Packing up: reprise

In a couple of weeks I move to Germany for my four-month exchange semester. I'm looking forward to simply being there, where it's already springtime, with a new city to explore and new places to go. Even here the temperatures have been creeping up past zero for the past week or so, and while there's still plenty of snow, you can find tiny patches of grass near footpaths or along the south edge of buildings. The roof of my neighboring apartment buildings is visible for the first time in months. The crisp white snow is finally turning into a black slush by the roads and refreezing overnight on the footpaths to create incredibly slippery walking surfaces, but it can't last forever at this point. Even the sun is back to keeping regular hours again.

In packing up my room I've come to realize that in six months I've managed to acquire about twice as much as I came here with, somehow. I thought I was being good and holding back on buying stuff, but I still find myself wondering how the heck I generate so much stuff! Granted, a lot of that are clothes for winter or lamps to light my room or whatever, but even halfway packed I still feel like I have plenty to do before I leave - and that's without packing up everything I still need while living here! Luckily my roommate will still be here in August when I get back, so I will just use the apartment's storage space and not rent my own. The university doesn't have any solutions for people who are going on exchanges, even short ones, so like everything else here I have to work things out myself.

I'm also meeting up with the Academic Career Services department to talk about what is required for my internship when I come back in the fall. I won't have much time to find out about this once I get back, so I'm at least setting things up before I leave. One more thing to keep track of in the two weeks I have left here! My department coordinator hasn't gotten back to me at all on this, so it looks like if I don't find help with this, no one else will. But by the end of the day I should know how long the internship will be, how it's being paid for and who will pay it, and other such details that a potential internship provider would want to know.

This weekend should be pretty exciting, there's a Viking reenactment event at the Rosala Viking Center, down in the archipelago somewhere. I haven't really been to the archipelago proper (just Ruissalo, so far) so I'm looking forward to it, even if it takes a long time to get there. I finally get a chance to break out my garb again, and sleep in a Viking longhouse in a place the Vikings actually went! I'll probably bring my camera, even though I'm still going through hundreds upon hundreds of Prague photos... it's a never ending battle against my memory card. :)

EDIT: Rosala photos can be found here!