Pictures, as promised.

Flugtjarn?  Wandered off into the woods, found a lake.

Couldn't capture the depth of the image as I wanted, but I like the ripples.

The colors got better towards the end of the trip, much brighter than they are pictured.  However, I got camera fatigue.

I like that this image gives you an idea of the forest composition-- fir and birch alone.

Home!

Tomorrow, I'll update about all the amazing people I've met in the past few weeks.

Sweden continued, and NSF grant proposal

I'm in Sweden until Wednesday night, so I'll be sure to upload pictures then.

This has been a very productive time for me.  I've used this period of forced focus to hone in on what exactly I want to study for graduate school.  Hopefully, this will enable me to get more funding.

I'll do a real update Wednesday night, I promise!

Sweden

I'm so tuckered out, I'm only giving a cursory update to say:

I'm 100 km south of the arctic circle, and it is so green and beautiful.  I have taken some pictures and will post them when I return.  I'm working really hard at this conference, but I am really enjoying it.  I feel like I am contributing something significant.  Also, they feed us well.  We are staying at a converted farmhouse at the northern tip of the Gulf of Bothnia.  The birches are turning gold.  There is a consistent understory of vaccinium spp., noticeably shorter at this high latitude, that is edging towards fuschia.  The air is cool, but the forest is so lush I can't believe that we are this far north.  There is thick moss and huge mushrooms among the lingonberry shrubs.

The proprietress stopped by my room to change a light bulb, and she offered me fresh baked focaccia and tea, out of the oven in half an hour.

Sleep now.

klaus haapaniemi

A friend reminded me how much I love Klaus Haapaniemi's illustrations.  
Yes, he's finnish. The image below is my new wallpaper:

In Haapaniemi's original, the colors are much starker.  I like this print because it's more earthy and faded out.  This is from an etsy limited edition letter-press (?) of his design, found here.  Haapaniemi is the same man who drew the picture on my favorite mug, Iittala's Taika pattern.

work etc

Of course, it isn't all cooking and running off into the forest.  I've got a full-time job here in Helsinki that is the reason I get to go spend a week in Sweden.  I'm shifting into the new work pattern, and I am pleased to discover that I am more tech-savvy than I thought.

My mentor's data got shuffled and misaligned, and I remembered enough MSaccess from my brief period as an environmental consultant to build a database and fix it for him.  As a result, the major grunt-work is being shifted onto one of my colleagues while I am now in a more IT role.  He has a number of spreadsheets that have been messed in the same way, so I am his go-to for fixing it.  This is much more challenging work, and thus more interesting, than data-entry.
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In other work news, I've met with a specialty coffee lady, and she seems excited that I might pick up a shift or two a week.  I told her that I had a full time job, and that I need to see how the hours settle out before I commit to something else, but that I'm interested.  She believes a cafe would hire me even if I only wanted to work Saturdays.  I think this is because of my barista-ing so long at a quality shop.

bilberries, not blueberries.

It turns out the berries I've been snacking on are bilberries, not blueberries.  They seem to be distinguished by having purple flesh (instead of light green).  I've also been seeing cowberries, but being from the States I'm not comfortable eating red fruits that aren't raspberries or something else as easy to identify.  There's more room for fatal error than with the blue members of vaccinium spp. 


I went for a longer walk in that amazing park this afternoon.  I was so happy to be outside I was running and hopping all over.  I would duck down into the places between the rocky balds, pick some berries, and then one-handedly climb back up to the top, look around for another likely destination, and run off that way.  After I'd picked as many bilberries as I could carry, I decided to head back home to throw them into oatmeal cookies.

However, at that point I was slightly turned around.  I knew where I wanted to be in relation to the water treatment plant, but I couldn't seem to get there without going over a cliff.  I climbed down to an apartment's courtyard (!), and after many forays-and-returns into the park I gave up, worked my way over to a street and asked directions.

Again, I was the bizarre American, this time clutching fist-fulls of bilberries to my belly, in a dotted-purple sweater, with hands stained purple up to my wrists as I asked directions of a couple, neither of whom spoke english.  They called over a little girl to help, who also didn't speak english.  I tried to convey where I wanted to go by repeating street names, bus routes, and making frantic (purple) gestures.  It turns out I was around the corner from my apartment, down a street I hadn't bothered to explore yet.  Darn.

I made bilberry-oatmeal cookies.  I like to think the bilberries are sweeter for being warmed and macerated in my concerned hands.  I've adapted smitten kitchen's oatmeal raisin cookie recipe, substituting bilberries for raisins and omitting walnuts etc, which I don't happen to have on hand.  They are AMAZING.  The berries baked up so sweetly, and they dyed the cookies an interesting shade of purple.  I am glad I decided to experiment.


I also made a "whatever's in the cupboard" bread, inspired by King Arthur Flour's no-knead bread recipe.  However, it is too loosely inspired to even bother linking the recipe, because I added dill, onion, semolina, and cracked wheat.  Apparently, you are supposed to boil cracked wheat for half an hour before baking it, so my bread is denser than other no-kneads normally are.  It wasn't as wonderful as the simpler no-knead recipe I've used in the past, but it isn't bad.  It is certainly flavorful, and the crust has the same chewy-crunchy consistency.

My recipes are getting more and more creative as I attempt to use everything in the fridge without buying anything perishable before I leave for Sweden tomorrow.  I made a surprisingly delicious fried-rice vege stir-fry last  night that is worth eating even if you aren't on limited supplies.

Metamorphic

I just had the most surprising adventure in my backyard.  I was taking garbage out to the dumpster, and it being such a bright and windy day, I decided to take a walk.  


The earth was rocky, but not in the sense that it was filled with pebbles.  It WAS rock.  There were just a few licks of soil on top of a massive formation.  I started up a path, and I got about half-way when I decided that my slippery-soled dress-boots were hindering more than helping me.  Naturally, I took them off.  At the top of the promontory, there was a large open area of exposed gneiss about the size of a city block. 


I don't think anyone saw me, but if they did I would have appeared a bit eccentric-- a barefoot foreigner in a blazer hopping from rock to rock in the woods. 


In a dip between outcrops, I stumbled upon a large blueberry patch.  I couldn't believe it.  I pulled my boots back on and picked blueberries until my fingers were purple from juice.  Finland has "jokamiehenoikeus", meaning "every-man's right", which allows you to walk, harvest wild berries and mushrooms, and even camp on open countryside as long as you aren't close to someone's house.  This includes private lands.


As I was scampering around the rocks I could smell wood smoke, and I felt as far from Helsinki as DC is from the Shenandoah.  It boggles my mind that there is a park like this >5 miles from downtown.  Finland seems much more natural than the rest of Europe.  They still have bears and wolves in their northern lands.  


If I get up early enough, I'll go for another walk before work tomorrow.  

food as entertainment, autumn nesting.

The weather here is changeable.  20% chance of rain seems to mean it will rain 20% of the time on that particular day.  Since I've arrived, there has not been a day without sun or a day without rain.  I believe this is the nature of early Fall in Helsinki.  The birch trees are already shot through with streaks of yellow, and I am greatly anticipating ruska, the two week period of Autumn color in Finland.


I've been nesting for the Winter, and for me this involves tea-drinking, reading, listening to folksy music (Ola Belle Reed and Devendra Banhart), and lots and lots of cooking.  I've been experimenting with traditional Finnish dishes, mainly focusing on lingonberries because they are the one of the few things in Finland that seem surreally cheap.  2€ gets you a liter of Lingonberries at the outdoor markets, 3€ buys 2 liters.  In taste, lingonberries resemble small, juice-y cranberries.  


I've baked a lingonberry tart (known as Puolukkapiirakka) with shortbread crust, Lingonberry porridge (Vispipuuro), and I've got Tilliliha (beef stew) on the burner right now.  The lingonberry tart would've been more successful if I had a tart pan, but was still tasty.  Vispipuuro is similar to what I imagine grits would taste like if you stirred in cranberry sauce.  It is a mild breakfast, especially with vanilla yogurt poured over.  The Tilliliha is delicious, but I haven't shown real fidelity to the recipe.  I will not make beef stew without  potatoes.


In further seasonal celebration, I have been planning to make a leaf-peeping expedition to Nuuksio National Park weekend after next.  I am now wondering if I must go this weekend to catch any of the Fall colors.  My mentor has very kindly offered to take me to Sweden with him for a conference, so I will be on the road for 7-8 days.  Fall passes so quickly here, the leaves might be gone before I return!  My thoughts are that I can always return to the park if I hit it before peak colors, but I can't go back in time if I miss it, so I should go both this weekend and when I return from Sweden.  


Incidentally, bunnies here look like bunnies back home.  I snapped this pic from my balcony.  There's snow on the ground 3 months of the year.  I wonder if they turn white or hibernate...

Design Week

Today I took the bus down to the Cable Factory because it is Design Week in Helsinki, so there was a sample sale of finnish designers.  I didn't have much luck shopping, but there are galleries in addition to the design market.  After poking around some video installations, I had pulla and coffee at the stylish cafe on the first floor.  Fittingly, it was packed with interesting modern design, like molded wooden chairs and sculptural chandeliers.  Its windows had views of an inlet.  Pulla are traditional finnish pastries that resemble cinnamon buns spiked with cardamom.


On the way home I stopped at the Hakaniemi Open Market, where I found a cheap-ish umbrella and lingonberries.  My nectarine galette worked so well I am tempted to try it again with a lingonberry and custard filling.  Lingonberry crepes are traditional, but tarts excite me more.


Also, I don't stick out quite as much as I thought.  Three elderly Finns addressed me in finnish today.  The Finns do seem shorter than the other Nordic peoples, so I blend better here than I did in Denmark.  




Näkemiin!

Engel's downtown

Despite sleeping till noon today, I took the bus downtown and snapped some pics. These may be the first and last images I share for a while, because my mac charger only works on apple products. My battery is so low I must ration it from now on.

My main impressions of Helsinki were that it seemed to be a real blend of the Swedish and Russian influences. The buildings are rectangular and Scandi, but then they are topped with onion-domes. I am definitely going to pursue a tourist VISA to Russia so I can check out St. Petersburg. I also intend to take a weekend trip to Stockholm.

Apparently, most of the city was designed in the early 19th century by Carl Engel. I don't know if it was just the time, or if it was Engel's aesthetic, but this is a very feminine looking city. The most common color scheme is pale yellow with white trim. Engel's dome, which punctuates the skyline and marks Senate Square, is white with baby blue onion-domes trimmed in gold. The city feels safe and super-pleasant, but eerily deserted on a Saturday afternoon. Businesses aren't open long on weekends, and I didn't see many Finns out wandering the streets, so I wonder where they hide-out. I've read that many Finns have country homes in the Lake District, so maybe they are all getting a last taste of summer. I did see some people congregating at cafes with terraces.

Tomorrow I am either going to the Cable Factory to price discount designer goods, or to the Hakaniemi Open Market. After that, if it isn't raining, I am going to walk around the nearby Botanic Garden.

The only umbrella I saw was marimekko, and it was 32 euros. It was lovely, but that is a bit of a princely sum for my needs. Of all the things I brought, I forgot rain gear.

Next weekend I think I will check out the Suomenlinna Sea Fortress. Once the fall colors are in effect, which could be weekend after next, I am going to take the bus out to Nuuksio National Park. It looks so beautiful. Flying in I saw how Finland was splattered with lakes, and covered in tall Firs. Even in the city, it is still fairly lush. There are abundant trees and moss.

f1rst!11!!!

Helsinki is 7 hours ahead of DC, and 22 degrees of latitude north of home. At this time of year the weather is perfect, with temperatures in the mid-60s (~18 C) and a decent day-length.

I arrived yesterday. My boss picked me up from the airport and walked me around the campus where I'll be working. It is only 1.5 miles from my apartment, but the bus stop is right in front of my door so I doubt I'll be walking it this winter. My new home is a little over 4 mi north of the main downtown area.

My bags seemed to cause plenty of incomprehensible (because it's in finnish!) finnish consternation. They were so heavy it cost extra for the plane to take them! I am living here for 6 mo, so I tend to feel defensive about bringing so much. My verdict on books and lighter clothing: probable mistake. However, bringing my favorite quilt and teapot was an excellent decision. They make my room much more home-y.

My apartment has a small kitchen and bathroom that I share with one other woman, and a living room and balcony which I share with 7 women. I am in the University's international housing, so there are no Finns here. One of the women I've met is an American studying forestry, the other is a Lithuanian woman leaving soon. In addition to my apartment's facilities, we also have a game room with billiards and ping pong, a sauna, and a gym in the complex.

I might try and practice billiards later tonight, after breaking in our oven with a nectarine galette.