Sleepless night & busy day

Greetings from the other side.

I didn't sleep very well last night. First I couldn't sleep at all and found myself getting a bit frustrated about it. I am normally a person who will fall asleep fairly quickly, but last night I just couldn't. Honestly I have no idea why either. Once I had finally managed to fall asleep I was plagued by nightmares. I wish I could remember them, but I can't. I just know that I had them. Unfortunately my girlfriend didn't sleep too well last night either, so we are both a bit out of it today. She probably a bit more than me, unfortunately. Hopefully we will both be sleeping better tonight. Especially since we need to pick up my parents at the ferry terminal when they arrive from Sweden at 11:30 pm local time. My girlfriend isn't much of a night owl, so normally she would be in bed by that time, but I need her to guide me to the ferry as I have only driven there once, or rather from there, as it was when I arrived here in Finland 2½ months ago and we drove from the terminal to where we now live. Since then I have learned to find my way to various places, but I have not had a reason to drive to the ferry yet, so it's at times like this that I get a chance to learn.

In preparation for their arrival we have been shopping for groceries and other things today. It is amazing how much stuff you need to feed 4 people for 4 days, and then also enough stuff to last us after they have gone back home again until we go shopping again at the end of next week. It feels good to have it done though.

I have found a couple of apps for my cell phone now that I can use to help me learn some Finnish words. I am not expecting any miracles though, and I know they will only teach me words. Grammar and actually forming sentences beyond very simple ones like "My name is...." and ""How are you?" is probably beyond the scope and capabilities of these apps. They are better than nothing though, and hopefully over time I will at least be able to learn to understand some of what is said to me. It is an interesting challenge, I think. Especially since Finnish is so different from any other language I have studied in the past. My previous languages being (apart from Swedish, because that is my native tongue), English, German, Icelandic and Japanese. As far as German goes, I understand it pretty well, but it has been years since I had any training in speaking it so my ability to find the words and forming sentences will most likely be very rusty. As for Icelandic and Japanese I only studied that for a short while and haven't really been using them since, so beyond a few words I wouldn't expect much.

See you all on the other side!