A Day of Rest

I woke up this morning at 11 feeling surprisingly OK. I had expected that I would be hung-over all day. It’s now 12:30 and the sky is blue! A blue sky! Miracle of Miracles! I’m going to get some lunch and then head outside for a walk and some pictures, maybe. I have no plans for today – maybe I should try to do some math.

So I spent about one and a half hours walking in to town – it’s usually only about 45 minutes, but the sun was beautiful and so I decided to take the long way and I often stopped along the way to take some photos; these are scenes from my daily commute!

I’m feeling a lot better about living here in Finland now. Amazing what a little sun will do. I think that the combined stress of meeting new people, setting up an official identity, and getting ready to do some serious math was just too much for me to handle. I guess I’m a weak person in that respect – I can’t imagine the difficulties that refugees face, especially in the States where I bet the red tape is even thicker. Anyway, once I got into town, I went to the coffee shop and ran into Chelsea, a Canadian from Alberta, and her Italian friend Lara. We sat for a while drinking coffee and teaching each other different languages. It was fun! I learned to conjugate “to eat” in Italian, but of course I’ve forgotten by now. Chelsea took a picture of the café, and some heavy looking Finnish metal-heads came up to her and demanded that she erase the photo, because it included them. She of course complied, but I thought it was kind of strange. I suppose that it’s perfectly understandable to not want your picture taken by a stranger, but I don’t think that would happen very often in the states. I wonder what the privacy laws are like here? I think that in the states if you go out in public, then anyone can legally take your photo. Not that it’s ok to take someone’s photo against their will just because it’s legal. Anyway, it was a strange event. After a while Lara and Chelsea left and did some math. I left around 5:30 and walked home. It was quite cold on the walk home – for the first time, I felt really cold. I think there was even a little wind, which hasn’t happened at all in the past week. It was a clear night and I could see a bunch of stars. No more northern lights, though. I wonder if I’ll see them again, or if it was a rare occurrence.

I made my first real meal since arriving in Finland. It was a simple stir-fry of onions, red pepper (which is cheaper than green here!), and broccoli. I didn’t have any measuring cups, so I had to eyeball the rice, which came out a little damp. Oh well. It was still really good, though I should have splurged for the 5€ bottle of Kikkoman – the Finnish version wasn’t quite the same, and I didn’t see any of the Dutch Ketjap that Hannah likes so much. Sammi still hasn’t come out of his room. I think that he is either very shy or angry with me about the cleaning stuff. I should buy him a bottle of wine or something as a good will gesture. Maybe that will loosen him up a bit. Anyway, I think I will work out downstairs for an hour or so and then do math for the rest of the evening.

I miss you all! I hope that you haven’t forgotten about me.