Day 13, 12 March, temp: 0C, Cloudy

Well time seems to fly really really fast!! Its the 13th day already! Im not sure whether its a good or bad thing... It is good of course as I miss my family and friends, and Singapore Food:D

I cycled to the neighbourhood of Sepäläkangas, 11km from my apartment. This is the place where all the Gigantic Supermarkets, Electronic stores, Furniture, Motor and Vehicular Megastores are located. It was a pleasant ride:) The snow was melting so everything was kind of slushy, not very easy going:(

Today's Objectives:
1) Purchase an iron
2) Purchase a pair or ice skates
3) DONT BUY ANYMORE CHOCOLATES
4) Pay this month's rent
5) Come back before 3pm!

Managed to get to Nordea Bank by 10.30am. All their ATMs were in Finnish so I sought help from this counter lady who was kind enough to help me! They didn't have any "cash deposit machines" like what we have in Singapore, so I had to deposit my money over the counter!

Everything was settled an hour later. Now came the exciting part of today's itinery: 2nd hand store hunting!!! It is said that most European and American countries are famous for their 2nd hand stores... Having heard of this, I decided to check out some of the stores within Keskusta and Sepälä! Managed to locate one near the bank, along Gummeruksenkatu. Here I had my first surprise!! 2nd hand ice skates were going for 2 EUROS ONLY!!! It was Unbelievable!!! One of my principal lecturer told me that winter sports items are way cheaper than summer wear here in Finland, and it is even possible to get free ice 2nd hand ice skates sometimes:D

The first store had only 5 pairs of 2nd hand ice skates for sale... So I took a gamble and cycles all the way to Sepäläkangas, 8 kilometres away to visit a mega 2nd hand good centre! I have been there twice and hope to find my dream skates there:D As the temperature dropped, it was obvious that the meltwater was beginning to freeze again... It was HELL cycling uphill and over the thick layer of ice!! So I thought to myself," You better find those skates or else you can jolly well swim nude in the frozen during your free time!! After instilling fear in me, I picked up my guts and strength and successfully made it to the store!!

I spent two hours digging heaps of shoes and toured every aisle. It was a problem as the staff simply dumped their sale items all over the place so theres no such thing as a shoe area, clothes area, it was ONE GIGANTIC MESS!!:D But it was lots of fun, expecially when you find really weird items such as telegram machines, antiques and many many more items!! Towards the end of two hours, I successfully found a fine pair of ice skates:D and a Philips Iron!!

You can guess their costs but when I found out their actualy prices, I was the happiest man ALIVE!! That relatively new Philips iron only ost me 2 Euros (S$4) and my skates 5 Euros (S$10). IT WAS A FANTASTIC BARGAIN!! I will upload the pics tomorrow!! Had so much fun today!! Having gotten my skates, I can finally kill time by ice skating by the lake everyday:D starting from tomorrow!!

Got to go guys... will blog again tomorrow:D

Kovski

alone in the snow...7:44 PM