Wednesday 17 March 2010

Now you know where I am!

I doubt anyone had heard of Turku before this week but all of a sudden we're front page news... and all because Lord & Lady Beckham have descended on the city! His Lordship apparently tripped on his royal robes and hurt his ankle... he was immediately flown to the top sports injury specialist - Dr Squirrel - right here in sunny, snowy Finland for career saving surgery - although he'll still miss the Word Cup - Shame, I hear you cry - or not! Her royal skinniness followed the next day, both were mobbed by literally a dozen fans and a couple of photographers as they arrived at the private hospital in the city centre, The Bee! 

Apologies at this point to my good friend Megan for pinching this information from her fabulous blog.... 

The finnish for Bee is Mehiläinen. Mehiläinen is a private hospital company named after the bee that brought Lemminkäinen back to life. Lemminkäinen is a character in the Kalevala - the Finnish Epic. Here is the Kalevala quote from the Mehiläinen web site:

The wise raven that flew onto the scene opined that Lemminkäinen could not be brought back to life, but the mother gathered up the pieces, gave blood transfusions, set the bones, stitched the wounds, performed organ transplantations, and managed to rebuild his frame, but could not make him talk or bring him back to life. But then Lemminkäinen's mother managed to persuade Mehiläinen (the Bee), the king of the forest flowers, to fetch nectar and mead from various herbs to serve as an ointment. This helped the son to recover, to battle the storms of life again.

How cool is that? 

So, Lord Beckham will shuffling around, learning to walk on his newly repaired heel. I think the Mouse could teach him a thing or two - yesterday 16th March at 1635 he took his first steps! YEAH! The Mouse walks! At 11 months, 1 week, 4 days & 3 hours old, he beat the Monkey by about 7 weeks but he did have more incentive - keeping up with her!

And here is the latest weather update: the temperature rose into positive figures for a brief and hope-raising few days and then it started snowing again.... The snow had melted for long enough to reveal three of my plant pots on the terrace have actually cracked! At least they now look pretty again under the big fluffy snow flakes.... Despite the longer, brighter days and the pretty snow, people are starting to get fed up of the winter... I suspect that last week's glimpse of the possibility of spring raised hopes before the snow dashed them again. The children of course, still LOVE playing in the snow... I've been poorly - my lungs are still not really recovered, so I haven't been out & about so much so I think I'm still liking the weather - It looks so nice through the triple glazing! 

And more blog news updates:
  • The bridge still hasn't fallen down - a film company have asked to blow it up for the next movie about Vares (a private detective/action hero type, written by a Turkulainen)
  • I haven't been on a bus since the rude lady incident
Last Sunday we took a jolly family trip to Helsinki. The International English Speaking Association of Finland (IESAF) were having a St Patrick's Day Family Fun Day to kick of a week of St Patrick's Day events at Molly Malones. Molly's is an Irish pub in the centre of Helsinki, it's very popular with the expat community. It was a great party with Irish Dancing, a clown making balloon animals, facepainting and best of all - LIVE IRISH MUSIC! I didn't realise how much I missed the Diddly Diddly til I heard it. In the crowd I spotted an Oulu Irish Music Festival T-Shirt and got chatting to it's wearer. He works at the Irish Embassy and knows the Festival Director. So, I have to add that to my "things to do" list for later in the year. Dear Alapca, how about coming over here for that? 

The Irish Dancers at the party ran a dance lesson for the children; Monkey had such good fun dancing the dance of her ancestors (;D). She was named after her Irish Great Great Grandmother, you know.... Monkey O'Brien! tee hee. Mouse was dancing too - bobbing up & down, strengthening his legs for yesterdays adventure.

Enough for now - I really should try to do short & often blogs, shouldn't I?

p.s. the surgeon's name really IS Dr Squirrel... Dr Sakari Orava!



Monday 8 March 2010

RUDE!

No, not like that...... 

There are stereotypes of most nationalities; passionate Italians, gourmet French, skinflint Scots, stupid Irish, uptight Brits etc etc etc. I have heard time & again that the Finns are rude and on the whole (as with most stereotypes) it's just not true but today I encountered one of the most extreme examples of the rudeness of the Finns!

In general the Finns are a very quiet, reserved peoples. They tend not to get involved in other people's business, they avoid confrontation. They are often stunned at my outgoing personality ;D but usually in a nice way... They know how to queue (using numbered ticket where available) and rarely queue jump in shops. On the street bike lanes are strictly observed and pedestrians always keep to the right on a busy footpath. Jaywalking laws mean that no-one ever crosses the road on a red light, or where there is no crossing.

The one place all this respect for others seems to vanish completely is on the bus. For some reason this observation of others personal space and needs doesn't apply once you set foot on the bus.

Maybe it's because I was brought up to offer my seat to those who need it more than me. Maybe it's because I grew up in London where the front of the bus downstairs is always for the elderly, the less able-bodied, pregnant women, mothers with young children.... Young, fit, healthy people automatically sit at the back, or even upstairs. Whatever the reason, these simple rules of respect for others simply don't apply in Finland. There are only 2 seats marked as for "less able bodied" passengers and they are located next to the middle doors.  The seats at the front of the bus often fill up with young, fit, healthy and usually noisy school children, often with bags, hockeystick, skateboards and allsorts. 

I regularly see elderly people left standing in the aisle between these children while they chatter away, oblivious to the standing passenger. When I was pregnant I suffered the same fate... when I didn't have Monkey in the buggy I would often end up standing while school children sat and once I even had to push my way past someone to get off the bus. Despite my best Finnish "Anteeksi" or excuse me and a large bump pushing in her back, this one woman just would not move, so I pushed past and actually hurt my bump! Poor Mouse must have wondered what was going on!

Opposite the middle doors there are 2 or 3 spaces often with flip down seats, where buggies, wheelchairs & luggage take priority. This is a real plus to travelling on the bus - a person travelling with a child in a buggy travels for free! Rather than an act of altruism this is purely a matter of safety... the mother (cos it usually is a mother) with buggy enters through the middle doors and then does not need to go to the front of the bus to pay. The buggy is not left unattended and the passengers are not fighting to get past each other. Of course there are some who take advantage of this free travel - squeezing children who are obviously too old and too big into a buggy to get on, then taking the child out of the buggy and taking 2 seats, leaving a buggy space full of an empty buggy!! Even more frustrating on a busy bus when you can't get on... 

Anyway, back to my point.

Today on the way home from school there was a small child crying on the bus. I heard him as I stepped on and he cried the whole way. He was probably about 2 years old, obviously tired, fed up, hungry and generally miserable - I imagine he had a long day out & about with Mummy and had enough. His mother was doing her best, wiping his tears and talking gently to him. In a very finnish way, she was not demonstrative about it - just quietly soothing him as best she could. I imagine she was fed up, too! Anyway - this was not the problem. Only 2 stops before I got off, the mother and child got off the bus, it was their stop, they were going home. ...and, this is what insensed me.... an older woman, who had been chatting with her friend the whole journey - watched the mother get up and get the buggy ready to leave and as she stepped off the bus ....she clapped!!! SHE CLAPPED!!! As if that poor mother was finally taking some applaudible action, as if she was not already bothered by the noise of her child and the embarrasment of the full bus.... I glared... my best Paddington Glare!

Had I spoken better finnish I would have a. tried to help with the child and b. really had a go at the older woman. I wanted to ask her if she had children or grandchildren of her own, had she forgotten what it was like? I wanted to tell her how completely rude it was of her to behave in that manner. But instead I used a glare of incredulity at her total ignorance and shook my head in disbelief. Had I been more finnish, I might have even tutted! 

Of course I then fumed my home from the bus stop and ranted here to you instead. 
Thank you for reading and sorry for the rant....

I was originally planning to write about Naistenpäivä and going back to school..but I'll do that another day. Hyvää Naistenpäivää!






Saturday 6 March 2010

Turku Bridge, Helsinki Sports Hall Closed as Unsafe | News | YLE Uutiset | yle.fi

Slightly alarming news - this is the bridge we use to get from home to town! There are other bridges, we're not stranded, but still....

Turku Bridge, Helsinki Sports Hall Closed as Unsafe | News | YLE Uutiset | yle.fi

Friday 5 March 2010

Come on Tomato!..... Ketchup.....

Been distracted by a poorly family for a few days. Now we're all dosed up on anti-biotics and paracetomol, so here's what I've been wanting to write about... 

Black Snow - here's the picture.... taken on Monday!

Kalevala Day - last Sunday was one of many "flag" days in Finland. It's not a national holiday but every flag pole flies the Finnish Flag. They occur a couple of times a month and commemorate all sorts of things. There are flag poles all over the place, too. Every block of apartments has one, almost every building has one and some private homes, too. It's a very patriotic practise - to see the national flag flying all over.

Last Sunday's Flag Day was to commemorate The Finnish Epic; Kalevala. I have a copy in English - I've read the first page! It is said that it's difficult to find a Finn who has read the whole thing.... I married one! When I asked him why, he said it was because he wanted to know what was in it! Fair enough... Maybe I'll read the rest sometime. It makes me wonder... if that's the case, why isn't it a set book at school?

I do plan to get the Mauri Kunnas kids version for Monkey. Mauri Kunnas is great. He takes classics and turns them into children's stories, with beautiful illustrations to make them totally accessible. Some have been translated to english, too, so even I can understand them.

Aleksis Kivi's Seven Brothers has become Seven Doggie Brothers and there is also the story of Doggie Hill Martha & Runeperi which tells the tale of J L Runeberg, national Poet of Finland. Both Kivi & Runeberg have flags days, too. Seven Brothers was the first major novel written in the Finnish Language! (I haven't read that either!). Doggie Hill is (alledgedly) in Turku, so in the summer there is a children's bus tour of the city based on Mauri Kunnas Stories.

Back to the weather for a moment: we had a few days of positive temperatures over the weekend so lots of slush - I was finally forced to buy some wellies (nice red ones, they are!). I've been meaning to buy a decent pair of winter boots for ages. But, the snow is so dry I have been wearing my shoes all winter - I don't tend to stand around in the snow, so my feet don't really have time to get cold. Boots kept moving down the priority list. Before you know it, Spring will be here and I'll be back in sandals anyway, so now I have my fab red wellies I might not bother with winter boots at all - how very un-finnish of me!

In general since moving here I buy more socks & less shoes than I ever have (not that I've ever been a big shoe-buyer anyway!). The reason? You only need shoes outside. You never wear shoes inside (except in shops). So your shoes only need to be outdoor shoes and your socks need to be presentable!

Every home has a foyer or "vestibule" - which in winter reminds me of an air-lock - where you change from your outdoor to indoor clothes - remove your coat, shoes, hat, scarf, gloves, earmuffs etc & unwrap the children from their snowsuits. There's normally a nice big coat cupboard or plenty of hooks and a shoe rack. In our house, it's the only place with a full length mirror and no heating!

It's all part of the hermetic seal that ensures that your heating keeps you warm in winter. Triple glazed windows, double doors and underfloor heating. It's very practical - it gets cold in winter, so it should be warm inside but after a lifetime of living in houses with drafts, single glazing, rotten window frames, temperamental heating (which goes off at night) and "if you're cold, put on a jumper" - it's been an adjustment! Indoors I tend to wear summer clothes, regardless of the temperature outside..

I no longer have a real use for jumpers; they are too warm for indoors and are only an extra layer under my winter coat on the coldest of cold days (when the wind chill drops the temperature). It's a strange thought! Same with slippers. I have a gorgeous new pair of warm slippers which are too warm for daily wear but ideal for stepping out onto the terrace for a spot of fresh air as they have proper soles.



Taken a few minutes ago - the view from the front window. I like days like this - sunny, crisp, fresh, cold (but up to +2). Shame we're all stuck inside with coughs and colds!