October 2009 Archives
Here is a long list of things that I learned during my time in Beijing:
More pictures on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/haleebot2000/sets/72157622568644189/
- It is quite possible to have all sorts of meals that do not contain: turtle heads, mice, chicken feet, monkey brains, or eels. I did eat: duck, beef tendon, fresh water shrimp, and lots of dried banana chips dipped liberally in Nutella.
- They are not joking around about the swine flu. They use infrared to take your temperature as you go through customs at the airport.
- Communism = I couldn't access Facebook.
- Beijing has a Chinatown!?
- Street vendors are very aggressive. And vocal. And they grab at you.
- Oh my gosh, the drivers are insane. The bicyclists are insane. The pedestrians are insane. Every time we got into a cab, it was like NASCAR x bumper cars x Death Race 2000 x Critical Mass. I was certain I was going to die about 4,000 times, yet somehow, miraculously we never crashed into anything or were plowed over. It's so bad apparently, that if you get into an accident, your insurance premiums don't go up because it is totally certain that you WILL get into an accident.
- A lot of the people riding bicycles wear these leather knee coverings...sorta like leg warmers, but made of leather and hiked up so they go from mid-thigh to mid-calf.
- Everybody smokes, and they smoke everywhere. Even in the office, people were smoking out by the elevator and in the stairwells. (Thankfully, no one was smoking at their desks.)
- The currency is the Chinese Yuan (CNY), but everyone there calls it RMB.
- Most of the toilets were the typical Western kind, with a commode. I only encountered one where it was the hole in the ground with the footholds, and I was specifically seeking it out.
- The Forbidden City isn't really forbidden, you can pretty much walk right up to it. I didn't have much time for sightseeing, but I did get up at dawn one day and walked down to the Forbidden Palace and Tian'anmen Square to check it out:
More pictures on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/haleebot2000/sets/72157622568644189/
My little nieces are very cute and very curious about Finland. (Hi, girls!) We decided that they would give me assignments to go investigate, and then I would report back with the answers.
Today's topic is Finnish currency.
While the rest of Scandinavia is still hanging onto their various kronii (the Swedish kronor, the Norwegian kroner, and the Danish kroner), Finland's currency is the Euro, and has been since 2002.
Before that, their currency was called the Finnish Markka, and I actually found a few little finnmark coins here in my new apartment that I will be pocketing for my foreign currency collection. Finland was among the first European countries to adopt the new Euro currency when it was first introduced in 2002. Other countries using the Euro are Spain, France, Italy, Ireland, Germany and Greece...so if I decide to go visit any of those countries, I won't have to convert my cash to use it! Awesome! (Too bad I get paid in US dollars and the exchange rate is not very favorable right now. Not so awesome!)
The euro symbol looks like this: €. Wikipedia says: "Inspiration for the € symbol itself came from the Greek epsilon (Є) - a reference to the cradle of European civilisation - and the first letter of the word Europe, crossed by two parallel lines to 'certify' the stability of the euro."
I'm not sure why the author put 'certify' in quotes. I guess better 'certify' than 'stability'.
Anyway, it has been very weird because I've had to update all my Excel documents to be formatted in the Euro, and they usually put the currency symbol after the numbers, and not before like we do in America. For example: 1.389,25 €. Did you catch that other tricky thing there? They use commas for the decimal, and periods for the thousands comma. My Excel documents are all sorts of confused.
Paper money ranges from 5€ to 500€, all the same size but in varying and exciting colors:
Coins range from one Eurocent to 2€, and if you know me at all, you know that I have been crusading to kill the paper $1 bill in the US, and move to the $1 coin...so I LOVE having not only a 1€ coin, but a 2€ coin, too:
So having said all that, forget everything I just said. Because the real Finnish currency looks like this:
Because absolutely nobody uses cash for anything. No transaction is too small to just charge it. They don't use paper checks for anything, either. All transactions are electronic, and they laugh at me when I ask about checks and tell me they haven't been used here since the 70s.
Today's topic is Finnish currency.
While the rest of Scandinavia is still hanging onto their various kronii (the Swedish kronor, the Norwegian kroner, and the Danish kroner), Finland's currency is the Euro, and has been since 2002.
Before that, their currency was called the Finnish Markka, and I actually found a few little finnmark coins here in my new apartment that I will be pocketing for my foreign currency collection. Finland was among the first European countries to adopt the new Euro currency when it was first introduced in 2002. Other countries using the Euro are Spain, France, Italy, Ireland, Germany and Greece...so if I decide to go visit any of those countries, I won't have to convert my cash to use it! Awesome! (Too bad I get paid in US dollars and the exchange rate is not very favorable right now. Not so awesome!)
The euro symbol looks like this: €. Wikipedia says: "Inspiration for the € symbol itself came from the Greek epsilon (Є) - a reference to the cradle of European civilisation - and the first letter of the word Europe, crossed by two parallel lines to 'certify' the stability of the euro."
I'm not sure why the author put 'certify' in quotes. I guess better 'certify' than 'stability'.
Anyway, it has been very weird because I've had to update all my Excel documents to be formatted in the Euro, and they usually put the currency symbol after the numbers, and not before like we do in America. For example: 1.389,25 €. Did you catch that other tricky thing there? They use commas for the decimal, and periods for the thousands comma. My Excel documents are all sorts of confused.
Paper money ranges from 5€ to 500€, all the same size but in varying and exciting colors:
Coins range from one Eurocent to 2€, and if you know me at all, you know that I have been crusading to kill the paper $1 bill in the US, and move to the $1 coin...so I LOVE having not only a 1€ coin, but a 2€ coin, too:
So having said all that, forget everything I just said. Because the real Finnish currency looks like this:
Because absolutely nobody uses cash for anything. No transaction is too small to just charge it. They don't use paper checks for anything, either. All transactions are electronic, and they laugh at me when I ask about checks and tell me they haven't been used here since the 70s.
When I first arrived, I stayed at a little temporary apartment. I wanted to post pictures of it before now, but it was so small (300 square feet, aka 28 square meters) that it was impossible to tidy up because there was no storage space for all my crap. But I got all of my stuff out of there this morning and moved into my permanent apartment, so I took some photos of the old place to share with you...
Street sign - This is the name of the street I was living on, pronounced "Tur-lurn-KAA-tu." All the street signs (even in the busy parts of downtown) are posted on the sides of the buildings nearest the corner. I can't imagine driving here, because these signs are very small and pretty hard to see...definitely no intense green hanging over the street all in your face with reflective lettering in size 13,389 font. Every sign (street or otherwise) is listed in both Finnish (Töölönkatu) and Swedish (Tölögatan):
Apartment Building - This the entire apartment building, and then a closeup of the doorway. I love the little cubes with the address numbers on them, they're like that everywhere. Like dice! Something interesting that I learned the hard way is that just because it's 26 on this side of the street, don't expect 25 and 27 to be directly across the street. They don't skip numbers for extra wide buildings, they always go in sequence so it could happen that you could be in 26 on the west side of the street and be directly across from 33 on the east side of the street.
Stairs to unit - I was on the second floor (if you'll remember from the UPS fiasco), so these are the stairs leading up to the higher floors:
Door to unit - This is the door to my little unit. And me unlocking the door to my little unit. And a close up of the strange European keys. So medieval-looking:
Living room - this is basically what you see right when you walk in the front door. No, that's a lie. The thing directly across from the door is the toilet in the bathroom, which is an odd way to welcome someone. But if you sidestep that and look left, you see the living area:
Living room/bedroom - This is just another angle of the living room, taken from the doorway of the kitchenette. This gives you an idea of how very, very small the place is. That red thing on the left side of the living room is not another sofa, it's the bed:
Living room/kitchenette - Another angle of the living room taking from standing on the bed, and now you can see where the kitchenette fits into the layout.
Kitchenette - Small, but functional. That's a refrigerator/freezer closest to you on the right, then a small stove range and oven behind that. On the left is a microwave. And check out the cabinets above the sink, I am so impressed with how clever this is...the shelves above the sink are wire racks! So you can dry your dishes, yet still have them out of sight!
Bathroom - Okay, so this is really what you see when you first walk in. Man, this bathroom spoiled me. It was spotlessly clean. It had lots of nice cabinet space and good mirrors. The floor was made of heated tiles. It had a huge towel warmer. I miss that bathroom already... Anyway, it is very common for the washing machine to be in the bathroom, and they are little teeny tiny washing machines as you'll see below to the right of the shower. (No dryers.) And the outtake hose of the washing machine just dumps straight into the shower drain!
And that's it. It's going to take me a while to get the new place photo ready, but I'll do a similar entry when I have this place in a little better shape. Spoiler...two pieces of bugle-bottomed furniture!!
Street sign - This is the name of the street I was living on, pronounced "Tur-lurn-KAA-tu." All the street signs (even in the busy parts of downtown) are posted on the sides of the buildings nearest the corner. I can't imagine driving here, because these signs are very small and pretty hard to see...definitely no intense green hanging over the street all in your face with reflective lettering in size 13,389 font. Every sign (street or otherwise) is listed in both Finnish (Töölönkatu) and Swedish (Tölögatan):
Apartment Building - This the entire apartment building, and then a closeup of the doorway. I love the little cubes with the address numbers on them, they're like that everywhere. Like dice! Something interesting that I learned the hard way is that just because it's 26 on this side of the street, don't expect 25 and 27 to be directly across the street. They don't skip numbers for extra wide buildings, they always go in sequence so it could happen that you could be in 26 on the west side of the street and be directly across from 33 on the east side of the street.
Stairs to unit - I was on the second floor (if you'll remember from the UPS fiasco), so these are the stairs leading up to the higher floors:
Door to unit - This is the door to my little unit. And me unlocking the door to my little unit. And a close up of the strange European keys. So medieval-looking:
Living room - this is basically what you see right when you walk in the front door. No, that's a lie. The thing directly across from the door is the toilet in the bathroom, which is an odd way to welcome someone. But if you sidestep that and look left, you see the living area:
Living room/bedroom - This is just another angle of the living room, taken from the doorway of the kitchenette. This gives you an idea of how very, very small the place is. That red thing on the left side of the living room is not another sofa, it's the bed:
Living room/kitchenette - Another angle of the living room taking from standing on the bed, and now you can see where the kitchenette fits into the layout.
Kitchenette - Small, but functional. That's a refrigerator/freezer closest to you on the right, then a small stove range and oven behind that. On the left is a microwave. And check out the cabinets above the sink, I am so impressed with how clever this is...the shelves above the sink are wire racks! So you can dry your dishes, yet still have them out of sight!
Bathroom - Okay, so this is really what you see when you first walk in. Man, this bathroom spoiled me. It was spotlessly clean. It had lots of nice cabinet space and good mirrors. The floor was made of heated tiles. It had a huge towel warmer. I miss that bathroom already... Anyway, it is very common for the washing machine to be in the bathroom, and they are little teeny tiny washing machines as you'll see below to the right of the shower. (No dryers.) And the outtake hose of the washing machine just dumps straight into the shower drain!
And that's it. It's going to take me a while to get the new place photo ready, but I'll do a similar entry when I have this place in a little better shape. Spoiler...two pieces of bugle-bottomed furniture!!
So I mentioned that the apartment wasn't really ready for me, and last night the landlords met me there to give me a little orientation to the building and talk about my complaints. I hoped this meant they would talk about when it would be convenient for a professional cleaner to come in...but that didn't happen. I'm going to have to clean the place myself, but I'm not irate about it because they were the sweetest.
They are a cute little Finnish couple named Eero and Anja, probably in their 50s. He spoke passable English, she could only throw out a few words here and there...but her English was certainly light years ahead of my Finnish! When they rang the doorbell, they came bearing gifts:
Then they gave me a little tour of the building. Goodness, it's a pretty cool building. They took me up to the roof, where there is a HUGE communal balcony that stretches across the whole length of the building and faces downtown. That should be totally amazing in spring and summer. Then they took me to the top floor, which was a maze of weird/creepy storage spaces and where I can park all that crap I don't want inside the apartment. (Note: no sauna.) There is also a little garbage building out back that has regular garbage, paper recycling, all other recycling...and compost! So efficiently and charmingly European! And there are lots of big grassy areas behind the building. Helsinki is awesome like that. They manage to keep lots of nature spots, even in the middle of a big urban area.
So once I get the apartment all wiped down and aired out (it smells pretty musty because I think it's been vacant for some time), I will get all my stuff in there and take pictures for a future post.
They are a cute little Finnish couple named Eero and Anja, probably in their 50s. He spoke passable English, she could only throw out a few words here and there...but her English was certainly light years ahead of my Finnish! When they rang the doorbell, they came bearing gifts:
- A new big rug for the main room, which is awesome because the other rugs are skinny little runners. And they are dirty. And the vacuum cleaner is a piece of crap and I can't get them clean. So this new rug means I can lay on the floor in front of the TV like I like, and get back into my Diamond Dallas Page Yoga for Regular Guys (BANG!) regimen.
- A big storage bin for me to put all the extraneous crap in that is in my way.
- Future gift: the bedroom has one of those pull-down shades, but it doesn't go down all the way. Not a big deal now, but in the summer it will be essential, so they're replacing that for me.
- A shiny new nameplate for the door with my name on it. The previous tenant was some Italian guy named "Occhipin", which is violently close to being an anagram for "Pinocchio."
- The offer to come over for dinner. So cute!
Then they gave me a little tour of the building. Goodness, it's a pretty cool building. They took me up to the roof, where there is a HUGE communal balcony that stretches across the whole length of the building and faces downtown. That should be totally amazing in spring and summer. Then they took me to the top floor, which was a maze of weird/creepy storage spaces and where I can park all that crap I don't want inside the apartment. (Note: no sauna.) There is also a little garbage building out back that has regular garbage, paper recycling, all other recycling...and compost! So efficiently and charmingly European! And there are lots of big grassy areas behind the building. Helsinki is awesome like that. They manage to keep lots of nature spots, even in the middle of a big urban area.
So once I get the apartment all wiped down and aired out (it smells pretty musty because I think it's been vacant for some time), I will get all my stuff in there and take pictures for a future post.
At some point this whole "Day X in Helsinki" thing will have to drop off. Maybe today would have been a good day seeing as I skipped Day 6. Day 6 wasn't terribly eventful, it was my first day going to the real office where I'll be sitting for the next year. Observations of a European office:
In other news, I signed a lease on an apartment and picked up the keys yesterday. Unfortunately, the rental agency didn't bother to tell the landlords that, so the place was totally not ready for me. It still needs to be cleaned, and they need to haul a bunch of stuff off. I'm meeting them tomorrow night, and can hopefully start moving in for real on Wednesday or Thursday.
Because I started talking about work, I almost finished this by saying "Thanks!" like I always do on my work emails.
Thanks!
- Some people wear suits and stuff. Luckily, my boss wears jeans and sneakers so hopefully I can start dressing crappier after the first few weeks.
- People sit on each other's laps, practically. My boss/client showed me to my cube, which was pretty spacious...and then moved all his stuff over to sit right next to me. And then informed me that next week, there will be three of us in there. Permanently!
- There isn't one big bathroom with many stalls per floor. There are little nooks about every 20-30 meters, which have a coat rack and one men's bathroom and one women's bathroom. You have to go through two doors (and lock them) to get to the one toilet. And I think I'm catching on that it is poor etiquette to hang your coat over the back of your chair, because those coat closets are all over the place.
- Everyone eats at the cafeteria. And the food is super hearty and yummy and they change it up every day. And Finns like to eat lunch at about 11am, so I am fitting in just fine.
- People unapologetically wear their badges around their neck like a backstage pass. Here's mine:
- It's quiet. So, so politely quiet. I may go crazy.
In other news, I signed a lease on an apartment and picked up the keys yesterday. Unfortunately, the rental agency didn't bother to tell the landlords that, so the place was totally not ready for me. It still needs to be cleaned, and they need to haul a bunch of stuff off. I'm meeting them tomorrow night, and can hopefully start moving in for real on Wednesday or Thursday.
Because I started talking about work, I almost finished this by saying "Thanks!" like I always do on my work emails.
Thanks!
So after averaging about 3-4 hours of sleep a night since I arrived, I finally found the recipe for how to get some sound sleep:
Then I decided to go for a walk around my neighborhood. Looking at the map, it looked like the waterfront was not too far from here so I wanted to check it out. Along the way, I found several things to be excited about:
- I finally opened up my UPS shipment box which had some of my blankets in it, and banished these weird heavy/skinny duvet covers from the bed and used my fuzzy blankie instead.
- I put on that Scientologist documentary about Jason Beghe
which although interesting, is not edited very excitingly. It's
basically just him in a chair in front of a window talking for two
straight hours about how he got involved with Scientology, and
ultimately abandoned it, and is littered with the 8,389 Scientology
acronyms that make me feel like I'm in a Microsoft meeting: SP, PTS,
COB, OT, etc. And other than the occasional husky dog who walks by in
the backyard, that's it. Zzzz...
Then I decided to go for a walk around my neighborhood. Looking at the map, it looked like the waterfront was not too far from here so I wanted to check it out. Along the way, I found several things to be excited about:
- A mini-golf course a few short blocks away
- A beach
- Some cute turtle sitting stones
- A coffee shop/cafe/bar/sauna/laundromat...all in one
- A tennis complex! Complete with a bunch of indoor courts and one outdoor clay court!
There wasn't much going on yesterday, I honestly was just trying to
catch up on sleep and catch everyone on Skype. But I did meet Juha (my
new co-worker) for lunch at a pizza joint downtown. He amuses me...he
seems so buttoned up and incapable of dressing very casually. So we're
meeting for pizza on the weekend, and he still shows up
in a sweater vest, button down Facconable shirt, and polished dress
shoes. (So much for keeping your designation as the Finnish John
Morley! Until you can wear some jeans, a white tshirt, and black
Chucks, your Finnish John Morley status is hereby revoked.)
I had leftovers and took the tram back to my apartment, and since it was Saturday the tram was very very crowded. When I got to my stop, I had to elbow my way to the door and it started to close on me. Now, most automatic doors in my experience have some sort of safety function where they will pop back open if you apply any pressure to them. Well...not so with Helsinki city trams, apparently. I stuck my arm holding the styrofoam food box out first to push the door back open, and suddenly the doors starting closing and did NOT bounce back, and crushed my lunch box and ate a piece of the styrofoam and spit it out into the street. And bit my arm, too. Luckily some lady hit the stop-call button which caused the doors to pop back open, so I was able to escape...but not with much dignity.
I had leftovers and took the tram back to my apartment, and since it was Saturday the tram was very very crowded. When I got to my stop, I had to elbow my way to the door and it started to close on me. Now, most automatic doors in my experience have some sort of safety function where they will pop back open if you apply any pressure to them. Well...not so with Helsinki city trams, apparently. I stuck my arm holding the styrofoam food box out first to push the door back open, and suddenly the doors starting closing and did NOT bounce back, and crushed my lunch box and ate a piece of the styrofoam and spit it out into the street. And bit my arm, too. Luckily some lady hit the stop-call button which caused the doors to pop back open, so I was able to escape...but not with much dignity.
Another mixed bag of a day. Another night of waking up at 2am, and not
being able to fall back asleep until 6am, only to be woken up by
hammering at 8am. Sigh...
I got up and worked from home for most of the morning, and about 5 minutes before I headed out to do some errands, the UPS guy called and said he would be arriving in 15 minutes. Yay!! This was excellent news because it meant that my shipment didn't have to be delivered to the office, which meant I didn't have to haul an 80 pound box across the city!
He was nice enough to bring the huge-ass box inside for me, and I put him and the box inside the elevator...and froze. I had no idea what floor I was on, there were no numbers and I couldn't remember if Finland was one of those places where the 1st floor is really the "ground floor" and the second floor is the "first floor," etc. I knew I had to go up one flight of stairs to get to my unit, so second floor, right? I pushed two and told him I would take the stairs and meet him upstairs since there wasn't room for both of us and the box inside the elevator. I ran to my door, and heard the elevator doors open somewhere not in front of me. He called out, "Where are you?" I panicked, realized my apartment number was 3 and not 2 and said, "Oops, I think up one more?" So he went up another floor. The doors opened somewhere not in front of me and he called out, "Where are you?" I panicked and noticed the door of the elevator where I was standing said "4 Henkilöa" and said, "Aha! Maybe up one more on 4?" The doors opened somewhere not in front of me, I was getting super embarrassed and I said, "Okay, hold on...I'll just call the elevator back to me, sorry!"
Turns out I was on 1, the only floor in the building we didn't try. But I was confused and said, "If it's 1, why does the door of the elevator say 4?" He shook his head at me disapprovingly and said "'Henkilöa' means 'persons'. That means that only 4 persons can fit inside elevator."
So after that fail, I went to the agency office for an orientation meeting with the HR guy Pertti, and my two new colleagues Juha and Antonio. There wasn't too much to be oriented on, because the three of us will be sitting at the client's office and not at the agency, but the HR guy seems to be very concerned about getting us set up with "lunch coupons." (Which he pronounces "lunch coupongs.") These are apparently pre-paid coupons that are good at just about every restaurant in the city, including the cafeteria at Nokia House where I will be eating. Each coupon is worth €8, but the agency will pay for 25% of it, so seems like a good deal.
After our orientation, I had planned to head home, but as I left the building one of the agency guys was having a smoke outside and mentioned a few people were staying late that night to play Wii. I decided to stick around. They had wine and beer at the office, and fired up the Beatles Rock Band, followed by an intense Wii bowling tournament where I learned all sorts of good Finnish cuss words. It was all good fun, and the people were so very nice and friendly and funny. Later I caught the tram home, and saw one of the guys walking in the street and he waved at me. It was the smallest little thing, but that little wave made me happy because it meant there was one less stranger in town, and made Helsinki seem a little smaller...
I got up and worked from home for most of the morning, and about 5 minutes before I headed out to do some errands, the UPS guy called and said he would be arriving in 15 minutes. Yay!! This was excellent news because it meant that my shipment didn't have to be delivered to the office, which meant I didn't have to haul an 80 pound box across the city!
He was nice enough to bring the huge-ass box inside for me, and I put him and the box inside the elevator...and froze. I had no idea what floor I was on, there were no numbers and I couldn't remember if Finland was one of those places where the 1st floor is really the "ground floor" and the second floor is the "first floor," etc. I knew I had to go up one flight of stairs to get to my unit, so second floor, right? I pushed two and told him I would take the stairs and meet him upstairs since there wasn't room for both of us and the box inside the elevator. I ran to my door, and heard the elevator doors open somewhere not in front of me. He called out, "Where are you?" I panicked, realized my apartment number was 3 and not 2 and said, "Oops, I think up one more?" So he went up another floor. The doors opened somewhere not in front of me and he called out, "Where are you?" I panicked and noticed the door of the elevator where I was standing said "4 Henkilöa" and said, "Aha! Maybe up one more on 4?" The doors opened somewhere not in front of me, I was getting super embarrassed and I said, "Okay, hold on...I'll just call the elevator back to me, sorry!"
Turns out I was on 1, the only floor in the building we didn't try. But I was confused and said, "If it's 1, why does the door of the elevator say 4?" He shook his head at me disapprovingly and said "'Henkilöa' means 'persons'. That means that only 4 persons can fit inside elevator."
So after that fail, I went to the agency office for an orientation meeting with the HR guy Pertti, and my two new colleagues Juha and Antonio. There wasn't too much to be oriented on, because the three of us will be sitting at the client's office and not at the agency, but the HR guy seems to be very concerned about getting us set up with "lunch coupons." (Which he pronounces "lunch coupongs.") These are apparently pre-paid coupons that are good at just about every restaurant in the city, including the cafeteria at Nokia House where I will be eating. Each coupon is worth €8, but the agency will pay for 25% of it, so seems like a good deal.
After our orientation, I had planned to head home, but as I left the building one of the agency guys was having a smoke outside and mentioned a few people were staying late that night to play Wii. I decided to stick around. They had wine and beer at the office, and fired up the Beatles Rock Band, followed by an intense Wii bowling tournament where I learned all sorts of good Finnish cuss words. It was all good fun, and the people were so very nice and friendly and funny. Later I caught the tram home, and saw one of the guys walking in the street and he waved at me. It was the smallest little thing, but that little wave made me happy because it meant there was one less stranger in town, and made Helsinki seem a little smaller...
Today was all about the errands. I had a few appointments around
the city (tax consultants, apartment viewings, etc.) so I went ahead
and jumped into figuring out the public transit system. Luckily where
I needed to go first thing this morning was the end of the line on a
tram route, making it virtually impossible for me to screw it up. So I
trammed it down to the waterfront, and I met with the tax consultants
and interrogated them about pretty much everything except taxes, and then went the office of our sister agency. This is where the HR guy works who has been helping me out so much.
It was a very cool Euro-style office, right on the water. Pertti walked me around and introduced me to every single person at the agency individually, which was about 20 people. Names are going to be a problem. Pertti, Tomi, Kiirsi, Jaako, Jarkko, Janko...they are all such new names and they roll their R's very hard so it covers up the rest of the word so I can't hear it to begin with, much less to remember it. They struggle with my name, too. They tend to say "HALL-aye". Last week I had asked one of my new Finnish coworkers if I should start spelling my name as "Hejli" so people would pronounce it correctly. He recommended "Heli" instead. I learned today that he was totally pranking me, because "Heli" is basically like calling someone "honey" or "sweetie," and I think he wanted me to go around introducing myself as "Honey Sweetie Kotara."
I had lunch with the crew from the sister agency, and everyone was super nice and friendly. Then the HR guy Pertti took me on a tour of city centre, taught me how to ride the subway, took me to get my bus pass, showed me where to buy a tennis racket, bought me tea, etc. That guy has been entirely too nice. Then I left him to go meet up with the real estate lady and look at two apartments. I think I might have a winner! I looked at:
Then I came back home and decided to go on my first adventure to the grocery market. The goal was to walk around undetected so that no one would know I wasn't Finnish. I think I blew it when I had to pull out my Finnish/English dictionary within 30 seconds of arriving just to make sure that what I thought was laundry washing powder was actually washing powder and not pure bleach. So I am now running my very first ever load of Finnish laundry. Where the outtake hose dumps into the shower. And where I will have to hang my wet clothes all over the apartment. So the post with pictures of the apartment will have to wait until all my unmentionables are dry and put away, because this isn't that kind of blog.
It was a very cool Euro-style office, right on the water. Pertti walked me around and introduced me to every single person at the agency individually, which was about 20 people. Names are going to be a problem. Pertti, Tomi, Kiirsi, Jaako, Jarkko, Janko...they are all such new names and they roll their R's very hard so it covers up the rest of the word so I can't hear it to begin with, much less to remember it. They struggle with my name, too. They tend to say "HALL-aye". Last week I had asked one of my new Finnish coworkers if I should start spelling my name as "Hejli" so people would pronounce it correctly. He recommended "Heli" instead. I learned today that he was totally pranking me, because "Heli" is basically like calling someone "honey" or "sweetie," and I think he wanted me to go around introducing myself as "Honey Sweetie Kotara."
I had lunch with the crew from the sister agency, and everyone was super nice and friendly. Then the HR guy Pertti took me on a tour of city centre, taught me how to ride the subway, took me to get my bus pass, showed me where to buy a tennis racket, bought me tea, etc. That guy has been entirely too nice. Then I left him to go meet up with the real estate lady and look at two apartments. I think I might have a winner! I looked at:
- City Centre (Kamppi)
- It was a relatively large place (and when I say relatively large I
mean 550 square feet instead of the 300 square feet I'm living in
now...and to try to further your metric education those are 51 and 28
square meters, respectively) right in the middle of the central part of
town and a very very short walk to the bus tunnel where I'll catch the
bus to work. And a clothes dryer, which is unheard of here. But...that
area has tons of bars and the apartment faces the street, so I think it
will be loud and annoying at night. And the dealbreaker: it doesn't
have an oven!?
- Quieter, Older Area by Lake (Töölö) - This is literally around the corner from where I'm staying now.
It will mean a longer commute and no clothes dryer, but at least the
kitchen has all the basic amenities, including a teeny tiny cute little
dishwasher. And rent includes electricity, water, TV, and internet,
which makes it a pretty good deal. The bathroom is really small and
this place is not super special or amazing, but it's totally fine and
I'm anxious to get my permanent place set up, so I asked the real
estate lady to go ahead and draw up the contract!
Then I came back home and decided to go on my first adventure to the grocery market. The goal was to walk around undetected so that no one would know I wasn't Finnish. I think I blew it when I had to pull out my Finnish/English dictionary within 30 seconds of arriving just to make sure that what I thought was laundry washing powder was actually washing powder and not pure bleach. So I am now running my very first ever load of Finnish laundry. Where the outtake hose dumps into the shower. And where I will have to hang my wet clothes all over the apartment. So the post with pictures of the apartment will have to wait until all my unmentionables are dry and put away, because this isn't that kind of blog.
Well, I finally made it! After 6 weeks of waiting and
homelessness, I arrived in Helsinki yesterday. For the most part, the
trip was totally fine but there were definitely plenty of stupid /
frustrating / confusing moments. I'll skip the parts where it went
smoothly, because that's boring. I'll focus in on the embarrassing
parts for your entertainment:
- I didn't sleep well on the
Seattle to Reykjavik leg, and was very very tired on that last leg to
Helsinki. I sat by a nice Finnish couple and promptly fell asleep.
I'm usually a very quiet sleeper, but I guess my head was tilted back
and I had some weird dream that startled me...so I did one of those
snort-snores. Real sudden-like. And loud. The kind where you wake
yourself up. And everybody around my row laughed at me. :(
- When
I landed in Helsinki, it was really confusing because the screens that
displayed the baggage claim numbers of all the incoming flights didn't
have my exact flight number listed. So I just found the one that was
from Stockholm that arrived when I did, and made my way down there. It
was a relatively hefty walk to a whole separate terminal, and I waited
by the Stockholm carousel all by my lonesome for about 15 minutes. It
was weird that none of my flightmates were in sight, so I panicked. As
it turns out, I was supposed to stay in the original terminal. So I
had to walk all the way back and beg security to let me back in the
arrivals hall, where my three blue bags were just spinning around and
round, all alone.
- I went to the service desk who were holding
my apartment keys for me, and found a nice taxi driver who had a
station wagon big enough to fit all my luggage. We headed off for the
neighborhood of Töölö, which is a nice little lakey area and is impossible to pronounce. When we arrived, I asked him to wait there with my big bags while I came
upstairs to find the actual unit, and that I would come back down to get the rest. That little sweetheart didn't listen to me (or didn't understand) and he dragged both of those huge 50+ pound bags upstairs when I wasn't looking. I love you, taxi man!
- So yay! Finally...a home! (I will post pictures later.) My
first order of business was to boot my computer up so I could email my
family and friends that I had arrived safely. I got the computer power
cord out, and barely even touched the prongs to the outlet and
POP#%$#SPARK(darkness)!!! Shit. I totally blew the breaker. Before
you say "dummy, there is a voltage difference" let me assure you that I
did a very thorough audit of all my electronics months ago (I can show
you the spreadsheet) to make sure I only brought things with me that
wouldn't need a voltage converter, only a plug adapter. So I tried to
call the apartment office, but I couldn't get the call to go through
from my dumb Finnish cell phone. I tried every variation, and kept
getting a message from a mean Finnish lady, or an error beep. I thankfully got a hold of my colleague at work (Pertti) who has been helping me, and he got me in touch with
the apartment people. Now, before you say "dummy, why didn't you just
find the breaker box yourself and flip the switch" let me assure you that I did look for
the breaker box, and there was nothing breaker-box-like in this joint.
And when I spoke with the apartment guy, he said it was an old building
and the fuse box was probably in the hallway. Maintenance showed up (a
lady with a fanny pack), and it turns out the fuse box WAS inside, but
I never in a million years would have recognized it. She found the
box, and inside were actual fuse bulbs. I didn't even know those
existed. If I had thought to open the door on that box above the door, I would have thought I had found the control panel for a nuclear reactor. Look!
Anyway, she got me all fixed up before the sun went down and I would have had to sit here in the dark, and all is fine now.
- Later I learned that that "error beep" on the phone is actually the European sound for the phone ringing on the other end. Sigh...
I leave tomorrow for Helsinki to work for my new client, an unnamed Finnish cell phone manufacturer. Here is an example of how business with the Finns is going so far:
Me: "Will I have a desk phone, and if so, do you have any idea what the number will be?"
Finn: "There is no desk phones in Nokia just mobile ;) "
Me: "Will I have a desk phone, and if so, do you have any idea what the number will be?"
Finn: "There is no desk phones in Nokia just mobile ;) "
