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Published: January 22nd 2007
So I'm still alive here in Finland! Had a busy weekend at the end of a busy week. Friday night I went out with some friends from school. We went to the 'cinema' to see Parfyymi. It was a German movie set in France with British actors speaking English and was subtitled in Finnish and Swedish. After that we went out for a few drinks. It was an interesting group: A pakistani, a swiss, a croatian, a swede, a dutch, a finn, a canadian, and a few others whose nationalities slip my mind. I find myself in these strange situations occasionally where I am translating 'english' to 'english' so others can understand one another with their varying accents.
Saturday morning I took a trip to Kaapeli: The Cable Factory, "Finland's largest cultural centre". There are several museums, galleries, radio stations, art schools, etc. all housed in this old Nokia cable factory. I went to two of the museums: the Finnish Museum of Photography and the Theatre Museum. They were both good exhibits but I was more interested in the building and the neighbourhood. In one small neighbourhood there are factories next to cultural buildings next to residential buildings next to
Cable Factory Museum II
Believe it or not THIS is made of newspaper! We definitely have some practising to do for next Christmas' competition!docks and the old buildings are being given new uses. After the museums I went to a friend from school's house for dinner. She and her flatmates went into Helsinki and bought some fresh fish at the fishmarket. They borrowed a grill from a friend and cooked them on the balcony. I brought some pineapple to grill for dessert and we had orange tiramisu as well.
This morning I woke to a flurry of white. I had a trip planned to the site for my sauna project so I bundled up and headed out. I accidentally got off the bus one stop too early and found myself in the middle of nowhere with one road to take off the highway. I started walking in the direction of my site on what seemed like a nature trail. Eventually I realized that I was in a nature reserve! I followed the trail along the edge of the Laajalahti Bay through the park to my site. My 1.6 km walk turned into a 6.6 km walk so I was glad I was wearing my long johns, warm socks, boots, and earflap hat! It turned out to be a great day, walking through
the bush smelling the trees and fresh snow. The site of my project is also the site of another museum which I visited after I took some pictures for school. This museum was actually very cool. It's called the Gallen-Kallelan Meseum and was the home and studio of Akseli Gallen-Kallela who was a prominent Finnish artist. The building was designed by the artist himself at the beginning of the 20th century and became a museum in 1961.
The whole day was a little surreal, I felt like I stepped off the bus right into Kakabeka park and that I would eventually come out at my house! After the museum it started to get dark so I had to head home, back to reality and a nice warm sauna. There are a few inches of snow on the ground now so I'm looking forward to getting a day or two of skiing in this winter.
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Laura
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Nice photos
You'll have to tell us what the site is all about - don't quite know what you are doing with that. We got our isight camera today - do you have a mac account. Called Heather and Sinclaire said after "I see Heather in movie" She asked Heather to show her the kitty-cat about 5 times. We could bring over your Mom and like up with Heather (time zones permitting...) You should be snug in bed by now. We just finished a sauna - they really are great.