Finally the nice weather has returned, I think we have just about reached the point where one can walk out the door wearing no more layers than a T-shirt and expect to be warm most of the time (except for during the random outbreaks of torrential rain, but I guess they come with the warmth). This is quite a good thing, obviously.
These past few weeks have been pretty leisurely, I am enjoying for once being a mere spectator to the plainitive cries of those stuck in the revision mill, even if the prospect of most people I know finishing exams 1 month before my last lecture is slightly daunting. I have to remind myself that just because I haven't been given a big long holiday in which to freak out about exams, doesn't mean I don;t have any. Even if one of them IS a multiple choice exam. You know, before university the last multiple choice exam I did was probably the 11+, this is the second time I've had one at university... To be fair, this is only a fragment of one course unit. A weird fragmentary effect tends to occur with many courses consisting of sets of lectures by 4 different people. When this leads to 4 separate exams this can be pretty annoying. As far as I can guess this is further evidence for my theory that you're probably supposed to read deeply about the small number of things you're actually interested in and coast through the rest. I'm not really into that attitude, but I will see what I can do. A lot of the exams would mormally be held in september, which is a it rubbish for me, as I will have to fit them in before I leave.
On leaving: If you had asked me a couple of months ago if I was ready to leave in 2 months, I think I might have said yes,but now spring/summer are here I'm not so sure. Chatting with Ash about London has realy brought to the forefront of my mind how amazing it is to live somewhere this pleasant, in weather as much as architecture or people, and I think it will make the walk back from Manor House to 80 Warwick Gardens (if that is indeed where I end up living) on an overcast day in October just that little bit more forbidding. Ho hum, that's what you get for daring to widen your horizons I guess!
Speaking of 'widening my horizons', (which is in itself one of those beautiful school foreign language lesson catch-all phrases that can be used to pepper oral or essay work at will), I have a feeling my grand TV experiment may be working. Ever the scientist, I cannot be sure whether to attribute my recent improvement in German to watching TV almost every day, to some kind of psychological factor where I think I should be getting better so I do, or something else entirely, of course. It helps that I am practising regularly with Ruth on our now twice weekly climbing trips to the Haus des Meeres Flakturm. When Hitler ordered the building of these concrete behemoths, I doubt he imagined he was creating opportunities for future climbing wall-sea life centre combos... I must remember to take my camera one day. And subsequently remember not to drop it from a 30m climbing wall...
Hmm, I gues there are many half finished thoughts that have drifted in and out of my head in the last few weeks, but I can't remember them now thus they are by definition unimportant.
Enjoy your election hype, Britain fans!
TG
Thursday 29 April 2010
Thursday 22 April 2010
Decidedly non-volcanic Ash
I thought of the hilarious pun above ages ago, and almost didn't use it after it transpired that my parents had already thought of it. Bang goes my originality, I thought. Nevertheless, I feel I should take the chance offered to me by my great benefactor geology.
Ash came to visit! And this time it wasn't -2 degrees, or snowing, and his flight wasn't even cancelled once! His arrival was mighty timely, for I was still in tourism mode from my Finland trip. I am really glad that he turned up and jolted me out of my routine and back into properly noticing Vienna. I had got into a bit of a rut, travelling only between home and university or occasionally the odd climbing wall or cafe, but this gave me a chance to spend a whole week showing off Vienna to Ash and myself and doing those things I kept 'meaning to do' but never did. Of course, part of my enewed enthusiasm for the city has been created by the spring weather too! My, it is lovely here at the moment, in between the rainstorms.
I hope Ash won't mind (as he posted this on his facebook status I'm guessing not) but I will allow you to browse through the photos of an actual photographer (that is Ash) this time. Simply go here and type the word Vienna in the box. Even with his non monstrous camera Ash captured some impressive shots. While you're there, check out his other work, I think you will agree it is pretty impressive.
When Ash arrived I took him on a proper long walk round the whole city in delicious sunshine. On the way I was shocked at how suddenly spring had crept up on all the parks and things I last remember looking at in about february, making them all green and flowery. This realisation that things had been growing all over the place really surprised me with how little I had visited these places recently. We went up the scaffold in the Karlskirche, as you can see in the pictures. The roof painting was incredible, the wobbling scaffolding (60m high), less so. Worth the entry price though! Ate tasty food at the restaurant with the self proclaimed best falafel in Vienna. Ooh yeah.
Tuesday we went to the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Hofburg museums (arms and armour and ancient musical instruments), both things I had kept meaning to do but never got round to. We only properly managed the Kunst half of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and even then it took several hours... Literally every pre 19th century painter of fame seemed to be there. The amount of talent and the sheer age of most of the stuff was a bit overwhelming. Highlights? Seeing several real Arcimboldos, (6 or so years after we had to constantly analyse the man's work for art lessons) the giant wall covering epics, the odd excellent Titian, seemingly almost everything done and still existing by a Dutch legend called Pieter Bruegel the Elder. All the people in his pictures had their own little expression and impression of a story behind them. Especially cool was 'The Battle Between Carnival and Lent'. Just take some time to look at all the brilliant characters! Also fascinating was an exhibition all about one single picture by Vermeer, and all the inspiration, methods, research, restoration and themes around it. I like the idea of knowing so much about just one picture by an artist.
Wandering around the Hofburg in seemingly endless classical marble halls surrounded by random ancient things, especially on a day when the museum was otherwise deserted, was a surreal experience reminiscent of exploring some kind of mystery computer game setting... The arms and armour collection was crazy. One of the largest in the world, and really what more is there to say than there was a LOT of exquisitely designed armour and weaponry on display. Some exquisitely designed but not actually meant for real use of course, as the ludicrous shield-gauntlet-sword-oil lamp-spike combo in Ash's pictures demostrates (if used it would have doused your arm in hot oil, apart from the many other design flaws). Equally interesting was the collection of old musical instruments. There are a LOT of ways to make noises, my goodness. The free audioguide was especially appreciated for this one, because really what use is looking at an instrument without knowing how it sounds?!
Thursday was spent at the zoo (sealion feeding! pandas! giraffes! you know what happens in zoos) which was pretty darn cool. As the afternoon sun (19 degrees ) began to go down we made it to the gradens arguably Vienna's most famous palace, Schoenbrunn. Stunning, even by Viennese standards. Friday we went to Bratislava. I feel this place gets a bad rap from people, yeah I suppose the biggest part of the city is just ugly tower blocks, but the old town and castle area (where we spent all our time) really is beautiful. Plus can you really complain about a place whre a 500ml 10% beer costs you €1.10? No, I thought not. A few of my photos of Bratislava can be found here.
Saturday the rain came down with a vengeance, but I still managed to give Ash a brief tour of the Naschmarkt and let myself be ritually ripped off by it. Gosh darn it, if only the food they rip you off with wasn't so tasty! The combination of bergkaese and true (in saltwater) pickled gherkins is definitely unbeatable. We also toured the Schatzkammer, I'd been before but you still can't really prepare yourself for that much sheer opulence and age... Sunday we went to the Naturhistorisches Museum, my favourite museum here, at least taken by number of visits (I think I have been 4 times at least). Every time it is fantastic, I cannot recommend it highly enough.
The last day and a bit of Ash's stay I had university, but we still managed to meet up in the evening for a semi traditional Siebensternbrauerei visit. Ash (against my advice) went for the chilli beer. He loved it, but seriously people, a warning, when they say chilli beer, they mean it! That beer has serious burn! As usual the food was stupidly filling but also stupidly tasty.
So yeah, there you go. Who knows soon you may find out what's been going on more recently.
Until then!
Der Tom
Ash came to visit! And this time it wasn't -2 degrees, or snowing, and his flight wasn't even cancelled once! His arrival was mighty timely, for I was still in tourism mode from my Finland trip. I am really glad that he turned up and jolted me out of my routine and back into properly noticing Vienna. I had got into a bit of a rut, travelling only between home and university or occasionally the odd climbing wall or cafe, but this gave me a chance to spend a whole week showing off Vienna to Ash and myself and doing those things I kept 'meaning to do' but never did. Of course, part of my enewed enthusiasm for the city has been created by the spring weather too! My, it is lovely here at the moment, in between the rainstorms.
I hope Ash won't mind (as he posted this on his facebook status I'm guessing not) but I will allow you to browse through the photos of an actual photographer (that is Ash) this time. Simply go here and type the word Vienna in the box. Even with his non monstrous camera Ash captured some impressive shots. While you're there, check out his other work, I think you will agree it is pretty impressive.
When Ash arrived I took him on a proper long walk round the whole city in delicious sunshine. On the way I was shocked at how suddenly spring had crept up on all the parks and things I last remember looking at in about february, making them all green and flowery. This realisation that things had been growing all over the place really surprised me with how little I had visited these places recently. We went up the scaffold in the Karlskirche, as you can see in the pictures. The roof painting was incredible, the wobbling scaffolding (60m high), less so. Worth the entry price though! Ate tasty food at the restaurant with the self proclaimed best falafel in Vienna. Ooh yeah.
Tuesday we went to the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Hofburg museums (arms and armour and ancient musical instruments), both things I had kept meaning to do but never got round to. We only properly managed the Kunst half of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and even then it took several hours... Literally every pre 19th century painter of fame seemed to be there. The amount of talent and the sheer age of most of the stuff was a bit overwhelming. Highlights? Seeing several real Arcimboldos, (6 or so years after we had to constantly analyse the man's work for art lessons) the giant wall covering epics, the odd excellent Titian, seemingly almost everything done and still existing by a Dutch legend called Pieter Bruegel the Elder. All the people in his pictures had their own little expression and impression of a story behind them. Especially cool was 'The Battle Between Carnival and Lent'. Just take some time to look at all the brilliant characters! Also fascinating was an exhibition all about one single picture by Vermeer, and all the inspiration, methods, research, restoration and themes around it. I like the idea of knowing so much about just one picture by an artist.
Wandering around the Hofburg in seemingly endless classical marble halls surrounded by random ancient things, especially on a day when the museum was otherwise deserted, was a surreal experience reminiscent of exploring some kind of mystery computer game setting... The arms and armour collection was crazy. One of the largest in the world, and really what more is there to say than there was a LOT of exquisitely designed armour and weaponry on display. Some exquisitely designed but not actually meant for real use of course, as the ludicrous shield-gauntlet-sword-oil lamp-spike combo in Ash's pictures demostrates (if used it would have doused your arm in hot oil, apart from the many other design flaws). Equally interesting was the collection of old musical instruments. There are a LOT of ways to make noises, my goodness. The free audioguide was especially appreciated for this one, because really what use is looking at an instrument without knowing how it sounds?!
Thursday was spent at the zoo (sealion feeding! pandas! giraffes! you know what happens in zoos) which was pretty darn cool. As the afternoon sun (19 degrees ) began to go down we made it to the gradens arguably Vienna's most famous palace, Schoenbrunn. Stunning, even by Viennese standards. Friday we went to Bratislava. I feel this place gets a bad rap from people, yeah I suppose the biggest part of the city is just ugly tower blocks, but the old town and castle area (where we spent all our time) really is beautiful. Plus can you really complain about a place whre a 500ml 10% beer costs you €1.10? No, I thought not. A few of my photos of Bratislava can be found here.
Saturday the rain came down with a vengeance, but I still managed to give Ash a brief tour of the Naschmarkt and let myself be ritually ripped off by it. Gosh darn it, if only the food they rip you off with wasn't so tasty! The combination of bergkaese and true (in saltwater) pickled gherkins is definitely unbeatable. We also toured the Schatzkammer, I'd been before but you still can't really prepare yourself for that much sheer opulence and age... Sunday we went to the Naturhistorisches Museum, my favourite museum here, at least taken by number of visits (I think I have been 4 times at least). Every time it is fantastic, I cannot recommend it highly enough.
The last day and a bit of Ash's stay I had university, but we still managed to meet up in the evening for a semi traditional Siebensternbrauerei visit. Ash (against my advice) went for the chilli beer. He loved it, but seriously people, a warning, when they say chilli beer, they mean it! That beer has serious burn! As usual the food was stupidly filling but also stupidly tasty.
So yeah, there you go. Who knows soon you may find out what's been going on more recently.
Until then!
Der Tom
Saturday 17 April 2010
Yet another post about Finland directly contradicting the title of this 'Weblog'
Happy volcanic ash week! The last one of these, and we can get back to where I actually, you know, live.
The train to Helsinki was uneventful but pleasant. Every finnish train I went on was extremely comfortable, very nice cushions for the head among other things. I just sat there and watched the trees and lakes slide past. I was looking out for a reduction in snow and although there was a bit, mostly it still looked pretty darn snowy all the way...
I got out of the station, found a free (if unwieldy) map, booked a hostel and then thought about what I should actually be doing. I was pretty darned glad to have a hostel to be honest, even though one night in Helsinki in Spring was never exactly going to be a huge problem... The romantic explorer part of my brain was rather taken with the idea of an island fortress out to sea, so I decided that this would be my first port of call. The place is called Suomenlinna, originally a giant Swedish naval base (Sveaborg) from the 18th century and generally strategically important all the way through history. Today a surprisingly large number of people live on the island(s), it is like a village connected directly to Helsinki by a 20 minute boat ride. Apparently though, Helsinki really owes its existence and expansion to the fortress, rather than the other way round. On my walk to the harbour I was struck by how much more swedish Helsinki is, although there are two official languages in Finland I hadn't really seen such an obvious swedish presence before, with swedish theaters, bookshops, dual text on everything, and of course swedish written or carved on the older buildings.
The view when I got there was pretty amazing. I hadn't for a moment considered that the sea would freeze over, and coming across the whole harbour filled with ice fragments all bobbing and clinking and crunching against each other was definitely exciting. The bright sunshine of course helped! In the distance I could make out some tiny islands in the bay and the tall blocky shapes of the ferries, and looking inland the towering Orthodox and Lutheran cathedrals were just sitting there against the blue sky! Noice. The ride was windy and cold and incredibly incredibly bumpy, but very fun. I guess it was us pushing ice fragments under our hull and them scraping under us that caused all the noise and shuddering, as the ice ahead was very well broken up for us already. Whatever it was, it seemed pretty routine.
I got out of the ferry and looking at the map I realised that this place was huge! Its not really a single castle type fortress but a big sprawling ex military village/ town with bits of walls and bastions all around it, all meandering confusingly and seemingly the result of many many layers of building. The walk to the southern point of the island was about 2 km I think. All kinds of different buildings, big granite walls and gates, small houses, wooden huts, and some people who definitely looked like locals rather than tourists. They had that semi resentful look I imagine they reserve for out of season tourists disturbing their peace. The whole island is really just a smoothed out lump of bedrock from the last glaciation, very low down indeed. The ragged edge means you can pretty much always see one or two bays and bits of sea but it was only when I reached the Southern point and gun batteries that I got a really good view back towards helsinki and out towards the little swarms of other islands on the horizons. As usual, my photos of the place maybe make all this pontificating pretty pointless. I tried to imagine what it would have been like being a swedish guard there in winter, but I really couldn't. Too cold.
I managed to go down to the still partially snow covered beach, where I indulged in some brief geological exploration, before realising quite how late it was getting. I found time for a beer that had been brewed on the island, but my enjoyment was dented by the (typical) €7 price tag!
Back in town I wandered around the outside of the brilliant red brick Orthodox Cathedral (sadly closed for easter things) and then up to the big landmark Lutheran cathedral opposite it. Inside it was pretty minimal, big but not that impressive, but the big swathe of steps and square leading up to it looked great in the sun. The first boombox wielding teenagers of the year had just taken up residence on the steps, lovely to see the circle of life continuing.
Afterwards I went to look at the natural history museum, which was free, but actually not as great as the Jyvaskyla one because it was less specific to Finland and I had in any case seen all of the stuffed fauna before by this point. Still, a competent exhibition about the evolution of life, I just wish there had been more about actually finnish rocks. Sadly these are very poor at portraying the history of life, I think there was a quote in there that Finland's geological record is like the covers of a book with no middle, ancient rocks and rocks from last week and almost nothing in between!
My big plan was to explore the city further by going on a big walk, the purpose of which would be to find some kinda finnish food. Sadly this was not to be, there were only chinese, thai, nepalese and italian restaurants, with the occasional closed tapas bar or fast food shop. Weary from my semi aimless wandering in the geometric streets (grid patterns still freak me out a little bit...) I settled for an actually very good indian restaurant, rationalising that I hadn't actually had an Indian since the last summer, so it was still unusual enough. I consumed a delicious spinach soup and cheese (Paneer?) food which I am sure Claire would A) scoff at the inauthenticity of and B) know what to call.
My hostel bed was as all hostel beds are, pretty poor really, I have no idea what happens in winter. I had selected it though because it was a brief walk from the bus, airport and freedom! To cut a long and tedious story short, I woke up and then eventually landed in Vienna. And there you go! More than you ever really wanted to know about the furthest north I have ever been!
Der Tomppa
The train to Helsinki was uneventful but pleasant. Every finnish train I went on was extremely comfortable, very nice cushions for the head among other things. I just sat there and watched the trees and lakes slide past. I was looking out for a reduction in snow and although there was a bit, mostly it still looked pretty darn snowy all the way...
I got out of the station, found a free (if unwieldy) map, booked a hostel and then thought about what I should actually be doing. I was pretty darned glad to have a hostel to be honest, even though one night in Helsinki in Spring was never exactly going to be a huge problem... The romantic explorer part of my brain was rather taken with the idea of an island fortress out to sea, so I decided that this would be my first port of call. The place is called Suomenlinna, originally a giant Swedish naval base (Sveaborg) from the 18th century and generally strategically important all the way through history. Today a surprisingly large number of people live on the island(s), it is like a village connected directly to Helsinki by a 20 minute boat ride. Apparently though, Helsinki really owes its existence and expansion to the fortress, rather than the other way round. On my walk to the harbour I was struck by how much more swedish Helsinki is, although there are two official languages in Finland I hadn't really seen such an obvious swedish presence before, with swedish theaters, bookshops, dual text on everything, and of course swedish written or carved on the older buildings.
The view when I got there was pretty amazing. I hadn't for a moment considered that the sea would freeze over, and coming across the whole harbour filled with ice fragments all bobbing and clinking and crunching against each other was definitely exciting. The bright sunshine of course helped! In the distance I could make out some tiny islands in the bay and the tall blocky shapes of the ferries, and looking inland the towering Orthodox and Lutheran cathedrals were just sitting there against the blue sky! Noice. The ride was windy and cold and incredibly incredibly bumpy, but very fun. I guess it was us pushing ice fragments under our hull and them scraping under us that caused all the noise and shuddering, as the ice ahead was very well broken up for us already. Whatever it was, it seemed pretty routine.
I got out of the ferry and looking at the map I realised that this place was huge! Its not really a single castle type fortress but a big sprawling ex military village/ town with bits of walls and bastions all around it, all meandering confusingly and seemingly the result of many many layers of building. The walk to the southern point of the island was about 2 km I think. All kinds of different buildings, big granite walls and gates, small houses, wooden huts, and some people who definitely looked like locals rather than tourists. They had that semi resentful look I imagine they reserve for out of season tourists disturbing their peace. The whole island is really just a smoothed out lump of bedrock from the last glaciation, very low down indeed. The ragged edge means you can pretty much always see one or two bays and bits of sea but it was only when I reached the Southern point and gun batteries that I got a really good view back towards helsinki and out towards the little swarms of other islands on the horizons. As usual, my photos of the place maybe make all this pontificating pretty pointless. I tried to imagine what it would have been like being a swedish guard there in winter, but I really couldn't. Too cold.
I managed to go down to the still partially snow covered beach, where I indulged in some brief geological exploration, before realising quite how late it was getting. I found time for a beer that had been brewed on the island, but my enjoyment was dented by the (typical) €7 price tag!
Back in town I wandered around the outside of the brilliant red brick Orthodox Cathedral (sadly closed for easter things) and then up to the big landmark Lutheran cathedral opposite it. Inside it was pretty minimal, big but not that impressive, but the big swathe of steps and square leading up to it looked great in the sun. The first boombox wielding teenagers of the year had just taken up residence on the steps, lovely to see the circle of life continuing.
Afterwards I went to look at the natural history museum, which was free, but actually not as great as the Jyvaskyla one because it was less specific to Finland and I had in any case seen all of the stuffed fauna before by this point. Still, a competent exhibition about the evolution of life, I just wish there had been more about actually finnish rocks. Sadly these are very poor at portraying the history of life, I think there was a quote in there that Finland's geological record is like the covers of a book with no middle, ancient rocks and rocks from last week and almost nothing in between!
My big plan was to explore the city further by going on a big walk, the purpose of which would be to find some kinda finnish food. Sadly this was not to be, there were only chinese, thai, nepalese and italian restaurants, with the occasional closed tapas bar or fast food shop. Weary from my semi aimless wandering in the geometric streets (grid patterns still freak me out a little bit...) I settled for an actually very good indian restaurant, rationalising that I hadn't actually had an Indian since the last summer, so it was still unusual enough. I consumed a delicious spinach soup and cheese (Paneer?) food which I am sure Claire would A) scoff at the inauthenticity of and B) know what to call.
My hostel bed was as all hostel beds are, pretty poor really, I have no idea what happens in winter. I had selected it though because it was a brief walk from the bus, airport and freedom! To cut a long and tedious story short, I woke up and then eventually landed in Vienna. And there you go! More than you ever really wanted to know about the furthest north I have ever been!
Der Tomppa
Friday 16 April 2010
A Comet in Moominblog
Jyväskylä is not the biggest city in the world. Its population (spread over quite a large municipal area) is only 10,000 more than the 'greater High Wycomber Urban area' (whatever that is) and about two thirds of a Milton Keynes. It is not going to be visited by any major rock bands on tour, and it was only founded in 1837, yet it shares for me the feeling I get about Vienna in that it seems a good place to live in. Perhaps my judgement is so skewed by the smoking metropolis that is London and the sporadically vomit covered streets of High Wycombe, but still, there you have it. As with everything in Finland, it lies between several large lakes, which were still frozen while I was there, although all but one particularly intrepid skier had abandoned the ice in anticipation of the thaw.
The university buildings seemed to be all over the place, and I think it would be fair to say that it is quite a university town, (except actually a city). In fact, several people I have met or heard about from Austria had spent Erasmus years there, which from a UCL 'only the biggest and most famous universities will serve as partners' point of view, is surprising. I have the sense that awareness of Finland is higher in Austria than the UK, many more people than I expect seem to have at least visited the place. Why this should be and whether this observation is more than mere coincidence, I do not know. The architecture is pretty modern, so it looks alternately shiny and modern and shabby and 70s depending on the light quality and the age of the block of flats. Nonetheless a few older buildings survive around the university and the church near Mirva's flat.
Of course, the first tourist-y thing I did was to climb the observation tower on top of the Harju to gain an overview of the area. Definately everywhere is improved by having a hill, observation tower and large frozen lake. Afterwards I went with Mirva to the 'natural history museum of central Finland' which was great! Obviously I was extremely happy with the geology section. As I had hoped there was a lot of information about the local glacial geology and a bit more on the formation of Finland as a whole. There is nothing like the knowledge that the rocks for 300km in any direction are older than over 99% of the British Isles bedrock... There was also a pretty cool pile of paper representing geological time. It was nearly 4m tall I think and *each sheet of paper* represented 200,000 years of time. Homo Sapiens is somewhere in the region of 200,000 years old, maximum. One sheet of paper in a stack of 4 metres. The current series of ice ages is about 4 pieces of paper. The error on a radiometric 'exact' date for older rocks spans 5 sheets of paper...
The museum also had the stuffed fauna of central finland. I hadn't really thought much about the fact that Finland still has (a few) bears, wolves, wolverines and lynxes, and there were 'underwater' displays where the surface of the water had been made out of some resin surface cast into startlingly realistic waves, in some mysterious process I have no idea about. The fish were cleverly arranged to be attached in such a way that their supports were not visible, looking as if they were just hanging there in the water.
Aftewards, encouraged by the blue skies and bright sunshine peeking through the clouds that had otherwise been constant since my arrival, I took a walk around the lake. My photos from this walk once again speak for themselves, a beautiful walk in bright late afternoon sunshine, everything all the brighter for the snow still on the ground. Amusingly, when Ash looked at my photos from this walk he first thought that the lake was in fact a large snow covered park or other open space... It just doesn't occur to us english to imagine whole lakes freezing...
The day after I visited the Museum of Central Finland. I wasn't sure what to expect from it, but it ended up being a fantastic museum. The reasons for this are several, partly I reckon any museum where you know NOTHING about the subject will keep your attention, and partl it was a particularly well made museum. I like museums where they tell you stuff and show you stuff. I know interactive 'pretend to be a finnish dinosaur hunter' or whatever exhibits are fun sometimes, but nothing beats being shown cool things and told why they are cool. And not only did the museum do this, they managed to do it in perfect conversational english and weave in mysteries (why was this lone broken ski at the bottom of an ancient lake?) with family histories.
Over the two floors, one a general history of central Finland and another specifically about the city, I learned a huge amount. I enjoyed all the differences between the history of a country like Finland, only independant since 1917 (and before about 1400 but that doesn't count cos nobody was writing things down) and a place like the UK, which usually spent its time doing the owning. The lives of the Finnish were shaped by things like log booms, an idea which seems odd to us but had a huge effect on a place like Jyväskylä at the end of the 19th century... All the writing was accompanied by a large number of photos of the things involved. And the large models of Jyväskylä through its history were especially helful for thinking about the development of the town, especially with the bird's eye view I had gained for the observation tower the day before and the persistence of the landmark of the old church next to where I was staying.
Tune in next time when our intrepid hero takes a train to Helsinki...
The university buildings seemed to be all over the place, and I think it would be fair to say that it is quite a university town, (except actually a city). In fact, several people I have met or heard about from Austria had spent Erasmus years there, which from a UCL 'only the biggest and most famous universities will serve as partners' point of view, is surprising. I have the sense that awareness of Finland is higher in Austria than the UK, many more people than I expect seem to have at least visited the place. Why this should be and whether this observation is more than mere coincidence, I do not know. The architecture is pretty modern, so it looks alternately shiny and modern and shabby and 70s depending on the light quality and the age of the block of flats. Nonetheless a few older buildings survive around the university and the church near Mirva's flat.
Of course, the first tourist-y thing I did was to climb the observation tower on top of the Harju to gain an overview of the area. Definately everywhere is improved by having a hill, observation tower and large frozen lake. Afterwards I went with Mirva to the 'natural history museum of central Finland' which was great! Obviously I was extremely happy with the geology section. As I had hoped there was a lot of information about the local glacial geology and a bit more on the formation of Finland as a whole. There is nothing like the knowledge that the rocks for 300km in any direction are older than over 99% of the British Isles bedrock... There was also a pretty cool pile of paper representing geological time. It was nearly 4m tall I think and *each sheet of paper* represented 200,000 years of time. Homo Sapiens is somewhere in the region of 200,000 years old, maximum. One sheet of paper in a stack of 4 metres. The current series of ice ages is about 4 pieces of paper. The error on a radiometric 'exact' date for older rocks spans 5 sheets of paper...
The museum also had the stuffed fauna of central finland. I hadn't really thought much about the fact that Finland still has (a few) bears, wolves, wolverines and lynxes, and there were 'underwater' displays where the surface of the water had been made out of some resin surface cast into startlingly realistic waves, in some mysterious process I have no idea about. The fish were cleverly arranged to be attached in such a way that their supports were not visible, looking as if they were just hanging there in the water.
Aftewards, encouraged by the blue skies and bright sunshine peeking through the clouds that had otherwise been constant since my arrival, I took a walk around the lake. My photos from this walk once again speak for themselves, a beautiful walk in bright late afternoon sunshine, everything all the brighter for the snow still on the ground. Amusingly, when Ash looked at my photos from this walk he first thought that the lake was in fact a large snow covered park or other open space... It just doesn't occur to us english to imagine whole lakes freezing...
The day after I visited the Museum of Central Finland. I wasn't sure what to expect from it, but it ended up being a fantastic museum. The reasons for this are several, partly I reckon any museum where you know NOTHING about the subject will keep your attention, and partl it was a particularly well made museum. I like museums where they tell you stuff and show you stuff. I know interactive 'pretend to be a finnish dinosaur hunter' or whatever exhibits are fun sometimes, but nothing beats being shown cool things and told why they are cool. And not only did the museum do this, they managed to do it in perfect conversational english and weave in mysteries (why was this lone broken ski at the bottom of an ancient lake?) with family histories.
Over the two floors, one a general history of central Finland and another specifically about the city, I learned a huge amount. I enjoyed all the differences between the history of a country like Finland, only independant since 1917 (and before about 1400 but that doesn't count cos nobody was writing things down) and a place like the UK, which usually spent its time doing the owning. The lives of the Finnish were shaped by things like log booms, an idea which seems odd to us but had a huge effect on a place like Jyväskylä at the end of the 19th century... All the writing was accompanied by a large number of photos of the things involved. And the large models of Jyväskylä through its history were especially helful for thinking about the development of the town, especially with the bird's eye view I had gained for the observation tower the day before and the persistence of the landmark of the old church next to where I was staying.
Tune in next time when our intrepid hero takes a train to Helsinki...
Wednesday 14 April 2010
The Further Adventures of Moominblog
It has been a while but unfortuntely real people/ Ash (in case you don't think he is real) and Vienna in all her glory and also rain have taken my precious morsels of free time. But fear not electronic voyeurs! I have finally returned to tell you tall tales and short sagas of a land so full of finnish people the world knows it as Finland (although the finnish themselves know it as Suomi).
When we last left our intrepid hero he had just endured temperatures of OVER 60 degrees and DRAMATICALLY JUMPED into some snow to escape them. After which he ate some pancakes, played a game which involved piling up wooden animals and then went to sleep...
Leaving the summer house we encountered some somewhat less pleasant spring weather, temperatures hovering around zero and constant drizzle/sleet. However I'll be honest it was all so new and unusual that I didn't really mind that it was raining when we pulled up in Savonlinna to go look at the castle. Savonlinna castle is a rare example of a really old thing in Finland, and as with most such things it was built by the swedish, on their border with Russia.
You can wikipedia it as well as I can, so I will leave the history out, as I didn't really know much as I was looking round. What I did notice was that it's a pretty great looking castle, situated on a little rounded, glacially scratched lump of bedrock poking out of the lake (which joins with the thousand or more other lakes and streams in the area and would therefore allow you to travel by water all the way to the sea!). And the towers have these wonderful flared, porthole-like cannon ports. I enjoy anything which is different, and this was definitely stylistically slightly different to the UK castles I have been to. In common with the UK however it was originally what I think of as a 'poper' castle, ie one that was actually built to defend stuff not for some toff to live in! Savonlinna is pretty small but it does apparently contain the best pizza restaurant in Finland, where we ate before Mirva, Outi and I clambered aboard a bus for the long journey to Jyväskylä.
I didn't really look around the city the next day, I had a free day of train travel from the interrail pass I had bought (for ease and cheapness) so I spent the day visiting Tampere, Finland's 3rd larges ciy and largestoutside the immediate area of Helsinki. With a population of 200,000 the size of the place isn't overwhelming, but the setting squeezed between two lakes with (of course) trees all around and a glacial moraine hill at the back, it was a very pleasant place. More importantly there was a lot to do, I managed to fill a day even though I arrived on the one day of the week all the museums were closed...
I will try not to write this much about everything I saw but I think the first location I visited, Tampere Cathedral, is worth a mention. It was built at the beginning of the 20th Century and dates from a time when Finland was starting to be more proud of being finnish, featuring murals and stained glass windows by two famous finnish artists. The building itself is refreshingly diferent to the gothic encrusted cathedrals of central europe, retaining the shape but made out of solid grey granite rather than smoke-dirtied sandstone. As the photos show (poorly) the entrance and inside pillars were carved with some really nice looking decoration, and the stained glass windows were beautiful, not traditional but also not just a boring random scatter of colours. The main thing that made the inside really impressive were the murals, a set of 12 naked boys (apparently representing the disciples) carrying or dragging a wreath around the edge of the balcony, thorn motifs twisting up the arches, and a snake surrounded by huge pale angel wings at the apex of the dome.
The painting of the resurrection above the altar is simply good art. Even more modern churches seem to either go for minimalism or the old traditional depictions of the bible. Frankly in terms of 'looking good' as opposed to historical worth and biblical allegory (and gold content) I much much prefer 'modern' art. The colours, the people, the size, everything about the picture really fitted together.
I saw a lot more churches throughout the day, a (sadly closed) orthodox church and a Lutheran brick church with some nice wooden stuff going on inside. For the most part I just wandered around looking at stuff, this being the first finnosh city I had really explored. My photos show everything at least as well as I could describe it, so I won't say much more. Towards the end of my visit I climbed the harju and found the observation tower. It is getting to the point where if I haven't climbed an observation tower I haven't properly visited a place... Anyway it was great to get a bit of a long distance view of the landscape. The trees along the roads and railways give you a sense of the amount of forest (well commercial plantations) around, but they block any opportunity for uninterrupted views that really allow you to appreciate the extent, and the way the landscape might be low, but it is emphatically not flat.
I ate a tasty home made doughnut in the cafe and travelled back to Jyvaskyla, spending the whole journey talking to a guy who worked for a paper machine selling company and had endless stories about Indian, Singaporean, American and other nationalities' first visits to the sauna on business trips. You could not get much more finnish if you tried really...
When we last left our intrepid hero he had just endured temperatures of OVER 60 degrees and DRAMATICALLY JUMPED into some snow to escape them. After which he ate some pancakes, played a game which involved piling up wooden animals and then went to sleep...
Leaving the summer house we encountered some somewhat less pleasant spring weather, temperatures hovering around zero and constant drizzle/sleet. However I'll be honest it was all so new and unusual that I didn't really mind that it was raining when we pulled up in Savonlinna to go look at the castle. Savonlinna castle is a rare example of a really old thing in Finland, and as with most such things it was built by the swedish, on their border with Russia.
You can wikipedia it as well as I can, so I will leave the history out, as I didn't really know much as I was looking round. What I did notice was that it's a pretty great looking castle, situated on a little rounded, glacially scratched lump of bedrock poking out of the lake (which joins with the thousand or more other lakes and streams in the area and would therefore allow you to travel by water all the way to the sea!). And the towers have these wonderful flared, porthole-like cannon ports. I enjoy anything which is different, and this was definitely stylistically slightly different to the UK castles I have been to. In common with the UK however it was originally what I think of as a 'poper' castle, ie one that was actually built to defend stuff not for some toff to live in! Savonlinna is pretty small but it does apparently contain the best pizza restaurant in Finland, where we ate before Mirva, Outi and I clambered aboard a bus for the long journey to Jyväskylä.
I didn't really look around the city the next day, I had a free day of train travel from the interrail pass I had bought (for ease and cheapness) so I spent the day visiting Tampere, Finland's 3rd larges ciy and largestoutside the immediate area of Helsinki. With a population of 200,000 the size of the place isn't overwhelming, but the setting squeezed between two lakes with (of course) trees all around and a glacial moraine hill at the back, it was a very pleasant place. More importantly there was a lot to do, I managed to fill a day even though I arrived on the one day of the week all the museums were closed...
I will try not to write this much about everything I saw but I think the first location I visited, Tampere Cathedral, is worth a mention. It was built at the beginning of the 20th Century and dates from a time when Finland was starting to be more proud of being finnish, featuring murals and stained glass windows by two famous finnish artists. The building itself is refreshingly diferent to the gothic encrusted cathedrals of central europe, retaining the shape but made out of solid grey granite rather than smoke-dirtied sandstone. As the photos show (poorly) the entrance and inside pillars were carved with some really nice looking decoration, and the stained glass windows were beautiful, not traditional but also not just a boring random scatter of colours. The main thing that made the inside really impressive were the murals, a set of 12 naked boys (apparently representing the disciples) carrying or dragging a wreath around the edge of the balcony, thorn motifs twisting up the arches, and a snake surrounded by huge pale angel wings at the apex of the dome.
The painting of the resurrection above the altar is simply good art. Even more modern churches seem to either go for minimalism or the old traditional depictions of the bible. Frankly in terms of 'looking good' as opposed to historical worth and biblical allegory (and gold content) I much much prefer 'modern' art. The colours, the people, the size, everything about the picture really fitted together.
I saw a lot more churches throughout the day, a (sadly closed) orthodox church and a Lutheran brick church with some nice wooden stuff going on inside. For the most part I just wandered around looking at stuff, this being the first finnosh city I had really explored. My photos show everything at least as well as I could describe it, so I won't say much more. Towards the end of my visit I climbed the harju and found the observation tower. It is getting to the point where if I haven't climbed an observation tower I haven't properly visited a place... Anyway it was great to get a bit of a long distance view of the landscape. The trees along the roads and railways give you a sense of the amount of forest (well commercial plantations) around, but they block any opportunity for uninterrupted views that really allow you to appreciate the extent, and the way the landscape might be low, but it is emphatically not flat.
I ate a tasty home made doughnut in the cafe and travelled back to Jyvaskyla, spending the whole journey talking to a guy who worked for a paper machine selling company and had endless stories about Indian, Singaporean, American and other nationalities' first visits to the sauna on business trips. You could not get much more finnish if you tried really...
Thursday 8 April 2010
The Finn Family Moominblog 1
Currently Ash is visiting so I haven't had much time to write on this here thing. But I will scribble something here while he is off watching a dance class. We shall see how far I get.
Quite a while ago now I managed to make it all the way to Finland. That is the furthest North I've ever been! I've spent so much time in planes recently I barely noticed the actual plane flight, just the normal upsetting amounts of sitting around. The 2 hour wait at Riga airport was somewhat trying, although I won't hold that against Latvia too much, that would be horribly unfair. The most disappointing thing about the trip was that for the flight to Finland we got a second jet plane. I had noticed that often on flights to the smaller airports in Finland you get to go on a propellor plane, which for obvious reasons is super cool. Propellors make it a real adventure!
Luckily, I didn't let the propellor based disappointment get me down too much (even though propellor based disappointment is one of the worst kinds of disappointment!)and we were soon coming in to land at Tampere airport. Gazing out the window of the plane my first impression of Finland was seeing the tiny lights of the outlying houses, separated by large amounts of blackness. A big contrast to flying in to any of the 'London' airports! After strolling off the plane (the times when I don't get passport checked are still strange for me) I soon located Mirva and her friend Matti, who took us back to the flat he shares with his wife Anneli. Perhaps I should be using the silly phonetic finnish pronounciation that occurs in my phrasebook(thanks Jacques!!), but it might give the wrong impression of the language.
I spent a while being british and embarassed at being offered hospitality by anyone (oh, food! Goodness, for me?! Well, you didn't have to. No no, I don't want to take too much! Nonesense, I'm quite full thank you...) then we went to bed, to arise at 6am (my 5am) the next morning for the long drive to the summer house. I'm not sure that many British people would drive 5 hours for a weekend stay anywhere, but this does not appear to phase Finnish people. I would attribute this to the fact that instead of having to negotiate a packed M25 and M6 they just have to drive on gently winding roads through the snowy forests. This was my first look at Finnish scenery, and it was enough to see that Finland has one broad theme. Gone are the sharp changes in views between towns and cities, forests, moors, meadows and cornfields. Instead, everything was ariations on a theme, a foresty, laky, incredibly snowy theme. And while the countryside is technically very flat on average it actually undulates a fair amount, meaning you don't get that weird agoraphobic feeling of space that can sometimes be felt when driving around dead-flat Norfolk. In fact, the low hills and the trees (birches and pines) make it quite hard to appreciate the sheer scale of the landscape. It's all very well knowing it's trees and snow and lakes from here for another 300km, but without being able to see it, it is hard to keep in your head.
The summer house was amazing when we arrived. It was truly a house, just another one of the low lying building covered in snow we had been seeing huddled around lakes for most of the drive, but this one we got to live in! The snow was still about 2 feet thick in the garden, and perenially excitable dog Selma wasted no time in diving in and demonstrating this to us. Because finnish people can't bear to be doing nothing, we immediately set about clearing the snow from the drive and path to the sauna and fetching wood and water for it. To aid me in this task I obtained a pair of snowshoes! Sadly they don't actually look like tennis rackets, they are a little smaller than that, but they did work surprisingly well, even on the damp, weak early spring snow. The photos don't quite show this, although you can sometimes see from the relative depth of my feet compared to that of the dog.
Two more of Mirva's friends arrived, so after the obligatory semi comic 'I've heard a lot about you' introductions we (well they) prepared an ancient finnish traditional meal, tortilla wraps. The legend goes that finnish explorers brought this dish to mexico hundreds of years before its discovery by the rest of the European powers. Few people today know of its secet origins!
That evening it was necessary for me to take part in probably the most important activity in Finland, the sauna. I was slightly apprehensive as a sauna combines the englishman's triple dislikes of public nakedness, extreme heat and extreme cold. I must admit, it did take me a while to get used to the idea. As I am a beginner the wood stove wasn't even that hot, the thermometer on the wall showing just over 60 degrees C. I spent most of my first try in the sauna thinking 'well this is rather hot' and slightly unconvined of any relaxing properties. My skepticism did not reduce when we then went outside completely naked to roll in the snow! Actually,the sauna is so warm that I think your whole body temperature must increase, as it really didn't feel that bad. I expected it to feel colder, like when you step out of a hot shower, but it wasn't quite like that at all. You could stand in the night air for quite a while with no discomfort. It is more a psychological thing I suppose, your brain is not sure if the whole snow thing is a good idea. Afterwards I went in another 2 or three times, punctuated by more time outside in the cold, but no more leaps into the snow. Having that behind me I was able to relax a bit more and perhaps start to see some of the benefits. All in all, I would say that while I do not think I will be having daily saunas any time soon, I think they could grow on me. I certainly slept very well that night!
Before sleeping I was able to consume a quatity of delicious pancakes. Because even normal fruit is considered unhealthy in Finland due to its loss of vitamins during transport (tell that to the South African apples you just bought at Sainsburys...) and because there are simply lots around, there was a delicious ray of various preserved berries/jam. You'd think it was some kind of cliche that couldn't actually be right, but I definitely noticed an increased berry based importance. Then again, I suppose the reason we aren't rolling in berries happily all year is their price and if they were cheaper, we would eat them just as much.
Hmm well I think that's enough paragraphs for now, I shall go away and ponder how to be more brief next time! As usual the shocking amount of photos I took are over here. Please don't feel you have to look at them at once, or all of them at all!
Yours sincerely, Tomppa (my finnish name which I may have spelt wrong)
Quite a while ago now I managed to make it all the way to Finland. That is the furthest North I've ever been! I've spent so much time in planes recently I barely noticed the actual plane flight, just the normal upsetting amounts of sitting around. The 2 hour wait at Riga airport was somewhat trying, although I won't hold that against Latvia too much, that would be horribly unfair. The most disappointing thing about the trip was that for the flight to Finland we got a second jet plane. I had noticed that often on flights to the smaller airports in Finland you get to go on a propellor plane, which for obvious reasons is super cool. Propellors make it a real adventure!
Luckily, I didn't let the propellor based disappointment get me down too much (even though propellor based disappointment is one of the worst kinds of disappointment!)and we were soon coming in to land at Tampere airport. Gazing out the window of the plane my first impression of Finland was seeing the tiny lights of the outlying houses, separated by large amounts of blackness. A big contrast to flying in to any of the 'London' airports! After strolling off the plane (the times when I don't get passport checked are still strange for me) I soon located Mirva and her friend Matti, who took us back to the flat he shares with his wife Anneli. Perhaps I should be using the silly phonetic finnish pronounciation that occurs in my phrasebook(thanks Jacques!!), but it might give the wrong impression of the language.
I spent a while being british and embarassed at being offered hospitality by anyone (oh, food! Goodness, for me?! Well, you didn't have to. No no, I don't want to take too much! Nonesense, I'm quite full thank you...) then we went to bed, to arise at 6am (my 5am) the next morning for the long drive to the summer house. I'm not sure that many British people would drive 5 hours for a weekend stay anywhere, but this does not appear to phase Finnish people. I would attribute this to the fact that instead of having to negotiate a packed M25 and M6 they just have to drive on gently winding roads through the snowy forests. This was my first look at Finnish scenery, and it was enough to see that Finland has one broad theme. Gone are the sharp changes in views between towns and cities, forests, moors, meadows and cornfields. Instead, everything was ariations on a theme, a foresty, laky, incredibly snowy theme. And while the countryside is technically very flat on average it actually undulates a fair amount, meaning you don't get that weird agoraphobic feeling of space that can sometimes be felt when driving around dead-flat Norfolk. In fact, the low hills and the trees (birches and pines) make it quite hard to appreciate the sheer scale of the landscape. It's all very well knowing it's trees and snow and lakes from here for another 300km, but without being able to see it, it is hard to keep in your head.
The summer house was amazing when we arrived. It was truly a house, just another one of the low lying building covered in snow we had been seeing huddled around lakes for most of the drive, but this one we got to live in! The snow was still about 2 feet thick in the garden, and perenially excitable dog Selma wasted no time in diving in and demonstrating this to us. Because finnish people can't bear to be doing nothing, we immediately set about clearing the snow from the drive and path to the sauna and fetching wood and water for it. To aid me in this task I obtained a pair of snowshoes! Sadly they don't actually look like tennis rackets, they are a little smaller than that, but they did work surprisingly well, even on the damp, weak early spring snow. The photos don't quite show this, although you can sometimes see from the relative depth of my feet compared to that of the dog.
Two more of Mirva's friends arrived, so after the obligatory semi comic 'I've heard a lot about you' introductions we (well they) prepared an ancient finnish traditional meal, tortilla wraps. The legend goes that finnish explorers brought this dish to mexico hundreds of years before its discovery by the rest of the European powers. Few people today know of its secet origins!
That evening it was necessary for me to take part in probably the most important activity in Finland, the sauna. I was slightly apprehensive as a sauna combines the englishman's triple dislikes of public nakedness, extreme heat and extreme cold. I must admit, it did take me a while to get used to the idea. As I am a beginner the wood stove wasn't even that hot, the thermometer on the wall showing just over 60 degrees C. I spent most of my first try in the sauna thinking 'well this is rather hot' and slightly unconvined of any relaxing properties. My skepticism did not reduce when we then went outside completely naked to roll in the snow! Actually,the sauna is so warm that I think your whole body temperature must increase, as it really didn't feel that bad. I expected it to feel colder, like when you step out of a hot shower, but it wasn't quite like that at all. You could stand in the night air for quite a while with no discomfort. It is more a psychological thing I suppose, your brain is not sure if the whole snow thing is a good idea. Afterwards I went in another 2 or three times, punctuated by more time outside in the cold, but no more leaps into the snow. Having that behind me I was able to relax a bit more and perhaps start to see some of the benefits. All in all, I would say that while I do not think I will be having daily saunas any time soon, I think they could grow on me. I certainly slept very well that night!
Before sleeping I was able to consume a quatity of delicious pancakes. Because even normal fruit is considered unhealthy in Finland due to its loss of vitamins during transport (tell that to the South African apples you just bought at Sainsburys...) and because there are simply lots around, there was a delicious ray of various preserved berries/jam. You'd think it was some kind of cliche that couldn't actually be right, but I definitely noticed an increased berry based importance. Then again, I suppose the reason we aren't rolling in berries happily all year is their price and if they were cheaper, we would eat them just as much.
Hmm well I think that's enough paragraphs for now, I shall go away and ponder how to be more brief next time! As usual the shocking amount of photos I took are over here. Please don't feel you have to look at them at once, or all of them at all!
Yours sincerely, Tomppa (my finnish name which I may have spelt wrong)
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