the long strange tale of an Irish receptionist

The Magic Valley - the Irish hotel where I worked and lived for a while - seemed to be made up of many worlds. I was in one world in the hotel, in another when I walked the mountain paths nearby, in a completely different one in the village two miles away where I bought groceries, spent an hour in the internet centre, had lunch or a Bailey's coffee in the pub.

The hotel itself consisted of different worlds. There was the summer: chock-full of tourists, seasonal workers, babbling in foreign languages, drama on every level. There was the winter: silence, a sweet smell of turf fires and a certain melancholy, but also the entertaining presence of the locals who - in the longed-for absence of tourists - came out of hiding and gathered in the hotel pub for company and shelter from the cold. There was the brainy reception world, the steamy kitchen world, the cut-throat bar world. And even the bar itself felt different if I was there on or off duty.

I enjoyed working in reception. It felt like the nerve centre of the hotel - we kept track of guests, events, the menu in the restaurant, the tills in the bar and the housekeeping schedule, and performed ten different tasks simultaneously. We also took messages for the boss, made business statistics, fixed the computers, received deliveries, helped with the booking of functions, counted money, fetched extra pillows, found out why the damn fire alarm was going off, tried to answer questions from the other staff regarding wages, accommodation, work permits and why some guy was sleeping with some other guy's girlfriend. We dealt with fussy guests, panicked brides, cranky celebrities and flirty drunks, not to mention impossible-to-please bosses and coworkers having nervous breakdowns.

The receptionists were a small bunch of likable people - the job requires a certain amount of people skills and intelligence after all. Still, I envied the other departments sometimes. I loved the kitchen with its constant noise and people running around. The atmosphere was hot, humid and spicy - also because of the chef that everyone was in love with, the tension during peak hours and the cultural clashes. The chefs, mostly male, safe behind the hot plate and counters in their own little kingdom where no one else was allowed to enter, were of a higher caste than the foreign kitchen porters washing dishes, the waitresses running around and the receptionist coming to enquire about today's menu. They levelled their all-knowing eyes on you with a threatening smile and let you know that they knew all the latest gossip about you, really approved of that short receptionist's skirt and that you were at their mercy. It was sexist and insulting  - and made you feel as if you were the most beautiful and desirable woman in the building. It didn't help that the head chef was a man of mystery, rarely seen outside the kitchen - aloof and adorable, a tyrant and an idol and humble at heart, loving and loved and completely unattainable to all the girls who fell in love with him.

Everyone pretended that the surly hotel owner was the sovereign ruler. But everyone also knew that the hotel would fall without its soft-spoken chef. It would also crumble without the tiny little woman who ruled the bar and lounge, the busiest department. When she issued an order, everyone rushed to obey. When she flew into a rage and quit her job, the hotel owner went after her and begged on his knees until she agreed to come back. She could break up a bar fight single-handedly. She was the scariest person in the building, but she was also a mother to those who needed a shoulder to cry on and defended her staff fiercely. The bar staff knew that they were under her protection and took orders from nobody else. A receptionist needing their assistance with something had to ask very humbly and swallow all their not-so-subtle remarks about lazy receptionists sitting on their asses all day. If you worked hard and earned their favour, you were allowed the honour to share a drink with them late at night after the bar was closed.

The housekeeping staff, a.k.a. the foreigners with the lowest English skills who could not be employed in any other department, were mostly ignored by other staff ( except when they were envied for their day-time only working hours ). They formed their own clique in the corridors upstairs, whispering in linen closets. They were impossible to reach by any means, so a receptionist with a question had to prowl the corridors and rooms, looking for invisible housekeepers.

And then there were the restaurant staff, oddly low in the hierarchy - probably because their department was an under-privileged rival to the powerful bar/lounge. And the office staff and souvenir shop staff who kept a distance to the rest of the ( mostly foreign ) staff as they were all Irish and not living in staff accommodation. The managers had their own, complicated pecking order and the angriest one was the one most loved by the staff.

And there was me. The mellow one, sometimes quiet observer of all the drama, sometimes peacemaker, at times loved by everyone, at other times moody and distant. Blending into the grey background, then exploding in a supernova of colour as the queen of all drama and the centre of attention. The Good Girl, then the Meltdown Disaster, then the One Who Stole The Chef's Heart and the one who played a game of pool with Matthew McConaughey.

fearful symmetry

Nine years of blogging and soon nine hundred blog entries.
I like this symmetry.

And I seem to have located the centre alignment button.

better a handful with tranquillity

In the little summer cottage, freezing because summer is gone, I feed the fire with sticks and wrap myself in all the woollen things I can find. I make a mug of instant coffee. Then I power up my laptop and work for a couple of hours. The sea outside the window, the heat of the fire at my back. A job I actually enjoy (so rare in this world).

So I marvel at how lucky I am.

Then I worry a little bit. Because I always worry. But just a little, today.

taverns are no longer illicit, but

Much of this is still true:

"The Finns also have a bent for drink, even though there is no wine here whatsoever, except for illicit tavern keeping, which is harshly suppressed. But, all the way to St. Petersburg, the Finn will drink himself into forgetfulness, lose his money, horse, bridle, and return home poorer than a church rat."

Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin
Life's Little Things
(Saltykov-Shchedrin visited Finland in 1886)

the not very relaxing summer in the spa

"I'm afraid we need you to pay for your room NOW, sir," I said in my coldest voice.

Actually, I didn't say "sir" because we don't do that here in Finland. That was one thing I knew, although the rest of the hotel business in Finland was still all new to me. Despite the fact that I had extensive experience of the hotel business in other countries, I was fairly sure there were things all the other receptionists knew and I was clueless about.

And it wasn't only because I had only ever done this job in English-speaking countries and now had to learn (quickly) to do it in both Finnish and Swedish. Being a hotel receptionist is never easy. For every new workplace, you have to learn how to manage bookings and payments and several different computer systems, know all the rooms, restaurant menus and members of staff, act as private secretary to the boss, and be able to provide information about everything from package deals to local tourist sites to where deliveries should be stored to evacuation plans in case of fire.

All this after just a few days of on-the-job training by other receptionists who are often too busy to show you how things are done properly.

At least boredom is seldom one of the challenges.

Things I was still clueless about in this spa hotel included regulations and laws for this business. In Finland, there are lots of laws about everything. I wouldn't have been surprised to find I was the first employee who had not gone to hotel management school, and sometimes suspected I wasn't really supposed to be behind that reception desk at all. But I had never lied about it, and yet there I was.

There were a number of other things I did not understand either, despite my many years in hotels. Such as why they told me I could leave the desk for my lunch break, but then frowned when I did just that instead of just gulping down a sandwich and a yogurt in the back office like the others did. Or how I was told, the only day I called in sick because I was knocked out cold by the flu, that there was nobody else available so I'd better get my sorry ass in to work anyway. Or how there was never anyone else available to do almost anything at all, meaning that I had to leave the reception desk unattended for ages to go and set up an extra bed in a guest's room.

Or how I wasn't told, until after I started working there, that it wasn't a full-time job but only a few hours a week.

Or why I had to stand on my feet for the entire shift, even if it was the full eight hours.

But one thing I did know was that you don't let a guest check out in the morning with only a vague promise to come back and pay the bill "some time later". That's why I fixed this particular gentleman with a threatening stare. Only when he promised on all that is holy to come back in a couple of hours, and gave me his business card, did I relent.

The other receptionist, who had not witnessed our little altercation, gave a little gasp when she found the card lying around. It was a flashy one, gold-embossed and decorated with a symbol that I later learned has been listed as one of the world's ugliest monuments, a golden horseshoe. It turned out that the man I had more or less accused of trying to skip out without paying was Finland's arguably most successful businessman who almost single-handedly created one of the country's most visited - and weirdest - tourist sites, Tuuri.

A man who also kept his promise and came back an hour later to pay his bill.

I still have his card as a souvenir of that clueless, feet-aching summer in the spa hotel.

tango, a thermos and a yellow card

A cold west wind. Layers of sweaters, leg warmers and mittens required.

"I didn't have time for coffee, so I brought a thermos. Want some? It's with cinnamon."

My sister and I sit in the ancient, rotting bleachers. Around us, a dismally grey neighbourhood where someone is playing Finnish tango music. On the field, a flash of neon pink shoes. Junior girls are playing a game of football.

A goal is disqualified by the referee because the ball slips out through a hole in the net. We sip coffee. Shout encouragement to the girl that plays centre-back, one of us. Say hello to a dog. Note the fact that even innocent-looking 14-year-old girls get yellow cards.

The right team wins and I hug a sweaty teenager. "It was HOPELESS in this wind, the ball went EVERYWHERE."

On Saturdays like these, I remember why I came back to Finland.

to scream behind a wall

Someone in the prison nearby is throwing a tantrum - screams of rage echo between red tile walls.

Sometimes at night I dream of throwing a tantrum.

in-love-fallings, part three

When I first fell in love with...

* kind and intelligent men: Coming to a new school after finally leaving the one where all the boys were evil-eyed bullies with acne, hurtful words and really scary stalking techniques. In the new classroom, the boys said things like "I think you're electrical" and "Then the evil witch took out her chainsaw". Instead of frozen with terror, I was warm with laughter.

* Finland: When I moved to another country. Not until then did I realise that in Finland, things are done well and on time, people are honest, the coffee is strong, equality is not just a word, and when winter arrives you find out if you are a real Viking or not. Finland is EXOTIC.

* autumn: At university, cycling around a beautiful city filled with autumn leaves and rowdy students. I sipped my coffee at a sidewalk café and scribbled in a new notebook, made excursions to the far ends of the city and discovered beautiful, empty beaches, felt in love with all the new things I was going to learn ( this was before the reality of studying crept in ) and tricked a foreign student into eating rowan berries.

* crosswords: In a foreign country, when my Australian boyfriend convinced me that my English was good enough to attempt the ( easier ) crossword in The Times.

* animals: At age 1, when my parents bought a fluffy poodle puppy. All through my childhood, watching my mother rescue wounded birds, lost cats and trapped spiders. When my older sister took me horse riding, mostly to annoy our parents. And at age 11, when I befriended a tiny girl in my class who took me on a spree in the neighbourhood, knocking on doors and asking strangers if we could walk their dogs.

* learning new things: Long after I left university. Probably when things stopped happening to me and I realised I needed to make things happen. Or when I discovered the powerful feeling of knowledge and the joy of not having to downplay my intelligence in order to fit it.

* short skirts: That crazy summer when I felt constantly intoxicated - my friend lent me a green and white skirt, much shorter than any I had previously ever worn, for a party night. Men fell at my feet, figuratively. Or a balmy summer evening in Cambridge, England, when I walked home after a night alone at the cinema - in a dreamy mood and wearing a short denim skirt. Six gorgeous, impressively dressed student boys fell at my feet, literally this time, in the middle of the street and sang me a song. I can't swear that it was the skirt that did it, but I have a weakness for denim skirts ever since.

* cafés: As a teenager, on frequent trips to visit my big sister in the city. We used to "go shopping" but always ended up doing our favourite thing, spending a lazy hour in some place with good coffee, sweet pastries and a good view of interesting people. Hanging out at cafés became my main pastime when I was at university and was supposed to be studying.

* the English language: Probably the first time I heard the word "mesmerized".

on a wintry, post-Soviet beach

At the end of the last millennium:

I'm in a hotel bed, drinking Coke and watching Back to the Future 3, dubbed into Estonian. Not what I expected of a Friday evening.

I was sent to Estonia to help out at an international Methodist conference. A young student of English, I was supposed to interpret the proceedings into Swedish for the benefit of Swedish participants. I wasn't actually a Methodist myself and could not understand why people would come together for something like this.

But, hey, a paid trip to Estonia! Who would say no?

Pärnu  is a famous resort city of Estonia. At the time, it still had a post-Soviet look of dilapidation. I found it desperately romantic, like something out of an old spy movie. Weak street lights, far apart, barely managed to illluminate dark wintry streets and ancient houses falling apart. Very broad streets at that, Soviet-style. A once-grand stadion where I could still, at least in my overactive imagination, see a larger-than-life statue of Lenin. Dreary shops with half-empty shelves. The antique tea rooms of an old hotel where we sipped our strong tea out of delicate china cups. Jungle-like back yards where snarling dobermanns guarded junk like old tractors - and even a real, rust-spotted fighter aircraft. Telephone lines hanging so low you had to duck under them. And, in stark contrast, streets crammed with shiny new BMWs and Mercedes.

Typical Estonia in the 1990s.

I struggled valiantly through the difficult interpretation at the conference and hung out with some new-found friends there, like my fellow Finn whom I followed around loyally since I was too scared to venture far on my own. Luckily, he was of the gentlemanly type who looked after me and made sure I got home safe to my hotel.

The hotel was magnificent - or had been once. When I opened my balcony door, I was right on the mile-long beach, facing the endless horizon of the Gulf of Riga. Since it was February, the beach was completely empty. The Gulf was frozen over and far away I could see people walking on the ice, even driving cars on it.

The winter evenings were quiet, the room chilly. I curled up in the bed, drank my Coke, tried to prepare the following day's interpretation and watched incomprehensible Estonian TV. I felt a bit lost and quite a bit happy.

to boldly go

I have never gotten over the feeling that a trip somewhere, even if it's just to the next city, is an event of immeasurable significance.

Maybe because travelling has always to me seemed like the meaning of life. Even when I spend long months perfectly content in my home town, fondly remembering the complicated, adventurous journeys of my youth and sighing in relief at not having to experience all that uncertainty, discomfort and homesickness right now.

Still, I measure my life in the journeys I've made, and display them as proof to myself that I'm not wasting my years.

And on a trip to a place where I've never been before, I hungrily devour with all my senses the new experiences and new landscapes that open up before me. I don't necessarily need activities. I just need to see, observe, learn about, and be in the new place. To others, I seem a bit obsessed and manic in a foreign city - not conditions people usually associate with me.

Yesterday, I took a day trip across the pond to Sweden, to Umeå city. I spent four hours there, not doing anything terribly exciting. And yet, I know I will count this trip as one of the signifying events of this year.

Maybe I just need to get out more.

But I cherish the ability to marvel. The joy that I felt, being somewhere else.

still ditzy, apparently

Opening my door to a damp September day.

I have already read a Bible verse, some English grammar, the IKEA catalogue and several pages of a thick novel. I have planned an interpreter schedule, doubted myself and eaten a lot of yogurt. I have bookmarked blogs by ditzy literature students who are discovering life in the city where I used to be ditzy and discovering life.

Tonight, a free ticket to the theatre. Tomorrow, a day trip to Sweden.

This picture has no connection to the actual contents of this entry. But it's a picture of a rowan tree and I love rowan trees. The berries are ripe at this time of the year and  I always have the strange compulsion to eat one. The taste is face-twistingly horrible, but it's the taste of September.

spellbound at the bank

Bank tellers are for the most part coolly efficient. This one wasn't.

She took her time telling me that the answer to my question was no, I couldn't do the currency exchange I wanted. Oblivious to my frustration and stress, she then fixed me with a dreaming look and told me of a grandchild who had gone to Norway, and how last month a customer had asked for Scottish pound notes, and how strange it is, this apparently cashfree society we are heading towards.

I had been gathering up my shopping bags to leave quickly in a frustrated huff. But her slow, soft-spoken ramblings were hypnotic. I remained there, staring at her in fascination. Before I knew it, I heard myself talking to her about the peculiarities of my recent travels.

When I left the bank, without the foreign currency I wanted, my frustration and stress had vanished. Who was she? Luna Lovegood in middle age? They should use her as one of those people who talk down terrorists with their finger on the trigger.

commerce under the rowan tree

A friend, and a  pop-up flea-market  in one of the more picturesque parts of town.

I was more fascinated with the architecture and the fact that normally reticent Finns always seem to become so friendly and chatty on occasions like this. But yes, I bought a Russian dictionary and feasted on homemade chocolate cake in the shade of a rowan tree.

There was also time to contemplate life in the company of some excellent spring rolls in a corner of the busy market square.

We sold the Russian dictionary onward ( over the phone ) before we had even paid for it.

Overheard:
"Walk one metre ahead of me at all times! One metre! One metre!"
"Is the dog for sale?"
"You are not allowed to strangle me."
"That is rather manipulative."
"That's some nice crockery you're selling there. - Yes, but I wouldn't buy it myself."

home is in my hair

not something you do every day

Called the janitorial service and told them that my wall is really hot.

inexplicably unfixable stuff and apple sauce

* Dream last night: Was desperately hungry and stole bananas from a closed supermarket. The police came and pointed guns at me.
* Breakfast: = Lunch, because it actually was that time when I got around to thinking about food. Had salad with my sister, and told her I had decided that when I get old I want my wheeled walking aid to be of a cool vintage model, meaning that I should actually buy it now to ensure that it is sufficiently vintage by the time I need it. Received no understanding from her. She laughed.
* Work: Not much done today. Some translation stuff, from some language to some other language, or something.
* Visit to the car repair shop: A bewildered mechanic ( mechanics are always bewildered after being confronted with my fickle French car ) told me one of the indicators was inexplicably unfixable and that he needed to "do some research". I drove home and all indicators worked fine.
* Well-deserved evening rest on the sofa: Interrupted by my mother who needed her window washing equipment that I borrowed three months ago and still have not used. Took the equipment to her house. My reward: I got to help her make apple sauce. I don't even like apple sauce.

in-love-fallings, part two

When I first fell in love with ...
 
* travelling: Probably the first time my parents put me in our little Saab 96 and took me somewhere, like the sweet villages of Sweden and the awe-inspiring fjords of Norway. It was certainly cemented when I got to travel on those huge, exciting ferries to Sweden - I ran around exploring every nook and cranny, except the playroom because there were other kids there.

* books: Probably before I was even born. Can I even imagine a time when I didn't love books? No.

* beautiful rooms: That summer I stayed in a dark room, with a room-mate who sometimes seemed to hate me. I was temporarily accommodated in another room, alone, one where bright daylight fell over a bed with white sheets and made the room glow. I lay on that bed, reading a travel magazine with pictures of luxurious beach villas and safari lodges, and felt myself come alive again.

* hotels: When I handed in my last essay at university, packed up my stuff and took off for the Emerald Isle. At the end of a winding road, in a hidden valley, I arrived at a messy, weird and wonderful little hotel where strange things always seemed to happen. I realised then that I had always been looking for a world that never sleeps. And this was it. I made my home in an attic room and didn't leave for four years.

* dancing: Long before I discovered the joys of clubbing, as part of an amateur dance troupe trying to change the world. The actual dancing was hard work but the boys in the troupe were beautiful, athletic and loveable creatures who kissed me, threw me over their shoulder, carried my bags. The other girls hugged me and lent me their make-up. We toured in schools, performed to sneering teenagers, stayed in bohemian flats, rehearsed on the sun terrace of a ferry and dressed as clowns on a dusty country road in Estonia. We also had some priceless inside jokes, like the one about dropping God on the floor and making the TV news.

* dancing, again: On dancefloors in rural Ireland, sometimes drunk but mostly too busy dancing to do much drinking. There it was, the dizzy feeling of being free of everything, spinning through outer space, glimpsing the face of God. It was worth the mortal danger of travelling home in a crowded mini-van driven by someone who was probably drunk, at breakneck speed on dark, winding roads. I learned to let go.

rage against the dying of the light

First of September and I had to be dragged kicking and screaming - almost literally - from the summer cottage because it really is a bit too cold and too dark to stay there overnight now and people say I have to work.

Mad with melancholy and there's a long, long, LONG winter ahead.

Bonfire celebration at summer's end

in-love-fallings, part one

When I first fell in love with ...
 
* clothes: When I was in my early twenties - for some reason didn't really care much before then - and found a catalogue with the romantic autumn collection of a certain Danish clothes brand. I had just returned from a summer of adventure in a foreign country and a brown-eyed boy who looked at me as if I was beautiful - and then broke my heart. I sat in a student apartment with my friends, leafed through the catalogue, felt excited about another year at university and more adventures, felt a delicious chill in the air and envisioned a whole new identity for me in those beautiful clothes.

* coffee: That teenage summer when I had my first real summer job, cutting grass in the cemetery. The permanent staff, two middle-aged ladies, asked me the first day if I drink coffee and I didn't dare to say no. So every day for a month, on our twice-daily coffee breaks, I choked down a cup. Strong, black, unsweetened. It almost put hair on my chest and certainly was a very Finnish thing to do. Only later I learned that most people start with lots of milk or cream and sugar in it. If they start at all. But my coffee-loving family seemed so proud of me that I never looked back.

* writing: When I was 11 years old and had two great friends, a new bike, pretend dogs, a real dog and felt as if I owned the world (or at least the neighbourhood). My friends and I decided to write a story. It was a fictional account of three girls with cool bikes and dogs and a neighbourhood just like ours. Names were changed to protect anonymity (mine became Pam, which I felt was the coolest name ever invented). After less than one page, the story was abandoned - by everyone except me, who went home to write a sequel. And another one. And another one.

* TV: Watching Lassie at a tender age, understanding nothing.

the art of rain dressing

I may lament the fact that the  whirlwind bliss  that is the Nordic summer is over already, but I also delight in digging out glitzy leggings, wonderfully soft, long-sleeved henleys and bohemian legwarmers.

Today the rain was lashing down, which is quite rare in these parts. I went to have lunch with friends at a place where all the business people go ( why I and my friends go there is unclear ) and enjoyed the challenge of dressing in a crisp business skirt, grunge-style boots and a rain coat with the National Geographic logo. The overall effect was confusing and wonderful.

The umbrella ( a charity shop find ) withstood the test of the rain and the strong wind but I was soaked from the thighs down. Somewhere along the five-minute walk to the restaurant I managed to step ankle-deep into a puddle. The golden boots did NOT withstand the test.

But the water was not cold. Over lunch, I ogled the handsome business men, laughed with my friends, had a tasty fish fillet with salad, and did not mind in the least that my left foot was soaking wet. Maybe summer is not quite over.

strong true manifesto

What is this nonsense?

I will no longer be sucked down in the bog of my own self-accusations.

I will thank God for the miracle of every new day that I get to see. I will shine because I can. I will lower my voice, be at peace and remember, "wherever you are, be all there". I will plan my days, work on my language skills and my physical strength. I will divulge my dark secrets to my closest friends.

And God is somewhere out there, waiting. How close do I dare to go?

sentenced

I didn't actually buy a rose yesterday. I was going to, but the weight of people's gaze on me as I walked alone down the street made my knees buckle and I went home instead.

It may not have been the people's fault. It may have been the weight of my own unmerciful thoughts.

Why is self-judgment so relentless? Found guilty, lifetime imprisonment, throw away the key?

today's secret ingredient: garlic

* Watched a triathlon
* Got depressed by a long walk
* Was cheered up by a garlic pizza
* Bought a rose

when I was a kama'aina - a child of the land

I'm hitch-hiking with a couple of friends. Nothing to it. People always stop, and usually they have a pickup truck and you get to ride in the back, wind in your hair, beautiful views over lava fields and sea, and a feeling of complete freedom.

Hawaii, I'm 23 and impossibly lucky.  I travel around most of the Big Island. Black lava fields and white beaches, green beaches, black beaches and normal sandy-coloured beaches. The fragrance of the lovely plumeria flower everywhere.

Also some lusher landscapes. The fairytale Waipio valley, with black sand and pretty waterfall, which you can only reach if you have a 4-wheel drive (we don't but hitch-hiking works here too). Sleeping under the stars on an active volcano - half the night it rains and I'm colder than I ever thought possible on a tropical island, but then the stars come out and it's all worth it. Seeing rainforests as well as eerie landscapes of lava-burned forests, lava tunnels, black lava deserts where rotten-smelling sulfur is hissing out of vents in the ground. Visiting a Hilton luxury resort just to pretend we're millionaires and marvel at its own little world with marble halls, dolphin pools and channel boats taking you wherever you want to go.

Spending a quiet weekend at somebody's house in the inland hills, where the nights are cool. It's a welcome respite from the constant summer heat by the coast. We cosy up indoors to watch movies and rest, and I get to ride a very old and charming Arabian thoroughbred horse.

So many new, American things. Breakfast on pancakes with maple syrup. Walking the air-conditioned aisles of Walmart and Costco - as a small-town European girl who has never seen supermarkets the size of cathedrals before. Tacos, and that shop that gives you a free seashell necklace just for walking through their front door. A local rodeo with real cowgirls. Coca-Cola of a dozen different flavours. McDonald's breakfast menu. Voicemail. Tipping, and that weird tax they add to everything. Drive-thrus. Late-night shopping. Frappés and frozen yogurt. The Americans - so sociable, so friendly.

So many Hawaiian things, too. The feeling of being on a tiny island in the vast Pacific. A mongoose crossing the road, a school of manta rays coming up to the surface by the pier. Giant turtles on the beach. A local family coming back from a spear-fishing trip and hauling a big, dead squid up on the beach - they let us have a look and we see it bleeding ink. The Kona Nightingales (a gang of wild donkeys). The sun in zenith. The warning signs for falling coconuts and deadly man-of-war jellyfish. Little girls doing the hula. Red-hot lava flowing into the sea under a full moon. Termites and the fumigation of buildings. Trying boogie-board surfing. The sound of tsunami sirens being tested. Guava nectar and shaved ice. Glorious and incredibly speedy, blink-and-you-miss-it sunsets. The awe-inspiring crater of Kilauea Caldera and the exhilaration of standing on the summit of an active volcano.

And my job in the Financial Services office where I get to introduce myself proudly as "Purchaser at the University of the Nations". I have no head for numbers and am mostly relegated to routine paperwork but I get to know people all over campus. My proudest moment is figuring out that the University had paid twice for the flag of Taiwan.

My hitch-hiking advances to motorcycles and even once a taxi (without paying). There is only one weird moment when a gentleman offers me 40 bucks if he can kiss my feet. I politely decline and get out of the car very fast.



(Pictures: gladtravel.com, aloha-hawaii.com)

stirring the air

I have  not been cold  in five weeks.

That must be some kind of record on this west coast of the North. Where even in the heat of high summer there is usually the occasional chilly evening that makes you sweep wool around your shoulder after an evening swim, or a surprisingly cool breeze from open sea.

But I, the queen of shivering, walk around in eternally bare feet. I cannot remember what wool feels like next to the skin. I sit in the shade, wear as little as possible and take cold showers when I'm too far away from a beach. I gasp for air or bask in the summer heat. I look up recipes for ice tea when a hot cuppa is unbearable.

I discard the duvet and throw the door wide open to the night air. I turn the air conditioning to full blast in the car, while the tiny fan in my flat is of no use at all. I pin the letter slot in my front door open in a desperate attempt to create a cool draft. I drink gallons of water even when it tastes funny. I sit outside for hours in the white nights of the North.

I am tanned, wild-haired, sweating rivers and - weirdly enough - feeling sexy.

Finland and the Finns are throwing off their coldness and just loving life for a while.

music played out of doors

Some kind of punk rock music is reaching my ears, through my open window, from an outdoor stage not far away. Heavy metal is supposed to follow soon.

I think I'm the only Finn not fond of heavy metal.

Sometimes, when there's not a rock festival in progress, gentler music may reach my ears from some minstrel playing at the seaside café.

Until such a time, I'll take the punk rock. Soon enough, the deep silence of winter will be here. As John Keats said,

“Give me books, French wine, fruit, fine weather and a little music played out of doors by somebody I do not know.”

storm day

Sometimes you end up holding the baby while his mother goes out to find a chainsaw.

It was in the middle of the most vicious  thunderstorm  I ever saw and a fallen tree was blocking traffic outside. I was wearing a skirt with pictures of fish skeletons and felt vaguely surreal. The heat was like a heavy blanket, making it hard to breathe. Three older kids were asking anxious questions and a little dog was barking excitedly. I fed the baby his bottle. He just looked at me with blue eyes.

from salty sea to city pee

Took a month off in paradise.

Paradise, somewhere on the Baltic Sea, is off the grid. No electricity, no running water. The Internet connection is so slow on my tiny smartphone screen that I avoid it at all costs.

BUT a private beach on a quiet bay, birdsong, a hot sun and cool waters.

So I spent the month wild-haired, tanned and barefoot. Swimming in impossibly clear water, reading thrillers in the shade, going to the local grocery shop to ask nicely if I could refill water canisters. I was slowly weaned off my addiction to social media, hot showers, city streets and any entertainment that wasn't locally sourced (such as squirrel babies and dramatic volleyball with nephews).

The days stretched out into infinity. I lived on sun and beauty.

Yesterday, it was time to return to the city. Time to air out the flat, gasp in horror when I looked in a mirror for the first time in weeks (tan looked nice but WHAT WAS I WEARING and was it time to get reacquainted with mascara perhaps?) and eat some real, processed food instead of pure potatoes and grilled meat.

The first sight that greeted me when I looked out the window was the epitome of Saturday night in the city: a bunch of wasted guys spilling out of a car with beer cans in every hand, staggering around to find a piece of wall to pee against, accompanied by rock music from the car speakers.

Home, sweet city home.

a red sweetness

A sizzling hot July day. A strawberry day:

Negotiating with a lady selling summer berries in the heat-washed market square, my mother taste-testing and the poodle bouncing on the cobblestones, barking excitedly at seagulls.

Sitting in my mother's kitchen, strawberry juice flowing down my arms as I cut up the berries for jam.

Walking through the city parks in the shade of the linden trees, with strawberry stains on my lacy, white dress.

With perfect moments like these I forget that in between, I was annoyed with my mother for wasting my day trying to find the best berries for sale, I found it hard to breathe in the heat, and some of the berries were rotten. My whole body smells of strawberries and I just forget, happily.

on the eve of a long, long summer

Sat on the balcony, balancing a glass of cheap white wine on a wobbly old stool, and tried to plan. Looked at the clouds and got slightly inebriated. Thought about inviting someone to join me, but nobody suitable immediately came to mind. So I was alone, but not entirely lonely.

Rearranged the gauzy white curtains by the window and looked around the tiny flat. The furniture is old and ratty and I can't afford to renew any of it. I am alone and far from where I would really like to be. But I can look out at the sea and I feel so, so lucky to be here. Blessed, even.

Walked three blocks to the corner shop to get icecream. The evening sun was golden and the air was cold, much too cold for June. Walking felt good. I love the city streets in the evening and the comforting presence of strangers, other evening wanderers going who knows where, at the shop.

Came home, planted myself on the sofa and rented a film online. A slow, down-to-earth one that made me think and feel, while I ate icecream and drank pints of spiced tea.

Beauty is everywhere, all around me. I feel I should be old, frustrated, depressed, cynical. But how can I be, when life is drowning me in beauty?

the void beckons

I work so hard, these days.

I dive into endless texts and endless interviews in the morning (well, morning for me) and emerge with completed translations late in the evening when my brain finally shuts down. I have this previously unknown, desperate URGE to get the work done.

I don't recognise myself.

Of course, this is no great, new-found love for the job in itself. I just realised that I long to get it over with so I can get on with being unemployed.

unbought

Found in the Drafts folder on my blog dashboard this entry, in its entirety:

__________
* buy
__________


What might I have been thinking? Did I write it in my sleep? And why did I not post it? The plot thickens.

the croniz

The cronut has landed in this little Finnish town.

Although they call it a croniz. I tried one, purely as scientific research of course - somebody has to analyze the cultural and societal impact of American products introduced into foreign environments, after all.

The amount of sugar in it sent me on a high that will last until Christmas. So yes, I would definitely say there was an impact.

on minimalism, nostalgia and wet wipes

My mother is going through a cupboard with old stuff that nobody ever touches. I am a minimalist who loves, to the point of being obsessive about it, to get rid of stuff. My mother who has lived through some very rough times hardly ever gets rid of anything, ever. In case it comes in handy later.

Mother: "Here are some wet wipes. I'll hang on to them, might come in handy."
Me: "Mum! Those are 10 years old! They'll be all dried out by now, throw them away."
Mother: "Well, if you wet them a little bit, they will still work. I'll keep them."

Ten minutes later:

Mother (brings me a little ugly box that is falling apart at the seams, made out of Sixties' plastic-like material): "My father made me this. Should I keep it or throw it away?"
Me (nostalgia creeping into my hardened heart): "Keep it."

coloured pens and a prince

Ideas born in the quiet of a wilderness cottage,

           a.k.a. ideas that will look ridiculous in the light of day tomorrow:

* buy a deluxe set of felt-tip coloured pens
* drive for an hour to get to that particular treasure trove of a flea market, and not bring any of my friends who would love to go with me
* drift around town with eyes and heart wide open and for once really EXPECT to find the love of my life, for once really BELIEVE that there will be love ever after. And find him.

contrasts on a grand scale

In order to have  a Russian adventure,  you must:

* get on a bus in Finland, as a carefree student, with a girl called Annika who has golden curls and a fluent proficiency in Russian.
* for the next 544 kilometres, ignore the other passengers - mostly middle-aged men going to Russia for the cheap booze and starting to drink as soon as they find a seat in the bus, occasionally trying to chat up the two female students.
* find your hotel room, once you arrive exhausted in St. Petersburg, in a box-shaped, Soviet-era building with about a hundred miles of identical, depressing corridors. Gasp as you see the view over the river Neva.
* travel around the city on the metro, feeling completely useless among all those Cyrillic letters that you can't read. This is why you brought Annika (actually, it was Annika who brought you, but never mind). She can actually read the signs and buy the tickets at a much cheaper price that the other tourists do because she can pass as a Russian and get you places.
* get offered moonshine on the metro and feel sorry for a pet bear outside a museum.
* get exhausted and impressed as you wander through the literally endless Hermitage Museum. How can such a large and baffling place exist? Puts things in perspective, doesn't it, especially as you look at a Rembrandt painting that was once destroyed by someone grieving for a father banished to Siberia. The glory and riches of this place, paired with the tragedies of the past.
* endure while Annika the literature-lover browses Dom Knigi, House of Books, for hours (it doesn't help that you're a literature-lover too if you don't read Russian).
* go to the world-famous Mariinsky (Kirov) Ballet, knowing absolutely nothing about ballet and not even recognizing the name of the equally world-famous work Giselle, and be suitably impressed by the glamour (and yes, the performance too).
* look up a night-club that is supposedly the place to be. Find yourself in a dark basement pub where men stare darkly at you. Leave in a hurry and realise you are lost in a very dark and slum-like neighbourhood where someone will surely slit your throat in a minute. Note that you must have exhausted more than your fair share of guardian angels when you finally make it back to civilisation alive.
* comfort yourself with some real Russian pelmeni dumplings and salyanka stew.
* gape at the size and scope of St. Petersburg - its endless (and sometimes eerily empty) avenues of palaces and golden domes, its stark contrasts between rich and poor, old and new, Czar-style and Soviet-style, and its people that are so rude and so fantastically friendly at the same time.
* return home with a ton of delicious chocolates and maybe a bootleg CD.

and for my leisure time: paragorames and elephant dung

Outside the library stood a serious-looking man, saying into his phone: "Paragorames, paragoremas. Paragorames, paragoremas. Paragorames, paragoremas."

Outside the shop stood white-bearded old Jarkko, smoking a strange cigarette. His face lit up when he saw me: "I just read a fascinating book. Did you know there's an animal that makes perfectly round pieces of excrement? And the elephant, let me tell you what he does when he goes to take a dump..."

I borrow a book by David Nicholls, buy honey and frozen bilberries, and go home to write a bizarre blog entry. Can you blame me?

all in a day's work: Tupac and urinals

Woken by very loud sparrows this morning.

Now I'm googling Tupac and U.S. grading systems for work. I insist on sitting on the balcony even though my back is killing me and the chirping of sparrows is drowned by an even louder lawnmower somewhere in the vicinity.

Because here I can ponder questions such as whether that nervous white-collar man going to visit my neighbour, the prison, is a lawyer? And if so, shouldn't he be wearing a tie? Is it better for your car if you drive slowly on uneven cobblestones, or really fast? What about those people over there, are they tourists? Do tourists even come to this city? Ooh, another lawyer! This one looks serious, walking with purpose. Where are all the dog-walkers today? Is a flagpole uncomfortable for a seagull to perch on? Should I have another coffee?

And in the interview I'm translating, a man is describing how he was baptized to Christ in prison, kneeling in front of a stainless steel urinal. The world is full of wonders.

bit like Hogsmeade

I found an old village in the midst of the modern city of Helsinki.

Narrow streets wind themselves between ancient wooden cottages, lovingly restored or left to decay most charmfully. A corner pub, tiny and packed with people, is spilling light and noise and atmosphere onto the street. 

Image from rakennustieto.fi

A blackbird is singing nearby. Someone is digging in his little patch of garden under the light evening sky. If you look past the cottages into the lovely garden with its twisted apple trees, you can see the stark contrast of graceful, steely construction cranes in the distance - involuntary pieces of art.

In the middle of this picturesque neighbourhood called Vallila, the ancient granite bedrock has pushed its way out of the ground and formed a steep, narrow hill. Climbing up there awkwardly in our city shoes, we find a couple and a small gang of teenagers perched on rocks and talking quietly. Someone is passing a bottle to his friends. We find a rock of our own and sit down.

Looking out over city rooftops in twilight times. It must be the best thing you can ever do with your life.

seclusion and pretty milk-froth

Tried another café in my never-ending quest for the perfect hang-out spot.

Actually, I have tried it before, more than once. It was even one of my favourite lunch places, back in the day when I still had money to eat out. But cafés are different outside the busy lunch hour. I needed an afternoon test-drive.

The place had potential. Atmospheric décor. An excellent latte with a pretty milk-froth flower. A small but excellent menu of both sweet and savoury. You can even get a glass of something stronger, which is not a given in Finnish cafés. Plenty of walls, so I can feel secluded.

And interesting people. The kind of place where hippie meets preppy.

Predictably, I came up with a new criteria for the perfect hang-out spot. One which was missing here: a view over a busy city street.

So that I can sip my coffee while I raise my eyebrows at interesting fashion choices, sigh over cute dogs and ogle handsome men.

old tea morning

Status report:

* Waking up on Monday morning after a weekend in the country.
* Flat being a mess, clouds being heavy.
* Vague anxiety squeezing the heart.
* Curling up on the sofa, gathering courage for the day.
* Breakfast seeming excessive, there is fortunately a mug of mint tea that I never drank last night.

So, cold and stale mint tea - surprisingly reviving. Life being good and scary, simultaneously.

That was my Monday morning today.

when I was a fake Russian

I'm approaching the door of the famous Mariinsky ballet house in St. Petersburg, Russia, trying not to sweat.

My friend, fluent in Russian, managed to pass herself off as a local when she bought our tickets, thus avoiding the substantial tourist surcharge. But we still have to make it past the ticket inspector at the door. We tried to dress as the Russian ladies: expensive-looking clothes, lots of make-up.

The heavy-built, frowning matrona at the door looks at our tickets, looks at us. The frown deepens. She lets out a stream of Russian and shoos us off. "She made us," my friend whispers. "She says we have to buy the tickets for non-Russians."

We decide to try another door and carefully choose a busier one, where a thick stream of people are rushing past a harassed-looking, younger inspector. Success! He barely glances at our tickets and not at all at our faces, just waves us through.

We know so woefully little about ballet, we really should be ashamed of ourselves. My friend tries to pronounce the title of it, printed in Cyrillic letters on our tickets: "Zhisel?" We don't know much more about it afterwards than before.

But at the Mariinsky Theatre, Giselle is fantastic even to the pathetically ignorant.

the pavlova that came down from heaven

The hunt for a good coffee-shop is obsessing me.

Today, I decided on a café that will be my new hang-out spot where I while away bohemian afternoons, think great thoughts and unwittingly annoy the waitresses with my refusal to ever leave. The place certainly has potential. It does a decent chicken salad and edible vegetarian wraps, is aesthetically pleasing and doesn't attract too many mothers with screaming babies. And the weird guy who sits in cafés and stares at women doesn't go there.

Image source

Its tour de force, however, is the heavenly pastries, the queen of which is the utterly magnificent  pavlova.  Not since I stole a pavlova in a hotel kitchen on a New Year's Eve have I tasted such a divine creation. It is so unbelievably good that I hardly ever buy it. Maybe I feel it's too good for a simple human being like me.

So I went there today. I braved a lashing, cold rain in my determination to claim my new home away from home - donning a rain coat with a National Geographic logo on it, as this gave me an appropriate feeling of being an explorer of new lands - and arrived dripping water on the stylish floor. I ordered a cappuccino and a wrap ( with more than one envious glance at the pavlova, which seemed to have a supernatural glow around it ).

The wrap was surprisingly good ( wraps have an inherent tendency to disappoint ). The cappuccino was too small but otherwise satisfactory. The people were interesting and the atmosphere was cosy.

So I sat there and tried to think of this as my new home. 

But I fidgeted, rushed through my wrap, felt uncomfortable. The room was too open. No nooks to hide in and quietly observe people with my back safely to the wall. I was too visible.

So I sighed, and left. This was not the place.

But I will come back for the pavlova occasionally. When I feel worthy of its otherworldly glory.

two introverts on a desert island

We row out in a small boat. I have stopped biting my lip ( since we passed the place where my father died ) and allow myself to relax and look around. The sea is calm and the sun is warm on my bare arms.

He rows, with ease, through the shallow water and knows where to avoid hidden rocks. We pass terns, swans and ducks, as well as small cottages on overgrown islets. We see no people. When we reach the right cottage I set my laptop on the patio table and get to work, while he climbs into the excavator and starts digging up rocks.

Later, we make lunch together. When the excavator breaks down and I'm tired of working, we lie down on the patio to sunbathe and do a crossword. I'm good with crosswords but he is better. We google Swedish poets and try to fix the excavator ( my part is to push a lever ). We walk barefoot around the islet. He is tanned, I am pale, he tells me I'm beautiful.

When the sun sinks lower and the air gets chilly, we return home. I get mud between my toes when I step out of the boat. The year's at the spring ... and all's right with the world.

coffee and pie in the sky

I have never found that perfect coffee shop that I see on Pinterest.

The one with rustic wooden tables, heavenly spiced coffee and bohemian, gorgeous men doing artsy things at the next table while waiting for the love of their life ( a.k.a. me ) to show up. The one where I come up with the idea for a wonderful adventure or write a novel that will change everything.

At least not here, in my town. There are plenty of dreary cafés that haven't changed since the Soviet Union was the pinnacle of fashion. There are some quirky, retro places that are nice for hanging out but where the coffee is hit and miss. There are a couple of places that have perfected the art of coffee but whose atmosphere gives you suicidal impulses.

I even have a recurring dream at night where I drift around town  (sometimes my own, sometimes an unfamiliar one) looking for that perfect, perfect café that I know is located on a sunny upper floor somewhere. I know once I reach it, I will stay there forever and find happiness.

I never quite manage to find it in my dream either.

whirling juggling circus act

There was the glorious summer morning, warm and fragrant like a garden, with a salty breeze from the sea.

And there was a woman with tousled hair and no make-up, dressed in old sweatpants and a white T-shirt, sitting barefoot on a balcony in the midst of all this May beauty. A mug of coffee and a laptop with TV shows to be subtitled - the kind of work that doesn't really seem like work at all.

Was it a dream, or was it really my life this morning? Who would have thought, that cold, grey day in March when I cried for my lost job among muddy fields and dark clouds, that I would have a day like this?

When the afternoon grew too hot, I closed my laptop with satisfaction and headed out to while away the rest of the day. Drifted around with my mother until a rain shower surprised us and cooled the air. Went back to the balcony, where we had icecream and coffee and watched the world for a peaceful hour.

Later, a take-away pizza, rainy streets, dreams of love, and being asked, "Are you Turkish?", which made me smile.

This life may be precarious and unsafe - I don't even know where my next paycheck is coming from, if at all. But I promise I will savour it.  Freedom and summer.

* * * *

"Precarious, life is. A flying leap. A sweep of hand. A star flung across the night. A lucky catch in this whirling juggling circus act." - Rivera Sun

professional life, the 2014 version

Working at the kitchen table. Or sometimes on the sofa.

Irregular working hours but no stress. Beautiful office. Possibility of coffee breaks in the sun, with a sea view ( if it wasn't so darn cold ). Instead of great salad lunches, it's now whatever-is-found-in-the-fridge lunches.

More time for life. Back to being poor. A lot of time spent putting my house and business in order, in a desperate attempt to gain back some control over my wildly spinning life. Crying over paperwork, sometimes.

Also some really interesting work, for once. Discovered something new that I'm good at. Dreams of a new career, mixed with doubts about the same. Where is this going?

Going for a run almost regularly, just to get out of the house. Much more up for social life than before. Kind of, almost, enjoying this life ( except the paperwork part and the being poor part ).

It's freedom. But everyone else is living such settled lives and I've been thrown out into chaos again. Will there be a happy end?

seeking comfort among the pirates

Sometimes, you come home after a day around people.

And the only thing that can make you love yourself again is a cup of hot tea and listening to something like the Pirates of the Caribbean theme song, house remix.

the A-list

* Annoyance.
* A take-away burger.
* A drive through a flat landscape, past tractors plowing fields in a cloud of dust and excited seagulls.
* A discussion about a translating job that turned into an excursion around a factory floor and learning the finer points of garbage trucks.

A.K.A. my day, in reverse order.

the Zinfandel days by a river

Perhaps not my first choice of European city for a mini-break. But you go where the cheap tickets take you.

The only thing I really knew about  Frankfurt am Main  was that it has a huge airport. Now I also know that it is the home of the euro, has a lot of skyscrapers for a European city and used to host the crowning ceremony of German emperors - including Charlemagne.

Now the city hosts some huge trade fairs but between the fairs, it seems rather surprised when confronted with non-Germans. Firmly rejecting foreign credit cards in many places, for example.

It was a coincidence that I ended up there for my tiny holiday, but it turned out to be the ideal city if you - like me - love both history and skyscrapers.

In Frankfurt you sit on the river bank among flocks of geese and people smoking the hookah. Every time you look up to the sky, there's an aircraft there. In Frankfurt, they have placed all the hotels so that the tourists have to go through the Red Light District - even if the sex clubs don't bother you, the drug addicts are a bit scary. The restaurant and bar staff speak English when they take your order but switch to German when they serve the food and bring the bill. There are a lot of handsome men.

The architecture is mixed. Looking at this picture I took, it actually looks Photoshopped. But it isn't. 15th century, meet the 20th century!

Other wonders of Frankfurt am Main:
* cheap wine
* subway trains that suddenly go above ground and magically turn into regular trams
* headstones in graveyards, often inscribed with a very childish sans-serif font and looking rather cheerful
* river barges, transporting not only cargo but also the captain's Mercedes and speedboat

How you should spend three days in Frankfurt:
* Buy bottles of wine in the supermarket.
* Wander around the city at random.
* When you get tired, sit on the river bank or in a park. Drink wine.
* When you've emptied a bottle of Zinfandel, write a note and include a German poem, put it in the bottle and throw it into the river Main. Watch it sail out towards the Rhine and beyond.
* Repeat.

how beauteous mankind is

Getting a job is easier these days. Or harder.

When I was younger, I looked for job ads and applied, then sent copies of university diplomas and written references from previous employers.

Nowadays you just get together for a little chat with a prospective employer, sometimes over the phone - they ask, "What's your background?" and I tell them I am a professional translator and mention vaguely the sort of jobs I have done in the past. They probably Google me, but there's not much to find there.

And then they give me the job.

The tricky part is that in order to get to this point, you usually have had to be recommended to them by someone you and they know. 

But - what? I say the words "professional translator" and they just believe me? I think I like this world.

in the hall of the troll king

Roman Payne said it well - and oh, he knew how I feel about hotel rooms ( they're magic ) and subway trains!

Spent a few days in a big city recently, in a neighbourhood where I felt faintly nervous about going out after dark - the number of drug addicts and suspicious characters gathering in gangs in dark alleys might have had something to do with it.

Yet, I pulled my friend with me down to the subway station ( not the safest of places ) as we were walking back to our hotel. I wanted to smell the burned metal of the train tracks and hear the rumble of approaching underground trains vibrate in the walls. I wanted to watch men in dreadlocks and giggling women in high heels hurry to their train. I wanted the possibility of glimpsing a huge rat in the tunnels. I wanted dark looks from under homeless hoods and the spark of danger in the air. I wanted an urban night where anything can happen. I wanted the Big City, hundreds of subway stations and millions of stories meeting under strip lights.

"I would like to bottle this smell," I sang, delirious. "The one of steel and old urine. I would like to record this sound of a faraway train deep underground. I would listen to it when I can't sleep."

My friend thought I was mad, and rightly so.

international love

"Close your eyes and form your lips like this! Well, do you remember now? Were your lips on the same level as his?"

I'm trying to help my sister recall a German summer fling from her teenage years. We're having lunch in a gem of a vegetarian restaurant, and the only thing not to our liking is the coffee made from grain, which tastes like grain. The rest of the food is good enough to make us wonder why we would ever want meat again.

When we've sorted out the summer fling guy, we discuss the guy from Kansas who I used to call So Close And Yet So Far Away, and the guy from Burkina Faso who disappeared so mysteriously. 

The guy at the next table is reading a book called The Art of Mind-Reading.

didn't hear this

My friend A has a way of prefacing a particularly juicy bit of gossip with the warning "you didn't hear this". Which means I'm not allowed to tell anyone.

"I can't remember if I told you this story before, but if I didn't, you didn't hear this," she said today.
"But if you did tell me before?"
"Then you did hear this. Obviously."

And we were falling over with laughter. The world would be a bleak place without her.

freelancer style

An unusually productive workday. A great cup of coffee. A tentative feeling of optimism. A glorious view through my workplace window. A run and a long shower. A movie night with my best friend, garlic rye chips and Coke.

Nothing more is needed today.

on the wrong side of the police tape

Came rushing through a large airport with a friend. Suddenly found ourself surrounded by stressed-looking police who were putting up police tape in a hurry and commanding people to get out of the area immediately.

My first thought was, "Shit. There's a bomb here and I'm probably standing right next to it."

Was quickly shooed out to the other side of the tape. When the area was cleared, the police left it too. One lonely policeman, with no protective equipment, pulled on latex gloves and walked back in, right to a small bag that had been left unattended next to a bench. He opened it carefully and started to go through it.

And there we stood, not more than 20 metres away, staring in morbid fascination. Also felt that we really, really would like to put a bit more distance between us and a bomb, preferrably something like ten miles. But we were at the check-in desks and really needed to check in so as not to miss our flight - and then the way to our gate was of course on the other side, so we had to circle the entire perimeter of the police tape to find it.

It took forever and ever,  walking next to a bomb.

( In the end, there was no bomb. But that feeling. )

everybody walk the dinosaur

Time for a confession - my most shameful habit:

When they play the Macarena in the club, I teach the youngsters the moves.

I'm always surprised that they actually let me back in there the next time I come.

( I'm also surprised that a club still plays the Macarena. Not that I'm complaining. )

today's guest of honour

S, the fair of face.

the H word

Sometimes happiness is just to take a break from work and go for a run ( even though you are not really in shape and don't really enjoy the running much ).
And stop on the way home to go into a shop, rosy-cheeked and with no make-up, to buy cream for your coffee.
When the air is cold and the sun is bright.

agenda for success

* make a plan for my day
* book a hotel in Frankfurt, Germany
* find a way to get along with my mother
* find more interpreters for my church
* drink less coffee
* get out my running shoes
* read the book of Psalms
* go to bed earlier
* live dramatically and beautifully and IN THE PRESENT
* buy a pair of summer shoes
* change the tires on my car 

essence d'Avril

Spring at 63 degrees north, at the sea's edge:

Blinding sun, cold winds, whirling dust, seagulls, joy.

alien and irresistible

Feeling:

Alien, like Peter Pan ( "He had ecstasies innumerable that other children can never know; but he was looking through the window at the one joy from which he must be for ever barred” ), my own worst enemy and desperately in need of grace, old, damaged, meaningless, LOST, like certain passions of the past mean absolutely nothing anymore.

But also:

Stronger, sometimes beautiful, wise, a better person than I would be otherwise, a drifter, a free spirit ( sometimes ), independent and spontaneous, here and now, in rare moments irresistibly lovable.

going underground in Jyväskylä

Reading a Finnish novel. That doesn't happen very often, I tend to gravitate towards British, Irish and American literature.

Shame-facedly I have to admit that I only discovered this Finnish author - Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen - because one of his novels ( The Rabbit Back Literature Society, not a bad one ) had been translated and found its way to the English Books section in my local library. I read that one and then moved on to the one called Harjukaupungin salakäytävät.

The story is set in Jyväskylä, in my opinion a very boring and non-descript Finnish town where I've only passed through once. In this book, I discover that Jyväskylä has not only magical qualities but a network of secret, underground passages.

Makes me want to hop on the next train there and go exploring.

The intriguing theme is cinematic places and cinematic living. One of the principles of this is that if you open your mind to the cinematic, dramatic and beautiful things around you in the very ordinary, everyday world and live accordingly, you will also have a cinematic, dramatic and beautiful existence. My thoughts exactly!

So I will go and do that. But first I have to finish the novel. Apparently it's been printed in two versions with different endings, and you can't know which version you have happened to get.

( Picture from adlibris.com )

a professional x five

Worked from home. What I actually did was to download two kinds of software and then watch instructional videos on YouTube on how to use them.

It took ALL DAY.

I'm getting motion sickness from yet another career change. Within less than ten years, I have gone from the hotel business to the translation business to the book business to the garment production business to the TV subtitling business. My CV looks like the Yellow Pages.

It's mostly not even my fault. The changes have been done out of necessity. But something inside me is a little bit  thrilled  about this.

ordinary, vanilla day

Savouring my first cup of vanilla coffee from my new coffeemaker while seagulls are announcing the spring outside my windows.

I would say I'm having a late start to my working day but it's actually my default setting when I work from home. I pretend it's necessary for the creative process. But now I'm finally settling down to read instructions and download software and learn a new job.

I will work, I will get a little bored, I will get a little excited, and at some point I will have another mug of coffee outside in the sunshine.

apricot cider evening

Still chilly, but the April sun was blasting my windows with a million watts and degrees.

I winced and wanted to draw the curtains. But a friend said, "let's sit on the balcony. I'll bring cider!" So we watched the world and got tipsy on apricot cider and hours passed and the world was wonderful.

the assignments

Today I have ordered a coffeemaker online.

I have also convinced a new employer that I am indeed a very professional and experienced translator while balancing precariously on a plank over a swamp.

report from the vast forests of the North

Walking in a grey forest. Couldn't get anyone to join me ( people actually work on Tuesday afternoons? ) so it was a solitary experience.

It wasn't the prettiest of forests. But it was quiet, not a soul within many miles. I was entertaining myself by trying to figure out how the rescue services would get to me if I fell and broke my neck ( my plan involved helicopters and huskies ). The trail was supposedly four kilometres but it took me 2.5 hours so I suspect foul play was involved in the signposting.

I saw no animals except a few birds. ( One signpost said encouragingly that seeing a bear around here wasn't unheard of. See above under "Foul Play". ) The ants were still hibernating inside giant anthills. I expected an adder or two but it must have been still too cold for them.

There were information boards placed at intervals along the trail, describing plants, wildlife and the odd creatures you might see if you were of the old religion - fairies, water spirits and such. In reality, the spirits were as absent as the bears.

For the most part, my forest experience consisted of pines, spruces, swamps and rocks. There was, however, a tiny cave where I crawled in ( trusting the huskies to find me if I got stuck ) and an open place where rocks had been laid out to form a primitive compass rose - supposedly to ward off bad luck and originating from the 8th century. There were spruces that were said to have lived through the bad years of the late 19th century, as evidenced by weirdly tangled branches. And there was a picnic spot, complete with fireplace, an axe and a saucepan ( a real Finn needs nothing else, right? ).

 

Chocolate was necessary to raise the morale of the troops.

hens on heels

For a successful hen night, take:

* an assortment of girls from Kenya to Kazakhstan and a few countries in between
* a giggly workout session in a sunny dance studio
* Thai take-out
* inexplicably exploding balloons
* chatter in Russian, Swedish and English
* a hard-core cynic
* a wedding dress improvised out of bin liners
* a  crowded dancefloor at midnight

Mix with high heels and a few rolls of toilet paper, and all is well with the world.

better to curse the darkness than to light a candle

A crescent moon.
Was Not Was: "Walk The Dinosaur" 
Dancing on the volleyball court and grinning at all the men.

Avocado and mushroom omelet.
A silver laptop.
A job I feared, which turned into a job I loved.
My favourite bookshop and lists to go through.
Speaking a foreign language fluently.

= things that made me happy today.

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Bonus feature:

My incredulity at looking at a candle in a shop and discovering that it cost 50 euro. FIFTY. EURO. In what world would you pay that for a candle?

It actually made me angry. Not because I couldn't live without the candle. But to think that there may be people who would actually buy it, when approximately 20 000 people around the world died from hunger only today, that kind of scared me. What is wrong with us?

happy in HEL

More marvels found in Helsinki, the capital of Finland:

* a proper mixture of things

* streets paved with real stones, for that authentic European feeling

* trams ( lovely trams! ), and tram tracks to stumble over in high heels

* a Burger King that looks like a church

* the gigantic, enormous, ginormous book store Akateeminen, of which Michael Cunningham ( author of The Hours ) reportedly said it was the best book store he'd seen

* icebreakers looking very pretty in the evening sun

* an interesting fake fauna - the elk is somewhat understandable, this being Finland, but the giraffes on the balcony were entirely unexpected

* the ugliest presidential palace in the world ( OK, only temporarily... undergoing renovation )

* and another tourist, happily singing as she wanders the streets for hours ( that would be me )

there's heaven, and there's Helsinki

Wow, Helsinki! What else can I say?

I must have turned into a proper hillbilly. I tend to turn into a gawking, gasping, awe-struck TOURIST every time I arrive in a big city ( not necessarily even properly big like New York, but biggish like Dublin or Helsinki ).

Helsinki has everything. For example:

* Starbucks
* tourists ( not just me, a whole lot of English and Russian is heard in the streets )
* pretty houses ( all the below are residential / business buildings, no actual castles )

* ugly houses

* snowfalls from sunny skies
* people wearing colourful clothes
* a prison turned into a trendy hotel
* thousands of GORGEOUS little wine bars, pubs and bistros where you could just settle down at one of the rustic, candle-lit, wooden tables and drink beer and feast on delicacies and laugh with friends for the rest of your life
* a smell of roasting coffee beans
* pretty doors

* pretty cathedrals

* golden domes

* and some beautiful views

        *** to be continued ***

cities filled with the foolish

I love weird traditions that make entire continents laugh, or groan, or both. Like the Eurovision Song Contest, or April Fools' Day.

Or ones that don't raise an eyebrow almost anywhere in the world but are in fact utterly ridiculous when you think about it, like Santa Claus.

I mean, April Fools' Day, how bizarre is that? I'm sitting in a hostel in Helsinki with my laptop, chewing on a cereal bar and laughing at a round-up of today's newspaper jokes. The world is making fun of itself, for once. And when I'm done, it seems to me that the world is a better place on the first of April.