Weekend / Cheap flights / Very bright / Many visitors here / A visit to Rovaniemi
Fool and his money are soon parted. Old saying
On Friday evening, we (I and S) went to see some old furniture in a shop called Timeless in Töölö. They have a certain chair, which I assume we just have to buy. It is way too cute. Later, we had dinner with Tuula, who by now has already left for Hangzhou to wrap up her degree in calligraphy. She is just incredible, a force of nature and totally fearless: one of the few Westerners ever to study calligraphy in the Art Institute in Hangzhou. Even later, we had a beer in the Exodus-bar in Kallio. Again, some customers had found the bar to smoky to smoke inside and had come outside for a smoke. Way strange.
On Saturday, I first bought some books and then too the train to Tampere, where I spent the afternoon with my mother and brother. As usual, I spent the late evening with my brother and his friends at their garage, where they always a fascinating variety of broken cars, motorbikes and all kinds of moving and noisy machines. And, of course, always enough alcohol of all kinds. And a nice 5-channel DVD-watching system. Nice place to spend an evening, with some rather peculiar people.
Sunday, nothing much, just hanging out or actually in at home, later meeting Kössi etc.
Rovaniemi is a peculiar town. The Polar circle runs through the town, which make Rovaniemi on of Finland's top tourist attraction. Of course, having the headquarters of the Santa Claus add to Rovaniemi's fame. They also have some decent downhill skiing facilities.
For me, however, it is the city planning and architecture that fascinate me there. All buildings but two or three where burned down by the retreating German army in 1945. Finland fought by the Germany against Russians until the Russian defeated the Finnish army in 1944. The peace agreement ordered the Finns to expel the German army from Finland and so the Finns did. The retreating Germans were mad and angry and disappointed and burned the whole Lapland to the ground. Well, the towns and villages they retreated through at least.
So, Finns had the golden opportunity to rebuild a whole town. They jumped at the opportunity and used it well. Today, Rovaniemi is a fascinating open-air museum of all architectural fashions of the last 60 years: late functionalism of the 50's, the first pre-fabricated concrete building of the 60's, the greyness and industrial efficiency of the 70's, bank and shop-buildings of the 80's, and excessive use of glass of the 90's. Rovaniemi is a marvel in this sense. Very much worth a visit.
Not all visitors are alike. In my hotel, the English guidebook tells the visitors that "it is strictly illegal according to the Finnish law to consume own alcoholic beverages in the hotel room". The Finnish, the Swedish, and the French versions of the same guidebook do not mentions this law. It is no wonder, for such a law does not exist.
Food is another reason for visiting Lapland. In addition to excellent reindeer stew, Lapland has some delicious fish. For lunch, I had fried rautu, a relative of salmon I assume. For dinner, I had superb smoked whitefish, right from the local rivers. Excellent. The fish reminded me that sometimes the best fist is far from the ocean, in small rivers and lakes of the far north or up in the mountains.
Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs March to June 2006".
Weekend
Just for the record, I note the following. On Friday, I took the early flight back to Helsinki. It took less than 3.5 hours from wake-up to the office in Espoo, which makes the average speed about 300 km/hour. Not bad!On Friday evening, we (I and S) went to see some old furniture in a shop called Timeless in Töölö. They have a certain chair, which I assume we just have to buy. It is way too cute. Later, we had dinner with Tuula, who by now has already left for Hangzhou to wrap up her degree in calligraphy. She is just incredible, a force of nature and totally fearless: one of the few Westerners ever to study calligraphy in the Art Institute in Hangzhou. Even later, we had a beer in the Exodus-bar in Kallio. Again, some customers had found the bar to smoky to smoke inside and had come outside for a smoke. Way strange.
On Saturday, I first bought some books and then too the train to Tampere, where I spent the afternoon with my mother and brother. As usual, I spent the late evening with my brother and his friends at their garage, where they always a fascinating variety of broken cars, motorbikes and all kinds of moving and noisy machines. And, of course, always enough alcohol of all kinds. And a nice 5-channel DVD-watching system. Nice place to spend an evening, with some rather peculiar people.
Sunday, nothing much, just hanging out or actually in at home, later meeting Kössi etc.
Cheap flights
A return ticket from Helsinki to Tampere by train costs about 50 euros. A return ticket from Tampere to Liverpool by plane costs about 50 euros. The state-owned railway business still has some monopoly rights and no need to compete. Well, I always take the train to Tampere even though it would be much cheaper to take the bus. So, I cannot really complain.Very bright
Summer is well under way. At least evenings are already rather bright, or it takes a while for darkness to descend. Right now, it is 8.15pm and it is still very much as it was at 3pm. It may just be that the common greyness of the sky and whiteness of the snow play trick on me.Many visitors here
For the last few days, I have had many visitors to my November 2005-blog. I wrote about elephantitis and even attached a picture. Now, there are many visitors from the USA coming to read what I wrote about. I do not know why, but maybe the disease has been mentioned in the news over there. Here is a example of the Google-searches coming to my site: elephantitis. Strange. Here is the picture of elephantitis.A visit to Rovaniemi
I visited Rovaniemi, the capital of the Finnish Lapland, on Thursday. A friend and ex-workmate of mine, Reijo is working for a playground manufacturer Lappset and for certain reasons they asked me to visit their headquarters. For NDA-reasons, I will not write more about Lappset or their products. Let me just note that I also met Asko, one of their salesmen, and their new CEO, whose name just vanished from my memory. Let me also note that a certain Kari was there as well.Rovaniemi is a peculiar town. The Polar circle runs through the town, which make Rovaniemi on of Finland's top tourist attraction. Of course, having the headquarters of the Santa Claus add to Rovaniemi's fame. They also have some decent downhill skiing facilities.
For me, however, it is the city planning and architecture that fascinate me there. All buildings but two or three where burned down by the retreating German army in 1945. Finland fought by the Germany against Russians until the Russian defeated the Finnish army in 1944. The peace agreement ordered the Finns to expel the German army from Finland and so the Finns did. The retreating Germans were mad and angry and disappointed and burned the whole Lapland to the ground. Well, the towns and villages they retreated through at least.
So, Finns had the golden opportunity to rebuild a whole town. They jumped at the opportunity and used it well. Today, Rovaniemi is a fascinating open-air museum of all architectural fashions of the last 60 years: late functionalism of the 50's, the first pre-fabricated concrete building of the 60's, the greyness and industrial efficiency of the 70's, bank and shop-buildings of the 80's, and excessive use of glass of the 90's. Rovaniemi is a marvel in this sense. Very much worth a visit.
Not all visitors are alike. In my hotel, the English guidebook tells the visitors that "it is strictly illegal according to the Finnish law to consume own alcoholic beverages in the hotel room". The Finnish, the Swedish, and the French versions of the same guidebook do not mentions this law. It is no wonder, for such a law does not exist.
Food is another reason for visiting Lapland. In addition to excellent reindeer stew, Lapland has some delicious fish. For lunch, I had fried rautu, a relative of salmon I assume. For dinner, I had superb smoked whitefish, right from the local rivers. Excellent. The fish reminded me that sometimes the best fist is far from the ocean, in small rivers and lakes of the far north or up in the mountains.
Alun perin julkaistu kuukausikoosteessa "Blogs March to June 2006".
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