Fungus

« A birch tree afflicted by a parasitic fungus that causes massive branching which looks like bird's nests. »

I would always think that the dense bunches of branches in the birch trees were simply bird's nests whenever I would see a tree dotted with dark balls of branches and it was only recently that I found out that it is actually a fungus, Taphrina Betulina, that stimulates growth of the branches to form these "witches' brooms" or tuulenpesä (wind's nest).

Overall, Easter was a lazy four-day weekend where watching lots of disaster porn on the National Geographic channel made me wonder if they have been franchised by FOX. Where did all the interesting cultural documentaries go to? Canal+ must have had some sadist setting up the weekend schedule with the most boring movies of all time that they've already shown fifty times in the past month. There isn't a whole lot to do around these parts when you don't leave town and everything is closed for four days. I think the US would cease to function in two days without anything open for business except the 7-11 and QT.

At least Amazon was open for shopping with a few interesting new titles.

• The Twinkies Cookbook: An Inventive and Unexpected Recipe Collection from Hostess - Cooking with....twinkies. It's such an unlikely book that I have to get a copy just for the fun of looking at the recipes and pictures. Why not a book on science projects you can do with twinkies, such as freezing them in liquid nitrogen and launching them at other kids using a slingshot? (they smart pretty badly) We never did figure out what the filling was made out of even after putting it through a mass spec. Some speculate that the formula was brought to earth by aliens. :)
• The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science - The 16th century was a tumultuous time for free thinkers and scholars. A history of Paracelsus has the potential to be a really interesting read.
• Sweet and Low: A Family Story - A dark memoir about the family empire behind the pink packet of saccharine that may teach other such families to never disinherit the ones who know how to write well. :)

permalink Ω 18 April 2006, Helsinki

Three Years

« Looking south over Helsinki from the fire department's tower. (click photo for larger version) »

As of today, I've been in Helsinki for three years which is something of a milestone since a good percentage of expats, those who don't come to Finland with a fixed-term contract job, leave between the one and three year mark. There have been plenty of times where I desperately wished that Jarkko might have been from some warm, sunny and tropical Caribbean island, but I keep chanting my motivational motto to myself, "That which does not kill you, builds character."

Aside from baking more than the average Helsinki woman has in the last 40 years, leading my colleagues to believe that I'm crazy, and still being rather inept at speaking a language that causes even Finns to admit to having problems understanding their own people from other parts of the country, I have more or less found my niche. In the immortal words of Buckaroo Bonzai, "Wherever you go, there you are."

As a foreigner, I've noticed a dramatic increase in the past 12 months of articles covering the topic of immigration since it is an important issue in the current presidential election. The US has debates about Iraq and shifty foreigners and Finland has shifty foreigners and NATO. At least Finland isn't building a 700-mile long wall along the Russian border. I wish I understood what, exactly, the point of all the polls and superficially phrased questionnaires aimed at Finns and their attitudes towards immigration might be. Then again, I don't think the Finns know, either. Back in June, I noted this gem in the YLE news:

The group is concerned about the aging population and an impending labour shortage in the future.

However, the working group stressed that foreign workers should not take job opportunities from Finland's unemployed.

A statement that seems empty and inaccurate when you read the IMF report:

Wide-ranging measures are also called for to ease growing labor market mismatches and reduce structural unemployment. The sharp rise in vacancies in the recent upswing along with persistent high unemployment suggests a mismatching of skills and opportunities, as well as limited labor mobility between regions and occupations. The authorities' efforts to "price in" labor through subsidies for lower-skilled older workers are welcome if they are well targeted. As important, the temporary active labor market programs can help promote employment opportunities for underutilized segments of the labor force. In addition to these efforts, other supporting structural measures would be essential to achieve the authorities' ambitious goal of a 70 percent employment rate by early 2007.

And then you read bits that suggest that out of the 8,000 people in the net population gain last year from immigration that a large majority are returning expat Finns, many of whom are retirement age. I'm not entirely sure how repatriating citizens get lumped in with immigrants either.

The increased number of immigrants indicated by the statistics can be explained by the migration of Finns themselves. Some 40 percent of incoming migrants are Finnish citizens, and a major proportion of them are found in the group of the over 55-year-old migrants. No way will they be fit to serve as manicurists or masseurs in the next couple of decades.

I generally get really irritated when I see articles like these every week since it's known that the population isn't going to be able support the baby boom retirees in the way that they have become accustomed and, yet, these same people are the ones trying to quell immigration by stipulating that immigrants will not be competing on the same field for jobs as Finns. Given the time it takes for immigrants to settle in and learn the language(s) in Finland, roughly 2-5 years, and that the mass retirement phase of the boomers has already begun, it would seem too little and too late to allay the fears of those who are going to be very upset that the quality and quantity of social benefits are poised to decline. Who cares about a manicure when you might die waiting for basic medical care?

The riots in France had a predictable effect on the EU since everyone wants to know if the same could happen in their country. The Helsingin Sanomat Poll seems to indicate that at least half of the population thinks it could happen here and, at the same time, roughly 75% think that there is either enough or too many immigrants already in Finland. I suppose that Finland, given its attitude towards outsiders, is smart to keep the borders mostly closed since why invite people in if they are likely to face serious problems in integrating and living a normal life. France opened the borders but didn't appear to notice that large numbers of unemployed people living outside of the native society can breed serious unrest. It could happen here given the right circumstances. One person with nothing to lose is a danger to themselves. Thousands of people with nothing to lose is an army in search of an ideology.

I find these sorts of polls and articles to be a bit half-baked since random statistics don't tell you much nor do they serve much of a purpose save perhaps to assuage the fears of the geriatrics who are terrified of foreigners taking over their country and the young hipsters who hope that Finland might someday cease being an isolated backwater in Western Siberia. In the end, it doesn't tell us anything except that not much will change for foreigners and immigration, at least not terribly soon. The politician who speaks plainly about what fewer workers and more pensioners will mean over the next 10-20 years should prepare those retiring for the inevitable since it's likely far too late to change their firmly held attitudes.

The curious thing is that, aside from the nasty old grannies and the occasional asshole, I haven't felt any overt signs that I'm not welcome here. The worst I have to endure is usually annoyance after people figure out I'm not from around these latitudes. I work in one of the more 'integrated' Finnish (i.e. non-international) companies that boasts at least 6 non-native people in our 150+ person organisation. My colleagues even seem to like me, at least when I'm not threatening to slip them under the tiled floor in the lab. :) So, it's hard to reconcile the poll result that 75% of Finland doesn't want any more foreigners to enter Finland and what I personally experience daily.

My guess is that immigrant means something very specific to many people instead of the broader meaning of anyone who comes to live permanently in a country not their own. Of course, since the turnover amongst expats (which generally implies education, choice and means) in Finland seems rather high, they are perhaps not included. I'd really be interested in seeing the retention rate figures for educated westerners and Europeans who come with the intention of staying here, but leave after a few years. What the polls should be asking is what does immigrant mean. Russian? Somali with 10 kids? Damned Yankee? What? What makes this 75% think that there are enough or too many here? What makes them think riots couldn't happen here when there is a generation of Finnish born and educated children of Somali immigrants who reportedly have a difficult time finding a job?

I'd like to see a lot more numbers for patterns of immigration since, at least among the educated westerners here, there seems to be a lot of turnover and should Finland finally decide that they'd like educated foreigners to stick around instead of the Russian bedpan changers for the pensioners that they crack jokes about, someone should be asking why they leave and be receptive to the answers they receive. Presumably,the Directorate of Immigration officials keep track of foreigners and their justification for being here as well as if they are employed or not, etc. I'd also find a survey that asked why people aren't interested in more immigration far more interesting than the ones that have been published so far which don't tell me anything more than I already sensed on my own.

Finland can be an incredibly tough nut to crack, especially if you don't arrive here as a student, because it is a land filled with contradictions. I remember seeing Vieralla Maalla, a Finnish comedy, in the first year that I had been living here. The film was about a Finnish guy who dresses up as a black guy to research racism and somehow falls in love with a Finnish for Foreigners instructor while narrowly escaping getting beat up by drunk guys and harassed by the cops. It was a cute movie, but then I started to wonder how the parts that skimmed the surface of serious issues facing immigrants, especially those who are not white, could really be so amusing even with the distraction of boy meets girl. People often say that racism is limited and that it's just a few bad apples but then you see it in a mainstream comedy film and you wonder which has more truth to it.

I'm not an economist and therefore have no sure opinion on whether or not Finland needs immigrants, but it seems safe enough to draw the conclusion that the math indicates that without an influx of people to work and pay taxes, expectations for social services should be lowered since raising income tax isn't likely to be a viable option. How many Finns would change their opinion about foreigners and immigration if they are shown financial projections for the next 5, 10, 20 and 30 years? You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure that in a population ~5 million people, that isn't growing very quickly, the estimated 600,000 more pensioners and 300,000 fewer tax payers by 2030 should be shocking enough to get a lot more considered attention.

permalink Ω 24 January 2006, Helsinki

Oracle of Gravity

« The triple energy bolt logo of Helsingin Energia on one of their older buildings in Töölö. »

Finland's presidential elections were held yesterday and, because there was no clear winner with 50% of the vote or better, there will be a second round of voting for the top two contenders in two weeks. Of late it seems that major democracies around the world have been having more frequent troubles in selecting clear winners in elections, e.g. Germany, the US, etc. Does it mean that we are becoming more divided in our political views or, perhaps more likely, that our choices of leaders in just sucking more and more often?

The AP has a stringer up here who likely gets this kind of top fold excitement once only every six years or so, unless someone blows up a mall or gets a $500k speeding ticket. The wire story this morning had this to say about the important and solemn task of selecting a new leader in a sovereign country:

She bears a resemblance to the redheaded late-night talk show host Conan O'Brien, who has been promoting her re-election bid on his show as part of a running joke about their supposed physical similarities.

In one show, O'Brien presented a mock ad for Halonen in which he and two Finns discussed the election while ice fishing.

When they talk about Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen, a rival candidate who finished third Sunday with just under 19 percent, a dead fish shoots out of the hole in the ice, prompting a joke about how the mention of his name makes fish commit suicide.

"Fish recognize a bad leader," O'Brien says in broken Finnish, to laughter from his studio crowd.

I was, like, bitch, what? Fish can recognise a tired, tired, absolutely overdone joke, too, but obviously the media cannot. For those who neither know nor care who Conan O'Brien is or have no idea why anyone interested in the outcome of the Finnish elections might be, there's a joke that O'Brien looks like Tarja in the same vein that Austin Powers assaults Basil's androgynous mother exclaiming, "She's a MAN baby, yeah!" It was cute at first, but it has gone too far when it enters the election news reports. What will Conan do when he's here in Finland in early February if Tarja loses? (He is apparently coming only for filming, not a studio show. Maybe the Quebequois fiasco put him off of hosting shows elsewhere.) Gads, is Finland so desperate for media attention that it will go to any lengths, including making a big joke out of a late night talk show host from the US and their president to do it?

Jarkko got a bathroom scale over the weekend. One of those snazzy digital jobs that not only tell your weight, but your water and fat percentage, too. I've not weighed myself in at least 10 years, but there's something so alluring about a scale as though a voice in the back of your head is shouting, "Oh! Great Oracle of Gravity, tell us our number!" If only it would print out my fortune and award me with a cupie doll when it is wrong it would be perfect. I don't suppose the special carny edition of bathroom scale would be terribly popular though. I did, of course, succumb to my curiosity and was surprised that I weigh less than I feel like I do, but more than is comfortable in my jeans. When 'relaxed fit' jeans are more like 'snug fit', it's time to face reality that, well, your size has incremented by one or two. I guess it's a bit better than the 'suck it in and don't breathe fit' or 'painted on fit'. :) So, maybe I'll start bringing my lunch to work more often and taking the stairs instead of the lift to try and decrease my gravitational mass. In the interim, I think I'll avoid the bathroom oracle of gravity.

And in the tradition of Greek oracles of gravity, et al, there is a new series of books from Canongate Publishers that is really quite good. I've just finished The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood, that is a tale of Penelope, Odysseus' wife, during the years of the Odyssey which was quite an entertaining read. The next one I intend to read is The Helmet of Horror which is a retelling of Theseus and the Minotaur. The Canongate Myths Series is apparently a collaboration between 32 publishing houses and promises 100 titles by 100 acclaimed authors over the next few years. Authors from around the world are being invited to reinvent a myth of their choosing in 25,000-35,000 words. It is one of the most imaginative and original ideas in the publishing world I've seen in a long while. I wonder if any Finnish contemporary writers would deign to write an English retelling of the Kalevala from, say, Louhi's point of view? :)

permalink Ω 16 January 2006, Helsinki

Tahko

« A rustic privy in the woods of Tahko. As close to irony as it gets in Finland. :) »

A small gallery of photos from a trip to Tahko with a few colleagues back in early October.

permalink Ω 13 December 2005, Helsinki

Not Just for Breakfast Anymore

« Finnish whipped porridge with lingonberries and milk. »

There are few foods that are so basic as to transcend their lower station on the food chain and become something just about anyone and of which everyone has fond childhood memories. Porridge is just such a food. It's a hot and filling treat on a cold winter's day which can be either sweet with fruit or savoury with meat and cheese. Finland is a cold place for 9 months a year so it's no big surprise that porridge is popular here.

I was somewhat amused that aside from the Helsingin Sanomat running an article about porridge in September, two of the 'gourmet' sort of magazines in Helsinki have also printed articles about porridge in the past two months. People out in the countryside must be wondering what kind of dorks live in the cities where porridge needs to be rediscovered. Of course, in true cityfolk fashion, some of the recipes try to doll up a decidedly proletarian dish that no modern urbanite hipster would want to be caught preparing or eating. The attitude towards porridge is much the same in the US, though it is thought more of as a wholesome food for children, rather than adults.

Porridge is much more than a breakfast food in Finland which is both interesting and strange. The mannasuurimo, cream of wheat more or less, can be whipped and served with milk as a dessert. Latvia also features this in their national cuisine so I suspect that it is a Baltic regional specialty. I never even knew you could whip cream of wheat into such a pretty, billowy mound. I had tasted the vispipuuro from the supermarket where it comes ready-made in a plastic dish but I don't know how they can be compared as the texture and taste are very different.

One new thing I tried was the spelt manna/cream of wheat. Spelt is a sort of ur-wheat that has begun being cultivated again because it is more hardy and disease resistant. I don't know that I can go back to the plain stuff again as it has a slightly nutty flavour that is really, really good. If you can get your hands on a sack of it, I highly recommend giving it a try.

Aside from the whipped porridge, I gave a pancake recipe with mannasuurimo a try and also found it excellent. What's not to love about milk, eggs, sugar, spice and porridge baked together? There are also porridges made from rolled oats, rice, rye, potato and barley. Rice porridge is very traditional around the holidays and is served with fruit, cinnamon and milk.

I'd bet that porridge mixed with onions, carrots, blue cheese, sausage with a bit of mustard and lingonberry sauce then baked like a casserole would be pretty delicious and a nice change from the usual potato accompaniment.

A non-food related aside; I've had a week from hell at work so I've not answered much email in about 2-3 weeks now and my apologies to those expecting replies. (If anyone has a tale of woe regarding the absolutely abominable enterprise-level 'support' Apple sells with their systems in Finland, talk to me. Who knew that 30-minute response time would translate to 4+ weeks waiting for a replacement Xraid? ) If I survive the office pikkujoulu and subsequent hangover, I'll try to answer email and such soon.

Debessmanna / puolukka vispipuuro / whipped cranberry porridge

Makes: 2 servings
Time: about 15 minutes
Source: The Cuisine of Latvia

• 75g or 2.65oz lingonberries or cranberries or red currants (or just use about 3/4 cup berry juice)
• 2 dl or .85 cup water
• 1/2 dl or 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 dl or 1/4 cup mannasurimo/semolina/cream of wheat

1. Rinse cranberries. Crush and squeeze out juice. Place cranberry solids in a saucepan, cover with water, boil for five minutes and strain.
2. Add sugar. Gradually add semolina/cream of wheat. Heat until the semolina thickens, then add cranberry juice. Pour mixture into a bowl and cool rapidly.
3. Whip mixture until it becomes light and airy and has doubled or tripled in volume. Serve in bowls with cold milk.

« Pannukakku made with porridge and served with cranberry sauce and whipped cream. »

Ahvenanmaan pannukakku / Åland pancake

Makes: 1 9-in/23cm pancake
Time: about 10 minutes
Source: Ruoka & Viini, nro. 33

• 2 dl or .85 cup prepared manna- or rice porridge
• 5 dl or 2.1 cups milk
• 1,5 dl or 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 dl or 7 tablespoons sugar (reduce by half if you want a less sweet pancake)
• 2 teaspoons finely ground cardamom
• 3 eggs, whisked together

1. Heat oven to 225C/435F.
2. Mix porridge, milk, flour, salt, sugar and cardamom in a medium bowl. Blend in the whisked eggs with a fork until smooth.
3. Pour batter into a buttered pan and bake in the oven for about 20-30 minutes. The pancake first cooks around the edges and puffs up, then it develops puffy domes in the center. When these rise and join together, the pancake is done.

permalink Ω 25 November 2005, Helsinki

There and back again

« Through Finland in a RAV4. »

I have always maintained that in order to understand, or at least attempt to understand, the US one must make the trek across country by car, bicycle or other mode of ground transport rather than flying from one major city to the next as the land and landscape are what made it what it is today. This, too, can be said for Finland as by making a road trip around the various regions it becomes far more clear what is rather less apparent in Helsinki, the New York of the rest of the country; Most of the population of Finland are either living off the land or, as in Helsinki, one generation or less removed from doing so. This alone explains a lot about Finns and Finland. We saw lots of snow, lots of denuded forests, lots of reindeer that Otava was quite curious about, more snow, the arctic circle, the International Coffee Cup Museum and drank Krouvi, a tasty new Sinebrychoff beer that tastes like Sahti without the deadly alcohol content that doesn't seem to be in Helsinki just yet but, sadly, no Northern Lights. I'll get the film developed sometime this week and describe our adventures of the Finnish road between Helsinki and Ivalo, roughly the same distance as Denver to St. Louis, but with the terrain and services of country highways through Maine and New Hampshire. "Hey guy, you can't get there from here." :)

permalink Ω 21 November 2005, Helsinki

Little, Orange, Tart

« Layers of rich chocolate cake sandwiched between a light and fluffy tyrni mousse topped with a sweet tyrni gelée. »

One of the more unusual foods in Finland is the tyrni berry, a.k.a. sea buckthorn, which is a tart and bright orange fruit that grows up north. Jarkko brought a bottle of the unsweetened juice to Boston once and sprang it on me without preparing me for the taste of the day-glo orange coloured fluid. My mouth puckered so hard from the tartness that I think it took a few hours for my face to return to normal. After all the trouble he went through of buying the juice and carting it all the way to the US, I'm glad he had a good laugh.

The herring market in early October usually brings with it quite a lot of tyrni products. It's an expensive berry since the fruit is difficult to pick and must be done by hand so, aside from jelly, juice and frozen puree, it's not very common to find products containing tyrni even in Finland. The Finnish word for the berry is rather recent with the first citation being from 1850 hailing from the old Norse þyrnir and old Swedish thörne. It is a virtually unheard of berry outside of cold northern climes and China though it appears that some attempts are being made at cultivating plants for commercial harvesting at more southern latitudes. The Berry Bible didn't have any recipes containing the sea buckthorn, but did include a rather informative description of it.

Sea Buckthorn Berry

Common Names: buckthorn, sanddorn (Germany), oblepikha (Russia), argousier (France), havtorn (Sweden). The name sea buckthorn is derived from its habit of growing near the sea with its thorny spines.

Scientific Classification: Sea buckthorns (Hippophae rhamnoides) are a member of the oleaster family (Elaeagnaceae) and related to the Russian olive and the oleaster. Their name is derived from the Greek language: hippo, meaning "horse", phoas, meaning "light", and rhamnoides, from their resemblance to the genus Rhamnus-the buckthorns. The ancient Greeks fed this plant to their horses to improve their health and to make their coat shiny. the Russian name for this plant, oblepikha, means "to cling to," referring to the berries, which are firmly attached to the branches.

Habitat and Distribution: Sea buckthorns are deciduous shrubs with round orange berries (they can be red or yellow, too, but not as commonly) that are native to the northern regions of Eurasia. They are particularly widespread in northern Europe and on the seacoasts of Romania, Mongolia, and China and are divided into eight subspecies by geographic location. they grow from sea level, preferring the slopes of riverbanks and the seashore, to 10,000 feet in the Himalayas.

In Russia families grow sea buckthorns in the gardens at their dachas. The berries are harvested at the end of summer and canned or made into jams or taken to the cities and sold at farmers' markets.

North American gardeners grow sea buckthorns as ornamentals for their colourful orange berries that remain on the bush all winter long.

History: Legend has it that the sea buckthorns were the food of Pegasus, the flying horse of Greek mythology. The medicinal qualities of these historic fruits are recorded in ancient Greek and Tibetan texts from as early as the seventh century, when the sea buckthorn was considered a universal healing agent. It was used to treat rheumatism, scurvy, tumors, skin diseases, and intestinal disorders.

Where they are grown commercially: Sea buckthorns were domesticated in Siberia in the 1930s and are often called Siberian pineapple after their similar flavor. In Eurasia this shrub is one of the most widely grown northern fruits.

Russia, Mongolia and China are the largest producers of sea buckthorn products in the world. The berries are harvested commercially and processed for jellies, juices, liqueurs, candy, vitamin C tablets, tea, ice cream, cosmetics, and medicines.

Currently, many countries, including Canada, Russia, China, and Scandinavia, have breeding programs for this berry. With recent scientific studies showing their high antioxidant levels, which give them protective and anti-inflammatory properties, production is likely to increase in North America if a sea buckthorn can be developed that can separate easily from the plant so it can be harvested mechanically.

Sea buckthorn plants are available for home gardens. To order, see One Green World's web site, www.onegreenworld.com.

So, when I noticed a recipe for tyrni in the most recent issue of Ruoka & Viini, I decided to give it a try since the juice is good when it has been sweetened and I vaguely remembered that it is Jarkko's favourite berry. Thus begins my saga of 1 week and 3 cakes.

The original chocolate cake recipe called for 2 eggs and 2 egg yolks along with a decilitre of ground almonds. The big problem with this recipe; the cake was dry to the point of being nearly impossible to slice into two layers and, once layered, the cake was too hard to go well with the soft mousse which made it fall apart when eating it. The chocolate flavour was dulled by the almond as well which I didn't think complemented the tangy zing of the tyrni either.

I went looking for a simple, moist, chocolatey cake recipe that might work in its stead. The soft, rich chocolate cake I found has the perfect texture to accompany the mousse. I have always avoided slicing chocolate cakes into layers whenever possible since I'm not very good at it and they tend to be very delicate. However, it becomes an issue with this cake since the springform pan is necessary for building the cake. I did make one cake with 2 layer cake pans and baker's cellophane but it was an exercise in patience. The springform pan is far easier to deal with but, unless you have two of them in the same size, you're going to have to slice the cake into layers. It helps to have a long, sharp serrated knife and a pancake spatula or two to assist in positioning the cake without damaging it in the process. The chocolate layers are the most difficult part of this cake.

The mousse is easy to make though I decided to whip the cream first since it requires that the bowl and beaters are clean, dry and cold and getting that out of the way is more efficient. I also added the cooled gelatin-fruit juice mix to the cream cheese mixture without the whipped cream and chilled it while the cake was baking and cooling since it is too runny to whip with the cream and expect it to be fluffy. Chilling it a bit makes it firmer and easier to whip. If you can't get or don't want the added liquor, you can simply add an equivalent amount of juice and extra sugar.

It's a beautiful cake and one must enjoy the bright orange qualities of it as well. Allow the cake to warm up a wee bit before serving and decorate with dark chocolate swirls and possibly some tyrni purée or berries. This cake is so good that only one of the three I made got taken to work and my taste testers loved it. If you don't have tyrni juice or jelly available, you might substitute cranberry or raspberry successfully, too.

Chocolate-buckthorn mousse cake

Makes: one 20-24cm/8-9.5in cake
Time: 35 mins prep + chilling and baking time
Special tools: springform pan
Source: Ruoka & Viini

chocolate layer cake

Makes: 2 8-9in/20-22cm cake layers
Source: CI

• 1/2 cup or 1,25 dl cocoa (natural)
• 2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
• 1.25 cups or 3 dl all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon table salt
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (optional)
• 1 cup or 2,5 dl whole milk, room temperature
• 1.5 sticks or 170g unsalted butter, softened
• 1.25 cups or 3 dl sugar
• 2 large eggs, room temperature

buckthorn mousse

• 200g or 7oz philadelphia cream cheese or other tuorejuusto (softened)
• 1 1/3 dl or 1/2 cup tyrni/buckthorn jelly
• 3 tablespoons tyrni/buckthorn liquor (optional)
• 2 dl or 3/4 cup whipping cream
• 3 2g gelatin sheets or about 1 .25oz gelatin packet
• 1/2 dl or 1/4 cup sweetened pure tyrni/buckthorn juice

buckthorn gelée

• 3 2g gelatin sheets or about 1 .25oz gelatin packet
• 1 dl or 1/2 cup sweetened pure tyrni/buckthorn juice
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 dl or 1/2 cup water

1. For the cake: Adjust oven rack to center position and heat oven to 350F/175C degrees. Grease two 8-9.5 in/20-24 cm round baking pans or one springform pan. Line pan bottoms with waxed or parchment paper; grease paper as well. **(note: I used a 24cm pan so a 20cm pan might need to use a little less of the batter else the layers might be a bit too thick. YMMV.)
2. Whisk the cocoa, instant coffee, flour, baking soda, and salt in medium bowl and set aside. Add vanilla to the milk and set aside.
3. Beat butter in bowl of electric mixer set at medium-high speed until smooth and shiny, about 30 seconds. Gradually sprinkle in sugar; beat until mixture is fluffy and almost white, 3 to 5 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating 1 full minute after each addition.
4. With mixer on lowest speed, add about 1/3 of dry ingredients to batter, followed immediately by the milk/vanilla mixture; mix until ingredients are almost incorporated into batter. Repeat process twice more. When batter appears blended, stop mixer and scrape bowl sides with rubber spatula. Return mixer to low speed; beat until batter looks satiny, about 15 seconds longer.
5. Divide batter evenly between pans. With rubber spatula, run batter to pan sides and smooth top. Bake cakes until they feel firm in center when lightly pressed and skewer comes out clean or with just a crumb or two adhering, 23 to 30 minutes or about 45-50 minutes if using single pan. Tranfer pans to wire racks; cool for 20 minutes. Run knife around perimeter of each pan, invert cakes onto racks, and peel off paper liners.
6. For the mousse: Place gelatin sheets in a bowl of cool water for a few minutes. Heat the juice in the microwave until hot. Squeeze water from the gelatin sheets and dissolve in the hot juice. Set aside to cool.
7. Whip the cold cream to stiff peaks and place in the refrigerator until needed.
8. Whip softened cream cheese, jelly and liquor together until fluffy. Beat in the fully cooled gelatin-juice mixture. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and whip again until smooth. Place into the refrigerator for about an hour while the cake cools. Don't leave the gelatin-juice mixture in the cold for too long as you only want it to thicken, not gel.
9. After the cake has cooled and the layers are ready, remove the whipped cream and the cream cheese mixture from the refrigerator and whip them together until smooth and fluffy.
10. Wash the springform pan ring, if using a springform pan, and position it on the pan with the bottom cake layer in place. Pour half of the mousse over the bottom layer and make even with an offset spatula. Gently place the second layer of chocolate cake on top and repeat with the other half of the mousse, taking special care to make the top even and smooth. Cover top with plastic wrap and place flat on a shelf in the refrigerator for an hour or two. Microwave the gelée juice, sugar and water until hot and dissolve gelatin. Set aside to cool while the mousse is firming up in the refrigerator.
11. Remove the cake from the refrigerator, remove the plastic wrap and slowly pour the cooled gelée mixture into a spoon held just above the mousse. Replace the plastic wrap and refrigerate the cake for another few hours or overnight.

permalink Ω 25 September 2005, Helsinki

The Finnish Riviera

« Butterfly shutters on Hemulen's house at Moomin World in Naantali. »

Three small galleries of photos from a short trip through the Finnish Riviera:

• Moomin World
• Unikeon Päivä, a.k.a. Sleepyhead Day
• The Finnish Riviera

I don't remember precisely when it was, though I suspect I noticed the Naantali brochure when we were anxiously waiting for Otava's arrival in the Stockholm ferry terminal, that I read a blurb about a town called Naantali throwing someone into the water early on a mid-July morning as part of a tradition called "Unikeon Päivä", a.k.a. Sleepyhead Day. It claimed that the last person sleeping would be chased into the harbour and be doomed to being sleepy for the rest of the year. I thought to myself, "Wow, there's a contest I could win every year, not to mention that it sure would explain alot." It also mentioned Moomin World and a spa whereupon I was immediately sold on the idea of paying a visit to Finland's "Sunshine Town", the Finnish Riviera. My desire grew as seasons marched on and I hadn't been further outside of Helsinki than Espoo.

I didn't have much holiday time this year as it's my first year working and no one tells you that you accrue holiday time at a rate of 2.x days per month until April which then determines your annual allotment. This means instead of the fabled and seemingly impossible 4-6 weeks of annual holiday, you get only a few days if you start work in November as I did. And you only work 5 days a week but you have to have 6 days of holiday to take a week off which is some throwback to times that few remember or know why it remains done this way. I didn't know you could take unpaid holiday time in lieu of having paid holiday on your first year, either. So, I had a few days worth of flex-time that I scheduled for a 3-day tour of the Finnish Riviera through Hanko, Raasepori, Naantali and Uusikaupunki.

All roads lead to Hanko, at least this is how it has appeared since I arrived as there are countless signs that say "Hanko" along the roads. I've been wanting to know all this time what is so great about Hanko that everyone needs to know which roads go there. The country is too small to have something like signs in western Colorado pointing to St. Louis which is 600-800 miles away since it's the nearest point of civilisation around that drivers will recognise. In fuckallnowhere you either live there or keep on driving in hopes of finding something other than country and western on the radio. So, in the interest of figuring out what the big deal about Hanko was, we drove there first. Not too far from Hanko along the King's Road is Raasepori Castle. I had been there before, but it was a nice pitstop for coffee.

Hanko is the southernmost town in Finland which explains the abundant signage. It is also a rather large port hosting the largest guest harbour in Finland as well as acres of imported cars waiting for transport. The tallest lighthouse in the Nordic countries, Bengtskär, is near the coast as well. We walked around the old town, had lunch in the seaside casino whose interior is straight out of a 1970s ABBA music video and went on our way since it was somewhat dreary and rainy. One thing I noticed as we were strolling around town was that there must be some cosmic law regarding seaside towns and all the crappy kitsch that goes with them since even Finland isn't immune to its relentless ubiquity. I always wonder who is buying the lighthouse door knockers or the stuffed viking pirates.

From Hanko, it's an easy drive to Naantali which is just north of Turku since much of the 4-lane highway has been finished, though large chunks of the 2-lane donkey cart road between Helsinki and Turku remain. Jarkko booked a room at the Naantali Spa Hotel as the town has been historically well known for its spas since 1863. Elvis, too, was staying at the spa in the Footsteps of Elvis exhibit, reportedly the largest of its kind outside of Graceland. It was entertaining to see the busloads of geriatric Finnish Elvis fans pay 12 eur to relive a bit of their youth. I was hoping for poodle skirts and Elvis impersonators, but no such luck. The spa had flag poles in the front driveway which displayed the flags of their guests' countries. The next morning I looked up and there was old glory waving in the breeze and it made me feel really uncomfortable though I'm sure the intent was just the opposite.

After a relaxing dinner in old town, and a bit more wine than we needed, we wobbled back to the hotel to rest up for visiting Moomin World. My vision of Moomin World was decidedly American in scope and concept. I remain rather pouty that I was denied the joy of blueberry Moomin pehmis (soft-serve ice cream) touting the "Made with real Moomins™" mark of quality. I missed the Moomin-shaped water tower that should have rightly been a towering landmark visible from miles around. The Moomin Shop had gifts mostly for kids and less Moomin merch than what you could find in Stockmann. I delighted in the fantasy of a Moomin merch paradise with unique items you could only find at Moomin World that I could send to friends and family. I respect the fact that the Moomin franchise, Tove Jansson's family, has told Walt Disney to piss off and that they are trying not to be complete commercial money grubbers but, c'mon, they're charging 16 euro per head for Moomin World, why not make some interesting and unusual merch available only in Naantali to make the trip even more special. Yes, I'm bitterly disappointed that I didn't find any fun Haisuli miniatures or cookie cutters. I'll live. :)

The park itself is cleverly appointed with features straight from the Moomin books that those who have read the books will delight in. It's not an amusement park with roller coasters or thrill rides, no, it really is just about the Moomin stories. There are, unsurprisingly, lots and lots and lots of young children. So many, in fact, that the two of us wandering around without such an accessory felt more than a little out of place, even suspect. The Washington Post ran an article, Invasion of the Moomins, back in 2001 about a visit to Moomin World which is interesting since the Moomin really aren't known at all in the US for some reason. Not much has changed since then. I was rather surprised at the complete lack of anything in English for children who aren't Finnish or Swedish. Even the tourism office and website seemed to have precious little for the non-local tourists. The Moomin books have been translated into numerous languages but Moomin World doesn't seem to be as welcoming to children from elsewhere in the world which is a pity since the books are endearing to both children and adults who might enjoy Moomin World if they had the opportunity.

After leaving Moomin World, we returned to the hotel to enjoy the spa part of the spa hotel. :) It was sorta funny sitting in the co-ed turkish steam bath wondering which vague shape in the thick fog was Jarkko. The cycle of sauna->pool->sauna continues to be unexpectedly refreshing even as I keep telling my colleages that St. Louis' summer is actually quite like the Finnish sauna only without the benefit of being naked or having the ability to flee the oppressive heat when you've had enough. Massages came next as Jarkko insisted on us both having a session of trying to take the stiffness down a notch. It's so weird when you stuff your face in the padded hole on the massage table and a complete stranger begins rubbing your fat down while you think of nothing in particular and hope that you don't relax so much that you start farting. :)

We rose the next day at an inhumanly early hour to go see the event that brought us to Naantali, Unikeon Päivä, a.k.a. Sleepyhead Day, where one unlucky, upstanding and prominent member of the community gets dumped into the harbour at 7am. There's little information about Unikeon Päivä in English and what little there is tends to be inaccurate so the following is from Vuotuinen Ajantieto by Kustaa Vilkuna which is a bit of an authoritative classic on Finnish calendar lore and holidays.

The Sleepyhead Day: 27.7

The strange "Unikeko" name is met already in the calendar of the Hemming hymnals in 1652 before which it had to have been in common use because is not a late translational borrowing. In other languages, there is only talk of the "seven sleepers". The origin of the memorial day is from the seven martyrs from Ephesus, the young men Maximianus, Malcus, Martinianus, Dionysius, Johannes, Serapion, and Constantinus, who fleeing the persecution of the emperor Decius slept the years 249-447. The earliest record of this legend is from the year 570. In the Nordic countries, the day was celebrated already in the Middle Ages. In Finland, the seven sleepyheads day was originally on 26.6, as well as in a couple of bishoprics of Denmark. In the middle of the 1700s, the day was moved to its current position, which is the same as with most saint calendars of the Swedish and Norwegian bishoprics.

The belief that if one sleeps late on Sleepyhead Day that one will be sleepy for the whole year is probably of a relatively late origin. The one who stays last in bed will be called "the sleepyhead of the house and the laziest one for all the year". But, if one went to the stables early in the morning with one's eyes closed, both the man and the horse became equally early risers. A horse is a naturally early riser. These kinds of portents have earlier belonged to the end of the "keyri", i.e. the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the new one. One portent of the natural kind is the common adage: "If it rains on the sleepyhead day, it will rain seven weeks straight."

To the summertime holiday and spa season of Naantali belongs the continuously happy sleepyhead tradition with early wake-ups, vespers, and other festivities. The current custom, which in recent years has grown into a three day carnival, was started in the heyday of the Naantali spa in 1889. The masseuses started amusing their guests in a folk-like manner. The loud and colourful procession and dumping a well-known figure who slept until seven into the sea have become the high point of the festival.

The Finnish almanac is probably the only calendar left these days which still has "Sleepyhead Day" in it. Since 1973 it has been printed alongside the popular name, "Heidi".

So here we were sitting around the harbour at about 6.30 in the AM, after having had a bit too much sangria the night before, waiting for the thrill of watching someone get tossed into the harbour. Clearly, my threshold for excitement had reached a new low. At one point I looked to my left and Jarkko noted that the President was about 20 feet away on the presidential boat which had come over from Kultaranta, the President's summer residence, across the bay. I thought that not only would that never happen in the US, but wondered why Tarja wasn't having breakfast with some world leader or something more, well, world leaderish instead of hanging out on a boat waiting for somone to get tossed into the bay, especially after her husband was Unikeko in 2002. Soon after, the majorettes marched onto the pier followed by a few guys dressed like Venetian gondoliers carrying a body draped in a grey wool blanket. They carefully, almost apologetically, tilted the stretcher towards the water and the chosen Unikeko of 2005, Risto Rinne, the CEO of Neste Oil, plopped into the water with little fanfare but much applause.

Afterwards, people dispersed for breakfast and a children's costume contest where, surprisingly, the themes were very similar to Halloween costumes in the US as there were superheroes, pirates, and political figures. There was one pirate who had his little sister dressed up as his wench, a set of twins were made up as golfers and one little girl made a convincing 1920s flapper. The majorettes gathered in front of a small tourist choo-choo tram, the Unikeko arrived and the parade proceeded to wind through the streets with costumed children, adults clad in pyjamas, and grandmothers knitting on the go following behind. The festivities would last for the rest of the day. We went back to the hotel for breakfast and headed for a tour of Kultaranta, but the next tour wasn't until 1pm and we wanted to get home at a reasonable hour as I had to go back to work the next day, so we departed and drove towards Uusikaupunki.

We visited Uusikaupunki specifically to see Bonk Industries, an elaborately conceived and executed museum fabricated for the sole purpose of giving the town a bit of tourism appeal. The town apparently felt like they needed some historical cachet so they made up Bonk Industries and the exhibits are so beautifully and meticulously crafted that it's convincing until you start to read the story which is pretty over the top. Uusikaupunki's tourist office also had a surprisingly large number of publications in English as opposed to Naantali which is a far larger, more touristy town that has very, very little in English, including their web page which had the English events and news sections under construction for most of the year. The second local attraction that wasn't created solely to attract tourists was the Myllymäki hil windmills where there used to be dozens of them for grinding grain before more modern machines forced them into obsolescence. It's a lovely little town that I'm sorry we didn't get to enjoy more time in. It is also worth mentioning that many of the towns along the southwest coast host festivals that they must coordinate with each other since, if you plan carefully, you can make your way through the towns hopping from one festival to the next. Had we time to stay, Uusikaupunki had a music festival starting the next day.

Southwest Finland is the so-called Finnish Riviera because it enjoys more sunshine during the year than much of the rest of Finland which, in all honesty, isn't really saying much. :) It is also the area of Finland that embodies the image of Finland and Finnish life that is most familiar to foreigners, most likely due to being a popular area for tourism. It is a beautiful, but populous, part of the country. I have yet to visit eastern Finland and Lapland, but maybe next year.

n.b - I had intended to write this earlier with more witty anecdotes and humour, but I've been tired, sick and unable to do much other than gape at CNN for the past week. So, if anyone made it this far, I hope it didn't make for horribly dull reading.

permalink Ω 5 September 2005, Helsinki

Talkkuna

« Talkkuna Blueberry Pie »

I watched Jarkko dump a bunch of powdery stuff into his yogurt one morning to make it into a gloopy sort of porridge. Curious, I asked to try it and it tasted a bit like a cold, creamy, malty cereal. When he told me what it was, I hadn't ever heard of it, hadn't ever tried it even though I likely passed by it on the shelves in the grocery hundreds of times. A week or two later I noticed a wee new book, Pieni talkkunakirja, all about talkkuna so I bought a copy to read more about this mysterious and reasonably tasty new foodstuff. The book is short but it's beautifully put together and has quite a lot of factoids about talkkuna along with some recipes containing talkkuna. When I started poking around with google to find more information about talkkuna, I found that the author keeps a blog and is currently working on a book on Finnish fleamarkets that I'm looking forward to reading [He also has a very interesting collection of Finnish pulp fiction book covers]. The book has more information about talkkuna than most people would ever need or want to know, but I'll share a bit of the highlights, slightly condensed and paraphrased, since there appears to be virtually nothing in English available on the net about it. :)

Talkkuna came to Finland in the 1700's but it had been eaten in similar forms long before then. It is believed that it arrived in Finland from the Slavs and reached Karelia and Vepsä first. (Interesting that it arrived in Eastern Finland first, but is a traditional food in the Southwestern part of the country.) Talkkuna was often used as a snack food and dessert. There's a similar food Estonia called "kama" that's served cold. It isn't a seasonal food but it is eaten quite often in Autumn with the harvest and in winter. Urbanization has largely destroyed much of the talkkuna tradition as the city dwellers have either forgotten about it or shun the dry, strange flour from the countryside. Many of the people from the larger generation [baby boomers?] also have not introduced their children to talkkuna. The Helsinki University Savo Guild have been known to have a talkkuna celebration, "Talakkunat", in late November in past years dating back to 1887.

Talkkuna consists of cooked ground oats or barley which sometimes includes ground peas or other flours. Everywhere save Northern Finland talkkuna is used in various foods and there is quite a bit of variation in the grains used from region to region. In Northern Karelia talkkuna is made with barley and in Häme and Southwestern Finland (i.e. Turku) the base of talkkuna is oat flour. In the South Talkkuna can also be found to contain rye and wheat. Traditionally, the tasty and nutritional ingredients are peas and beans which are ground and mixed with the other flours. Talkkuna is traditional in Häme, Southwest Finland and Satakunta (i.e. Pori and Rauma). In Central Finland, the talkkuna is dried in the oven which makes for a darker and stronger tasting flour. In the Savo, Kainu and Oulu regions, talkkuna is typically called 'puurotalkkuna'. It is usually made from barley and coarsely ground. It is not consumed plain, instead it is boiled in water to make a porridge then served with butter or lard.

Talkkuna is known elsewhere in the world, too. The word "talkkuna" is from Indo-European roots. In Afghanistan the word in Pashto is "talxan", in Mongolian it is "t'alxx" and in Russian it is "tolokno" which is the likely origin for the word in Finnish. In Scotland, it is called "brose", a cold porridge of oats that can also be mixed with peas and greens such as nettles, shallots and cabbage. Scotland's cold porridge is an ingredient in a drink called Atholl Brose, which is a mixture of oatmeal, honey and whisky. It can also contain cream. The drink was named due to the Earl of Athol having beaten an enemy by secretly filling a well with the alcoholic concoction. I've never seen this whisky so I've certainly got to try it now. :)

There are a variety of different talkkuna flours in the grocery depending on which grocery you shop at. I've only tried two of them and both of them must be from central Finland given their strong, smokey flavour. I decided to try making a blueberry pie from the Pieni talkkunakirja and find that talkkuna has a very appealing taste in baked goods. This recipe was easy, quick and quite tasty though I think it might have tasted better with a less aggressive talkkuna. My only complaint was that the crust was a wee bit on the dry side which might be solved by adding a bit of milk. I also added talkkuna to the blueberry filling as partly for taste and thickening properties. Vanilla ice cream also takes the pie from good to excellent.

Talkkuna-Blueberry Pie

Makes: 1 pie, approx. 12 servings
Time: about 1 hour including baking
Source: Pieni talkkunakirja

Crust:

• 125g or 1 stick butter
• 0,75dl or 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• about 0,5 dl or 1/4 cup whole milk (optional)
• 2dl or 3/4 cup wheat or all-purpose flour
• 0,75dl or 1/3 cup talkkuna flour
• 0,75dl or 1/3 cup potato flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder

Filling:

• 1 litre or 4 cups blueberries ( or about 4 200g packages of frozen blueberries )
• about 2-4 tablespoons potato flour or corn starch (dissolved in a little bit of water or blueberry juice)
• about 3 tablespoons talkkuna (optional)
• about 1dl or 1/2 cup sugar

Topping:

• Vanilla ice cream or sauce

1. Heat oven to 200C/395F. Mix filling ingredients together in a bowl and set aside. If using frozen berries, allow to thaw and adjust the amount of thickener if there's a lot of excess juice
2. Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs one at a time, beating until fluffy. Add milk.
3. Mix dry ingredients together and gradually add to the butter mixture. It will form a firm dough-like ball. Place dough in ~ 27cm/11in tart/pie pan and press evenly over the bottom and sides. Pour filling over the crust and bake for about 20-30 minutes until filling is set and crust is brown.
4. Cool and serve with vanilla ice cream or sauce.

permalink Ω 31 July 2005, Helsinki

Coup de main

« A tribute in snow to the Swedish King Gustav III on Suomenlinna. Gustav staged a coup de main to retake the fortress in 1772. The walls of the fortress were nicely done and the bust of Gustav looked as though it were rising out of the sea which the exposed grass and the distortion of the 15mm lens seem to exaggerate a bit. »

permalink Ω 7 April 2005, Helsinki

Does my ass look fat in this?

« "Back in my day, we didn't have bras. We had to hold them up with our bare hands!" I'd love to know what this sculpture on a building in Stockholm means, if anything. Maybe it's a plastic surgery hospital inside. »

Ever since I moved here, I have come to be very fascinated by the Finnish curiosity for what foreigners think of their country. A number of people, including my own father-in-law, have commented that they find my boring corner of the internet interesting because of my outsider view of life here. I suppose I find it strange because as an American I already either know what people think of the US given how many rants I have had delivered to me from those wearing Nike shoes, Levi's and a Mets baseball cap or because the US is so big that it is something different for everyone, even those who live there, which I don't take personally. And, mostly, I just don't care.

Finland seems both vain and insecure as though it were a woman asking a boyfriend, "Hey, does this make my ass look fat?", as if the answer were going to dispel her doubts about her own self-image. Or, more to the point, why do Finns care about what foreigners think of Finland when, like America and most other places, it is always a bit different for everyone? What has made me wonder about this recently is the popularity among Finns of an American Libertarian's blog, Finland for Thought.** In the US, Phil would be just another guy cutting and pasting news into his blog, as if there aren't enough of those already, but here he's considered a political pundit because, I am told, there's so little public political discourse. Of course, of the several people I asked about this, none of them discuss political issues on their blogs but find a foreigner who writes only in English with a no-big-government, no-taxes slant to be a good change of pace. Hey, who said irony was dead? What about all the parlimentarians with a blog? You know, the folks who actually represent the people in the government? I suppose politicians are supposed to be too diplomatic to offer opinions in the wrong language about issues they've not had more than 3 years of experience with just to be controversial. Well, unless they're the President of the US.

Perhaps the reason political opinions in Finland are not often spewed randomly on the net, where they will be cached by the search engines for as long as there is power to run the machines to ensure that they resurface to haunt you at some later date, is that people who can't chat up their neighbour about the weather, or even grunt and nod to them, generally aren't going to blurt out critical statements that will either find a friend or an enemy. You know, if you can't get to "Hello" you just aren't going to make it to "Fuck off" without a bottle of koskenkorva to help you get there and, really, discussing politics while bombed is a cherished American tradition that nobody wants to imitate. A very high percentage of the Finns I know say they email their political representatives and, amazingly, receive replies on issues that they have concerns about. This seems far more efficient and, frankly, more Finnish. If only Americans would even bother to vote much less email their representatives. Then again, every time I've written a politician back home, I've never received a reply. Bitching on the net and over too many beers at the pub is as good as it gets for us Yankees.

I'm guessing then that F4T is more a magic combination of from-the-hip pot stirring and curiosity/insecurity feeding which may make for a fabulously popular TV series on Nelonen. Hey, Phil, you can star in your own show finally! I'm envisioning a Finnish Hardball but with foreigners who read only what scarce local news is available in English and then argue animatedly about some random issue. :)

**Disclaimer: I know Phil and while I'd buy him a beer, I probably won't vote for him when he runs for public office. This isn't a personal attack, but a sincere curiosity. If you're Finnish, however, and feel a slight burning sensation, that's just the sarcasm missing your funny bone.

permalink Ω 30 March 2005, Helsinki

Begins with L, ends in U

« Does every office party come equipped with a portable disco ball and ABBA tunes at the ready? I was drunk on 2 ciders by 7pm and I'm surprised I could hold the Leica steady, especially since I was a bit too amused at the choice of music. A modern adaptation/interpretation of the Kalevala could be pretty entertaining in the hands of the right satirist. Väinämöinen in a polyester leisure suit out on the dancefloor.... »

It's Lönnrotin/Kalevalan Päivä again and this year, aside from promising myself that I will read the Kalevala straight through, I will finally learn how to say Lönnrotinkatu without writing it down for the taxi driver who invariably gives me the "where in the fuck?" look or explaining that I'm talking about the street between Bulevardi and Kalevankatu, the one that begins with 'L' and ends in 'u'. I think it is the only street downtown that has L or Lö as the first letter[s]. My life is full of small, insignificant, yet daunting ambitions.

permalink Ω 28 February 2005, Helsinki

The Popcorn Berry

« Lumimarja, a.k.a. snowberry , that grows rather well around Finland. When the guys at work told me it was the 'famous Finnish popcorn berry' I was willing to believe it since it does look like popcorn on a stick, but when they asked if I had seen the yellow variety known as the 'buttered Finnish popcorn berry' I knew I was being toyed with. :) »

While I was walking to the bus stop this morning, I thought I saw 'vuokraamo' in the window of a gunshop that usually has a few rather serious-looking samples on display. I thought, wow, there's something you never see - Gun Rentals. Can you imagine the clientele? The promotions? "Rent 5, get the 6th for free!" Ah, well, I misread the sign.

It's amazing how work kills your freetime. :) Sifting through the Tunisia pictures, getting them online and annotated has taken a bit longer than I had planned this week, but everything should be together by tomorrow as once the puppy comes I'll have even less time for the next few weeks while we get him all settled in.

There's a tyynysota on Monday at noon, in the railway station square, where the world's record for largest pillow fight will be attempted. The event will last about an hour and the duration of the pillow fight itself will be approximately 15 minutes. Bring your own pillow and inner child. I'm disappointed that I'll be too busy with the puppy to help Finland achieve greatness in tactical pillow warfare.

permalink Ω 14 January 2005, Helsinki

Arriba! Arriba! Sofa Sofa!

« Petteri "isä" Suomalainen and Jere "poika" Alenius disguised as Cheech and Chong selling sofas in Finland. »

Being an expat, sometimes it is not the differences rather the similarities between your new home and the old that are the most curious. Behold the sombrero dudes above who were featured in an article in today's Helsingin Sanomat about their weird commercials ranging from Mexicans to Sherlock Holmes and Watson to genies on a magic carpet. About 30 years ago, there were 2 Jewish appliance salesmen in St. Louis, the Slyman Brothers, who starred in their own disturbingly cheezy commericals of them sitting on top of the arch and waving. They were joined by Steve Mizerany who would run into trees while on roller skates or dress like a boozing pervy Santa for the annual "Christmas in July" sales. Two guys offering debt consolidation services also had some really funny cave men commercials with boobalicious cave girls sitting on their laps. The heiress of these pioneers is Becky the "Queen of Carpet", a rather corpulent lady in a shiny satin gown and tiara flying around the arch on a carpet.

These guys are a touch of home, even if it is freaky to turn on the TV late at night, suddenly see two Finns dressed as Speedy Gonzalez and wonder if I'm hallucinating. The continuity director forgot to send them somewhere for a tan as they are the most glaringly white Mexicans I've ever seen. :) They mention in the article that commercials that don't get talked about are bad/not as effective and, well, I've not been able to blot out the Slyman Brothers after 30 years in spite of the electric shock therapy so I would have to agree. I hope they try dressing up as Vikings sometime soon as that would be really amusing and show a sense of humour a little closer to home. :)

permalink Ω 5 December 2004, Helsinki

Hell's Lake

« Helvetinjärvi, Hell's Lake, in Autumn viewed from the shore and a few other photos of the colourful season. »

When we escaped the city for the weekend, we happened to be driving near Helvetinjärvi National Park and decided to stop and walk to see what earned the name of "Hell's Lake". It's only a one kilometre walk to the lake, but it takes a little time since the path has many gnarled and slippery pine roots along the path in addition to beautiful scenery. I noticed one woman grumbling to the man with her because she wore shoes that you'd expect to have difficultly wearing on a city sidewalk.

I hadn't really gotten out to see much of Finland's more remote wilderness or geologic features so this place was very interesting on both counts. The lakes formed in gorges caused by faults in the bedrock which means they have very steep sides and are very deep. The pine forest that surrounds the lakes is dense, mossy and boggy. There are lots of little streams that look appealing until you notice the water is brown from filtering through the surrounding peat bogs. We only walked as far as Helvetinkolu, but I wish we would have had the time to walk along the trail to Haukanhieta. Finland's National Parks really are quite gorgeous and I hope to visit them all.

permalink Ω 1 November 2004, Helsinki

Need Mo' Sunshine

« A cute barcode sticker reads "I need mo' sunshine" on a grey day. »

November is only a few days away and summer seems like it never really came this year since it rained more often than not. The days already are dim/dark by 5pm and the disorientation of sunlight at midnight seems like a vague memory. All those endless hours of light will be replaced with darkness. The upside to the sun not rising until 9am is that even night people like me can feel like there's hope for us becoming morning people afterall, even if it is only a solar illusion. November is very aptly named the 'Dead' month as without the colour of the autumn leaves or the brightness of snow, it is the darkest and most dreadful month of the Finnish year. I'll take -25C with snow in January before any day in November with it's dark gloom.

I read recently that a group of sticker graffiti artists were nabbed in a big bust down on Iso Rooba, in particular the prolific "Let me love?" person, which was very sad news. It's difficult to defend an urban artform that so many people dislike on perfectly sensible grounds, but the sticker and stencil art is often well done and they never do what the teenage fuckheads with the cans of spraypaint do, namely write fuck in as many forms possible on any surface they come across, including beautiful Jugend buildings and stonework where it is butt ugly and difficult to remove. Sticker and stencil art is often found on downspouts, ugly metal utility boxes and other places where they aren't going to do any permanent damage. I wish the cops would bust the kids who always seem to have a spare can of paint around and not a single grain of sense.

And, some people might remember Aaron Huey who walked across America with his Leica and his dog, Cosmo. I asked two publishers where I knew a few people to consider publishing his book, both of which came back with a "not original" rejection which, in publisherese, means something like "it won't sell". Updike just published his latest in a long, long lifetime of "not original", but somehow it sells. I don't understand how a guy this talented could get the HAND while some of the photobloggers who take random pictures of their feet, dinner, window, etc. are supposedly getting book deals these days. I really hope to see American Ocean in print someday. In the interim, he has finally been featured in Smithsonian Magazine's November Issue so maybe there's hope that someone will see what I see in his pictures and publish the book.

permalink Ω 27 October 2004, Helsinki

Build it and they will come

« The lucky horseshoe and outlet mall of Tuuri. »

I have previously lamented the lack of roadside attractions in Finland before but no longer. I saw an article in FinnAir's magazine about a giant horseshoe on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere and knew I had to pay it a visit.

Tuuri is 145 kilometers north of Tampere. I wasn't expecting throngs of buses and old folks swarming around the whole 'outlet mall' sort of attraction. It's the same in the US since noone would bother going to Freeport, Maine, just for a few L.L.Bean shirts, but add a whole array of brand name outlet stores to the same street and people from miles around will come. I wouldn't have expected the Tuuri horseshoe and shopping outlet mall to be the most popular tourist attraction in Finland. I mean, it's not really on the way to or from anywhere except maybe Oulu. Do that many people really go on holiday to shop somewhere?

The shops apparently do enough business to be second only to Stockmann's in sales every year. For a place that's out in the middle of nowhere, that's pretty impressive. Vesa Keskinen, the owner, is planning a 5-star hotel and thinking big for the future. I'm starting to get the idea that Ostrobothnia is the Texas of Finland where everything is bigger. They also host the Miljoona Pilkki which is where 27,000 or so people go out onto the ice to fish and freeze their arse off in early March and is allegedly the world's largest such event.

One thing they need to work on is the postcards as they aren't anywhere near as cheesy as would befit a giant horseshoe out in the middle of nowhere. Maybe one postcard could feature the horseshoe with space aliens landing in the parking lot to fill up on salmiakki and vodka.

permalink Ω 17 October 2004, Helsinki

Baltic Jugend

« A Jugend building on Korkeavuorenkatu painted with a castle-like shadow in the late afternoon sun. »

Helsinki has some of the most beautiful Art Nouveau, a.k.a. Jugend, architecture in abundance. Much of Katajanokka and Töölö were designed and built during the few years that Jugend was popular and so hold the greatest concentrations of the style. The Finnish Museum of Architecture is currently showing and exhibit titled Architecture 1900 - Baltic Art Nouveau which explores the collaboration of Jugend architects from Stockholm, Helsinki, Tallinn, Riga and St. Petersburg. The years between 1890 and 1912 were likely the most interesting years in modern history and the buildings and designs reflect the meeting point of old and new. The exhibit is full of photographs, drawings, old postcards, currency designs and other bits of interest from the period in all 5 cities. Out of the sample, I'd have to say that Finland had the most beautiful overall style. There is a book to accompany the exhibit that is nicely designed, although it doesn't include all of the photos and drawings from the exhibit. Entrance is only 3,50€ and the book, in English, is 26€. All of the captions are in Finnish, Swedish and English as well. It will be at the museum until 29 August when it moves on to Stockholm.

The Musuem is also sponsoring a number of lectures and guided tours on the topic of Jugend architecture. It doesn't state what language the lectures are in, so it is likely safe to assume that they are in Finnish. There are, however, a few guided walks/tours that are in English.

• Wednesday, 18 August 2004, 6pm, MFA ≈ Finnish Architecture and Interaction around the Baltic Sea in the Early 1900s - Prof. Pekka Korvenmaa and Metropolitan Models - Town Planning in Finland - Timo Tuomi, Head of Research.
• Wednesday, 25 August 2004, 6pm, MFA ≈ Patrons from St. Petersburg Sponsoring New Finnish Architecture - Anna-Lisa Amberg, Ph.D. and Bonds around the Baltic Sea: Finnish - European Networks - Prof. Marjatta Hietala
• Thursday, 26 August 2004, The Night of the Arts, 6pm, MFA ≈ Architectural office of Usko Nyström-Petrelius-Penttilä: apartment building for six sections of the city in Helsinki - Eija Rauske, Researcher
• Saturday, 21 and 28 August 2004, 2pm and Thursday, 26 August 2004, 7.30pm (free entrance after 4pm) ≈ Guided Exhibition Tours
• Tuesdays 10, 17, 24 and Wednesdays 4 and 11 August 2004, 6pm, MFA ≈ Guided City Walks - Tuesdays, Facing the Stone City - Art Nouveau in Helsinki (Suomeksi) and Wednesdays, Art Nouveau Architecture in Helsinki (in English). Fee is 5/3€. Call (09) 8567 5100 for more info.

permalink Ω 15 June 2004, Helsinki

Stuffed Animals

A few pictures from a trip to the Helsinki Hall of Taxidermy, a.k.a. the Finnish Museum of Natural History.

Ok, it's true, we were bored while Jarkko was on 2 weeks of holiday that didn't include a trip somewhere and also featured the 4-5 day Easter holiday. What do you do when you've got a few days to kill, no car, no plane tickets and don't want to sit at home answering email or aimlessly surfing the web from the couch? The Finnish Natural History Museum seemed like a good idea one afternoon. We went, we saw, we were impressed by the taxidermic skill and then we went to dinner. If you're into taxidermy and dioramas, head straight for this museum as it has them both in abundance.

permalink Ω 24 April 2004, Helsinki

Hvitträsk

A few photos from Hvitträsk, the former home of Eliel Saarinen. The description of Hvitträsk from the brochure: Hvitträsk was built between 1901 and 1903 by three architects; Herman Gesellius, Armas Lindgren and Eliel Saarinen. The main building, designed in the National Romantic style, built of logs and natural stone, was both a common studio and a home for Eliel Saarinen and Armas Lindgren.....

Jarkko and I took a bus ride out into the boonies of Kirkkonummi, just west of Espoo, to visit the museum since my hometown is St. Louis where the Gateway Arch is about the only thing people remember about the city and it was likely the only Finnish thing I had encountered, aside from a Nokia mobile, before meeting Jarkko. Eero Saarinen, the son of Eliel, designed the Arch to represent and pay tribute to the role St. Louis played in the settling of lands west of the Mississippi River. As a kid, I rode up to the top of the Arch in the freaky pod elevator cars and promptly got sick from the rocking to and fro. I was content, after that, to play glow-in-the-dark frisbee in the park with some beers instead of making the trip to the top. We have an annual 4th of July VP Fair on the grounds which draws several million people for the impressive fireworks and we often refer to the Arch as a giant croquet wicket with affection. It is a beautiful and sublimely elegant monument that everyone in St. Louis truly admires. A recent issue of Suomen Kuvalehti featured an article about the Arch and the fight to get minority workers on the building crew which was no small task since St. Louis was then, and still remains, one of the most racist cities in the US.

I don't remember if we were ever taught in school that Eero Saarinen was Finnish since, in the US, you don't really think of people with unusual names as being anything other than American when they're living in US, especially when they're famous for designing other buildings like Dulles International Airport and part of JFK Airport. I hadn't ever read that he was born in Finland and lived at Hvitträsk until he was 12, when the family moved to Michigan in 1922. The house at Hvitträsk, his father and the group of talented architects there certainly influenced his architectural style which had a more modern flair while still retaining some of the softness and organic forms. It is interesting to see the house and the contents not only because it is a stunning work of art, but also as a monument to some of the greatest architecture that was ever built and those who designed and built it. Why can't or why don't we have buildings like these anymore?

permalink Ω 23 April 2004, Helsinki

Dustbowl

I've never been a big fan of springtime with all the, "In like a lion, out like a lamb", quips regarding its variable weather. I like weather that isn't going to change its mind at mid-day that 13C with sunshsine isn't doing it for Mother Nature and decides that snow flurries are much better. If spring were a person, she'd get a free trip to the local nuthouse and be prescribed Zoloft for those mood swings after a few days of that crap. The weather has been gorgeous this year with only one brief winter flashback a few weeks ago so I can't complain. It's warmer now than it was in June last year and I was even sweating today. I don't know that I'll be able to return south during the warm months ever again as I might melt or burst into flames.

Helsinki has an altogether different hazard of spring; grit. Where once stood mounds of snow remain only piles of pea gravel on the sidewalks and streets. After months of being driven and walked over while embedded in the snow and ice, the thick gravel gets ground into the pavement which generates tons of ultra-fine dust and grit awaiting a breeze to set it aloft. Since the weather has been warm and dry, Helsinki is a swirling dustbowl of this grit, especially on days with strong winds. Even a passing car, bus, tram or train can leave you diving for cover from the ensuing gritty backwash that makes it hard to breathe. You feel it cover your hair, your face and, worst of all, your mouth. I watched a grit devil come speeding up the street towards me and even though I turned my back to it and covered my camera, I still felt like I had just been rolling in a sand dune. While the rest of the world worries about the loss of topsoil, Finland replenishes it every spring. HB's fur has a surface area approximately equal to that of Texas, so he loves all the dirt procurement opportunities the grit season has to offer. Perhaps I should just sow some seeds on him and cultivate a chia-chia garden. :)

There are those who say that spring officially begins in Helsinki when the streets and sidewalks are cleaned, the grit removed and the cafés resume outdoor service. Grit removal is a serious and coordinated business with the street cleaners traversing the city in a grid. Signs are placed a week in advance to warn those who park along the street that they will be towed if they park there on the designated day. The crews come with their own tow trucks who stay pretty busy since they tow all the violating cars to the block that they just cleaned. I'd love to see the faces of some of the drivers who come looking for their car only to find it has mysteriously moved one block over. I'm sure the ticket and the tow charge they receive in the mail or under the wiper is far less mysterious. :) I've been hoping for a good Missouri-style gulleywasher to freshen things up, but the street cleaners and the fog of dirt should be over in another week or so, just in time for Vappu to fill the streets with summertime dirt.

permalink Ω 20 April 2004, Helsinki

I, I Aku Ankka

"I, Donald Duck - 70 years in the life of a duck" is an exhibit at the Päivälehti Museum between now and 31 December 2004. Jarkko and I visited it last week and I took a few pictures. Donald Duck, a.k.a. Aku Ankka, is incredibly popular in Finland and it's charming when I see an older man sitting on a plane caressing the pages of the latest Aku Ankka magazine. I had never heard of this national addiction until Jarkko took me aside one afternoon to break the news to me that he had 30 years of Aku Ankka comic book serials in storage at his parent's house and that they would really like their garage space back. It took a moment for it to sink in that I had married a grown man who reads Disney comic books. I could understand a porn collection or a few boat anchors masquerading as old computers, but a fetish for a duck who doesn't wear pants? Donald Duck was quite possibly the last secret vice I would have imagined. :)

The exhibit had a brochure with a brief description of the history of Aku Ankka in Finland, the items on display and why Finns have a special fondness for the half-naked quacker. It doesn't mention, however, that Aku Ankka has been given awards for its outstanding use of the Finnish language. Jarkko has often pointed out some clever passages or regional dialects and encouraged me to start reading the comics to help my Finnish language lessons along. I'm going to have to give it a try and buy some of my own since I suspect Jarkko wouldn't like me mussing his copies.

The Disney character Donald Duck - Aku Ankka in Finnish - made his debut in the movie "A Wise Little Hen" on June 9, 1934. Subsequent research puts the official date of his birth at March 13, when his egg was laid. Donald Duck first appeared in cartoon strips on September 16, 1934.

It is no surprise that Donald Duck should be the Finnish favourite among the various Disney characters as he somewhat resembles the soldier Sven Dufva and the farmer Paavo, two epic characters of Finnish national poet J.L. Runeberg. Life is tough but one gets by. At work, for instance, Donald often finds himself in a desperate situation but he is always ready to meet any new challenge.

The Donald Duck 70th Anniversary Exhibition at the Päivälehti Museum introduces the house where Donald lives with his three nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie. The exhibition assembles the furniture usually found in Donald's home: the armchair, round rug, book case, TV set and the nephews' three-layer bed. Over the years Donald Duck has introduced the Finns to several interesting details in the American way of life and American culture. [from the brochure in Finnish these 'interesting details' are: Santa Claus, apple pie, round metal garbage cans, round door handles and Television.]

Aku Ankka, the Finnish Donald Duck cartoon strip, first appeared in the daily Helsingin Sanomat in May 1936 and in the tabloid Ilta-Sanomat in February 1941. The definitive breakthrough came in 1951 when the publisher, the Sanoma Corporation, began to issue the comic book Aku Ankka. It so happened that the first issue appeared on Walt Disney's birthday, December 5th. The first edition printed 34,017 copies. In 1951-1952 it was printed at the press on Ludviginkatu Street - the building that now houses the Päivälehti Museum. In 2003, Aku Ankka was Finland's largest magazine, with a circulation of 294,500.

Films occupy a leading role in the world of Donald Duck and so he has a movie theatre of his own in the exhibition. Donald has appeared as the principal character in a total of 128 Disney movies of which eight have been nominated for Oscars. He got an Oscar for the propaganda film "Der Führer's Face" in 1943.

The birthday celebrations at the Päivälehti Museum continue through the year. The exhibition provides a substantial program with a variety of themes and events. Welcome to the World of Donald Duck!

permalink Ω 13 April 2004, Helsinki

Truth in Advertising?

Perhaps it is because I come from a culture where advertising pervades every aspect of waking life and which wouldn't surprise me if paid product placements would start appearing in our dreams, but I give some extra attention and curiosity to the advertising in Finland. I've noticed that Finnish advertising tends to lean towards a more straightforward and clean style than much of the aggressive in your face advertisements in the US. This is not to say that both countries don't have their own respective loads of crap, but overall I think the softer sell and elegant design is more attractive. However, I wasn't prepared for a new trend of blatant truth in advertising lately. It's refreshing, yet disturbing since it goes against all the usual rules of the advertising grift.

The ad above is from last weeks Nyt Magazine which is attempting to recruit young engineering students with "Sex can wait...". Never mind that the guy is dressed like a 1970s fashion disaster complete with afro and seriously tragic rainbow shades, is telling young nerds the truth that their chances of getting laid are so slim that years of toiling for an engineering degree is a far better option a successful sales ploy? I mean, I've spent my life around these sorts of guys who at the mere mention of the word boobies go completely quiet. Sure, sex can wait, but getting an engineering degree isn't going to make you dress better, bathe regularly or get you laid, ever. Well, unless you come into some serious cash which, in Finland at least, probably isn't going to happen. So, I think the slogan needs a little tweaking to something more like, "Those who can get laid get MBAs. Those who can't, become engineers. Enroll in our engineering program now!" Sex can sell anything as even the most casual observation of modern advertising will show, but not getting sex as a marketing tactic? It's hilarious, brutally honest and I'd love to see if their enrollment increases. :)

[update: Ignatz sent me the American version of the sex can wait advertising ploy. The billboard is sponsored by the Kansas City Missouri Department of Health. Did I miss the memo that engineering is the new priesthood? Does sex make you stupid? What? The unwritten subtext to this billboard is that KC is much like St. Louis in that the black population live in the post-apocalyptic downtown with an educational system handicap. So, the real message here is something like "We already have enough black crackhead single mothers so dream that you can get into and afford a college education and, while you're at it, keep your dick in your pants." Of course, studies show that kids who participate in these 'just say no to sex until marriage' campaigns still have sex and often unprotected sex. Maybe the government will start offering scholarships for abstainers through their churches as soon as Dumbya gets a second term.]

The Finnish Army also has a new campaign which has a poster that shows a doctor's Porsche, an engineer's BMW [which still won't get them laid], and a soldier's car that makes a Boston beater Yugo held together with duct tape look good. In the US this ad would be amusing, yet deadly. As the North St. Louis wise old saying goes, "You can sleep in yo' car, but you can't drive yo' house." A more pure or elegant distillation of the American love affair with the automobile would be hard to come by. The US TV commercials for the Marines always show an attractive, beefcake white guy wrestling with some demonic enemy in a video game style of unreality. Honesty is refreshing but reality has not been a traditional tactic in military recruitment. The classic "Uncle Sam Wants You" poster is brief for a reason since finishing the sentence would leave less to the imagination and the power of your mind to see what it wants to see. I wonder what happens to the engineering student who graduates and goes into the Army. Well, I guess if they're not getting laid, a sexy car won't seem so important.

[update: Jarkko has informed me that I have been had. :) I did wonder about the kil.fi domainname but considering Helsinki is hel.fi and Finland hasn't deployed armed forces outside of Finland, I didn't give it more than a passing thought. It is, apparently, a parody of mil.fi attempting to dissuade people from joining up. I suppose I should feel a bit better that it took him a little while to catch on to the joke. :) So much for my optimisim about truth in advertising.]

I'll hope to see this trend continue into the fashion and cosmetics industries where reality is in cryogenic suspension. And what about those foods that advertise themselves as 100% "organic"? :) That always cracks me up, but maybe that's because I'm a chemist. I don't know that advertising culture could survive a trend towards honesty, but it certainly would be entertaining to see more of it since it is charming and compelling in a field of carefully crafted manipulations of varying levels of integrity.

permalink Ω 3 April 2004, Helsinki

The Fazer Chicken

Easter is defined by calendrical engineers as "Easter Sunday is the first Sunday after the first full moon after vernal equinox." I have a hard time remembering what day of the week it is most of the time so I rely on a far more simple algorithm to determine when Easter is approaching; the arrival of Easter candy in the stores. It is less precise but accurate enough since the candy is the best part of the holiday.

Mämmi is back in the groceries, little hens and chickens are everywhere, chocolate bunnies, feathers, daffodils in pots and grass seed packets at the cashier since it's traditional to grow some small pot of grass for the return of the sun and warm weather. I didn't notice the Fazer Mignon eggs last year but these are the neatest Easter chocolates ever. They are real eggshells filled with an almond-hazelnut milk chocolate. The logistics of eating one of these eggs is complex and merits more study. The egg shell is removed rather easily with a brief bit of refrigeration. However, getting your teeth around a rather large, solid chunk of chocolate can produce at least 10 minutes of pure entertainment. Those who prefer to eat, not wear, their chocolate might use an egg slicer on a reasonably warm egg. The box mentions that these have been around for more than 100 years....

Mignon is an Easter tradition created by Karl Fazer in 1896, the second oldest product in Fazer's range. A genuine eggshell filled with fine nougat chocolate made with almonds and nuts. In the olden days they were delivered as an Easter treat even to the Tsar of Russia and his family....

What is it about Tsars and eggs? :) Anyway, I bought a few of these eggs, just to see if they were real eggshells and my results are inconclusive since, although they look and feel like real eggshells, the eggs are all perfectly sized. Does Finland have a chicken that lays identically sized, blemish-free eggs just in time for Easter? If so, I wonder if the chicken is pals with the Cadbury Crème egg rabbit or the Marshmallow Peeps. :)

update ~ Two people sent me links to articles about the Fazer Mignon eggs written in Finnish. I am amazed to find out that they are not only real egg shells, but that they are filled by hand, all 2.5 million of them each year. I made PDFs of the two articles and added translations for those who might be curious: Finnfood's Mignon - A Perennial Favorite of Easter [approx. 60k] and Mignon - the Classic of Easter Eggs [approx. 258k].

permalink Ω 19 March 2004, Helsinki

All Must Die

A Finn embraces their inner Darth Vader and a paint pen.

The New York Times had an article A Word to Finns: 'For Your Own Good, Blow Your Top' [pdf] the other day and it is the most banal and cliché story I've read about Finland in the US media yet. I don't know if there has been a single story written in the US press that doesn't comment on how quiet or sullen the Finns seem in comparison to the chatty yankees, save maybe the ones about Nokia when they remember it isn't a Japanese company. The article is full of stereotypes and it confuses suppressing emotions with being taciturn. Non-Finns seem to take particular offense at this cultural difference but I find the silence is one of the most endearing features of Finnish culture. Never again will I ever have to politely endure some random person telling me how their husband is screwing the babysitter while waiting to pay for my groceries or comment on the weather.

Imagine, if you will, the young Anakin Skywalker, Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. The young Anakin and Luke were both in touch with their feelings, both lovesick puppies making an ass out of themselves and generally blithering idiots whom the force would have done well to seal their gaping, whining oral cavities. Darth Vader on the other hand was a guy dressed in a stylish black ensemble, like many Finns and, aside from the heavy breathing, spoke only occasionally in a basso profundo voice. Darth was in touch with his feelings as he reached out to Luke to inform him that he was his father and then later that he would die. Darth was a no-frills, in touch with his inner dark side kind of guy. Quiet, thoughtful, no whining. Who would you rather share a land speeder with, whiny Luke or wheezing Darth? No contest, really.

Here, experts say, a car accident brings, not blame and insults, but a polite exchange of information. A bus breakdown causes no complaints; rather, the Finns on the bus will file off and try to push it to the next stop.
[...]
Here, it is not unusual to walk into a restaurant and spot most people eating dinner in silence, content to chew and not chatter. Silence is a sign of wisdom and good manners, not boredom and half-wittedness.

Oh my god, a whole busload of people who, instead of bitching about the bus, the personal inconvenience and threatening to sue the driver for making them late, these people shut up and get the bus moving again! Clearly, this is a sick, sick, culture that needs a swift infusion of more American TV shows and movies so that they can get the script right! We were out to dinner at a Russian restaurant recently and it must have been obnoxiously loud yankee night as there were 3 groups of them surrounding a few tables of quiet Finns who looked positively terrorized, ourselves included. It's possible to dine without conversation and not have to wonder if you're killing yourself with silence and kermaviili.

Silence is a beautiful thing when you witness the sheer power it has to make people feel extremely uncomfortable without even trying. I watched a CEO of a company who was interviewing Jarkko and I together nearly turn himself inside out because Jarkko did what came naturally. It was a beautiful and sublime moment that I still regret not having captured on video. I've had countless Americans ask me if Jarkko 'hated' them because he didn't chat them up in a social situation. I'll admit that the first time we met his silent stare didn't really communicate his fond feelings and, in fact, I thought I had bored him into a near coma, but it eventually worked out in the end. :)

While it may be true that Finns do not emote enough, it may be due to the fact that it's just not really practical in a world that is mostly self-absorbed and doesn't really give a damn about your personal problems. Every time someone asks you, "How are you?", they are expecting a "Fine. You?" response to the script. They aren't asking for the litany of woe you might have. Save the emoting for people who care. Perhaps it would be more prudent to have classes in how to listen to other people and be sensitive instead. When people talk a lot it doesn't mean they are dealing with their feelings. My father was a gregarious man who loved to talk but what killed him was years of indigestion/acid reflux due to being a closet worry wart that eventually caused esophageal cancer. It's not the emotions or that you tell someone about them rather how you internalize them. An anger management class isn't likely to change your lifestyle or behavioural patterns overnight if at all.

I mean, the president has something like a 90 percent approval rating --please," Dr. Furman said. "For our country to keep up with competitiveness, we need to respond differently.

Yes, Finland needs to have a president like Dumbya to really be competitive since his approval rating is down and most of the world thinks he's an idiot unlike Tarja Halonen who is a smart woman doing a good job that people approve of as well as being a respected leader among other nations. A president the people elect and like must be a sign of a fucked up culture for sure! A seething pool of dissent and countless hours of ranting talking heads flinging poo at each other like monkies would be much, much better. Think of all the political pundit blogs Finland could have! Thanks Dr., I needed a good laugh. Have you considered relocating to the US?

So, I hope Finland keeps to its cultural pride in sisu and silence and doesn't go the way of the US with their own Jerry Springer show and people venting petty, selfish anger at every available opportunity. Embrace your inner Darth Vader, not your inner Luke Skywalker, and exploit the power of silence. Building a death star would be kinda cool, too. Even Russia wouldn't mess with Finland then. :) For the non-Finns I recommend getting a large dog and walking it daily as HB nearly always draws a crowd of friendly, chatty Finns out on the sidewalk.

permalink Ω 14 March 2004, Helsinki

Wireless Finland

The Helsingin Sanomat ran an article in the paper earlier this week about the growing number of wireless access points in Helsinki and around Finland. The article included a nice map noting the locations which I scanned in and offer here in a small ~60k jpg and a large ~240k jpg. It seems that most of the current hot spots are catering to the business traveller judging from the number of hotels and business centers listed. There are a few cafes and a movie theatre or two listed though and my hope is that it finds sufficient interest to keep spreading. I've had wireless at home for years now and find it luxurious to sit on the couch with my laptop even now. I'd really like to see WiFi in public libraries in addition to more coffee shops since students would benefit a lot from being able to use their own computer while doing research or homework.

There are two companies offering WiFi; Sonera and DNA. DNA seems to be geared more towards the local geeks and ala carte folks while Sonera is mainly in the hotel and business traveller market. Sonera Homerun doesn't appear to have a pricing structure on the net. The DNA WLAN service has three different price plans which range from €5 per month with a per minute fee to €90 for those with a serious porn habit and large downloads.

Until mobile phones get much more sophisticated displays, surfing the net or reading email with them more than occasionally isn't as attractive as having a small laptop and WiFi in convenient spots around town. WiFi really means WIreless FInland. :)

permalink Ω 28 February 2004, Helsinki

Film Heroes

I noticed a poster for a photo exhibit in a camera shop window and decided to go have a look since the theme was interesting. Valkokankaan Sankarit, Heroes of the Screen, is a provocative collection of photographs by Malla Hukkanen taken around Finland of tiny movie theatres that are quickly becoming a thing of the past. Hukkanen tells the story of these indie theatres in vivid colour on 35mm and panoramic film. I took my time looking at the faces of the people he captured so poignantly in and around their theatres and wondered if they were still in business. I'd love to see more of his work.

I have never really liked the giant 20 screen megaplex theatres that are so common in the US nowadays as they often show the same movies for weeks on end, have stale popcorn and they're as large and impersonal as a shopping mall. The small independent theatres have fresh popcorn, interesting films and often a small staff who remember your name if you're a movie junkie. It's ironic how the people who evangelise how the internet and social software are "revolutionising" our social lives when, at every turn, nearly every part of our daily lives away from the computer are becoming more and more impersonal and isolated. Hukkanen's photos will likely be a testament to the future of a time when people went to see movies and each other without the aid of a computer.

The Living Picture Museum [Elävän Kuvan Museo] is hidden away in a small warehouse in an out of the way neighbourhood, but it has an impressive collection of projection cameras and movie theatre ephemera, including an ushers costume from Kinopalatsi last worn in the 1960s. It's a short walk from the Sörnäinen metro station and it's worth the trip if you wax nostalgic over old movie theatres or enjoy photography that tells a story.

Living Picture Museum: Heroes of the Screen
Vanha Talvitie 9, Verkkosaari, Sörnäinen

Open: 29 Jan through 28 Feb 2004, Tues - Sun 12-6pm
Free admission!

permalink Ω 17 February 2004, Helsinki

Kiasma

It seems common practise that people don't go see the sights and attractions in the city they live in either because they think that they should go elsewhere to see the sights or that they might look like a tourist in their own city. This is why I enjoy having visitors from elsewhere to give me an excuse to visit places I've not been to before, even though they're right down the street. Last week we went to Kiasma, Helsinki's contemporary art museum, with a friend visiting from the US. The exhibits are a bit of a mixed bag, but it is a fine collection overall. I especially liked the "Faster than History" exhibit, a collection of artwork from Baltic countries which included a series of photographs of 3 shivering men clad only in underwear standing in front of churches and a number of film shorts, a few of which had me laughing out loud. The artwork in the picture is "Gun. So What?" if I remember it correctly. There was a gun on a tripod and several bottles suspended on a plate of glass with a light lending a dramatic effect. The way it came out in the photograph, taken with a Lomo, is pretty cool as it looks like a bullseye drawn with light.

permalink Ω 14 February 2004, Helsinki

Penkkarit

Penkkarit photos

Last year around this time, I was walking home in my post-Finnish class daze when, seemingly out of nowhere, trucks filled with drunken kids throwing candy at people on the sidewalks began whizzing down the Esplanadi. I wondered what in the hell was going on and called Jarkko who didn't remember right away what the mayhem was all about. It's called penkkarit, the day that 18-year old students get to dress up, get drunk, pile into trucks and throw candy at people while driving around the city. People all over the city hoot and wave at them as they go by and even the elderly stoop down to pick up the sweets littering the sidewalks. What a fun thing to do. I was thinking that there would be no way that kids could do this in the US since noone would eat the candy for fear of it being tainted with anthrax or somesuch. It's good to see that there are some places left where kids can still have harmless fun. :)

I had planned to go down to the harbor and take pictures of the kids gathering there, but I was running late and didn't make it in time. Taking photos of rapidly moving objects and people with a manual camera does present a bit of a challenge, especially when the sun keeps popping in and out of the clouds and wrecking your exposure setting. :)

permalink Ω 14 February 2004, Helsinki

A year later

Yesterday, we celebrated the anniversary of our arriving here one year ago and today I remembered why I don't get drunk very often...the day after. :)

When we left Boston last year, both Iceland and Helsinki were warmer at the time even though friends and family were joking about how cold it would be in Finland. I was filled with both relief of getting everything done in time and anxiety for relocating to the great mostly unknown. It has been an interesting year with something new nearly every day. Relocating from Denver to Milwaukee isn't like expatriating to a place where everything including the language is utterly different than anything you're used to. It's a radical change even when you know what to expect. I had prepared myself for most of the issues that face expats though it was still a year of difficult times and difficult language classes. I remain optimistic about learning the language, but I think it will take a bit longer than I had originally anticipated.

I rode with Jarkko's father, HB and the bags from the airport in a borrowed van while Jarkko and his mother took a cab. I hadn't seen the apartment prior to our arrival and when Erkki turns to me as we were climbing the stairs and says, "It was a bit of a compromise." I braced myself for the worst-case scenario and the apartment was a lot better than I had feared after he said that. The wind howled and whistled through the bedroom window that night and I started to wonder why I couldn't have married someone from the British Virgin Islands or Fiji. :) We spent the next six months renovating the apartment and taking Finnish language classes so I didn't really have a lot of time to ponder the depths of the insanity of moving to Finland until midsummer and by then I found that I had grown quite fond of this small corner of the Nordic lands.

I don't really have any words of wisdom or insight on being an expat because I have seen that nearly everyone has a different experience. Adjusting to Finland has been difficult at times and easy at other times, but it hasn't been dull. You can prepare yourself for the larger obstacles, such as the language barrier, but the little things like not finding peanut butter where you expect to find it in the grocery are what will send you into bouts of petty despair. The dark, foggy days of November sneak up on you when you aren't looking, too. It has been a year of challenge and adjustment but I am curious to see how long it will be before Finland becomes as familiar and comfortable as home. I hope it isn't terribly soon as I'm still enjoying the newness of everything which people don't get the opportunity to enjoy very often in life, especially now that world is becoming a smaller, more familiar landscape all the time.

permalink Ω 25 January 2004, Helsinki

Stencils of Mischief

One of the people behind all the colourful and creative stencil art around town noticed a few of the pictures I had taken and pointed out the new Stencils of Mischief website showcasing the "graffiti with aerosoul" :)

Helsinki has hundreds of adorable but sad looking concrete turtles which are often deployed as moorings for pedestrian signage which could really benefit from a bunch of creative people armed with paint giving them new personality. It would be a fun project to get all these stencil people together and put them on a large installation piece of repainting all of the Helsinki concrete turtles in a similar fashion as the NYC cow art exhibit except that the turtles are permanent.

permalink Ω 14 January 2004, Helsinki

Fun with Lomo

A gallery of my first Lomo pictures

I bought a Lomo LC-A camera in the beginning of December and got the prints from my first two rolls I shot with it today. What a fun little camera that makes such groovy pictures! Sadly, due to the cold weather or my fumbling, half of the 2nd roll didn't get printed since the film got a wee bit mangled when I was rewinding it. I had to go huddle in the dark of the loo, open the camera up and rewind it carefully with the backdoor hanging open which left a few bits of film confetti on the floor. There were some good shots in the chewed up film from what I can tell from the negatives. The luddite joys of a film camera. :)

The pictures were scanned and sized for the web, nothing more. The colours are crazy without any help from photoshop. The sushi picture is my favourite as we were just having dinner at the yo-sushi-esque place in town on a rather slow Sunday night and I thought I'd take a few pictures just for grins. There's a retro hyperrealism/surrealism that I really find attractive. The neon and the Christmas lights are amazing considering that the film was 100ISO and I didn't use a tripod. Still, these photos taken with a cheapo Russian camera are in some ways far better than the ones I took with the 10D at 1/15th the price. I hope it isn't just beginners luck with the Lomo and that I get even better at taking freaky fun photos.

permalink Ω 3 January 2004, Helsinki

Helsinki Dog Parks

Dog park activists in the US would salivate over the number of dog parks in Helsinki. When I was looking for papers on the import of HB last December, I saw a list of parks, but with little other information about them, at least not in English. It has been a long year and I've had to figure out much on my own. In August, I decided that as a project I would go around to all the dog parks in downtown, photograph and take notes on them, and put the information together in a sort of dog park guide. I also had Jarkko do the rough translation of the dog owner guide Helsinki has available but not in English. I scanned the illustrated pages in and polished the English up a bit. The guide is small, but contains a bit of useful information for dog owners.

Both of these are available in .pdf format and, if you live in Helsinki or are planning on moving here with a dog, I'd really like feedback as well as any other information you might like to see added. The dog park guide is still being fussed over so comments are very welcome. The email address is in the document. I also put some of the unused pictures up in a photo gallery which some may enjoy.

• Helsinki Dog Owner Guide
• The Dog Parks of Downtown Helsinki
• Photos of the Helsinki Dog Parks

permalink Ω 3 January 2004, Helsinki

Rare Exports, Inc.

Finland exports more than just Nokia phones and this short film details the production of the most rare of Finnish exports. The large version [66mb] is worth the download if you have a highspeed connection. Yanks with a hang-up about naked male bums should likely refrain from watching this film. It's utterly delightful and narrated in English. [from PIE.]

permalink Ω 27 December 2003, Helsinki

Holiday photos and megawatt redux

A snapshot from a Christmas long ago which proves that my lack of fashion sense started very early in life. :) A few random pictures I took before the holiday and a few from Christmas Eve are up in the Christmas 2003 photo album which will probably be interesting only to family. Others that weren't as good are in the xmas03/etal/ directory. I may add some photos to it after I get the film developed and see if there are any good ones worth viewing.

Finland celebrates Christmas on the Eve rather than the day of Christmas like the US and other countries. Dinner consists of a traditional ham and a variety of side dishes such as potato and carrot casseroles. I was asked what was traditional in the US for Christmas dinner but I couldn't really offer a decisive answer other than "food". Eila made a lovely dinner and Kirsi baked a few delicious cookies and a chocolate bundt cake which I'm glad I wasn't left alone with along with a jug of milk. :)

Two years ago I collected a bunch of photos for what I presented in "2001: A Massachusetts Christmas Photographic Odyssey". I culled the better ones, resized them a bit more uniformly and put them in an album, Merry Megawatt Christmas 2001. A few houses were added at the suggestion of Babbage who lives next to people whose homes are runway beacons for Logan. This year, Chris wrote to tell me about his pictures from this years' display and a disturbing video of the most obscene house. What is most entertaining for me is seeing what a difference 2 years make in the accretion of kitsch. In 2001, there were 2 reindeer flying and this year there are 9 reindeer, complete with red-nosed rudolph. :) I quiver at the thought of the size of the electric bill these folks must have over the holidays.

permalink Ω 26 December 2003, Helsinki

Statuary snow

Snow makes everything brighter, softer and more quiet. I've often thought that this statue of Elias Lönnrot, compiler of the Kalevala epic, was a bit creepy. The snow seems to accentuate the ghoulish expressions but in a snowy, fuzzy, friendly kind of way. :)

permalink Ω 22 December 2003, Helsinki

Snow Job

The next time you think you've got it rough sitting in a warm office on a cold day, think of this poor bastard shovelling snow off a pitched roof with only a little bungee cord to keep him from plunging 50 or so meters into the street below. It's still snowing and bloody windy too.

permalink Ω 22 December 2003, Helsinki

A little Latitude goes a long way

As a former 'southlander', I used to think that I understood what the Winter solstice was all about and thought that, while Stonehenge was cool, weren't the Druids going just a bit nutty over the whole sun thing? :) Unless you've lived above 60° latitude in the Northern Hemisphere, the depths of Winter darkness and the glory of Summertime sunshine aren't nearly as dramatically different. I completely understand now why pagans sacrificed anything that was available and prayed to a goat in order to hasten the return of the glowing orb on the horizon. A few degrees of latitude make a big difference. Small wonder that people in the Caribbean didn't make henges as they were too busy drinking fine rum and enjoying 11 or more hours of sunshine every day of the year. So, before the folks who get a luxurious 10 hours of sunshine on the shortest day of the year go dancing around a fire and whatnot, come spend a winter up here where the solstice really means something. Bring your boots though as it has been snowing for nearly 2 days now. :)

Also, I might note that the Astro::Sunrise module sees the Arctic darkness above the circle as an error which I may have to report as a bug since I guess it would also think that the sun never setting in the Summertime as an error too. It happens every year, twice a year and for several months :)

Muonio, Finland
Temp: -36C/-33F
Conditions: Clear
Humidity: 79%
Long: 23.6667, Lat: 67.9667
Sunrise: 12:24  Sunset: 12:24
Length of day: 0.00 hours  Sun never rises!!
-------------------------------------
Rovaniemi, Finland
Temp: -23C/-9F
Conditions: Clear
Humidity: 77%
Long: 25.6667, Lat: 66.4833
Sunrise: 11:08  Sunset: 13:23
Length of day: 2.25 hours
-------------------------------------
Helsinki, Finland
Temp: -8C/18F
Conditions: Moderate Snow
Humidity: 91%
Long: 25.000, Lat: 60.133
Sunrise: 09:24  Sunset: 15:13
Length of day: 5.82 hours
-------------------------------------
London, United Kingdom
Temp: 1C/34F
Conditions: Partly Cloudy
Humidity: 75%
Long: -0.1667, Lat: 51.5000
Sunrise: 08:04  Sunset: 15:54
Length of day: 7.83 hours
-------------------------------------
Central Park, New York
Temp: 3C/37F
Conditions: Clear
Humidity: 48%
Long: -74.0000, Lat: 40.7000
Sunrise: 07:17  Sunset: 16:32
Length of day: 9.25 hours
-------------------------------------
St. Louis, Missouri
Temp: 10C/50F
Conditions: Overcast
Humidity: 62%
Long: -90.1833, Lat: 38.6167
Sunrise: 07:15  Sunset: 16:43
Length of day: 9.47 hours
-------------------------------------
Miami, Florida
Temp: 14C/57F
Conditions: Mostly Cloudy
Humidity: 88%
Long: -80.1833, Lat: 25.7667
Sunrise: 07:03  Sunset: 17:35
Length of day: 10.53 hours
-------------------------------------
St. Croix, Virgin Islands
Temp: 23C/73F
Conditions: Scattered Clouds
Humidity: 94%
Long: -64.7333, Lat: 17.7667
Sunrise: 06:46  Sunset: 17:49
Length of day: 11.05 hours

permalink Ω 22 December 2003, Helsinki

Matka Suomeen

While waiting for Tennispalatsi to open the doors to the theatre for the Return of the King I noticed a photo exhibit which was likely placed there for the RotK crowds. The exhibit is promoting a new book from Otava Press, Matka Suomeen, Journey into Finland, by Pekka Luukkola [ there is a sample pdf at the bottom of the page ]. The text is in both Finnish and English with photos covering all regions of Finland. The photos are beautiful and the details of Finland throughout history complement them to make the book a very pleasing whole. The price is about 50€,ISBN 951-1-18925-5, but I think it's a worthy investment for anyone who enjoys excellent photography, loves Finland or who has family elsewhere on the globe who imagine Finland as something a bit like a post-glasnost ex-Russian province. I've had people in the US ask me if we can get UPS or Fed-Ex in Finland so embrace your denial and send a copy to the family back home who think you live in a hovel next to the red factory.

permalink Ω 21 December 2003, Helsinki

Tiernapojat

Yet another unusual Christmas tradition imported to Finland by the Swedish is something called the Tiernapojat, a sort of roving band of Magi players who sing and perform on Christmas Eve. There aren't any Carolers in Finland so I suppose that in order to comply with some EU regulation Finland adopted the Tiernapojat. :) I asked Jarkko last night about the blackface king since I wondered if he was some obscure Finnish LotR character I wasn't familiar with. Being the expert on guiding me through his native culture he told me to look it up on google....so I did.

Tiernapojat, also known as tähtipojat ("Star Boys"), have been around a long time--for centuries. Students in old Oulu, a town in Northwestern Finland, who were in need of some extra cash, put together a Christmas pageant with singing, costumes and dialogue that has its roots in the Medieval mystery play. This little show was then taken "on the road," from house to house, and after the performance, donations were solicited in the form of a few coins. The story was of the maggi visiting King Herod and Baby Jesus, told with boyish vim and vigor. (It becomes quickly evident that tiernapojat is a distant echo of the Spanish Posada and Reyes Magos.)

I also wonder if the Mänkki, the star twirler, who has the exact same costume as the boys in the St. Lucia procession are somehow connected. Perhaps one costume influenced the other or one tradition borrowed from the other. I'd be curious to see Tiernapojat perform but I don't suppose that they come around to apartment houses in downtown.

permalink Ω 18 December 2003, Helsinki

Pixel Pointillista

There is an art gallery on Bulevardi that I walk past fairly often which usually has some really funky looking art in it but for the last few weeks I've noticed some art that I like. The artists name is Sami Lukkarinen and he apparently uses photoshop to pixelate photographs which he then uses as a guide to paint. The high-brow artsy description of his work doesn't mention what I find interesting about his pieces which is that he has taken a very old technique and somehow made it different with the use of photoshop and the colours he chooses.

The artist has one painting that is obviously derived from a picture of the foot of the Eiffel Tower. Somehow, even without the details, it is familiar and known. The square pixels also lend a certain feeling of order which is strangely comforting. I may have to select a picture of HB and try painting a portrait of him using this technique since an art teacher of mine in gradeschool had us do a painting using the technique but this was long before photoshop came along.

n.b. Well, the alleged Eiffel picture is actually a Finnish church. I suppose that should have been obvious had I realised that the entire exhibit was of churches. I have an aversion to churches so I think I like the Eiffel idea better. :) Still, there is something familiar about them even when you think it's something completely different than what it really is.

permalink Ω 17 December 2003, Helsinki

Joulupolku

A selection of photos from the Joulupolku, the Christmas Walk, on Seurasaari on Sunday. It was a dark grey day that became a dark snowy evening with not much illumination so it's not a stellar collection of photos.

Seurasaari is an island very close to downtown Helsinki that is both an outdoor culture museum featuring historical architecture from all regions of Finland as well as being home to many furry-eared squirrels. I read a blurb in the Helsinki tourism guide that there was going to be a Christmas walk event on the island for a few hours. I grabbed my camera and took Jarkko along in spite of his cold thinking it would be good for us both to get out of the house.

A minor detail that the program failed to mention was that the event was for children and that children attending should bring a torch/lamp/source of illumination and 1 handmade ornament for decorating a tree. Had I known about the torch request beforehand, in addition to the weather, I likely would have left my camera at home. When we arrived the place was teeming with cars, more cars, hundreds of small children and a legion of prams.

It was sorta fun wandering around the island watching kids with miner style headlamps cavort about like they had been fed crack and looking for stuff in the dark and snow. Giant squirrels were handing out cookies and pedestrian reflectors, carolers were singing, warm rice porridge was being served and sausages cooked. Around what I have dubbed the scary Nazgul Nativity there was a collection of Christmas peace candles, some of which had been carefully placed within snowball containers to help keep the wind at bay. The handmade ornaments were adorable as were the gingerbread cookies left out for Santa. On the dance grounds there was singing about porridge and dancing in circles. And, of course, there was the Joulupukki and Mrs. Joulupukki to tell all the kids they'll all be getting coal this year. :) The trees were lit all around in various colours which had a mystical effect since it was snowing. The last stop on the walk was a few bon fires for people who brought their own sausages to complete the holiday outing with warm, greasy meat enjoyed al fresco amidst the falling snow.

So, next year we'll have to bring a torch, sausages to grill and an ornament or two to put on the tree. I think I'll start reading the event programs in Finnish more often as well since I'm finding that the information is a lot better and more accurate in Finnish.

permalink Ω 16 December 2003, Helsinki

Lucia Light

A few photos from St. Lucia Day in Helsinki.

So, what's an Italian Catholic saint doing strolling about Finland with her eyeballs intact? Good question. :)

John Donne said it thusly in A nocturnall upon S. Lucies day, Being the shortest day:

Tis the yeares midnight, and it is the dayes,
Lucies,who scarce seaven houres herself unmaskes,
The Sunne is spent, and now his flasks
Send forth light squibs, no constant rayes;
The worlds whole sap is sunke:
The generall balme th'hydroptique earth hath drunk,
Whither, as to the beds-feet, life is shrunke,
Dead and enterr'd; yet all these seeme to laugh,
Compar'd with mee, who am their Epitaph...

There is an odd mixture of the pagan and christian traditions in the Nordic countries. The Joulupukki, commonly known as Santa Claus these days, is also represented by the pagan goat where offerings were made to this god in the dark of the year to bring the sun back. Light plays a significant role in many of the celebrations here and so it isn't terribly surprising that the patron saint of light and the blind should be part of the holiday tradition in spite of the Catholics having little success in establishing themselves in the Nordic lands. St. Lucia died a martyr's death asserting her Christianity by refusing to marry the pagan suitor her parents chose for her to wed. Her eyes were torn out but miraculously restored. The day of St. Lucia marks the longest night and the beginning of the 12 days of Christmas.

In Helsinki, the Swedes here appoint a girl to be St. Lucy and sing in her honour. The girl wears a white dress, a red sash, a crown of electric candles and carries a sheaf of wheat. The boys wear white robes, pointy white caps and carry stars though I've no idea what they represent. This year's St. Lucy is the lovely 23 year-old Anna-Charlotta Thibblin.

I stood at the foot of the Tuomiokirkko freezing my arse off for almost 2 hours before she emerged to descend the steps with her entourage. Quite a few children were waiting impatiently for the main event along with me which made me feel a bit like the aged tourist. :) There were more photographers around than flies on a cowpie in summer. Some Japanese film crew set up next to me and I got tired of them hassling me so I jumped the line and moved past the carriage to get a couple of reasonable photos of her. The lighting was difficult since it was either very dark or blindingly light from the spotlight YLE had aimed at her. I felt a bit badly for the other maids and the boys since none of the photogs seemed interested in them. Once she was in the carriage, the parade started to move towards Finlandia Hall but I was terribly disappointed to find that she is at the end of the procession so all of us who waited for her to arrive were deprived of seeing the rest. Something to remember for next year. :)

Now, if I could only get Pavarotti's Santa Lucia out of my head....

permalink Ω 14 December 2003, Helsinki

Infopankki

There is a new Infopankki for immigrants to help ease the transition into Finnish society and to answer some of the most commonly asked questions about social benefits, work, etc.

permalink Ω 13 December 2003, Helsinki

Mita sina sanoa?

In Wednesday's sanomat I saw the picture and article about Pizza Enrico. I couldn't read all of the article but I got the impression from the photo that either Colonel Sander's grandson wearing a gold lamé jacket was visiting Helsinki while drunk or that lounge singers were making a comeback. I was partly right :)

Meet the boys from Vantaa who are Pizza Enrico. The joke is that most, if not all, the pizza kebab joints in town are owned and operated by Turkish guys. The same is true in Boston except they seem to be Pakistani, but I digress. What started out as a joke has apparently mushroomed into a full album. They also take a bit of glee from ribbing the Turks on their bad Finnish by making flagrant use of it on the website and in the lyrics. :) After listening to the Club Mix of Mita sina sanoa? I find that I have a sudden craving for kebab. You'll laugh! You'll cry! You'll kiss far too many euro good-bye!

permalink Ω 11 December 2003, Helsinki

Tuomaan Markkinat

An evening at the Tuomaan Markkinat in vivid colour.

We wandered down to the Tuomaan Markkinat, the St. Thomas' Christmas Market, yesterday evening and had a good time browsing through much of the touristy and non-touristy wares but the best part was the food. The polentadogit are full of everything bad for you but taste terrific. Fresh out of the fryolator, still steaming, a meat sausage coated in a deep-fried polenta batter and eaten while standing in the cold. Delicious. The lohikukko is salmon and fatty bacon rolled into a rye bread crust. A bit salty but tastes great.

The local handicrafts fall into several flavours; woolen/textiles, wood craft, metalwork and food. The things done with wool are beautiful. The sweaters are usually a traditional nordic style but the crazy hats, warm slippers and other items made with wool are colourful and beautifully styled. Items made from wood are no great surprise since much of Finland is forest. You can buy just about anything made from wood but I particularly like the more practical housewares such as the cups and serving trays. I'm not really certain where the metalwork figures into Finland's heritage but the designs are sleek, simple and practical with a few whimsical exceptions like a candleabra shaped like a viking ship. And, there's no shortage of food either. I like Finnish food and there were a few things like the lohikukko that I hadn't seen or tried before.

The market is held on the Esplanadi, [ map of the market from the HS on Monday ~140k ], and is very well attended. The aisle between the bright red tent stalls is rather narrow so the tide of humanity pushing past the vendors makes it rather difficult to browse or take photos. I somehow managed to take a few good photos, one in particular is a vendor modelling a hair towel for a guy who may be purchasing it for some female in his life. I'm intrigued by these people who sell things in a tent in cold weather to the crowds of people who go by each day. Some, like the wacky hat lady, obviously love their job while others have more complex stories to tell and faces to go with them. I'd like to go back and just hang out in one spot for a day just to watch people and stuff go by.

permalink Ω 10 December 2003, Helsinki

Yule Pork

Pigs seem to be everywhere for the holidays in Finland; pig motifs, cookies shaped like pigs, piggy marzipan cakes, big pork roasts for the traditional meal, etc. It's a bit macabre since, you know, Wilbur is not only cute and pink but he's on the menu. I figured that Finland would be all over the reindeer motif, which is the most common in the US, since they seem to have a lot of them in Lapland but I suppose it would traumatise kids on both continents too much if they thought that santa served up the reindeer after hauling his fat arse around the globe in one night. :)

permalink Ω 8 December 2003, Helsinki

Picturing the Past

Under the City Sky, an exhibit of 8600 or more photographs of Helsinki taken between 1969 and 1987 by Eeva and Simo Rista. It's rather fun to look at all the photos from the neighbourhood 30 years ago and barely recognise the area.

Helsinki Panorama: 1866 and 2003. A really interesting comparative panoramic view of Helsinki past and present.

Museum of Photography at the Cable Factory [ Tallberginkatu 1G, open Tues-Sun from 12 to 19 ] I've been meaning to visit the museum before now, but there is an exhibit unti 21 December by Sakari Viika which sounds interesting even if the English description is awkward.

Snow, ice and light are motifs that have been part and parcel of landscape painting and photography throughout their history. Landscapes are pictured for their beauty, uniqueness or wondrousness. Immortalising landscapes is often linked to travelling. Being on the move, seeing new things and recording them are among the photographer's oldest tools, a role imposed by the profession. As a photographer, Sakari Viika belongs to that classical school of photographers who love to travel and are always dreaming of it.

These images were taken within a square kilometre in a landscape that was in No way special. They were taken during the darkest time of the year when life means stillness and monotony. In these images, snow, ice and light form scenery the photographer saw every day on his way from home to his study. Occasionally, the same scenery would change temporarily, natural light luring us on a journey into the moment at hand. Therefore, these images are characteristically silent and still.

The Degree Confluence Project. Jarkko found this one and it's rather interesting if you look at the map. Gaping holes of dark territory are all over the globe. What puzzles me is not why Novaya Zemlya hasn't been fully covered but why so few of the confluences and the pictures taken of them seem to be near anything.

The individual pictures taken as a whole make for an lovely mosaic, but the present incarnation doesn't interest me nearly as much as the 2nd stage of the project to document the changes over time at the various confluences.

permalink Ω 8 December 2003, Helsinki

Punning Wit

I love linguistic punnery and I've been seeing this advertisement around Helsinki for the past few weeks and smiling every time. "Meri" is the Finnish word for "sea" and the advert is for the Viking Line cruise ships. Yeah, it's corny but it's cute. If South Park were on TV here, there could be ads for the Joulupuu [christmas tree - pronounced 'YO-lou-poo'] with a picture of Mr. Hanky draped in tinsel with a star on his head. "Mr. Hanky the joulupuu..." :)

permalink Ω 4 December 2003, Helsinki

Forces of Light 2003

A few photos taken around Suomenlinna and Helsinki during the Forces of Light event.

By some stroke of luck on Saturday night, I figured out that the lights in the Old Church Park, a.k.a. Plague Park, were part of something called Forces of Light. The program describes it:

The Beauty of Dark Helsinki

Forces of Light is a nine-year old urban event. During this time our capital Helsinki has become faster, more colourful and more loud. The mission of Forces of light has been to show the city in a different light - both for the inhabitants as for visitors. With small gestures, Forces of Light has demonstrated that Helsinki in the dark period can be quite an intriguing experience. Open-mindedly the festival has mixed urban planning, art and design - acting close to the people and co-operating with them. Helsinki is the City of Light - even in the darkness.

We took the ferry over to Suomenlinna with a friend, Arabella, and wandered through the handicraft market, various art installations, artists workshops and the museum. Sadly, the schedule was wrong and the parade, which was said to start on Suomenlinna, actually started at Plague Park at 4p and we completely missed it. The Helsingin Sanomat had a small blurb and fuzzy picture of it today with a mention that there was some excitement with one of the torches. This would explain why the torches along Bulevardi weren't lit later in the evening and why the performance at 20.30 in the park was done using glowsticks and blacklight instead of fire. I commend the fire artists who, at the last minute, changed the plan and still gave everyone a good show.

It was really cool, interesting and a lot of fun but, hopefully, next year the organisers will do a bit better job of getting the schedule firmed up and synchronised with all the various places which advertise such events since we would really have liked to see the parade and some of the other events we missed only because of incorrect information.

permalink Ω 1 December 2003, Helsinki

The Fog that was November

Most every day of November was dark, rainy, foggy and, well, dark. :) Hopefully December will at least bring some snow to make things brighter.

permalink Ω 30 November 2003, Helsinki

Piparkakut

Among the traditional holiday cookies in Finland are the piparkakut. They are commonly cut into a round scallop shape but pigs and little boys are the traditional holiday shapes for these delicious cookies.

There are a lot of different recipes out there for piparkakut. The most common variations in the US omit the orange zest and add nuts and/or cardamom. One yankee recipe online had margarine instead of butter. Blech. The Finnish variations seem to all have much the same ingredients but differ in the amounts.

The most important and curious omission is in preparation of the dough. The sugars are brought to a near boil along with the spices and then allowed to cool. Afterwards, the dough is chilled for 8-12 hours. Both of these steps are omitted in all the US variants I found either online or in cookbooks. The sugars in the corn syrup are complex and long so heating allows them to breakdown as well as have the spices mix with the butter. The chilling firms up the dough and gives the dough much more time to develop the complex spice flavours.

If you're not familiar with cooking sugars it's not terribly hard, but you have to be on top of it. It is interesting that the cooking of the sugars is just not present in many recipes and perhaps it is a result of a difference in baking culture or laziness. Corn syrup is generally used to make cookies browner and surface crisper. The acidic orange peel is likely added for aroma as well as to keep the sugars from crystallising into granite hardness. If you want a softer cookie, you could replace the white sugar with brown sugar. Since the cooking of the sugars also involves the butter, don't crank up the burner to 10 as the butter will form solids and burn. Start with a low-medium heat and a whisk and stir it until it looks a bit bubbly then remove it from the heat.

I should make a batch of both the boiled sugar and the non-boiled sugar recipes and see if there is as much a difference in taste as I expect there would be. The recipe is translated and converted from the Finnish classic cookbook, Kotiruoka :)

Piparkakut, Finnish Ginger Cookies

Ingredients

• 250g or 2.5 sticks salted butter
• 2 dl or 1 cup sugar
• 1.5 dl or 3/4 cup dark corn syrup
• 2 eggs
• 3 teaspoons cinnamon
• 3 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon allspice
• 3 teaspoons orange peel zest*
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 8 dl or 5 cups all-purpose white flour

Instructions

1. In a saucepan, bring the corn syrup, sugar, butter and spices to a boil. [ The text in the original recipe doesn't say anything more than boil. This likely doesn't mean the same as a sugar boil for candy. I'd suggest a slow heat, while stirring constantly, until it looks close to boiling. ] Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Add in eggs, slightly beaten.
2. Mix flour and baking soda and sift into bowl containing wet ingredients. Mix well and roll into a ball. Cover bowl and place in refrigerator for 8-12 hours or overnight.
3. Split the dough into two parts. Roll dough to about 1/4-inch or 2-3mm thickness. Cut into shapes and bake at 175C/350F until golden brown, the cookies feel firm to the touch or about 10-15 minutes, whichever comes first. :)

* - Jarkko points out that orange peel in Finland is not from the usual Florida orange, but from the smaller and thinner Moroccan kind of orange. Florida orange peel will likely be fine as well though. :)

permalink Ω 28 November 2003, Helsinki

Lights in Plague Park

Plague Park has a rather unusual collection of lights hanging from a tree. In the darkness they look like a cluster of UFOs hovering. They seem to be made from thin plywood and are adept at collecting water in the pouring rain with each of them tipping a bit like a bucket when enough water has accumulated. I have no idea who put them there or what they are for but they are interesting to look at.

n.b. - Well, it appears that the lights are part of the Forces of Light 2003 celebration which begins on Suomenlinna and winds through the city to Hietalahti Square. There are quite a few events for the dark times as detailed in the Winter program [570k pdf]. The lights are by Jouko Kärkkäinen and titled Puuvalon Aukio.

permalink Ω 27 November 2003, Helsinki

Death of a Snowman

It snowed most of the day yesterday and when we were out walking HB we noticed this sculpted snowbear. Jarkko took this picture with his mobile and when I returned about 15 minutes later with my 10D, someone had already decapitated him :( Whomever built it sculpted lovely eyes, ears along with a smiling mouth and protruding snout. A flourish of an evergreen sprig was placed on top of its head for a final touch. I wanted to drape my scarf around his neck and get a much nicer picture of it since it was so whimsical.

It warmed up overnight and began to rain so most of the snow is gone now anyway.

permalink Ω 24 November 2003, Helsinki

Helsinki Card Game

On Friday I stopped in one of the shops on Bulevardi I pass every day but never enter. I looked around a bit and noticed an interesting deck of cards which claimed to be a Helsinki version of 8 perhettä ja junnu [8 happy families and junnu]. I was curious so I bought a deck. There are 32 cards in the deck, 4 people/families from 8 different neighbourhoods of Helsinki, and Junnu. The way to play the game:

The objective of the game is to collect card pairs of the same colour and district. The cards are dealt and players with-for example two red Alppila cards- put their pairs down. Next, the dealer lifts a card from the player on the left. If the card completes a pair, the pair is put down. Play continues until all the pairs have been formed. The player left holding the Junnu card loses.

It's a cute if not terribly challenging card game. I've been thinking about subjecting Jarkko to playing Scrabble in Finnish if I can find the game here with the abundance of k, ä and ö Finnish words require.

permalink Ω 24 November 2003, Helsinki

My dog the SUV

The new S-Market right around the corner from where we live is next to a nicely sized park. Once in a while when I'd go shopping I would notice a giant great dane tied up outside to a light pole and go over and say hello. Since the market is next to a park where people freqeuently walk their dogs, it's common for many of them to do a quick shop for groceries or beer on the way home so another kind of dog park would be a useful addition. I've never seen explicit signs and tie rings for dogs before and I think it's really quite thoughtful of the store to make it available for pet owners. The area is right outside the entrance, brightly lit with security cameras and has plenty of space between the 5 spots so the giant great dane doesn't get ideas about snacking on the toy poodle next to him. :)

note: the international symbol for parking is not 'P'. :) The word for parking in Finnish is 'pysäköinti'. One curiosity about the dog illustration is that all the parks and other public spaces use an iconic black scottie dog and this one far from being a short and scrappy terrier. :)

permalink Ω 23 November 2003, Helsinki

Sputnik Mugs

Jarkko bought 2 distinctive mugs [ side and front ] from a porter on a train in Russia while there on a trip in the late 80s before the fall of the USSR. I'm fascinated by the design which features a globe with a Soviet era space theme of rockets and space capsules jetting into space. I'd guess they're from sometime in the 1960s. I don't know much about the USSR space program but I'll guess that the little ball closest to the globe is Sputnik, which is often credited as starting the Cold War, from which I can guess that the rest of the design illustrates the progression of Soviet space technology aiming towards landing on the moon. The Leningrad Cowboys may be familiar with Soviet Era space race artwork. I'll drink glöggi [more vodka, less sugar], play Laika and the Cosmonauts and, after the first drink, I'll be in space too. Who needs a sputnik when you've got hot spiked rocket fuel to drink? :)

permalink Ω 23 November 2003, Helsinki

Rakas Joulupukki

I had to go down to the Tulli today to pay up for some warm shoes and ear muffs I ordered from L.L. Bean. I think the customs people are incredibly nice and polite here. Granted, I don't like paying a 22% tax on stuff I order from outside the EU, but they're friendly in spite of what is likely an unpleasant job sometimes when people get irate, etc. over the tax.

The tulli is in the main post office downtown and the posti is ramping up the Christmas cheer with a display of letters to Santa sent to Santa's Post Office which is in Lapland, where Santa lives and maintains an office. There were a few letters that were just adorable:

• Jeramias * 5 years old and wants lots of games. Self-portrait needs work. :)
• Sarlotta [Charlotte?] * Illustrates her saavy well beyond the boys by illustrating precisely what she wants with pictures. She's an ad exec in the making. She wants a truck, too. You go Sarlotta!
• Satu * A girl who wants only one thing and, like Sarlotta, illustrates the exact make and model of her fondest hope: A Nokia 3510i.
• a scroll * Kids too poor for paper, pen and postage can write to santa in the posti. Some of them are sad and some of them are funny.

My youngest sister was 7 years older than me when I was born so I never really bought into the santa thing or wrote letters to a bearded fat white guy asking him to bring me stuff. I do, however, remember pretending to believe for a lot longer than I should have because my sisters asked me to and because I thought my parents genuinely enjoyed playing santa. I don't even know these kids with the letters and I want to send them stuff as playing Santa is fun if far too brief.

I'm usually a real humbug for the holidays but that display sure put me into a holiday mood. If only it would snow now it would be complete :)

permalink Ω 21 November 2003, Helsinki

Postman Gephardt

This is the friendly Postimies on the back of the card they leave in the mail slot if a packet or package is too large. It occured to me today that if Dick Gephardt dressed in brown overalls and a baseball hat to give him that rustic farmer look then carried a package in his hands he would be a dead ringer for this guy. So, Dick, when you lose the nomination maybe you will have a promising career in the Finnish Posti awaiting you. :)

permalink Ω 19 November 2003, Helsinki

Pants-fu

A pixelated stencil icon graffiti I saw on a telephone switch box when I was returning from the Posti this afternoon. The caption might read, "You are no match for my Pants-fu!" :)

permalink Ω 19 November 2003, Helsinki

A Helsinki All Hallow's

Photos of All Hallow's in Hietaniemi Cemetery.

I missed the usual pumpkin carving, drunken costume party and annual halloween candy like candy corn, caramel apples and seasonally coloured M&M's this year. I suppose I should just look at it as an opportunity to save my hands from getting sliced up, to not get drunk and look stupid dressed up as Ashcroft with Jarkko behind me as the draped Boobie of Justice [ or, more likely, the other way around ], to not drink more than a few beers, and to not stuff myself on candy. Still, I've always loved Halloween as the one holiday that is mostly seasonal and secular in the modern incarnation. It evokes nice memories of bonfires, hayrides, candy, the nice neighbourhood I grew up in, bobbing for apples, hunting for pumpkins at the farm down the road and scary stories.

Finland doesn't celebrate Halloween even though the candy shops, some of them, have Halloween candies and decorations. The Finns do celebrate pyhäinpäivä, All Hallow's, a christian version of the more ancient Kekri. I somehow convinced Jarkko it'd be more fun to wander around Hietaniemi Cemetery illuminated only by candles and take photos than to sit at home hugging a laptop. The tradition is to honour the dead by lighting candles at their grave which doesn't seem unusual until you see an entire Cemetery that looks like the milky way. I don't think I've ever seen so many candles lit all at once.

permalink Ω 2 November 2003, Helsinki

Pikku Gay

A photocopy I found in the street last night while walking HB. The kids must have been putting them under car wipers which people cast onto the sidewalk before driving away. I laughed just as I laugh at Eminem. I wondered what the DDN meant as well as why were they papering the parked cars with these silly photos of themselves trying to look like tough gangsta rappahs but only succeeding in looking like a Nike ad gone wrong. Perhaps it's a new form of 'tagging' or a message like "We gonna get you, suckah!". The Pikku-G wannabe gang who are just introducing themselves before they steal your car or something. They lack all the gold chains and gold capped teeth, but I guess you gotta start somewhere.

Perhaps they are making fun of the Finnish version of Eminem, Pikku-G [ pronounced PEEK-koo GAY which is hilarious in itself ], who seems to have quite the teenage girl fan base. Can you imagine Finnish homies going around saying, "Hey, Gay, whaddup?!" No, I can't really either as the moment they landed in the US and tried that they'd get their ass kicked by some white boy rapper skinhead. :) I keep hoping that all of the break dancing, skateboarding, and gangsta cool is just some parody of bad American pop culture. Somehow, though, I have a sneaking suspicion that these teenage boys aren't joking. If, by some chance, DDN is reading this they should know that white boy rap is something we make fun of in the US. I apologise on behalf of the planet that Eminem gave you a different impression. Also, break dancing was dead when I was in university a long time ago and it deserved to die. :) Try something original, boys.

permalink Ω 19 October 2003, Helsinki

See 'n Scratch

The pumpkin says, "Pöö! Treat or Trick!"

Remember the old See 'n Say? Sounds that animals make really aren't on the usual vocabulary lists when learning a language. You figure out somehow that, in Finland, the dog says "Hau Hau" and the cat says "Mau Mau". Karkki Pussi, one of those tragically named businesses which means 'candy bag', has introduced me to the sounds things make at Halloween. Finland doesn't really celebrate Halloween but what candy store is going to pass up an opportunity to sell more candy? :)

What I don't quite understand is that if the banners and candy are printed with "Happy Halloween", then why are the ghosts and goblins and pumpkins speaking in Finnish? And why does the Finnish ghost say "Boo!" differently than the pumpkin? Is one of them from Savo?

The ghost says,"Huuuu! Wild Halloween[ie]!"

permalink Ω 16 October 2003, Helsinki

I'm easily amused

Getting a company name right for use in an international setting is pretty challenging when you think about all the possible combinations of words that have unintended meanings in varioius cultures. In Helsinki, there are a number of company names that either sound funny [ scoopy-doo ] or are just tragically amusing, but Fuktor never fails to make me smile. It's a company whose expertise is water removal after a mishap with pipes, etc. Since "F" is not a letter native to Finnish, I figured it must be a Swedish name but, if google is right, it's a name of Scottish origin. Fuk = fuck and Tor = rocky crag or hill...Fuck hill in Scots? :) I wonder if they're related to the awfully tired FCUK people who think it a terribly clever joke because you are embarrassed to admit that whenever you see that word you always see fuck first before fcuk.

Fuktor can, apparently, also be a first name. Can you imagine the cruelty of having to answer to your mother yelling, "FUKTOR!", or having a nickname of "Fuk!" or kids calling you the "Fukinator" or "Fukface"? I've never met a Fuktor so likely they have all changed their legal names as soon as they possibly could. It's a terrific sounding word though and would make an excellent swearing word..."Oh, FUKTOR! I lost my wallet!" :)

permalink Ω 16 October 2003, Helsinki

Autumn

A cold, rainy, and colourful Autumn day in Nuuksio National Park

permalink Ω 13 October 2003, Helsinki

Happy Seagulls

Finnish food is mostly to my liking since it's much like German food with more dairy, lots of fresh berries, rye bread and rudolph thrown in for cultural variety. However, the chopped egg or roe mixed with butter still make my lips curl when I watch people slather it onto stuff and eat it. I make an effort to try everything at least once but fish roe will never be on my shopping list. One thing very close to the Finnish palate is herring. I must admit that I wasn't very keen on the idea of trying this particular national dish but Jarkko got so excited at the Herring Festival being in town that I figured I'd go along. It has quite a long history [pdf] and is in its 261st year of offering herring to the locals. The herring is actually quite good once you stop thinking about it being herring although the texture takes a little getting used to. The mustard and the dill varieties are particularly good. There is also blood bread and lots of products containing tyrni, the Finnish buckthorn berry.

So the herring and I will have to take our relationship slowly and, perhaps, in a few years we'll be good friends. Until then, the seagulls sure are happy about the herring market :) Well, and Jarkko with a glimmer in his eye and a smile on his face as he considers making one more trip to the harbour for more herring before the festival is over.

permalink Ω 10 October 2003, Helsinki

Ye Olde Townes

Fiskars

Last Thursday, I went along on a short day trip with the American Women's Club to the Village of Fiskars which is about an hour drive southwest of Helsinki. Fiskars is a beautiful old industrial village that has been nicely preserved by converting it into an artisans community and tourist attraction. You may have heard of Fiskars due to their fine Fiskars Oy scissors, cutlery, knives and other fine metalwork. They have a very well done history titled Fiskars 1649 [pdf] that covers 350 years of Finnish industrial history and a walk through the various buildings in town. The Onoma Gallery and the Fiskars Museum [suomi or svenska only] also have informative websites.

My 10D is in the shop getting repaired since it suffers from the same problems a large percentage of 10D owners are complaining about, broken AF and random crashing, so I only had my little 2MP Elph along to take pictures. The Mill and the Granary are constructed of slag bricks which lends a volcanic texture to the buildings. The stream that runs through the town is flanked with all sorts of local arts and sculpture. We were a bit on the off-season since Winter is approaching but we did get to see an iron smith and a glassmaker working in their shops. Fiskars is a beautiful slice of Finnish history which the town has done a remarkable job in restoring while making it commercially viable instead of leaving it to ruin as such small towns so often are once much of the industry moves on.

A Day Trip to Tallinn

On Saturday, Jarkko and I travelled with a visiting colleague from Boston to Tallinn, Estonia which is a short 1.5 hour ferry trip away from Helsinki. Estonia is to Helsinki what border towns in the US are to Canada, cheap shopping along with cheap smokes and booze. We only wandered around the Old Town of Tallinn, a Medieval town complete with walls and fortifications from the 1200s. Much of the town has remained largely intact and is on the UNESCO preservation list. The language they speak is Estonian which is related, if not closely, to Finnish and it's a bit disorienting to see things that at first seem Finnish only to find that they're really Estonian.

One thing in Old Town is the number of churches and everywhere you look there is a spire. Many of them are centuries old and have accreted a wide range of architectural styles in additions over time which is sometimes curious in the question of taste and suitability.

tallinn.info and tourism.tallinn.ee have some lovely photos and more information on the history of the city.

permalink Ω 23 September 2003, Helsinki

Brilliant Illustration

An ad for a documentary about Michael Jackson that you'd likely never see in the US. It's fashioned after the Fazer Lakrits logo but inverted. A perverted, clownish anti-Al Jolson. The girl at the bottom is saying, "I don't need plastic surgery because I am already me."

permalink Ω 21 September 2003, Helsinki

Vallitettavan Ruoan Galleria

A few weeks ago I received an email from Arabella David mentioning that she enjoyed the photos of the Hietalahden Kirpputori I have on-line and somewhere along the way she mentioned she had found a bunch of vintage Finnish recipe cards at the kirpputori which were all the rage in the 70s. I remember collecting the Betty Crocker recipe cards in the 70s too and now I wish I would have saved them. Recipe books and cards are a real treasure for historians and a subject of books like Eat My Words. I was hoping she would scan them and put them online and she has! The cards are utterly fascinating and terrifying at the same time: Vallitettavan Ruoan Galleria, the Finnish Gallery of Regrettable Food.

Erkki...Jarkko tells me Eila has a stash of these that I'd love to look at and maybe even scan in for a not-quite-so-fancy Finnish version of the Gallery of Regrettable Food :)

permalink Ω 17 September 2003, Helsinki

Supisuomea

YLE has a new 12-part series, Supisuomea, airing this Fall on YLE1 @ 12:05 from 7.9 thru 23.11 or on YLE Teema @ 16:00 & 19:00 from 8.9 thru 24.11. There is a book, Supisuomea and CD from Finn Lectura to accompany the series as well. The web site for the course looks very polished and has some neat exercises in spoken Finnish, but I'm mostly happy that they have reruns during the day on Wednesdays so I can watch them and speak the exercises without Jarkko around to laugh at me. :) On the upside of things, it doesn't seem like I've forgotten everything I learned in Suomi 1&2 last winter which is good since I start Suomi 3 next week.

permalink Ω 10 September 2003, Helsinki

Festival Frenzy

The 16th Annual Helsinki Film Festival, 18.9 thru 28.9, has a great selection of films this year and the 18th Annual Helsinki ComicCon, 27.9 & 28.9, will feature Neil Gaiman! It's a pity every month can't be like September :)

permalink Ω 9 September 2003, Helsinki

Naisen Kanssa

Finland has some funny local comics, like Viivi ja Wagner, but there are two which appear on the back page of NYT, the weeky magazine of the Helsingin Sanomat, I find particularly odd and amusing.

Naisen Kanssa [ Living with the woman ] ~ Think Zippy the Pinhead meets Hi&Lois. It's a very stylised comic rich in texture and complete with a mad scientist who narrates the instructions on living with the woman. It's a manual for the modern emasculated man. There is a book, Naisen Kanssa, as well as a Naisen Kanssa workbook for guys who really need to study harder. :)

Kung-Fu Poliisit [ Kung-Fu Police ] ~ It's Shaft meets Police Academy. Kung-Fu Poliisit is funny but odd since blaxploitation humour really isn't something you'd expect to find in Finland.

permalink Ω 8 September 2003, Helsinki

Abandoned Phonebooth

There was a time before Nokia in Finland and the phonebooths were a bright green colour. Unfortunately, the 1970s brought plexiglass and aluminum to the phonebooths, so this green relic is a pretty unusual sight.

permalink Ω 8 September 2003, Helsinki

Finnish PIE

Somewhere in my wanderings around the web the other night I came across a Finnish woman's blog [ in English ] that is very interesting and has some lovely photos. PIE

permalink Ω 6 September 2003, Helsinki

coolest new stamps ever :)

The Finnish Posti will be issuing glow-in-the-dark lighthouse stamps on 10 September. They are, apparently, not the World's first such stamps but they are the first lighthouse stamps that glow! :)

permalink Ω 2 September 2003, Helsinki

Not nearly warm enough....

permalink Ω 29 August 2003, Helsinki

Global Balalaika Show

We got to see a terrific show on Saturday night in Helsinki: The Leningrad Cowboy's Global Balalaika Show. There is a mention of the show being webcast after Tuesday and televised on YLE2 on New Year's for those who missed it. I took a few pictures with the little Canon Elph I have since I didn't want to lug the big camera bag around with me in such a large crowd. The lighting was a bit on the dark side, so much so that even the video crew had problems at times getting a good shot. The photo in the Sanomat was a better photo than I would have gotten. The smog machine and the lighting made it very challenging, even for the pros, to manage a decent photo.

In the early afternoon we went to have lunch and walked by the square to see if it might already be crowded and found it mostly deserted. The t-shirt vendors were setting up so we took the opportunity to buy a couple before the rush. After a few beers at a local pub I ran back to the apartment to walk HB and drop off a bunch of stuff along with the nice camera while the guys snagged a good spot on the steps of the church.

The warm-up band was an Eminem wanna-be rapper dude who seemed to be a favourite of many of the teenage girls in the crowd who were singing along and waving their arms to the music. Mercifully, they only played a few songs. :) Not long before the main event, someone announced that Helsinki was out of power. The Sanomat mentioned it was the first time in 2 years Helsinki had lost power but the show went on since they had generators and the outage was brief. The annoying part of a power outage is coming home to all clock equipped appliances blinking 12:00 and having to remember how to set them all, especially the ones with a horribly unintuitive UI. Why aren't modern appliances able to use NTP via the power lines to set the time? You can get every other bloody feature these days but the LED clocks are still stuck in the 1970s? *Grumble* ...but I digress.

The first half of the show was terrific and I was nearly convinced that the lead singer was Tom Jones in costume. A hyperactive smog machine unfortunately blotted out much of the Red Army Choir most of the time and I salute them for being able to sing with the cloud hanging over them. My only real disappointment with the show was that choir was not as much a part of the show as I had hoped. Hearing them sing "Sweet Home Chicago" made up for a lot even though it made me a bit homesick. It is a bit disorienting to hear it in downtown Helsinki being sung by a Russian Army choir. It's like popping out in some alternate universe briefly and noticing Iraqis singing "New York, New York" in downtown Baghdad; interesting, entertaining, cool and weird simultaneously. :)

When the musical guests from around the world came on in the second half of the show it became obvious why "Global" was part of the show's name. There were steel drums, African drums, samba dancers, Russian folk dancers and dancers with torches that added some not-terribly-local colour to the spectacle. Two of the guitarists had a jam duel which ended with them both smashing their instruments. Big Chief "Bo" Dollis performed "Papa was a Rolling Stone" and really added a dimension to the show since Soul/R&B artists aren't here very often that I've noticed.

"Stairway to Heaven" afforded the opportunity to light my Bic and yell "FREEBIRD!". It is at this moment that you realise that your self-amusement and brief excitement at this time honoured tradition is a signal that you've earned one too many grey hairs to be sitting with 60,000 people at an outdoor concert. Well, that and thinking that the kids should turn the volume down a bit. "Ghostbusters" was the finale, complete with fireworks and a stage full of Russian, Caribbean, samba and go-go dancers all gyrating and yelling "who ya gonna call". If I told a shrink I had dream like this, I'd probably be in a padded cell by now. :)

Anyone who went to the show expecting it to be like it was 10 years ago would likely be disappointed since the band has changed a lot over a decade and anything that could be duplicated over that span of time would already be a tired cliche. The world has changed since the Total Balalaika Show and they choreographed this new show with that in mind. I only hope we don't have to wait another 10 years for the next one. :)

The list of guests and songs is pretty impressive. I highly recommend checking out Angelique Kidjo as she has an absolutely amazing voice.

Guests:

• Angelique Kidjo (Benin)
• "Coto" Antomarchi Padilla Juan de la Gruz (Cuba)
• Wild Magnolias, Big Chief "Bo" Dollis (New Orleans, USA)
• Johanna Rusanen
• Tulikansa
• Yamar Thiam & Galaxy Drums (Senegal/Finland)
• Kirsi Tykkyläinen
• Figurantes de Cuba

Concert Playlist:

1. Blackhole sun
2. American woman
3. Sweet Home Chicago
4. Like a virgin
5. Land of 1000 dances
6. Those Were the Days
7. Bad
8. Easy living
9. Stairway to heaven
10. Pennies from heaven
11. That's the way I wanna rock n' roll
12. Afirika
13. Americano
14. No woman no cry
15. Pretty Fly (for a white guy)
16. Papa was a rolling stone
17. La Cucaracha
18. Kashmir
19. El Quarto de Tula
20. Tumba
21. Life is a carnival
22. Eloise
23. Rockin' in the free world
24. Coochie Molly
25. Ghostbusters

permalink Ω 25 August 2003, Helsinki

Meet Ms. Average Helsinki

The Helsingin Sanomat had an article on 11.08.03 about the average Helsinki resident which turns out to be female, 37 years old and single. I scanned in the illustration which accompanied the original article but isn't included with the international edition's translation of the article or translation of the captions with the illustration.

The hair colour should be red and short since that seems to be the favourite hairstyle. I wonder if the flower on her shirt, a bachelor's button, was a cute little bit of cheek by the illustrator. :)

permalink Ω 20 August 2003, Helsinki

Nature Calling

One of the odder bits of living in Finland is the predilection of the Finnish male to pretend their penis is a garden hose. Now, I don't know if this is just a guy thing, but it clearly cannot be a bladder size issue as I don't see women squatting on sidewalks or hiking a leg over a hedge. Pekka Suomalainen, mitä kuuluu?!

It's not a big deal, see, but when I'm walking down the street in the middle of the afternoon and some guy just whips it out to take a leak on a bush next to the Metro station [ which I know to have a loo ] I really have to work hard to not look, stare or giggle. One night we had dinner at the Nepalese restaurant next door. We left and I came back down with HB to take him for a walk when I noticed one of the people who was in the restaurant earlier had come out for a smoke and was peeing on our apartment building. He finished and went back into the restaurant which is also equipped with indoor plumbing.

So, I guess I'm used to only the homeless, a.k.a. residence challenged, presenting this kind of strange behaviour which leaves me at a loss to explain why it appears to be so popular here in Helsinki. Aside from the usual inconvenience of splashing on your shoes and pant legs, I have to wonder if there isn't some sort of deeply rooted from youth tradition of Finnish men eschewing the indoor plumbing for the thrill of the outdoors.

There's one nice thing about -20C Finnish winter weather...no exposed flesh :)

permalink Ω 15 August 2003, Helsinki

Mundane no more

Some people seem to have a talent for making the most mundane and often unnoticed bits of daily life far more interesting or amusing by surprising with a subtle twist. I laughed when I saw these on the sidewalk near our house. :)

permalink Ω 31 July 2003, Helsinki

What I miss...

I've been asked a few times if I miss the US and I don't hesitate to say, "No, I don't." There are some things, aside from friends and family, that I do miss but aren't enough for me to pack my bags. William Gibson calls Europe 'Mirror World' in the novel Pattern Recognition. which I think is an astute observation since you can get almost everything here as you can in the US, but it's just slightly off and from a different perspective. A few things I miss....

• Cheez-Its — Especially the spicy and the cheddar jack flavours.
  
  Oh Cheez-It! Cheez-It!
  Sublime cheesy snack cracker
  Finland would love you
  
  
• Midwestern thunderstorms — Nothing like the sky turning green and then watching the lightning for hours through the downpour. All other storms pale by comparison.
• Cheap shipping/postage — I hate shopping and became far too spoiled by shopping on-line with no tax and cheap shipping. The charges for shipping to Finland are very, very expensive.
• Apple pie. Yeah, I know.... — Yes, there is apple pie in Finland but it's more like a fruit torte with a thick crust and a thin layer of fruit on top. When apple season comes I will have to make pies for everyone :).
• Big bookstores — I have dreams about Stockmann having more than a few aisles of English books and all on sale for less than 30 euros :) I'm worried about being in London soon as I may just run through Foyle's giggling with glee and freaking out the staff. Well...bookstore people have seen weirder things.
• My Volvo wagon — We don't have a car here and don't really need one but I miss my Volvo.
• Bagels — Finland has something that looks like a bagel but don't be fooled by looks as it is not a fine New York water bagel. I think Finns would go nuts over a good New York Deli.
• The Daily Show — I don't watch much TV but Jon Stewart can always make me laugh. If WELHO is reading this, please add Comedy Central to your channel offerings.
• Blueberry Hill — A great pub I used to work at, hang out in and see Chuck Berry play in on a regular basis.
• St. Louis Blues — Living in the wrong side of St. Louis for a while gave me an appreciation for a culture more real than the tighty whitey side of town. Having drinks in MOBar on Christmas Eve brings the blues right to you.
• Ted Drewes Frozen Custard — On a 100+F degree night, the entire city of St. Louis goes to Ted's and hangs out in the parking lot while eating frozen custard. It's a tradition and not a bad one at that.
• Tower Grove Park — HB grew up in Tower Grove since we lived next to the park and I worked at the Botanical Garden adjoining it. It's a lovely park that I wish every city could have.
• Indy movie theatres — I would guess there are Independent movie theatres in Helsinki but I haven't found them yet. The movie offerings from the US have really, really sucked this year so it may become a mission to find them soon.

permalink Ω 3 July 2003, Helsinki

Move-uh-what?

While walking HB in the Sinebrychoff Park where he likes to roll around on the grass I noticed a sign posted next to some new sod they had planted as part of the ongoing renovation of the park and just had to giggle. I'm not used to seeing English on public signage so I didn't see it immediately and when I did it took me a few seconds to puzzle out what they meant by 'movable lawn'. Now I just need a moveable feast to go with my moveable dog on the movable [sic] lawn :)

permalink Ω 1 July 2003, Helsinki

Hietalahden Kirpputori

Apparently the 'blogerati' were in Helsinki last week for a meeting at Nokia with the new ventures organization. Of course, there were blog entries about what was presumeably a secret invite-only affair but one of them posted pictures of the Hietalahden Kirpputori which happens to be right around the corner from where we live. Strangely, the photos were mostly of himself or a woman with bleached dreadlocks instead of the gorgeous kauppahalli and few of them were in focus.

The Hietalahden Kirpputori [ Hietalahti Flea Market ] is a unique spot in Helsinki since it's the only outdoor flea market in the city. The Kauppahalli is a recently restored architectural treasure built in 1903. In February, Helsinki announced that they would close most of the shops inside the kauppahalli due to budget cutbacks. Inside there remains a tiny museum display of a circa 1940 grocery stall complete with vintage goods including Nokia toilet paper. The vaulted ceilings with airy pine supports and the beautifully aged wooden stalls lend the building a comforting warmth. I don't know what the city is planning to do with the kauppahalli but I do hope they preserve the interior since buildings today don't have the same character.

The one thing that fascinates me about the kirpputori is the ebb and flow in the span of less than 10 hours. By day the lot is teeming with people and kitsch and by night it is quiet and completely vacant. I put together a small selection of photos depicting a day in the life of the Hietalahden Kirpputori.

permalink Ω 26 June 2003, Helsinki

Hyvää Juhannusta!

Juhannus. Midsummer. Traditionally observed on the Saturday between the 20th and 26th of June it is the celebration that marks the summer solstice. Jarkko's parents had us over for the weekend and we had an incredibly nice time. I took a bunch of photos some of which turned out but a lot of them didn't since the weather and the light conspired against me on many occasions. We didn't have the best weather but it was still a lot of fun anyway.

On Friday afternoon we had a fabulous lunch and relaxed with HoneyBear before going to Seurasaari for the bonfires. Erikki and Eila hadn't been there for Midsummer since 1967 so it was incredibly nice of them to go along for what must be terribly old hat for the locals but new for me.

It was crowded along the way to the far side of the island, an outdoor museum of culture and architecture, with local craftspeople lining the path. There was a cute young girl dressed in a traditional costume selling 'magic spells'.

One after another, each fire was lit and accompanied by singing. There were people crowding the shore, sitting up on the rocks along and in boats on the water waiting for the main fire to start. A long boat carrying the Juhannus wedding couple, married just hours earlier on the island, rowed out and back with a torch to light the largest and final bonfire. Afterwards there were several hours of music and dancing in the outdoor festival grounds nearby but it began to rain so we didn't stay.

» Kokko, kokoo koko kokko kokoon!
» Koko kokkoko?
» Koko kokko.

» Kokko (name), gather the whole kokko (midsummer fire)!
» The whole kokko?
» The whole kokko.

We went to Porvoo on Saturday and walked around the old town though few of the shops were open. It's a town on the King's Road which is rich in history and I'd like to return some afternoon to see the markets when they're open as Eila mentioned they are quite good. One of the radio stations we were listening to in the car had a roving reporter with a microphone running around the deserted center of Helsinki which was pretty amusing. I finally got to try the Finnish makkara, a bratwurst-like sausage, and enjoyed them quite a lot but what's not to love about meat and fat grilled and eaten with mustard and bread? :)

It was a very quiet, restful and lazy holiday marking the time where we must now watch the amount of daylight wane until December.

permalink Ω 23 June 2003, Helsinki

Observing Finland

Since arriving here in Helsinki, I've kept a little list of things I notice and manage to remember to write down. There are lots of things I've seen but forgot to make a note of that will have to wait for later. :)

• The eggs are not refrigerated. I went looking for the kanamuna several times before I realised that they were not in the refrigerated dairy section but near it on the shelves. I think the health department in the US would faint at the sight of them.
• Burberry scarves and plaid everywhere. All winter long, everywhere I looked, there were women in Burberry plaid scarves. I don't recall ever seeing Burberry worn in such concentration.
• Grocery stores are smaller and stock more whole foods. There are loads of cakes, bisuits and candy but very little selection of what would qualify as junk food.
• The majority of people I've seen are of a reasonable size which makes me think that the lack of fast food joints on every corner, no obsession with fat free/low-fat foods in the grocery and mostly whole foods in the grocery are somehow related to this. There is an obsession with lactose and gluten-free foods since dairy products are so much a part of the diet that lactose intolerance is very common.
• The Osbournes is un *beeped* which makes it more entertaining but somehow looses most of its cachet. Although nothing will help the strip poker show on after 11p it does make me happy to live somewhere that doesn't really get all fussy over a few dirty words and naked people on TV.
• Female TV news anchors actually have a few extra pounds. It's nice to see women on TV who aren't stick figures.
• Mannequins have perky, erect nipples and anatomically correct bulges. The downside is that most of us are not 17 anymore...gravity does have a price.
• Some movies which have English titles are translated and some are not though what the algorithm is for selecting titles for translation is unknown. I would guess that the ones with titles that can be translated are and the rest are just left alone, but I don't think that's correct.
• Finnish movie theatres all have reserved seating. This is so much nicer than the seating free-for-all in US theatres.
• Donald Duck, a.k.a. Aku Ankka, is very popular. I really haven't delved into the Finnish psyche enough just yet to understand this particular oddity.
• Kotipomo - literally means 'house boss' -- She who must be obeyed. I love this word and hope it makes its way into English slang. :)
• "The Wonderful K"! K is sublime. If Finland had the Wheel of Fortune TV show they'd have to buy K's. James Thurber would have loved writing about K.
• The anti-fur protesters would need to buy a paint plant to keep up with all the fur coats and accessories here. There are crowds of short old ladies who wear the full-length mink with matching pillbox hat and shop at Stockmann. Who can blame them as fur is warm :)
• Some Finnish words make me giggle. Such as 'puu' (wood) but is pronounced like 'poo' and 'mopo' (moped) which makes me think of a tiny St. Louis dialect that involves an array of 2 letter words all ending in o, e.g. FoPo for Forest Park, PoHo for poor ho and HoJo for Howard Johnson's...all in the state of MO :)
• Energy efficiency is apparent in many, if not most, appliances and lights.
• Portion sizes on the nutritional information panels are far more realistic than the ones in the US. Eating 100g of a 200g can of pringles is far more likely than 'approximately 8 chips'.
• My wardrobe fits in perfectly here as black is very fashionable :)
• Hay may be for horses but in Finland Hei is hello :) And 'ei', pronounced 'eh', means no.
• Street numbers are usually under 100 and the numbering between street blocks is not consistent, e.g. a building on the corner of one street may be 28 but on the next street over it might be 18 or 35. I've yet to figure how this came to be.
• English shows up in a lot of unexpected places, especially in advertisements, e.g. the entire text of an ad will be in Finnish but the slogan will be in English.
• Finland is a place of many superlatives yet is a quiet little Nordic country that even the BBC couldn't locate on a map.
• When Finland has a national holiday they mean it as there really aren't any grocery stores or anything else open...except for the pubs.
• Finns may avoid eye contact with people on the sidewalk but they nearly always will stop and talk to my St. Bernard and ask how old he is. A large percentage of Finns are dog people :)

permalink Ω 20 June 2003, Helsinki

Who says the Finnish can't have fun?

On Saturday we went to see the Helsinki Samba Carnaval which was really amazing with so many colours and fabulous costumes. I put the pictures up in new photo album in two different sections, samba1 and samba2, as there were a lot of photos, many of which I had to weed out. I'm rather happy with some of the photos and am glad they turned out rather nicely.

permalink Ω 17 June 2003, Helsinki

Lumen Valo

Jarkko introduced me to Lumen Valo a few years ago. Their name is something of a pun since Lumen means light in Latin and Valo the same in Finnish :) We got a copy of their most recent album, Gravity, last night and it is utterly outstanding. It was performed and recorded in a church which really gives it an ethereal quality. As a 'recovering Catholic' I continue to find it odd that this genre of music still gets to me in a way I cannot quite explain. :)

permalink Ω 12 June 2003, Helsinki

Gimmankanto

In the fine Nordic tradition of pillaging villages and carrying off the young women Finland has the annual wife carrying championships in Sonkajärvi.

Today there was a gimmankantu event in downtown Helsinki so I strolled down the street in search of amusement and maybe some decent photos. I went an hour early and found the park already crowded. The bandstand was mobbed with people eagerly awaiting the start of the festivities. There was even a torch to lend an olympic air to the scene [ I love this photo as the kid looks like all she wants is ice cream while behind them is a giant poster for the official event in Sonkajärvi that almost looks real instead of a photo. ] :)

I lamented not bringing beer with me as it seemed like everyone was enjoying some sort of fun enhancing beverage, including the contestants. There was one couple who I watched guzzle down a litre of koskenkorva before running, or should I say walking, the course. They were so hammered that the crowd cheered when they finished. :)

There was a wide array of contestants, some of whom were in costume. I liked the costumes as they added a bit of fun and I thought they should have given extra points to those who went to the trouble. There was easy rider, Casper and Wendy, chicken little and the bunny, the hippies and the mod squad [ the winners ], the troll and fairy and the sisu footballers.

The course was pretty wimpy compared to the official course but the contestants started at the far end, met the water hazard, turned the corner through the tyres, lept over the hay bales and made a mad dash up the ramp to the bandstand to finish. There were a number of different styles of carrying the women; piggyback, upside down, on top of the shoulders as well as lying across the shoulders. I don't know what prize the winners recieved but they seemed to have a lot of fun.

In the background was a guy making a sculpture of unknown artistic value with a chainsaw which was mesmerizing to watch since I've always been a bit scared/respectful of chainsaws. Some of the professional photogs kept slyly looking over at me and passing by to see if I was new competition with the fancy camera which gave me a bit of a giggle. An afternoon of completely wacky, harmless fun. :)

permalink Ω 7 June 2003, Helsinki

Feenish Him

Finland recently had a story about a fine entrant for the Darwin Awards: A drunk driver run over by his own car.

The unlikely incident took place in the parking lot of a store. The man was attempting to get his car started, and having failed to do so using the traditional key-in-the-ignition method, he got out and opened the hood, jump-starting the car from there. Unfortunately, the vehicle was apparently in gear and it lurched forward, running over his lower legs before it collided with two other parked vehicles.

Brilliant. At that level of BAC though I have to hand it to him for being able to hotwire the car at all since he likely could have fueled the car with his breath alone. :)

permalink Ω 5 June 2003, Helsinki

WORLDWIDE STUPIDITY from the US Embassy, Helsinki

The US likes to drone on about technology and how it's 'revolutionizing' the way people communicate. Indeed, the State Department sent out an email to US citizens in Finland about how yankees in the hinterland are at risk with all of their email addresses in plain view. How very revolutionary as now some terrorist could possibly identify many of us without much trouble at all. Now that's what I call innovation. If those who bungled this are reading, c'mon over to the house as you know where I live and I can show you how not to be an email idiot terrorist. I think a Finnish toddler knows more than you do about email and computing.

From: "Helsinki, ACS"
Date: pe touko 23, 2003 14:58:33 Europe/Helsinki
To:
Cc: several hundred email addresses in plain view removed
Subject: WORLDWIDE CAUTION from the US Embassy Helsinki, Finland

The U.S. Embassy in Helsinki would like to call your attention to the following announcement posted by the Department of State on April 21, 2003 and available at its website, http://travel.state.gov.

WORLDWIDE CAUTION
April 21, 2003

This supersedes the Worldwide Caution dated March 19, 2003. It is being issued to remind U.S. citizens of the continuing threat of terrorist actions that may target civilians and of the need to remain vigilant. The U.S. Government remains deeply concerned about the security of U.S. citizens overseas. U.S. citizens are encouraged to maintain a high level of vigilance and to take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness. This Worldwide Caution expires on September 20, 2003.

Tensions remaining from the recent events in Iraq may increase the potential threat to U.S. citizens and interests abroad, including by terrorist groups. Terrorist actions may include, but are not limited to, suicide operations, bombings or kidnappings. Possible threats include conventional weapons such as explosive devices or non-conventional weapons, including chemical or biological agents. Terrorists do not distinguish between official and civilian targets. These may include facilities where American citizens and other foreigners congregate or visit, such as residential areas, clubs, restaurants, places of worship, schools, hotels, outdoor recreation events or resorts and beaches. If such facilities cannot be avoided, U.S. citizens should increase their security awareness at such locations.

U.S. Government facilities worldwide remain at a heightened state of alert. These facilities may temporarily close or suspend public services from time to time for security reasons. In those instances, U.S. embassies and consulates will make every effort to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens. Americans are urged to monitor the local news and maintain contact with the nearest American embassy or consulate.

As the Department continues to develop information on any potential security threats to U.S. citizens overseas, it shares credible threat information through its Consular Information Program documents, available on the Internet at http://travel.state.gov. In addition to information on the Internet, U.S. travelers can get up-to-date information on security conditions by calling 1-888-407-4747 in the U.S. and outside the U.S. and Canada on a regular toll line at 1-317-472-2328.

permalink Ω 24 May 2003, Helsinki

Vappu photos

I survived Vappu and managed to take a few photographs of the melee. A Helsingin Sanomat article I found helps to explain the origins of Vappu which noone seems to remember or care about anymore. It's a giant drunken street carnival everyone seems to enjoy regardless of where it came from. :)

The tradition is to have a group of university students winched up by a crane over a rather voluptuous fountain statue whereupon they place a cap on her head at 6pm on Vappu Eve. They dangle in the air waiting for the time to arrive and discuss how many beers they've had already while drowning out the din of the bad, drunk brass band playing on top of a van nearby.

Once the cap is on the statue named Manta, everyone puts on their own caps, regardless of age, and the festivites officially begin. The harbor area is full of balloons, typical carnival fare, and a few food vendors selling sausages and pancake/crepe-like pastries with jam to help keep a few people sober or liven up the sidewalk vomit, depending on how you look at it. :)

People hang around while drinking champagne and wearing goofy hats. One girl had a giant grinning flower balloon in one hand, a bottle of champagne in the other with a curious look on her face while the friend next to her is saying somthing like 'you didn't need him anyway'. I really like that photo. I also caught Sammy Hagar amidst the crowd.

After about 2 hours of this, people wander to private parties or to pubs, leaving the empties for the clean-up crew.

permalink Ω 4 May 2003, Helsinki

Today we talk small Finnish

The main Helsinki daily newspaper, The Helsingin Sanomat, has an ad on the cover page every day but today it carried an exceptional ad. Above the type "Today we talk small Finnish" the page had several colourful illustrations each with a caption in English:

• WEATHER: Sunlight is damaging and makes you old. In Finland the dangerous period lasts only a couple of months.
• NATURE: There is a magical silence in Finnish nature. It can only be interrupted by a loud "WROOOOOM". Don't be scared, it is just another forthcoming Flying Finn.
• TECHNOLOGY: Finland is not blessed with riches, so we have to be innovative. No wonder we are known as Europe's Silicon Valley.
• SUPERSTARS: Santa Claus is Finnish. Do not trust fakes.
• DEMOCRACY: Finnish women are the most beautiful in the world. Our prime minister is a woman and so is our president. And the men are....Yes, we do have men.

It's always a good sign when people still have the ability to poke a little fun at themselves :)

permalink Ω 1 May 2003, Helsinki

Looks awful...Tastes pretty good :)

In the US, Easter marks the arrival of the revered delicacy; the marshmallow peep. Peeps come in a dazzling array of springtime colours and provide entertainment for chemistry students all year long in addition to fabulous Easter peep deserts. Easter in Finland, however, brings along with it a dish called mämmi [ said like mammy ] which looks so foul upon first seeing it that you would not think it edible except by force or duress. I did agree to try it and, once I got over how it looked, found it quite delicious. Virtual Finland has a little history about the traditional dish:

"The oldest and no doubt the most unusual traditional Finnish dish is mämmi, a dark brown porridge made of water and sweetened rye malt. It is baked in a slow oven in cardboard boxes made to look like birchbark baskets. Nowadays mämmi is a dessert served with cream and sugar, but originally it used to be a Lenten provision, eaten cold as such or spread on top of a slice of bread.

For a long time, Easter mämmi remained a special delicacy of southwestern Finns, until early this century the art of making mämmi spread nationwide, thanks to rural homemaking schools, agricultural societies and cookery books. Finland's independence in 1917 inspired a vigorous search for typically Finnish symbols. Mämmi, an age-old, genuine Finnish folk dish, was accepted as one. Nowadays it is a seasonal product for the bakeries. Rows of boxes resembling birchbark baskets and filled with mämmi appear in the food stores almost as soon as Christmas is over."

It's served with cream but I've heard that it's also good with ice cream. I wonder if it would work with peeps as a new Ameri-Fenno delicacy :) For anyone brave enough to try making it yourself at home, a recipe below found on the internet but appears to be very close to the recipe in Finnish.

Mämmi

• 6 quarts water
• 1 lb. malt
• 3 lbs. rye flour
• molasses to taste
• 1-2 tsp. salt
• 4 Tbsp. chopped orange rind

Mix the malt and flour. In a large cooking pan (with a heavy bottom if available), heat about 2 quarts of the water and add enough of the flour/malt mix to form a thin mixture (like velli). Sprinkle with a layer of malt and flour. Cover the pan and place in a warm place to sweeten, about one hour.

Now mix the sprinkled flour and malt into the mixture. Add more hot water and again a layer of flour and malt. Leave to sweeten. Repeat as often as needed to include all remaining water, flour and malt. With the last addition, season the mämmi to taste with molasses and orange rind.

Cook for about 10 mins., stirring constantly. Whip till cooled. Place in low pans (ah, to have those birch bark mämmituokkoset available). Do not fill too full, because mämmi will rise in the oven. Bake in moderate oven for about 1-2 hours. Temperatures that are too low during cooking and baking tend to make the mämmi bitter. Baked mämmi will be cooled quickly and served with cold cream and sugar. Hyvää ruokahalua!

***To bring Finnish pääsiäinen (Easter) to your table, grow some rye grass in a large pan (start about 2-3 weeks before Easter, inside, of course) and place feathery little toy chickies in it. Don't forget to look for pussy willows to include in your arrangements of tulips, narcissi, crocuses and lilies, or let them go solo! Yellow is the color for pääsiäinen, so go for it!***

permalink Ω 24 April 2003, Helsinki

Local Brew

Jarkko and I went to the Helsinki Beer Festival Friday night and I finally got to try the Finnish beer known as sahti. Sahti is very tasty and reminds me of a belgian beer only not as sweet and malty/yeasty instead of fruity. The Lammin Sahti was the best one I tasted but I'd like to also sample some of the homemade sahti in the Finnish countryside. I also had an Estonian lager which was better than I expected and a very nice rye beer that has a smoother and sweeter taste than a wheat beer.

permalink Ω 29 March 2003, Helsinki

the wrong noodle bar

Helsinki has a wide variety of ethnic restaurants but a recent find is the Wrong Noodle Bar which has some quite excellent noodle dishes to choose from. Wrong take-away, Wrong catering, Wrong menu; a cute play on the English. It's a welcome change from rye bread and cold-cuts for dinner. An added bonus is that across the street is an Asian grocery where I could probably buy noodles and such to make something similar at home once the house is no longer covered in dust and grit from the renovation.

permalink Ω 29 March 2003, Helsinki

Bean propulsion

Erkki and Eila drove me up to north nowhere Helsinki to fetch a package my family sent and on the way I noticed a few billboards for Tipito Beans that I thought were cute, memorable and amusing.

permalink Ω 29 March 2003, Helsinki

Moved already....

I've always considered myself to be a real trendsetter, ahead of my time, an Ur-Faith Popcorn and this page from The Guardian proves it :)

permalink Ω 7 March 2003, Helsinki

Uusi Balalaika Show

Fans of the Leningrad Cowboys will be thrilled to know that they are going to be performing a new Global Balalaika Show with the Red Army Choir this coming August in Helsinki as part of the Helsinki Festival. I'm pretty enthused myself since they had a concert like this 10 years ago which became somewhat legendary. I've only heard the CD from the concert but there is something surreal about a Russian Army Choir singing along with a bunch of Finnish guys with big hair to "Sweet Home Alabama".

permalink Ω 7 March 2003, Helsinki

Ingy the mad Finn

It's election time here in Finland so around the corner where I walk Honeybear every morning and evening is a row of political posters featuring mugshots of all the hopeful candidates for parliament. Going along the numerous posters for the 10+ different parties there was one at the end that made me giggle; no. 225, Heikki "Brian Ingerson" Rosti running as an independent. Heikki and Ingy look almost like twins and it makes me feel a little bit more at home here in Helsinki...even if I don't have any clue what he's on about with that YAML stuff :)

permalink Ω 28 February 2003, Helsinki

We have arrived....

So, after 2 weeks of camping out in a hotel we loaded everything up into the monster SUV the rental company gave us for the day and drove to Logan via the newly opened I-90->airport tunnel. How fitting after years of snarled traffic and billions of dollars spent on the Big Dig that we be able to drive from Belmont to the airport in 25 minutes in a giant SUV so large that other SUV drivers were looking up at us with a gleam of fear in their eyes.

We arrived at the airport a bit too early as the international terminal is usually packed come 5pm due to all the red-eye flights leaving between 6-9pm. But, as Murphy's Law dictates, the extra time we added for dealing with HoneyBear proved to be pointless as the terminal was almost empty. Amazingly, HB hopped right into his crate without having to entice, plead or smoosh him into it as I had prepared myself to do. The Iceland Air crew seemed to really like HB too as he had to sit there in his crate next to the check-in desk until it was time to load him on the plane. I watched him be unloaded from the plane in Iceland where all of the ground crew went over and had a look at him with smiles on their faces. I imagine they were amused at his name since the little yappy dogs are usually named Killer and Brutus while the giant dogs are named Daisy and HoneyBear :)

Everything went great until they couldn't fit his crate into the plane in Stockholm which had a few tense, irate moments since we thought there had been due diligence done more than once before departure in Boston to be certain this wouldn't happen. We had to go down to the tarmac and hold HB while they disassembled the crate and reassembled it inside the cargo hold. HB was such a good boy as he would have had every right to throw a tantrum considering all the jostling and stress. When we arrived in Helsinki the customs person just looked at his papers to make sure he had his shots and waved us on through the gate. All things considered, it went far better than I had hoped.

Jarkko's mother and father met us at the airport and helped us move our small mountain of stuff, decidedly not euro-sized :), to the apartment. They had also bought a few lamps, brought over some household stuff like glasses and chairs, and made sure we had a few rolls of toilet paper so we wouldn't have to dash out before the shops closed on Friday night which earned my eternal gratitude.

I start my intensive Finnish classes tomorrow and, hopefully, my sinus cold that I caught on the plane will have moved on to greener sinuses so I won't bother the class every time I honk my nose. :)

It's good to be home :)

permalink Ω 29 January 2003, Helsinki

Eyesores are universal

Even if you cannot read Finnish you can just browse the archive of Helsinki architecture replaced by eyesores to understand the impact the crack induced abominations of the 50s, 60s and 70s had around the world.

permalink Ω 7 November 2002, Helsinki

Movin' on up

So now that we've sold the house in the US I can now think about the house we bought in downtown Helsinki. I like living either in the city center or out in the country and we opted for the city center since I'll have an easier time adjusting in an urban environment. The city offers more people who speak English and who will help me learn Finnish as well as being near cultural events without having to drive anywhere. I won't be driving in Finland for a while since I have a lead foot and Finland is serious about enforcing speed limits with tickets based on a percentage of your income which one Nokia VP learned the hard way to the tune of $100k.

The floorplan gives you a general idea of the apartment. Jarkko was in Helsinki last week and took some photos of the entryway, the kitchen, the living room and dining room, the front of the building, and the bookshop just downstairs which could prove hazardous :). Maybe I can get a job in the shop or even buy it and run it myself. The Lord Hotel is right across the street, a lovely hotel wedged in between some less attractive modern architecture. Just around the corner is a park under renovation that will even have a doggie run when it's finished early next year which I'm sure Honeybear will appreciate if it's large enough for him :)

I haven't seen the apartment myself but it looks like I could live there though the only disappointment is that it's not a terribly sunlit abode but, one doesn't move to Finland to get a tan or bask in the sun for most of the year either. The most important feature is that it will be equipped with high-speed network access :) I'm starting to be both excited and a wee bit terrified of the move which will hopefully subside once we arrive.

I bought a bunch of neat pop-up change of address cards that I'm writing the new address onto and will post them soon since I don't plan to have a coherent thought in the last few weeks before we move. Hopefully some of the people I send them to will send me care packages of junk food I never eat now but will surely miss once I'm away and books/magazines that I won't be able to get easily in Helsinki. One good care package or a postcard or a letter can really make your month sometimes.

permalink Ω 4 November 2002, Helsinki

How do you say 'crazy' in Finnish?

So, the countdown to Finland has begun. I'm getting the house ready for sale and we've put a bid in for a house in downtown Helsinki. Yes, we are really leaving the US at the end of January for Helsinki with one way tickets :)

I have started Finn Man, a blog for my trials in learning the language and observations of just how weird Finland really is...or not. :) If you read it I can't guarantee that you'll be able to say Hietaniemi with any accuracy but maybe you'll want to come visit and bring me a case of cheeze-its and white castle burgers :)

permalink Ω 4 September 2002, Helsinki

Finnish her!

I'm on a Finnish language mailing list these days which has proven to be helpful in finding some rather hard to find resources for learning the language. It's a low traffic list and I had to chuckle at the following poem submitted to the list this morning since I, no doubt, will be in the same boat very soon :)

FINNISH LESSON

The nouns, like ladies of the night,
Modify rear ends to signify
Approach or departure or the height
Above, or on, where they lie
To do their work. The verbs decline
With even regularity, although
With very little sign
"P"s transform to "v"s, or go
Somewhere else. They disappear.
While "k"s and "t"s in other ways
Dull down to "d"s or, it's clear,
Like spectres moving into days,
Are gone in toto from perception.
"We" is "me" and "they" is "he"
And woe is me in this direction.
I'm grateful that it seems to be
That Finns can easily distinguish
That speech with me is best in English.

permalink Ω 27 August 2002, Helsinki

Kalevalan päivä

Today is Kalevala Day in Finland. The Kalevala is the Finnish national epic full of myth and symbol like every other epic where guys look manly and virile and women are angels or evil seductresses. A lesser known companion, The Kanteletar tells more of the women's stories. Since Aku Ankka or Donald Duck is so popular in Finland perhaps Disney would be interested in making the Kalevala into a movie starring Donald Duck :)

It is ironic that the day celebrating a symbol of national identity would also mark the demise of another, the Markka.

permalink Ω 28 February 2002, Helsinki

And I thought a parking ticket was bad...

The first time I went to Finland I read an article in the FinnAir Magazine about a guy getting a speeding ticket to the tune of $45,000USD or ~300,000FIM. I thought it was a joke since how could speeding down a city street warrant such a fine. Well, the by-product of being a completely digital/wired society is that the cops have access to not only your record of previous violations but also your fiscal records and ticket you accordingly. Apparently this guy was a dotcom prick who drove a bright red Ferrari around town like a jerk making most of the city cheer that he got nailed. At least, that's the impression I got after a few people around the table at the pub thought it was funny. Well, move over Jaakko as Anssi Vanjoki just one-upped you on the speeding ticket hall of fame.

Now, what I want to know is why do we still manufacture cars that a) can go over 130mph when the maximum speed anywhere in the US is 75mph in parts of the west and b) cars that are completely stupid and don't have the intelligence to mind the speed limit in the zone the car is in? Yes, I hear you say "Because noone will buy them!"...but, hell, why make speed limits if you're going to break them and if you save $100k in tickets you've already saved lots of money :)

I think we should organise the "Helsinki Gran Prix" where 10 of the richest people in Helsinki are given a fast car and a directive to drive through Helsinki as fast as they can and the one who gets the most expensive fine wins :)

permalink Ω 14 January 2002, Helsinki

The bureaucracy of being alien

I'm a warm weather person so it is somewhat cruel that fate sent me a man from a country where reindeer roam and Santa spends the off season. In one year I will be following Jarkko back to Finland to live.

After 11 September I started working on some of the paperwork for Jarkko's green card since I was a little worried about the potential for non-citizens to be deported and wanted to make sure that in a worst possible scenario that all would be well. The forms were numerous, the questions remnants from the Cold War [ Are you a communist? ] and downright retarded in places. I was both amused and embarassed by much of it and didn't finish the paperwork since, after the immediate panic passed, there didn't seem much point.

So, now it's my turn to be the alien and, while Finland is much more restrictive in their immigration than the US in some ways, it would appear that they do not ask a single question about communism even though they are next to Russia and went to war with them or ask if I'm planning to commit espionage during my stay in Finland. It would seem someone is on the ball in The Directorate of Immigration. What is most impressive though is their definition of 'family ties';

"Multiple marriage is not recognised by Finnish legislation. For this reason, a residence permit can be granted to one partner only. The sex of the partner does not affect the granting of a residence permit, so that a permit may be obtained by a partner of the same sex."

On the US forms one of the questions is about bigamy and don't *even* bother applying if you have any kind of relationship that doesn't embrace good old fashioned American family values and the church. Finland also doesn't mandate that you be married, just that you have cohabitated and survived each other for 2 years and have some documentation to prove it. I'll probably still get the rectal probe that is Immigration but I must say this is such a comforting sign to me that Finland will be a nice place to live ..especially in a time where the US is not doing anything comforting with regard to respecting human life in this so called war on terrorism.

permalink Ω 11 January 2002, Helsinki

Or There and Back Again for a Dragonleather Jacket

Last night TorgoX asked me if Jarkko had first read the Lord of the Rings in Finnish or English. Last August Jarkko purchased a copy of LOTR for his sister and commented how the Finnish translation of Taru Sormusten Herrasta [ and available for 20€ at Akateeminen Kirjakauppa in Helsinki ] was far superior in some ways to the English as much care was taken by the translator to capture the essence of the story. Tolkien also studied Finnish at some point in his education before settling on English which may have helped the translator somewhat in communicating with Tolkien.

In my quest to find the Finnish edition online for TorgoX I happened to come across The Snobbit and Lord of the Legos which needs no translation at all for those who can't be bothered to read the rather lengthy tome. :)

permalink Ω 8 January 2002, Helsinki

Shades of Grey

The Helsingin Sanomat - International Edition is often an informative newspaper both for getting an idea of how Finnish media sees and reports on the world and what Finns find interesting enough to find newsworthy. Tonight I read The Rhetoric of Good and Evil that articulately expresses my growing dismay at the current situation often distilled by our President, the British PM and news media around the world as a conflict between Good vs. Evil.

The Finns know something about war. The little known Winter War began on 30 November 1939 between Finland and Russia when Finland refused to give up the Karelian Isthmus between Lake Ladoga and the Baltic including some strategic islands and Suomenlinna due to the proximity of St. Petersburg to Finland. After months of fighting and with the Spring approaching [ mud and other tactical difficulties ] Stalin conceded defeat. Here's a tiny little country who nearly ran out of bullets and kicked some serious ass. There was also the "continuation war" against Russia with the help of Nazi Germany and the "lapland war" with Russia against the Germans at the end of WWII. Good and Evil are far too simple to describe the politics in how lines are drawn in war. Not black and white but a million shades of grey. Unsurprisingly, the Finns earned their independence as well as a fierce pragmatism towards politics and government.

Amusingly enough, the US didn't offer to help but the son of Roosevelt, Kermit, formed an 'international brigade' called the 'Finnish Legion' totalling 230 people and managed to arrive just in time to be too late and a major civilian pain in the ass. Roosevelt also made a loan of $10 million dollars to the Finns under the condition that they not buy arms with it. So, the Finns bought food which they then traded to blockaded Britain for Pounds and bought arms from....surprise, America.

Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-40 is regarded very highly for its balanced viewpoint as well as being a marvelous read since the author has done an enormous amount of research and tells the story with some life instead of desiccated facts.

permalink Ω 13 October 2001, Helsinki

Postcards from Finland....

Last spring I traded in my old camera for a new Canon Elan 7e since I knew we would be travelling over the summer and trying to develop hobbies that aren't Perl related. :) I know, I know, it's very low-tech to still own a film camera but I like film and I can even get them put on Kodac CD at the time of processing or scan them in with my Canoscan 676U.

Perhaps it is a function of age that I started to think of all the countries I have travelled to and all the events of my life that I had no pictures to peruse when I'm even older and more a curmudgeon than I am now. So, risking being branded a tourist, I lugged along my camera to Helsinki and Turku last August to take some pictures I could enjoy. I must admit that I am not that terrific of a photographer but the Elan 7e is a camera that makes up for much of my inexperience. All of the following photos were taken using Kodak Portra 400VC film and if you have a slow modem be warned that all of them are ~80k or so.

Jarkko's parents Eila and Erkki [ this was taken in Boston Commons in May ] whom we stayed with for two weeks at their lovely home in Espoo, a suburb of Helsinki or, really more precisely, one of the 4 cities that make up the Helsinki Metropolitan Area.

We slept late and went out to eat a lot as people do when on holiday. The Art of Star Wars exhibit was in town at the time and managed to catch it though it was mostly unappealing stuff from Episode I. The display of Darth Vaders costume was fun since you had to walk into a completely dark booth when you would begin to hear the heavy breathing....and lighting would illuminate the visage of Darth. I was hoping he would say something like 'Luke, I am your father' or another equally cheesy line but no, he just kept on with the heavy breathing. I managed to drag Jarkko to just about every bookshop in town as well as to Stockmann's Department Store a few times too. Stockmann is everywhere and sell everything from underwear to automobiles. If you need it, Stockmann likely has it.

I love Finnish food..then again, I love English food so this may be some indication that I'm a little odd :) I never met a loaf of bread I didn't like and Finland has *excellent* bread and these little karelian pies I can eat by the pound. They are made with either a rice or potato filling and, on one occasion, carrot. McDonald's has the McRuis which is a hamburger with trimmings on a rye bread bun. I'm nearly drooling on the keyboard just looking at the web page for it. I'm jonesing for my McRuis fix. Their cheese is also delicious. There is Aura or, as it is marketed in the US, Midnight Blue cheese named for Aura, the area with the river Aura where it is made and Finlandia Swiss Emmental. You don't need to understand Finnish to grasp the power of cheese. The Finns have some weird things I won't eat though....a mixture of butter with either chopped egg or roe mixed in. These people use roe like butter. My lip curls at the thought of fish roe but it's everywhere....I guess I'll try to aquire the taste for it. :) I'm slowly warming up to the idea of Baltic herring.

Jarkko decided to book a cruise on the Silja line cruise ships to visit Stockholm for a day and, while we were there, see Artur and his lovely girlfriend. On our way to the terminal I took a shot of the Tuomiokirkko [ Lutheran Church, literally "Doom Cathedral" ] which looms large on the landscape of Helsinki and is visible from nearly everywhere you look. The Helsinki Town Hall is right next to the port and another prominent feature. You can't really see it in the photos but the streetlights are beautifully designed and they take quite a bit of care in interior as well as exterior lighting and design.

So, I didn't really tell Jarkko about my deep fears regarding cruise ships and general lack of 'sea worthiness' and just decided to give it a go and try to have a good time. Before the boat left the the South Harbour we got an excellent view of The Helsinki Yacht Club along with an amazingly bright red sailboat, a blue boat and a sailboat that I wouldn't mind having for myself. We took a walk around the deck and the boat moved on out of port towards Suomenlinna [Finland's Fortress], the sea fortress built by the Swedes in the late 1700s. There is a ferry that takes tourists to the fortress that we had taken a year earlier. It's quite an amazing fortification, half of it is still in use by the armed forces. We cruised by the Kings Gate and past the parapets and bastions and out into the Baltic while Jarkko assumed his Finnish national pose :) Once we were cruising along I got a reasonable sunset photo or two before the sun retired for the evening around 9pm and we went to find food and drink indoors.

The cruise ship indoors is like a hotel with a shopping mall, a casino, a bunch of restaurants and a duty-free shop where every alcohol and cigarette depraved nordic citizen shops in a crazed frenzy. We had dinner at the seafood restaurant after I spied what looked like a very appealing baltic seafood platter. When it arrived on the table it was filled with a variety of crustaceans but after a while I started noticing that the baltic crayfish were covered in roe...not just a little but covered in roe. It was unexpected and unusual but, sans roe, it was rather good. Afterwards we went up to the top deck to have a few drinks in the bar before going to bed and happened to be just in time for the karaoke. Now, there is nothing quite so disturbing after a few Finlandia Vodka, lakka and cranberry cocktails as a bunch of drunken Swedes and Finns singing karaoke to Willie Nelson and other such American music classics. One act drove us to another round and the bartender giggled showing off his airport quality ear protection for such occations. One ray of hope was that not one person sang an Abba song.

Above and beyond the call of duty, Artur Bergman and his girlfriend picked us up at the terminal when we arrived at the awful morning hour of 8am or so on a Sunday. We dropped our stuff at the hotel and wandered around the old town section of Stockholm while I took pictures of a manhole cover and a fountain before feeling a bit too touristy to take more photos. The Vasa Museum was very interesting and I enjoyed spending a few hours there. I'm still in awe of it's size and that it was successfully raised and preserved after 333 years on the bottom of the sea. I think it should be a required study for PHBs to illustrate that no matter how important you are or how much money you spend on a project, it can still sink straight to the bottom if you don't let the engineers do what they do best. The rest of the day we just hung around and ate lots of food while talking little about Perl. If travel to and in the US weren't so unrecommended I'd love for them to visit Boston and show them around town.

On the return trip to Helsinki there was a freak storm that made for very rough going with 10 foot swells. Needless to say I was a bit green in the morning and having a breakfast of coffee while watching people slather roe on their karelian pies was almost enough to make me run to the railing. We slogged through a driving rain through downtown to the bus station to catch a ride home. I haven't changed my mind about giant cruise ships but I survived and enjoyed seeing a side of Nordic culture that a tour book wouldn't satisfactorily cover.

Jarkko borrowed his Father's car for a day and we took a scenic drive 2 hours west to Turku. Turku was recently in the news for giving Microsoft the shove and switching to Linux. We wandered along the river in downtown and visited the Turku Cathedral, the largest gothic cathedral in Finland first built in 1286. Outside stands Mikael Agricola the first Lutheran Bishop of Finland and is also credited with creating the written Finnish language. It's he whom we can blame for all the bloody double-consonants. The Finnish Historical Society has a biography of Agricola and a host of others. The front door of the cathedral exudes gothic age while below it on the river banks is rent-a-canoe. Turku also had a lot of public art including a fountain, spider web and Turku spelled in pink impatiens to remind people where they are if they've managed to forget.

We left Turku in search of Snappertuna, yes, it's really named that, and Raasepori Castle, the castle on the rock, built in the late 13th century and was surrounded by water when it was built. This is the sort of place kids would love to have to play pirate games in. I caught a shadow from one of the windows that looked just like an Atari space invader, or a jellyfish or...something. It was nearing sunset and the light inside the castle was casting long and, at times, creepy shadows. From the tower I saw a house that is pretty typical for Finnish homes. A wood frame house with vertical slats and a flush ladder, no shutters on the windows, modest design and a sauna. The New England Saltbox style is similar.

In the last couple of days in town before heading home we took a cruise around Lauttasaari in a friends' old trawler that he is making a hobby of fixing up and one last day where I took my camera along to be a tourist. While getting a picture of a seemingly rather perturbed carriage driver and his steeds on the esplanadi, we saw this group of kids carrying pails and squirting each other with mustard, flour and other goop. They looked like an interesting group so we followed them down to the harbour fountain where they began to rinse off the goo and freshen up. One girl whom I dubbed bat girl was particularly interesting. We still don't know what the event was all about but it was certainly amusing to watch. :) One thing that I thought was rather odd in Finland was the abundance of graffiti everywhere. There is a pedestrian underpass at one of the metro stations that could be mistaken for a Bronx mural. Finland is very serious about its coffee, so serious in fact that King Kong himself scaled the YLE building to behold a magnificent mug of the national drink. I think he's missing a bottle of Finlandia though. And, if you ever wondered of what became of the Leningrad Cowboys then your search is over as they run a Russian Tex-Mex Restaurant in downtown Helsinki.

So, if I've made Finland sound appealing, Winter is coming and is a perfect time to visit The Ice Hotel which is just what it sounds like and Santa Park where Santa really lives. Reindeer is good eatin'! :)

permalink Ω 13 October 2001, Helsinki