What the hell?

On the off chance someone wanted to send snail-mail, the address for the remainder of June is:

Irene **name removed***
c/o Marjo Oikarinen
Airikink 1A5
20100 Turku
FIN

This is the schwankiest of all apartments. Situated on the picturesque bank of the Turku River (which I'm sure has a real name), the large 1BR is equipped with not one, but t w o balconies. The larger terrace (~5'x10') is enclosed with glass to protect the apparently dim-witted feline, who I will herein refer to as Slasher. The spacious bathroom (roughly 10'x10') has a modern Finnish (dry steam) sauna tucked alongside the cutest washer ever.

Ahem. So what if I sound like a newspaper classfified section?

The apartment rocks. And it's actually quiet at night here. No garbage trucks to wake you first thing in the morning. (Unless, that is, you stay home during the week. Then the sound of construction is all around the city, as a number of buildings are slowing sinking into the muddy ground they were built upon.)

Today I might be heading back to HEL to pick up Tarja. If Pekka gets out of work early, then we'll hop in the car and hang out for the remainder of the daylight hours. Tarja is well matched with Pekka, as both share an affinity for shopping as a sport;) Because the sun doesn't set until 10.30 - 11pm, the days are really long. You can find people outside until it's dark. Then the show's over. For a few hours that is. The sun starts to rise at 2.30 am. I know this only because the birds wake up at this time and chirp their oh-so-repetive-songs-until-I-can-ignore-them.

Driving home on Sunday from HEL, we were on the road during the dark hours. Weird and kind of scary. Apparently the Moose (yes, those big animals with horns) migrate most often during dusk/evening hours. When it's dark on an unlit road the thought of hitting a moose is less than appealing. This is where the orange triangle signs you've seen come in handy. The signs are shown in a few situations. 1) When you're near a natural crossing area 2) when the fence along major roads in not continued 3) whenever they feel like posting a sign. So basically, driving at night is a bad thing as you're more likely to hit a moose at the knees...thereby folding the animaly violently head-first into your windshield. Uh-oh.

I ate smoked moose (and reindeer) before developing a fear for the beasts. Pekka picked up a bunch at the KKK. (No, not that KKK. The biggest supermarket chain, Prisma, shows drivers the relative size of the store by using the letter 'k'. So a superhuge store would have 4 K's in row, while the large would have 'KKK'. Funny only to the Americans. The Finns don't even notice it. On another tangent, there is a company called 'Penis' that sells computers. And don't forget about 'Hackman' the company that sells knives.)

brb.

More for later. Brain pooped.

(Might have something to do with the shock of seeing rain today. The weather has been perfect so far. No humidity, none of the swelting suffering of paved streets, just the mosquitos when you're by the water...or in the forest. Most of the time it's been 70-75 F. Kind of cool.)

posted by irene @ 6/11/2002 06:23:00 AM