Ice Swimming!

Last week, I finally got to go ice swimming with Erika, Kate, and some ladies from the Fulbright center: Johanna who led us, Topi, and elegant Terhi.


It might sound crazy, but there's something really wonderful about ice swimming. First we walked shivering over a snowy path from the changing room to the steaming smoke sauna. This place was kind of funny, in addition to being really warm... Whenever someone came in - especially if it was a man - he would pour a ladle full of water over the hot rocks to create more steaming heat. I think that seeing who could withstand a hotter sauna was sort of a test of manliness. I couldn't really handle it at first and had to sit on the steps. (The temperature is hottest up on the platform.) Now, this is where the ice swimming comes in.

Before leaving the sauna, Johanna told me to breath calmly. "Just tell yourself that you're not going to die." It was very good advice.

So you step onto the stickily frozen wooden porch and first let yourself adjust to the cold a little bit. This is pretty important. The second time I went into the lake, I didn't wait as long to cool down beforehand, and the water felt much colder and stung my skin a little. So anyway, then you walk over a walkway to the lake, where you slowly let yourself down a slippery ice-covered ladder and into the water. Those who are brave enough will actually take a short swim around the little lake, but I only dipped myself in then slowly let myself out. After adjusting to the cold then dipping into the lake, the freezing air actually doesn't feel that bad at all. It's even rather pleasant. Then on the way back to the sauna, I could see everyone's bodies enveloped in a cloud of steam. After the lake, I could withstand much more heat in the sauna and managed to sit on the raised platform.


I told myself while outside that the sauna was hot, but now, it's time for the cold part, and the cold part is supposed to be cold. Somehow, ice swimming ends up being a truly amazing blend of the two extremes.

By the way, here's a quick fact. Aaron didn't believe this until he looked it up himself. While most saunas stay at around 40-50C, Finnish saunas range at about 80-110C (170-230F). The older men, who are experienced, might try for higher. And while there are about 5 million people living in Finland, the country has over 2 million saunas. Amazing in kind of a quirky way, huh?

Left to right: Johanna, me, Kate

European Figure Skating Championships

Yesterday, I watched the final gala to the European Figure Skating Championships - held in Tallin - with my new roommate from Estonia.

This gala is such a good idea. No required jumps, no score-keeping. Just the best of the best doing what they love.

And pairs figure skating... talk about defying gravity, for real. Even the camera can't follow them at times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O99bwcFwSTE

I wish this video was of a better quality, but you get the general gist.

Fun Nordic Facts

- topics that have come up during lab coffee breaks

Snow. Mikko told me that it has snowed approximately 40-50 cm so far this winter. The ground has been covered with a permanent layer of snow for over a month now.

Equinox: a country of extremes. With all this wintry darkness, I think we tend to forget that Finland also has some of the brightest of days. By the equinox (March 23rd), Finland will again have longer days than most of the rest of the world. I tried to represent the changing length of day in this doodle.


"Ass washer": best Finnish inventions. That's exactly what a man in my lab called it. I've always wondered what those little hoses, commonly found beside sinks in private and public bathrooms alike, were for, and now I know. That must be why all the public bathroom stalls here are actual doors that go all the way to the floor.


The drying cupboard is another great Finnish invention. It's easy to use, saves tons of space, and just makes so much sense! I'm definitely going to have one built into my future house.


Polar bears in Norway... ... are dangerous. When scientists go to the research stations in northern Norway, the first thing they are handed is a gun, and their first lesson is on how to shot down a polar bear. The sad thing is that polar bears will sometimes drift on ice sheets - broken off as a result of global warming - to places where they don't normally exist. Then they have to be shot and killed, because otherwise they will disturb that particular ecosystem.

Also, despite being carnivores, polar bears don't eat penguins, because penguins only live in the South Pole.

Viili: the mother of all yogurts. You always hear about live cultures in bacteria (and how wonderful they are), but with villi, I can actually believe it. Of a fantastically gooey substance, this almost tasteless snack is normally eaten with some sort of jam and/or fruit. I think it's somewhat of an acquired taste, though. I'm trying to acquire it because villi is supposed to be quite good for you, but I still have to eat it with an enormous blob of strawberry jam to stomach it. This is also specifically Finnish, though the other Nordic countries have their own versions, as well.

Winter in Helsinki

It has started to snow in Helsinki. With the drop in temperature, what used to be drizzles of rain have now become flakes of snow, falling down at intervals throughout the day. It never snows for long (perhaps 15 minutes at a time), but it does so often, leaving the ground covered with a thin, consistent layer of fresh snow. It's pact over sidewalks and streets, powdered elsewhere.

It was kind of interesting to watch the slow flakes outside the window of my bus tonight. Some flakes would hit the side and simply fall to the ground. Others, however, would somehow skid, slide, then skid again to be carried up by the wind, regrouped with its original flurry. It made me think of that part in "Finding Nemo," where the baby turtle tumbles out of the current. Nemo freaks out, and the papa surfer dude turtle says something like, "He'll be alright."

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A couple of things made me happy today.

Earlier in the fall, I met a 12-year-old girl on the tram on her way to cheerleading practice. I ran into her again this afternoon. :) She smiled at me with recognition, and I waved at her. She told me that they had just gone to competition and won 2nd place, almost 1st. She's a flyer, too!

Then while waiting for the bus this evening, a young woman started to say something to me in Finnish (fifty something...). Seeing my confusion, she asked...

'Do you speak English?'

'Yes.'

'Did bus 55 come yet?'

'No, I'm waiting for that bus, too.'

'Oh, then I haven't missed it! I've had such good luck with buses today! Today really has been a very good day!'

I smiled. And she continued.

'I also found a wedding present for my friend, and it was only a couple of euros! I thought that it would be like 15 euros!'

She had a very high forehead so that beneath her black knit cap, I could've sworn that she was bald, if not for the wisps of blonde hair poking out from underneath. Later on the bus, I sat about a row behind her, and watched her pour herself a small cup of hot tea from a thermostat. She made me really glad, in a small way.

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This post has been written over the course of two days. It is now day 2, and I now take back what I said before about the on-and-off snow. It has been snowing for about 24 hours now, and on my way home, I saw a city bus being towed away.

Otherwise, I've actually been pretty impressed by the bus drivers. At -15C, spreading salt on the road no longer helps, because it doesn't lower the freezing point enough. The pastor who conducts our choir told me that while most cars get snow tires in the winter, buses don't. I've found that buses will often attempt to stop a few feet in front of where they would normally stop, then half crunch, half slide into place. On my way into the city today, my bus slipped at a turn, then basically swiveled around to make the turn, reoriented itself and kept going. These people are good.

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The days are mostly grayish now, and with so much night, it's good to have little things that make you happy. Here are a few of them.

Candles are very nice for the evenings.


Knitting, being productive, and slowly creating something good.


Buying flowers for oneself. ;)


A random boar meat dinner from the neighbors downstairs. (The Scottish/Irish guy is studying at the school of forestry, of which a group of students had hunted a boar.)


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When I came back to Helsinki from the States in November, the biggest shock was how much winter had settled in... how much shorter the days were. Now, I'm really beginning to love it. You would think that with being the capital of Lapland and the home of Santa Claus, Finland would put together a grand getup for Christmas, but it hasn't been that way at all. I want to say something about the calm of the snow and whatnot, but I'll just put up some pictures. :)

Traditional 7-candle setup. You see these EVERYWHERE... in the window sills of business buildings, government halls, shops, and homes. This particular one was in one window at the lab.


A snowy morning at the bus stop, at around 10am.


A Christmas tree sale. :) Joulukuusia.


Erika's friend Janna discovered some Christmas lights in a drawer. Our apartment has a small plastic tree left by a previous tenant, so we made it up into a little Christmas display.

Beautiful Paivi and energetic-child-at-heart Maria before a choir concert at a nursing home.


A 5cm-ish angel ornament from a really nice holiday gathering at Paivi's home. Everyone received one of these - "small (pieni) or even smaller." Maria followed it up with, "God can see greatness even in small things." And, with a look of surprise as we each drew a present out of a bag, "Nan, you got the biggest one! The biggest one for the smallest person. See, you're important to God, too." :)

Aurinko paistaa!

The sun came out today, along with a pale blue sky! Though we are now at about -15 degrees Celsius.

I also got my H1N1 vaccination this afternoon. All students under the age of 25 can get it in Finland for free. :)

Sorry about the slack in updates! More will come in the next couple of days... once I finish my Finnish exam!

The fire marshall has maintained...

"The fire marshall has maintained that it is not allowed to light candles at any time in the Biomedicum Helsinki building... not even during the holiday season."

- on a TV monitor in my research building.

The Heart of Country Music

I put this entry off, until I was able to get pictures from the Fulbright Center. The setting of this entry is the American Voices Conference in Turku a couple of weeks ago. For the conference, each of us presented on an aspect of American culture near and dear to us. My topic was country music (in the last 15 years, as I've known it), and if nothing else, it was great to share some of my favorite songs with a room full of Finns. I started with a slide on "how to speak Southern." This was followed by the trends that I have seen in the last decade... from the old gentle, story-telling style, to a bigger and more pop-like sound, with colorful explorations of the use of music videos, and to now. I ended with a large section on the themes that have stayed the same. I really enjoyed this section, and it gave me an opportunity to look up the lyrics to some old favorites. This one by Tim McGraw is so beautiful.

She's my kind of rain
Like love in a drunken sky
She's confetti falling
Down all night

After my presentation, one man made several comments about how country music is a bit like traditional African folk music, with focuses on story-telling and the rain.

I also got a couple of comments about how Protestant country music is, and whether it is possible for nonreligious people to enjoy country music. My answer was "yes". I think that the core of country music lies in telling stories from real life, and if God is a part of life for some people, then it will show up in the music. The nice thing about country music, though, is that it's not trying to be religious. God shows up, in the same way that love and loss do. Afterward, Mrs. Stein - Julia's mom who was visiting - came up to me to tell me more. She's from the South, so she was really happy about my presentation, and she also had a lot of insight to share. I wish she had been up there with me to answer some of those questions.

So, the better answer would have been:

The origins of country music really date back to the Great Depression, when the small farmers and cowboys of the South were really having a hard time. People didn't have a lot money, so life was simple. Church was important, because it was probably the primary social outlet for many people, so religion naturally made its way into the music. Similarly, because life was simple, events such as love, loss, and even the rain were a big deal. When you didn't have a lot to talk about, you talked about the loves and losses in your life. So that's how country music became a form of story telling.

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Now for a few pictures from the conference.

The American ambassador kicked off the conference with a shout-out to the Fulbright program. By the way, I know it's hard to see him, but doesn't he remind you of Mr. Schwarzenegger, just a little bit?

Dinner on a boat, called the "Rudolph", I believe. I order a plate with three types of fish. I'm wearing a pink sweater, and the lady sitting next to me is named Terhi. Terhi is probably the most elegant person I know. I can't decide whether when I grow older, I want to be like Terhi or like one of those ladies who ravingly speak their mind and enjoy it.

The river running through Turku: the city's pride and joy.