Doubling Places

New blog? What?

2010-11-11T14:38:00.007+02:00

Well, not a blog. Or rather: not a blog with a website, but a website with a blog. What do you think? Cool? Why? What? Who?

Yes, it's me. You might still find traces of a travelling mathematician. Ten points if you do.

Back? Or not?

2010-08-08T08:34:00.009+03:00

This might be Saara starting to write again or it might be Saara using this blog to promote arbitrary other stuff. I'm not sure which one is the one writing now but here's a website.

Yes, bellydance in Finland. My navel is on the front page.

Väre is Finnish and means something like shimmy, which is a bellydance movement – a shimmying kind. But it can also mean the ripples on the water. Or the chills you get watching a great performance.

View North

2009-04-07T22:11:00.002+03:00

What? She's posting again? Yeah, yeah, yeah... There's an explanation: No pilates tonight. The class was canceled. The teacher is sick. So here's your picture:

This is the view North from the upstairs staircase window. Probably taken sometime before Christmas. Our next door neighbor towards North is a bit to the right in the picture: if you look closely you can see a yellowish hue in the right hand side. The red house is the neighbor after that. It's a big beautiful house on a cliff, with a mansard roof and a majestic look. But our little house is just as cosy and we don't need to sand 30 icy steps to our front door during winter. Only five.

Speaking of the ice. It was glorious on the window that day. It transformed the garden into a soft milky dream and just below the sun made it glow and sparkle in millions of funny shapes and there was just this tiny crack that you could see quite clearly through.

The ice is pretty but it's also evidence of bad ventilation in the bathroom. All fixed now. We have a light switch and we have a switch to turn on the mechanical exhaust. Just like in America. Totally awesome!

Snow Cat

2009-03-29T13:48:00.004+03:00

So why haven't I posted anything in such a long time? Well, the truth is that I haven't had any news worth writing about. But the snow cat is worth writing about. Or rather, it's worth a picture.

This last week has been beautiful and sunny with rapidly melting snow and a strong promise of spring. But yesterday I woke up to a silent snowfall which made me instantly happy as it never fails to do. Today however, the snow is already melting again and the cat has lost first it's tail, then the head and now finally it's back.

Luckily I took pictures yesterday to share with you and remind me of the wonders of snow even after it's all melted away. How about the past months then? Did I panic? Did I get everything packed? Did I take any pictures to share later? Was I truthful earlier when I said I told you the truth? Shall you find out later? Nobody knows, but the Snow Cat's here to stay. And if it snows a little more, I can always make a new creature from the two leg pillars still standing.

As always, the Snow Cat from left and from right and from back and from front here.

Packing Now, Panicking Later

2008-11-18T23:11:00.003+02:00

So we are moving just 11 days from now. I'm packing. There's still no electricity, no heating, no water, not even a toilet seat. Somebody pointed out to me that there's no use for a toilet seat if you don't have any water. But I've thought this through, trust me. You see, one could fetch water from the garden tap, which is working. At least I think it is.

We are happy it's getting colder as the porch will provide a great fridge and we are planning to buy a mikrowave. The eight months of dust do worry me though. The vacuum uses electricity, you understand. And the cats do worry me. They are ment for pillow imitating and purring, not as renovation hazards or dust redistributers.

But there is one thing I've learned this fall. We all know it and I've known it too for a long long time, I've been told it hundreds of times and I've said it hundreds of times more but I was never able to truly live by it before. To take only one worry at the time. If you feel your life is spiralling out of your hands, that your worries are drowning you, that you simply can't handle it anymore, I have a suggestion you can't pass: Acquire a house to renovate, the older the better, the worse the shape the better. Prefarably wooden. Prefarably with memories. And I promise you, you will finally be able to live one day at the time.

Yes, we are moving in 11 days from now, we don't have electricity, heating or water, not even a toilet set, and I'm not panicking. There is still plenty of time for that next week.

Legacy

2008-10-28T22:13:00.003+02:00

It was a basement restaurant and I walked the white steps down from the street. It had been raining the whole day and I was happy to get inside from the wet darkness. I was a bit early as you can imagine but there were already some people bustling about and I slowly chose a table from the far end of the room. They had coffee and pastries. The room was small and softly lit and the walls were decorated appropriately in the spirit of Kalevala.

Once it started the meeting did feel like a community. I am using the word very consciously. We are living in history. I know that a member can be discharged from the cooperative by a simple decision of the administrative board. And that this in effect means that you lose your property. No quarreling about.

I observed the discourse from my sofa. Most of the members present had beards and everyone who spoke did so with steady confidence. I was surprised to be able to follow everything that was being said without effort. I rather think that I knew quite a lot of it already. Of the construction details that is, not of their history. My vocabulary has already changed and I felt homey and affirmed by the discussion.

On the way home I remembered an evening at my grandparents'. Mikko had to leave for the cooperative meeting. I was bummed that he had to go, but I couldn't say anything as I somehow saw in his face the importance, the necessity and the dignity of his mission. I don't know if he ever spoke there with the steady confidence but I know that he must have sat in the same room with some of the same people I'd hear speaking today. I also don't know if he liked going to the meeting, probably he would have rather stayed home with his granddaugher. But I know that he did go and that he did everything right, just like grandfathers and grandmothers do. And I know that he would have shaken his head in worry and his brows would have furrowed in his ever-present anxiety over me but that he would have known what to do now, too. Just like grandfathers and grandmothers do.

As I walked home to the home that is almost not home anymore as the move date is getting closer and closer I was crying and for the first time I really felt the weight of legacy on my shoulders. Enough so that I am now able to realize that however clichéd it sounds, it really is a thing that feels in your shoulders. And it feels quite lonely. With this house it is just me now. I have to be the one who knows what to do, just like I do. And just tonight I miss my grandfather.

Overflight

2008-10-16T23:41:00.009+03:00

Mums are pretty cool. Mine came to pick me up me for a bird watching expedition this Wednesday night. We drove to Viikki, a nature area in Helsinki, just a bit east from Kumpula, and walked to a birdwatching tower on the waterside.

There were already two guys there, you know the kind: brown greenish jackets with 25 pockets, rough beards and alert friendly eyes, huge cameras standing on tall tripods, relaxed poses looking silently out to the bay. We were silent too. My mum was happy with her binoculars, I was happy with my camera.

The wait was worth it. After an hour or more of standing there, seeing and breathing and watching the sky get darker and darker there was a sound. Cackling from north-east, from the direction of the fields. There were maybe 20 of them. Barnacle geese. They flew just over us and towards west and landed on the bay.

A few seconds and then there was a louder sound, more cackling, from a wider area now, then building up, getting closer, thundering towards us, turning into a machine or a train or an airplane, all around us, and then 3000 geese are flying right above us, over us, everywhere around us. We can see them quite clearly. Their shapes, their wings, their formations, their strength, they are everywhere, they fly fast and in a minute it is over. The last are descending on the bay nearby. The cackling continues more distant on the calm of the bay and when we walk back to the car after some tea from the thermos it is already dark.

Here's some audio:

And pictures, as usual, here.

Women and Math

2008-10-13T17:04:00.001+03:00

Check out the new layout of the department wep page. The person making the page asked me politely if they might use my picture. Let us recall the standard answer. Yes, of course, anything for the department! However, I did first check that there was nothing obscene written on the blackboard. Which makes me quite angry now that I get asked: "So what did you write on the board that they had to censor it?" Yes, for the nth time: the box on the right hand side is not a censor box but in fact the logo of the university. For reference check out any department, physics for example, or the University's main page.

When I'd started as a grad student, or perhaps even earlier during my undergrad there were a lot of studies of "math and women" floating around and I got asked all the time: "How does being a woman affect your studies and your career?" I always answered that if anything it has had a positive effect. Which is obviously true, whether for the good of women in math in general or not let us leave for some other discussion. Now, however, I would like to add one point that seems insignificant after one incident and still quite insignificant after twenty but starts slowly getting on your nerves after a few years of such treatment.

What on earth am I talking about? Let us recall. Why is my picture on the web page again? Well, a few years ago there was a need to take pictures for some departmental leaflet. Naturally all the females were asked to pose as fake lecturers in order to get socially influential pictures. No big deal, I said, anything for the department!

But any time there is a need for a representative, a teacher, a panelist, a comittee member, a person to be interviewed, they will want a woman. And as there are not expectionally many women, the same people are asked all the time. And god help you if you once do a good job, they will never ever ever ask anybody else again. And so your precious work time trickles slowly away as you will never ever ever learn how to say no.

Details

2008-10-07T08:54:00.007+03:00

The room was full of light. Maybe there was a slight greenness in the furniture. We stood on a soft carpet almost at once. There were two candles on the table and I put the small white box down beside one of them. He looked at us in the eyes and spoke with conviction and I agreed with everything he said. We wanted to kiss long before he was done. Then he came around the table and shook my hand and said: "Congratulations, Mrs –". And yes, before you ask, I did keep my name.

Afterwards we were standing by the sea. There was a wind blowing almost like in Iceland. I was slightly afraid of being blown away. The trees were still yellow and orange and the sun was bright and sparkling on the waves. There was a sailing boat or two. We walked on the cliffs for a while and then sat down in the white gazebo. We were both speaking on the phone for a long long while.

There are no pictures. I wore my green highschool graduation dress, a necklace from Iceland and a hair pin from Alexandria. Tommi had a dark suit and a grey tie but his pin with Kevätpörriäinen was unfortunately in Vaasa. My camera was in my purse.

But don't be angry if you didn't know. Nobody knew. We got married just the two of us.

Window Shopping

2008-10-04T23:14:00.000+03:00

We took a ride to Pinjainen today, that's Billnäs in Swedish and close to Pohja, which means literally "the bottom" and is close to Karjaa which is about an hour drive west from Helsinki. The day was beautiful: sunny and in all the colours of the Finnish fall.

And I bought a window. There is something sea in it and something cat too.

And I took some pictures. Just a couple so they were easy to go through. Check them out though.

Oh, and ten points if you catched the quote and were able deduce the name of the window. We'll see if it holds... the name I mean.

Walking Back

2008-10-01T12:17:00.004+03:00

You know what is sad? That there is a colourful warm sunny fall outside and I've become estranged from my camera. This morning I walked early to the house. You know about the house? Well, for now I guess it's enough to know that there is a house, well a half of a house really. It's in Käpylä, the place where the fall of my imagination has always lived.

The blanket of rustling yellow at your feet, the smell of moist ground after last night's rain, the freash air and the sense of possibilities, the red and the green and the brown and the yellow in all the leaves in all the colours of all the houses all round. And a feeling of walking back from school.

Mind Pictures

2008-09-21T19:15:00.005+03:00

Of course I didn't have my camera with me today. We went to eat at this new Nepalese place on Rautatientori and by the way, we highly recommend. Tommi's fish was more spicy than my chicken, but the naan was great and the mango lassi just as it should. After we had eaten a butterfly flew over the table and landed just beside my napkin. It was a peacock butterfly, neitoperhonen in Finnish. It was perfectly orange brown with its four purple and black eyes and hairy body and it sat there for a long long time just swaying its antennae and warming in the sunshine on the shiny white tablecloth.

Afterwards we saw the movie Brúðguminn by Baltasar Kormákur. It was quite funny but not nearly as great as 101 Reykjavík of which I've already obsessed about here. But the opening scenes of hillsides and the sea and the swans at Tjörnin made my eyes water. I miss my Iceland.

Summer Bliss

2008-08-30T09:53:00.000+03:00

Ok, so this happened three weeks ago already, but you know how hard it is to get back on track after a long break.

I put this picture as my background pic on my laptop after I lost the previous one of Jymy through reordering of old files. This is from Koivuranta in Vääksy, a village in the southern part of the lake Päijänne. My dad's family is from Kalkkinen which is a bit north from Vääksy, just across Pulkkilanharju.

We visited Koivuranta on August 9th to attend a yearly family gathering always abundant with honest food, happy family talk, games and programme, sauna and swimming and of course a birthday cake for my grandma. Happy birtday Aino!

Check out some more pictures of the Finnish summer by the lake and a couple of rare shots of lakeside species.

Laundry

2008-08-08T19:14:00.002+03:00

Our washing machine – the one I told you our cats like to sit on top of when it's on – broke down last week. Luckily nobody was sitting on top of it when it was on for the last time. Or maybe somebody was but they took off much faster than I was able to run to the bathroom. Well, there was no drama really. It just made a funny noise – it sounded broken actually – and we had to unplug it before it travelled too far.

However, I had ingeniously forseen this and inherited my grandma just a few months ago and so it happened that she did happen to own another old washing machine, actually probably even younger than ours. So all we had to do was to transport it to our place. Well, for minor technical reasons we had to get rid of the old one first. We carried it down to the basement beside the trash cans. And yes, I am aware that this is quite illegal. However, I ment to keep an eye on it and order a pick up for it if it wouldn't disappear. But as I suspected the next day somebody had already moved it to the other side of the room to sit beside an abandoned television and a couple of days after it had already disappeared. This handy recycling system seems to function quite reliably in these big city owned apartment buildings for all manner of stuff.

So now we have a washing machine again. I also managed to buy a new tube and so our washing machine even functions. And to top it all off I managed to retrieve the old manual – how it still exists is quite unfathomable – and now we are even able to understand how it functions. I'm sure only a washing machine engineer could figure out to call the different programs by such descriptive names like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or even Z.

The only problem is that this washer has a way smaller tumbler than our old one had. It currently seems like the washing rate that I'm able to achieve would not be able to match the rate of dirty laundry this household is able to produce. We might be facing a bit of a problem soon.

What is the most important thing though? The cats are happy. A front loader beats a top loader any day – way more entertaining!

Cairo, Alexandria And The World Dances With Mahmoud Reda

2008-08-01T23:14:00.000+03:00

Long time no see, I know, I know. But there is so much more to write about as well as I promised. Here's the first peace offering. Yes, I was in Cairo.

The good news is that I didn't have time to take as many pictures as I usually do and thus it might be possible for me to go through them all in a sufferable time and you might actually get to see them at some point in the future.

Here's another picture from Cairo. Don't ask me what the sign says. The flower is pretty though.

No pictures from Alexandria at the moment. There was even less time for picture taking there. And now here's the story. Last year just before Christmas I auditioned for the El Hosseny Dance Company (why it still says at the web site that they are just founding the company, I have no idea, I think it has existed for at least two years now). As I was in Iceland last spring I couldn't dance with the group before but when I got back to Finland in the beginning of June I called Tuija and asked if I could still join them for the trip to Alexandria and Tuija said yes. So the next day I went to practice and the day after that as well and the day after that and you know the drill.

Why Alexandria then? Well, there was The World Dances With Mahmoud Reda festival. There is no link here as based on my limited experience there generally are no links about anything that happens in Egypt. Now Mahmoud Reda I can link you to many pages even though it's surprising that there is no Wikipedia page about him and I so can't use my default link and chose this link instead as it contains pictures from last year's festival in Alexandria.

In the festival different dance groups around Europe come togeather to perform Mahmoud Reda's choreographies with Egyptian professional male dancers. This year as last year the groups were representing France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland and Finland. We had five shows at the big stage at the New Library of Alexandria in the beginning of July. Our group danced altogether seven dances, four each night. No dance pics yet though, sorry, as obviously they would not be taken by me. However, here's a picture of our group posing with Mahmoud Reda and Farida Fahmy, a legendary principal dancer of the Reda Troupe who came to see the last two shows. To get a glimpse from the past check out Mahmoud Reda, Farida Fahmy and the Reda Troupe on YouTube. This year I think the Italian group performed this piece, correct me if I'm wrong.

Standing from left to right: Laura, Marcela (our Spanish participant), Ilona, Master Mahmoud Reda, our teacher Tuija Rinne, Madame Farida Fahmy, and our teacher Mohamed El Hosseny

Kneeling from left to right: Elise, Milja, Nastya (our Estonian participant), Aino and me

The picture was taken by a professional photographer at the Library, if anybody knows who to credit here, please let me know and I will do so.

Real Business

2008-06-19T00:42:00.005+03:00

Here's a Viivi and Wagner from a few weeks back. Wagner has invented a whistle that attracts real estate agents. Having met some of the same sort just a few days ago, this made me laugh out loud. In the last frame Viivi is asking how one does get rid of them and Wagner says that he thought they would have natural enemies.

As for anything else, my life's all upside down in a good busy hectic sort of way so no updates. Also I'll be gone for a few weeks soon and will not be taking my laptop so there really will be a silence for a while. And then I suppose the list of things to write about will be only much much longer.

Here's a link to the strip in Hesari.

Käpylä Village Festival

2008-06-10T23:58:00.007+03:00

This weekend was the Käpylä Village Festival, Käpylän kyläjuhlat in Finnish. Käpylä is my childhood neighbourhood and my mum still lives there. You have seen some garden pictures from there last summer and if you haven't heard my lectures about my beautiful home neighbourhood, go ahead and read the Wikipedia article linked above. The lecture is more or less the same. I checked.

The Village Festival is a biyearly thing, every other summer it is held in Kumpula, a similar neighbourhood nearby. There is always music and other program, festival food and festival beer and such like but for us the main attraction has always been the flea market. It is a real flea market with ordinary people who carry their tables out on the street and spread their old pots and pans on the tables and sell in the spirit of getting rid of old stuff and buying some new much cooler stuff from the neighbour's table. And nobody is doing any business, they are only fulfilling the meaning of life which is of course to carry stuff from one place to another.

We had a beautiful weather this weekend and I even got a bit of red on my nose from the sun. We also sold quite a lot of stuff with my mum. And we didn't buy anything at all (except food) so I think all in all we managed pretty well.

All the pictures are from my old home street Pohjolankatu, where the flea market was held. The street was closed from traffic that day. But somehow I think that the amount of people did compensate for the lack of cars.

PS: I've been getting complaints about the slow updates. Some say that it has to do with Facebook and in a way that is true. That and the fact that I've been incredibly busy lately. It is actually slightly less time consuming to write one sentence that somebody else has already started by giving you the first word than coming up with a whole post full of text not to mention pictures. But I will try.

Kotona

2008-05-30T17:15:00.007+03:00

At home. There are trees. There are freaking many trees. All around. They are green. And tall. And the sun is shining. And it's warm. And I can hear the sound of the wind in the trees just outside the kitchen window. I didn't know one could miss the sound of the wind in the trees so incredibly much.

It actually feels like arriving in a tropical holiday destination. You have to take off almost all of your clothes and the air is bright and there are happy alive sounds all around and a soft warm caress of the wind against your face and your arms as you walk to the store in your shirt and your sandals. We have been properly calibrated it seems.

Ja käytiin kaupassa ja kasattiin kärry täyteen suomalaista ruokaa: karjalanpiiirakoita, ruisleipää, viiliä, Fazerin raparperipiirakoita ja pätkiksiä ja siideriä ja varrasleipää. Ja radiossa soi Anssi Kelan Milla. Melkein rupes itkettään.

And to be fair I think I have to report also on the earthquake. Namely there was an earthquake not far from Reykjavík yesterday. The center of the quake was in Selfoss, about 50 km south-east from Reykjavík, which is a typical earthquake area.

We were at home packing. And suddenly it felt like the neighbours washing machine must have broken down and then the floor was trembling and there was a big rumble and we looked at each other and said: "It's an earthquake!" and then we looked out of the window and had just time to wonder if we should go down to the street or stay up and then it stopped. And after two seconds the whole house (we're at third floor) swayed a couple of times from side to side.

But as we went outside afterwards the life seemed completely normal. It was a sunny day and people were milling around and sitting in cafes. Somebody said that the phones had died for a while or was it electricity but that's about it.

My friend told me though that there was some damage all the way in Akranes as well, which is about 100 km from the center of the quake and that in the liquor store some bottles had fallen down from the shelves. So there must have been damage in Reykjavík too. And in Selfoss there really was a lot of damage and even some injuries and the people are now sleeping outside in tents in the fear of after quakes.

Our departure was timely as we could carry all our extra blankets and pillows and sheets and such to the nearby red cross this morning at 4am before heading for the bus to Keflavík.

Changes

2008-05-27T01:33:00.000+03:00

The swans from the lake Tjörnin have left for the North for Summer. There was only one swan at the lake tonight. And we know, we saw all it's friends already up there in the North.

Also my favourite cafe Barinn has closed down. There was a yellow wrapper on the windows that informed us that on Friday May 30th a new bar will open there. And we will be flying back to Finland the same day.

So my life here ends and I have to reborn again for Helsinki. How to be a mathematician again after being a dancer for five months, I have no idea. The truth is that the biggest change has happened already. I don't wish to reborn.

But the weirdest thing we saw on tonight's walk was this house in Tjörnin. Yes, in Tjörnin. What happened here??

It is a piece of art of course. By easy googling I found out that it is an installation called Atlantis by Tea Mäkipää and Halldórs Úlfarsson and that it has been already sailing in Finland. Here's a link to Mäkipää's cite. (Mäkipää is Finnish of course and Úlfarsson Icelandic.)

Saara is updating her blog.

2008-05-23T23:04:00.000+03:00

Today

Saara has returned home (to Reykjavík) happy and tired.

May 20

Saara will start driving north and towards Akureyri in less than an hour.

Saara will spend the next four days with Tommi driving aroud the island.

May 19

Saara is on a very well deserved holiday! ;) ;) ;).

May 18

Saara wants to thank everybody for a wonderful night!

May 17

Saara warmly welcomes everybody to Mango studio's Spring performance (bellydance!) at Tonbergi, Tonlistaskola, Dalbraut 2, Akranes tomorrow on Sunday at 18:00.

Saara is finally finished with grading and feels quite finished because she has been dancing all day.

May 16

Saara has blisters in her feet and a big bruise in her left knee and feels incompetent.

May 15

Saara is tired.

Saara is deliriously happy.

May 14

Saara has chosen her music for Sunday. She will dance Avril Lavignes Innocence. Now three days to make the choreography...

May 13

Saara tries to finish two choreographies before 7pm.

May 12

Saara is trying to do four things at the same time with poor success.

Saara had a super fun day with Maria and Siggi and Michelle and Bill and Tommi of course. Thanks for the great company guys!

May 8

Saara has fallen hopelessly in love with a couple of mountains and does not ever want to leave this beautiful country.

Saara is still equally busy but with different work.

May 7

Saara reads project reports that are copy pasted from Wikipedia...

May 6

Saara is alive again.

May 5

Saara finished grading almost two hours before dead-line this week.

Saara is grading again but sneezing a bit less.

May 4

Saara is grading, sneezing and drinking tea.

May 3

Saara has had an utterly crazy day.

May 2

Saara is tired.

Saara is gggrrrrading again.

May 1

Saara had her last math class yesterday and got a "Lost in Iceland" T-shirt from her studets.

April 30

Saara will celebrate her n:th vappu away from Finland by working, working and working... :/.

April 29

Saara went to Finland, got ill again, had a tearful day, enjoyed the spring, graded all the papers on the flight back and is now trying to get better while working...

Saara is back online...

April 23

Saara finished her lecture notes, got sick, was working too much and is now getting better. Tomorrow she will celebrate the first day of summer by sleeping.

April 21

Saara is pissed off because somebody has stolen her absolutely favorite new pair of furry violet socks from the laundry room. Grrrr!

Saara got all correct in her Icelandic test.

April 20

Saara has finished this weeks grading and will now start working on next weeks lesson plans...

April 19

Saara has polished all the shoes, washed three loads of laundry, cleand the bedroom, done the dishes and has now also vacuumed the whole apartment to avoid working.

Saara has polished all the shoes, washed three loads of laundry, cleand the bedroom and done the dishes just because she's soo fed up with writing notes.

Saara has polished all the shoes.

Saara is hungry.

April 18

Saara has finished over a half of this weeks grading and will now go home.

Saara is grrrading.

Saara had ice-cream for breakfast.

April 17

Saara should be sleeping.

April 16

Saara wants somebody to translate Hakim & Don Omar's "Tigi Tigi".

April 15

Saara has apparently given too many and too hard problems to her studets this week.

April 14

Saara went to see 21 with her probability class. (After class. Because they were going and asked her to come with.).

Saara is teaching.

April 13

Saara was just pranked to think that she had lost her friend's car! Ggrrrr!

April 12

Saara danced Brazilian samba for the Icelandic tv tonigt.

April 11

Saara is just tired.

Saara 's thoughtful neighbours just cut out the water - again.

* * *

Yes, these are all my status updates from the last few weeks, unedited. It's all that Facebook still shows. This is just to prove that although I've been letting my blog down lately my debt to the holy web has been paid diligently all the time nevertheless.

A few remarks: Our trip was amazing. Also the show was amazing. (Obviously.) I'm also finished with the probability course. And finally: I did find my furry violet socks, they had slipped underneath the drawer.

To get more of this kind, just friend me on Facebook. ;)

Dream Clouds

2008-05-11T11:58:00.001+03:00

On Tuesday night I dreamt about these clouds. I was in an old city with church towers and narrow grey stone streets and there were mountains around. It had just been raining. The sun was setting behind the mountains and there were clouds all around just above the mountains and further down descending along the slopes of the mountains. The setting sun made the couds shimmer in yellows and oranges and pinks and purples and also in blues as there was clear blue sky just behind them peaking through.

Quite predictably I had my camera with me and I was taking a video of all this and as I turned around I found even more amazing softly changing formations of clouds and light. The mountain on that side was covered with a full dark green forest and as I let my camera slowly move upwards along the side of the mountain the clouds were once thin veils, once thick layers on top of each other and once smooth surfaces of white and once all of that at the same time amongst each other and on top of each other and behind it all the setting sun was turning the clouds into pink and orange and blue and the colours were constantly changing and making more and more patterns on the sky. And I got it all on tape.

And so on Tuesday after my dream as I was driving back home from Akranes where I teach my belly dance classes, I saw my dream clouds in real life. I have no pictures to prove it as I was tired and didn't see a good spot to stop and also it was really quite windy and I didn't feel like opening the doors anyway. You'll understand: windy here means windy in a way that you don't want to open the car doors as you're afraid that they might fly away.

I noticed it already in Akranes as I stood outside the studio door. There were dark grey almost black clouds above Akrafjall but in the hollow of the mountain there was a hole with blue sky and a shimmer of white. And as I drove out of the town there was a shimmer of cold in the horizon just north of Akrafjall and underneath the black thick layers of rain clouds that streched over the sky. But looking over the water towards south east as I was driving towards the tunnel there were my dream clouds framing my Esja.

The mountain was different of course. No green trees but just shapes of browns and greys and greens that make up the forms of the slopes here. And no gold either. But the clouds had ascended down on top of the mountain and in the middle where there's a lower part the clouds were such soft mist that it looked grey and silver and blue at the same time. And around and on top of the mountain the clouds were in thick pillows and in transparent sheets and above against the blue sky they took every possible formation and there was a setting sun of course that coloured some of the clouds orange and pink and some of them were still blue against the sky.

About 15 minutes later I drove into the cloud. It looses all the dreamy qualities then of course and becomes just a dark raining wet mist and in the end you can't really see anything anymore. And then it becomes another dream altogether driving in the mist and seeing the turns of the road only just as they come and the mountains only as dark walls rising up and up just beside you when you drive close by.

What You Can Achieve in 5 Hours with 18 Phone Calls and 13 Text Messages

2008-05-03T23:38:00.000+03:00

On Monday I was on phone with Josy who mentioned that there would be some gigs on Saturday that she would need my help with. Ok I say. She'll call me later. She needs to give me the key.

Then later in the week I try to reach her but she has already flewn to Stockholm to a belly dance festival (she got the third place in the competition, congatulations!!!) and isn't answering any messages. I worry all week. I call Marie and harass her as well even though she has nothing to do with it. Then on Friday night I finally get a hold on Josy and around 00:00 she sends me a text message, there's only one teaching gig on Saturday, at 1pm. I set my alarm and go back to sleep.

This morning I wake up and such and aroud 10am I call Josy. So the gig's at the studio? What should I do with them? What music should I use? Where are the belts? Ok, easy, I can do this, I'm even almost recovered from my persistent flu. Where do I get the key? - The key? You don't have a key??? Oh! Oh! Call my friend she has a key, here's the number.

So I call her friend. But she's at work and won't finish until later and the key's at her place. Obviously she can't help me. I sms Josy. I call Marie again. Does she have the phone number of X? Or what about Y? Josy doesn't answer her phone. We think that she must be attending a class there. Luckily there's a registry online with absolutely everybody's phone numbers. Bless Iceland! But we don't know anybody's last names. We try with their addresses. Right around this point I suggest to Marie that maybe we should be detectives. But Marie knows Jóhanna's last name! She, however, is in Stockholm with Josy. I call her, though, maybe she can find Josy for me?

Jóhanna is an angel and answers. No she can't find Josy, but who would have a key? Probably A and B, but she doesn't have their phone numbers. Now it's an hour and 20 minutes before the gig starts. But Jóhanna has the number of one of the teachers!

I call her. I'm Saara, I'm supposed to be teaching a gig for Josy, would you happen to have a key to Magadanshusið? Yes, she has a key!!! She's at home. And it's not far away! I run out immediately. I walk to her place (20 minutes), I get the key, I walk to Magadanshusið (another 20 minutes or so). When I get there I even have an extra 20 minutes to find everything and select the music and finalize the lesson plan. And so exactly at 1pm I sit down to wait for the group of students. Yes!

Quarter past 1 I call the number Josy gave me. Maybe the group got lost and are trying to call Josy who isn't answering? There's an answering machine. After another 10 minutes I call them again. I send an sms. I send and sms to Josy. Did they try to reach her? I send an sms to the owner of the key, the gig is running late, I'll be late too getting the key back.

After an hour Josy answers. No she hasn't heard from them. Yes, it was absolutely 1 o'clock. Absolutely today. There's nothing you can do. Go home. So I return the key and walk home. I get home around 3pm.

Now what's the moral of the story? It is this: It is a good thing to have a blog, even though you have had the crappiest day ever and absolutely every little thing has gone wrong, at least you have gained a story.

Spring

2008-05-01T23:07:00.004+03:00

Happy First of May!

This is not from Iceland of course (as you can see trees!) even though last week was Sumardagurinn Fyrsti, the First Day of Summer, which is an old old Icelandic holiday for the celebration of the end of the winter and the arrival of the summer. The appropriate greeting is Gleðilegt sumar, happy summer, to which you respond with Takk fyrir veturinn, thank you for the winter. Even though it is usually still quite wintery here during that time, last Thursday it was grey and rainy.

But I flew to Finland on Friday and there the Spring had already arrived. The picture above is from the Haltiala Arboretum, where we went for a Sunday walk. More pictures will be promised later with flowers, more green leaves, water, dogs, cows and even a one week old lamb.

Here we have some authentic Icelandic grass though. I saw it yesterday when I was coming home from work. This is actually our building. Notice the bright sunlight even though it was past 8pm.

And today it's another first, namely the First of May, yet another holiday. You have it at least in all the Scandinavian countries. You call it the First of May or May Day or Labour Day or Workers Day. The ancient history of the holiday is the same as for the First Day of Summer, namely it is a celebration of the Equinox, the day when days start to be longer than nights. However, I'm now quite confuced since the celebration seems to be quite off: equinox happens around March 20th.

In Finland though, the biggest celebration is on Walpurgis Night, the eve of First of May, the current atmosphere of which is aptly described by Wikipedia: "The celebration is typically centered on plentiful use of sparkling wine and other alcoholic beverages." This year I'm celebrating my third Vappu away from Finland.

Today we were quite impressed by the workers parade in Reykjavík. The parade started from Hlemmur, the main bus station close to where we live and marched down Laugavegur all the way to Aðalstræti, where the speeches started. They had two marching bands and a lot of flags and banners and at least a third of the city was present. Which of course isn't such a huge amount of people yet and today was a very beautiful day. The sun was shining from the clear sky, it was warm and we almost sat outside for lunch.
To get you in the mood, here's the first marching band.

And some more pictures here.

Nothing Really

2008-04-23T23:17:00.000+03:00

Yesterday the clouds were soft blankets of blue and purple and grey when I sat in the bus on my way home. In the horizon, just above the mountains, there was a wide stripe of orange sunset and the mountains were white and distant and dark behind a haze of blue air. Just above there were holes in the clouds and clear light-blue sky was peaking through.

Why do I tell you this? It's nothing extraordinary I assure you, actually if anything the sky was a bit less interesting than usual. But I have time to write tonight.

I fell ill Monday night. That's always how it goes. Right when you're finishing your crazy crazy workload you get ill. So I cancelled my dance teaching and ended up spending an hour overtime helping my math students. Well, that's how it goes. To justify skipping one work but still going to another: I really felt like I could handle standing up and talking at the same time but not jumping up and down and yelling at the same time. That's the difference between teaching math and belly dance actually, pretty much the same otherwise.

So yes, I'm almost finished with my Probability and Statistics. Three more days next week. And then we'll see what other busy schemes will prevent me from blogging.

Redefining Busy

2008-04-18T02:57:00.002+03:00

Did I complain about being too busy? I wasn't. Now I am.

But there's only two weeks or so left of this type of busy. I'm teaching an intensive course at the Reykjavík University. Math.

And I still have my dance teaching in Akranes. Did you know that? Maybe you didn't. I was going to write about it, you know. But it just never happened. I'm a half time dance teacher and a half time math teacher now. And no time student apparently. Well, except a dance student. Oh, and I'm learning Icelandic too.

Gonna be busy again now.

Pulla-swans

2008-04-11T23:12:00.001+03:00

In Finnish the ducks (mallards I think, actually) that live in the urban areas are called "pulla"-ducks. Pulla being the extremely Finnish bakery that can in fact be found anywhere in the world. Why the Finns call it extremely Finnish, I'm not quite sure, it might have something to do with the amount of pulla that we eat or maybe we simply mean the distinct dry breadlike quality of the pullas that you can buy in plastic bags in any grocery store and that are without exception served at any meeting, celebration or house call everywhere in the country.

My point being that here in Iceland they have "pulla"-swans. And here's a video to cheer you all up. It was taken during Mari and Kari's visit.

It is Tommi, of course, feeding the swans.

Trucks Are Striking and the Traffic is Stuck

2008-04-05T15:29:00.014+03:00

This is how it sounded like Thurday afternoon at our place. Watch with your speakers on since the sound is the main point, not the images. I would have added only the sound if I knew how to add sound files here... It is again, as so many times before, from our kichen window from which everything at all interesting seems to be recorded around here.

The protest was conducted by a whole lot of trucks driving snail speed in the middle of the lanes in the main traffic veins in Reykjavík. I did not actually see any of the trucks but on Tuesday I was almost late for my class in Akranes although I left quite early, we were driving 10 km/h out of Reykjavík.

The truck drivers are protesting agains the high gas prizes and the regulations on the lengths of permitted driving time without resting. They claim that the new EU regulations are not suitable for the Icelandic conditions. I quite agree. Try to drive in a blizzard of 22 m/s in complete dakness on an icy road twisting and turning between the mountains and the sea. I assure you this is nothing extreme yet. The locals still swish past 90 km/h.

TATFBW vs. TATFTBW?

2008-03-31T18:45:00.005+03:00

As I am currently writing notes on basic statistics it seems only fair that I should also analyze my recent blog post frequency. As it happens it has dropped from my earlier "in average two posts per week" habit into a "barely one post per week" struggle. Now this has nothing to do with how many things there are to write about, or indeed how many things there are that one thinks one should or would want to write about.

I think what it has to do with is really the amount of time spent sitting down in one place at the same time. If one sits at work around eight hours a day, say, (as any decent office prisoner should) and then afterwards, say, at least four hours at home in the evening and especially if these times are spent by the computer, well, then the total amount of time favourable for blog writing (TATFBW) will be quite high.

However, if one spends only say two to three hours at most at the same place and moreover is not even spending it sitting down or as a matter of fact not even close to any computer, well, then the total amount of time favourable for blog writing is considerably lower. As it is, it might even be that there is no time favourable for blog writing at all during days like these.

This creates a bit of problem especially since based on my experience the kind of days with low TATFBW also tend to be days with an extremely high total amount of time favourable to thinking of blog writing (TATFTBW). Namely these kind of days contain a lot of getting from one place to another, which usually involves quite a lot of thinking of things to be done.

Having an odd eight hour day at the office I decided to increase the amount of blog entries for the ending month, but as I am realizing now, have forgotten to reduce the difference between thought of subjects and written subjects as this most certainly didn't turn out to be anything I had previously thought to write about.

Cold

2008-03-27T23:20:00.001+02:00

Perhaps a month ago, or maybe even earlier, probably much earlier, probably when I was starting my Icelandic forces of nature series, well then, whenever it was, I wanted to write a post about coldness. I was quite tired of being cold all the time. It's not very warm in our apartment and the windows aren't very thick or the doors very tight. And it can be quite cold here sometimes, outside. Even if the temperature seems quite high it can be absolutely freezing. It's all because of the wind. There will be a post about wind later. I promise. The most important force of them all.

But about coldness. Our hot water was also broke for some time. Well, not in fact quite broke, we did get some hot water, but not very much by any means. As an example during the worst week filling the bath took 50 minutes and after the problem was fixed the bath was full in only 5. And if it is very cold, taking a hot bath is the only thing that can make you warm again, even if you have to wait for an hour to get in. And besides, soaking in hot water is rather Icelandic. As hot water is pretty much free here.

But I've also armed myself with blankets and icelandic herbal teas both of which I have written before. Here's a picture.

And let me brag: There was some study recently that declared Iceland as the most expencive coutry in the world. And still I managed to buy the blankets for 400 ISK each and the tea mugs for 100 ISK each. Pretty good, eh? As 100 ISK is about one euro.

And yes, I know I've been silent lately. My mum's visiting. And there's way too much work. This post was half written earlier and I just felt sorry for my readers tonight, that's why I got it up.

But don't worry about me freezing my ass off here, the summer's coming, I'm sure of it. Just the other day I had to turn on the cold air in the car... For whole five minutes.

Visitors

2008-03-18T22:19:00.001+02:00

It feels like every other week somebody is visiting. Not that it's unpleasant in any way. But we have aqcuired a homey routine that does not include thinking about excursions, museum opening hours and sightseeing. And trying to remember and understand the visitors' hopes and expectations makes me quite confuced sometimes.

The weekend over a week ago we had Mari and Kari camping in our living room. Mari is our god child and Kari her father. What do you call the parents of your god child anyway? We had a super fun weekend.

Oh, and to clarify, yes, I'm indeed a pagan and we are not her god parents in any religious sense. And yes I know that I'm using the word pagan wrong. Rather I mean that I'm not a Christian as opposed to most Finns. But in Finnish it's possible to use the word meaning irreligious. (Go ahead and check Wikipedia if you don't believe me: "Arkikielen käytössä sanalla tarkoitetaan nykyään uskonnotonta ihmistä.") And what ever do you mean that Wikipedia does not represent the ultimate truth?

Aaanyway, pictures again at Picasa. And they come with captions so no more babble here. In the picture above: Mari at the Blue Lagoon.

Faltering Explanations

2008-03-16T23:36:00.001+02:00

This was taken on Saturday through the car window as we were driving to Keflavik with some of my dance friends to see a play called Bærinn breiðir úr sér. Don't ask me to translate. In fact don't even ask me what it was about. Well, I know it was about Keflavik and Reykjanesbær, the municipality that Keflavik belongs to. And that it was a comedy. And evidently quite funny. I even got two or three of the jokes. Which I'm exceedingly proud of.

Afterwards we tried to get some food but all the kitchens in Keflavik were already closed at 10 pm. In the end we found a drive in pylsa place and had lots of fun.

On another note I know that there haven't been many posts lately. And yes it is again because I'm having a lot of fun. But this is the kind of fun that comes from the satisfaction of working your ass off with something you really want to do. And also with something else that makes you able to do just that.

There are numerous things every week that I think I must comment on on my blog but as I wait for the time to write about them new things come up and the old ideas get old and the new ideas are still too long to write down just tonight. And then I take hundreds and hundreds of pictures and will never have time to post them since I'll never have time to sort them all through as I'm still working on sorting out pictures I took here in October.

The fact of the matter is that my life here is simply too full and too beautiful.

More Like a Proof Man

2008-03-11T23:51:00.000+02:00

Check out the trailer for the new movie "The Prover". Tommi has the title role. You can find it here and the trailer starts about 18:26 in the program.

To clarify it is the yearly prank video made by the engineering students at the Reykjavík University. The actors playing Tommi's students are really his students but Tommi does have a stunt man.

Exercise: Guess which is the only direct quote from the prover.

Pósturinn

2008-03-06T23:08:00.000+02:00

Just making a general apology for not thanking for a possible birthday present. But the thing is that the Iceland Post, or rather Pósturinn, is not the biggest or the fastest or the most efficient of all the world's posts.

I recieved a note in early February telling me that I have received a package and that it can be picked up from the central post office. So the next morning or so I hopefully walked to the post but they told me that the package was still in the distibution center. The next time I went there I was told that it had gone missing and that they were now looking for it all over Iceland. And finally yesterday I was told that it still had not turned up. They can't even tell me who the sender is.

However, three other packages have arrived here more or less without problem, that is, I only had to enquire after them at most two times per package and only had to pay a little money to get one of them. So I remain hopeful. Maybe the lost one will turn up before we move back to Finland.

But the point is that I have a feeling that it might be a birthday present since it got here just before my birthday. And if so then there is some great friend of mine somewhere wondering why I never thanked for the present and if I really hated it or what? I'm so sorry. I'm sure I'll like it immensely when I finally get it.

Facing the Truth

2008-02-29T14:58:00.003+02:00

Yes, well, some of you may have heard me speak of the new Saara. She lives such a different life that sometimes I feel like another person altogeather. But even I didn't know that the change had been so huge.

That's a screenshot of my homepage at the Reykjavík University. Boldly assuming that the page might still be updated at some point I saw it fit to take a screenshot for the posteriority.

Observations from the Sofa

2008-02-27T23:11:00.002+02:00

Here's the first exception to the rule that when I'm not posting it's because I'm having too much of fun. Namely I've been ill all last week. And actually it's the first two exceptions since this week I've consequently been unimaginably busy.

But really, there's nothing to be sorry about since you've lost no great tales. The colours of the blankets and the flavours of the teas and the thickness of the socks aren't really universally interesting enough and even my blog has to have some standards as to how tiresome the ramblings can be. So contrary to the title this is not a post about observations from the sofa but rather a post about observations on how boring such observations would be. Which to be sure is much more interesting.

But here's a bonus photo taken today and representing the proud joyous feeling I get almost every time I walk outside. This is my hometown.

Valentine Girls

2008-02-17T20:13:00.004+02:00

Josy: "That one picture you'll delete, right. You know what I mean?"
Saara: "Erm. No. I'll post it online. This is Josy. She's my boss..."
Josy: "You're terrible!"
Saara: "...Not any more!"
Josy: "Ha! You know, we're both thirty today."
Saara: "No, I'm not! I'm 29!"
Josy: "No, you're thirty. I bought a "60"-candle. I'm thirty and you're thirty."
Saara: "That's unfair! And why did I get the smaller cake?"
Josy: "Of course I get the bigger cake."
Saara: "That's not fair!"
Josy: "Ok, ok. Let's swich."
Saara: "The bigger cake looks much better."
Josy: "No! I'm sure the smaller is better."
Saara: "No, I'm sure the smaller is actually quite bad."
Josy: "Eeeew. You're right. We'll swich back. I get the bigger cake."
Saara: "Why's there no dancing?"
Josy: "Why should there be dancing?"
Saara: "Well, duh? It's a party!"
Josy: "You want to dance? Great! I'll put some music and you'll dance for us!"
Saara: "No! I won't dance for you!"
Josy: "Why not? I'll get a costume for you."
Saara: "Josy, your costumes won't fit me!"
Josy: "Oh, I'm sure I have a costume that'll fit you! I buy so many and never have time to fix them all."
Saara: "I highly doubt that you'll have one that'd fit me."
Josy: "Ok, let's go and see, if I have a costume that fits you you'll promise to dance for us?"
Saara: "No!!"
Josy: "You're weird..."
Saara: "Yes, I am. But you're equally weird!"
Josy: "Of course I am. We have the same birthday!"
Saara: "Yay for valentine girls!"
Josy: "Valentine girls!"

And With Funny Videos?

2008-02-13T23:46:00.007+02:00

Here's an often recurring scene. This happened on Thursday. The same Thursday I've been writing about the last three posts.

And here's a similar tale from Saturday. I spent basically the whole weekend inside on our sofa underneath two blankets and only taking two steps to the window when something very noisy was going on outside. Which was often enough to provide entertainment for the whole weekend.

This is from our kitchen window. The story actually began when the first car was being pushed to the street and then the pusher realized that the second car was having trouble as well and went to help them to get out but just then the first car got stuck again and all the people from the second car ran to help to push the first car and that's when the video starts.

Incidentally, I'm quite proud to have gotten the videos online since making the Google Video Uploader work on Linux seems to be quite an overwhelming task and in the end I had to give up and work on my Windows which in fact tells quite a lot about my dedication to my blog.

Thursday With Pictures

2008-02-10T21:23:00.000+02:00

This is Grettisgata. We live in the next corner.

Looks like a nice clear snowy day? Yes, quite right, and that is precicely what is so poweful and dangerous in the Icelandic weather.

Because this is what the sky looked like only moments after that. Esja was covered with a constantly moving white hat of clouds and the sky above was turning darker and darker.

And literally not more than three minutes later as I'd had time to walk down to the shore Esja had totally disappeared and the visibility was getting poorer and poorer. And the storm was gathering.

But I was wise enough to head right back home and not attempt to take pictures of the following blizzard. This is later in the evening when the snowfall had ceased and only the wind was making noise in our walls. You've seen the corner before, it's the view from our South windows (now you can even see Hallgrímskirkja (the church) in the background with it's christmas tree lights). If you look carefully you can see the wind as it's blowing snow just above the red car parked in the corner. And even though the wind bangs our windows and makes spirals of snow fly between the houses there is still continuous traffic in our cosy little home corner.

Some More Snow

2008-02-08T23:44:00.000+02:00

I'm giving up now. I've been trying to upload pictures to this post yesterday evening and during the whole day today but it doesn't seem to be happening. I think it's the storm creating havoc with the wireless. At least the lights are all blinking.

Yesterday there was no sane possibility to drive to Akranes and we decided to cancel the class. I had previously taken a taxi to Josy's place in order to help her get the car out but she'd managed to enlist the help of one of her polish neighbours and had already run some errands before I finally got there. In retrospect walking would have been much faster than first waiting for ages for the taxi and then driving around in the snow chaos. Josy still had one errand left and I hopped into the car. We were already running a bit late and considering the visibility of almost twenty meters in the vertical snowfall we decided that it'd be best to cancel.

So I walked home happily hopping in the snowdrift. Icelanders are really crazy drivers. It's not at all unusual to see cars driving with almost all of the windows still covered with snow and absolutely nobody clears the roofs before taking off. Hence depending on the snowfall all the cars drive around with 10-30 cm of snow on their roofs. It looks quite funny. Like they are little mushrooms.

There's a scene in 101 Reykjavík, where the guys take off with the car in a blizzard and just before stepping into the car the driver wipes with one hand a small round hole to the windshield. It was one of my favourite scenes but somehow it doesn't seem nearly as funny anymore.

Actually, this Wednesday I almost got hit by a car when I was waiting for the green light. I was standing on the side of the road in a huge intersection and this car comes sliding from the other side of the intersection all the way to the oncoming lines and onto the pavement. I had to hop aside in order to avoid being hitten. Crazy!

*** (snow!!! heehee)

So yesterday I heard that they were forecasting for today the worst weather in the last hundred years in Iceland. And what do I do today? I go out running to the beach! Yay! My god! I got completely soaked and was so happy I kept screaming almost all the time.

Well, the beach was really too windy. I was quite afraid that the blasts of wind would throw me to the sea or perhaps more realistically make me fall against the rocks. So after running all the way east along the beach I turned inland and navigated back in the shelter of the tall buildings by the shore. Which was in a way better because there was no slippery ice on the roads and no wind blowing sharp on my face. On the other hand there were ankle deep pools of icy water and piles and piles and piles of dirty snow everywhere. And at one point the wind blew so hard behind me that for a second I started running as fast as I could in order to be able to fly but then slowing down took all my strength. But quite luckily I didn't get blown away.

Missing You

2008-02-04T19:31:00.000+02:00

I'm trying to find a piece of music just under five minutes. So I order all my tracks according to the length of the piece. Which gives me a rather weird playlist. Which I pretend to listen while I work on the probability course I'm supposed to be teaching in April. But the recurring surprises of old songs reminding me of familiar times and places distract me repeatedly from my work. And so I gaze up from my papers and think of old adventures and of old stories and of old dreams and of old friends. Including you.

Just letting you know that I miss you today.

Ice

2008-01-28T23:01:00.000+02:00

Coming back to my Icelandic Forces of Nature series: Here's number three, Ice. This was at Ráðhús Reykjavíkur, the Reykjavik City Hall by the lake Tjörnin a little over a week ago. Tjörnin is the same lake where all the swans are. You didn't imagine such a small place could really pride on two lakes, now did you?

We took a Reykjavík City Sightseeing tour with my grandma who was visiting last week and one of the stops was at the City Hall. The Hall is by the lake and also in a way surrounded by the lake since on the shore side where the main doors are the lake water forms a basin on both sides of the doors. Beside the doors there are two stone walls down on which water is running. There had been frost for a couple of days and thus the water had freezed into thick icicles along the walls. From the tips of the icicles though water was already dripping down into the basin.

After the tour I walked back to take pictures of the ice. For more ice pictures and Reykjavík sights check out the City Sightseeing album on my Picasa page.

Oh, and quite appropriately since I am announcing the second picture series on Reykjavík (the first being Reykjavík 101) this post is in fact the post number 101. I was really just going to brag about having posted over 100 posts until I realized that I actually have a cool way of disguising my bragging into something almost relevant.

Corner Store Gossip

2008-01-18T22:47:00.000+02:00

Bobby Fischer passed away January 17th 2008. He was a chess Grandmaster, political refugee and later a citizen of Iceland.

I heard the news in our grocery store today, incidentally from a man who looked greatly like Bobby Fischer himself as I just realized when I was checking the information and saw his picture on Wikipedia.

I hope he lived a happy life on this tiny island that welcomes all eccentric wanderers with equal strength.

Snow

2008-01-17T23:13:00.000+02:00

We got some snow. Here's some of it in our backyard photographed through our extremely dirty bedroom window. Although it was snowing too so that explains at least some of the blur.

I was photographing these two guys from our kitchen window. They were standing in the middle of the street waiting for a car for a long long time. But they do have appropriate clothing.

And they had an appropriate car as well. And appropriate speed in getting stuff inside too to be sure.

The cute apartment across the street looks even cosier in the snowstorm with the christmas lights.

Our corner. You can't see the church because it's snowing too much. But it is there.

Light

2008-01-12T23:43:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I walked to the department around 11 am and the sky was full of colours of the rising sun. All the thin swirling clouds were coloured in vivid reds and oranges and the morning sky was light blue behind them. I took about a hundred pictures but didn't miss my appointment.

The day is still short. When I was walking back around 4 pm the sky was coloured by the setting sun. But the twilights are long. And even darkness is beautiful here.

Velkomin heim

2008-01-08T18:13:00.000+02:00

That is what they say on Icelandair when your plane is arriving in Reykjavík: "Welcome to Iceland! – Velkomin heim!" I guess if you speak Icelandic you really are coming home. The first picture is from the bus window on the way to Reykjavík from the Airport. If you refer to an older post you will recognice a familiar mountain.

Yes, I live here. Am I crazy to announce it? No. In Iceland everybody's adress is posted online anyway. The only affect this will have is that now I might get cool packets from my friends... ;)

Yes, we heard that already. This was a huge add at the ariport. There are only two mobile operators in Iceland: Síminn and Vodafone. I don't have either contract yet.

Hallgrímskirkja in evening light. I just love my new camera.

And my home street and my favourite mountain Esja. I'm home.

Am I still leaving tomorrow?

2008-01-06T21:52:00.000+02:00

This is how our bedroom looked this morning. Luckily, the situation is better now. The packing has passed the diverging phase and is now converging nicely. My suitcase is still 7 kilos overweight, though. I'm currently trying to figure out what I don't need. I don't think 20 kilograms is such an extravagant limit for a 5 month trip. Especially if your suitcase weighs already 5 kilos.

But it has been snowing today and hence everyting will be fine. I just ran outside to help my mum carry some stuff to the car. I had my new hiking boots and my new wind and rainproof coat and it felt nice to tread in the pure white snow.

New Year, New Camera

2008-01-06T11:43:00.000+02:00

Yay! I got a new camera for Christmas. Well, I did participate a bit in the funding. But it's awesome. Now I just have to learn how to use it. The almost first try was at New Year's Eve. We went to a Russian restaurant Šašlik with my dad's family, since we had missed out on our Finnish-Italian post-Christmas dinner while we were sick. So Kirsi had the cool idea of showing Russian dining to Mari's boyfriend Franci and their friend Daniela, who were visiting for the holidays. Check the pictures for more details.

And then some extra pics from the first week of the year.

With Kevin in Helsinki. Being Finnish. I told him that my camera is as fancy as it can be without being fancy and Kevin deduced that it is maximally unfancy.

With our godchild Mari.

Meeting with old old good friends.

Recuperating from Christmas

2007-12-31T01:04:00.000+02:00

This is exactly how these guys employed themselves the entire Christmas holiday. As did some others, now that we come to that. But we humans did have some colds and stomach flus as excuses. The cats were soothing us with their whole ability, though, so no grudge.

After all the lying around I think we've now recovered enough to start another recovery on Tuesday. Happy happy New Year everybody!

Holiday Haze

2007-12-23T22:50:00.001+02:00

Yesterday around midnight we went to meet Tommi's sister at the airport and there was an amazing fog.

Waiting for the bus.

Lights at the airport.

Merry Christmas! Hauskaa Joulua! Gleðileg Jól!

Full

2007-12-21T23:20:00.000+02:00

We figured out already a long long time ago with my mum that the meaning of life is "to move stuff from one place to another". I'm happy to announce that I've been fulfilling this maxim diligently lately. It's what they call the Christmas spirit.

There's no snow yet though. I don't think it can be fair that there's been a snow storm in Ann Arbor – or so I hear – and Tommi's sister tells me that there's even snow in Marche in Italy. But absolutely none here. Today there was some frost on the gound and a beautiful golden sunshine. But no snow.

I feel quite like a Christmas elf walking back and forth with bags full of wrapped Christmas presents to be traded to new bags over coffee or glögi or lunch. And the kitchen is warm tonight and smells sweet and my feet hurt from standing so long guarding the pots and kettles.

Here's an empty picture. It's my desk at the department all cleaned up. But if you look closely you can see all my stuff filed on the shelves, they are reflected on the windows.

This, on the other hand, is a full picture. It's the Hakaniemi Market Place packed with Christmas shoppers even on Friday morning. But we managed in and out alive and now our fridge is bursting.

Reykjavík 101

2007-12-16T15:04:00.001+02:00

Yes, I'm still in Helsinki. But I am catching up with uploading old pictures. These ones are from Reykjavík. The series is called Reykjavík 101 because for one that's the postal code of our address and the central part of the town and most of the pictures are from around that area and secondly because the pictures present my first impressions of the city thus forming the first course in Saara's lecture series on living in Reykjavík.

But there's still one reason for the name that actually renders the post almost current. I just saw the movie 101 Reykjavík for the first time last week. I might assure you that it's quite a famous movie (and a book before that) even if you've never heard of it before. But you are forgiven because people generally don't know stuff that's world famous in Iceland. However, the movie was great. If you have a chance to see it, I warmly recommend, it's super funny and completely weird.

One of my favourite scenes is when Hlynur, the main guy, a total waste of space, starts putting money in all the emptying parking meters along the street and the meter maid is running after him yelling that one is not allowed to put money for other people's cars. There's a strange type of Icelandic humor, which I hope you may be able to glimpse already from some of my pictures and which is blooming in the movie.

But all in all it's funny that there can be a movie from a city you've lived in only a month and still you are able to recognise almost all the places.

In Memory of Juha Heinonen

2007-12-09T13:00:00.000+02:00

Kuinka monelle piirsit uuden elämän
valkoisella liidulla?
Huoneessa, jonka ikkunoista aukeaa
Ann Arborin aurinko.
Huoneessa, jonka taulun alla
on liidunvalkoista lunta.

Kuinka monena iltana keittiönne
oli täynnä naurua?
Talossa, jonka ulko-ovet olivat
silloin lukitsematta.
Talossa, jossa vain lapsilla
on nukkumaanmenoaika.

Kuinka monta mustaa vaatetta olemme
tänään pukeneet ylle?
Muistossa, jonka vuosien vaihtuessa
itse tarinoit meille.
Muistossa, jota emme vielä
olisi ottaneet vastaan.

Here and There

2007-12-07T23:43:00.000+02:00

Naively one could think that if one is away six weeks of a 15 week dance semester one wouldn't have to dance too many dances in all the dance school Christmas shows. But in fact it works quite the opposite. One attends so many make up classes in different groups that one almost learns their dances as well and then one is asked to perform twice as much.

So the reason for sparse posting lately is that I'm currently having a slight time problem with my three dance shools, three dance school performances, six different dances and six different costumes.

Stay tuned for more Iceland and Ann Arbor content though. It is coming, whether you believe it or not.

The Smell of Slush

2007-12-03T22:59:00.000+02:00

I've been thinking that I want to make a post called Helsinki, My Beautiful Hometown. I would post a picture taken from the city center. There would be some sidewalk and perhaps whatever you could see in the darkness, some lights from some cars or some adds. The sidewalk would be, as they all are now, covered with thick heaps of dirty snow which would be already halfway turning into slush and between the biggest heaps you could see people's footprints as deep holes in the brown slush. There would be lights shining from the wet black asphalt where there might be some dryer patches and you could see the big wet snowy drops pouring sideways above it all. And there would also be people dressed in dark thick clothes walking fast with their faces turned down and leaning slightly forwards.

There is something very distinct about the wet darkness that governs the worst few weeks of the Fall. No more leaves, no white snow yet. Simply the shining wetness of it all and the total darkness and the smell of the rain. It is not totally unpleasant. In fact, last week when I was walking to my dance class I remember thinking: "What a lovely mellow Icelandic weather we are having, the air is fresh and I feel quite alive" and when I got to the dressing room I was confronted by a crowd of whining Finns who were declaring the weather to be of the most horrible sort imaginable.

However, the point of this post was that there will not be such a post. I've been so busy that I've just been running back and forth in the rain all day long every day not having the time to stop and take pictures. And let's face it, the idea of stopping, opening your bag, ferreting out the camera, adjusting it and having your fingers freeze and your camera get soaked is not the most pleasant of ideas that might occur to me while slushing towards the next place I need to be. In fact the only way to find such a weather tolerable is if you don't have to go very far and you can keep going pretty fast.

Where Is My Mind?

2007-11-30T23:08:00.000+02:00

So here's the rule: The more fun I'm having, the less posts there will be. The same is true for pictures. My picture gallery from the Ann Arbor visit is simply pathetic. I did get some help from Marie and Qian but in any case I don't think any picture gallery could be big enough to capture it all so I guess I just gave up on it altogether.

This was taken from the car window while Marie was driving us to the department one morning. It is not very succesful as a photo but it captures the light and the dizzyness and the warmth and the exhilaration of Ann Arbor and meeting good friends after too long time apart. I quite like the solitary black man (or is it a woman?) walking towards the light. If you look closely you can see that there is somebody coming to meet him.

During the last two weeks, every now and then when I've gotten stuck with what I've been doing I've wandered to a folder named Qian's Videos and then I've clicked on the boxes one at a time and watched all the videos once again – and again and again. Here are two screenshots from two different nights that will tell absolutely nothing to anybody who wasn't there but to those who were will hopefully create the feeling of the endless nights of dancing and music and fun and silliness. If you ask now where my mind is, it is there with you.

My grandmother who's a master traveller always says when she gets home from a trip that her soul is still in Venice or in Sorrento or wherever she has happened to leave it last. My naive cures are smells and music, they can transfer you back to far away places and old times in an instant. Whether that is constructive to your psyche can be debated.

But it really doesn't matter that I didn't get my Ann Arbor folder full of pictures this time. I have already several images painted tightly in my mind.

First the fall coloured trees on each sice of the road on our way to Ann Arbor and the first sights of familiar places: The road from Ypsi to town, the Whole Foods corner and then passing Trader Joe's to Stadium and Packard, and up to the department and then Espresso Royale where we went first. And then Kevin and Mario coming through the doors discussing math like nothing had changed.

And the Brown Jug pizza plates. And the bustle at Leopold Bros. And the comfy chairs that you rotate to make them lower or higher at the seminar room with the comfy chairs. And all the posters of paintings in the corridors. And the feel of Ann Arbor chalk on your hands and then the smell of Ann Arbor math department soap on them later.

And the yellow of the forest Marie took me to run to on Saturday morning and the squirrels. And the Michigan M's on peoples' shirts. And the dark trance of Qian's party. And all the baking of pulla and Karelian pies and finally the pumpkin pies in the middle of the night.

And the view from Unveiled Studio to the parking lot while practicing hip accents walking up and down the floor in two lines. And the back room all cleaned up. And the old mirrors and the tiny CD player and the feel of the wooden floor under your feet.

And the colourful leaves on Olivia and the sight of the street in broad daylight for the first time. And the five candles on the table in the green house. And painting with watercolours and playing Clue.

And the Daniel dance and the Pekka dance. And playing foosball and light wars. And drinking beer and watching videos and videos of us watching the videos.

And the last day with lunch in Raja Rani and tea at Sweetwaters and the last visit at the department to copy videos and Qian standing at her office door the light from the office behind her and the darkness of the corridor making her black against the doorframe.

And then Jana and Daniel waving from their front door hugging each other while we're driving away. And the gold of the leaves illuminated by the setting sun on each side of the road as we drive towards the airport and the pink of the sunset later. And last the flying water of the Detroit airport fountain against the still waguely golden sky.

Ultimately this is a blog about wanting to be in different places at the same time.

Updating

2007-11-27T20:32:00.000+02:00

So my mum just called me and said in the midst of something else: "And why haven't you posted anything on your blog? You need to post stuff so that I know how you are!" To which I retorted: "Well, yes, we only talk on the phone, what, three times a day?" But she was adamant and kept on: "But this is just everyday nonsense, you write on your blog how you really are feeling."

So my apologies for the slowness of the updates lately. But it doesn't mean that there's nothing coming. This is not coin tossing, you know, a long wait really means that it is more probable that there will be a huge post very soon.

It's Possible But You Have to Run

2007-11-19T20:57:00.000+02:00

That's exactly how much help you'll get if you happen to have a 55 minute change in Amsterdam and your plane is delayed.

When I expressed my worries about catching my connecting flight on the plane the flight attendant simply noted that I would have to hurry. When she was leaving though she chirped encouragingly over her schoulder: "You'll make it!" It didn't quite convince me.

It took me quite a while to get out of the plane since I was seated in the far back of the plane and I had to wait for everybody else to crowd out first. And when I had found the flight display it was already showing "boarding" and I still had to get from terminal E to terminal C, which according to the helpful signs would take 25 minutes.

When I went through the customs I asked the lady whether she thought that I'd make it in time to which she answered: "Well, it's possible, but you have to run". What ever happened to getting in front of the line if you are in a hurry? And what ever happened to airport personnell running with you through the airport to make sure you make it?

When I was running the last stretch after the security check, the displays blinked already "gate closing". But I made it in time, quite out of breath and sweaty but just in time. Also quite predictably, my luggage didn't make it. So I got an extra practice in getting used to the time change: staying awake waiting to recieve the lost luggage.

When I finally got the bag it had a KLM-blue note attached to it: "Please accept our apologies..." Apparently I get a discount of 25 euros if I happen to fly KLM during the next 9 months.

The Three Falls

2007-11-14T21:23:00.000+02:00

This post is from Ann Arbor. But what did you expect? The name of the blog is Doubling Places, Ann Arbor – Helsinki – Reykjavík. And now you know that it's cyclic. After Reykjavík there is Ann Arbor again. Then Helsinki will be next and after that Reykjavík again.

While I have been travelling west it seems I've also been travelling backwards in the weather time. As a result I've seen three falls this year. Or rather I want to say three ruskas. Ruska is a Finnish word meaning the time when all the leaves change into fall colours. Here's a fall picture series travelling backwards in real time.

The Michigan Fall is warm, sunny and bright with colour. This is from Ann Arbor, taken today only a couple of hours ago. The building is the Angell Hall and you'll recognize the Ann Arbor street lamp.

The Icelandic Fall is stormy, rainy and windy with quickly travelling grey clouds. This is from Þórsmörk about a month ago. There had just been a big storm a couple of days ago so most of the leaves were already gone.

The Finnish Fall is cold and crisp with wet sidewalks and darkening nights. This is from Helsinki in late September and it's sporting the national tree, birch.

Svanar

2007-11-04T18:58:00.000+02:00

I came here on Monday four weeks ago and already on Tuesday we went for a late night walk down to the lake in the middle of Reykjavík. It wasn't raining or even windy. The water was pitch-black in the night and we stood leaning on the railing on the Northern shore. The lights on the other side of the lake were reflected on the surface of the lake and there were always two lights of different colours side by side making a beautiful effect from where we were standing.

The water looked almost scary in the darkness, one could barely distinct the small waves. It was almost calm. Suddenly a white spot a bit right from us started moving and I realized that what I'd assumed to be a stone or a buoy was indeed alive and it was gliding towards us silently. When it came closer we saw that it was a swan. It swam right underneath us and stopped there. It was white and glowing against the black lake. And I don't wonder any more why swans swim in the river to the underworld in the Finnish mythology, so beautiful and unearthly was this swan floating beside us on the dark waves.

Soon we saw more swans swimming towards us. There were maybe four or five of them. They too stopped close to us and stayed there. We realized that they were come to see if we had any treats to offer. Also some ducks and geese came. But they didn't stand a change against the swans who ruthlessly took the best spots close to us. And more swans came. We were the only people by the lake, you see, they thought they might check us out just in case we had something. Before long more and more swans arrived and I think we counted well over twenty of them. In the end we had to move since I got almost scared that they would climb up and start biting our pockets.

We walked down the lake southwards and all the time this silent glide of almost thirty swans followed us close by. Eventually they got tired of us. Or maybe there were other people come to stand leaning on the railing on some other part of the shore.

Snow in Iceland (and Fall in Finland)

2007-10-30T21:34:00.000+02:00

Since there was already a post called Snow in Michigan I think I'm entitled to break my 7-9 posts a month streak with this Snow in Iceland sequel. Why it isn't called Snow in Reykjavík can be justified by two different reasons, firstly because the previous post was named sloppily Snow in Michigan instead of the more correct choice Snow in Ann Arbor and secondly, because the picture in this post is not from Reykjavík but from Þingvellir, where we were on Sunday.

Þingvellir is a place between the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates where the oldest still functioning parliament was founded in 930. I have again hudreds of pretty cool pictures from there and from the other stops during the Golden Circle tour that we took on Sunday. That's the classic tour every tourist in Iceland takes so if you've been here you've probably seen it all already. But I think we had the greatest weather.

It had been rainy and windy and grey for a long time but during the Sunday night the cold and dry weather from the North finally beat the warm and wet weather from the Gulf Stream and in the morning the whole land was covered in the pure thin layer of the first snow that was preserved by the gentle frost and illuminated by the clear sunlight.

So now the picture queue contains pictures from Þórsmörk and from the Golden Circle tour and there will also be collected random pictures from Reykjavík (but these I'm posting first when I'm back in Helsinki just to make sure that I get them all in the same folder).

But while you're waiting for the Icelandic pictures, check out some Finnish ones. Namely I've finally gone through the pictures from Kirsi's birthday party, that was held just before I came here. The collection features among other things the autumn leaves I was previously complaining about. The subtitles are in Finnish this time, though, but you can still find my Cinderellaean family: my dad Leevi, my step mom Kirsi and my step sisters Miina and Mari. The place is Villa Kivi by the Töölönlahti lake in the middle of Helsinki.

The View From Our Front Door

2007-10-26T22:59:00.001+03:00

This is the view from the front door of our building. Every morning when I step out I look down to see how the sea and the mountains are looking today. They have different colours every day and they change feeling even during an hour while I go jogging or to the grocery store.

Sometimes the sea is silvery light blue and the mountains are beige and the clouds in the sky are purple and the sky is clear blue. And sometimes the mountains are yellow and reflected on the sea and the sky is light pink. And sometimes everything is the same strong transparent blue but in quite different qualities.

And sometimes the sea is stormy green and the mountains are deep blue and the sky is dark and grey above them. And sometimes you can see the shores on the other side glowing in almost golden ocra. And sometimes there are white seagulls flying and sometimes there are black birds swimming in the sea.

And sometimes the clouds sit like hats on top of the mountains and sometimes the mountaintops are white with new snow that always melts for the next day. And sometimes there is a rainbow that starts from the small island in front of the beach and while you run along the beach it streches all the way back to the root of the mountains.

Today

2007-10-23T16:12:00.000+03:00

Today I hate the weather here. It's the kind of day when you'd hate any kind of weather. Sunshine you'd scorn for being overly cheerful and clouds would be there just to make you more miserable. And to make it even worse it really is miserable here. It's rainy and windy and umbrellas are of absolutely no use at all. Yesterday it was worse though. I was sitting in a cafe and watching the rain on the street. And when I got back home I was soaked.

The comforting sound of water drops on top of your hood can only make you feel warm for so long. And then you are cold and wet and the only thing you can come up with is to go and buy some more chocolate even though at the same time you feel that you should have been induced to work even harder.

Saturday Tea

2007-10-20T18:21:00.000+03:00

Hello. This is Saara's Saturday Post from Barinn, Laugavegur, Reykjavík. It is quite cold today if you plan to take a lot of pictures in the town without gloves on. Otherwise it's quite a nice day, cloudy and windy, but no rain to be expected. At least not right now.

Last night we met some nice Icelandic historians who told us that if you don't like the weather in Iceland, you just have to wait for five minutes. It'll change.

After meeting old and new friends yesterday we slept quite long today. Afterwards I've tried to do some shopping, but the art shop where I hoped to find some drawing paper had closed already at two and the store I hoped might have been able to sell me a blanket to keep me warm in our drafty apartment was closed and didn't have any opening times on the window.

There's a music festival called Iceland Airwaves here this weekend. Somebody is playing upstairs, I kind of like it. I soon need to walk back home though in order to get to the grocery store before it closes for the day. But before I go I'd like to send my love to all our friends in Ann Arbor and to all our frinds thinking of our friends in Ann Arbor. You're on my mind.

Happiness = Soaked Clothes, Aching Muscles and Wading in Icecold Water

2007-10-15T19:22:00.000+03:00

On Friday we had the most fun we've had in a long time. We went to an excursion to Þórsmörk, literally "Thor’s Woodland". It's a valley between three glaciers called Mýrdalsjökull, Eyjafjallajökull and Tindfjallajökull. The surrounding glaciers create a special climate and low birch trees cover the hills and valleys.

The excursion wasn't really what we expected from the brochure and so we didn't quite have the right gear but the trip was really way better than we could ever have hoped for. Our guide Oli was simply terrific.

On our way to Þórsmörk we had to cross several glacial melt-off rivers. Here's a video of us crossing one on our way back. Of course the bus is no ordinary minibus. You can see the glacier Eyjafjallajökull in the background. We were told that the rivers may change quite quickly from small creeks to wide torrents and sometimes the water reaches the windows of the bus and sometimes one can't cross at all.

During the trip we saw three big waterfalls, the boarder of one glacier, endless mountains and valleys in beautiful autumn colours, numerous rivers and creeks and thousands of rocks in all shapes and sizes and above it all rainbows rising from the valley.

To see one of the waterfalls the name of which I've forgotten (close by the famous waterfall Seljalandsfoss) we had to climb up a bit and on the way up our guide informed us that two people die there every year and that we had to be very careful and hold the chain. But we got to see the waterfall quite close up by climbing up a makeshift ladder and leaning over a cliff. Afterwards we figured that probably somebody had died there once but hardly two people a year, otherwise they wouldn't take us there, would they?

We got quite close to the glacier Eyjafjallajökull. It was really windy there and when we climbed up a sandhill it was hard to stand up and we got sand in our eyes and in our shoes and when we got back home I realized that my hair was full of sand even though I had the hoods of my hoodie and my jacket both tightly tied all the time. Our guide showed us where the boarder of the glacier had been just a few years previously and it was a terribly long way to the current boarder from there.

We also went to see a waterfall inside the Stakkholtsgjá gorge. We walked there and on the way we had to cross several small creeks from the waterfall. The first we managed by stepping on stones and lucky or unlucky jumps but the next was so wide that after running up and down the stream and wading repeatedly over and back again in his rubber boots our guide announced that there was only one way to do it: "You have to take off your shoes and socks and wade". And of course we did. The water was ice cold (well, it's coming from the glacier) and the sharp stones hurt quite a lot on our freezing feet but we got to the other side. We crossed three streams like this I think.

The waterfall cascaded inside a narrow and deep gorge into which we climbed and everybody decided that it was totally worth the difficult hike and soaked feet. On our way back our guide decided to take another route that meant crossing a wider part of the river and he carried us all seven over.

In Þórsmörk we climbed up a hill and had an amazing view across the valley and the mountains and the rivers and the yellow and orange of the autumn leaves and the brown and red of the birch trunks and branches.

On our way back we saw an arctic fox running up a hill and then disappearing behind it. It was quite small and the guide said that although it's quite rare, this is the time to see them since the small ones start running around by themselves and they don't quite know where to go yet.

I promise that there'll be a photo account of everything in time (although I didn't get a photo of the fox) but it'll take a while since I took 745 pictures in all during the day.

The Last Summer Picture Update

2007-10-14T18:34:00.000+03:00

I'm writing this in Barinn, a cafe/bar on Laugavegur, the main shopping street in Reykjavík close to where we live. This is of course because we don't yet have internet at home but I feel quite fashionable all the same. Like the fancy people in movies who sit in cafes with their laptops and drink coffee. Of course I'm drinking tea.

This is just your average post, though, to inform that I've added two folders of summer pictures to my Picasa account. And who would be interested in boring Finnish pictures when there are exciting Icelandic ones to come (and I promise you there are)? But bare with me with these first and then I can add some more recent pictures. So there are two sets: From My Mother's Garden and Ahlfors Conference.

From My Mother's Garden contains pictures, will you guess?, from my mothers garden during the summer. Looking at these you'll maybe understand why I like Ann Arbor so much. Käpylä is my home district and I've spent most of my childhood there. My mother and grandmother still live there.

Ahlfors Conference contains the few pictures I took during the Lars Ahlfors Centennial Celebration in Helsinki in August. There aren't many and it's so long ago now that I can't come up with anything funny to say about the conference. Suffice it to say that it was mathematically the best (or most suited to me) conference I've been to so far and that we had a lot of fun and afterwards I was really exhausted.

Reykjavík

2007-10-10T20:19:00.000+03:00

Today I'm wondering why there are no comments on my last mysterious picture post? Maybe it wasn't mysterious at all? I agree that it's rather flat but I don't think it's boring...

It means of course that I'm in Reykjavík. The picture is from the bus ride from Keflavík Airport to Reykjavík. I arrived on Monday. Yesterday we had rain and today we're having wind. Maybe tomorrow we'll get them both.

I love it so far. Here are my first impressions:

1) It looks like Amerika. Because everything is designed for the cars: wide streets and parking lots and strip malls.

2) It smells like boiled eggs. Because all the hot water comes from the hot springs and contains sulfur.

3) It is too expensive. Because I'm quite broke and we live close to the main shopping street Laugavegur with all the fancy boutiques.

4) It is extremely honest. Because to get the access card to the department at the University of Reykjavík the only thing you need to do is to spell your first name.

5) It is yummy. Because I simply love skyr.
6) It is wonderful. Because there is Weather and Sea and Clouds that constantly change their shape and Blue mountains and raw Air.

2007-10-09T13:28:00.000+03:00

Social Inequality

2007-10-06T23:16:00.000+03:00

Since there's no need for secrecy regarding the party decorations any more I can post this shocking news on social inequality in Helsinki. Some of you have heard me promote equality for all balls. But now that I think about it I have to come to the conclusion that also people should be able to enjoy equality.

When planning Kirsi's party we decided that we wanted maple leaves as decoration since the theme (Yes, we had a theme!) was fall. The leaves would be placed on top of everybodys napkins on the tables. So they needed to be neat and pretty. But all the maple leaves in Pasila are full of ugly black spots. And so are the ones in Kumpula and in Käpylä and in basically every middle class neighbourhood in Helsinki. I was almost desperate for a while but then my mum suggested (mums are always right!) going to Kaivopuisto which is the most southern part of the Helsinki mainland where all the richest embassies and the fanciest apartment buildings are.

And it so happens that all the maple leaves in Kaivopuisto are big, beautiful, perfect and totally devoid of any annoying black spots or other defects. Now is that fair, I only ask? The leaders of the city should really look into this! It is totally unjust that the rich get not only more money but better parts of nature as well.

The pictures are from Kaivopuisto. No maple leaf pictures from Pasila since they would just be ugly.

Pasts and Futures

2007-10-06T00:37:00.000+03:00

Yesterday was Kirsi's birthday. She turned 50. So she was born on the day when Sputnik was launched. She's my stepmother. We had a super fun great party. Hence the silence and the brief update.

During the party I got to talk about Reykjavik with old Icelandic friends and also with a new Finnish friend, who just arrived from there. And my neighbour at the table told me that she'd been to Ann Arbor when she was younger, which I didn't previously know. I hope I didn't bore her with my hype. I didn't especially talk about Helsinki with anybody but we certainly were there.

There might be some pictures coming from the party later. We'll see. Also there are post ideas queueing. Let's hope they don't go off before I get round to them.

Porvoo Pictures

2007-09-30T13:21:00.000+03:00

Updating my pictures again. These are from the excursion to Porvoo during the Ahlfors Conference. Most of them consist of pictures of windows in the old town of Porvoo and horizons on our boat trip back to Helsinki. Here are a couple of samples.

A Globe and a Glass Statue. One of my dozens of window pictures. It seemed that there was a tradition of curiously pretty window arrangements in the old town of Porvoo. Almost all the windows were decorated with flowers, statues, figurines and what ever the owners had come up with and some had come up with pretty neat and original stuff. Käpylä, the neighbouhood I'm from in Helsinki is somewhat similar with wooden houses and indeed some people have also decorated windows. I also liked how you would get reflections of the opposite buildings in the picures like in this one.

The boat trip offered unbelievably beautiful soft blue scenes. I think one of the most lovely sensations is the sea wind on your face. It's so soft and caressing and so fresh and alive. In Ann Arbor I learned that it is really a question of the humidity in the air, I would often get an urge to "walk to the seaside" even though I knew that the lakes were quite far away.

When we arrived in Kauppatori I said: "Isn't my home town beautiful?" and I felt it really was the most beautiful place. During the conference I experienced a keen love I have for the city. It feels weird walking the familiar streets with people who are there only passing by and don't know every corner and stone like they were old friends.

So, more pictures (but less emotion) here.

Skies

2007-09-29T14:43:00.001+03:00

This post like most of my posts was ment to be posted many weeks ago, when I was seeing a lot of amazing skies during a short period of time. But since there was another pretty cool sky last Thursday, here they are all now.

Trees in Sofianlehto, on my way to work.

On my way home from a dance class. If you're from Helsinki you should be able to recognize the place. The tower on the left is the tower of the Hufvudstadsbladet building and the tower on the right is the tower of the new student union building (Uusi Ylioppilastalo) and in front of that you can see the corner of the old student union building (Vanha Ylioppilastalo). So I'm standing in the corner of Stockmann at the Three smiths square (Kolmen sepän aukio) and looking north along Mannerheimintie.

Here's one of the three smiths in the previously mentioned square and the Husis tower in the background.

One more hot air balloon on my way home from work. This pic just slipped here even though the sky is in fact quite lame but it'd be rather stupid to have another post just for a mediocre picture of a hot air balloon and I just had to post it since even though it's not really a very good picture it's nevertheless way better that the previous picture of the five hot air balloons since you can actually see the balloon here and don't you think the light on the side of the balloon is neat?

On my way to work. The building is the Kätilöopisto Maternity Hospital where a lot of Finns were (and are) born. Not me though. I was born in Mehiläinen (the Bee).

This was in Oulunkylä while on a walk with Venla (my friend) and Tuikku (their dog, can you be friends with a dog?).

The ugly Pasila and the beautiful sky on Thursday close to where I live on my way home from dance practice. It was actually really cool.

So, we may conclude that my life happens on my way to and from work and dance classes, but here's a poll: Do you think I was seeing so many beautiful skies because

a) the skies really were more beautiful than in the average.
b) they are always that beautiful but I only noticed them now since I was being emotional and gazing at the skies.
c) I just happened to be outside during the sunsets.
d) they weren't really that beautiful at all, I just thought so.

Mökki Weekend

2007-09-27T22:36:00.000+03:00

The Mökki Weekend was a weekend in August between the Jyväskylä Summer School and the Ahlfors Conference in Helsinki. The Michigan Gang had rented a Mökki near Lohja. The pictures will give you a better description.

Although some of the pictures of spider webs, flying hair, lace drapes, flowers, sunlight and tree trunks might throw you off a bit. That's not really what we did there, you see, that's just me being silly.

What did we do then? Well, we went to the sauna and we swam in the lake and we ate incredible meals and we slept and we drank beer and we sang songs about stars under a starlit night sky and we danced silly dances and we played cards and we proposed toasts and we laughed and joked and made Finnish faces and laughed again.

And to make the post a proper Saara Post let us yet include the four essential parts: 1) Saara Bragging About Herself, 2) Botanical Trivia, 3) Translating from Finnish and 4) "I Miss You Guys".

1) On Bragging

Kevin announced a Silly Dance Competition. To win you had to dance as silly a dance as you could with a completely blank face. I determined to win and practiced diligently. I don't think I won because my dance was the silliest or because my face was the most Finnish. I won because I was the only one who really dared to do it.

You know, everybody cares about what other people think of them. It's because we are social animals. Don't get me wrong, I care immensly what other people think of me, probably much more than your average person. But I don't want people to think that I think of what other people think of me. And I don't care if people will think I'm a bit silly, well, because I am. And nothing nothing is so boring as being proper. So dance your silly dances and make your weird faces, people who know you will think you're cool and the others will certainly remember you. And you get to have all the fun and most importantly: You get to have all the prices!

2) On Botany

Just to clear something up. Birches and aspens are two totally different trees. I guess I was confusing people since I was talking about aspens. Normally a Finn talking about trees is talking about birches.

Birch is the Finnish National Tree. It has small light green triangular leaves and the trunk is white with horizontal black stripes. The branches are black. Xylitol is made out of birch fibers.

Aspen, however, is my favourite tree. It has round leaves with unusually long stems that are twined so that the leaves tremble in the wind making a rustling sound. The stem is greenish and silvery and very smooth. The aspen grows very straight. So does the birch but aspens are even straighter.

Aspen is a funny tree. It is what one calls dioecious: the individual trees have only male or female catkins. Thus reproducing through pollution is rather difficult. But the aspen can also multiply with the help of root suckers: new trees growing from the roots of the old one. Usually aspens grow in large colonies where the different trees are actually the same tree that is connected underground. And I just learned from Wikipedia that these root systems can live unimaginably long, one in Utah is claimed to be 80 000 years old.

In the Fall aspen's leaves usually turn bright yellow, but there are some that turn red and they will turn red every year. And they are incredibly beautiful.

3) On Translating

The name of the place was Villa Kumpare. Kumpare or kumpu means "a hillock, mound, hump, knoll, hummock or a hill". It's the same word as in Kumpula (the place where the math department is in Helsinki). The -la ending makes the word to mean a place where there are (a lot of) hills. And I just learned a lot of new words for kumpu in English.

4) On Longing

I miss you guys! I hope you're having fun in Ann Arbor and in Jyväskylä. You know, out of all of us I think me and Satu are justified in being the loneliest. We're the only ones here in Helsinki and we almost never see each other. And soon I'll be in Iceland.

Looking at the pictures makes me happy though. I hope it makes you happy too. And I've watched Qian's Monkey Dance video like a thousand times. It makes me laugh every single time! :)

So if you didn't click the link in the beginning of the post here it is again. Go check out these guys and other pics.

Stone Report

2007-09-24T21:54:00.001+03:00

I'm so proud that we finished our stone puzzle before the frost that I have to post the news. The footpath to my grandma's door had been replaced with even stones a few years ago and this summer my mum came up with the idea to put some of the old stones alongside one of the walls. All in all there wasn't that much work to be done but we took our time in between.

Anyways, puzzles are fun!

How Grass Is Destroyed

2007-09-19T00:51:00.000+03:00

This is Jymy somewhere in the middle of the forthcoming story. The picture is unaltered.

My mother grows grass for our cats. I got a pot on Saturday. She'd been raving for two days about how beautiful it was. Every morning and every evening there had been a small drop of water on the tip of every blade. It really was very beautiful when I got it. Here's a picture story of what happened to the grass once it got to our place.

In the beginning everything looks rather peaceful.

Until Nukka shows that when it's a matter of shrimps, pig tongue or fresh grass, she's the boss. Her style is rather sophisticated.

But when it's Jymy's turn, the play gets rougher.

And it stays quite rough.

But even he has to take a short break once in a while. To gather up new inspiration.

Whoops.

But the eating is happening in controlled circumstances and the grass is placed back on the table. Here's a nice display of the crucial difference in the tempers of our cats.

And hence most of the pictures are of Jymy.

Who is the king of grass.

Indeed.

And in the end all that is left is a terrible mess and a bit of soil on Jymy's nose.

And here they are helping me write the blog entry. Well, they were both at my side but obviously I didn't have my camera then. And you can't very well go and fetch your camera when you're underneath two cats, can you?

Jyväskylä Summer School

2007-09-15T13:08:00.000+03:00

I posted these before my charger broked down. They look so summery and happy. It's already Fall in Finland. I hope you have it warmer wherever you are.

They are my (and some Marie's and Qian's) pictures from Jyväskylä. But don't worry, this post won't be a diary of what happened during the Summer School. I wouldn't remember the details anyways. Besides it would be boring if you weren't there: "Well, we went to class and then we had lunch at Agora and then there was another class which most of us skipped and then in the evening we had some fun."

The jokes, if I remembered them, would likewise be inside ones. Like Marshall jumping the shark or Saara who knows everything. Or the icecream money. Not to mention knowing that a real number is always either positive, negative or zero.

Alive Again

2007-09-12T21:28:00.000+03:00

Yay! I just got my new charger and it's amazingly enough actually working. Here are some important points that have left unsaid while I was unplugged, that is to say...

On Chocolate, Take 2:

Stockmann has a New York theme this month. To celebrate they have brought American chocolate to the chocolate department. And what kind of American chocolate, you ask? Well, Hershey's Kisses of course, only the worst chokolate in the whole world! How thoughful.

But they did have Pepperidge farm cookies. Although of course not the best ones. If there is one thing Americans know how to do, it has to be cookies. I might be partial, though. Tommi always said that I have an American cookie taste. Even before I went there. But they do have the best cookies, so I don't think anybody can really complain.

And on the Finnish chocolate front: Have you tried the new Fazer's blue yet? I can't decide whether I like it or loathe it. It's rather weird. But quite addictive.

Also my fridge is now working again. I did resort to buying lingonberry jam, though. But you can't really consider spinach pancakes without lingonberry jam.

And talking about food, tonight I had the arcetypical everyday supper of the lazy saving Finn: lihamakaronilaatikkoa. The direct translation is meat macaroni box. It's a typical Finnish what we call "box" food: you take stuff, mash it, put it in a box or rather a casserole and put the box in the oven. This one has macaroni and minced meat. And it's the only food in my opinion that's really supposed to be eaten with ketchup.

Lucky I don't have a picture.

If You Are in Need of Getting Anything Broken

2007-09-09T17:45:00.000+03:00

Don't hesitate. Just contact Saara's Destruction Inc! We'll break your stuff quickly, efficiently and reliably. And with an affordable price! Home electronics, valuable vases, anything you can think of. It will all be smashed before you can say "Oops!"

So on Wednesday my laptop's charger quits working and when I get home hungry on Thursday evening after a day of running around with my inoperative laptop I find both my fridge and freezer quite pleasantly warm. To top it all I also brake a plate on Friday when I'm cleaning the fridge.

Hence no posting. And hence all the cake to be delivered to relatives. And hence the twelwe empty glass jars in my sink waiting to be recycled. The number one was rasberry jam best before 2003. I'm currently in a jam bying ban.

But you know? It's quite horrible. What am I supposed to do in the evenings now without my laptop? Watch telly?

Perfect Fashion Blogging

2007-09-04T20:34:00.000+03:00

On Saturday I met with my oldest friends Noora and Veera. And Päivi who is also an old friend but joined our group slightly later. But that's not her fault. Neither is the fact that her name doesn't rhyme with ours.

We had a super tea party with almost too late preparation, an exploding sparkling water bottle, waffle dough on the table and salad dressing on somebodys nose. We concluded that it's a great thing that we're not perfect women, which is a joke that requires an explaination to non-finns: the tv series Desperate Houswifes is in Finnish Perfect Women. No explanation available for televisually challenged.

But that's not the subject of this post. Veera had the monthly of Helsingin Sanomat so I had a look. And there was the most enlightening story. Apparently there is such a thing as fashion blogging. That is 12-year old girls posting their observations and conclusions on fashion and sharing shopping ideas. They will also post their day's outfits accompanied with grainy pictures. I immediately wanted to try it out. Here's my attempt:

Today I'm wearing my dancer in disguise outfit:

- grey Röhnisch sport pants, Intersport Mikonkatu
- a white knee-length skirt, Target Ann Arbor
- a grey shirt with white stripes and a green tiger with the text "liberty club sportswear", some average clothing store in Helsinki
- dark and light blue wollen socks (my best pair), borrowed from my mother
- black Birkenstock sandals, Birkenstock Suomen Oy Kukontori
- a pastel coloured red hoodie with an owl decoration, Seppälä Helsinki

For dance class I had also (in addition to the grey pants):

- a NEW wine red Mango shirt, Mango Kamppi
- a red Sharif Wear sequin scarf, Unveiled Belly Dance Ann Arbor

So what do you think: should I continue in this line or revert to my usual blogging style?

The Finnish Face

2007-08-29T22:33:00.000+03:00

This is me practising my Finnish face. It's a lot easier alone. Not to mention a great deal more authentic.

The Finnish face is originally Kevin's joke. He would stare at people with a blank expression and challenge everybody to stare back without expression. It's really hard. At least I'm quite bad at it. My trick is to try to relax all the facial muscles. Here's Kevin practising his Finnish expression in Syracuse.

Now it seems that the name of the game is the Finnish Face. And if you're wondering about weird pictures to be come from last few weeks, this is the reason. Qian would insist on taking Finnish versions of almost all pics.

Anyways, the best pictures you can get are the ones taken of people trying to hold the Finnish expression and taking the picture right when they lose it. That way you can catch real laughter.

And before you complain, I admit that I'm really cheating here. It is rather easy alone. And I'm not begging for sympathy either, just trying to brag with my superiorly sad expression here.

The End of Silence

2007-08-27T19:46:00.000+03:00

Today I feel slightly worn out and infinitely sad after two weeks of summer school, conference and math friends who have now all departed from Helsinki. When I was walking back home from work the sky was covered with intense storm. The thunder started when I was halfway through.

I remember when I was still in school telling my mum enviously how elaborate scrap books one of my classmates had done. My mum told me that there are two kinds of people: those who document life and those who live it. I was proud to belong to the latter group. Now I'm planning to spend the next few weeks organizing all the pictures from the last weeks and writing stories about everything that happened.

Messuemännät

2007-08-13T20:11:00.000+03:00

This picture of me and Piipa, Tommi's sister, in my grandmothers garden marks the end of altogether four super weeks during which Tommi was here three weeks and Piipa two weeks.

On Thursday I was borrowing my grandmother's white sweater and we thought we looked so hilarious in the similar sweaters that I wanted to have some pictures. I have no idea what happened with my expression here. But look how we both stand with our hands behind our backs. Piipa said we looked just like two fair hostesses.

I miss you! Hugs to Iceland and Italy!

Now I'll have two more super weeks of math friends and then I'll be all alone again... With only my local friends to amuse me. :)

On My Way to Work #(n+1)

2007-08-10T22:32:00.000+03:00

Today when I was coming home the air was full of flying ants. They were all glowing gold and seemed to be flying around aimlessly. They looked almost like tiny leafs or seeds from the trees being blown about by the wind. They would fly onto you.

These are hot-air balloons. They are flying towards Pasila from Kumpula. They flew way faster than I walked so by the time I could get to a decent spot to take the picture they were already quite far. But you can see five of them here. And some birds. This happenned on Tuesday.

This is a broken toilet seat. It's also from my way to work. It appeared last week and I think it's still there. Weird.

Finally these are big-leaved lupines. If you are an observant Finn you'll realize that the picture was taken way back in the beginning of the summer since the lupines have withered away ages ago already. Now the road banks are filled with fireweeds instead. I like them both. There are more lupines again on my Picasa account. No fireweed thoug.

Chocolate, Squirrels and Kinder Eggs: The Culmination

2007-08-08T21:29:00.000+03:00

A friend of mine posted this link on her blog. I highly recommend. The story contains all the basic elements of my blog: chocolate, squirrels and Kinder eggs. And it happens in Jyväskylä, where I just decided to go next week.

Now somewhere there has to be a mighty big stash of Kinder surprises...

Workings of Workers' Tiny Feet

2007-08-07T20:43:00.000+03:00

Since I'm back at work I thinks it's finally appropriate to post these pics. The first one was taken in the summer 2006 and the second one this June. I think the buildings testify that the place is the same.

The Kumpula Campus is build on a cliff in Kumpula. Previously there used to be just wilderness on the spot and the university had to fight for quite a long time to be able to build anything because of the heavy opposition of the local people.

Now the problem with the campus is that, yes, they've built quite fancy glass and iron buildings but apparently nobody thought of building roads to the hill. So the roads to the campus are still the same ones that led to the hill of wilderness.

I'm slightly exaggerating, of course. There are actually two real asphalted roads on the east side of the hill. One of them is so steep and narrow that there are regularly big trucks stuck in the middle. Unfortunately most of the people are coming from the bus stops in the south. I'm coming from the west.

In the summer of 2005 there was only a meadow and a small grove west of the campus. But people have been assiduously tramping up and down the hill to work and school and now the hill is filled with tiny criss-crossing paths that tell the morning routes of hundreds of people.

I have taken many different routes during the time the departmenet has been in Kumpula but lately this meadow has been the last stretch of my commute.

The path in summer 2006.

The path in summer 2007.

So you see, the workers tiny feet are indeed working and making a difference. And if you check the google map, you'll find that there is actually supposed to be a real road here, Pietari Kalmin katu, streching horizontally across the map. In the satellite image you can discern the path in my pictures.

Of course the road is in the city plans and will be build when the last screaming local activists have been shut down.

Houses and Gardens

2007-08-05T22:39:00.000+03:00

I took this picture on my way to my mother's place. I've realized that there are actually equally stunning flower arrangements here as in Ann Arbor. But maybe not so many. For those who know: this is from the really small park behind the Kela building in Sofianlehto.

I went to water my mother's plants since she was out of town this week. And after I'd succesfully watered all the plants – and a couple of my toes on the side – I gladly sat on her garden chair on her porch. I sat about two seconds quite happily before all of a sudden a couple of liters of rainwater hidden under the supposedly dry padding decided to soak through. So instead of walking to the department I decided to stay at my mother's place and dry my jeans – and my other sock.

In the evening we were invited to Tommi's former advisor's allotment garden. Allotment gardens are something quite typical of Helsinki, I think. They are areas divided into small square gardens with small playhouse-like houses. It's like a summer cottage. There are quite a lot of these areas in Helsinki. There's one I walk by every day on my way to work (except on Thursday when I dryed my pants instead). But we were invited to the one in Herttoniemi, in the eastern part of Helsinki, you can take the subway there.

We had a grand barbeque with wine, Ultra Bra and many stochastic friends. We also took a walk in Kivinokka, a cape by the allotment garden. I'd never been there before. It was super cool. It's a recrational area, sort of. With forest and paths and small small cottages built here and there in the forest, like huge mushrooms. The cape used to be a summer place for the working class in the early 1900. People would build their own tents and small cottages for the summer and tear them down again for winter. But in the winter of 1940-41 all the men were at war and nobody came to pull down the buildings. And so the houses became round-the-year houses. The're all very tiny with virtually no gardens and just small paths leading to them.

It was fun how different the cottages in the allotment garden and in Kivinokka were. The allotment gardens are small Hansel and Gretel houses with flower arrangement and cute curtains and nameplates. The Kivinokka houses looked like someone just carried them there and put down wherever they happend to get tired of carrying not even caring whether the place happened to be level or not. These are houses that one is supposed to sleep in and store ones stuff in when one goes to the beach or has fun outside and not for playing playhouse garden owners.

We also saw some environmental art and a goats' running contest. Obviously, there are pictures. Although, I have to say that Oskari had a camera that made me almost embarrassed with my tiny little thing. But if we would have had a competition on the smallest camera there would have been no arguing about my victory.

The Tall Ships' Races

2007-07-31T22:58:00.000+03:00

Just informing that I finally went through the pics from the Tall Ships' Races. They can be found here. Although there really are too many of them. Choosing is just really hard. Maybe I shouldn't take so many pictures? Because then I have to spend hours and hours going through them.

So the Tall Ships' Races are held every year and every fourth year or so they sail in the Baltic Sea and come to Finland. They visit a different city every time and this year they came to Kotka that is a costal city couple of hours east of Helsinki. We happened to be close by and went to have a look. I've never seen them before. They really were quite amazing and one could get on board to quite a many of them.

The mexican ship was everybodys favourite I think. They had music on board and all the sailors were smiling and joking. The Russian ship was supposedly the second largest in the world. We figured it was a school ship since we saw a lot of young boys. But one had to pay to get on board so we didn't go.

Anyways, the pictures will speak for themselves. Here's a link to the Tall Ships' Races page in Kotka.

Otters And Other Mutters

2007-07-28T14:36:00.000+03:00

We went to Korkeasaari on Thursday to have something fun to do. Korkeasaari is the Helsinki Zoo. It's one of our favourite places with Tommi. We go to look at the big cats mostly.

We used to like the tigers the best but now I think they only have one left since the other one called Manninen died a few years ago. He was everybody's favourite. And he had a really funny name too. Manninen is a Finnish last name, the type that you'd give to a conventional, boring, maybe a bit slow character in a novel.

The best cats are the snow leopards though. They have a lot of them in Korkeasaari and they are also very succesful at breeding. They have also the pedigree books of all the snow leopards bred in captivity and they are leading the snow leopard preservation program. By 2006 116 snow leopards had born in Korkeasaari. I think that's quite awesome. Currently they don't have any cubs there though. Last year there were two in Ähtäri Zoo.

Once a year in the Fall they have a Cats' Night in Korkeasaari. I highly recommend. You go there in the evening and can stay until midnight. It's the best time to see the night animals. They are also fed then and you can watch them trying to get the meat from the toys and weird places they put the meat in to give the cats something to puzzle over. They also have all kinds of program and stuff, plays and lights and lectures. Once they showed cat movies and documentaries in an outside theatre, one sat on the cliffs in the darkness and they projected the movies to the big wall behing the bear castle. I wish they'd have that again, it was fun.

The otters also tend to come out more at night, I think, and they are a lot of fun to watch. Somebody told me that they are the only animals that play just for the fun of it. They are also known to slide down slopes in the snow in the winter.

Here are two otters at play. Other pics accompanied with stories here.

Friends from Jyväskylä!

2007-07-24T20:32:00.001+03:00

We saw Kevin and Karoline for lunch and coffee yesterday since they were travelling through Helsinki. Fun! :)

Here we're sitting outside drinking coffee (yes, that's possible in Finland, sometimes). The store behind Karoline and Kevin is a photo shop called Picture of the Hour.

Countryside on Two Sides

2007-07-21T21:01:00.000+03:00

This is a rather boring post, merely accounting this weeks activities: visiting family and the Finnish countryside.

In the beginning of the week we (Tommi and I) visited my father and his wife at their summerplace Tomtebacka near Inkoo. The name of the place means literally an elf hill. If you're curious about the scandinavian elfs, check out what Wikipedia has to say about Tomte, "tonttu" in Finnish. Those are the ones that hang along with Santa Claus. (Since – in case you hadn't yet noticed – this is an educational blog about the Mysterously Beautiful Land of All Things Finnish.)

Here's a picture from Tomtebacka. I was fascinated by the blue and yellow flowers swimming in the neighbour's field. They are weeds so they should not be interesting in the least. You'll find a couple of more pictures here.

To balance the week, on Thursday we drove to visit Tommi's mother and her husband near Hamina. There will be another picture gallery later – that is to say as soon as I have time to go through the 200+ pictures – from Kotka where we went to gape at some quite amazing ships.

The Wedding

2007-07-18T14:15:00.000+03:00

The wedding of Venla and Samppa was just as beautiful as the sky turned out to be later in the evening. The Ceremony took place on a patch of flowering grass against a cliff and afterwards when the pair walked up the path to the wedding feast the air filled up with soap bubbles that we blew since one's not allowed to throw rice in Suomenlinna.

The feast was in Pirunkirkko in Suomenlinna. Pirunkirkko means literally Devil's Church and it isn't really known where the name comes from. Wikipedia has this to say about the word pirunkirkko, namely that it means a cliff or rock formation that may have been used as a refuge or a sanctuary. It also has a pagan meaning. The Suomenlinna Pirunkirkko is a brick building built in the 1770's that has been serving as a naval worshop and store and also as a residence and is now renovated for festive use.

The party was both tearful and happy. We heard at least 14 speeches, which to be granted sounds horrific to any reasonably experienced party goer, but really it wasn't horrible at all for the speeches were so good. The food was also good, especially all the different cakes that had been baked by a multitude of friends.

According to the theme of the wedding after the dinner Samppa and his brothers and friends stormed in as gypsies. And then they dansed the Vagabond's Valse. They were just as I envisioned waching the movie.

Again you may check some pictures, but I opted to experience the day rather than record it so there are really only a couple of pics. Mostly of the incredibly beautiful sky in the evening and the setting sunlight on the reed decorations.

Hermanni

2007-07-16T15:04:00.000+03:00

Hermanni is a living cake. I killed 2/5 of him today. He was quite tasty.

He's a friendship cake. I got him from my mother. He's a cake starter, like sourdough. You're supposed to stir him every day and feed him with milk, flour and sugar every now and then. Then you divide him into parts and give them to your friends (although, if you'd like to keep your friends make sure that they're either good enough friends or that they are immensely fond of baking). The last part you keep yourself and bake a cake.

The instructions are quite macabre. Every time you're supposed to feed him, it says: "Hermanni is hungry! Give him food". And then in the end it says: "Hermanni is hungry again. Today he'll get food for the last time." I mean, isn't that a bit cruel?

But the funniest thing in the instructions is that the word "stir" is in Finnish "hämmentää" which also means "to confuse". So the intructions say: "Confuse him 2-3 times a day." – So he'll be so confused by the end of the week, that he won't notice when you finally kill him?

Buy the way "confused" is my favourite word in English. The word "hämmentynyt" is a bit different, it's much softer, more like puzzled or bewildered. And you don't use it so much. Or maybe it's just me who uses "confused" so much?

Maybe my enthusiasm for the word has something to do with confusing a cat?

Princesses And Summer Nights

2007-07-06T21:26:00.000+03:00

There is a reason for my silence these past few weeks. It's not merely because I've been on vacation and thus become suddenly unimaginably busy, but on Saturday last week was my friend Venla's bachelorette party and the previous week was naturally spent organizing and this week equally naturally recovering.

We were here. I rather think the picture is perfect. What do you think? It is the bliss of the Finnish summer night by the lake after sauna. But it was even better in reality. The air was so full of soft light and scents and silence. The place is Kattila Sauna in Nuuksio.

Before the sauna we had lunch at Herttoniemi Manor. That's the place where the old Finnish movie Kulkurin Valssi was shot. And that's the theme of their wedding. So we dressed Venla up as Helena, the heroine of the movie, starred by Ansa Ikonen. I made her costume. The lace is from my grandmother's old stashes as is the fabric for the shirt. The skirt fabric is from my mothers cupboard.

We also went indoor climbing. It was a lot of fun. I've never done it before. There was always a moment when I'd almost reached the top when it suddenly seemed like I'd never be able to get higher from there and that I'd fall. For some reason the very last bit wasn't at all frightening after that. Maybe it was the excitement of reaching the top?

In the morning we had city orienteering or that's at least what you call it in Finnish. Those who orienteer get clues to different places where you need to perform some tasks or solve some problems to get the clue to the next place. It's rather popular with university students and usually involves large amounts of alcohol. But Venla solved everything we'd planned rather quickly.

All in all, it was quite the perfect day. Thanks for everybody!

And for more beautiful pictures of Ansa-Venla and the evening at the lake go to my Picasa account this time. Frankly because my Flickr account is full and I want to explore all the free options before bying more account space or deleting old pictures.

Thunder!

2007-07-02T22:23:00.000+03:00

A few hours ago we had a huge thunderstorm while the sun was still shining. It was awesome. This is from our kitchen window.

"Näin selviät vaarallisesta juhannuksesta hengissä"

2007-06-22T14:34:00.000+03:00

"This is how you'll survive the dangerous midsummer" was a front page title in the last Kirkko & kaupunki (Church & city) maqazine. Yes, the midsummer's eve among other drinking festivities in Finland is really dangerous so I thought you might benefit from some tips. According to the article, here are ten things that might cause nuicance during the midsummer: 1. sunburns, 2. holiday stress, 3. heat stroke, 4. loneliness, 5. insect bites, 6. drinking spouse, 7. adder's bite, 8. ticks, 9. wounds from glass splinters, 10. shocking accident.

(The last refers especially to drownings. Last year 6 people drowned during Midsummer. This year already 64 people have drowned in Finland.)

Since safety during midsummer is no joke, I recommend reading the hole article, it's actually quite entertaining. It's called "Puhelin pelastaa" i.e. "Phone saves". Here are some random excerpts:

– Hyvä rouva, voitteko sanoa, mitä kello on? Onko nyt aamu vai ilta?

Kaupunki hengittää virastoaikojen rytmissä.

Parvekkeen kaiteelle istahtanut pikkulintu sai monet tartuntariskiä pelkäävät soittamaan meille.

Lähde tuttavien tai sukulaisten luo tai vaikka kotiin, jos olet mökillä.

Hauskaa juhannusta! Happy Midsummer!

0 Minutes of Peace and Quiet Left

2007-06-21T22:49:00.000+03:00

First of all, let me promise that this will not become a "Oh, just look how cute my cats are" blog. But since Nukka got her own post I think it's only fair that Jymy gets one as well.

So I was walking by the bookcase that holds all Tommi's Aku Ankka books when I heard a weird swishing sound. And just then all the books came down. Previously Jymy has been getting lots of practice jumping onto bookshelfs full of books – the books just have to sort of go out of the way when he lands. However, now there had appeared a small hole on the other side of the shelf and he was able to jump there and walk behind the books to the other side. But there's a design flaw in the bookcase: there isn't really enough space for turning behind the books.

In this picture Jymy is trying to find another route out after knocking down several books from another part of the shelf.

Relating to a previous comment by Janus, I have to ask: Do you find Jymy's antics also familiar?

49 Minutes of Bliss Left

2007-06-17T20:22:00.001+03:00

Nukka is enjoying the heat generated by the dishwasher. She also likes the washing machine.

Demonical Creatures?

2007-06-12T22:51:00.000+03:00

The figure in the picture came from a Kinder easter egg. It is a math professor, who cannot count and is thus constantly red with embarrassment because people make fun of him. He (or she) is also "a great expert on dragons and other similar animals". He also looks a bit like the devil.

The article is from Helsingin Sanomat. Apparently a reader had been offended with the devilish easter surprise and the question here is whether it's ok to make toys that look like the devil. Nobody questions whether it's ok that there are people who make toys for children who think that math teachers are quite cute because they are so funny and it's a great joke to make fun of someone who cannot count.

If your multimedia plug-ins are up to date you can visit the Magic Kinder site and see the calculus master in action.

I also learned from Wikipedia that Kinder Eggs "are sold all over the world excluding the United States where the 1938 Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, prohibits embedding 'nonnutritive items' in confections".

I'm also probably a criminal now since I scanned the article here but it was in the restricted section in the web Hesari. Let's hope Hesari won't sue me.

No Posts?

2007-06-12T00:19:00.000+03:00

I've come back home and hence lost interest on my blog? Is that so? Yes and no. I just can't come up with anything interesting to write about right now. For example: This isn't really interesting, is it?

Any foreign life is always more interesting than your own. That's why you're reading this, isn't it? But you see, I'm living my own life now and it's really boring. There's simply nothing to write about.

Doubling Ages

2007-06-07T00:34:00.000+03:00

This confusingly titled post is ment to be a congratulation to my dad and simultaneously a confession: I'm to be blamed for the shirt.

Doubling ages since we just figured out that my dad is double my age this year. It'd seem quite stupid to write a post just about that, you see, especially since it's only funny because of the name of my blog and thus it's rather getting old already. So it's here only as a side note – and a title – Michigan Dad offering me a convenient pretext.

Who Can Top This?

2007-06-04T22:30:00.001+03:00

That's the path I walk to work every day.

No amount of flower scents or even thousands of different colours will ever come close to the overflowing greenness of the Finnish summer. And no amount of gardening will ever compensate for a total lack of untended paches of land.

More ravings here.