Time for a long update, there's been a lot going on this weekend!
First thing on Friday was a presentation I'd been working on for a class project since October: a collection of digitized pictures from a 1937 promotional book about the cotton factory in Pori. We were given the collection of pictures and told that it was our job to bring the factory to life: to find out about what went on in each of them, the process of manufacturing cotton itself along with as much history of the factory as we could find. As there was nothing in English about this factory, we had to rely on our sole Finn to translate what little there was out there for her to read, while we two Americans focused on the actual processing of cotton, which we figured must have been a similar process in English-speaking countries as well. We did our best to make sense of all the cotton manufacturing jargon and pieced it into a cohesive whole, and as a nice touch, we were to present it in the building itself: part of the factory complex is currently the Pori campus of the University of Turku. We figured that not too many people would be interested in this technical historical stuff, especially as it was being presented in English, but as the date got closer and closer, we started getting contacted first by various local newspapers and then YLE (the Finnish national broadcasting company, ie. The Evening News), who wanted to do a brief spot about our project. Although normally camera-shy, I volunteered to do the English portion solely on the basis of the interviewer being cute. I was quite nervous the day of the show, as not 10 or 15 people had shown up as I was expecting, but a full room of 40 people, including one old man who had actually worked at the factory in 1937 when he was just a teenager! If only we could have interviewed him and gotten his story beforehand, it would have been a great addition. There was also a foreign student who said she was glad that she could learn a little bit about the building where she's studying, and another guy whose family had worked in the factory. There was definitely a lot more local interest than I had expected! But with as many people were asking questions and thanking us for putting it together afterwards, we realized that this really must be the big news going on in the little town of Pori. Afterwards we got some photos and interviews with the local paper as well. Who knows, perhaps with enough interest we might expand the project a bit and make a Finnish-language version of it to show in the future.
Then there was Saturday, which was the opening night for Turku's Culture Capital celebration. In order to have some part in the action I've been volunteering for various projects going on, and had signed up to do a combination of parking lot direction and various useful tasks that come up when you have 400 choir members to herd around. Even though most of the previous days had been quite warm, -1 or -2, the day of the opening ceremony (and only that day) the temperature had plummeted to around -20. And here I had signed up to stand around outside for four hours... I put on my warmest layers, including my fleece underwear, ski pants, parka, snow boots, and wool socks and sweater, and was fairly comfortable - as long as I stayed outside. As I couldn't go inside without roasting, I was happy enough to have parking lot duty. However, in my frantic rushing out of my apartment for the bus I had insufficient gloves and no scarf, so I did end up a little chilly. The nice thing about volunteering is that I had a great spot to watch the festivities themselves. The main event was this dance and fireworks show put together by the British company Walk the Plank that had some incomprehensible love story for a plot but culminated in an amazing fire drawing of the symbols of Turku depicted over the river and a huge display of fireworks. Here's the whole show with some Finnish introduction from MTV3. I ended up underneath and next to the fireworks launcher as I was lighting a stairwell for the choir to exit without falling all over themselves, and until then, had no idea that fireworks made a high-pitched "pew pew pew!" sound as they were launched. It was a pretty impressive show and something like fifty thousand people turned out in spite of the cold. Afterwards they provided hot soup and bread for the choir and volunteers, and as I was chowing down I ran into a colleague from my department. I went with her to meet some friends for a beer, and then had a great rest of the night being social and more than a little in my cups, still decked out in my volunteer swag. One random guy complimented me on the show, as if it was all my doing...
The great thing about hanging out with nature lovers is that they know where all the best trekking spots are. On Sunday some of us met up at the train station and drove to Eura, where there's a lake called Koskeljärvi nearby: the largest in Finland where the entire shore is a wildlife protected area and thus contains no summer cottages or other signs of human life. It's covered by the EU's ecological protection program Natura 2000 because of its importance as a waterfowl habitat. It was quite cold and there was a lot of snow - apparently Eura hadn't had the bouts of slightly positive temps and rain that Turku had. It was about -10 or so but very windy, which made it feel a lot more brutal than it would normally. We made a fire by a small shelter and enjoyed some lunch, including my roommate's vegan mujaddara which was nice and filling, and some hot glögi to warm our hands and guts. Near the shelter and campfire was a tree with an enormous pike head hanging from one branch. It was the biggest fish head I've ever seen and looked quite menacing with all its sharp teeth still intact. But Finland has a long tradition of hanging the skulls of hunting catches on a tree so maybe that's just a regular thing here.
One of our friends had grown up in the area and knew the best sights, one of which was out on an island. The idea of walking around over a lake for a significant distance was a little disturbing, as I don't like walking on ice whose thickness I can't see, plus we've had a few warm days lately so I wasn't so sure about the idea. But we met a pair of weathered old fishermen who had just come off of the lake, so it couldn't have been that bad. There was even a sort of path plowed across the lake, hopefully over the strongest parts of the ice, so we could take that for most of the way. The way to the island and the island itself hadn't been touched all winter, so the snow was quite deep - it's amazing how much more difficult just walking can be when you have to go through deep snow, and I wished mightily for a pair of skis. The occasional creaking underfoot was a little disturbing, but no one fell in along the way. Apparently the lake is quite shallow and doesn't have much current, but ending up soaking wet in subfreezing weather didn't sound too appealing either. Once we got to the island we had to climb a bit to the top of a small hill, but the view was amazing. The frozen lake and its tree lined shores were visible in all directions, and it was a bit surreal, like being on the moon. Especially on our walk back over the lake I had to stop and marvel a few times that I was standing on a lake in this timeless, motionless landscape and feeling overwhelmingly small. Then we trudged back across the lake, a row of silent figures marching across a body of water in the middle of nowhere, nothing to stop the wind from freezing the very snot in our noses. It was good to get back home and indulge in our free sauna evening.
The latest thing to come up is a random trip to Prague at the beginning of next month. Apparently a friend of mine had some vacation for work and had planned a trip with her mom, who couldn't make it for some reason. She tried to ask some other people, but they couldn't get out of work on such short notice. So then it was apparently my turn to get the "Hey, wanna go to Prague, it's already paid for!" and to which I answered "OMG, count me in!" So I may have to wipe out my camera's memory card, since Prague is one of those places I've always wanted to visit: the city of golems and medieval mysteries! Time to pack my bags again and see what sort of adventures await.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Christmas time in Turku
The Christmas season lasts until the 13th of January here, so I'm really not late at all in posting about Christmas!
The most notable thing that happens in Turku specifically is the declaration of Christmas Peace. Since medieval times, the mayor of the city has read a proclamation from the balcony of the old town hall on Christmas Eve at noon, establishing a situational peace time until January 13, Knut's Day. Even today, fines and penalties for crimes committed during this time are much harsher. Originally this tradition was not merely a ceremony but part of actual municipal lawmaking, and not unique to Turku. Today in Finland the tradition still continues only in this town as the country's official peace declaration. Most people watch it on TV or the internet or listen on the radio, but I really wanted to see this event in person.
It was bitterly cold, -26C, but I wore some of the warmest clothing I had because I knew I'd be standing around outside for at least a half hour. I'd brought my camera and hoped I would get a good spot since I knew that normally thousands of people would attend. The cold must have kept a lot of people indoors, because I got a good spot right at the front (though by the time we left, there was a huge crowd that had closed down the main street). My camera still managed to work in such low temperatures, and the photos can be seen here. Almost everyone was red-faced from the cold and jumping around in place to stay warm, but we stuck it out until it was over and had a lovely warm bus ride back home.
Also included in that photo set are some photos of the snow around here; it's by far the most snow I've ever seen in one place, and we'll certainly get more before this all melts in April or so. It's impressive how well the snow is handled here - moving from a place where a couple centimeters of the stuff is enough to shut down schools and stores, it's nice to see life continue as usual no matter how much snow falls. Helsinki airport was recently all over the news for its smart and efficient handling of snow and ice, only closing for a half hour last year!
I hope all you readers had a great holiday and enjoy the new year. I'm going to Helsinki to see a Finntroll gig, so that's a good proper celebration in my book!
The most notable thing that happens in Turku specifically is the declaration of Christmas Peace. Since medieval times, the mayor of the city has read a proclamation from the balcony of the old town hall on Christmas Eve at noon, establishing a situational peace time until January 13, Knut's Day. Even today, fines and penalties for crimes committed during this time are much harsher. Originally this tradition was not merely a ceremony but part of actual municipal lawmaking, and not unique to Turku. Today in Finland the tradition still continues only in this town as the country's official peace declaration. Most people watch it on TV or the internet or listen on the radio, but I really wanted to see this event in person.
It was bitterly cold, -26C, but I wore some of the warmest clothing I had because I knew I'd be standing around outside for at least a half hour. I'd brought my camera and hoped I would get a good spot since I knew that normally thousands of people would attend. The cold must have kept a lot of people indoors, because I got a good spot right at the front (though by the time we left, there was a huge crowd that had closed down the main street). My camera still managed to work in such low temperatures, and the photos can be seen here. Almost everyone was red-faced from the cold and jumping around in place to stay warm, but we stuck it out until it was over and had a lovely warm bus ride back home.
Also included in that photo set are some photos of the snow around here; it's by far the most snow I've ever seen in one place, and we'll certainly get more before this all melts in April or so. It's impressive how well the snow is handled here - moving from a place where a couple centimeters of the stuff is enough to shut down schools and stores, it's nice to see life continue as usual no matter how much snow falls. Helsinki airport was recently all over the news for its smart and efficient handling of snow and ice, only closing for a half hour last year!
I hope all you readers had a great holiday and enjoy the new year. I'm going to Helsinki to see a Finntroll gig, so that's a good proper celebration in my book!
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Long days
"All my life I pack/unpack
But man I got to earn this buck
I gotta pay representation
To be accepted in a nation
Where after efforts of a hero
Welcome start again from zero"
It's more than true it actually happened
It's more than true it actually happened
It's more than true it actually happened"
But man I got to earn this buck
I gotta pay representation
To be accepted in a nation
Where after efforts of a hero
Welcome start again from zero"
-- Gogol Bordello, "Immigraniada"
It's been awhile since my last update, but I have a good reason: a temporary job this week! It's only a 10-day contract; seasonal work for a company that sells corporate swag. In this case, of course, it's large companies ordering vast quantities of Christmas gifts for their employees, customers, and partners. I've spent this week assembling chocolate- and wine-filled backpacks for what must be every DHL employee in Finland (tomorrow we should finally wrap up this order of 1200 pieces). I'm only one of at least five other temp employees to help them with their workload, and though it's only a week, I'm working like I mean it and hoping that they might remember me the next time they need some extra help.
It's a warehouse environment, and the atmosphere as well as the other employees are pretty similar to the warehouse I worked at in the States. Except, of course, that it's heated and quite comfortable even though it remains around -15 C outside. Everyone I've worked with has been really nice, and almost everyone speaks English to some extent, which is great, though I try to use my Finnish when I can manage with my limited vocabulary. Actually I think they were told that I only spoke English, because I apparently surprised some people by understanding and speaking a little Finnish. So much for the secret code language! One older lady told me in Finnish that she was in the US last year, and is taking and English course - I told her I was taking some Finnish courses, and that we could practice with each other, of course. The days are long, and start early, but most days allow for some extra hours beyond the standard 8. I've been staying as late as I possibly can, which means I really don't have time to do anything this week except work, go home, sleep, wake up, and go back to work. The work is repetitive and tiring, but I'm pushing myself as hard as I can since I know at some point I'll be glad I got the extra hours in.
I feel really lucky to even be working at all: the university's career center, which has been entirely useless so far, as well as the local company JobCafe and the temp agency Adecco, all more or less wrote me off as an illiterate immigrant - despite the fact that I'm actively and perhaps obsessively learning the language, and that I've only been here for four months, most of the experience I've had so far indicates that unless you speak perfect Finnish (how would that even be possible for a foreigner before actually moving here?), your job hopes are pretty bleak. Scrubbing toilets on a cruise ship seems to be the usual placement for international students. However, Manpower was different. I went there because I recognized their name from the States, and figured that a temp agency would be my best bet for a rinky-dink little job to hold me over and help me save up money for my trip to Germany. The lady there actually gave me a short interview on the spot, and encouraged me to put my CV and info on their website, which I could then apply for with just a click. She didn't seem to think that my limited language skills would be a problem, since most of their clients are office/clerical environments, which often operate in English. I immediately went home and applied for this packing job, figuring that I really wouldn't need that much complicated Finnish to put stuff in a box, and hey, I know warehouse ops like the back of my hand. A few days later (along with some calls to the immigration office, HR, and the university to clarify some details about the number of hours I was allowed to work when on holiday from school). She has absolutely been an angel in helping me, even calling ahead to this client to ask if my English would be a problem. And then at some point, I signed a contract, read some employee handbooks, and bam, I've got my own little spot in the economy - for one week and change, at least.
Much of the contract language is similar to that in the US, except the tax situation is a little different. I had to go to a tax office and procure a document that specifies my tax bracket. Without this document, my wages end up taxed at around 60%, ouch! Luckily, if you make under 1000€ in a year, you apaprently don't have to pay taxes anyway, and I'd be hard pressed to earn that kind of money in the next month and a half.
Being in the right place at the right time seems to be how I get most of my jobs. Thankfully it worked out again this time, and once I get some school projects out of the way early next year, I'm going to have to set my sights on something I can do part-time while taking my Finnish courses. We'll see how that goes, and if things keep looking up.
"It's a book of our true stories
True stories that can't be deniedIt's more than true it actually happened
It's more than true it actually happened
It's more than true it actually happened"
Monday, December 6, 2010
Independence Day
Today Finland celebrates its independence. After the fall of Russia's imperialist system in 1917, Finland's allegiance to the Czar no longer bound it to that country and the Finnish parliament declared its withdrawal. Finland's new independence was off to a rocky start, though, as the country immediately engaged itself in a civil war between the bourgeois Whites and the communist Reds. When the Whites triumphed, most of the Reds moved to Russia or the US, leaving behind a nation composed mainly of people who clearly did not want to join the big happy USSR utopia that eventually engulfed the rest of the Baltic states. A little over twenty years later, its status as an independent country was tested heavily with the invasion of Russia, who had decided that Finland's borders were a little too close to St. Petersburg, and that the best solution for this was to not have those pesky borders at all anymore. Thus began the Winter War, and with minimal help from outside nations, Finland successfully defended its sovereignty against the aggression of the largest and most powerful army of its time.
Finnish celebrations for today include lighting two blue-and-white candles in the windows of homes, which originally indicated an offer of food and lodging for friendly soldiers. There is also a presidential ball, a huge party held at the presidential palace that is attended by Finland's politicians and famous faces. Like the Oscars, the real point of the broadcast is to establish the fashion themes for the coming year. Some people I know are having dinner parties tonight, but on the whole, it's not the riotous opportunity to party and shoot fireworks that Independence Day is in the States. Perhaps because there are plenty of pikkujoulu parties going on this time of year where people can get all partied out, or perhaps because of the solemnity of independence celebrations for a young country: there are still veterans of the Winter War around for whom the idea of independence from an oppressive invader is still a very real, living memory, not distant events that one reads out of a history text that occurred over two hundred years earlier.
Yesterday's candle-making workshop also included blue dye this time, so I made a couple of blue and white independence candles as well. It seems a little strange to be celebrating the independence of another country, even if it's my adopted one. But I do feel pretty strongly about the veterans who ensured that I would be in fact living in Finland and not western Russia, and the society which after the war, paid all of its debts and then went on to transform a farming and logging economy into one of the most prosperous and technologically advanced countries in the world. Of all the triumphs of history, Finland's is one of the most unlikely and also most under-appreciated. So hats off to you, Finland, and the generation that made it possible for me to be here at all.
Most of today I'll be studying for the Finnish exams I have coming up next week. I'm going to have to be an expert in forming imperfect and negative imperfect versions of all six verb types by Tuesday. And then there's the mountain of vocabulary. This evening, though, my friend JP is organizing a peaceful candlelight protest in front of Turku cathedral against racism, in support of both Finnish culture/independence (Finns themselves having been used as a human shield by either Sweden or Russia as they fought each other over the past thousand years) as well as those countries who haven't fared as well and are still suffering ethnic oppression today. It's something to do that's a little more meaningful than sitting around watching some people in Helsinki wearing nice dresses.
Finnish celebrations for today include lighting two blue-and-white candles in the windows of homes, which originally indicated an offer of food and lodging for friendly soldiers. There is also a presidential ball, a huge party held at the presidential palace that is attended by Finland's politicians and famous faces. Like the Oscars, the real point of the broadcast is to establish the fashion themes for the coming year. Some people I know are having dinner parties tonight, but on the whole, it's not the riotous opportunity to party and shoot fireworks that Independence Day is in the States. Perhaps because there are plenty of pikkujoulu parties going on this time of year where people can get all partied out, or perhaps because of the solemnity of independence celebrations for a young country: there are still veterans of the Winter War around for whom the idea of independence from an oppressive invader is still a very real, living memory, not distant events that one reads out of a history text that occurred over two hundred years earlier.
Yesterday's candle-making workshop also included blue dye this time, so I made a couple of blue and white independence candles as well. It seems a little strange to be celebrating the independence of another country, even if it's my adopted one. But I do feel pretty strongly about the veterans who ensured that I would be in fact living in Finland and not western Russia, and the society which after the war, paid all of its debts and then went on to transform a farming and logging economy into one of the most prosperous and technologically advanced countries in the world. Of all the triumphs of history, Finland's is one of the most unlikely and also most under-appreciated. So hats off to you, Finland, and the generation that made it possible for me to be here at all.
Most of today I'll be studying for the Finnish exams I have coming up next week. I'm going to have to be an expert in forming imperfect and negative imperfect versions of all six verb types by Tuesday. And then there's the mountain of vocabulary. This evening, though, my friend JP is organizing a peaceful candlelight protest in front of Turku cathedral against racism, in support of both Finnish culture/independence (Finns themselves having been used as a human shield by either Sweden or Russia as they fought each other over the past thousand years) as well as those countries who haven't fared as well and are still suffering ethnic oppression today. It's something to do that's a little more meaningful than sitting around watching some people in Helsinki wearing nice dresses.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Heat wave!
I had a lot of delicious snacks at the Language Center's pikkujoulu (pre-Christmas party) tonight, so I'm going to stay up and write here until my sugar buzz wears off enough for me to go to sleep. The big news today is that the temperature went all the way up to -2 C! After enduring -15 to -20 for the past week, it felt almost like spring. I could even leave the house with my lightweight gloves, no scarf, and no long underwear. It was a real treat.
As I've never before experienced an ultra-cold snap above the 60th parallel, I found it really intriguing. Things just don't act the way you'd expect them to at -20 C. For instance, walking around for some time in that temperature will result in your entire face and half of your hair encrusted in ice as you continuously walk into the cloud of your own exhalation, resulting in strange facial crispiness and the appearance of having aged 40 years in 15 minutes. When I thawed out, my hair was soaked and felt even colder than when I had been outside. Also, that part from the Christmas Story movie where the kid's tongue gets stuck to a metal pole? That actually does happen, folks. And no, I didn't actually stick my tongue to a pole, but I was standing on my apartment's balcony to soak up about five minutes of sunlight, and realized that my gloved hand had frozen to the balcony railing on which it lay. There is still a layer of suede fuzz there. I immediately started trying to stick other stuff there, such as my scarf, just to be sure it wasn't due to some regular adhesive that somehow ended up there - but no, just actual insta-freeze adhesion. I've never lived anywhere where it got cold enough for that to actually happen, so it was pretty exciting.
The really great thing about it being well below freezing is that the snow never melts and re-freezes. It stays powdery and pretty day after day, which I think has helped my mood immensely. My roommate had warned me about the entire population of Finland turning into zombies for the month of November, mainly due to the cold and the dark. But the snowfall has really kept my spirits up, even though the sun is setting earlier and earlier. Also helpful was this past weekend's joulutori - the Christmas marketplace featuring booths with homemade food and crafts, as well as performances by dancers and choirs, and of course a booth with Santa, Mrs. Claus and some elves too. Even the biting cold didn't keep people away, though I felt bad for the vendors who had to endure that weather all day Saturday and Sunday. Most towns in Finland have a Christmas market but Turku's is the oldest. It's not in the city's current center, where the market is usually held, but in the old square, surrounded by the cathedral and the old orange and yellow Swedish buildings. In front of the cathedral is a gigantic Christmas tree, 25 meters tall and lit up with thousands of lights. Even though there's a month still to go, in these surroundings I'm looking forward to it - and not only because this will be the first Christmas in almost ten years when I haven't been working in retail. On Sunday near the joulutori there is a culture workshop that has free candlemaking for several hours - all you need to do it show up, and make some candles the old fashioned way by dipping them repeatedly into paraffin wax. Then there are some colored waxes for a final dip to give them whatever color scheme you want.
This weekend there are some more pikkujoulu parties, for my department as well as TYRMY the metal club. Next week brings some final exams, and after that I will have some free time to catch up on some other projects and hopefully start looking for a job for January through March. If I can make a little money before I leave for Germany in April, I'll feel a little more comfortable about this exchange thing. But in the meantime, getting all my papers done and rocking these exams is the first order of business!
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Winter wonderland
Breaking news: Finland is cold!
Winter is in full swing already here. It's different than the winter in the US, where the ground stays warm enough that the first several snows melt away, assisted by the diligent salting of every horizontal surface within reach. Here the cold came early, so a couple of blizzards came through and we've pretty much got snow that will likely be sticking around for some time. In the Midwest the snow was a fairly annoying but temporary visitor, which showed up for a couple of months, stuck around long enough to make everyone drive badly and whine a lot, and then by March you would be pretty sure you were well on the road to spring. Here, the snow shows up all at once, kicks its shoes off, settles down in an armchair and gives the general impression that we warmbloods are actually the visitors here...
Unlike in the US, where every square inch of ice is carefully removed to avoid lawsuits from clumsy pedestrians, only the main roads are salted and the rest of the driving and walking areas get a treatment with a little bit of gravel. In some areas the only way to tell where you drive and where you walk is the shape of the tracks furrowing the surface. The snow falls and life continues on top of it; snow removal in November would be a waste of effort here. There's ice of course, and where the gravel is sparse it's easy to slip and fall. Finns seem to take a shit-happens approach to walking around on ice: "We don't sue people, we just punch them in the face" as one friend said. Do people use ice cleats for walking? "Old people do..." So yeah. I use mine when the ice is bad (I don't have to fall down until I'm 60 years old to figure out that those might be helpful) but while venturing out without them, I fell a couple of times but since we've had some fresh snow, it's a little less icy. Like driving in the winter, it's good to go a little slower. It's a dry snow, the kind that actually shifts around and blows into dunes with the wind, so that you might be walking one some level hardpack one moment and the next, your feet are churning through powder up to your shins. And it's beautiful, it really is - the piles of snow on the rock formations, the balcony chairs upholstered with snow, and the big patch of ice on the river. I lost my bus pass on Monday so I've had plenty of time to enjoy it on foot for kilometers at a time, up close, late at night when there's almost no one else out. Many times it feels like living in a postcard.
This weekend we're supposed to get some real chills: -15 to -20 C. In Lapland already there's -30, and it's only November... thankfully, so far so good with my heavy duty winter clothes, including a new hat I got for 1 € from the thrift store: it's a gloriously huge fur cap made out of badger or fox or wolf or Father Christmas or something. It would look ridiculous in any warmer climate, but it's perfect for this weather and I love it.
Winter is in full swing already here. It's different than the winter in the US, where the ground stays warm enough that the first several snows melt away, assisted by the diligent salting of every horizontal surface within reach. Here the cold came early, so a couple of blizzards came through and we've pretty much got snow that will likely be sticking around for some time. In the Midwest the snow was a fairly annoying but temporary visitor, which showed up for a couple of months, stuck around long enough to make everyone drive badly and whine a lot, and then by March you would be pretty sure you were well on the road to spring. Here, the snow shows up all at once, kicks its shoes off, settles down in an armchair and gives the general impression that we warmbloods are actually the visitors here...
Unlike in the US, where every square inch of ice is carefully removed to avoid lawsuits from clumsy pedestrians, only the main roads are salted and the rest of the driving and walking areas get a treatment with a little bit of gravel. In some areas the only way to tell where you drive and where you walk is the shape of the tracks furrowing the surface. The snow falls and life continues on top of it; snow removal in November would be a waste of effort here. There's ice of course, and where the gravel is sparse it's easy to slip and fall. Finns seem to take a shit-happens approach to walking around on ice: "We don't sue people, we just punch them in the face" as one friend said. Do people use ice cleats for walking? "Old people do..." So yeah. I use mine when the ice is bad (I don't have to fall down until I'm 60 years old to figure out that those might be helpful) but while venturing out without them, I fell a couple of times but since we've had some fresh snow, it's a little less icy. Like driving in the winter, it's good to go a little slower. It's a dry snow, the kind that actually shifts around and blows into dunes with the wind, so that you might be walking one some level hardpack one moment and the next, your feet are churning through powder up to your shins. And it's beautiful, it really is - the piles of snow on the rock formations, the balcony chairs upholstered with snow, and the big patch of ice on the river. I lost my bus pass on Monday so I've had plenty of time to enjoy it on foot for kilometers at a time, up close, late at night when there's almost no one else out. Many times it feels like living in a postcard.
This weekend we're supposed to get some real chills: -15 to -20 C. In Lapland already there's -30, and it's only November... thankfully, so far so good with my heavy duty winter clothes, including a new hat I got for 1 € from the thrift store: it's a gloriously huge fur cap made out of badger or fox or wolf or Father Christmas or something. It would look ridiculous in any warmer climate, but it's perfect for this weather and I love it.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Piles of rocks, and how much I love them.
Yesterday I took a bus from Turku up to the town of Eura with a couple of other history enthusiasts from the local SCA group. We were to leave the bus station at 8 am, and so my day started very early. Daylight was barely beginning to color the sky as I headed downtown. Halfway there, I realized I had forgotten to check the weather forecast for the day, but as I've become accustomed to weeks-long stretches of cold, dark and damp, I had packed an umbrella and scarf by default, and decided on my leather coat and snow boots. This decision ended up being a very lucky one, as I'd find out later. We met up at the station, and once settled on the bus I pulled out my mp3 player, but to no avail, as I was asleep as soon as we pulled out of the station. Around an hour and a half later I was woken up by a gentle shove on the shoulder and gathered my things from the bus. At least it had lightened as much as the always-cloudy sky would allow.
Eura is a small village with a population of about twelve thousand. The bus stop was more or less typical: a tiny bus station, a grocery store, a bar, and a kebab place. The only indication that the most significant archaeological findings in Finland were found here was a small sign from the road indicating the direction of the prehistoric information center with an arrow. For unknown reasons, the ancient locals had practiced inhumation instead of cremation, which would not happen in the rest of Finland until the spread of Christianity around 1100-1200. For that reason there are a wealth of objects found here from the stone age through the iron age, and somehow over a thousand years of cultivation and farming, these areas were mostly still preserved intact.
We had arrived before the museum opened, to take advantage of the diminishing sunlight, and so grabbed a coffee and then headed out towards Käräjämäki, a short walk behind the museum's property. A modest hill sandwiched between a couple of farms, this location is an iron age (6th-7th c.) burial hill, topped by a ring of stones that functioned as a court/moot/althing-style meeting point for the ancient locals. Many of the graves themselves had either collapsed or been plundered long ago, and the surface of the ground was covered in holes and depressions where the burials had been. Many of them have yet to be excavated, however. At one end of the hill a burial was found intact, a very wealthy man buried with expensive weapons and lots of supplies.
Once the museum opened (called Naurava Lohikäärme, or the Laughing Dragon), we strolled around inside, and I was my usual slow, reading-everything, taking-tons-of-flashless-pictures annoying museum guest. The museum (actually I'm wrong in calling it a museum, as it doesn't own its own collection, but rather rotates exhibits from national and local district collections. But for the sake of simplicity, I'll stick with museum) was fairly small, but had a lot of really nice displays with lots of information as well as hands-on activities such as a vertical loom. Also on display was the official reconstruction of the Eura dress, which is the most famous and most complete of the medieval Finnish clothing finds. Thanks to the ridiculous amount of bronze the woman was wearing, some of the fabric itself has been preserved underneath the ornaments and the weave, color, and style of dress have all been discernible from the remnants. Also on display were some other rarities such as a bronze cooking pot, a fire spade, and several swords. There was a wealth of jewelry, though the most impressive pieces found in the area had been whisked away to the National Museum in Helsinki. The museum focused especially on the clothing and jewelry, as well as the swords, and had a room dedicated to each. From the shop I picked up a booklet about the local excavations and some lengths of bronze spiral made by a local craftsman that I'll add to my own garb.
We spent about an hour and a half in the museum, and then had to head to our next destinations with about four and a half hours of sunlight remaining. We decided to head to the farthest place first, Harola farm. About 7 kilometers south of the museum, Harola is unique in that rather than having one or two burial cairns, there are about 50 hectares absolutely filled with them as far as one can see. They are almost entirely intact, and the few excavations that have been made date the cairns to the late bronze age or early iron age, around 500 BC - 50 AD. Also present are long rows of rocks, which could have been either walls or sites for iron smelting, as slag was found here and ore was present underneath the nearby lake. The true function of the long rows isn't known - but Harola would have been a busy place, regardless of what went on there. Snow had started to fall at this point, which was at least preferable to the rain that had been falling all morning. We made our way around the hundreds of cairns towards the lake, which was quite pretty with the snow picking up. In the center of the Harola cairns there was a huge flat boulder which seemed to be the centerpiece of the area. In other areas many of the trees had been cleared to make the cairns more accessible, and in the summer, the ground vegetation is maintained by local sheep. We stopped for a moment, dusted the wet snow from our backpacks, and had some snacks. I realized at that point that my own backpack was about as waterproof as a paper shopping bag.
The daylight was beginning to wane as we made our way back along the road, and we took a short detour to the hillfort named rather uncreatively as Linnavuori. There are many hillforts around southern and central Finland, and this one would have served as an effective defense for the local population around 800 AD when they came under attack. The climb up the hill is a steep one, and there are remnants of stone walls that are thought to have supported wooden walls as well. One side of the hill is a cliff, and a fire would have been lit at the top to signal trouble. As the surrounding area is relatively flat, a fire at the top must have been visible for quite a distance.
The last stop was Luistari cemetery. For an area containing at least 800 graves, the field was surprisingly small - many of the graves were in layers over each other. This area had been used as a cemetery from about 600 to 1200 AD, and as such had been a goldmine of grave finds. It was discovered by accident as a backhoe started digging for some project, possibly the nearby road: a sword fell out of the first scoop of dirt, and thankfully they stopped there. It was from this site that the Eura dress was recovered, along with a wide variety of jewelry, clothing, and the tools people of all ages took with them to the grave. There was one grave for a small but well-armed boy from around 700, and an old man from 1200 right next to him. Even in the old man's early medieval time, the graveyard was already 500 years old! It was really something to be standing at the place these amazing objects I had only ever seen in books had been recovered, and briefly wondered what might still lie under our feet, or under the road, or the nearby house. Each plaque had a diagram of how the grave was laid out and a description of the items found inside, and we speculated about the presence of ox heads in many of the male graves (the custom was to have a funeral feast with an ox, and send the head with the departed), one grave which contained two men and a dog, and the possible presence of a slave in one wealthy woman's grave. Each one held a mystery about the life the person lived. Many of the finds here were inspirations for Kalevala Koru jewlery, and I wondered what the inhabitants would think if they could know that a thousand years after they died, people would be wearing replicas of their jewelry. We swept the snow from each plaque and eventually read them all. At this point it was quite dark but luckily one of us had a flashlight, and the nearby road shed a little bit of light. The 10-cm deep snow covered all but the larger rocks as well, so by the time we had read the plaques there wasn't much else to see, except maybe the sign on the fence around the area saying that chasing the sheep and lambs was expressly forbidden!
Finally we trudged our tired feet back towards the bus stop, or at least the kebab shop from earlier where I had a plate of french fries and hot cocoa to warm up. We were all pretty exhausted from the hike as it was, and the snow had only increased our exertion. Our de facto tour guide was impressed that I would trudge for 15 km through the dark and snow just to see some piles of rocks, and I explained that these were particularly important piles of rocks to me, and that I would have given an arm and a leg to have had this opportunity in the States. On the bus ride home I drowned out the screaming of my hamstring muscles with my mp3 player, and then grabbed the bus back to my apartment. I had to hang up every single item I had with me, as I was completely damp along with my backpack, even through my snow boots and two pairs of socks. One hot shower later, though, and I was a happy camper. I do have pictures from this whole outing, but as I also have a ton of schoolwork writing to do - it may be a few days before I get those online, but I'll add a link here when I do.
Eura is a small village with a population of about twelve thousand. The bus stop was more or less typical: a tiny bus station, a grocery store, a bar, and a kebab place. The only indication that the most significant archaeological findings in Finland were found here was a small sign from the road indicating the direction of the prehistoric information center with an arrow. For unknown reasons, the ancient locals had practiced inhumation instead of cremation, which would not happen in the rest of Finland until the spread of Christianity around 1100-1200. For that reason there are a wealth of objects found here from the stone age through the iron age, and somehow over a thousand years of cultivation and farming, these areas were mostly still preserved intact.
We had arrived before the museum opened, to take advantage of the diminishing sunlight, and so grabbed a coffee and then headed out towards Käräjämäki, a short walk behind the museum's property. A modest hill sandwiched between a couple of farms, this location is an iron age (6th-7th c.) burial hill, topped by a ring of stones that functioned as a court/moot/althing-style meeting point for the ancient locals. Many of the graves themselves had either collapsed or been plundered long ago, and the surface of the ground was covered in holes and depressions where the burials had been. Many of them have yet to be excavated, however. At one end of the hill a burial was found intact, a very wealthy man buried with expensive weapons and lots of supplies.
Once the museum opened (called Naurava Lohikäärme, or the Laughing Dragon), we strolled around inside, and I was my usual slow, reading-everything, taking-tons-of-flashless-pictures annoying museum guest. The museum (actually I'm wrong in calling it a museum, as it doesn't own its own collection, but rather rotates exhibits from national and local district collections. But for the sake of simplicity, I'll stick with museum) was fairly small, but had a lot of really nice displays with lots of information as well as hands-on activities such as a vertical loom. Also on display was the official reconstruction of the Eura dress, which is the most famous and most complete of the medieval Finnish clothing finds. Thanks to the ridiculous amount of bronze the woman was wearing, some of the fabric itself has been preserved underneath the ornaments and the weave, color, and style of dress have all been discernible from the remnants. Also on display were some other rarities such as a bronze cooking pot, a fire spade, and several swords. There was a wealth of jewelry, though the most impressive pieces found in the area had been whisked away to the National Museum in Helsinki. The museum focused especially on the clothing and jewelry, as well as the swords, and had a room dedicated to each. From the shop I picked up a booklet about the local excavations and some lengths of bronze spiral made by a local craftsman that I'll add to my own garb.
We spent about an hour and a half in the museum, and then had to head to our next destinations with about four and a half hours of sunlight remaining. We decided to head to the farthest place first, Harola farm. About 7 kilometers south of the museum, Harola is unique in that rather than having one or two burial cairns, there are about 50 hectares absolutely filled with them as far as one can see. They are almost entirely intact, and the few excavations that have been made date the cairns to the late bronze age or early iron age, around 500 BC - 50 AD. Also present are long rows of rocks, which could have been either walls or sites for iron smelting, as slag was found here and ore was present underneath the nearby lake. The true function of the long rows isn't known - but Harola would have been a busy place, regardless of what went on there. Snow had started to fall at this point, which was at least preferable to the rain that had been falling all morning. We made our way around the hundreds of cairns towards the lake, which was quite pretty with the snow picking up. In the center of the Harola cairns there was a huge flat boulder which seemed to be the centerpiece of the area. In other areas many of the trees had been cleared to make the cairns more accessible, and in the summer, the ground vegetation is maintained by local sheep. We stopped for a moment, dusted the wet snow from our backpacks, and had some snacks. I realized at that point that my own backpack was about as waterproof as a paper shopping bag.
The daylight was beginning to wane as we made our way back along the road, and we took a short detour to the hillfort named rather uncreatively as Linnavuori. There are many hillforts around southern and central Finland, and this one would have served as an effective defense for the local population around 800 AD when they came under attack. The climb up the hill is a steep one, and there are remnants of stone walls that are thought to have supported wooden walls as well. One side of the hill is a cliff, and a fire would have been lit at the top to signal trouble. As the surrounding area is relatively flat, a fire at the top must have been visible for quite a distance.
The last stop was Luistari cemetery. For an area containing at least 800 graves, the field was surprisingly small - many of the graves were in layers over each other. This area had been used as a cemetery from about 600 to 1200 AD, and as such had been a goldmine of grave finds. It was discovered by accident as a backhoe started digging for some project, possibly the nearby road: a sword fell out of the first scoop of dirt, and thankfully they stopped there. It was from this site that the Eura dress was recovered, along with a wide variety of jewelry, clothing, and the tools people of all ages took with them to the grave. There was one grave for a small but well-armed boy from around 700, and an old man from 1200 right next to him. Even in the old man's early medieval time, the graveyard was already 500 years old! It was really something to be standing at the place these amazing objects I had only ever seen in books had been recovered, and briefly wondered what might still lie under our feet, or under the road, or the nearby house. Each plaque had a diagram of how the grave was laid out and a description of the items found inside, and we speculated about the presence of ox heads in many of the male graves (the custom was to have a funeral feast with an ox, and send the head with the departed), one grave which contained two men and a dog, and the possible presence of a slave in one wealthy woman's grave. Each one held a mystery about the life the person lived. Many of the finds here were inspirations for Kalevala Koru jewlery, and I wondered what the inhabitants would think if they could know that a thousand years after they died, people would be wearing replicas of their jewelry. We swept the snow from each plaque and eventually read them all. At this point it was quite dark but luckily one of us had a flashlight, and the nearby road shed a little bit of light. The 10-cm deep snow covered all but the larger rocks as well, so by the time we had read the plaques there wasn't much else to see, except maybe the sign on the fence around the area saying that chasing the sheep and lambs was expressly forbidden!
Finally we trudged our tired feet back towards the bus stop, or at least the kebab shop from earlier where I had a plate of french fries and hot cocoa to warm up. We were all pretty exhausted from the hike as it was, and the snow had only increased our exertion. Our de facto tour guide was impressed that I would trudge for 15 km through the dark and snow just to see some piles of rocks, and I explained that these were particularly important piles of rocks to me, and that I would have given an arm and a leg to have had this opportunity in the States. On the bus ride home I drowned out the screaming of my hamstring muscles with my mp3 player, and then grabbed the bus back to my apartment. I had to hang up every single item I had with me, as I was completely damp along with my backpack, even through my snow boots and two pairs of socks. One hot shower later, though, and I was a happy camper. I do have pictures from this whole outing, but as I also have a ton of schoolwork writing to do - it may be a few days before I get those online, but I'll add a link here when I do.
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