Cloudy 'Vappu'

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So it is Vappu day(1st May) tommorrow and Jussi told me that you can see people celebrating it from today if you go to the market square(Kauppatori), but the weather does not seem to be nice.Only yesterday it was bright sunshine and today it is cloudy and bit cold, not the kind of weather one would like to have for Vappu.But Finns don't let anything come between them and their Lapin Kulta, they just need an excuse to drink and Vappu is state holiday for drinking!!.

This is the end of the week, which was not a good week for me by any means. I started the week with lot of warmth and enthuaism, with lot of plans but starting Monday I had two shocks with made all my plans go awry.

Heyy, let me share you one news, this whole week I was not able to talk at my home cause the phone at home is dead and consequently Internet.Can you beleive this in the age of satellite phones?? Some fault with the whole telelphone exchange and all the phones of the area are dead ? Damn those engineers, the shame of the whole fraternity, they deserve chinese style execution. Yes I was talking about India the IT superpower of the world. Bull Sh*t!!

Candies (Ibuprofen)

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Well it seems that my headache is not going to go. I am tired of this incessant splitting headache and it starts just I get up in the morning.I have been consuming Ibuprofen like candies these days and thats it, if it does not subside by this weekend then next monday I am going to see my doctor (yeah long time no see kinda :)).

I have nice little incidents to write which I will do later, of course I need to prune them cause I have made this as a matter of principle not to write anything related to my work.

1st of May is coming and Finns have told me that it would be a life time experience for me on that day so I am looking forward ( that's the only thing I do these days, to look forward).

Day & Night

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The photograph attached was taken by the crew on board the Columbia during its last mission, on a cloudless day. The picture is of Europe and Africa when the sun is setting. Half of the picture is in night. The bright dots you see are the cities' lights.




The top part of Africa is the Sahara Desert.

Note that the lights are already on in Holland, Paris, and Barcelona,
and that's it's still daylight in Dublin, London, Lisbon, and Madrid.Italy is looking splendid.

You can see Helsinki as the bright dot on the southern tip of Finland

The sun is still shining on the Strait of Gibraltar. The Mediterranean Sea is
already in darkness.

In the middle of the Atlantic Ocean you can see the Azores Islands; below them to the right are the Madeira Islands ; a bit below are the Canary Islands; and further South, close to the farthest western point of Africa , are the Cape Verde Islands.

Note that the Sahara is huge and can be seen clearly both during ay time and night time.

To the left, on top, is Greenland, totally frozen.

Desperate!!

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I never bothered about weather before coming to Finland, and now I know why? You just can't take weather for granted in Finland. It was all looking so good, the summer was very near, plenty of sunshine, temperature hovering at the positive mark.

But since last week everything is marred, the temeperature is back to sub-zero level and for the past two days we are having snow fall !!! It seems that this is the summer of Finland, the temperature wil be around minus 5 to O C rather than going to minus 23 C and snowfall every other day.

Well to make things worse these days I am regulary having migraine attack and all the times it is the right half of my head which is paining.yuck....

I can't write more, arrrgh...the headache..

Post Updated

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Earlier I was not able to post pictures in the post of Turku trip and finally when I was able to upload the pics I was not able to arrange them in the blog. Now I have done it and so put up the post again by changing the time.

Turku & Rauma trip

In the Easter break I went to the coastal city of Turku and the 14th century wooden town Rauma.Here are the details and the pics.

I started at 6 am from Hameenlinna and reached Turku at half past 8 by the express bus.Turku is about 170 Kms from Hameenlinna. I had a hot cup of the coffee in the coffee shop at bus station as I was feeling sleepy.

Rauma is 90 Kms from Turku and went to Rauma by car from Turku, started at around 9am taking the E8 highway which is almost straight to Rauma.

Here is the picture from highway taken from inside of car.


I had a break midway in one the Shell petrol station,filled the tank with fuel and had my favorite coke there.I reached Rauma in around one and half hour.

Rauma or Old Rauma, founded in 1442 AD is the third oldest town in Finland.Rauma combines historic buildings, culture, modern industries and services, an expanding port and wide-ranging higher education.Old Rauma is one of four UNESCO world heritage sites in Finland.



This unique part of the town is an unparalleled example of an old Nordic town of wood and it still is the largest uniform wooden town area in the Northern Countries. The area of Old Rauma is about 30 hectars and the number of existings buildings, both dwellings and shops, is about 600. There are about 750 inhabitants. The oldest inhabited buildings date back to the 17th century. The structure of the town has up to these days had a medieval character - narrow and winding roads and alleys as well as irregular lots.

I found ducks swimming in a canal just beside the parking slot.



Parking is free in Old Rauma and there are 6 sights in Old Rauma.
1.Old Town Hall
2.Marela Museum
3.Kirsti Museum
4.Rauma Art Museum
5.Church of the Holy Cross
6.Ruins of the church of The Holy Trinity

I started with Old Town Hall, situated in center of the city,this old building looks magnificent.The city center was bustling with activity in the bright sunny morning.The Town Hall was constructed in 1776 and now is the museum of the lace models and wonder maritime articles.


This is the map of Rauma engraved on stone just in front of Town Hall.




The next was the Church of the Holy Cross.



The Church of the Holy Cross is a former monastery church of a franciscan friary, which was built in the mid-1400's. There are medieval wall and vault paintings in the choir of the two-aisle stone church. The church nowadays serves as a town- and rural parish church of Rauma.

I had a special fascination for this as my schooling was done in a convent of Franciscan fathers.Here is statute of St. Francis of Assisi(Italy).


All this sight seeing made me damn hungry and I was surprised to find McDonalds in this Old Rauma, I went there and had my chicken meal and wooooo I got Ice cream free with my meal :).But the place was crowded with most of the people being tourist and I could hear all kinds of languages, Polish, English, Swedish and ofcourse Finnish.

After this I went to the Marela Museum.The museum representing the home of a ship-owning family from the turn of the last century with also changing exhibitions.There were lot of things and I clicked lot of snaps and all with flash off.












The last sight was the Ruins of the church of the Holy Trinity.





Here are few pics of Rauma Town.






I took the round of the Old Rauma and then started my journey back to Turku at around 4 pm and reached Turku at about 5.30 PM.It was hot that day in Rauma and Turku.




On reacching Turku I went to Robert's coffee bar and had a glass of English tea.
In Turku I saws the Cathedral, walked along side the river the bridge was looking beautiful with Easter decorations of Daffodils.





Towards the end of the day I was heavily tired.The same evening there was the soccer match of Finland vs Czech Republic.I saw the match on big screen in a lovely sports bar.There were few other young people enjoying their drink and watching the match.I missed the first half but watched the whole of second half.The second half was exciting and there wasn't a single minute without action.Though Finland lost 4-3 but I think they played quite well.All the time I was rooting for Finland.

This picture I took while sitting inside the bar of a funny looking color car.



I left the bar and came to bus station again which was quite near and took the 9 pm last bus to Hameenlinna. It was an excellent trip to Turku and Rauma and though I was dead tired but it was worth it.

Dreadful Sunday Evening

So this is one more of those Sunday evening which slips like sand in your fist.I have always dreaded Sunday evening since my childhood. Sunday evening would mean end to the two days of weekend fun, and one night away from school to start. Now it means the end of weekend and same office and work for the next 5 days, although I admit that the sunday evenings now are less dreadful than during school times. I was never the school going types and I played traunt many times, now it is easy and you can take leave or leave for the day early from work.

Alas my sunday evening is going to end and I am going to hit the sack.Today I woke up with pounding headache and the first thing that went in my stomach was ibuprofen and when I am going to sleep I can still feel the headache but I won't take the pill now.

Google Addiction

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I wanted to buy a pair of jogging shoes for jogging during summer.For this I decided to go to market on Friday evening.

I finsihed my work early and left office at 4.30pm, reached home at quarter to 5. I felt like relaxing a bit and after my usual evening tea and snacks went to market.I reached city center and from there went to "InterSport" a shop which sells all kind of sporting accessories.But the shop was closed and it was something like 6.15 pm when I checked my watch. The timing was not written on the door or might be covered with flyers from the recent offers or it might have been written on the other door. I was under the impression that it would be open till 8 pm during weekdays.

I got an idea and wanted to do google and find out the shop timing or if there is some other shops having sport shoes.I was on the street and wishing to do google!!. Such is the addiction to google and being in Finland doesn't help much as here you can get all the iformation on net, the shop timings,the bus timings, the population register and what not? You can even see the street condition of a city 1000 kms from there on net through the street webcams. It seems Finland is totally networked uplinked to internet.

I am pretty sure even the 'R-Kioski' will have it's website.I think I am coming very close to buying a blackberry.

In the end I was not able to get my shoes and I don't feel like going out today due to the lousy weather.

No Post

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Well I know I have not posted anything recently, the reason being I don't know what to post. These days my mind has been so occupied by few things that I can't think of anything else.

I am really pained and hurt by the selfish and self-serving attitude of peoples.How much one can be blatant shameless, and how one can crush others for little personal gain? How those people who claim to be your friend will making schemes on your back? How much they would feel happy when you are in deep trouble and writhing in pain?

Sometimes this world becomes too difficult for me.

Pope John Paul II

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Last night the charismatic figure of our times, Pope John Paul II ended his earthly journey to go to the kingdom of God, a place he deserved.His death Saturday at age 84 is a loss that, like his impact, will be felt far beyond his 1.1-billion member flock. I am not a catholic but I always admired Pope.

Karol Wojtyla, the Polish priest who became Pope John Paul II and led the Catholic Church for almost 27 years, was an extraordinary man.He was the first non-Italian Pope since 16th century and also the first pope to visit a Synagogue and Mosque.

He was one of the most active Pope, his theology considered to be conservative in some respect but liberal in helping out poors.He saw the Nazis when he was boy and as an adult he saw the end of communist rule in Europe. He survived the assasination attempt in St Peter's Square in May,1981 only to forgive his attacker two years later in the prison.

He travelled around the world spreading the message of peace and he tried to even stop America going on war with Iraq for which he got the America's highest civilian award, The Medal of Freedom.

The world will get a new pope but he will be missed.