Hairdressing

I went today to hairdresser. I felt so dark and gloomy and asked the hairdresser to bring some light at least to my hair. And she did. Soft light copper.

I have been waking up at 5.30 AM. It's the new shift I'm doing. You can quess if I like it or not...
I should be in bed by now - otherwise I won't get enough sleep.

It has been terribly cold in Helsinki today. Freezing. This is really the day you would need long woollen underpants if you happened to own a pair. I try to avoid going out.

See Helsingin Sanomat story about the weather in Finland

This is a test.

Sunday in Helsinki

I went today to Cafe Ekberg. A very traditional Helsinki Cafe situated in Bulevardi ("Boulevard"). Established 1852. (Pretty old, isn't it?).

I met two of my friends. Sari and Eve. Sari has her birthday today, so congratulations once again! We ate some Runebergin torttu - a small cake which got it's name after the famous Finnish poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg.


Runeberg has his birthday 5th February and we celebrate it every year in Finland. (so as you can see we ate our cakes one day ahead...).

Read more about Runeberg in Wikipedia.
------
Later I made an abstract of an article in Estonian women's magazine called Anne for my language course tomorrow. We had a warm day again here in Helsinki, but we still have some snow. I have to wake up really early tomorrow. My working day starts next week at 7 and that's a killer.

Language problem

I have been wondering. This blog is in English, but should I write in Finnish as well?

(Haluaisitteko hyvät blogini lukijat, että kirjoittaisin tätä englannin lisäksi myös suomeksi? Jos niin, niin miten?)

If yes, then how should I do that?

Few lines in English and few in Finnish? Or every other post in Finnish and every other in English? Same text translated or different text?

Or not at all? Just in English. Or maybe something in German? Estonian? Swedish?
To be or not to be....

It's just that I have a Finnish blog called Sukututkimus www.sukututkimus.blogspot.com. But this blog is strictly about genealogy (searching your ancestors and that stuff).

This weekend we were visiting my parents-in-law at their vacation home in Hollola. The weather was bright and sunny. The dog enjoyed, except the moment when the cat (called Nasu) decided to hit him with his pawn.

Finally, winter.

I visited my parents last weekend.

Winter is finally here. We had -23 degrees Celsius on Monday, it's like -10 Fahrenheit. Everything was covered with snow and ice. Sun was shining.

It's amazing feeling, after all this darkeness -- and suddenly everything bathes in white.

More photos about Ilmajoki.

Photobook part 2 - Kuvakirja osa 2

Well, now I have my Ifi photobook. See my earlier post about this subject.

And I have to say I'm pleased. It's not de luxe model but works well with soft covers. Colours are all right and paper quality is good.
Here are some photos of the book:

Inside the book










And outside:

Sally Spectra

Finnish News Agency STT writes that Darlene Conley who acted Sally Spectra's role in the soap opera Bold and Beautiful died last Sunday. The cause of death was cancer. She was 72 years old. B&B is very popular in Finland as well and Sally was important part of the show. She played the part in tv since 1988, which makes it almost 20 years.

In Finland B&B is about one year behind the USA. So Sally will be in B&B here in Finland until next December.

(STT kirjoittaa, että Tv:n Kauniit ja rohkeat -sarjassa Sally Spectraa esittänyt Darlene Conley on kuollut. Conley, 72, menehtyi vatsasyöpään sunnuntaina Los Angelesissa.)

Sally has always been my favourite character in the B&B. She is a ruthless business woman, cunning and conniving owner of Spectra fashions. Often she was a little too much to handle.

This brings me a lot of memories. The B&B was the real soap opera in Finnish TV. As a real soap opera I mean a show that came from TV 5 days a week and not just once a week. When B&B first started I remember how quiet it was in the grocery store at 6 or half past 6. (I can't really remeber the time).

Nobody was there, every single female was at home watching the B&B. Including my mother, my grandmother and my grandmother's sister. Sometimes it united the three generations together in front of the TV set.

My grandmother really liked the show and so did her sister Armi. We often discussed about the plot or the characters with them. Like Sally, they secretly admired Eric Forrester.

It is so strange to think that they are all gone now, my grandmother, her sister and even Darlene, who played the much hated and loved Sally.

People write about Sally:
- Dana: We'll miss you Darlene
- Elisa: Farewell Sally!!!

In Finland:
- Medis: Sally Elää
-The Sleeper: Sally on kuollut
- Handis: "Sally Spectra" kuoli

Blogs in different countries

A blog should be interactive. That's my honest opinion. So I'm trying.
I'm going to list all the countries I have visited during 2005 and 2006. Then I will find a nice blog from each country and try to comment it.

How does that sound?
Dull...
well, let's see.
------
2005: I went in springtime to Saarenmaa, Estonia. I spent my summer holiday in Provence and Languedoc, France and then in October I spent a week in Lisbon, Portugal.

2006: I went briefly in summer to Estonia (Tallinn, Viljadi), Latvia and Lithuania (Nida). Then I spent 3 months in Ithaca, NY,USA. In December I went to a business trip in Sweden.

So, here it goes! selected or random blogs from the countries I visited:

1. Estonia (Viro): Stseene magamistoast. She is quite funny and writes in Estonian:

"Ma pesin just nüüdsama hambaid - kolmveerand kolm öösel ja neli minutit. Braavo! Rekord. Küll mu hambaarst rõõmustaks (aga ma ei käi tal külas, nii et see saavutus jääb nimetamata)."

2. France (Ranska): Tribulations d'un entrepreneur Jean-Hubert writes about being an entrepreneur in Paris, France. His business is real estate. He usually keeps his posting rather short. No wonder, because being an entrepreneur doesn't leave you with much extra time. He writes in French:

"Suite à l’achat d’un appartement en 2002, j’ai commencé à m’intéresser au secteur de l’immobilier, tant dans ses tendances que dans ses métiers et activités connexes."

3. Portugal (Portugali): Phronesis Bev lives in Setubal, Portugal and writes in English about living with two languages.
Bev writes:

" I chose to live here - not because I'm retired, nor for the golf or the cheap beer (although I do appreciate the price of good wine). And it's not because I was looking for low-salaried work that no-one else wants to do. And no, I didn't come because I fell in love with a Portuguese guy."

4. Latvia: Juris writes about mobile phones and telecom industry in Latvia. Not so surprisingly, the blog is called Telecoms in Latvia. He seems to know the latest rumours.

He writes in English: "Anyway, according to news reports, the most desired Christmas present this year in Latvia was a mobile phone."

5. Lithuania (Liettua): Tomas has a lot of artwork in his blog called Captain's bridge. The blog is written in English.

He says: "The nature creates the metaphors that are incredible rich with insights into the mystery of our inner world that shapes everything we see or handle."

6. NY state, USA: I chose a blog from Ithaca, NY. Jenna, a sorority girl at Cornell writes about her life in the semi-official Cornell student blog. The blog is called "Oh no she didn't".

Jenna writes things like this:
"Oh, frat guy. Pretty sweet deal until you treat him badly and you are never allowed in the door of any of their parties again, and you can pretty much forget about his cute friend."

7. Sweden: Lycklig.org Pernilla writes about life and her son Theo and her dog called Biggles. She writes in Swedish:

"På förmiddagen promenerade vi i skogen med Biggles. Så långt bort från alla raketskjutare, som inte fattat att nyår är över, som möjligt. Biggles var ganska glad större delen av rundan, vilket kändes som en lättnad."

And where can you find blogs from different countries ( blogeja eri maista)? You could use Globe of Blogs or Blogflux.

What I found out was that it's pretty difficult to find blogs in English in countries like Latvia or Lithuania. They don't seem to list them. Also in Portugal blogs seems to be written mostly in Portuguese. It would be interesting to know more of these pages where blogs of different countries are listed.

In Sweden I found a website called "Var är du" that shows Swedish blogs on the map. That's nice! If you want to find blogs in Finnish or from Finland you should use www.blogilista.fi

Getting rid of Cingular

When I spent my three months in the USA last fall I had a Cingular connection in my mobile phone. Pay as you go - prepaid connection.




Which wasn't always that fun. It never worked inside big buildings in Ithaca. Neither did it work any where in the countryside near Ithaca. It did, however, work very well in New York City.

Well, now the AT&T has told that Cingular ceases to be.

Vanishes all together and is replaced by AT&T.

New York Times says following: " One of the biggest “de-brandings” in advertising history is to begin Monday when AT&T starts changing all Cingular marketing to adopt the AT&T name."

Goodbye Cingular.

Something about the subject in Finnish from Digitoday. I was a little bit ahead, I must say.

New Year's plans

Isn't it always fun to start something new? and the beginning of a new year is a good time for novelties.

I registred me and my husband for an Estonian language course. We both speak a little bit Estonian, thanks to our 10 month stay in Tallinn (1998-1999). I'm really looking forward to this. We have been a little bit worried - our Estonian language skills have been gradually deteriorating. For this reason it's good to continue learning the language.

Estonian and Finnish are quite close to each other. In this sense it's fairly easy to learn the language, but the language has nevertheless its own tricks. One feature is the problem words "pulmasõnad". It can be that there's a same word in both languages, but the meaning is very different. Like Estonian word "pulmad" (d's are pronounced as t's) and Finnish word "pulmat". In Estonian the word means "wedding" and in Finnish "problems".

Other interesting word is "hallitus" - in Estonian it means "mold" and in Finnish "government". In Estonian blue cheese is for example "sinihallitusjuust", in Finnish it would be "sinihomejuusto".

If we are going to make progress in this course, I would think that we could reward ourselves with a weekend trip to Tallinn.

Chicago

My husband is currently attending a conference held in Chicago. While he is there - and I'm here in my home Helsinki, Finland - I keep wondering, what the city is like and what it used to be in the 20's and 30's. The time of organized crime and Al Capone.

I had a relative who lived there since the beginning of the century until his death in 1950's. He was called Andrew Nelson (Antti Pitkämäki). He was my grandmom's uncle and he worked in the construction business. He had a wife Amanda and a son called Frank E. Nelson. Frank was an insurance guy. They were active members of Finnish congregation in Chicago. I checked from the Census records, that they had lived in 334 West 79th Street (1910) and Albany Avenue (1930) in Chicago. He never visited Finland again. My grandparents invited him to come to the Helsinki Olympic Games in 1952, but he answered that he was too old. It would be fun to know more about him, but unfortunately his son is dead and didn't have any children. I found Andrew's obituary in Siirtokansan kalenteri.

I have actually been to Chicago myself as well. Or actually I have been in the airport. That's not really Chicago, isn't it? I quess the closest we get to Chicago here in Finland is by watching the ER.