And So We Praised The Lordi

Young and old, thirsty and curious gathered together last night to meet the monsters. There were over 90,000 of us poor souls.


At the same time, around Mannerheimintie by Vanha Ylioppilastalo, there was another monster and his party bus. Danny, we know you sport a rubber face just like our Eurovision Lordi, why don't ya come on out.




In the husky blue night of Hel, the biggest winners were the beer sellers.



Oh, all that tender joy of urine streams gliding on the streets of Hel.



Jesus tried to compete with our newest Lordi in the form of a party bus.






Dark guy and Jesus Pics by Ari, pics with boy and Danny by Minna.

So How Safe Is Finland Exactly?

This wise map was published after the horrors took place in London underground.

The land of the pale and the boring is also the least corrupted land on Earth. They also claim Hel to be one of the safest cities in the world.

Hel - the art of uneventfulness.

The Incredibly Fantaaabulous First of May

There it was, the human sea and the heavenly sun, perfect with picnic tables and popping corks.

And there they were, the vast bins for sparkling wine bottle recycling. Child labour was boldly used with the lure of 'You get us 20 bottles and we give you a movie ticket'.

It worked. 20 000 bottles got recycled, and this was only the sparkling wine department. We Finns are so pro with our alcohol. All hail Wappu, the First of May!

They do it in every position

It's still taking me some adjusting to see and hear weirdly behaving people in the streets of Hel.

One day while in the tram, I saw a girl outside leaning heavily forward, carrying a cello on her back and covering her ears with her hands wrapped in thick gloves.

Was she showing her existential anxiety like in Munch's painting 'Scream'?

'Stop the noise, I want to get out of this world.'

It took me a moment to realize she was only talking on her cell, covering her other ear to hear better.

Then there are all the people filling the beautiful, solitary, potentially silent moments walking on the shore and in the parks - by talking on the phone. And they do it while riding their bikes. And there's the guy walking around in circles in front of my window, holding a ciggie in one hand and a cell in the other.

I'm only killing the sounds of nature with my iPod headphones.

Unleashing the spring bambies

Happy red flag, and a new (at least new to me) quirky way to keep those little cycling bambies tied to their parents.

The basket ball field in front of our home was invaded by crowds of other type of bambies once the snow was gone a couple of weeks ago. Now that we have full daylight till 9 pm, jumping and playing gnomes and giants hop around all night long.

With 12 degrees today, I ain't no complainin'.

No more skiing on ice

It took a bleedin' while to get it started, but when the ice got going, it was completely gone in a few days. Pack yer skis and get ready for swimming with dolphins.

The pic above was taken in mid March, the one below a month later.

Now, we just need a few leaves to go with these birches. Impatience is a noble act. Glue and green paper, anyone?

TV humour

A while ago, I happened to see a brief interview with Martin Gore of Depeche Mode on tv here in Hel. The young lady interviewing finished the interview by asking Gore what the motto of Depeche Mode is (!). Gore rolled his eyes for a while and then replied: 'We fear change.'

Poor girl stared back with a stern face. The irony of Hel.

They want us so bad

I should try to remember that before they place the telepathy chip in my brain, no one can read the blog postings I have planned in my head. What a lazy ass I'm with my blog.

Nine months in the application process and unexpectedly back in Hel, we received a luvly letter from the other side of the ocean saying they'd be happy to give us the permanent residenceship. Whooopeeee! If only we'd figure out a way to use it wisely.

April sleet ain't good enough a reason to flee this techy country. Besides, all my fave bands are performing in Hel in April and May. Sorry Canada, you have to wait.

Almost patio weather

The smell of spring hormones lingers in the air. Fancy a drink outside with kisses from the spring sun? Hear the softly roaring sea?

Took this photo yesterday in our backyard. Yes, the sea is frozen, and yes, it says 'No winter maintenance' on the sign.

I want to cry into my snowy icy champagne.

Hamster wheel Friday

It's St. Patrick's Day.

Here in Hel, it only shows in the Google logo, and perhaps later in the few Oirish Pubs we have in town.

I'm drinking too strong coffee in stupid quantities, which makes me feel like this:

http://www.kossan.se/hamster_i_hjul.htm

Soon heading out to enjoy the sun.

Nothing to do with saints, but I've been meaning to mention about this fantabulously entertaining blog (completely in Finnish, I'm afraid) taking place in Van:

http://maksuttapuistoon.blogspot.com/

Funny and great with wording, too: our national curling hero's surname Uuspaavalniemi (literally = Newpaulcape) turns into Vanhapietarpoukama (=Oldpeterbay) in his blog.

Best web cam in Van

It's easy to fall in love with Vancouver again by looking at this:

http://www.numinous.ca/Webcam%20Page.htm

Early morning rhythms taste sour

Bad domestic beer on the train turned into nice white wine after all. Drunk with sunlight and my friend's good news on the train, after lots of babbling we suddenly remembered we needed to eat something and got our food just ten minutes before arriving at Tampere. Salmon soup with the moving snowy scenery was great.

Enjoyed the premiere of the documentary 'Kenen joukoissa seisot', dealing with the popular political singing movement of the seventies. Had no idea how much media interest it would gain. What o' different world it was back then. What o' lovely innocent faith in making the world a better place.

http://www.tamperefilmfestival.fi/2006/fin/kauppa.html

A great day had a stupid end; we waited for Giant Robot to start playing till 1am. There were two rapping idiots wasting everyone's time, performing some bad stuff before the real music came out. Yeah yeah, I have been e-mailing the list of Chuck Norris' fab qualities around, but hearing that it was Chuck Norris' 66th birthday accompanied by some bad jokes didn't make me laugh. http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/

In today's Helsingin Sanomat, there's an article of audience and some bands, too, wanting the gigs to start sooner rather than later.

Concerts at large venues usually start nicely around 9pm or 10pm, even earlier, and I think that it's still okay at smaller clubs to get the band on stage anytime before midnight. But at 1am all the anticipation has run dry.

I'm an old lady and need my sleep.