Regular readers may have noticed my slight penchant for dishing out some stick to Finland for various reasons (for further information, see most of my posts) although I'd like to put that on the back burner in order to let rip with some gushing praise.
Last weekend witnessed a delightful long-weekend visit from my mother and, rather than staying here in Helsinki in the slush and greyness, we dragged her out to Koli National Park in Eastern Finland. It's a wilderness with lakes and forests (much like the rest of the country in fact) so it's hard to see why this particular area of lakes and trees was set out for national park status. There are wolves and lynxes and bears hanging around there although we didn't get to see any. Given that bears have a tendency of hibernating in pits around this time of year, I'd venture a guess that this was probably a good thing. Wandering around in show-shoes was fun, as was watching the absurd fashion sense of the Russian tourists who were wondering around in the forest with glaring fluorescent tracksuits and enormous designer label handbags. The countryside is definitely Finland's best feature in my opinion, and in Koli there are rare appearances from hills which you can climb up and enjoy the spectacular view across (guess what ?) lakes and trees. All of this covered in snow in a scene you would struggle to find anywhere else. The only problem with a Finnish winter is that it gets light rather late and gets dark very early, meaning that you don't really have much time to admire this natural beauty. But once the sun goes down, you can return to the cabin in the forest, listen to the sound of absolute silence, cover your ears from the -30 degree temperatures and wander off to check if the sauna has heated enough yet for people to go in. On the way back to the cabin you can see more stars than in most places on the planet and, once you've got back in, stick some sausages on a stick and grill them in the fire which is nearly always lit.
It's not the kind of life I'd like to live permanently I suppose, but it's a great break. I suppose you can see the difference in that doing nothing in Helsinki is boring, but doing nothing out in the forest is great.
Feb 9, 2009
Jan 16, 2009
Report of Glorious Travel !
I've had Transnistria on my "places to visit" list for a long time now. As with most places on my "places to visit" list, it's not really as mass-tourism destination. It's a state unrecognised by any other in the world; it's poor, openly corrupt, and is far away from anywhere else that anyone would want to visit; since declaring independence from Moldova in 1991 it has been sitting and waiting for the resurrection of the USSR; and it's not easy to get to. This fabulous combination meant that I wanted to go and visit. Earlier this month, I got the chance. Armed with an InterRail ticket, very little money and a coat that was completely unsuitable for the winter temperatures of the Eastern Balkans, I headed with M from our temporary base in Chişinău, Moldova, to the city's cold and chaotic central bus terminal. It seems that Moldova doesn't really like tourists visiting Transnistria : "Are you going to Ukraine ?" is asked at the border - this means transiting through Transnistria - and there is no Moldovan border post between the territory and Moldova proper. This means that if you enter Moldova through Transnistria, you are entering without an entry stamp and therefore illegally. However, from Chişinău there are minibuses every 10 or 15 minutes to the capital, Tiraspol.
We were directed from one ticket desk to another, told off for smoking near the kiosk (unexpected in a country where people breathe more cigarette smoke than oxygen) and then directed to another ticket desk where we picked up our tickets to Tiraspol for 2€ each and hopped onto a minibus. On arrival at the "border", we were greeted by a bear in a Russian style hat, who gave us a Russian-style greeting by snatching our passports and the immigration form we'd filled in without a word and then directing us towards a building a bit further down. There, the occupants of about 5 buses and minibuses crammed themselves into a room the size of a small car to try and get their papers stamped and enter legally into Transnistria. One guy from our minibus took us under his wing - he was from Tiraspol but his parents had lived just near Brussels and he also had a Belgian passport. He spoke a bit of English and explained to the official that we were only there for the day, to avoid us paying anything. "No one knows the point of this registration" he said. "Unless it's an exercise in improving relations between neighbours !". Moldova and Transnistria fought a war between 1991 and 1994 and relations aren't exactly warm. Neither was the weather that day and, having eventually got ourselves to the front of the queue with liberal use of elbows and stubbornness, we got back to the minibus and our new-found friend showed us the sights through the window. Before long, the minibus was stopped for a bribe-extraction exercise. The driver got back in and muttered something in Russian before driving off again. Our friend smiled and translated "he called him an animal who eats from the asphalt. With foreign license plates you can't escape the traffic police here". Apparently it is quite a common occurrence as I saw 3 other Moldovan-plated cars getting the same treatment during the 10 minutes we were stopped. We bounced our way through the potholed streets of Tiraspol, got off at the end and our friend drew us a map in subzero temperatures and explained the sites to us before wishing us a pleasant stay in "the open air museum of Communism" ! We wandered off down Lenin Street as per his instructions and at the third intersection (the first two were Karl Marx street and Karl Liebknecht street) we turned into 25th October street. The date of an important event in Transnistria ? Maybe its independence date ? Nope - the official day of the Bolshevik Revolution.
More signs of the orientation of this pseudo-state come from the flag - which is the old flag of the Moldavian SSR, complete with hammer and sickle - and the coins, which also bear the old emblem of the glorious Soviet worker. The walk to the centre is periodically interrupted with giant slogans singing the praises of the city or of fellow unrecognised states - one has the flags of Transnistria, Russia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia with the slogan IN UNITY IS OUR STRENGTH ! and over the road is the Abkhaz embassy. The main square is impressive - large, concrete, empty. It's the only city left in the world with a statue of Lenin on its main square. There's a Soviet tank as a memorial of the war against Moldova, complete with a cemetery and a memorial to the unknown soldier. As we arrived the Orthodox Christmas celebrations were just unfolding but sadly, because it was a holiday, the minibuses back to Chişinău were stopping early. Not to be deterred, we stopped off at the (supposedly) state-run supermarket on the way (the same company also runs most petrol stations, owns the biggest hotels in the country, the biggest football team and the national printing company) and bought some of Transnistria's famous [sic.] "Kvint" cognac. It was only 4 hours in one of the world's last fortresses of Communism (albeit with some fabulous splashes of capitalist thrown in for good measure) and enough to get a taste, but it's still on my "places to visit" list, just to have a better look.
We were directed from one ticket desk to another, told off for smoking near the kiosk (unexpected in a country where people breathe more cigarette smoke than oxygen) and then directed to another ticket desk where we picked up our tickets to Tiraspol for 2€ each and hopped onto a minibus. On arrival at the "border", we were greeted by a bear in a Russian style hat, who gave us a Russian-style greeting by snatching our passports and the immigration form we'd filled in without a word and then directing us towards a building a bit further down. There, the occupants of about 5 buses and minibuses crammed themselves into a room the size of a small car to try and get their papers stamped and enter legally into Transnistria. One guy from our minibus took us under his wing - he was from Tiraspol but his parents had lived just near Brussels and he also had a Belgian passport. He spoke a bit of English and explained to the official that we were only there for the day, to avoid us paying anything. "No one knows the point of this registration" he said. "Unless it's an exercise in improving relations between neighbours !". Moldova and Transnistria fought a war between 1991 and 1994 and relations aren't exactly warm. Neither was the weather that day and, having eventually got ourselves to the front of the queue with liberal use of elbows and stubbornness, we got back to the minibus and our new-found friend showed us the sights through the window. Before long, the minibus was stopped for a bribe-extraction exercise. The driver got back in and muttered something in Russian before driving off again. Our friend smiled and translated "he called him an animal who eats from the asphalt. With foreign license plates you can't escape the traffic police here". Apparently it is quite a common occurrence as I saw 3 other Moldovan-plated cars getting the same treatment during the 10 minutes we were stopped. We bounced our way through the potholed streets of Tiraspol, got off at the end and our friend drew us a map in subzero temperatures and explained the sites to us before wishing us a pleasant stay in "the open air museum of Communism" ! We wandered off down Lenin Street as per his instructions and at the third intersection (the first two were Karl Marx street and Karl Liebknecht street) we turned into 25th October street. The date of an important event in Transnistria ? Maybe its independence date ? Nope - the official day of the Bolshevik Revolution.
More signs of the orientation of this pseudo-state come from the flag - which is the old flag of the Moldavian SSR, complete with hammer and sickle - and the coins, which also bear the old emblem of the glorious Soviet worker. The walk to the centre is periodically interrupted with giant slogans singing the praises of the city or of fellow unrecognised states - one has the flags of Transnistria, Russia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia with the slogan IN UNITY IS OUR STRENGTH ! and over the road is the Abkhaz embassy. The main square is impressive - large, concrete, empty. It's the only city left in the world with a statue of Lenin on its main square. There's a Soviet tank as a memorial of the war against Moldova, complete with a cemetery and a memorial to the unknown soldier. As we arrived the Orthodox Christmas celebrations were just unfolding but sadly, because it was a holiday, the minibuses back to Chişinău were stopping early. Not to be deterred, we stopped off at the (supposedly) state-run supermarket on the way (the same company also runs most petrol stations, owns the biggest hotels in the country, the biggest football team and the national printing company) and bought some of Transnistria's famous [sic.] "Kvint" cognac. It was only 4 hours in one of the world's last fortresses of Communism (albeit with some fabulous splashes of capitalist thrown in for good measure) and enough to get a taste, but it's still on my "places to visit" list, just to have a better look.
Jan 7, 2009
Here we go again..
I got back home last night at 1.30, promptly gave up smoking again and settled back into the hamster wheel.
What was great about the trip was that it wasn't in Western Europe where some semblance of human warmth was still on display. It came from Alina and her mother who taught us (or tried to teach us) Moldovan on the way to Chisinau, and the warm welcome in the hostel/apartment we stayed in. It came from the guy who took us under his wing at the Transnistrian immigration post, showed us the sights of Bendery and and drew us a map of Tiraspol in sub-zero temperatures before disappearing off to see his family. It also came from the two old ladies on the Iasi-Timisoara night train who fed us like kings with homemade sausages and bacon, and insisted on always talking to us in Romanian and smiling at us despite our confused looks. It came from Georgiana who turned those noises into words we could understand and taught us us how to eat roasted pumpkin seeds. It came from those who smiled at the fact we were tourists in Moldova but couldn't really understand why. It came from the big difference I noticed in Vienna, Dusseldorf and Helsinki, all of which seemed completely sterile and lifeless by comparison to what I had seen over the last week and a half. So thanks to all of you...
It wasn't all beauty and sunshine and relaxation - the temperatures weren't exactly high apart from a beautiful sunny day in Mostar, and the early, early mornings dragging ourselves and our bags off night trains into dark and wet cities were tough, but it was all worth it. Travelling isn't really travelling in my mind unless there is some aspect of suffering to it as well. Without lugging my stuff uphill at 6am in Belgrade with no feeling in my hands or toes and mucus streaming down my face, there is no way I would have enjoyed my cheese burek for breakfast quite as much. If we hadn't travelling for 48 hours straight we wouldn't have got to see Moldova and Transnistria, which were pretty cool. Without any of this, I wouldn't have had the sense of achievement from the trip. I don't like touching down at the airport and getting a taxi to the beach. I like to earn what I get. There'll be more gushing praise and merciless bashing soon - I've got another 3 months straight here before my little adventure to the Middle East so I'd better get back into the swing of office life...
What was great about the trip was that it wasn't in Western Europe where some semblance of human warmth was still on display. It came from Alina and her mother who taught us (or tried to teach us) Moldovan on the way to Chisinau, and the warm welcome in the hostel/apartment we stayed in. It came from the guy who took us under his wing at the Transnistrian immigration post, showed us the sights of Bendery and and drew us a map of Tiraspol in sub-zero temperatures before disappearing off to see his family. It also came from the two old ladies on the Iasi-Timisoara night train who fed us like kings with homemade sausages and bacon, and insisted on always talking to us in Romanian and smiling at us despite our confused looks. It came from Georgiana who turned those noises into words we could understand and taught us us how to eat roasted pumpkin seeds. It came from those who smiled at the fact we were tourists in Moldova but couldn't really understand why. It came from the big difference I noticed in Vienna, Dusseldorf and Helsinki, all of which seemed completely sterile and lifeless by comparison to what I had seen over the last week and a half. So thanks to all of you...
It wasn't all beauty and sunshine and relaxation - the temperatures weren't exactly high apart from a beautiful sunny day in Mostar, and the early, early mornings dragging ourselves and our bags off night trains into dark and wet cities were tough, but it was all worth it. Travelling isn't really travelling in my mind unless there is some aspect of suffering to it as well. Without lugging my stuff uphill at 6am in Belgrade with no feeling in my hands or toes and mucus streaming down my face, there is no way I would have enjoyed my cheese burek for breakfast quite as much. If we hadn't travelling for 48 hours straight we wouldn't have got to see Moldova and Transnistria, which were pretty cool. Without any of this, I wouldn't have had the sense of achievement from the trip. I don't like touching down at the airport and getting a taxi to the beach. I like to earn what I get. There'll be more gushing praise and merciless bashing soon - I've got another 3 months straight here before my little adventure to the Middle East so I'd better get back into the swing of office life...
Dec 15, 2008
New Proposal : Make Mondays Part of the Weekend
Why is it that things always happen on Mondays ? It's not just that things appear worse because it's Monday - more bad stuff actually happens on Monday. It's 24 hours long, just like every other day of the week, yet more crap seems to be thrown at you on this particular day. I went to bed at midnight after being shattered all day and was suddenly hit by a bout of insomnia which lasted until 4am. At 7am I woke up, tired and confused and, in a moment of weakness, broke my cigarette fast. It wasn't anything special actually so I don't really want any more, which I suppose was a good result. But I have been kicking myself half the day in case this becomes the "just one" which breaks the whole effort. Seems I've got away with it though. Secondly, got to work to be instructed that this was to be a hellish week with far too much to do. Given that I've got a train to Turku to begin the long trek home on Friday afternoon and have to escape from work early for that, it means I'll have even less time to work on what I have to do. This wouldn't be a problem if I could stay later at work to finish this off, but I also have to complete a statistics course project on SPSS. For those of you who haven't become acquainted with SPSS, it's a horribly pointless piece of software which is being lumped on poor unsuspecting students in a worldwide conspiracy to make us think that we're far more stupid than we actually are. I went through an emotional rollercoaster over 6 weeks to try to complete this course with a modicum of understanding for the complexities of this programme - how it works, what those numbers are supposed to mean, what the point of it all is - and after much psychological torture I finally emerged unscathed with one task left - complete a term paper by Friday in order to get course credits. I did nearly half of it last week. Today, I came to the library to continue it and noticed that for some reason the version I was using no longer has a valid license on the school computers. There's a newer version and it doesn't understand my saved work. In weeks gone by I would have stepped outside and furiously puffed on a cigarette while muttering under my breath. These days I'm limited to muttering under my breath and I have to say, while it's much better for my health, it doesn't feel quite as satisfying.
Hence I am proposing making Monday the last day of the weekend, which will leave us an extra 8 hours to deal with all the crap that gets thrown at us.
Hence I am proposing making Monday the last day of the weekend, which will leave us an extra 8 hours to deal with all the crap that gets thrown at us.
Dec 10, 2008
An Alternative Method
A while back I claimed that "Today I'm taking my first step in quitting smoking". That was October 30th and, once again, it amounted to not much as I tried to slow down, cut down one day at a time, eliminate the post-metro fag or the out-of-work fag without much success. In any case, if I didn't have it one day I just had it half an hour later when I got back home. I also realised that I would spend about as much money between now and September as I did on my flights to Lebanon and Syria. The result of this was that, by my own twisted logic, if I quit smoking now, the holiday to the Middle East would be my reward, and it would be free !
For this and other reasons, I went cold turkey two days ago. I've been clean for 38 hours now and, although I've had some close calls, it's been relatively plain sailing. The funny thing I've noticed is that there are a lot of mind games going on that I'm playing with myself. As I'm walking down the street and not smoking I find myself thinking that I can always have a cigar instead and that won't count. Or trying to work out if it's possible to have a cigarette every x days or weeks without being considered "a smoker". Last night, I tried to reason with myself in order to justify having one on the balcony. It just takes a moment of clarity to realise this and tell myself to shut up and keep pushing forward with this but in the heat of the moment I don't really realise that this is what's going on and I'm hoping I don't slip up. I still have nothing against them and would have no problem having one from time to time but my main priority here is to be free of them, to be able to look at a cigarette the same way I look at a beer - as something that's nice to have from time to time but which will cause me absolutely no grief if I don't have it. I'm not there yet but I've got into the swing and I think I've got over the first difficult wave. I'm anticipating one or two more and then, as I claimed on October 30th, I would be smoke-free by the new year !
I haven't noticed any differences yet but, like the mind games my subconscious is playing with me to justify sneaking one in, I'm playing games with it too. When I walk, I breathe in heavily and tell myself my lungs are filling up more than they used to. I run up the escalator coming out of the metro and tell myself I feel better that I would have last week. I make myself look down on people smoking, telling myself they are going to be stuck as slaves to the Marlboro corporation. All the while, I'd quite fancy one myself but with some intense concentration it's possible and I'm quite honestly surprised that it hasn't been more difficult.
Again, watch this space !
For this and other reasons, I went cold turkey two days ago. I've been clean for 38 hours now and, although I've had some close calls, it's been relatively plain sailing. The funny thing I've noticed is that there are a lot of mind games going on that I'm playing with myself. As I'm walking down the street and not smoking I find myself thinking that I can always have a cigar instead and that won't count. Or trying to work out if it's possible to have a cigarette every x days or weeks without being considered "a smoker". Last night, I tried to reason with myself in order to justify having one on the balcony. It just takes a moment of clarity to realise this and tell myself to shut up and keep pushing forward with this but in the heat of the moment I don't really realise that this is what's going on and I'm hoping I don't slip up. I still have nothing against them and would have no problem having one from time to time but my main priority here is to be free of them, to be able to look at a cigarette the same way I look at a beer - as something that's nice to have from time to time but which will cause me absolutely no grief if I don't have it. I'm not there yet but I've got into the swing and I think I've got over the first difficult wave. I'm anticipating one or two more and then, as I claimed on October 30th, I would be smoke-free by the new year !
I haven't noticed any differences yet but, like the mind games my subconscious is playing with me to justify sneaking one in, I'm playing games with it too. When I walk, I breathe in heavily and tell myself my lungs are filling up more than they used to. I run up the escalator coming out of the metro and tell myself I feel better that I would have last week. I make myself look down on people smoking, telling myself they are going to be stuck as slaves to the Marlboro corporation. All the while, I'd quite fancy one myself but with some intense concentration it's possible and I'm quite honestly surprised that it hasn't been more difficult.
Again, watch this space !
Dec 5, 2008
Impulse Purchase
I'm not usually an impulse purchase fan. It seems to me to be the epitome of "shop for the hell of it". Given that I'm an enormous hypocrite, of course, I tend to do it quite a bit myself. Usually, though, it's been limited to chocolate bars while queueing for the shop check-out and the like.
Today though, I impulse purchased a holiday. M's going on a girly trip to Paris and, given that I'm not a girly, I'm barred from the trip. In a fit of jealous rage and in order to not be sitting around bored all weekend, I decided to go see some friends in Poland at the same time. Flights weren't easy to hunt down when I looked at them yesterday (meaning that they were very easy to hunt down, but not for cheap) so I extended my horizons slightly. Half an hour later I was drooling over a cheap deal to the Middle East. Today I asked my boss for some days off around the Easter weekend and tonight I whipped out M's Visa card and bought it. It's come so quickly that it hasn't really sunk in ! So on the 8th of April I'm hopping on a plane to Beirut. 6 days later, my return will be taking off from Damascus. It seems I'm going alone and I really don't know what to find there. It's the first time I'll have really travelled by myself (aside from little overland A-to-B trips in Europe) and my first time in the Middle East (or indeed any part of Asia) so it'll be an interesting trip - both in terms of discovering a new part of the world and maybe discovering myself a little.
Very cool. I'm very happy. And excited. And, most of all, I'm wondering how to break this news to my mother.
Today though, I impulse purchased a holiday. M's going on a girly trip to Paris and, given that I'm not a girly, I'm barred from the trip. In a fit of jealous rage and in order to not be sitting around bored all weekend, I decided to go see some friends in Poland at the same time. Flights weren't easy to hunt down when I looked at them yesterday (meaning that they were very easy to hunt down, but not for cheap) so I extended my horizons slightly. Half an hour later I was drooling over a cheap deal to the Middle East. Today I asked my boss for some days off around the Easter weekend and tonight I whipped out M's Visa card and bought it. It's come so quickly that it hasn't really sunk in ! So on the 8th of April I'm hopping on a plane to Beirut. 6 days later, my return will be taking off from Damascus. It seems I'm going alone and I really don't know what to find there. It's the first time I'll have really travelled by myself (aside from little overland A-to-B trips in Europe) and my first time in the Middle East (or indeed any part of Asia) so it'll be an interesting trip - both in terms of discovering a new part of the world and maybe discovering myself a little.
Very cool. I'm very happy. And excited. And, most of all, I'm wondering how to break this news to my mother.
Nov 25, 2008
Jingle Bells
Over recent weeks I've seen an increase in emails from my mother arriving to my inbox - they deal with various issues but one running theme is a request for information regarding what M and I want for Christmas. I usually respond with a half-baked answer, attempting to give some kind of direction without giving away that I really have no idea and can't help her on this.
So, Christmas is coming. Everyone has an opinion on it, and I'm no exception. Whereas most people militantly hate or love Christmas though, I'm somewhere in the middle. I'm really not bothered about it at all. The only reason I ever liked it as a kid was the presents - once they were out of the way the day lost its gloss completely, especially if the presents sucked. I have no religious or spiritual reason to celebrate Christmas. The presents are still cool though, and it's one of the few times the family gets together (especially with mine being pretty far flung - my parents in France, my sister in Belgium and me up here). That, however, is potentially explosive and tends to give Christmas get-togethers a slightly predictable tune.
Everyone turns up to my parents house with a role to play and, I would imagine, this is the same all over. Mothers who haven't seen their kids for a while will be overjoyed to see them and will attempt to impose an "everyone must be happy at this happy time" regime which, while it is commendable, is usually in vain because an argument will break out at some point. When she sees that her quest has failed (yet again) she will become disappointed and withdrawn.
Sisters, on the other hand, will come to the Christmas gathering with the aim of imposing their will on all present. This stamping of authority extends to all Christmas-specific issues - the size of the tree to be purchased, the decoration of said tree, the order in which presents are to be dished out, the amount of, and regularity with which, doting love must be lavished on the dog, the amount of attention they should get. With a total of 7 people and 2 dogs this Christmas, that will involve a lot more dictatorial behaviour. Given that I am enthusiastic neither about Christmas trees nor dogs, nor indeed following orders on such trivial matters as how presents should be handed out, I usually lose patience and tell her to leave everyone alone to do as they wish. This prompts an explosion of rage and lamentations full of self-pity about why she bothers trying to make this fun in the first place. Mothers (who have seen this argument and reacted negatively as described above) and sisters (who are seething with anger and need to stamp authority on someone having failed to do so with their brothers) then have a blazing argument with each other. Fathers then step in to calm things down and usually make it worse. As a result, he starts to read his newspaper while everyone else sits around being quiet.
As the day wears on, everyone will lighten up, food will be cooked and chatter will swirl around once more. This Christmas peace will last until after the dinner when someone will invariably suggest playing a game. Here, the old rivalries rear their heads again. In my family the tradition game has been Trivial Pursuit - teams can get together, have a laugh, everyone has fun. Apart from the sister of the family, that is, for she despises (or at least pretends to despise) Trivial Pursuit. Having studied politics for many years I can see her approach tactics quite well. The dictator wishes to impose his dictates on the population but, of course, cannot do it alone. Therefore, the dictator backs him/herself up with military force. Given the lack of a frightening figure in the family, the dictator must revert to some kind of non-ruling moral authority. This is Mamie - our grandmother. The dictator's choice of game will be rejected by the population (mother and brother) while the moral authority will be cajoled into giving her blessing. The international community (father) then falls asleep. This is when the mother and the brother end up playing Trivial Pursuit anyway, the sister storms off in another fit of rage, boyfriends and girlfriends sit looking slightly awkward, and the curtain comes down on yet another family Christmas.
I'm usually an optimist of sorts but when it comes to Christmas, things are far too inevitable to have any illusions about what's going to happen next month. This is why Christmas is something I'm not particularly bothered about.
So, Christmas is coming. Everyone has an opinion on it, and I'm no exception. Whereas most people militantly hate or love Christmas though, I'm somewhere in the middle. I'm really not bothered about it at all. The only reason I ever liked it as a kid was the presents - once they were out of the way the day lost its gloss completely, especially if the presents sucked. I have no religious or spiritual reason to celebrate Christmas. The presents are still cool though, and it's one of the few times the family gets together (especially with mine being pretty far flung - my parents in France, my sister in Belgium and me up here). That, however, is potentially explosive and tends to give Christmas get-togethers a slightly predictable tune.
Everyone turns up to my parents house with a role to play and, I would imagine, this is the same all over. Mothers who haven't seen their kids for a while will be overjoyed to see them and will attempt to impose an "everyone must be happy at this happy time" regime which, while it is commendable, is usually in vain because an argument will break out at some point. When she sees that her quest has failed (yet again) she will become disappointed and withdrawn.
Sisters, on the other hand, will come to the Christmas gathering with the aim of imposing their will on all present. This stamping of authority extends to all Christmas-specific issues - the size of the tree to be purchased, the decoration of said tree, the order in which presents are to be dished out, the amount of, and regularity with which, doting love must be lavished on the dog, the amount of attention they should get. With a total of 7 people and 2 dogs this Christmas, that will involve a lot more dictatorial behaviour. Given that I am enthusiastic neither about Christmas trees nor dogs, nor indeed following orders on such trivial matters as how presents should be handed out, I usually lose patience and tell her to leave everyone alone to do as they wish. This prompts an explosion of rage and lamentations full of self-pity about why she bothers trying to make this fun in the first place. Mothers (who have seen this argument and reacted negatively as described above) and sisters (who are seething with anger and need to stamp authority on someone having failed to do so with their brothers) then have a blazing argument with each other. Fathers then step in to calm things down and usually make it worse. As a result, he starts to read his newspaper while everyone else sits around being quiet.
As the day wears on, everyone will lighten up, food will be cooked and chatter will swirl around once more. This Christmas peace will last until after the dinner when someone will invariably suggest playing a game. Here, the old rivalries rear their heads again. In my family the tradition game has been Trivial Pursuit - teams can get together, have a laugh, everyone has fun. Apart from the sister of the family, that is, for she despises (or at least pretends to despise) Trivial Pursuit. Having studied politics for many years I can see her approach tactics quite well. The dictator wishes to impose his dictates on the population but, of course, cannot do it alone. Therefore, the dictator backs him/herself up with military force. Given the lack of a frightening figure in the family, the dictator must revert to some kind of non-ruling moral authority. This is Mamie - our grandmother. The dictator's choice of game will be rejected by the population (mother and brother) while the moral authority will be cajoled into giving her blessing. The international community (father) then falls asleep. This is when the mother and the brother end up playing Trivial Pursuit anyway, the sister storms off in another fit of rage, boyfriends and girlfriends sit looking slightly awkward, and the curtain comes down on yet another family Christmas.
I'm usually an optimist of sorts but when it comes to Christmas, things are far too inevitable to have any illusions about what's going to happen next month. This is why Christmas is something I'm not particularly bothered about.
Nov 17, 2008
Parting of ways
I'll be focusing all of my Africa-trip-related writing on me new blog - so bookmark THIS !
I will continue to dish out abuse to George W. Bush, Finland and various other (un)deserving targets right here. Don't go away !
I will continue to dish out abuse to George W. Bush, Finland and various other (un)deserving targets right here. Don't go away !
Nov 14, 2008
299 days...
We've finally done it. On September 8th, M and I will be boarding a plane, one-way tickets in hand, heading to Tunisia. We'll head east, turn right when we hit Cairo and follow the Nile down through Sudan to Ethiopia. From there we'll bum around various parts of Africa with a delightfully vague plan. The plan before then is to save as much money as humanly possible.
There are several things, I've noticed, that will take a lot of getting used to after all this time in Finland. My trips to Africa before haven't been fraught with all of these enormous culture shocks, but I've been in Helsinki for much longer now. And I can imagine that the following will be the most bizarre.
- The way the people look. They'll be black. Black, with black hair. Black, curly hair. There are a few Somalis living in Helsinki but still, the overwhelming majority of people are blonde, blue eyed and pasty-skinned. In fact if they didn't like wearing black clothes so much, they would be completely camouflaged once the snow came.
- The way the people act. I once again waited for the elevator coming back home after work tonight and as I was standing there a girl came in through the door, started coming towards the elevator and (shock horror !) I was there waiting for it. Rather than share an elevator with a stranger she turned, walked the length of the corridor and went up the stairs. This is quite a common occurrence here. Finns (at least when they are sober, which some of the time they are) have an inviolatable personal space the size of a small house. Africans have never heard of personal space.
- Communication skills. Being spoken to by complete strangers is something I've generally been used to and had no problem with, but it will still come as a bit of a shock now. How will I deal with this ?
- The temperature. What else is there to say ? An African winter is the same temperature as a Finnish summer. I love the heat though and, although I scored only the second sunburn of my life last summer here in Helsinki, I'm still filled with optimism.
In 299 days, we'll be there. Until then, life will be cold, dark, wet and mostly quite silent. At least I'll have a lot of space to reflect on this while I'm in the elevator.
There are several things, I've noticed, that will take a lot of getting used to after all this time in Finland. My trips to Africa before haven't been fraught with all of these enormous culture shocks, but I've been in Helsinki for much longer now. And I can imagine that the following will be the most bizarre.
- The way the people look. They'll be black. Black, with black hair. Black, curly hair. There are a few Somalis living in Helsinki but still, the overwhelming majority of people are blonde, blue eyed and pasty-skinned. In fact if they didn't like wearing black clothes so much, they would be completely camouflaged once the snow came.
- The way the people act. I once again waited for the elevator coming back home after work tonight and as I was standing there a girl came in through the door, started coming towards the elevator and (shock horror !) I was there waiting for it. Rather than share an elevator with a stranger she turned, walked the length of the corridor and went up the stairs. This is quite a common occurrence here. Finns (at least when they are sober, which some of the time they are) have an inviolatable personal space the size of a small house. Africans have never heard of personal space.
- Communication skills. Being spoken to by complete strangers is something I've generally been used to and had no problem with, but it will still come as a bit of a shock now. How will I deal with this ?
- The temperature. What else is there to say ? An African winter is the same temperature as a Finnish summer. I love the heat though and, although I scored only the second sunburn of my life last summer here in Helsinki, I'm still filled with optimism.
In 299 days, we'll be there. Until then, life will be cold, dark, wet and mostly quite silent. At least I'll have a lot of space to reflect on this while I'm in the elevator.
Nov 13, 2008
A Close Shave
Whoa. Even if we as non-Americans don't have a vote in their elections, we keep an eye on what happens there, and rightly so. The Americans have an unrivalled capacity to send large military forces anywhere in the world, bomb the crap out of just about anywhere they would want to, and kill with impunity around the planet. If they got wind of my office here producing something more suspicious than mobile phone games, they could flatten it without any notice and explain it away without much trouble (much like the Al-Shifa Factory bombing). If they didn't like the way the plane I'm taking this winter was flying, they could shoot it down without much of a care (like the shooting down of the Iran Air flight by the USS Vincennes). If Osama bin Laden was hiding out in the forests of Karelia and the army couldn't find him (and let's face it, anyone could get lost in those forests) they could invade leading to the deaths of millions and it would be described as collateral damage. Worst of all, I'd have to go buy a new shaver so as to not leave so much as a hint of a beard. Not that I have much of one now, but it's better to be safe than sorry. Disastrous economic management has led to a global slowdown in a way far more disastrous than would be engendered by disastrous economic management in, say, Tajikistan or Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
They invade at will, carry out covert operations at will and aside from being responsible for the death of millions of civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Japan and many others, they have been responsible for and tried to be responsible for the deaths of heads of state and government - Saddam Hussein and Patrice Lumumba were successfully disposed of, Fidel Castro was not, nor was Moammar Qadhafi (although his daughter was). They have overthrown the popularly elected Mohamed Mossadeq, Salvador Allende, the Sandinista movement and many others, replacing them with the pro-American choice and plunging those respective countries into chaos and discontentment. The first force to unify and impose law and order in Mogadishu in 18 years was expelled with American backing just because this force was composed of moderate Islamists. Mogadishu is once again lawless, being pounded to rubble and run by warlords. The bombing of Belgrade in the late 1990s, with the latest precision technology, succeeding in killing 3 Chinese journalists in the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, 15 people on a passenger train which was actually shot at twice (and described by Wesley Clark as an "uncanny incident" - can you imagine this happening if roles were reversed ?), hundreds of people in Kosovar refugee convoys and, in another "unfortunate" incident, a passenger bus near Pristina. The ambulance coming to pick up the wounded was itself, naturally, also bombed. The list goes on.
This exploration is far from exhaustive and, quite probably, what is available and known is far from exhaustive. As a consequence, us non-Americans naturally have a right to have an interest in who is elected to the White House. We have a right to be extremely concerned when a McCain-Palin double act comes remotely close to accessing the power to do all of this. I've been looking back on things and wondering what was bugging me about Sarah Palin. It wasn't her Bushesque stupidity and mindblowing inability to construct a sentence, because while I found it very concerning that such a person should be in such a position of power I also find it quite amusing. I've come to think it's the complete transparency with which these people in the US get away with it. Let's not forget that Sarah Palin is already Governor of Alaska, she's not a nobody. She's got big ambitions, she's considering running for President again in 2012. I'll demonstrate what I mean with this by now famous video . I think the most striking thing here is the fact that there is complicity with all of us. She knows she's talking crap, Katie Couric knows she's talking crap, we know she's talking crap. However the whole circus just continues unabated. I've seen plenty of videos like this but no one in the American media ever seems to stand up to politicians and say hey, Buster, that's a bunch of crap. I've seen them blatantly lying on TV without being called to account for it, when it could so easily have been done. If there are any Americans who can explain why this is, please leave me a message ! George Bush, it seems, is a man who has perfected this "we all know I'm talking shit but let's just pretend it's true" approach to stuff. Palin is a remarkable student and McCain has shown he's no pushover in the subject either. I'm not sure what it is about the Republicans in general, but I feel that it has something to do with my piece on the word "evil" from earlier on. Democrats persuade Americans to vote for them based on the real issues - Republicans persuade Americans to vote for them in the same way that they'd persuade a small kid to give them their lollipops. I just don't believe a word they say, even if it's more likely to be true. Nicolas Sarkozy, for all his faults, will tell someone in the streets to fuck off if he fancies it. The proof is that he already has. We can trust a guy like that to some extent.
So the result was quite a rare event - US voters have actually selected the more intelligent, less confrontational candidate of the two. I'm not going to cheer just yet, but let's give the new guy a chance. He's already said that he's ready to talk to Iran, Syria and so forth. This is something that we just wouldn't imagine hearing from the monkey currently in charge. It might restore a bit of trust and goodwill in the world and we might be able to get back towards working together rather than hating each other. Besides, if I was American, I'd much rather have Michelle Obama as a First Lady than Cindy McCain...
They invade at will, carry out covert operations at will and aside from being responsible for the death of millions of civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Japan and many others, they have been responsible for and tried to be responsible for the deaths of heads of state and government - Saddam Hussein and Patrice Lumumba were successfully disposed of, Fidel Castro was not, nor was Moammar Qadhafi (although his daughter was). They have overthrown the popularly elected Mohamed Mossadeq, Salvador Allende, the Sandinista movement and many others, replacing them with the pro-American choice and plunging those respective countries into chaos and discontentment. The first force to unify and impose law and order in Mogadishu in 18 years was expelled with American backing just because this force was composed of moderate Islamists. Mogadishu is once again lawless, being pounded to rubble and run by warlords. The bombing of Belgrade in the late 1990s, with the latest precision technology, succeeding in killing 3 Chinese journalists in the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, 15 people on a passenger train which was actually shot at twice (and described by Wesley Clark as an "uncanny incident" - can you imagine this happening if roles were reversed ?), hundreds of people in Kosovar refugee convoys and, in another "unfortunate" incident, a passenger bus near Pristina. The ambulance coming to pick up the wounded was itself, naturally, also bombed. The list goes on.
This exploration is far from exhaustive and, quite probably, what is available and known is far from exhaustive. As a consequence, us non-Americans naturally have a right to have an interest in who is elected to the White House. We have a right to be extremely concerned when a McCain-Palin double act comes remotely close to accessing the power to do all of this. I've been looking back on things and wondering what was bugging me about Sarah Palin. It wasn't her Bushesque stupidity and mindblowing inability to construct a sentence, because while I found it very concerning that such a person should be in such a position of power I also find it quite amusing. I've come to think it's the complete transparency with which these people in the US get away with it. Let's not forget that Sarah Palin is already Governor of Alaska, she's not a nobody. She's got big ambitions, she's considering running for President again in 2012. I'll demonstrate what I mean with this by now famous video . I think the most striking thing here is the fact that there is complicity with all of us. She knows she's talking crap, Katie Couric knows she's talking crap, we know she's talking crap. However the whole circus just continues unabated. I've seen plenty of videos like this but no one in the American media ever seems to stand up to politicians and say hey, Buster, that's a bunch of crap. I've seen them blatantly lying on TV without being called to account for it, when it could so easily have been done. If there are any Americans who can explain why this is, please leave me a message ! George Bush, it seems, is a man who has perfected this "we all know I'm talking shit but let's just pretend it's true" approach to stuff. Palin is a remarkable student and McCain has shown he's no pushover in the subject either. I'm not sure what it is about the Republicans in general, but I feel that it has something to do with my piece on the word "evil" from earlier on. Democrats persuade Americans to vote for them based on the real issues - Republicans persuade Americans to vote for them in the same way that they'd persuade a small kid to give them their lollipops. I just don't believe a word they say, even if it's more likely to be true. Nicolas Sarkozy, for all his faults, will tell someone in the streets to fuck off if he fancies it. The proof is that he already has. We can trust a guy like that to some extent.
So the result was quite a rare event - US voters have actually selected the more intelligent, less confrontational candidate of the two. I'm not going to cheer just yet, but let's give the new guy a chance. He's already said that he's ready to talk to Iran, Syria and so forth. This is something that we just wouldn't imagine hearing from the monkey currently in charge. It might restore a bit of trust and goodwill in the world and we might be able to get back towards working together rather than hating each other. Besides, if I was American, I'd much rather have Michelle Obama as a First Lady than Cindy McCain...
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