Only slightly bent

.. without doing some idiotic thing that few people other than tourists ever do. This seems to be the case if you read and believe some travel brochures & sites. Whether it’s riding a stupid mock train, climbing a dumb tower, eating some disgusting thing, visiting an obscure museum or some other stupid thing, travel brochures love to dwell on strange little things of any place and call them ‘essential’.

One of the favorite things people say about Finland is that one must go to a sauna. And try staying in Finland for any length of time and you’ll likely be pushed to not only go to sauna but to also jump in a lake (be it frozen or not) afterwards and semi-forced to eat salmiakki, koskenkorva, salmiakkikoskenkorva, mustamakkara and mämmi. At this point it’s worth mentioning that not all Finns enjoy the beforementioned, umm, “delicacies” either.

Finns’ relative comfort with nudity is also apparently a fun thing to tease foreigners with. Recently I bumped into what Timeout.com is saying about Helsinki:

Finally, no visit to Helsinki is complete without stripping off at the Yrjönkadun Uimahalli. This beautiful art deco swimming hall, recently restored, is home to the best sauna and swimming experience in all of Finland. There are separate times for men and women and swimming costumes are not allowed.

Yeah right. Not only are the facts wrong (swimsuits are optional), it’s hardly a thing that one must do for a trip to be complete.

It sucks that people or agencies or whoever even tries to define when you’ve really experienced some place or not. It’s easy to say that “Oh you haven’t really experienced XXX before you’ve seen/done/eaten/drinken YYY” and to dismiss someone else’s experiences of a place or a country by stating “Oh but you MUST do ZZZ!”, but the thing is different things matter to different people. To each person, each country, city or even one area is different, so to heck with all the must-see-this-and-must-do-this-lists.

The recent silence what comes to blogging can be explained paradoxically with both too much and not enough happening in my life to write about it. First it was not enough as I had (and have) a lot of studying-related things to read and do: nobody, myself included, wants to know about computational tree logics.

Then, this week, it was too much. I spent the week in Hämeenlinna, a city where I’ve lived for some 13 years of my life from elementary through high school. The reason I was there for was for work-related training. The time spent in beautiful Aulanko this week turned out to be one of the most intense and best trainings I’ve ever participated in. Working closely with lots of extraordinary people in an open, diverse & honest but yet intense atmosphere makes for one great experience.

But that’s not what I was going to write about. One evening, after wrapping up a long day, I walked from Aulanko to downtown to see what the city looks like after all these years. After walking past the castle towards downtown, I encountered pretty much what I had expected: nothing. Around 9pm, the downtown was essentially dead, except for the few people pictured here, collectively trying to fight what I think must’ve been a heavily localized gravitational phenomenon around them. Then again, large quantities of alcohol have been known to cause similary symptoms.

As there was nothing to be gained from that direction, the appropriate thing is to start heading the other way. Over there, we have more nothingness – no people, no life. What little was there, was closed except for a few bars that I really didn’t feel like entering.

It was at this point when I started feeling unnaturally happy that I live in a place where some real life can be observed (and lived) even after 9pm.

Then I came to a map of the city. I realized that I had, in about 40 minutes, walked from the top edge of the map to the bottom half of the map. I also realized that it would only take me another 30 or 40 minutes to walk where I used to live – a place which was a really long distance away from downtown two decades ago. The distance had begun to shrink quite a bit earlier, too, but being back after all the years it really hit me. Looking around me and at the map, it was fascinating to notice how places that used to be far away from each other now felt to be so intimately, almost suffocatingly close to each other. Everything fit on this one map, which one could walk from one end to the other in an hour.

In that one instant, a childhood mile became an adulthood stone’s throw.

Making my way back towards the hotel, I was awarded with an absolutely beautiful sunset with the castle perfecting the scene. I again wished I would’ve had my camera with me, but then the reflections of the sunset on the water led to reflections of other kind and I just stopped for a minute to admire it.

And then went on; with my now-short walk back to the hotel & with my current life after spending some time in the past.

And I felt happy.

(Unlike earlier promised, this post still includes a few lousy cameraphone photos, so clicking on them doesn’t do anything)

Having a camera with you wherever you go is one of the best things that consumer technology has enabled. Without one, you could never capture the weird, funny, beautiful moments that just happen every day all around you. Here are a couple of these occasions from the weird-category (note that unlike many, these photos do not enlarge if clicked on):

Liquid spam

It’s been known for a long time that spam is not just the annoying thing in your inbox, but actually also something edible that comes in cans. What I haven’t been aware of before is that you can now buy liquid spam, too, which isn’t actually spam at all – it’s supposedly an energy drink!

There is no way I’m tasting one of these.

So how big is it exactly then?

A funny sign some time ago on Aleksanterinkatu; a space for rent, which supposedly is “approximately 240.5 square meters” in area.. approximately down to the half-a-square meter?

Sorry for the crappy cameraphone photos; this will hopefully be the last batch of such.

Wanted: bagels

Fact: there are no good bagels in Finland.

This is most unfortunate, as bagels would make excellent light lunches or snacks. A few years ago, there were no bagels whatsoever in Finland; then Stockmann, Arnolds and some other places started coming up with them. I found Stockmann’s bagels the best, but a few weeks back they changed suppliers and… well, the situation certainly didn’t change for the better and what’s available now can’t really be called bagels. A shame.

Can’t believe I’m going to have to make such basic foodstuff myself.

How to get Finns to talk – almost

Our lizard eats live insects and there are only a few places in Helsinki to get them – unfortunately you can’t order them by mail, which was really convenient in the US. Anyway, in the wintertime you have to transport the crickets or locusts in a cooler (with bottels filled with warm water inside) so that they would survive the transportation.

Some weeks ago I received some really funny looks when I was sitting on the bus with a surprisingly loud, chirping cooler beside me. Many people almost asked me what the heck was going on, but being Finns, nobody did. A shame again, I would’ve happily explained that I’m carrying a swarm of fully grown live crickets

Pictured on the right: locusts, which incidentally do not chirp.

Things they don’t tell you in the ads

A recent SonyEricsson advertisement stated of their new phone that it “stores up to 1,400″ songs or whatever the number was. Nice enough, right? Only it seems that mp3-players and music devices in general are so badly overhyped in the ads that it’s almost funny. SonyEricsson’s ad conveniently left out not only the fact that a) the songs need to be encoded at a rate that will remind you of a broken gramophone for that many to fit there, but also that b) you need to buy a 2GB memory card to even theoretically achieve that theoretical number. Nice.

Some of that might’ve been written at the bottom of the ad with the 6pts font small print that nobody reads, but if it was, it nullifies the main message.

If you ever want to witness an incredible transformation on a national scale, move to Finland for a year. That’ll give you two vastly different and highly contrasting countries for the price of one – if you survive the experience.

During winter, the country falls into such melancholy that it just cannot be explained, it has to be experienced.

There is not one smile in sight and people drudge through day after day, attempting to soothe the dreary, slowly moving season with world-class alcohol consumption. Life seems to go on; people still work & everything still functions even in temperatures of -30C, to the great surprise of tourists. But the illusion of life is just that; there is no life, no happiness, no sparkling eyes and no smiles. It’s as if the whole nation becomes a horde of the living dead, a zombie-land. Sure it’s “exotic” not seeing the sun for days or weeks. Freezing temperatures might be really “cool” for some tourists, and the white stuff sure is beautiful every now and then.

But it gets old really fast. During winter, Finland is not a place for anyone wishing to keep sane – or happy. The best you can hope for is a numbness, punctuated by the occasional glimmer of hope, a realization that it will not last. And the worst part is that you don’t realize how fogged you are, not before spring again comes and wakes you up.

Fast-forward a few months and it’s as if you enter a different planet. During the summer months, Finland is a happy, warm, vibrant and lively place, teeming with life and people simply enjoying life. It’s difficult to imagine that the situation just a few months back was different, very different.

In the spring the warmer and longer days seem to literally melt the people in addition to the snow – usually in just a couple of short weeks in April/May, people blossom like you’ve never seen before. I realized this transformation very vividly yesterday, when walking around downtown and seeing that life had returned to the city. In the summer, there are smiles on peoples’ faces and an untouchable but very real sensation of life, love, hope & happiness. We even sleep less – how could you sleep anyway, there’s too much life going on and it’s always light outside.

With the fall begins the transformation to the zombie-months again. This way it’s more subtle; there is no sudden and dramatic change of mood like in the spring – instead, the national psyche just goes down (and out) gradually, with a whimper instead of a bang. As December sets in, Finland again finds itself in a strange state of non-being and the cycle restarts.

Until then, I will enjoy the brief period of life, also called summer.

A month has past since the last movie review set, so it’s time to take stock of movies seen lately. Some quite excellent movies found their way to this round, although I’m quite amazed that there was time for this many movies..

Crash

Crash follows the lives of several people over 24 hours. These people, from all walks of life, go about their business and over the day, their lives become connected in various ways – sometimes this meeting of lives becomes more of a crash. I’m usually not a big fan of movies where there are a million different intertwined stories, but Crash pulls it off well. One of the key themes is racism, which is looked at from a number of angles. All in all, the characters are mostly believable, the story is well written and thought-provoking showing that there is potential for good in even “bad” people – and vice versa.

Definately deserving of the 3 Oscars it won and one of the best movies I’ve seen; 4½ out of 5.

Finding Neverland

Most people, I believe, are familiar with Peter Pan. Finding Neverland looks at the time before and during the creation of the story, telling the story of the somewhat unconventional relationship of J.M. Barrie with the family that inspired him to create Peter Pan. Some people are not quite happy with the way the relationship with the family – four boys and a widow – is developing. These include Barrie’s wife and the mother of the widow. The movie is more drama than I beforehand thought it would be and deals with a bit deeper themes and issues than could be thought regarding the subject. While quite different than my expectations were, Finding Neverland was a very good movie that I would highly recommend. 4+ out of 5.

Gegen die Wand (Head On)

A German movie about Turkish immigrants with some, well, “issues”. Cahit (Birol Ünel) has, apparently since the death of his wife, lost his will to live. After semi-attempting suicide, he bumps into Sibel (Sibel Kekilli) who also attempted suicide but for very different reasons. The two end up getting married but for reasons very different than normally. Problems relating to the turkish culture and personal problems are rife in their unconventional relationship, which develops into something more than just being indifferent roommates that they started as. How can both get their lives back together? Can they help each other or are they just hurting each other? Gegen die Wand can by no means be considered a happy movie, but it is not without hope – all in all a very positive surprise; 4 out of 5.

Imaginary Heroes

The Travis family, we come to see, is not exactly functioning very well. The father is obsessed with his other son, who is doing great in sports. Or, well, was, until he killed himself. That leads to us discovering that the entire family, as well as some of the neighbors, are to some extent fucked up and lost. The movie has its moments, but they can be counted with the fingers of one hand. The plot development is strange, some of the things happening just don’t seem to fit together. Rather strange and a clear disappointment, 2 out of 5.

Walk the Line

Telling the story of Johnny Cash, starting from when he was young and chronicling his way to fame, with bumps and all – and there were more than enough of the bumps. Joaquin Phoenix is great in the leading role and Reese Witherspoon certainly deserved her Oscar for her lead supporting role – most of the other performances are also brilliant. The plot, if spelled out, probably wouldn’t sound all that special but the story is very well told and lots of good music doesn’t hurt either. Highly recommended at 4½ out of 5, even if you’re not a fan of the music.

Wedding Date

Anxiety over being single makes Kat Ellis (Debra Messing) figure out an alternative companion for her sister’s wedding – she hires a date. What happens next is quite predictable, but romantic comedies aren’t supposed to be unpredictable so that’s not a showstopper as such. However, where is the emotion with the lead characters? It’s competely lacking and without that, the story is just flat and somewhat boring, despite attempts at spicing it up. Kat’s and her date’s relationship is not developed at all, and just like that they supposedly go from complete disinterest to being deeply in love. That transition is just not played out well at all. A workable idea ruined by the lack of story development and downright bad acting (or, rather, no acting). 1½ out of 5.

Hitch

As opposed to the movie above, here we have a romantic comedy that has all the ingredients that Wedding Date lacked. Alex “Hitch” Hitchens (Will Smith) runs a comfortable business helping men woo the women they’re interested in – to land (and excel at) a date. Then he meets Sara (Eva Mendes), a gossip columnist highly skeptical of all men – but does Hitch’s advice work for himself? I had some serious doubts about this movie, but luckily they turned out to be wrong. The movie doesn’t go overboard (too often) and actually turns out to be very nice – basically good, clean fun. A perfect romantic comedy at 4 out of 5.

Prime

Rafi is a recently divorced 37-year-old who is seeing a therapist to help her get over the divorce and on with her life. And she does get on with her life quite soon, when she finds Dave, a talented 23-year-old artist. In addition to worrying about the age difference, there’s another issue – Dave is Rafi’s therapist’s son. And comes from a very strictly Jewish family. How long does it take til the therapist finds out who Rafi is actually dating? And after initially encouraging her to throw herself into the relationship, does the realization have some minor affect on her advice when she finds that out..? Prime is romantic comedy/drama that is a little bit less rosy than many other films; there are problems that are sometimes irreconcilable. In that sense, one could call it realistic. The tone of the movie is sometimes happy, sometimes sad, sometimes dramatic, but the end result is just average. I’d say 3- out of 5.

Coach Carter

Another (in addition to Finding Neverland and Walk the Line in this set) movie based on real events; Samuel Jackson plays a basketball coach, accepting the job of coaching a bottom rung high school basketball team. The team, in short, has sucked for a long time – and yet, excelling in sports is the only ticket to College for some of the boys. Carter is determined to turn things around and trains the team hard and in unconventional ways – for one, one of the things he wants is for the boys to actually do well in class, too, not just in basketball. The other school faculty doesn’t appreciate all of his methods (nor do some of the parents), and even though the intentions are good, trouble ensues – eventually attracting national media attention. Although I’m usually not a big fan of sports-movies, I really liked this. And the extras on the DVD with interviews with the real Coach Carter and some other “real-life” characters were also very nice, and I get the feeling the movie fairly faithfully depicts what actually happaned. 3½ out of 5.