back from savo province – the finland compilation: other than most of the central europeans i had some very sunny and warm days on keskisaari island in maaninka. it was a long trip (made easier by listening to the schmoove latin sound of the brazilophiles cd arfco3000 gave to me) but definitely worth it.

because there are still a lot of lappi people hunting around, we certainly were hunting, too: for woolen caps with a little woolen antenna, wooden breakfast plates with an egg hole and ferry dish trays with a sea map – but claudia probably wants to tell more about that... :)

after two days i did not miss a computer mouse, a keyboard or blogger at all (and who would really miss a monitor, that dumb photon cannon?) – well, there was a possibility to get online at the local library, but thinking of going there i soon became very lazy. instead, i read the first harry potter book (a gift i suprisingly got from heike just short before my departure) and t. c. boyle's "water music", ate tons of fazer dumle (the sweetest drug), mämmi (dark rye porridge), kalakukko (hollowed bread filled with fish and bacon), liha- and karelja pirakka (rye pastries filled with meat or rice) and korvapuusti (sticky buns) and listened to danny's rockabilly songs from 3 decades (claudia bought a cd).

writing so many times about finnish tango, here is a finnish tango track to listen to (thank you, martin): "ich mit meiner braut im parlamentspark" by m. a. numminen (2.8 mb almost confirming all prejudices about finnish people being always drunk and generally crazy and that some estonians rightfully are calling them "our four legged friends").

although it is not the national beverage, i bought a bottle of bombay sapphire gin on the ferry. bottle and design are very beautiful.

in a report by tex rubinowitz printed in some austrian travel magazine i have read that since nokia (which is – besides the name of the rubber boots company that became famous for its mobile phones – a city in the tampere region) brought globalization to finland there is quite a new tram line in helsinki. the first one where people are sitting vis-à-vis to other passengers which is "a big problem for the average finnish person being introverted by suppressed passion".