19 posts from 2007

Part 2 - From Breakfast and Skis to Dogs and Dumb Reindeer

    It was only light in Lapland for about 4 or so hours in a day, so I can't exactly say that the morning broke too early.  Really, the sun came up around 10.  We still did have to wake up too early, 'round 7:30, that day, and the rest.  
    In the first three hours of skiing on Sunday, I think I make a total of 4 complete runs.   I spent  most of that time helping various nationalities how to ski.  Fun stuff.  The normal challenge of teaching people how to ski was compounded when the people couldn't speak English.  I had fun trying to explain the "Snowplow" or "Wedge" and the concept of "digging your edges in" entirely with my hands.  
    The hill itself had maybe 6 trails open.  It possessed only 800 or so feet to boast to its name.  Slightly larger than Otis Ridge, and with a longer slope.  
    That second night, the Rotary brought in a genuine Lapp man to talk and sing.   He sang, and talked.  Told some jokes.  I took recordings off his singing to save myself the trouble of describing it to you.  Here you go.  

    The guy on the right translated, shall we say, "liberally."  When the translator stops and laughs before delivering the "translation," you  know that something has gone fishy.
    One of the mostest funnyest events of my life passed that night.  I my attempts at description will not even approach an, shall I say, accurate, portrail of the event, so I beg you to pretend it's as funny as I think it was.  
    Well, a peer tutor informed us that they'd asked these two beautiful Brazilian girls to teach two guys how to dance.  Two suckers, (I am proud to say that an American was one),
easily jumped at such an opportune chance to dance.  Oh Yeah!
    One at a time they brought out the suckers, and each time one slipped out of the steamy dance, while the grumpy strict Rotary guy stepped in.  And danced.  The American danced the longest, maybe a full and funny minute before turning.  Ah!  I will remember that as long as I live.  
    The Dog-sled and Reindeer rides where fun, but too fast.  With 4 to a sled, we bumped along a max of two minutes.  Except, that is, for on groups of Aussies whose reindeer decided to take a detour.  They took ten minutes just to find in the woods.  They, of course, loved it.

Pictures are all on http://gallery.mac.com/ilobs/.

I'm going to put these entries about Lapland up in parts, but I'm going to be busy for a while, so it'll be slow.

    For the past couple months, I've taken to drinking milk at school.  There appeared to be two main varieties served, "Rasvation" and "Fetti-Fri."  Now, it's apparent that the second means "Fat-Free," so therefore the first must mean the oppisite.  I've accordingly selected cartons labled "Rasvation" this entire time.  
    Last Wednesday, I bothered to read both sides of a milk carton.  On the first side I read:  "Rasvation," and on the second: "Fetti-Fri."  Well then. 

I'm on a roll!

...To continue.  If we accept
   
    (1)  that what I regard as acceptable conversation (age dependent, of course) is actually immature, and
    (2)  that I would say that most other Americans would find these acceptable,

Does this mean that most other Americans are, actually, immature?  Then how can we define "maturity"?  Do all aspects of "maturity" change from culture to culture, or are there some base requirements that can be identified?

I'm really done now.

Disclaimer:
This is all a lie.

Today I bring you two more unrelated episodes.  I might, at the conclusion, try to relate them, but it'll be stretching my powers of palaver.

Finnish Humor.
    While in Finland, I've had surprisingly little insight into Finnish humor.  A lot of of the time what my friends find funny here, "Americans" find funny.  I can say that when I tell my host sister something I find funny, oftentimes she sees nothing amusing. Much of the time this happens when Swedish words or place names resemble something completely different in English.  KKK Supermarket and the resemblance of the Swedish word for cross "korset" and the English "corset" hold no humor for her.  (Red Cross, Röd Korset)
    Friday night I received another ingredient for the recipe for Finnish humor.  This, I was told, is "like a classic joke here in Finland."

    What's giant, red and eats rocks?
       - The Giant Red Rock Eater
   
    If you dug a hole all the way through the Earth to the opposite side, and dropped a rock down it, how far would the     rock fall?
       - 1.5 Meters.  Then the Giant Red Rock Eat would get it.

    Terrible jokes.  However, it's really quite funny at 1 am, I can assure you.  Possible, it could have been the accent of the guy who told it too me, but that would be rude.
    I think I've heard this in the US, but no one I know would dub it a classic.  It could have originated here.  Last night several people in various states of intoxication told me that the "Chicken Dance" originated from a Finnish contestant in the Eurovision song contest.  Who knew? 
    It surprised me that he considered this a classic, as I thought the Finnish are too serious to find such really stupid humor finny, sorry, funny.  (silly typo!)

I'm only going to take 15 minutes to talk about the next topic for today's discussion:

Parties! Puking!

    Last night, my sister hosted a Halloween party, (even though it's now November, but she was too busy to organise it on Halloween).  I tried wrapping myself in toilet paper.  3 1/2 rolls.  The first attempt failed, but once I figured out that the paper needed to be taped up quite frequently, I rolled out a possible impression of a mummy, complete with bright red socks.  Danella pulled on one of her mother's old dresses.  The skirt part was comprised of three layers of shimmery blackish fabric with silver hem, and the top was this kind of velvety number with a patten straight from the 80s.  Poofy sleeves completed the effect.  Several pirates, two hippies, a convict, zombie, Indiana Jones, a hunter, priest, leather-clad something, fairy, someone impersonating another guy at the school, and a cowgirl all attended the party. 
    So did booze.  Beer.  Tequila.  Bacardi.  Crappy wine.  Glögg (a spiced wine-type drink, served hot).
    The house, however, stayed intact.  So did everyone else.  I think Indiana Jones got the worst of it by letting any girl with a will to try to bull-whip his booty.  Some achieved audible success.  And how the Mariachi Singer came running past me butt naked from outside, I'm not sure I'll ever know. 
      How did I fare?  Soberly.  I justified having a beer and some Glögg as I thought Maria was hiding downstairs in the TV room.  Parent present.  I had the ok. When I discovered hours later that she had left.  I finish my beer, and didn't drink till she came back around 1, along with Magnus.  I had another beer.  
    Some of you might have noticed that parent-approval is implied by my last paragraph.  That is true.  A parent sanctioned party.  Magnus takes the position that drinking is acceptable,  but that there exists such a thing as being too drunk.  I have to my surprise discovered that there are different levels of smashed-ness.  It hadn't occurred to me before.
     So now an analysis of the Finnish drinking ethic.  The consensus is that Finns drink to talk, to overcome their shyness.  They also say that they wish they could talk without booze.  In addition, it's clear, paradoxically, that they drink to forget what they've done that night, like many Americans.  So if they drink so they can talk, and also drink to forget, what exactly are they trying to forget?  Do they want to forget that they can actually talk, because it reminds them they're kind of ashamed that they need this drug to overcome their unnecessary inhibitions.  Or are they trying to forget that they can talk because it violates some funny deep value the Finnish place on shyness.  Maybe they place on careful speech?  The second seems more likely.  That would then mean that what I regard as perfectly acceptable conversational topics, they regard as immature.  That means they think I'm immature! 
    I'm confused now.  Ahhhhh.  I'm going to work on this at a later time.

Hey-do

The Bus
    Last Sunday I went to a night service at church, and, when it was over, tried to ride the bus home.  I arrived at the station at an awkward time when the next Helsinki-Porvoo bus wouldn't leave for another hour, so when I saw a Kotka-Helsinki bus, I ran over to see if it passed my way.  I asked the driver, in Swedish, if the bus went to Estbacka.  She didn't understand.  So I used the Finnish name for my neighborhood, "Eestenmacki."  While she didn't actually say "jo," I assumed the blank stare meant "yes" in Finnish.  I handed her my bus card, she charged it, and I took a seat towards the front of the bus.  I should have guessed that I was on the wrong bus when she drove in the opposite direction from my house.  Still, I thought, maybe her route goes through different neighborhoods before turning to mine.  When it became apparent, in about 15 minutes, that we were still going the wrong way, and hadn't crossed the river or nothin,'  I tried to communicate with the silent driver.  She started to chuckle and dropped me off at the next stop.  I tried to wheedle the name of the street out of her.  No luck. 
    So there I was, somewhere.  Somewhere in the country.  Creepy stop.  A little rainy.  No houses in sight.  Good thing my cell worked.  I pulled it out and called home.  After a good 15 minutes, we managed to locate myself buy googleing the name of a near-by dirt road.  While I waited for wheels, I tap-danced on the wet road, and the dark night-time.

Queen

    On Friday night I watched (and listened!) to a Queen tribute concert.   The orchestra played really well, and the vocalists didn't stray outside the acceptable range of tuning except on rare occasions.  What really struck me, though, wasn't the band's behavior, but the audience's.  They definitely takes their place as the quietest rock concert audience I've ever been a part of.  The band could have played Mozart and the audience wouldn't have looked over-lively. 
Hands folded, mouths shut, heads and feet mostly stationary, they sat through one and a half hours.  It wasn't until the last few songs that they started to swing and clap and even, gasp!, stand. 
    The one woman who acted properly was probably really drunk.  She was down on the floor for the rest of the audience to watch.  She was accosted first by those in back of her to sit and stop waving her hands, and then the security guards had to make regular visits to keep her down.  When the fam and I were talking about the concert, and I remarked about how quiet everyone was, Danella informed me that that was how the concert was supposed to be.  They weren't a pop band after all.  Apparently, in Finland, the baby boomers are a little quieter than ours.  [I promise to develop this into a more substantial story on Finnish culture later].

I just got iLife '08 in the mail on Thursday and I've got almost all of my photos up now.   They can be found on:

http://gallery.mac.com/ilobs#100015.

The link is also in the side-bar.  The "House Tour" and "Estonia Tour" are still on the Flickr page, because they've got extensive descriptions attached and it's be a pain to transfer them all. 

Mmmm. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: This is all a lie. 

     Tuesday did its' worst to drag out, but 3 o'clock, and the end of school, eventually ticked by.  I left the building to meet the waiting car and family , Peugeot, Mia and Danella (Magnus waited in Helsinki).  The clouds crowded the sky, but at least the rain didn't drop by for a visit.  Grey was the day, but we were going to Sweden.  
    Most Finns, or so they tell me, go to Sweden to buy cheap tax-free booze.  It's certainly true that booze motivates many, but the Finnish (or maybe everyone, really) tend to exaggerate their self-bestowed stereo-type.  They really do like Stockholm, too.  Don't listen to them if they say otherwise. 
    Our boat sailed as part of the Silja line of cruse ships.  12 decks.  To me, for my first cruse, this boat seemed huge. We arrived together only to quickly disperse into our rooms,  Magnus and I taking one, Danella and Mia filling the other with their stuff.  Right away, I went off to explore the boat.  2 stories of cabins rose around a central "Promenade" floor.  The floor boasted a perfume shop, a store labeled "Fashion," (whatever that means), a small arcade, a pub, cafe-like place, wine bar, kid's play area, a mini casino, a restaurant serving mostly meat, a seafood place, and a fancy French joint swaggeringly cognominated "Bon Vivant."   The Promenade also featured frequent "light-shows" accompanied by generic-type tunes.  Downstairs, a tax-free store and a "Bistro."  On the top deck were bar, night-club, spa/sauna, and "Chill," a "cool" place to "hang-out" (read: play video games).  The cleaning staff kept the boat nicely. 
    After I had finished leaving my footprints throughout the strained carpets of the ship, I happened to pass the family at the wine bar.  I gladly joined them, and we spent the next hour our so talking and passing the 4 distinctive glasses around.  Magnus ordered a glass of Beringer, a Shiraz, an Amarone, and something else.  My favorite was the 10 yr. old Beringer.  Oakey...and...well...mughhhh.  [As some readers seem to think, I was not intoxicated.] Yes, as I was saying,  we enjoyed ourselves very much.   We dined at the seafood restaurant, where I consumed 4 oysters and and prawn tails in a thai shrimp sauce.
    The next day we left ship around 10 am local time and proceeded by cab to tour the city.  Our cab driver was 10 or more years a veteran and offered to give us the tour.  He took us around through the north, west and east sides of the city.  We saw city hall, which is where the Nobel Peace Prize is presented, and the Royal palace, and all the beautiful architecture.  The City hall square rises up around a grassy square and raised stone platform.  Similar to a castle, but maybe with a few hundred more years of education.  I understood a suprising amount of our Cabbie's Swedish.  When the tour finished our cabbie dropped us off in front of NK, a very large Swedish department store.  Magnus and I wandered around the "home" section for a while, looking at knives (knives!) and such.  After a while we the girls came back and after and meeting which I didn't understand, we broke up.  Magnus and I headed towards the Gammal Stad (Old Town), and the girls continued their moderate and restricted shopping. 
    The Irish were in town that day for the Ireland-Sweden Football (Soccer, duh!) match, so to add to the interesting mix already there, the noisy Irish tumbled in showing off white and green pants, shirts, faces, hair-doos, and what ever else could be colored.  Stockholm's crowds weren't as eclectic as NYC's, but they certainly did their best.  The majority were affluent-looking Asians, Swedes, and generic white peoples mixed with a healthy dose of punks and goths.  Mostly punks.  I even spotted a punk doll, which is a first. 
    Magnus and I almost exclusively window-shopped, except for the occasional bookstore or gadget shop or, by his choice, clothing place where he picked up a new sports jacket.  I also purchased a royal post-card from the royal gift shop. We ate at pleasant café.  Finally satisfied that I'd seen enough of the old town, (how this could be, considering its size and 600 yr. old age, I don't know), I asked Magnus if there was anything really Swedish and Stockholm that I must see before leaving.  Well, it turns out that a ship, the Vasa, which the king  built in the 1600s, still stood.  Why say no?
    When I say "stood," there's a catch.  The king built the ship so large and so extravagantly that the 2nd gust of wind on its first day out keeled the ship so much that she took water in through the gun-ports and sank.  Right there. In the harbor, 1628. The crown was so embarrassed they really didn't do much beside salvaging its big brass cannons.  In the 1961 an archaeologist directed a project over months to salvage the huge ship after 300 years of storage in Davy Jones' Locker.  Then the government built a museum around it.  That was where we headed. 
    The ship was huge.  With 226 ft. long, a draft of 15.7 feet, 1,275 sq. ft. of sail, originally weighing around 1,200 tons,  64 guns, King Gustavus Adolphus made sure his ship could have pounded anything it might have the displeasure of encountering.  300 hundred or so years of being sunk didn't improve its' looks, however, and the ship has been preserved, not restored.  Much of the interior is gone, whole decks missing,  the outside is not painted, the rigging and some of the masts gone.  It now stands a wrecked and rotted fraction of its former naval terror. 
    Magnus and I taxied back to the boat , where a book and beer awaited me.  Magnus hunkered down with a laptop and beer.  One of the unfortunate results of the laptop is that it allows your work to follow you around.  No taking your carpentry tools with you to Sweden, or your desktop brick to Hawaii.
    That night, after dinner, we took our nightly dosage of wine in Magnus and I's cabin.  The girls went to the midnight show.  I would have gone, but, I was still out walking when they went and my cell didn't work so I couldn't contact them and oh well. 
    We left the boat 'round ten the next morning.  So ended the Finnish style vacation.  Short, and indulgent.  

This is this first in a series of entries about things that sound funny in English and not Finnish. 

    I was coming home from Helsinki one night and I turned my head to see, on 10 ft. tall brightly lit sign: KKK Supermarket.   If you'd rather not support the KKK, you can instead go to the S Market. The S is pronounced almost exactly like a common 3-letter word for those glorious nether regions of the human body known as the Gluteus Maximus.  I you'd prefer to shop somewhere be-named even more bluntly, I could take you to a grocer labeled simply, "Sale," in yellow and blue.  This is actually a Finnish word pronounced "Saw-lay."   Across the street stands a Shell gas station whose convince store proclaims "Shell Box."

When I hung out a few weeks ago in Helsinki to watch a fireworks competition,  I had to pee.  I peed (in the bathrooms) at the railway station.  Not only did I have to pay 1 euro, but I received a ticket.  Now, my pee has a number. If you ever want to look up my pee next time you're in Helsinki, it's #0215037.