It's been a busy couple of weeks on this side of the pond.
Just in case you were curious, Helsinki is very cold and very dark around mid-December. Unfortunately, due to lots and lots of work during the week, I didn't really get a chance to do any sightseeting around town. I did get a very in-depth view of the main road via taxi (or taksi) from the city to the office park about 30 minutes away. But since those were around 8 am and 5:30 pm respectively, there wasn't a whole lot of sun to illuminate the voyage.
A few things I learned about Finland however:
1. The Finnish word for Finnish is Suomi (http://www.google.fi/).
2. You don't need to learn Suomi because everybody speaks English, which is awesome.
3. The normal greeting is "Hei", which sounds a lot like "Hey". So that way when you walk into a restaurant and the hostess says "Hei" and you respond in English, they naturally transition to English, but if you respond in some crazy Finnish tongue, they respond in turn.
4. The only other word I picked up was "Joo" which is pronounced like "Yo" and is an informal "Yes". The only reason I picked it up was becuase people say it about 20 times per sentence, much like you would respond to any question in English with "yeah" or "yup" or something to that effect.
On more globetrotting news, Laura and I booked a holiday last night for Christmas in Spain!
The original plan we had was to head to Italy for a Christmas/New Year holiday (that's "holiday in the British sense, aka "vacation"). However, as the date came creeping closer, we decided to abort those plans and stay local and possibly do some day trips around the UK. We were also thinking about doing a night or two in Paris, so Laura was looking up Eurostar (train) tickets online the other day.
That's when she stumbled across some very cheap last minute holiday packages on lastminute.com.
So we're leaving on Friday for Benidorm, Spain for 5 nights. It's supposed to be in the 60's, which will be a very nice change from London's current weather pattern. We're on the eastern coast of Spain, a little south of Valencia. We're both glad to be getting out of London for the holidays.
Also, Mike just got back into town last night after a whirlwind tour of Switzerland and Italy. Being the gracious hosts that we are, we're going to give him the keys to the flat, and then leave him to fend for himself for his last 36 hours in London before he heads back to Korea.
20 December 2007
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2 comments:
Hei Bob ,
Te pitäisi kertakaikkisesti käynti Ibiza , Espanja. Clubbing keskeinen! Toinen kuin että , odottaa te ja Laakeri hankkia Hauska Joulu ja hauskuus lomailla.
Just in case your rusty on your finnish language already:
Hey Bob,
You should definitely visit Ibiza, Spain. Clubbing central!
Other than that, hope you and Laura have a Merry Christmas and a fun vacation.
The internets is so cool. ok bye bye alligator.
Crap! Remember that can of vegetable soup that I bought to use as risotto broth but wound up being tomato-based and too thick! Well, I was lonely and reheated some for lunch and spilled it ALL OVER YOUR FLOOR and then I shorted out the vacuum cleaner trying to suck it up and then clogged the toilet trying to flush the rest down the drain and also blew a fuse when I turned on the superboiler to try to get the stain out of the rug.
You totally should not have left me alone in your apartment.
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