Things I Like About Finland 4: OMG HEDGEHOGS!!!

Cutest animals ever. These little guys waddled around my friend Lucia's patio one evening in Jokioinen.





Aww.

Unfortunately I never managed to see one when I had a camera. Thanks to Lucia for the photos!

I've gone pro

Finally succumbed to a Flickr pro account, mainly because of my obsession with organizing and cataloging. Ooh, sets and collections and tagging, oh my. If you haven't seen my page yet, it's here.

Maybe I'll even post stuff that isn't pretty travel photos. Like people. I've been told my collections are boring because there isn't enough out-of-focus redeye grimacing. Fine, I guess I can do requests. I understand some people want to see drunken party pics. Too bad. You got em, you post em.

Here's a couple new uploads:

View from inside an old barge at the Forum Marinum in Turku.

22-Pistepirkko (possibly my favourite Finnish band - check them out!) at Ruisrock 2008.

Things I Like About Finland 3: Bidets

The hand-held bidet is ubiquitous here. They're even common in public toilets - the first one I saw was in the Helsinki airport after I landed. Here's the one in my bathroom:


As you can see, it's attached to the sink. You turn on the sink tap, ADJUST THE TEMPERATURE, then push the button on the sprayer.


To be honest, I didn't know what this was when I first arrived here. Thank you Internet. I won't go into further details, but trust me, it is a very good thing that North America should adopt widely and I will miss it.

On a related subject, in my time here I've gotten used to referring to the "toilet" because people looked at me oddly when I said "washroom".

Things I Like About Finland 2: Concealed Dish-Draining Cupboard

My last couple of Finland posts have been a bit snarky, haven't they? So let's fix that with the next installment of Things I Like About Finland.

This is my kitchen sink area:


(Yes, I did wipe down the counter just for these photos.) But, hidden above the sink is this:


Ta-da! The Finnish, or maybe Nordic, concealed-in-a-cupboard dish draining rack! The bestest kitchen cabinet fixture thingie ever! Why doesn't the rest of the world have this? In case it's not clear in the above photo, here's a low-angle view showing the racks:


Sweet, huh? I love this thing. I have stuff in this that probably hasn't been to a real cupboard in months - they just circulate from rack to stove/table to sink and back up to rack. I can throw lots of stuff up there, then just close the doors, and whoo-hoo, clear counters and domestic deification.

It drips of course, but that's not really a problem: the steel counter-sink combo is pretty standard here too (also great for messy stuff). The trick is to put glassware on the top rack so it doesn't get water spots.

I can't believe I'm about to post 3 photos of my kitchen cupboards. But seriously, I've considered this amazing ever since my first day here. It's even in Finnish Wikipedia!

Alternative spellings for Jokioinen

Looks like whoever made Thunderbird's spellcheck has been to Jokioinen! I can't believe this is the first time I've noticed this.

Midsummer fun - Updated with mortality statistics!

(Laugh-Out-Loud Cats # 869)

I'm spending this Midsummer long weekend mostly working. Could be worse though:

Every year at Midsummer, a distressing number of people either overestimate their swimming skills, underestimate the amount they have had to drink before plunging in from sauna, overestimate the depth of the water at the end of the jetty before diving headfirst, ignore the temperature of the lake (not likely to be too warm this year), or forget that it is not merely ecologically irresponsible to attempt to urinate off the back of a small rowing boat.
Please do not join them, or those who manage to spoil their weekend and that of the fire services by burning down their sauna.
(Helsingin Sanomat)

Sigh. Back to the whitefish ...

UPDATE! 24-06-2008:

Three people were killed in separate homicides over Midsummer. In addition three men drowned, two people were killed in traffic, and one man was found dead in a sauna. (YLE)

Plus two moose. Hyvää Juhannusta.

Instant flower garden at Turku Cathedral

Drove down to Turku yesterday for a city fix, and was completely charmed by the instant garden that had sprung up in front of the Cathedral.

Turku Cathedral is one of my favorite churches in Finland. A typical lovely view from the front is this one that I took around the same time 2 years ago:

To my complete surprise, yesterday it looked like this:

Hundreds, thousands of potted Gerbera were arranged on the courtyard, and spread up the steps. A sea of pink and white and yellow and green. Magical. I took a bunch of photos:

I found out this was an environmental art installation called Gerbera's Dream by Kaisa Salmi, who I guess does these sort of installations sometimes. Here's the details:


So another dreamy thing - all those flowers were given away this morning to the people of Turku.

I put my photos from this show on this web album. It made me happy all day.

Things I Like About Finland 1: No Radio Edits

In an effort to be more positive, and with my time in FI drawing to a close, I thought I should write up some of the things I really like here. Consider this part 1 of a series.

Things I Like About Finland 1: No Radio Edits.

The radio stations here, at least for English-language lyrics, don't censor swearing in songs. No bleeps, blanks, or PG word replacement. I think this is great, also more honest. Really, all of us know what those lyrics are, even the 10 year olds who are supposedly traumatized by hearing them. I'm guessing that the type of people who are traumatized by swearing probably aren't listening to that station anyway.

Anyway, the result is, at any time of day, morning, noon, whenever, you can hear undiluted Eminem or Rage Against The Machine. Or this charming little tune that was blasting out my car radio at lunchtime today:





Goodness. I haven't been that impressed with sexy-yet-completely-unromantic use of the f-expletive since Closer.

I've asked about radio edits here, and was told it's just not done. Possibly English swearing doesn't really bother people because it's not the native language, and therefore doesn't have the same impact. Similarly, I know a few choice Finnish words, and while I can shock the locals a bit by using them, they don't do anything for me because they're just sounds. I don't know if they censor the Finnish-language songs.

But at least I get the day off

Unfortunately, after the warmest Finnish winter on record, our gift from the Easter bunny is snow.


Perhaps we didn't bribe the Easter witches enough.

But this washed up on the shores of my Finland alerts. Nicole Willis & The Soul Investigators. Don't know anything about the artist yet, but it's a happy bit of soul. Neat shots of Helsinki's streets and cobblestones, and perfect with an Easter Monday coffee.