Sunrises, Snowfall, Serenity....and politics!

Siilinjärvi sunrise...it turned into a beautiful day!

So, as usual this year, I feel like I'm behind on posts...and there's so much to say!  It's not that school has been particularly eventful, I just have been filling my very little free time with loads of fun things - plus I have some cultural tidbits....

Going for a walk this morning...it was fanastic!!  These trees are behind the lutheran church where the best tobogganing hill in town is and also a groomed stadium loop for skiing

Shortly after Scott left (almost 3 weeks ago), I was lucky enough to spend the weekend sitting on a frozen lake. ahem.  Ok...so I was ice fishing, and it was cold and unproductive.  But catching fish is not the point right?  More important is spending a day outside, with a friend or two and taking in what mother nature has to offer.  Well..it sure helps if you catch a fish (we didn't), expecially if it's -15 and horizontally snowing due to the wind. yup...that was day 1.  The second day was a definite improvement in terms of the weather...and we actually caught something! ok, so it was just one little perch...but the golden sunlight certainly made it a good day!  I feel like ice fishing is a quintessentially Finnish activity...or Canadian for that matter.  I'm still not sure what the attraction is to sitting around a hole in the ice and freezing....but then again, I've never caught a fish doing that either.

 Ice fishing (pilkkiminen) day 1: -16 blowing snow and darkness....

I've started to play a little hockey on my evenings and weekends which is great because 1) it's free, 2) it's good exercise and 3) it's fun with friends.  I am not a hockey player by any stretch of the imagination, I can skate ok (forwards and backwards)...but using a stick and a puck, well, I'm pretty dismal.  But that's not the point, so I just keep trying to keep up with the finnish guys who skate circles around me.  I did play hockey on the UBC Forestry team in my undergrad, but it was basically a "beer league." People would join the team as an excuse to drink beer afterwards, but our games were so late that the bars were usually closed by the time we finished playing, so we didn't even go for beers.  Now, I find myself on the ice with guys who have been serious about the game at one point or another, so it's safe to say that I just can't keep up.  But they're really good about keeping me in the game and sometimes I feel like I am the most aggressive player on the ice. ha!  Anyways, that came to get me last week when I ended up bonking heads a bit with a friend.  Good thing I have a thick skull!! (seriously I do...just ask any family member)  We both left with pretty solid lumps on our heads...more specifically my face.  The lump is gone now, but I sure have some interesting colours to show for it!

oops...it's the new one-eyed makeup trend...ahem

Other exciting news in Finland is that the Presidential election is going on right now.  I'm still not entirely sure how the Finnish political system works, but what I do know is that they have both a President and a Prime Minister.  The Prime Minister is the head of the party with the most seats in parliament and is responsible for forming the executive cabinet.  The President is elected independent of the parliament process and has a fairly large amount of power within the state...the commander-in-chief of the Finnish Defense Forces, veto power on legislation, and conducting most foreign affairs.   Each president is elected for a 6-year term and can serve a maximum of 2 terms; the current president, Traja Halonen (with an uncanny resemblance of Conan O'Brien) is at the end of her second term so it is time for the new one.  A president must be elected with more than 50% of the vote, so with many candidates, this usually takes 2 rounds to establish.  In the first round the top two candidates are selected (unless there is a clear winner), then in the second round it is the top one of 2 that becomes president. Last weekend the first vote took place where the National Coalition Party (Sauli Niinistö) and the Green League (Pekka Haavisto) candidates were selected to continue to the second round.  It was expected that Niinistö would easily win (which he did), but it was a bit of a surprise that Haavisto got the second seat in round 2.  It's the very first time a Green League candidate has made it this far in the elections...and Haavisto is openly gay.  With these two facts, I do not think a generally conservative Finnish society that is rooted in tradition will see him as their next president.  However, many supporters are just happy to see the breakthrough to the second round of voting! ...and others are just surprised...

the river is not steaming because the water is warm...it's just that the air is colder

Another finn-ism that I have taken part in last week is attending the Jääkarhut club.  This literally translates to "ice bears," but is essentially a polar bear club.  You know the New Year's Day polar bear swim? Well...this is similar...it is also known as ice swimming...or jumping in the hole in the ice to swim in the frozen lake.  Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....brrr. There are beautiful facilities there...shower, change room, heated dock, sauna, aerators to keep the hole open, and lights on the bottom for swimming at night.  The systeemi is that you start by paying for admission, getting changed into your swimsuit, taking a quick cold shower, then soaking up the heat of the sauna for as long as you comfortably can.  The next step is where things get challenging...leave the sauna into sub zero temperatures, walk down the dock (it may be icy as the heating system doesn't work so well below -15) and then slowly walk down the stairs at the end of the dock to lower yourself into the water!!  there's no jumping to get it over with...only the stairs.  I can't even describe how it feels!!!  It's so cold that it doesn't even feel cold...it's like having a serious sunburn and being stabbed with thousands of tiny ice needles through your skin!  You feel truly alive...or foolish and full of regret for ever agreeing to do it. Once you make it down the first staircase and into the water, then you can swim (or jump, or scream, or splash) your way over to the second staircase about 2m away to get yourself out of the water and back into the balmy -15 (or colder!) air.  On the 25m walk back up the dock to the sauna, your hair usually becomes a solid block of ice in the minute you are outside.  phew! ...and then back into the sauna to regain lost body heat.  This can be repeated as often as you would like, but be careful...it's easy to get light-headed and fall over with all your blood rushing to the extremes!  If you're really interested in this sort of  torture, there is even Winter Swimming Championships that you can participate in...though they seem to spend more time in the water and less time in the sauna.  Overall...was it fun? sort of, exciting for sure.....would I do it again? yes, most likely!

Hooray for arctic air!  Sunshine, blue skies, and cold.  These wepping birch (rauduskoivui, Betula pendula) were coated in ice crystals in our past week of -10 and freezing fog, but now they're brilliant!

In the weather...
After endless -10 and cloudy/snowing/freezing fog, Russia has finally shared it's arctic high-pressure system with us...i.e. it's finally sunny!!  This is definitely the most beautiful weather possible (at anytime of year)...snow, cold, blue sky, and low, golden sun!  This morning it was a bit chilly (-26), but I went for a long walk down the river to the lake, which was absolutely stunning!  It was a bit noisy as the snow was incredibly squeaky, but totally breathtaking!  This makes all the clouds and darkness of winter worthwhile....

sun on snow event...much better than a rain on now event!

Well, I had better get to studying for my exam tomorrow..."Bioenergy Markets and Policies..." ugh.  Enjoy the rest of the weekend!!

Ice on the weeping willow

On a morning walk!

Happy Holiday - Part 2: From Joensuu to Lapland and back again

....Holidays Continued....

14:45 Joensuu sunset. Jan 1

Scott and I returned to Joensuu on Dec 29.  Our long train ride from Helsinki was mostly in the daylight, so we managed to see most of the countryside along the tracks.  It was the most crowded train that I have ever been on in Finland and we had huge bags to contend with.  I managed to borrow a student card from a fellow international student, so both Scott and I travelled for half-price (32€ each).  On Finnish trains, each passenger is assigned a seat and these seat assignments are strictly adhered to (it is the systeemi). The seats are set in pairs on either side of the aisle running down the centre of the car.  Typically, each person is assigned a seat for themselves and there is an empty seat beside them for coats, bags, etc....unless the train is busy.  Half the car faces forwards, the others face backwards, and at the midpoint 4 people get to face each other on either side of the aisle.  Scott and I were assigned to 2 of the 4 seats that face each other.  I assumed (without checking) that our seats were both at the window facing each other...so we sat down by the window and settled in for the long ride.

Lining up along the river to watch the fireworks...

At the very first stop, and elderly lady (with no English) pointed at me...and then to her ticket...and then to me again....then looked at her ticket....apparently I was in her spot.  She was very nice and spoke to me (in Finnish) and apologized (in Finnish) and, once settled, started to talk about the weather (in Finnish).  It was at that point when I gave up on smiling and nodding and told her that I really didn't speak Finnish.  The elderly lady's arrival also complicated matters because we all had huge bags (hers was on wheels) that would not fit into the overhead compartment.  So we had mounds of baggage piled around us as the train rolled away from the first stop.  Eventually, the conductor came by and indicated to the elderly lady that she could move across the aisle to the seats where only 1 of 4 was currently occupied.  She declined.  At another stop about an hour into the trip, a "young lady" (my age, maybe a bit younger) came up and told Scott that he was in her seat...hmm...things seemed a bit odd.  So...(finally - I should have done this sooner)...I re-checked our tickets.  It turns out that I sat us down on the wrong side of the aisle...AND...we were supposed to be sitting beside each other, not across.  After yet another awkward baggage and seat shuffle, we were finally seated in the correct place and our bags were stored out of the way. phew.  That was a little embarrassing.

Very very cool ice formations.  They were frozen together so you could walk out onto them.  I was pretty hesitant to do this (they look broken before you even go on them), but other people clearly were...ultimately I didn't fall in!

 Finally, I was home again...time to catch up with friends!  We spent the next couple of days around Joensuu going for coffee, walks, beers...generally relaxing and catching up on laundry and vegetable consumption. Most of the days were absolutely beautiful...-10, sunny (well...somewhat sunny), and no wind.  There was some fresh snow for New Years' so we started out the new year with a fresh feeling.  For New Years' Eve, we went to a friends house quite near to mine, then watched the fireworks at midnight from the bridge near my house.  It was supposed to be a potluck party, but seeing how it was hosted by a Spanish, the dinner invitation was for 9pm.  A bit too late for me...for dinner at least.  So we had some food at home, baked an epic gingerbread house (for the potluck) then headed out.  Scott was the main chemist, engineer, and landscape architect for our gingerbread property, while I focused on construction.  In the end, there was a house, 4 trees, a sauna, an outhouse, a log pile, 3 men (the same size as the house),  a firewood pile, and....of course...a feller-buncher (harvester)!!!

Hyvää Uutta Vuotta!!  Happy New Year!

The theory for decorating the gingerbread house was that we would take the required icing and candies to the party where it could be a group contribution.  First, we went to one of the fantastic candy stores here in Joensuu that has bins and bins and bins of different candies and chocolates.  Just take a paper bag and a scoop and you are set to take as much of whatever you would like.  It's dangerous.  We each filled a bag for home decoration.  There was a surprisingly low rate of attrition on the candy bowl prior to decoration...in the end, there were still enough candies left to produce this house:

Gingerbread house of epic-ness!!

New Years day we went for a long walk, but by January 2 we were getting bored of being around Joensuu.  So...we booked a trip to Lapland...for the next day!  Scott found that you get a 20% discount on the cottage-booking website if you book 24 hours or less in advance...so he found a cottage and booked it for the rest of the week.  I found the cheapest car rental in Joensuu...and January 3 we were off!!

Bare Birches

Well...it wasn't quite that simple...we had to finish laundry, go grocery shopping, find a printer to print of the invoice, go to the bank to pay the invoice...and pick up the car.  Then drive 9 hours.  Pickup the key. Drive another hour...and finally we were there. That was a looong day!  There was a bit of stress on the day too because we had to be at the gas station in Sodankylä to pick up the key before it closed at 9pm.  And we couldn't leave Joensuu until after I had done the banking, BUT the bank didn't open until 10am! The weather was less than spectacular, so the driving was slooow (nice for sitting at home, but not nice for driving).  We got lost twice, which wasn't bad considering we made the trip without a mapbook of any kind.  I wrote down some directions from GoogleMaps, but there were insufficient when it came to changing highways in the middle of cities.  We finally made it to the gas station to pick up the key with 20 minutes to spare.

In the cottage looking out....

We spent the rest of the week enjoying what we could of the very short days (2 hours of daylight) and enjoying the sauna even more!  We spent many hours playing card games, but discovered that we really didn't know very many card games!  It was a bit sad actually as we have both spent sooo many hours playing cards in our lives, but couldn't get beyond Euchre, Crazy-8, and Black Jack. 

Lappish koivu (birch).  They just have soo much character!!  plus, with the snowfall...and Sininenhetki ("Blue Moment")

On our long drive home, we stopped at Rovaniemi where we visited the Arctic Circle, Santa's village, and the K-City Market. We went to the grocery store (K-City Market) to pick up some reindeer meat (Poronlihaa) for stew and a few snacks for the rest of the drive...back to Joensuu...

The fantastic blowing-snow visibility on the drive home....

It seemed like all too soon I was back in school again.  Then, Scott was leaving...and now he's gone back home...

Cookin' up the Reindeer stew!!

Wow, that was a ridiculously long post!!  Hope you enjoyed it! ...thanks for sticking it out!

Happy Holidays - Part 1: From Estonia to Copenahgen

So, after a somewhat extended holiday from blogging, I getting back to things.  I've decided that my holidays should be broken into two section, so here's the first of the two.

Medieval city walls of Tallinn with a modern market.

After our booze-cruise over to Tallinn from Helsinki, Scott and I spent a couple of nights at a B&B just outside of Tallinn and explored the old town...a bit.  The town really is interesting, however the weather was less than ideal with windy bouts of mixed rain and snow forcing us into a café or museum on a regular basis.  Parts of the city wall are still standing from when they were constructed in Medieval times and the buildings lining the narrow cobblestone streets are ranging in age, but most are over 100 years old.  The city itself was constructed upon a good-sized hill overlooking the surrounding countryside (now the modern part of the city) and the Gulf of Finland (Baltic Sea).  This classic walled-city-in-a-hill was surrounded by moats as an additional defense at the base of the hill.  Some sections of these can still be seen today and are used as ponds in parks.

Pärnu beach when the storm finally broke.  I can see how it would be very nice in the summer....

We moved on from Tallinn and took a bus southwards to the town Pärnu.  The primary purpose of this trip was to see more of the Estonian countryside and forests as well as to get a feel for a smaller town that was not inundated by drunk Finns.  Pärnu is THE summer resort town of the Baltic States.  Seeing how it was mid December...the town was all but abandoned.  I'm quite sure we were the only tourists in town for the entire week (we were only there for 1 night).  It was really interesting to see the town and locals without throngs of holiday-ers.  The streets were pretty much dead as the weather continued to worsen and no-one ventured outside...except us. And we froze.  On the plus side, Pärnu has some really interesting old-style wooden houses.  You can see remnants of building like these in Joensuu and other towns around Finland, but they haven't been restored as nicely as the ones in Pärnu.  Instead, old wooden buildings like these are often torn down "for public safety" or because they are too expensive to maintain in Finland.  I guess the tourist dollars are sufficient in Pärnu to maintain the old-style buildings.  Pärnu has a huge and beautiful beach...the only South-facing beach in the Baltics!  Unfortunately, we couldn't see the beach because the huge waves had swallowed it up all the way to the dunes.  We couldn't even see the shoreline due to the heavy precipitation.  It was almost dark out, the surf was surging and the waves were wild...but...of course, there was someone out kite-boarding (not sure if that is the technical term for it) back and forth along the shoreline.  Crazy. Or stupid.  Not sure which.  Fortunately, we made a second trip to the beach the next day and it was almost sunny.  Overall, Estonia is similar to Finland, but with heavy Russian overtones (they were a Soviet State until 1990)

Pärnu downtown.  I loved the brilliant colours used to paint the buildings!

After an uneventful trip back to Helsinki, we took off to Copenhagen for Christmas with family.  After a long journey on Helsinki public transit (while fully loaded with baggage), we made it to the airport and had a quick flight to Copenhagen.  Once in Copenhagen, we took the train to North Zealand and met my aunt with whom we stayed for a few days.  Although it should've just been a simple flight, the trains and busses on either end made it feel more like an epic than than a quick hop over the Baltic Sea.  My Aunt lives near an extensive forest with extensive walking trails and a large lake  (It used to be the King's forest for hunting, timber production, and horses).   It is the same forest that we would hear stories of back at UBC Forestry....

Forest edge near Nødebo: an old oak tree, field and lake

The Danes used to have one of the most powerful navies in Europe, however, it was taken by surprise in their harbour (through some miscommunication) by the English.  At the end of the day, there were basically no ships left as the English sailed home with them when the Danes (through another miscommunication) surrendered.  Of course, the fleet had to be rebuilt after this, but there were no suitable oak trees to be found.  So the King ordered that an oak forest be planted to rebuild his navy and ensure the Danes would continue to have a formidable navy for generations to come.  The forest was ready to harvest in the mid 1990's...and was not used to build a wooden navy fleet (hard to believe, I know...)  The trees still stand today, but are slowly being harvested and used in building restorations and ship recreations.

Garden paths at the Summer Palace

We then met Mille in Copenhagen, but soon set out for the city centre where we spent the afternoon at the botanical gardens and wandering the streets of downtown, just taking in the Christmas madness of downtown Copenhagen on Dec 23, the day before Christmas.  In Scandinavia and Nordic countries (I'm not sure what other countries too), Christmas is celebrated on Christmas eve, Dec 24, and Dec 25 is really a non-event.  Mostly just a day of food-hangovers.  Dec 24 we all (4 of us) piled into the little car and headed West to spend Christmas Eve with more family.  Christmas Eve was really fantastic, although I didn't know most of the people very well, I felt very welcome and part of the family.  We had afternoon coffee, snacks, Christmas dinner (with 2 courses and all the traditional fixings), dessert, and more coffee, and more treats.  I was soo full I thought I couldn't move.  Somehow, after all that eating (amazing food!) we managed to make it across town to church for Midnight Mass.  For those of you who don't know me very well, I'm not a religious person.  In fact, this was the first time that I have ever been to church for a reason other than a wedding or funeral.  However, this seemed like the perfect opportunity for a first time: Christmas with family and friends.  I did enjoy the service (ok, so I didn't understand much....it was in Danish...I understand more Finnish than Danish now), but I probably won't start doing it regularly.  Finally we were off to bed and Christmas Eve was over.

Roskilde Cathedral - the burial place of the Danish Royal Family

Scott investigating the engineering strategy of a home-made armored vehicle

 The next few days were spent touring the city and catching up on digestion...and eating a bit more of course.  Mille even took us up to the castle at Helsingor (Kronborg Slot), which was as really nice outing for the day.  The weather started out nasty, but the wind blew the clouds out in a hurry and we enjoyed a very windy, but sunny, day along the sea...looking across at Sweden.  Soon, we were saying our goodbyes...took the awkward baggage-laden trip on public transit across Copenhagen...and hopped on the plane back to Helsinki. We arrived late at night, so we stayed in a hostel and took the train back up to Joensuu the next day.

In the Chapel at Kronborg Slot