daily life: January 2010 Archives
In honor of it being -25 DEGREES CELCIUS today (that's -13 F!?!), I think it's high time that I talk about the cold and the snow. I was reading about average temperatures in Helsinki yesterday to try to understand when it will warm up, and I was surprised to see that it's been about 10 degrees colder than the average since I've been here. I confronted my boss/client about that today, and he said, "Oh yeah...this is like the coldest winter in Helsinki, well, in my lifetime."
Great.
Actually, I've adjusted better than I thought I would. (Which isn't saying much because I expected instant hypothermic death when I stepped outside.) Obviously I'm used to Texas weather where there are only a few super-cold and/or snowy days per year. The snow is an exciting and rare event in Texas. Here in Helsinki, it's a daily reality.
Sidewalks
All the sidewalks are completely snowed over,
and have been for months. I can't tell you how much snow is there, but
it's enough that it's difficult to visually distinguish
where the sidewalk ends and the street begins. Someone goes around
town and scrapes all the sidewalks, and then sprinkles them with gravel and/or sand and/or salt
to make them safer for walking. The snow gets pretty hard-packed, and when you walk on it in rubber soled boots, it makes the weirdest sound. I've struggled to define the sound which is something between a "crunch" and a "squeak", and the best I can come up with is "squoonch." (And yes, I did double-check that "squoonch" wasn't in urbandictionary.com before I published this.)
As long as it stays below freezing, all is well. It's been very weird to learn and accept the fact that it getting above freezing is a BAD thing. Below is good because all the streets and sidewalks just stay snowy. If it thaws, it will freeze again then you have to walk on black ice instead of white powdery snow.
Bus/Tram Stops
Every time I walk up to my tram stop, I immediately get annoyed because I see that everyone around the stop is smoking, and that I'm going to have to stand in the middle of all that stinky cigarette smoke while I wait for my ride. Then I realize no one is smoking, it's just their breath!
Streets
Pretty pristine white snow + dirty cars = volcanic ash snow nastiness.
Cars
When I first arrived, my dad was very worried about me not having a car here. Dad, I don't want a car here. See Exhibit A at left.
Piles of Scraped Snow
All that scraped snow from the streets and sidewalks has to go somewhere. And it usually ends up on random street corners in a huge pile. This one you see behind the white car is a small one. Many of them are the height of two cars stacked on top of each other.
Drifts and Sparkles
One of the wonderful things about Helsinki is that even though it's very urban, there are still lots of areas within the city that have little pockets of nature. When I walk to my bus stop from the office, I walk through a semi-wooded area where there are pure untouched, unstomped snowdrifts. And when it's dusk (which is usually), the streetlights catch all the little sparkles in the snow and it seriously is so pretty it just takes your breath away. Unfortunately there is no way to capture that in a photograph. I think it's probably more magical and accurate if you just imagine it, anyway.
And speaking of beautiful snowy, icy nature...
Trees
In conclusion, Helsinki is coooooooold. But you know what? Even though there are definitely moments when I'm completely freezingly miserable (i.e. can't feel my appendages, having chapped lips/nose/eyes, lungs burning from the arctic air, slipping on ice and falling), when I look around at the landscape, it's pretty amazingly beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that it makes me forget how cold I am...
Great.
Actually, I've adjusted better than I thought I would. (Which isn't saying much because I expected instant hypothermic death when I stepped outside.) Obviously I'm used to Texas weather where there are only a few super-cold and/or snowy days per year. The snow is an exciting and rare event in Texas. Here in Helsinki, it's a daily reality.
Sidewalks
As long as it stays below freezing, all is well. It's been very weird to learn and accept the fact that it getting above freezing is a BAD thing. Below is good because all the streets and sidewalks just stay snowy. If it thaws, it will freeze again then you have to walk on black ice instead of white powdery snow.
Bus/Tram Stops
Every time I walk up to my tram stop, I immediately get annoyed because I see that everyone around the stop is smoking, and that I'm going to have to stand in the middle of all that stinky cigarette smoke while I wait for my ride. Then I realize no one is smoking, it's just their breath!
Streets
Pretty pristine white snow + dirty cars = volcanic ash snow nastiness.
Cars
Piles of Scraped Snow
Drifts and Sparkles
One of the wonderful things about Helsinki is that even though it's very urban, there are still lots of areas within the city that have little pockets of nature. When I walk to my bus stop from the office, I walk through a semi-wooded area where there are pure untouched, unstomped snowdrifts. And when it's dusk (which is usually), the streetlights catch all the little sparkles in the snow and it seriously is so pretty it just takes your breath away. Unfortunately there is no way to capture that in a photograph. I think it's probably more magical and accurate if you just imagine it, anyway.
And speaking of beautiful snowy, icy nature...
Trees
In conclusion, Helsinki is coooooooold. But you know what? Even though there are definitely moments when I'm completely freezingly miserable (i.e. can't feel my appendages, having chapped lips/nose/eyes, lungs burning from the arctic air, slipping on ice and falling), when I look around at the landscape, it's pretty amazingly beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that it makes me forget how cold I am...
I went to my colleague's house for dinner tonight. This colleague is a Spanish guy married to a Finnish girl, and they have an adorable 4-year-old son who speaks both Spanish and Finnish. The little boy is too young to have learned much English yet, although he apparently fakes like he speaks English sometimes by walking around jabbering and littering his jabber with the only English words he knows: "chicken" and "fish."
My Finnish is only at the level of a 1 month old baby, but my Spanish is decent enough to carry on a conversation with a 4-year-old. So this little boy and I became fast friends.
When we were in the house, he wouldn't talk much. He mostly just pointed and giggled at me, giggled at the toys he brought in to show me, at his coloring book, whatever. But when we got in the car so they could give me and Leslie a lift to the metro station...the little boy suddenly became very chatty.
After arguing with him in Spanish for 10 minutes on why he shouldn't open the door while the car was moving, he took off his glove and held it in my face. This conversation ensued:
Boy: "íCómelo!" ("Eat it!")
Me: "Ew, ¡no!" ("Ew, no!")
Boy: "íCÓMELO!" ("EAT IT!")
Me: "No. Tiene el olor de....stinky." ("No, it smells like...stinky.")
Boy: "Chicken?" ("Chicken?")
I had begged him all evening to say his English words to me, and as it turns out, all I had to say was "stinky" and he would be ready to talk about chicken.
My Finnish is only at the level of a 1 month old baby, but my Spanish is decent enough to carry on a conversation with a 4-year-old. So this little boy and I became fast friends.
When we were in the house, he wouldn't talk much. He mostly just pointed and giggled at me, giggled at the toys he brought in to show me, at his coloring book, whatever. But when we got in the car so they could give me and Leslie a lift to the metro station...the little boy suddenly became very chatty.
After arguing with him in Spanish for 10 minutes on why he shouldn't open the door while the car was moving, he took off his glove and held it in my face. This conversation ensued:
Boy: "íCómelo!" ("Eat it!")
Me: "Ew, ¡no!" ("Ew, no!")
Boy: "íCÓMELO!" ("EAT IT!")
Me: "No. Tiene el olor de....stinky." ("No, it smells like...stinky.")
Boy: "Chicken?" ("Chicken?")
I had begged him all evening to say his English words to me, and as it turns out, all I had to say was "stinky" and he would be ready to talk about chicken.
Wednesday was a Finnish public holiday. Obviously everyone goes drinking on Tuesday night. The Wundergirls and Wunderboys invited me to join them for pre-Epiphany drinks. (Sidenote: it appears the Wundergirls and Wunderboys have started referring to themselves at the Wundergirls and Wunderboys. I am very pleased and tickled by this.)
After a nice traditional Finnish dinner, someone suggested we go to the restroom for drinks and karaoke. I think I looked at them blankly for 5 solid minutes as I tried to figure that out.
Ahh, "The Restroom":
The first thing I did when we got to The Restroom was to go to the restroom, which is conveniently and thematically and accurately the first thing you see when you walk in. Then there were many beers. And many songs, including but not limited to:
Later we moved on a non-karaoke bar, but when the super catchy "Wonderwall" by Oasis came on the loudspeaker, we were all still in a sing-songy mood and drunk enough that we sang along, anyway. Oh! And I just remembered the Finnish American Idol was there, I forgot about that! That is the second Finnish American Idol I've seen since I moved here, Helsinki is crawling with them!
After a nice traditional Finnish dinner, someone suggested we go to the restroom for drinks and karaoke. I think I looked at them blankly for 5 solid minutes as I tried to figure that out.
Ahh, "The Restroom":
The first thing I did when we got to The Restroom was to go to the restroom, which is conveniently and thematically and accurately the first thing you see when you walk in. Then there were many beers. And many songs, including but not limited to:
- "Summer of '69" by Bryan Adams
Performed by Ville and Jaakko - The boys did a lot of hand-holding and lovingly looking into each other's eyes during the more tender parts of the song. And during all the musical breaks, Ville was kind enough to announce to the audience that there would be a "25 second musical interlude" at certain points during the song. - "Pamela" by Jaakko Teppo
Performed by Tanja, Tanja's friend whose name I can't remember but when Tanja reads this and tells me what her name was I will fix this, and me - Um, this song is in Finnish. And even though I've listened to it a few dozen times and am getting better at pronouncing Finnish words, I was totally lost. I resorted to mouthing "strawberry, watermelon, strawberry, watermelon." But I did sing the chorus, and make the moped sound effects. - "9 to 5" by Dolly Parton
Performed by me - Duh. When have I ever not sung this? Seriously, when I die just put "Tumbled out of bed and stumbled in the kitchen" on my gravestone. - "La Isla Bonita" by Madonna
Performed by Ville, Jaakko, and me - This one was hard, because as a child I rewrote the lyrics to this one to be about allergies at harvest time, and I kept almost slipping and singing those lyrics. "Allergic to the harvest breeze, full of pollen makes me wheeze, blows through the wind and in my eye..." - "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen
Technically performed by Steve - I say "technically" because we all couldn't help but join him. We all got carried away with the spirit of Freddie Mercury, and sang the shit out of this song together. It was equally epic to the Muppets version. How I remember it, anyway.
Later we moved on a non-karaoke bar, but when the super catchy "Wonderwall" by Oasis came on the loudspeaker, we were all still in a sing-songy mood and drunk enough that we sang along, anyway. Oh! And I just remembered the Finnish American Idol was there, I forgot about that! That is the second Finnish American Idol I've seen since I moved here, Helsinki is crawling with them!
