Kim & Jason's Blog

Mosquitoes and Markets

Kim flew home a few days ago, which makes Finland slightly less fun. But don't worry, I'm not lonely- when she left, a family of 47 mosquitoes moved in. Finnish mosquitoes must live for maybe 17 hours, but they wreak enough pain and misery in their short, little lives to make up for it. I am currently covered in welts that are easily visible from across the street. Right now, I imagine that every single woman in my family, some of whom are medical professionals, are thinking to themselves the following as they read this:

Don't you dare scratch those mosquito bites, Jason Carmel!

And as I am typing what they are thinking to themselves, I am thinking to myself:

You can get bent. Have you ever had a mosquito bite on your knuckle? You're lucky I'm not going after these suckers with a machete.

At any rate, outside of buying bug spray, I'm having some trouble figuring out what I should be doing this weekend. Frankly, I feel like we've done such a thorough job at covering the sites of Helsinki that there isn't anything new I want to hit. Perhaps it's time for me to hit Helsinki Jason-style (meaning from the couch. With no lights on. And a 30 foot straw or tube to the refrigerator).

I went back to Hakaniemi Market on Saturday. Despite the narrow escape from poisonous mushrooms, it's probably one of my favorite places in Helsinki. Plus, Suomi strawberries are now in season, and since they have roughly the same life-span as Finnish mosquitoes, I needed to grab a bunch. Well worth it. I also appreciate the fact that their potatoes still have dirt on them. Too often in the States, even at farmer's markets, we feel the need to remove the food entirely from the farming context. I guess we are trained as consumers to avoid uncleanliness, or maybe the potato washing is viewed as an extra step. Not for me. I like knowing that the potatoes came from the ground and rather than from a potato factory in Flint or a potato lab in San Diego.

Having been to this market a few times now, I can tell you that there are two types of market stall workers. There are the farmers themselves (usually older, always suspicious) and there are a bunch of kids (anywhere between 14 and 24- if you are 25 and you are selling stuff at a farmer's market, you are a farmer. Q.E.D.). If you ever visit here, definitely go for the second group. In fact, I would be surprised if you are even able to get help from the farmers, anyway. As soon as they hear you speaking English, they will call over a kid to help you. This happened to me at 3 separate stalls. All Finnish farmers use the same hand gesture to call for a kid- take two fingers to make a peace sign, and then curl them inwards as if you were then going to use the peace sign to claw out someone's throat. Now make the motion in the air, as if you were clawing out said throat. That's how a farmer calls over a kid to help an American buy vegetables. But it's ok, these kids are awesome. Their English is great, they are very helpful during the discovery phase of the shopping (notwithstanding the aforementioned failure to mention that the mushrooms I was buying could kill me and my wife- everyone gets a mulligan), and they love joking around. Maybe a clueless American breaks up the monotony for them. No complaints here. I walked away with some strawberries, potatoes, cauliflower, mushrooms (don't worry- I recognized them) and the requisite dill and chives for all Finnish cooking.

I think today I may try to buy a book or three for the plane ride (in less than one week!). Other options are the movies, a cafe, or maybe a return trip to the Ateneum.

Kiitos, Finland

Today is my last day here in Helsinki. Hard to believe. I knew the time would go quickly, but this past month has really been a blink.

Top 10 things I'll miss about this place, in no particular order:

1. My two favorite running routes: past the Hietaniemi cemetery up to Seurasaari outdoor museum, and down along the waterfront to Uspenski Cathedral

2. Blueberry ice cream, cardamom buns and an ungodly variety of licorice.

3. Saunas. Love them. Best after swimming and followed by a cold shower. My favorite was Kotiharjun Sauna—an old wood sauna, tucked into a removed residential area. Very different from the more typical electric saunas ... this is a huge room with concrete floors and drippy, smoky walls. I was the only female saunaist that day, so I had the whole cavern to myself.

4. Finnish fashion and design. Took me awhile to get it, but now I'm in love. Will take some time to re-transition back into Seattle "style" again. You mean, I can't wear my harem pants here?

5. Movies at the tennispalatsi, preceded by a shared pingviini (which, up until this very second, I thought meant "sundae," since that's what they're called on the ice cream menu ... looks like it actually means "penguin," which is the mascot for the ice cream company. Ha!). Best movie theater ever. I'm going to be so bummed when I can't reserve my own seat in the U.S. theaters.

6. Umlauts and words with far too many vowels in them.

7. Yrjonkatu Uimahalli (swim hall). Went here my first week in Helsinki, and it truly was a life-changing experience. Felt like I stepped back into Roman times. The swimming area, lockers and showers are together in one beautifully tiled room. Men and women use the hall on different days, as bathing suits are optional (seems a 50/50 ratio of nudies to suited folks), so it feels much more like group bathing than exercising. I never got my nerve up to swim au naturel, and the pool closed for the summer before I had my chance. Still—fantastic.

8. Tuesdays, when our cleaning people came (cleaning people!), and I laptopped from my favorite cafe for a few hours.

9. My Finnish buddy Heini, who spent two entire days showing me the city with her adorable son, Leo. Thanks for taking care of a lonely traveler, Heini.

10. Midnight sun

.........

Top 10 things I'm looking forward to back at home:

1. Rogue. Duh.

2. Talking with friends and family as nature intended—on a cell phone. Or in person even. Not that Skype isn't fun, but video chats are embarrassing when I'm having a "no make-up" week.

3. Paying less than $6 for a mocha, $9 for a beer or $70 for Indian food-for-two.

4. Our bed. And our pillows. God, I miss those pillows.

5. Good food. The food here isn't bad certainly, but there's so much good food in Seattle. A vegetable that doesn't look like it was beaten with a hammer or almost kill us would be swell too.

6. Not listening to Mötley Crüe or Metallica in the grocery store. Bring me Johnny Hates Jazz and Lionel Richie. And I'm ready to let the professionals bag my groceries for me.

7. Being around people who don't speak 5 different languages (including mine, better than I do) fluently.

8. Our clothes dryer.

9. Spending time during the week with Jason. No more 50+-hour work weeks, please. Although it's been wonderful sharing this whole experience with him. We have an awful lot of fun together.

10. Seattle summer—Bumbershoot, weekends at the dog park, Ballard market, out-of-town guests, running around Lake Union with my posse, beer on the front porch ... it will certainly be good to be home.

London in a Weekend

I had to hit London last Friday for business, so Kim came along and we made a weekend out of it. We had a great time. I thought London would be a good idea for a trip for two reasons, which I will list below, followed by an explanation of how completely wrong I was.

Reason #1 Why London Would be a Good Trip:  It would be reasonably low stress.

I truly, sincerely believed that London would be a moderately low stress trip, given how we've both been before and speak the language, and all. That, my friends is spurious thinking. For you see, they speak English in New York City (marginally). And I've been to South Central Los Angeles before. Yet neither would be considered, even under the best of circumstances, a destination designed to relax. As a massively huge city, London is no different. Sure, they have pubs, and tea, and lovely accents, but they also have cars coming at you from the wrong side of the road. I nearly died twice. In your search for "low stress trips," let near-death experiences serve as a red flag.

Reason #2 Why London Would be a Good Trip: It would be a good way to get us in the mindset of coming back home.

I thought this made brilliant sense. Kim goes home to Seattle in a few days, and I follow her in another week or so. What better way to re-acclimate us to the States than a brief stop-over with our former colonial lords and masters? Of course English culture isn't like US culture, but I figured it might act as a bit of decompression country as we floated back to our normal state. No one likes the cultural bends. As it turns out, that didn't happen. London can be a pretty alien place. Even the common language didn't help. I have no problem at all understanding most of the British accents out there, providing they aren't being shouted over a loudspeaker or in the middle of a crowded, noisy place, which is exactly how 87% of my interactions with local Londoners took place. The Tube is an awesome method of urban transportation, until any of the stations shut down and they try to give you advice over the intercom:

"Due to flooding, the Circle and Hammersmith-Fran-Drescher Lines will not operate between North-High-Ipswich-upon-Kensington-Mews-South and Farnham-on-Tyre-East-Witherspoon-Uppham-Staffordshire. Riders traveling to the Piccadilly Palare, Bag-End, or South Wuthering Heights should disembark immediately and seek medical attention."

So we gave up on "low stress London" in favor of reveling in the hectic, and that seemed to work well. We hit Borough Market, which puts any outdoor market you've ever seen to shame. Kim and I had breakfast and lunch there, it was that good. We split up the eating with a visit to the Modern Tate, where they had an interesting exhibit on Futurism. If you have the opportunity, I recommend marrying an artist/graphic designer and having her explain it to you as you're looking at the stuff. It helped a lot. We also breezed through the National Portrait Gallery as well. I always thought portraits were kind of boring. Now I realize that only many of them are. A few of them are quite amazing.

The highlight, though, was listening to the Killers play Hyde Park. No, we didn't have tickets, but we could see the Jumbo Screens and hear the band just fine, along with a work buddy, some of his friends, and few thousand other Londoners looking to not pay for some pretty good music. From there, we went straight to a club (yeah, you read that right) where we rocked out to a DJ who was clearly mourning the death of Michael Jackson. Bed-time was after 2, I think.

Relaxing? Heck no. But lots of fun.

Midnight Sun

Hi, team.

Quick post, but I wanted to share some photos from this weekend's Solstice. As promised, Sunday was one ridiculously long day. The sun set at 10:50pm, although it was light well past midnight. Rumor has it, dawn came at 3:55am. I think Jason and I ate 5 or 6 meals that day, our bodies were so confused.

Here's a shot at one of the main city centers. The "0.15" on the building is actually the time—12:15am. Hard to believe.

We had heard that many Finns retreat to their summer cottages for the weekend—turns out the entire city evacuates come Thursday afternoon, and almost everything closes (including restaurants, movie theaters and museums ... we were screwed). We spent a good portion of the weekend reading in the park, and arguing over whether the new ice cream we discovered is or isn't better than our favorite back at home (it is).

The modern art museum was open on Sunday, so we revisited to see their new exhibit—Horror vacui. Generally not my strength, horror. Or vacui, for that matter. It turned out to be a really cool exhibit, my favorite piece shown below. It's kind of a whale/monster built out of an old boat and a bunch of pipe organ pieces. When it's turned on, it actually rears its big monster head, lights flash, and as it comes back down, it blows air through the pipes like a giant accordion. It also has cool "legs" that wave around as it deflates.

Another exhibit by the same artist, Markus Copper, involved a bunch of old deep sea diver costumes hanging in a tight room, connected to lights and hydraulics. They were holding big wrenches. Or maybe wooden crosses and human heads, I don't remember. I screamed, very loudly, and ran out of the room when an arm spasm from one of the far suits caught me off guard. Jason showed his support by laughing hysterically and taking lots of photos.

I'm, like, practically Finnish now

Reason #297 why Jason is the best husband ever: he bought me Nordic Walking poles. Very Finnish.

For those who are unfamiliar with the sport (I expect this includes everyone), it was invented by cross country skiers in the 1930s, looking for a way to train during the warmer seasons. It's basically walking while swinging a pair of rubber-tipped poles around (which is about as graceful, verbally, as I look while physically using said poles).

Reason #298: The poles have a Marimekko pattern on them (Marimekko is an institution here ... I'm trying to think of the American equivalent and I'm at a loss ... it's basically the Starbucks of the Finnish clothing/bedding world).

Reason #299: He bought them at his Nokia office. It's the Finnish trifecta! The only thing that could make these poles MORE Finnish, is if they were made out of licorice, or held shots of salmari in each handle.

The gift was particularly thoughtful because about a week ago, my knee swelled up and still won't let me bend it all the way. Since I've been running almost daily for the past 17 years, this whole "resting" thing is a bummer. Nordic Walking is more exercise than normal walking, but still gentle on the knee. Plus, I get to go out in public looking like a total goober.

Oddly enough, not a single person felt compelled to yell unflattering or dooficious things at me as I plink-plonked past them on my first trip out. I know they're used to seeing Nordic Walkers, but even the gaggles of goth teens that I passed hardly flicked their cigarettes at me. It was another confirmation that folks here (unlike those at home) don't seem to care much about what people around them are doing/wearing/eating/buying. It's easy to call the Finns self-absorbed and reserved, but I think that places a negative spin on what's actually a form of politeness and open-mindedness. They seem content letting people be themselves, even if that person enjoys walking around the city with spandex pants and goofy poles. I dig that.

Happy Midsummer, everyone! There are supposedly bonfires, Midsummer poles and other traditional Finnish/Swedish shenanigans happening tonight, but it's been raining for several hours straight so we shall see. Worse case, I suspect we'll head to the movie theater and catch Star Trek for the third time.

Mushrooms and Samba

So, funny story ... you're going to laugh. I know we did.

Jason mentioned his trip to the Hakaniemi Market last week during his Bachelor Weekend (incidentally, a show of hands from all who believe his "I wasn't expecting the burlesque show at ALL" story? ... yeah, me either). While he was there, he picked up some interesting mushrooms from a large stall in the square. He whipped up a delicious mushroom-asparagus sauté that night, which I was able to enjoy for lunch the day after I returned from California. This was Tuesday.

On Thursday, I spent the day with my new Finnish friend, a wonderful woman named Heini, who took me to some of Helsinki's underground (literally, in several cases) book stores. We had a lovely time, said good bye, and I headed home. Three steps into my return journey, I realized I needed to find a WC muy pronto (I know it's Spanish, shut up). I did make it in time, but let's just say it was the longest 4 blocks of my life.

This weekend, Jason was excited to take us to "our new market," so we trekked across the city on Saturday morning. Our #1 mission was to find more of those strange, delicious mushrooms. Finally, we found them, and expressed our joy to the saleswoman. As we helped ourselves to handfuls of the fleshy shrooms, she said, "You know that these are poisonous, right?"

Us:   "Um ... no."

Shroom Lady:   "Yes, they're poisonous unless you cook them properly. Then they're perfectly fine."

Jason:  "Oh. That's funny, I bought these same mushrooms last week from someone else. They didn't say anything about them being poisonous."

(Looks of panic from all three people working at the stall ... awkward shuffling)

SL: "Well, um, let me give you a pamphlet about how to cook them. I think I have one in English." (Gives us the pamphlet. The rest of the crew is still staring at us.)

J: "I even ate some of them raw to see how they tasted."

(Really wide eyes from the crew.)

At this point we're properly freaked out, so we politely take our leave and beeline for the internet. Hoping we don't drop dead on the way home.

Turns out that yes, these mushrooms are poisonous and illegal in almost all countries besides Finland. National regulations state they have to be sold along with a displayed warning and instruction pamphlet. Evidently, you're supposed to cut them in tiny pieces and boil them twice, throw out the water, avoid inhaling the steam ... none of which we did. Signs of poisoning include several uncomfortable symptoms including my urgent shuffle home earlier in the week, although many people eat these mushrooms for years and have no ill effects.

I won't give the name or link to any info here, so as not to worry our friends and family, but suffice to say, Jason and I spent plenty of time running through every horrible "what-if" scenario. Now we just joke about that one time we poisoned each other. The toxins stick around your system for 5-7 days, which officially puts us both out of the woods now. Can't wait to make them again (just kidding, Mom).

Other, happier highlights from the weekend include an impressive Samba Parade (Samba seems to be quite popular in Finland ... who knew?)

and a trip to Seurasaari—an open-air museum, where we walked through several Finnish farm homes and churches, preserved from the 18th to 20th Centuries.

Bad Ice Cream Alert - Tar

The common Finnish ice cream flavor "Terva" is translated into English as "Tar," but I wouldn't want to pave my street with it (it would melt and be sticky) and I certainly wouldn't want to put it in my mouth, unless I were guilty of some heinous, crime-against-dairy-food, and felt I needed to be punished severely.

This is some of the foulest tasting stuff I have ever eaten, and I've put down some gnarly stuff in my time. Thankfully, Kim brilliantly asked for a taste of it (in typically non-Finnish style) before I went up and ordered a massive scoop of it. We disagreed slightly on exactly how it tasted, though (other than horribly). Kim was convinced it had an odd, slightly rancid, meat flavor. I think it tasted like a shoe factory smells.

Ice cream should be pleasant and fun and not make you gag or hate cows. When in Finland, avoid Tar.

Bachelor Weekend, Finland Style

So Kim went back to the states for a long weekend, which left me to my own doings. I originally had grand plans to go someplace totally random, like Vilnius, or Warsaw, but it turns out that you basically need your own emirate to afford air travel here in the summer. Also, in case you haven't looked at a map recently, international train travel from Finland doesn't offer a great many opportunities.

At least the weather was going to be crappy too, with temperatures dipping into the low 40's, with drizzle. Ah, Spring. I was half-tempted to sit in our apartment all weekend and watch a trilogy of movie trilogies on my ipod until I completely lost my eyesight and my butt cheeks actually grafted to the fabric of the couch. However, I kept having visions of some of the more well-traveled people in my life (e.g., Brett, Jerry, and Kim's Aunt Arlene) shaking their heads and clicking their tongues at me for being, well, a lazy sack of crap. So in their honors, I decided to make a go of it. Here's what I got to, for better or for worse.

Friday Night

Some guys at work told me about a colleague who was in a band so I went to check it out. This provided the opportunity to a) interact with locals, which is the point, I think, b) see a pretty decent band, and c) catch a burlesque show that opened for the band. I wasn't really expecting the burlesque bit (nor were many people in the audience), but stuck it out because, hey, when in Rome. As it turns out, the show was fairly tame (I think members of the audience had fewer clothes on), so no harm done. I also stayed out until 3 am, which (Kim will tell you) is pretty impressive for me.

Saturday

I woke up (late) and realized that rations were low, so I thought I'd head to a new market, that's supposed to be a little less touristy than the one Kim and I frequent. They were right. The average age in this place was about 107, and everyone was in my way. But the cold smoked reindeer I got there was worth it. Incidentally, if any of you find yourself in Helsinki looking for a fresh cut of hyvenen, I know where to send you now. At night I went to the WORLD CUP QUALIFIER MATCH (capitalization apparently required by Finnish law) between the local boys in blue and the mighty soccer powerhouse that is Liechtenstein. As an exercise in perspective, you should know that the Olympic Stadium (where the match was held) seats 40,000 people, which is 5,000 more people than the opposing team has in its entire country. Good game, with the home team winning 2-1 (a virtual slug-fest in soccer terms).

Sunday

This was the day of total mannishness. I hopped a train to Hämeenlinna, which is noted for three things: 1) A Castle, 2) A Prison Museum, and 3) and Artillery Museum. The only way to inject more testosterone into Hämeenlinna would be to elect Chuck Norris as mayor.

So I hit the castle first, which was awesome because it was super old, and because they give you free tour-guides who have to dress up in costumes from a drama club version of Romeo and Juliet. My guide was great. Very knowledgeable, but I kind of felt like he saw the inside of a locker a lot in high school for knowing so much about castles. Think of any classic comic book character in the opening scenes before they were bitten by the radioactive spider and you'll know what I mean. Here are some castle snaps:

After the castle, I hit the prison museum, where sadly, there were no costumed tour guides. It wasn't Alcatraz by any stretch, but it was a fun and educational way to confirm in my mind that I would not do well in a prison situation. Here is a terrible, fuzzy picture of me in the Finnish Prison Shower (note: that is a sentence that I never really anticipated ever needing to type):

I skipped the artillery museum, because I saw a lot of it from the window of the castle and because I was hungry, and because you can only look at so many big green guns before they start to lose their emotional impact. After lunch I went to what was maybe the worst art museum ever. The art itself was ok, but the guy at the ticket deck was a total jackass, and I hate museums that don't let you take pictures. I get that flash photography may hurt old paintings, but why can't I take a picture without a flash? In a fit of pique, I sketched a painting that I thought Kim would like and have included it below for your enjoyment:

The painting was called "Jaa-Ei," which translates to "Yes-No" and is of a girl with a flower in her hand doing the whole "he loves me, he loves me not" thing. I thought it was fun. Maybe I can get Kim to paint a reproduction and then take hundreds of photos of it. That'll show 'em.

I closed out the bachelor weekend by seeing the latest Terminator movie, which I give a solid "meh," and will probably never think of again.

Kim's back now (thankfully), so we will return to our regularly scheduled (slightly less manly) programming.

A New Language Instruction Method

I've had the same conversation with three different Finns in the last 24 hours.  They went something like this:

Me: Your English is perfect. Seriously, I feel like I should forward all of my work emails to you before they go out so you can correct the grammar and improve my vocabulary. Have you spent much time in the States or the UK?

Finn X (note to self: when I finally get around to making a comic book, I think "Finn X" would be a killer name for the super-villain): I've been to the UK once, but only then in the airport. I've never been to the US. I learned basic English grammar in school, and then everything else came from watching television. Almost everything we watch on TV growing up comes from the US.

I suppose this makes sense. When you have a nation of only 5 million people or so, you need to focus your local workforce on things like doctors, police officers, sauna/cell phone manufacturers, and metal bands, which doesn't leave a whole lot of manpower to produce your CSI-Helsinki, or Iron Chef Finland (theme ingredient: baltic herring), etc. Virtually all Finnish TV and movies are imported and, with the exception of children's programs, all of it is subtitled, and none of it dubbed. I guess you watch enough TV here, and you pick up all sorts of vocabulary. I thought this was a brilliant method of inspiring a nation to learn more languages, but was troubled when one guy told me that his favorite show growing up was Knight Rider, and that he learned most of his English from David Hasselhoff. Education? Sure, but at what cost?

If I were Finnish, I would have grown up learning English from the cast of M*A*S*H and the A-Team. Not without repercussions, I would expect.

Turku - Slipped up on daylight

You never really think about how daylight can mess with your head until it's around you constantly. Fortunately, I qualify this as the "good" type of messing with your head, like the flavors at our favorite Seattle ice cream shop or a non-deportation-related relocation to Finland in the space of 7 days, as opposed to the "bad" type of messing with your head, which includes navigating airline websites, or any movie by David Lynch.

Kim and I find ourselves eating dinner at 10:30 and staying up way past midnight, because we just can't fathom the idea that it can be this light out all the time and not be 5:30 in the afternoon. Our digestive tracts have no idea what to do with us.

This weekend we visited Turku, the capital of Finland when Helsinki was little more than a fishing village, and the daylight was never more evident. Incidentally, if Kim and I lived in Finland, Turku is probably where we would retire. It's all walkable, there's a river through the middle of town, a big market square, and a huge castle from the 1300s. Plus the people are bubbly by Finnish standards. We were out one evening for a drink and the bartenders, completely unsolicited, told us that the weather was going to be nice while we were there and then asked where we were from. Can you believe it? I know that may not sound very outgoing, but compared to the typical Finn, those guys may as well have stripped naked and rattled off their full medical histories.

Here is a picture of the Cathedral in Turku. The time on the clock tower is approaching 10:30. I want you to understand that it is 10:30 pm:

Weird, huh? Here's another shot that same night, around midnight, as you can tell by the clock:

I don't know how people convince their bodies that it's time to sleep. I guess they invest in good curtains, or something.

I would definitely go back to Turku, but maybe next time during the Medieval Market, which is supposed to be a big deal, especially for recovering Renaissance Festival attendees, like myself. Here  are a few more photos from Turku, to end this on the proper Huzzah:

Yes, the hats were "meant" for kids. I apologize for nothing.