Oh my it's already May

Hyvää vappua! Though the big spring feast isn't as big here as in Finland. Today has been anyway a holiday and there were lot of people enjoying a free day and some live music in the park.

I've been recovering of my political trip the whole week. In the end I was quite exhausted, although it was fun. My first weekend I spent in Stuttgart in the Local Councillors Meeting/Federal Assembly of the German young Greens. The Local Councillors Meeting was quite official with headphone-interpretation and a very nice setting. I met some guys from Malmö and was inspired by the public participation ideas from Vienna. In the evening the both conferences had a party together in this incredible location: some muddy barracks with local artists' work premises. They place is quite famous also outside Stuttgart for the good parties you can have there. It was also very nice!

I slept at the school where the Bundeskonferenz was held and got to know more young greens. There were surprisingly many people I knew already from Berlin and it was very cosy. I stayed in Stuttgart in a hostel for one more night more to see the town a bit. I really liked the way the town is situated in a valley with trams climbing up the hills. Then I travelled with Mitfahrt to Freiburg just to see the town. I shared a train ticket (there are group tickets you can chare) with a Chinese girl living in Freiburg, with whom I also had a beer next evening. She was very friendly and we found out that she had ended up in Germany after her year as an exchange student in Germany with the same organization I was with in the Netherlands.

I really liked Freiburg, it was very cute and I had a very nice hostel room right next to the big hill with some famous Black Forest. I observed the biking conditions in the city and was a bit confused as they didn't seem so terrific. The town has a green mayor and is supposed to lead the way in Green municipal politics - and in biking tracks. Well at least there was a little water-power station right next to my hostel... I also heard the Green mayor of Freiburg is not very popular among the Greens and the Green city council party group has split up because of his weird politics...

After a long day travelling I arrived quite late in Düsseldorf where there were some drunk Swedes in the hostel urging me to go out with them. I just slep one night in the hostel and woke up a bit early to see at least a bit of Düsseldorf before heading to Maastricht with the train around 10.00. I'm really proud of my Mitfahrt-train-trip, I managed to save a lot of money and do some "slow travelling" meeting I a lot of nice people on the way. I also saw a lot of Germany when travelling with cheap local trains. Although, when I first left Leipzig to Stuttgart the car which was supposed to pick me up never showed up and I had to take the train for 90 euros... Luckily I met a young Green boy in the train who I had met in Leipzig already :).

Maastricht and the FYEG General Assembly and Spring conference was a quite of an experience. The program was really tight from early morning til very late in the evening. There were maybe 100 people from all around Europe, from Finland in total 5 including me, all new faces to me but it was nice. Very exciting discussions, a lot of new information - especially about FYEG as organization and EU politics - and new contacts. We were also a bit unlucky though - the people told me that so many things have never happened in a FYEG conference: there was a biking accident with a Dutch man (from the Greens) losing 7 teeth (I really felt sick and had to think a lot about my Accident, as I happened to pass by when it just had happened) and a Belgian guy got beaten up after the party in the park because he had kissed with a another guy... Homofobia in practice! On Saturday evening we had also a big quarrel about the voting and the rules and it took forever before a new Excecutive Committee was chosen. For the first time in years there is nobody from Finland in the FYEG EC as Markus Drake was unfortunately not chosen as the mail spoke person.

I was for the first time in Maastricht, in the very southern corner of the Netherlands, and got a some kind of picture of the town although didn't have much time to be a tourist. I was talking in too many languages the whole weekend (Finnish, Dutch, German, English, even some very few words in Swedish..) and was totally exhausted when I got home quite late on Sunday evening. My roommates had stayed up and waited for me with bad news: I have to find a new home. They had told me earlier already that the owners/house managers can be a bit difficult sometimes and this time it was really bad. If we want to stay we have to pay a lot more money. So Susi&Saskia had decided it's not worth it, they would have to work so much more (both students working part-time). They were very sorry about leaving the house, they have lived here for years, and of cource the situation the put me in. Well, I'm very sorry too as I really liked living here and it felt home - but no-can-do. At least I now get to know some other place and people too. And there are a lot of empty (and cheaper..) rooms available in Leipzig so that shouldn't be a problem. Only my conditions - for 2,5 months, furnished - can make it a big tricky.

We have to be out by around 15th of May so I have to find something soon. Yesterday I went to see a room in the same street as this and I'll take it if they boy renting it agrees. I think - and hope - I'll know more in a week.

Now I have a couple of day with no program, which I'm a bit confused about. Well, it's good for me and at least I get some school stuff done. Sunday I'm going on a trip to Potsdam, a beautiful and quite famous city near Berlin. They arrange very cheap day trips to different towns for exchange students here. I have decided to mainly stay in Leipzig for the coming months, though, as there is a lot to do also here and I have been doing sooo much travelling this year already.

Ciao and yes I'll inform you when I know something more about the new room,
Iida