suomi
so, im in finland. Its 120 and the suns finally starting to set. which means if i go to bed right now, i can get 2 hrs of sleep before the sun pokes it head in the window to wake me up again.
I've been having fun between finnish and railroad classes here in Tampere. Between going to the pubs to sample to local flavors and visiting museums and librarys and churches and other forms of random architectural appreciation, finland is intresting. It's also cool to see how they build their civil structures; engineering aint the same here. It's simpler. and much much cheaper. Yet it still works. Hmm. . .
We ride the bus 10 k to the city center for all our shopping needs. which are few, since finland is one of the more expensive places to live in europe with that 1.3$/1€ conversion factor and 8 mnth winter thing and all. The country is all Conan O'Brian made it out to be and more. The people dont talk to you unless you talk to them. Then they're chatty. Which is nice since MTU has made us all pretty used to this form of treatment.
We went to Helsinki and Estonia last weekend. In Helsinki, I visited a couple of churches, one lutheran, one Eastern orthodox. Very different from each other. I walked around town and visited the harbor and markets and berring sea, which really doesnt taste so much salty as it does gritty. It's a fresh water sea by most standards. We watched a lordi concert that night before Pasi introduced us to a couple friends who took us to a couple of bars, one of which had an ice bar in it; a bar made completely of ice with furnature and everything. The only thing not ice was the boose. Kinda rowdy. Saw a couple of drunken fins fighting with each other for reasons they probably didnt even remember. And apparently, the men and women signs doesnt mean anything because I had to use the urinal/trough with a couple making out behind me. Oh well. Whatever. It's europe. It's not like they didn't grow up seeing peni or vita.
Finland rocks for another reason. They still believe that the person ultimately responsible for your own saftey is you. This is not to say that finland isn't safe or doesnt build things with safty in mind. It just means they don't waste money protecting idiots from their premature destinys. And I mean that if you stick your fingers in an elevator shaft enclosed by a simple wireframe cage while the elevator goes by and you get your hand injured, the court will just look at you and say "whatd you do that for, you big stupid face?". no lawsuit. no monatary reward for assinine decisions. and a couple thousand less lawyers with a job. The McDonald's old-lady/coffee-on-lap civil cases would be laughed out of court, and from what i've seen so far, Fins dont usually laugh at something unless they're tanked. And the US is the superior country of the planet because. . . why?
Ok. That's all i got for tonight. It's too late for more. Estonia will have to wait for another post.
I've been having fun between finnish and railroad classes here in Tampere. Between going to the pubs to sample to local flavors and visiting museums and librarys and churches and other forms of random architectural appreciation, finland is intresting. It's also cool to see how they build their civil structures; engineering aint the same here. It's simpler. and much much cheaper. Yet it still works. Hmm. . .
We ride the bus 10 k to the city center for all our shopping needs. which are few, since finland is one of the more expensive places to live in europe with that 1.3$/1€ conversion factor and 8 mnth winter thing and all. The country is all Conan O'Brian made it out to be and more. The people dont talk to you unless you talk to them. Then they're chatty. Which is nice since MTU has made us all pretty used to this form of treatment.
We went to Helsinki and Estonia last weekend. In Helsinki, I visited a couple of churches, one lutheran, one Eastern orthodox. Very different from each other. I walked around town and visited the harbor and markets and berring sea, which really doesnt taste so much salty as it does gritty. It's a fresh water sea by most standards. We watched a lordi concert that night before Pasi introduced us to a couple friends who took us to a couple of bars, one of which had an ice bar in it; a bar made completely of ice with furnature and everything. The only thing not ice was the boose. Kinda rowdy. Saw a couple of drunken fins fighting with each other for reasons they probably didnt even remember. And apparently, the men and women signs doesnt mean anything because I had to use the urinal/trough with a couple making out behind me. Oh well. Whatever. It's europe. It's not like they didn't grow up seeing peni or vita.
Finland rocks for another reason. They still believe that the person ultimately responsible for your own saftey is you. This is not to say that finland isn't safe or doesnt build things with safty in mind. It just means they don't waste money protecting idiots from their premature destinys. And I mean that if you stick your fingers in an elevator shaft enclosed by a simple wireframe cage while the elevator goes by and you get your hand injured, the court will just look at you and say "whatd you do that for, you big stupid face?". no lawsuit. no monatary reward for assinine decisions. and a couple thousand less lawyers with a job. The McDonald's old-lady/coffee-on-lap civil cases would be laughed out of court, and from what i've seen so far, Fins dont usually laugh at something unless they're tanked. And the US is the superior country of the planet because. . . why?
Ok. That's all i got for tonight. It's too late for more. Estonia will have to wait for another post.