Rain, rain, rain

It's the last day of my summer holiday, so it's time to sum up the summer:

    Raining in the horizon on the way to summer house

    Raining in the opposite end of Silkkiniitty.

    Raining and shining

    Pouring

    Lady at a bus stop washing a pear in the rain

    Rain catching a kite

    Raining ice

Misty mornings, foggy nights

So it's autumn.



Which means that the humidity gets higher in the nights, and the fog may hang around still in the morning too.



But that's the way it goes. The best time of the year is here!

Juhannus in pictures

In juhannus you can sit on the rock by the water also in the city. A mandatory bare foot picture.

The nature is close by, even in the city.

Not everybody were resting. I guess juhannus is good time to work for one-man-band entrepreneur.

Cars were gone so you could spot some wild strawberries by the parking lots.

Summer idyll meets high tech - only in Espoo.

I went to see the quiet city by kickbike. 

The city was really empty.

I kicked off the new biking lane Baana at the city center. It was nice.

On juhannus the daylight time lasts for 19 hours. Which means vacation for the street lamps. This one was apparently enjoying its vacation. 

Juhannus night was full of magic.

On Saturday morning forest was still under a spell.

Saturday night was so cold that one had to wear woolen socks.

But luckily good food compensated the cold weather.

Summer is state of mind. And menu.

 On Sunday there were mostly tourists in the city. And this funny bottle player.

Ten to twelve people were queuing to Stockmann sale. 

As a grande finale of juhannus we went into the brunch heaven of Kämp Brasserie. Probably the best brunch I've ever eaten. I especially loved the prawns skagen, black currant herring and ceasar salad. And roasted lamb. And sparkling wine.

It's spring. Officially.

The spring is here, officially. This morning I was exposed to many unquestionable pieces of evidence:

• It was light when I walked to office. I went to office a bit later than usually, though.
• Birds were singing.
• It was warmer. Feather jacket was almost too much.
• I saw a mosquito. A live one.

And if those were not enough, here's some more. Dear winter, you may go now, you've given all you've got to offer:

• The official snowstorm of the year (actually many of them) - checked.
• Sledding - been there, done that.
• The best and the last Runeberg's torte of the year - it was perfect until it lasted.

Material girl survives in the freeze

February is usually the month of crispy freeze. Luckily February is also the shortest month of the year. Fighting against cold is all about material science. Forget the two-striped sports socks. They are made of plastic, and simply useless in sub-zero temperature (and anywhere in public places). Forget cotton as well. You need to sweat just a little, and immediately cotton looses its ability to keep you warm.

Wool is good. If normal wool makes you itchy, try merino or angora. Prefer several thinner layers instead of one bulky sweater. Long Johns are good. Not very sexy but practical. Before investing into woolen Long Johns, check if it's ok to wash that particular piece of wool in the washing machine. Because if it's not meant to be washed in machine, but you do it anyway, you'll end up having felted, shrunk Long Johns... which will probably help you to sing like a soprano, but are awkward to wear. Wool does "autoclean" itself if you let the woolen clothes to recover in the fresh air after wearing them, but for the sake of the environment you will anyway need to wash your Long Johns every now and then. Felted Long Johns may not be the nicest possible clothes, but felted woolen mittens are great. They will keep both cold and wind away. And anyway, mittens are warmer than gloves with places for each finger separately.

In addition to lamb's wool there are other good material to keep you warm, such as silk, alpaca and some artificial fibers. And even though I was mocking the plastic socks in the beginning, it is ok to have small amounts of plastic in your socks - for example if you're planning to knits socks. Within sock yarn it's important to have some artificial fiber (e.g. 25 % acrylic) in addition to wool, to make for example the heels of the socks more durable. You don't want to have holes in the precious self-knit socks only after wearing them few times.

More snow-how in traffic, please

Talvi yllätti autoilijat, indeed. Despite the humor built into the sentence there is nothing funny in a pile-up at the motorway. In the past two winters we've been proud about our snow-how: how we manage and organize our daily life despite the snow. Our snow-how may be world class what comes to bulldozing the snow out of the streets or finding innovative ways to store the excess snow in downtown, but snow-how in the traffic is our Achilles' heel.

A small survival dictionary/guide to winter traffic:

• Turvaväli - safety buffer. Do not drive right next to the bumper of the car in front of you. Don't. Icy roads are slippery and it takes quite a long way to really stop your car.

• Tilannenopeus - hmm, no idea of the English word related to this. You need to adjust your speed according the weather and surrounding traffic, no matter what the speed limit signs are saying.

• Talvirenkaat - winter tires. Either studded tires or friction tires. According to law you must have winter tires from November to Easter.

• Ajovalot - headlamps. When you're driving in a heavy snow storm, it's ok to adjust lamps of the car to improve the visibility - the clue is to have the lamps on, not switched off. Redirecting the headlamps, turning on the sumuvalot (the fog lamps?), or using the lyhyet valot (short distance mild lights) instead of pitkät valot (long distance bright lights) may help if the snow is blurring the visibility. But do not use the emergency blinkers unless you're in real emergency.

The things you do below -15 C

When the temperature drops below -15 centigrades, you should take advantage of the crispy weather:

Take your mattresses, pillows and blankets out to have some fresh air. Spank them and keep them out for a day - so long, dust mites!

Defrost your freezer. Take the frozen food out into balcony, plug off the freezer and let it thaw. Have a bowl and a cloth close by, you will need to wipe and collect the melt-water. Patience, you don't want to remove the ice by stabbing - violence breaks the freezer. After you've gotten rid of the ice, plug in the freezer, let it cool and restore the food. The whole process takes few hours.

Dust the carpets by beating them on snow. Rock away the excess snow and take the rags back in. Like dry cleaning, but free of charge.

Why below -15 C? Because the dust mites are able to survive up to -18 C. Because the frozen food is used to spend time around -15 C temperature. And because -15 C snow is fine enough and doesn't water the carpets.

Meet the weathermen

I must continue the weather theme. If you're talking about weather, you must know the people behind the weather: the meteorologists. These are the most powerful people in the Finnish society, as they are the ones who decide which topics people are talking about. Politicians must be envious.



Pekka Pouta. Nomen est omen - his last name means "sunny weather" in Finnish.



Petri Takala. In the end of his forecast he usually approaches the camera and tries to come through the TV screen into your living room (check out the 5 last seconds of the video). I'm not sure if approachaphobia is a real diagnosis, but I'm sure he's causing the phobia. In the video he's younger and thinner than today, but for recognizing him today: he looks just like the comic book guy in the Simpsons.

Mette Mannonen. Mette has grown from an insecure weather girl to one of the most professional meteorologist. She has the best weathers, and she can find the silver lining of clouds.

Anssi Vähämäki. Watch out this guy. He doesn't look harmful at all, but he knows how to mess the weather! You can tell by looking out the window if he's been forecasting: it's raining cats and dogs and it takes at least a week from his colleagues to fix the weather back to good.

It's raining ___________

We don't do small talk in Finland. We don't even have a Finnish word for small talk - jutustelu is probably quite close, but not exactly the same. For us it's perfectly normal to be quiet in company - for example at a lunch table. The only chit chat topic that we master is the weather. That's what we do, in Facebook too: snow <3

My colleague moved to Finland in the beginning of November, and he said that on the first two weeks the Finns were mostly apologizing the weather. But honestly, that's what you can expect from people whose native language has a three-digit number of words for different weather phenomena - and no word for "please". So if you really want to master the Finnish language in your everyday life, you should focus into the weather terminology and phrases. You can start by sneaking the following into your lunch table discussion (it's impossible to translate these into English, but I'll try):

• On ilmoja pidellyt - It's been keeping weathers. The mother of all starter phrases.
• Tulee vettä kuin Esterin perseestä - Water is coming from Esteri's ass. Ideal for emphasizing the volume of the rain.
• Alavilla mailla hallan vaaraa - There's a danger of night frost on the flat nether lands. That's when the strawberry farmers in Pohjanmaa get angry. 
• Talvi yllätti autoilijat - The car drivers were surprised by the winter. A news that is reported every year after the first real snow storm and the consequent car crashes. At the headlines tomorrow.

I think I just realized what's the touché translation for small talk: lätinä! The primary meaning of lätinä is a jolly good continuous splashing sound on asphalt. The secondary meaning of lätinä refers to kind of empty talk, you know, lots of talk with no real content or message. How conveniently weather related is that!

In sickness and in health

Cold, flu, temperature, fever, sickness, illness... I'm not sure about all the nuances of the seasonal flu in English, but it all comes down to running nose, sore throat, coughing, sneezing and cold. People tend to say that germs, viruses and bacterial don't survive in a freezing cold weather - which means that a wet winter like this is ideal for catching a cold. I don't know about that, but currently I'm having my first flu in three years (and the past two winters have been extremely snowy and cold).

Being ill is miserable, but it's even more miserable in unfamiliar environment. I hope these are useful:

Apteekki - pharmacy. You can find pharmacies in almost all shopping centers, but you might need some with extended opening hours: There's a 24h pharmacy in Töölö, Mannerheimintie 96, and another one in Helsinki city center that serves from 7 am to midnight.

View Pharmacies in a larger map

Särkylääke - painkillers. The most common painkillers sold in Finland are based either on ibuprofen (such as Burana and Ibumax) or paracetamol (such as Panadol and Paracetamol-Ratiopharm). You don't need a recipe for these medicine, but they may not sell you more than one box of each at a time.

Mustaherukkamehu, mustaviinimarjamehu - black currant juice. Mix it with hot water. Black currant is rich in vitamin C and it's the only juice that actually tastes when you're palate is gone with the flu.

Health care. All who live permanently in Finland are entitled to primary health care and hospital services, regardless of the nationality, additional insurances, etc. Based on your home address you belong into certain health care region, and you should visit the nearest health station, unless it's an emergency (seasonal flu is not an emergency). Check out more information on the website of your city - at least Helsinki and Espoo have quite ok info in English too.

Hätänumero - emergency number. That's 112, no need for region codes. If you only need consultation (and not an ambulance) there's a 24/7 phone service for health advice: 09 10023. This number is valid in Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa, Kirkkonummi, Kauniainen, and Kerava, and they serve you in Finnish, English and Swedish.

Despite the coughing and sneezing: Happy New Year!

P.S. I'm shocked about the English web pages of Yliopiston Apteekki. All they have in English is "year 2010 in brief". Who's interested in 2010 in brief when you're looking for relief to your pain? How about having opening hours and contact information in English instead? I had to send them some feedback, let's see if they reply.

--

Edited on Jan 4th 2012: The director of e-services and marketing at Yliopiston Apteekki replied to my feedback. She thanked for the idea of translating the opening hours and contact info into English, as they see tourists and immigrants as important customer group. Let's see when they actually get the pages translated.

(B)lock the doors and close the blinds

The great holiday sale is everywhere. I'm not usually a friend of sale nor shopping but in the past days I have probably spent saved by sale shopping more than I would have earned at the same time by working.

Nonetheless, one can consider shopping trips also as real estate field study. I've faced one questionable jewel of HVAC design in almost all the shopping centers I've visited in the past sale shopping days: blocked sliding doors.



Why do shopping centers block the sliding doors of their main entrance? No, it's not a maintenance break, it's because they don't want the chilly air to blow in. Then why on earth do most of the shopping centers in Finland have such a door system that allows the chilly wind to blow in? Tell me about it. Chilly weather simply cannot come as a surprise in a place like Helsinki!

In professional terms I'm a bit disappointed with Kamppi shopping center. Kamppi is rather modern shopping center, it did win several awards in the building and construction industry - and yet they couldn't come up with any smarter HVAC solution than blocking the sliding doors whenever the temperature drops below +3 C. New innovations needed here, please.

Grey's anatomy

Sometimes grey weather is the most depressing thing you know, but the shades of grey can be quite beautiful too.

I took these photos by lake Saimaa on Christmas Eve. It was snowing like hell (or maybe not, I've understood the temperature in hell is a bit too high for snow), but since it was the first real snow storm of the year, it actually felt really good.

I'm not surprised that in the early days pagans worshipped the nature instead of person-like god.

I'm pretty sure the sky is higher here than in city.

Insurances

The insurance system in Finland is quite different to US, and the insurance portfolio doesn't play that significant role for example when you're negotiating employment contract. I won't start comparing the two systems in details, but check out two very practical and affordable insurances:

Heijastin - reflector. That's your life insurance. The driver sitting behind the Audi wheel cannot see you crossing the road by foot unless you wear a reflector.  

Kumisaappaat - rubber boots. Your health insurance. Keeping your feet dry helps you to keep the flu away.