Almost Christmas

It's almost Christmas.

I finally managed to start writing. I wrote yesterday about 1500 words, which I need to print and check and rewrite before anything else. I'm going to have that article read by a few former colleagues before trying to submit it anywhere else. At least Julien has shown interest in my writings before, maybe Yrjö would also be a good candidate. He should have the time...

Today I've been condensing the training into presentation format. The material is meant to serve the purpose when the training needs to be sold inside a company by somebody other than myself. As always, condensing is harder than just producing text. I've test driven a Mac-native program called "Keynote". It looks great. I'm on purpose avoiding "PowerPoint" even though the NeoOffice package contains it. Keynote luckily can read PowerPoint files and export them mostly, too.

Here's a picture taken in Tampere in the evening. The reddish light in the sky are the city lights.

My niece, Julia, is like quicksilver. Inside she leaves just a bright flash of light behind her and outside she was also extremely hard to capture on film.

Here she's just turned the corner.

When we went outside to play (-10 degrees), I wanted to take her picture sliding downhill. Here's the result:

I changed my tactic, and asked her to jump on to the sled. Apparently it was too dark and she's just too fast, because this is what I caught:

In Nastola, the sun was shining the few hours that it does in winter in Finland. It makes the silvery trees golden.

But you shouldn't try too much. There is a saying in Finnish that goes "if you try for the spruce, you'll come crashing to a juniper". The trees are similar, the only difference being that the spruce is bigger. Somehow the Finnish loser-mentality or melancholy is apparent in that saying. Everybody has his place that he shouldn't try to change or bad things will happen. I'm sure to return to this theme of put-downs in the Finnish mindset. For now, here's a few proud pine trees (the trees in the picture were not associated with the saying at all). They actually remind me of the three soldiers who had to stand as penalty even when the enemy airplanes approached in the movie "Unknown soldier" (Tuntematon sotilas).

The birch trees lose their leaves for winter and their white and black trunks are prominent. Birch grows everywhere in Finland. They make the best wood to start a fire. Especially the white 'skin' (tuohi) burns very easily and fast. 'Tuohi' is also one word for 'money' in the Finnish language.

Christmas is a time of peace and one way to get away from the hustle and bustle of modern world is to go and visit a cemetery. A cemetery on a winter's day in Finland is the most peaceful sight there is. See for yourself. Lepää rauhassa, Ukki.

In Kouvola, we visited Anu. She's into making beautiful things herself. Her cards are always pretty and original. Here's a candle holder (a plate with rocks) up close. She says that her flat is small and depressing. I don't think it is so small ;-). The bright lights were also not that bright in my eyes... Next week we'll go and play billiard.

Lahti - mostly harmless

I've been in Lahti the last couple of days. The winter weather has been wonderful. Snow everywhere, sun shining and the temperature a mild -5 or -10 degrees centigrade. I'll be posting more scenery picture if I can get everything working ok.

Today's highlight was talking around a lit globe to a group of interested kids of about seven and less years. They seemed very interested in Christopher Columbus and the discovery of India on the wrong side of the globe. The story of Titanic had them gasping. I thought I might have told a too gruesome story, but I don't think they will have nightmares about that. We talked about earthquakes, the highest mountains, Lake Titicaca, the equator and the Arctic Circle, which was especially appropriate today. It is defined, as far as I understand, as the southernmost point where the sun doesn't rise at least in one day (and that day is today, the Winter Solstice). North of that more and more days are dark during winter. This goes on until the North Pole, where the dark time ('kaamos') lasts for 3 months each winter. If you come from somewhere more southerly, you might think it is unbearable. Well, it is tough, but on the other hand, the sun doesn't set at all during summer. I like to think it is an excellent tradeoff. You get the best of both worlds and a lot of variety.

Arrived just in Kouvola. On the way, Virpi saw a strange light in the woods, where there should be no lights. At first she thought that there were some extravagant Christmas lights put up by a lonely farmer, but when we saw the same lights several kilometers later, again ahead of our car, it was clear that the farmer in question was suffering more from a Napoleonian illusion of grandeur. The lights were the Moon, which was hanging so low that it shone directly through the woods. It wasn't full, but seemed much bigger than normally. Also the stars in the sky were extremely bright and we could recognize many star signs easily.

Thanks, relatives in Lahti for putting up with us and a peaceful Christmas time to all of you!

Really delayed message from Tampere

This is what I wrote already on 18-Dec (but only managed to post 10 days later):

Watched Finland lose to Russia 2-0 in ice-hockey on TV. Then Virpi and Antti started singing karaoke. Went to sauna and rolled naked in the snow, because somebody had this great idea. We don't do it very often, but it makes for an excellent story (a real ice-breaker at parties.) It is an exhilarating feeling to be so terribly cold that the skin starts to sting and then go to the warm sauna. The temperature difference between outside and sauna is at least 80 degrees centigrade. It takes a while to warm up but it really makes the blood flow.



After the sauna we played Carcassonne until 3AM. It is a fascinating game. The rules are fairly simple. The board is every-time different because it is built as the game progresses.



Woke up at noon, the sun was shining, the snow was glistening, went out for a walk and took some breathtaking pictures. The colors were so pure, although there was only blue and white. The sky is so clear and blue that I think the pictures won't do it justice. The snow was white and clean and sparkling in the sunshine.

Cabaree and snow-covered Tampere

We went to see a cabaree called @penthouse yesterday in Tampere. The performances of Sari Siikander, Lari Halme and Sami Hintsanen were funny, loud and fast. Sketches mixed with rock music and several delicious characters all presented in an hour made for a start for a really enjoyable evening.

Here are some pictures taken in the middle of Tampere, one of the biggest cities in Finland. Time is slightly before 3PM and the sun is slowly setting. There is about -10 degrees centigrade, no wind and no clouds in sight. It felt damn cold to untrained ears.

Everything was covered in snow. Especially the trees.

A couple of airplanes were flying leaving a pure white jet stream in their wake.

In the horizon, you could see wavy lines of smoke on the otherwise clear sky.

The sun was hardly above the horizon.


We are changing our accommodation right now.
Thank you, Tuula and Tapani for your hospitality. It was fun, seeing you again. The lasagne was delicious, the new bed was just the right size (after it was opened) and the spoon-biscuits were harder than steel. I hope the bruise in the unmentioned place heals soon, Tuula.

On the other side of town, a sauna is warning up, GREAT. I fear that also karaoke equipment is warming up. That's our destination now.

Afternoon sunset and a two-eyed dog

Here's another picture from Hämeenlinna. Taken at 15:26 at sunset.

Here our friends' dog, Otto. He can sing along with the Muskehounds theme song, seems to have two eyes of different color, has his own sofa (which can be opened should the right kind of bitch want to stay over)

... and he likes to chew balls.

Eyes on Finland

Am writing this with eyes staring at me. On one side there's Virpi and on the other side this curious giraffe that is just looking at me with one sideways eye. Talking about eyes, today's "Pearls Before Swine" had a joke on them.

There's snow here in Tampere. On Tuesday, we landed in Helsinki, and there was practically no snow on the ground. We were driven to Hämeenlinna and it all started to look much more wintery. Yesterday, as we were waiting for the train, it started to snow. Our friends were already saying that they should tell the weather forecast authorities when we're arriving in the country so they could adjust their forecasts correctly. In the summer it is always sunny when we come, no matter how many weeks it has been raining before and in the winter, it starts to snow.

Hämeenlinna is a very nice little town, which has one of the few really old castles of Finland. I took some beautiful pictures of it with the sun shining yesterday.

Burning, playing, lying and Elvis

The weather forecast has promised stormy weather in Finland today. I hope the flying weather tomorrow morning is better. Tomorrow is namely the day. We fly to Finland and start our extended Christmas holidays in Hämeenlinna. Today, there's a whole lotta packing to do. Hey, that could have been an Elvis hit:

Chorus
"There's a whole lotta packing to do,
there's a whole lotta packing to do,
I couldn't be happier, could YOOOOUUUUU?
there's a whole lotta packing to do"

We'll be taking a collection of photos with us so that we can show friends and relatives what exactly has been going on. One day, there might be more photos even in this blog. My new iMac is going to be red hot burning the photo CD soon.

"There's a whole lotta burning done,
there's a whole lotta burning done,
all discs are ready but one,
there's still some burning to do, with YOOOUUUU!"

Matthias and Sonja were here yesterday. We went to a concert of The Ten Tenors, a group of young and skilled singers from Australia. The good old "Bohemian Rhapsody" and the Beegees medley were mixed with more or less traditional Christmas carrols. One delightful new thing was "The Boxer" (Simon and Garfunkel), a very nice rendition indeed.

Of course, we played a game of Settlers of Catan (this time with the variant "The Fishermen of Catan") and Matthias beat the rest of us ruthlessly. The little card game "Mamma Mia" proved to be a hilarious experience. Baking pizzas is a lot of fun in this game. Matthes was especially surprised at how many games we have (there's a whole cupboard for them), but I've seen more (and in a private home, as a matter of fact). Matthias even started to sing with the voice of Elvis and Sonja accompanying on the guitar*:

"There's so many games to play,
there's so many games to win,
you can lose, but won't you stay
there's so many games to play"

It's remarkable how well it all went, because Sonja hadn't played the guitar since being 11 years old.

Sorry for the clowning, now I need to update the Snack!

* This didn't actually take place, but it was talked about. Everybody else did play the piano, though. Nobody sang.

Expecting company

A few friends are supposed to arrive at any minute now. If they just can find here.
My instructions couldn't have been simpler, I think. "After the bridge, turn left then turn right and park anywhere."
Let's see.

Yesterday, we went to the Christmas Market and met some former colleagues. Sedat, my former boss was there, Frederik, who's going to take our picture someday, was there with his girlfriend, Sascha came with his wife, Katrin and received a book and a present from us, Stefan came from a bit longer way, which is explained maybe by the fact that we only seem to meet yearly, Jürgen was there with both train and car, which combines the good and bad points of both approaches.

Matthes and Sonja are here. Bye!

Back online!

I'd better open up the blog again so you'll see that I'm still going strong. Well...

The move is mostly behind us now. There are still about 30 full cardboard boxes around the flat. There's also a pile of about 80 empty and flattened boxes in the corner in the guest room. It doesn't currently fit any guests, just stuff and flattened cardboard boxes.

The flat is really liveable already. The kitchen is usable, there's light in all the rooms etc.

After spending almost a week preparing and painting the old flat we managed to release it without any problems. I'd like to thank my painting buddies Kaj, Holger, Sascha and Stefan for helping me out. Without them it wouldn't have been possible.

There's one week left to arrange things in person here in Germany. On the 13-Dec we fly to Finland for Christmas and New Year's. I'm already looking forward to seeing all our Finnish friends and relatives again.

Ilpo and Sari came yesterday to visit us all the way from Finland. Ilpo is an ex-colleague from Nokia and he has a meeting in Bochum next week so they decided to come and visit the Christmas market and see some old friends. They used to live in the area sometime ago.