Week 3 updateJust got home from a fabulous week in Saariselkä. The scenery in Finnish Lapland is absolutely stunning at this time of year; so much snow, so many trees, so few people. Yesterday evening was particularly special because I unexpectedly saw the northern lights while taking out some rubbish! Couldn't have had a better end to the trip
There are only a few hours of daylight so far north at this time of year so my week involved making the most of those until lunchtime, then doing half a day of work in the afternoons. That means I haven't had the most productive of weeks from a language point of view.
Russian- Read the entirety of Загадка Эндхауза (Peril at End House) by Agatha Christie. I packed this so that I could get some Russian reading in while I was away - because my Narnia book that I'm otherwise working my way through was far too big and heavy to pack - but I didn't plan to finish it during my trip. However, it turns out that this is one of the few Agatha Christies that I've never read in any language, including English. So one day I got a bit overexcited about finding out who the murderer was and accidentally read the entire book Definitely the fastest I've ever read a book in Russian. But I did really enjoy reading it, which is positive; I'd love to get to the point where I could read in Russian for pleasure the way that I do in my other languages and although I'm not there yet, it feels like I'm getting a bit closer.
- Revised chapter 19 of the New Penguin Russian Course. The grammar in this one was mainly about the conditional. There was also a summary of different prefixes, which was quite useful.
- Otherwise just kept up with my Memrise reviews most days, so hopefully I shouldn't be back from holiday with a huge backlog.
Croatian- Nothing to report this week. I packed my BCMS grammar book but didn't get around to opening it
German- Started watching a series called Arctic Circle - Der unsichtbare Tod in German. My sister bought me the DVD for Christmas because it's set in Ivalo, near to where I was visiting in Finland. It's a really exciting drama about a dangerous virus discovered in a small community in Lapland. I was hoping to finish it before I came home but so far I've only watched six out of (I think) ten episodes.
Esperanto- Read Kometo en Muminvalo and really enjoyed it. I'd never read or watched anything involving the Moomins as a child so I didn't know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised at what a good read it was. And how humorous it was; there were some bits that made me laugh out loud. Would definitely recommend and I think it would be a good book to try if you're not too confident at reading in Esperanto. There were some words I didn't know but overall it wasn't full of difficult vocabulary.
- Listened to another Usone persone podcast on the drive home from the airport. This was quite a long one about best experiences at Esperanto events. I think there's probably a theme that everyone remembers their first big Esperanto event as being their best
YTD totals - Russian: 24.1 hours, Croatian: 12.6 hours, German: 10.6 hours, Esperanto: 6.3 hours