have been talking about

This is actually not my picture, but is from my friend's flight to Helsinki. This is the exact kind of view I had from the plane when I was flying in, which made me realize I had reached Finland.

This is Right about at the center of the Joensuu campus, note the flags indicating a central location. Note that the flags are flapping about, yup that's why the wind chill here often makes it feel ridiculously colder still.

Looks like sun up/sun down right? Nope. This is about mid day. The sun stays in that exact spot all "day." I put day in quotation marks because the day here is about 5-6 hours. The days are getting longer by about 5 minutes a day though, so by the end of February we should have a pretty respectable day, then after that the day will get longer and longer until it hits about 19-20 hours. Then I will putting night in quotes as well.
      This picture looks dark but it really wasn't as dark outside as it looks. You might note oddly that when I put up pictures where there is cloud cover, the day actually seems brighter. That's because it is. At least in my experience, cloudy days are brighter than days with a clear sky and sun. This could be for a number of scientific reasons, but I imagine it has something to do with eye adjustment or the reflectivity of the clouds. Either way, it's brighter on cloudy days, and it's also warmer. Clouds act as a huge insulator, so you pretty quickly notice when you get here that it is often warmer on cloudy days. Clouds also often imply a gentle light snow(as it's almost always snowing here), so really, at least for my experience in Eastern Finland, you hope for those beautiful, warm cloudy days.

Good example of the food I've been eating. Doesn't it look good?? haha. Nah it's okay, all I've had here so far is cafeteria food, so perhaps more on traditional Finnish food is coming. Also the next pictures will show something that apparently the Finns just -love-. Anyways, this is a picture of a pretty standard cafeteria meal here at Joensuu. Those boiled potatoes are served soo much......

This is a candy called, as you can read, Salmiakki. It's basically a candy of extreme variations of the licorice flavor. When I say extreme, I mean holy shit that's ridiculous. It's perhaps almost as basic as coffee with all its variations. There's also a liquor that tastes like this stuff, think Jager with a lot more salt and licorice flavor. If you're not Finnish, you may have already made a strange face while reading this thinking about different licorice variations. To the Finns though, it's apparently very delicious. I suppose it has a lot to do with what you've grown up with. My Finnish flatmate was very surprised to know there was only perhaps one(if that) choices of the licorice flavor at American candy stores, because here there's like 8-10 different choices at all of them here. Some of them are hot, sweet, bitter, salty, chewy, soft, tough, all of those, etc, etc, etc, and etc. They are really strange to a foreigner, I'm not gonna lie. Some people just hate it right off the bat, but I kinda gave it some time ya know....I can see how it could be really good as an acquired taste. My flatmate brought in all of these in the above picture for me to try, I got through about three different kinds before saying perhaps we should continue this tomorrow. I mean seriously, one of them says you should eat too many if you have high blood pressure. Now that is hardcore.

Anyways, back to the subject of freezing ass cold, here are some shoes that I bought that have been keeping my toes at a reasonable temperature. My indoor running shoes definitely did not cut it after a few days. My toes began to freaking freeze, so I bought these really comfortable and warm pumas. They're nice high tops, and as you can see, very warm and fuzzy inside.

This picture is of the side of the side walk after the bad ass snow plow came and plowed the side walk. That's right, they plow the sidewalks here like all the time. Remember how I said that snow was literally caked on the road and the sidewalk? Well this picture gives a good example of that fact, take notice of the huge chunks of ice among the rest of the snow. Those ice chunks were, before the plowing was done, so caked and hardened on the sidewalk that it might as well had been part of the side walk. Those are huge chunks of the thick layer of ice that is often underneath the layer of snow that's already on the sidewalk.

another

Remember when i said that they don't salt the roads or the sidewalk, but just throw this sand-gravel material on it and drive? Well, those little black spots are what I was talking about. They remind me of pieces of the soft asphalt they put on running tracks these days.

Lots more to come, right now I'm good though. Talk to you again soon!