Joel-Pekka Rinne – Page 4

January 30, 2013February 18, 2014

Attitude

Olympic Games, World Cups and The Euros. Those are among the most interesting events in recent history that have lacked a considerable amount of Finnish colours, as in Finland has not been represented in a major football (soccer) tournament since the Olympic games in 1980, which were held in the now defunct USSR. The Finnish national team has at times been rather close to making it to the “big games”, however always lacking the “final push” to win important games so as to qualify for the tournaments. Nevertheless, we Finns are not ones to give up easy, nor do we listen to commonsense.

Most cities abroad, when hit by a blizzard, go into “lock-down”; Airports, schools, stores, you name it, close down and people tend to not go outside if it is not mandatory for them to do so. When Helsinki gets a ton of snow (as expected) it’s business as usual, no big deal. Still, even though, I am a full-fledged Finn and do manage well in this climate that has been given to us, even I wouldn’t think of going out to play football in this weather (and this has nothing to do with the fact that I am more of an Ice Hockey fan).

It had not even crossed my mind that when I went outdoors for a walk with my camera that I would run into kids running around the fields, first clearing the pitches of snow and afterwards kicking the ball around. It was as if the players did not notice that Siberia was moving to Helsinki flake by flake, already occupying most of the football pitches with large amounts of snow. I for one enormously enjoy being indoors and staying warm, heck, I even skipped ice hockey practices as a kid, simply because I did not feel like going outside, which is why it is hard to get my head around why these youngsters would go outside, during a blizzard and play football?! In shorts! (They did have long johns underneath, but still!)

To my understanding the main club of Helsinki, HJK, travels abroad, seeking warmth and holding their training camps in more desirable destinations, but I also know that there are a number of indoor training facilities at the disposal of these young Ronaldinhos running around in the snow here. I would have to assume that there are not enough facilities to cater to these seemingly enthusiastic football prodigies, or that these guys really enjoy some fresh air. Be it as it may, I have to say that, even though, I have given football in Finland a hard time, I have to respect these dudes for doing their thing, rain or shine, kinda like the U.S. Postal Service (Ok, for the postal service it’s probably more of a marketing motto).

Regardless of the fact that we have not seen Finland in tournaments in a long time, I have a strong feeling that that is going to change in the future. It has to. It’s a long and rocky road, but we have already seen positive outcomes of the Finnish training system, Teemu Pukki and Joel Pohjanpalo to name a few prospects. With this amount of attitude and perseverance these guys have even in their training, if we manage to add a bit more skill into that, I think we will be seeing Finland in the major tournaments once more in the future.

January 27, 2013January 27, 2013

Changes

It’s been a while since I last wrote here, me being mainly preoccupied by other things in my life. Probably the biggest change that has happened during my “radio silence” is that I no longer reside in Germany, but in Finland, yet again.

I left Berlin on the 23rd of December, arriving in Finland nearly directly for Christmas. The last weeks that I spent in Berlin were without a doubt one of the most, sentimental or tough ones I had yet gone through, because it really felt, and still feels, that I merely left behind 1,5 years of my life in Berlin. Living abroad I can say, cheesy at it may sound, changed me for the better. I was already a rather independent person as well as outgoing, but being able to live in a new country and moreover being able to integrate into that culture was something I will never forget. I truly started to feel like a Berliner, not a random tourist living in Berlin, but a Berliner.

It is an odd feeling when one returns to their “own culture” and country, these “reverse cultureshock” symptoms are very familiar for people who have lived abroad for a period of time. I myself luckily was preoccupied with a bunch of things, when I returned to Finland, not having time to sink into my own thoughts about this sudden change in my surroundings. The Holiday season kept me from thinking about the life I had in Berlin and comparing it to my life in Finland. It is only now that I am here, back in Helsinki, writing this that I have had the time to fully start to understand my experiences abroad, and actually that was the plan. During this Spring, whilst I am writing my Bachelors thesis, I will also have a critical look on the Finnish culture and see whether I really want to spend the rest of my life in this country or would I consider living abroad again.

My initial feelings being back up north ( as in North Europe), are a bit mixed. To a certain extent I enjoy how clear and easy everything is, considering everyday issues such as bureaucracy since here everything can be done swiftly online, whereas in Berlin I had to queue in physical offices often to get things done. This said, the whole “efficiency” of everything also brings to mind a very “black and white” society. What I mean by this is that, everything is regulated and there is no “middle ground” in anything, or so it feels. Laws and rules are to be followed to a T, and while this is a mostly a good thing, preventing our “peace loving” society from going into chaos, it does also make the whole country feel a bit dull.

During my stay in Berlin I learned to understand more fully that up north, as in the Nordics, people are not trusted as much to make decisions by themselves but there are laws and guidelines to tell them what they should do and when. Me being a young student, the most notable difference is the alcohol legislation. In Berlin if a person wanted to buy a beer, it was up to them to decide when they wanted to buy it or if they felt like going to a club later than usual and leave in the morning they could do so. In Finland, alcohol is sold between 9 AM and 9 PM, after which if you want to have a casual beer, you have to head to a pub or a bar, which close at 1.30 AM or at latest 3.30 AM. Now I understand that the culture here is very different, but it just takes time to realise again that I am living in a country with very strict control from the state. Control does not always have to be associated with negative thoughts, the state here has a lot of control over people, but on the flip side of the coin the state also helps its citizens a lot. For this I do love Finland. Nevertheless, it will take me a bit of time to get re-integrated into my own culture, if I want to do this that is.

It is funny to see how many stereotypes about cultures actually are rather true. I was for a walk in the city center, here in Helsinki, and started to notice that people rarely look each other in the eyes, but rather keep their heads low and tried in all situations not to draw attention to themselves. Now, I am not saying I would be terribly different from said street dwellers, but I just found it funny how silent we indeed are as a people. The culture itself is not going to change, that is up to each and every individual themselves to decide how they want to act. Finns will for a long time be the silent, “shyish” but trustworthy people of the North.I at least will try to challenge myself to continue breaking those stereotypes, striking conversations with strangers and being even more polite, to begin with.

Only time will tell, where I will find myself after this spring. The biggest challenge for me this spring is to write my thesis and start to wonder what to do next. I am strongly considering applying for masters programmes here in Finland and at least in Germany, but beginning a working career would not be out of the question either if the right opportunity were to come along.

The next blog posts will be far more “lighter” topic wise, as I will try to get back on track with taking photos and such, but I will also be heavily preoccupied with my thesis work, so we will see how often I am able to post stuff online.

To end the first post of the year, here are a couple of pictures taken during the past month, one being the last one from Berlin and the others depicting my up north home-town.

November 12, 2012November 12, 2012

Autumn

This post was due already a couple a weeks ago, but because of technical difficulties, a lengthy post that I wrote on a cold October night never saw the light of day i.e. never made its way onto the world wide web. Sometimes my life feels rather hectic, even though when observing from a far, it isn’t, perhaps it is just my own mind that makes everything so difficult and complicated in my small world, but at times I feel that I need to unwind.

I often clear my head by going for long walks during chilly autumn nights, thinking about the past, present and future. One evening as I headed out, a scarf around my neck, a beanie on my head and a camera in my hand, I reminisced about a lot of things as I took deep breaths of the fresh air outside. It’s funny how climate can bring to our mind our own past sometimes, as if those things had happened just yesterday.

As I walked in my local park, that had gone silent for the winter, inhabited now only by small bunnies running mindlessly through the leaf covered scene, I remembered how I always linked autumn to anticipating something. I remember how as a small kid I waited eagerly for the leaves to fall and the colder weathers to come, because with cold weather came ice and with ice came ice hockey. Even though I have had periods in my life when hockey hasn’t been that important, as a kid it was. Partly because that was where all of your friends also were, on the ice. Only now as I’m a bit older I’ve noticed that in fact my oldest and most trustworthy friends were indeed my line mates as I was 6 or 7. Some of my friends continued to play hockey, I didn’t, I moved onto skiing, downhill that is.

When I started to ski and film my friends for snowboard videos and stuff (LINK), I got into new fun circles for which I am to this day still damn grateful. Every autumn as the weather started to get colder, we watched ,nearly non-stop, the webcam of our local ski center, to see if the snow-cannons had started to paint the slopes white, and when they did start to cover the hill with what was more Ice than snow, we headed to the center to film something. Waiting for the ski season to start was for a long time a part of my autumn, but that changed once I moved to Helsinki, and especially now that I live in Berlin.

Sure,I could have continued to ski in Helsinki, but it would’ve been way too much of a hassle to travel to the nearby towns, with public transport, not to mention not having the familiar faces of my “crew” there. As if by accident my road started to lead back to my former hobby, although this time to the rafters. A good friend of mine started to lure me into going to see the hockey matches in Helsinki, needless to say it didn’t take long for me to be hooked again to ice hockey. As the hockey season starts usually around September, this “spectator sport” started to be the new thing that I awaited to begin during autumns, we even went to see my team’s (IFK Helsinki) training matches in August, because at times it felt that the season couldn’t come quick enough. Needless to say, I haven’t been to IFK’s games in a while having moved to Berlin.

I have tried to follow both my team’s games and the local Berlin team’s games here, but it hasn’t felt the same. I do still watch the Finnish league (and the NHL , if they didn’t have a lockout season), but nowadays I’ve noticed I enjoy spending a lot of time with my camera. Even on that cold October night, as I was kicking the maple leaf piles with my feet in the empty park, I had my Sony with me. I perhaps lacked the anticipation of something “seasonal” but I have a continuous hobby now, which is surprisingly chill and allows me to clear my head as well. Dwelling through the park, snapping photos and enjoying the lack of noises is just bliss at times. That night I spent a good few hours walking around, stopping now and again to sit on a bench to observe the wild life that had still stayed in the park for the upcoming winter.

I believe Nietzsche once said ” All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking” and I do believe he is on to something there, since at least for me, when I walk alone in the evenings I am able to clear my head of the less useful thoughts and focus on the good ones, which is something that for me is hard to do at times when surrounded by people. I might have walked out that night out of the door, with a big stressful mess of different thoughts, but returned with a much calmer mind and even a couple of nice photos, all thanks to a “sleeping” park and a late evening walk. I also know now that I do not need to have anything to anticipate during the autumn anymore, sure skiing would be fun, but in the end, taking pictures or writing nonsense isn’t a bad hobby either, and you can do it anytime of the year.

August 20, 2012August 20, 2012

A Day at the Ballpark

I found myself on Saturday evening feeling a bit tired after a going away party for one of my Finnish friends. The scorching heat of 30 degrees Celsius did not aid in anyway to get me up and going to actually do something on a Saturday night. As I sat at my desk, browsing mindlessly through different sites, I glanced at my camera and turned my attention towards the beautiful, nevertheless hot, outdoors and decided that I’d take my chances with the hot weather and go walk around the neighborhood to see if I could catch anything interesting onto my memory card.

I felt the heatwave immediately hitting my face as I walked out of my building and I could not help but think that this was not the Germany I was used to. Like an explorer in the Sahara desert, I walked for sometime without seeing anything of interest. I had long planned to go and take pictures of the old Tempelhof Airport, basically next door to me, and seeing that the sun was starting to head under, I ran to the nearest train station and took a train….the wrong train. I ended up back where I had started from, at Schöneberg, only to enjoy a 20minute wait for the next train to Tempelhof, needless to say with the ongoing sleep mode and the oven-like climate, I was not happy.

After fighting my way out of a train that felt more like a cattle transport, due to the amount of people fitted into a single train, Iwas happy to be at my destination, the former airport of Tempelhof, now one of the largest parks in Berlin. Recently, I’ve been trying out creating HDR picture, with success and at times with no success. This Saturday was to be yet another chance for me to learn a bit of HDR photography. As I traveled towards the old Hangars and Terminals, I was excited by even the mere thought of walking on a runway that had once received at peak times a plane per minute and had helped the people of Berlin enormously during the Berlin Blockade.I mean, I know I am a history nut, I get it. On my journey towards the terminal building I also stopped to take pictures of the usage of the airport nowadays:People having picnics, parties and doing different kinds of sport activities.

Even though I had envisioned that I would get cool pics from the Airport itself, I have to say, the Terminal building was rather hard to photograph, being that you couldn’t really get too close to it and thus the angles for pictures were rather limited. Nevertheless, I took a couple of photos and continued my way along the runways, running into an old reminder of the time when the U.S. Army was present. Some plane enthusiasts probably know the model of this troop carrier, but for me it was merely a nice shiny plane accompanied by some stairs belonging also the U.S. Army. It’s sometimes really interesting to think how much of U.S. influence Berlin has throughout the times had, having so many troops stationed here during the Berlin Brigade times, the Americans also partly brought parts of their culture into the melting pot of Berlin.

For most Europeans Baseball isn’t that familiar, which is why the two rather old Baseball fields (ok, one was a softball field) caught my attention. Wearing often baseball fan apparel (especially Redsox gear, go Boston) and having tried to understand the sport more and more, I have to admit that this was my first real encounter with a real Baseball field. Now when I say real, I have to clarify that I had seen these fields earlier this year but not yet looked at them more closely. I couldn’t get too close now either, seeing that both fields were fenced thus making it understandably hard for non baseball players to access the fields at night time. I walked around the fields trying to find a place to get my zoom on and perhaps try and take a couple of nice pictures. I managed to stick my camera through a couple of holes in the fences, so as to have a less obstructed view of the diamonds and the field itself.

Having managed to take a couple of decent pictures I left home in hope of trying out HDR editing on photoshop during the late hours of the night. I know that Berlin has a couple of Baseball teams and seeing that I want to learn more about the sport, I have to definitely look up some of their game schedules. Funnily enough, I left my place in hopes of getting a couple of pictures of old historic places and I managed to do so, however I had not thought that the most interesting place to take pics would not be the old airport, but the sport facilities of the people who used to work there, a long time ago.

July 23, 2012

Summer in Finland

Even though I thoroughly enjoy living in Berlin, with all its big city related atmosphere, I have to still say that I have been really happy to be “home” for a couple of weeks.

Here in Finland, where we are used to cold temperatures, the Summer is always an anticipated time of the year when people head to their Summer houses to chill and relax for a while. Sitting in the Sauna and enjoying the peaceful landscapes gives one’s head a much needed rest.

Obviously scenery is always much more impressive, when seen by one’s own eyes, however despite this fact, I attempted to capture the Finnish Summer in pictures, hopefully being able to give you a slight impression of what our Summer here up north is normally like.

I will add in a couple of posts to come some of the photos I have taken here in Finland during my stay, starting today with scenes from our family’s summer house. These photos hopefully not only provide you with a glimpse of what I have been experiencing here, but also for myself they will work as a reminder of what home is like in the summer time.

May 31, 2012June 3, 2012

Buda to the Pest: Part 1 – The Road is Long

As I noted in some earlier post, I have indeed also exited the borders of Berlin during this Spring ( and not only by falling asleep on a train and ending up in a neighboring city!)

I had the choice of booking flights to see reindeer and snow up north in Lapland, for the first of May, however my budget disagreed with those plans like a football(soccer for ya Yanks) player would disagree with a ref after receiving a red card. Nevertheless I was determined to go somewhere outside of the big B. A couple of my Slovenian friends had tried for a couple of months to get me to join them for a bit of R & R for 5 days in Budapest, Hungary. I proposed the trip to my Irish mate, Daragh, and sure enough he was in! On one condition though….. that we go by bus.

For those who don’t know, a bus trip to Budapest (via Prague) takes around 10-12 hrs, so needless to say we had planned that we would enjoy a few drinks on the way and watch the movies that were promised to shown on the webpage of the bus company. As the day of the trip dawned upon us, we headed to the western part of Berlin to catch our banana yellow bus, anxiously waiting to get on and continue our sleep, which was rudely interrupted by the early (7 AM, yes not that early for most people) wake-up. Although the bus seemed to be nice, I couldn’t have help of thinking that we were crossing a border to the unknown, having to even flash our passports at the door. The only reason that I could make up for them to check my passport, was to confirm that the young dorky looking kid on my drivers licence was in fact me. As I sat down it didn’t take long for me to visit the sandman once again and I was knocked out for at least a straight hour immediately.

Our first leg of the journey was from Berlin to Prague. During this 4 hrs was shown a lot of promising looking, English language films, which we now and again glanced at in between sleeping and trying to find a “comfortable” position on the upright positioned seats. After 4 hrs of bumpy roads and some well earned extra time sleeping, we arrived in Prague, where we were due to switch to a coach that would bring us to Budapest. We had 1,5hrs to spend in Prague, which was enough to get an understanding of some of the streets and find an establishment to serve our ever growing hunger and thirst.

A Man without a heading — Daragh trying to scout our way to food

Dwelling on the streets looking for food and trying to solve the mystery of the “unknown currency” and it’s rate, I decided it was a good time to try and take a couple of pictures as well. Aside from maybe the fact of forgetting my camera battery at home (which happens surprisingly often) the second most annoying thing to notice when turning on the camera is the ” No Memory Card” text flashing on the screen, as if the camera itself was trying to “rub it in your face” even more that you had in fact forgotten one of the most integral parts of your appliance at home. Having forgotten my card at home, we headed with my friend from the home of Guinness to a local electronics store and simply bought a card, which would play home for the pictures to be taken on this euro trip of ours. Having now solved the case of the missing memory card, there was still two cases left unsolved: A: What the heck is the currency here(sorry I know I should know this) and how does it translate to our struggling European currency and B: Where do we find food?

Currency exchange shops were by the dozens, being a touristic area where we were. We randomly selected one and entered the shop, unknowingly interrupting the clerk’s “movie moment”, as he had to serve us. After a moment of struggling with languages, we exited the shop with a bunch of money that were rather new to both of us: Czech Korunas and Hungarian Florents. Having completed this seemingly easy task it was now time for us to feast somewhere. We ended up finding a rather nice place with a good bargain deal of a good meal and beverage for roughly €5. Having now lived in Germany for nearly a year, I’ve come accustomed to ordering stuff in the local language, however as neither Daragh or me knew a word of Czech, I had to result to the typical tourist phrase ” ummm… do you speak English?” Judging by the reaction received from the waitress, I felt I had almost offended the young girl, having assumed apparently that it was not a norm that people spoke the language that has almost become the lingua franca of the world. At this point I have to complement the Czechs that they are really good at speaking the language. In every shop, restaurant we went, people spoke English. Perhaps this is because the area was, as mentioned, mainly occupied with tourist, but I’d like to think the average level of English is rather good in the Czech Republic.

Lunch was accompanied by a local beer, which I have to say had the funniest logo I’ve ever seen. I mean, a guy with a beer in his hand, wearing a shirt with a picture of a tiger!

Now that our stomachs we’rent waging war on us anymore, we had just enough time to pop by a local “kwik-e-mart” and grab some snacks and beverages to enjoy with the movies, which looked promising earlier. We climbed on-board the coach and were greeted by the well functioning air-conditioning, which was more than welcome, seeing that it was +30 and rising outside.

As we sat down everything seemed to be good and going according to plan….for a short moment. Sure enough, as we drove out of the bus terminals, the hostess on-board foiled our plans of enjoying a couple of “brewskies” by announcing that own drinks weren’t allowed, or at least that was what I could make out of the announcement, which had a lengthy calm paced Czech (??) part and a very concise English part, which seemed to have been spoken in fastforward mode, just for the sake of confusing all the non-Czech speaking passengers on-board. Luckily we had packed a bottle of water with us, so that we didn’t have to suffer from thirst. As often with things in life, mishaps have a tendency to come in bundles. The blinking screens in front of us soon started to play a movie, I say a movie because I could not possibly have the slightest clue what this, apparently legendary Czech, film was called. Nor did we even had such luck that we would have some subtitles to explain why the boy ran through the forests for hours in this production of probably the late 70’s. As the only option started to seem to be sleep, we tried our luck at it. Needless to say also the option of sleeping was taken away, being kept awake by, what I can only assume was a heated discussion by our neighbors over who is the loudest on the bus, I came to terms with the fact that this was going to be a long ride to Budapest…

To Be Continued. Oh, and the next post(s) will have more pictures as well.

May 29, 2012May 30, 2012

“Be Yourself Days” or Karneval der Kulturen, as they say here.

Every spring when the sun has started to become a frequent friend and the temperatures are rising like a souffle in an oven, Berliners living in Kreuzberg clear the streets of cars, not in fear of them getting burnt as usual, but to make space for the 3 day street party that is the Karneval der Kulturen.

I could go on and on about how the whole carnival got started, but to be honest my timetable doesn’t really enable me to research the party in too detail. All I can say for sure is that it started in 1996 to celebrate cultural diversities or a multicultural city as it is. The concept seems to be that people of different unifying factors form floats which then parade through the streets of Xberg and spectators walk along the roads digesting culture through every single sense they can.

Whistles, techno, samba, hiphop, punkrock you name it, you heard everything whilst walking behind other people as if you were a big herd of happy zombies enjoying the awesome weather and good company. Since I’ve been here in Berlin I haven’t seen a gathering of people so large except at Brandenburger tor during the Einheitsfest, but even there people weren’t filling the streets in such lengths as they did this weekend in Kreuzberg.

If you happened to have Kohle (trying to be hip and use German lingo for money) there was sure enough places where you could get rid of your excess cash. Cocktail kiosk, beer booths, grills and obviously the most necessary kiosks of them all: the funny hat/wig stands. Personally I only used the services of one grill to buy myself a big ol’ steak in a bun. Sadly though, I ended up having a rather bloody steak which was impossible to eat thus ended up enjoying a mere “steak flavoured bun”, which I kept telling myself was all I actually wanted and didn’t care for the steak anyway.

The numerous “official” parties were also accompanied by seemingly popup house parties on literally every corner, and yes these parties were not invite only! Not only were people jamming to their pop tunes coming out of their home stereos, own grills were also set up on the street or porches near the said parties, giving the mini-fests a nice smokey aroma.

If you happen to be a more of a “I know I can dance guy”, there was plenty of room on the streets to get “jiggy with it”, as the Fresh Prince of Bel Air once sung. Probably one of the coolest streets was Zossnerstrasse, just off the main parade road. At times it truly seemed there that we were in a massive outdoor disco, it was ridiculous, in a good way!

The fact that people can have so much fun, without causing disturbances or trouble even when enjoying alcohol, is for a Finn almost unheard of. During the whole time I was there (roughly 8hrs) I did not witness a single fight or other violent behavior, maybe it was just luck, but I’d like to imagine it’s something else, it’s the culture. I believe this to be the best part of the Karneval der Kulturen that if it indeed is possible, Berlin felt even just a notch more tolerant than normal which is really impressive seeing that this is by far the most tolerant and peaceful city I’ve been to so far. During these 3 days people could not only come to the streets and be themselves to the fullest, but furthermore they were encouraged to do so, which I can only say is pretty damn awesome.

May 20, 2012

Berlinist

It’s been a while since I wrote a post, mainly because I’ve been occupied by my University studies and the seemingly never ending task of finding an internship for the second half of this year.

Although I have not written here, I have still been actively carrying my camera around with me, trying to capture pictures of this wonderful city that is the big B. aka Berlin. During the past few months I have tried to do some “tourist” stuff, usually without success, travelling around the city with a s-bahn,u-bahn, tram or bus to take me further away of the areas where normally even my own two feet would carry me. Even though I’ve spent literally weeks crisscrossing this city, I still have not seen most of the common sightseeing attractions, which might be my task for the summer. For now I’ll just consider myself as a “Berlinist”, being a tourist within this city seeing sights that no one else actually might think to see.

Without really rambling on too much in this post, I’ll just sum up one of my numerous weeks spent here in a couple of words and pictures: I went to an old Stasi prison, a football match and ended up witnessing a fire.

Phew, that was concise wasn’t it? Now for the visuals ( you can prolly link each picture to the appropriate event mentioned):

I did actually make one trip even outside of Germany during this spring already, but more on that later on.

March 14, 2012

Me and my “best friend”

Last night I was again bored. Running around within the four walls of my room, without a destination.
I decided to make use of this “extra energy” that I had and enjoy the company of my camera in the form of a short walk around the borough of Schöneberg.

As often with my trips, this one got extended as well and went quickly from being a short walk around the corner to a full blown sightseeing tour, spending two full hours walking around Berlin to the beat of some fresh drum’n’bass songs.

Luckily, at least the weather was on my side this time and I didn’t have to seek cover from rain or snow. I played a lot with the shutter of my camera to make some use of my walk, other than the obvious health benefit of walking for kilometers at a good pace. Mr. Self-timer was also with me during this random tour of Berlin and it makes me wonder if I’ve gotten too used to using a self-timer, when I even tell passing by pedestrian that I do not require assistance whilst taking photos, as they offer to take a picture of me. Perhaps it’s just the simple fact that I don’t trust them to do a good job ( as if I was a professional, right…).

Having come home around midnight, I was already able to edit some of the shots, but left most of them for today, since I was a tad tired and didn’t have the energy to focus on editing. At least now I can say that I’ve seen the “siegessäule” statue up-close, since before yesterday I hadn’t had the energy to drag myself to take pictures of it.

Here are a couple from last night the rest and much more can be found in the IamMoments section.

March 11, 2012

Groceries

“I’m back!” as if to try and be some sort of movie hero, I shouted these much used words as I entered the 20 square meter room, that is my home here in Berlin for the next months to be. Even though there is only one hour time difference between the cold up north (Finland) and Germany, I still had a strange feeling of “jetlag”, falling to my bed trying to sleep for half an hour, only to realise that my attempt was a failed one.

Today I had the pleasure (strange but yes) of enjoying a flight operated by AirBerlin, a company stuck in an intersection of sorts; not being able to decide whether to turn to being a low-fare airline or premium one. On the flight of this confused airline, I was able to enjoy the “comfyish” seats and non-advertising atmosphere (not to mention having a full 3 seats to myself, being apparently too scary for anyone to sit next to). And wait there’s more! I had even the possibility of choosing my meal! Yes, I could choose the “hotdogish” creation or what I presume was an apple muffin. Now, I know, I know, I shouldn’t be complaining about the snacks, but what I’m saying is that even though the airline was nice and all, it did not quite fulfill my culinary needs, so to speak. Lucky for me I have truly wonderful roommates who suggested that they would make “Flammkuchen” a German/French specialty, which I had once before tried in Strasbourg, the runner-up capital of the EU. Needless to say, I almost cried tears of joy, receiving this kind of a welcome immediately after being back here for only a couple of minutes!

The meal was in short: superb! I had a smile on my face once again and got just the start for my second round of Germany that I needed! Being smart and all, I quickly realised that I would probably need to eat something in the morning as well, as my digestive system surely would break down every inch of the previously enjoyed delightful meal during the night, leaving my stomach rather empty. For those who don’t know, it might be good to point out that Sunday in Germany, is not a day to do your shopping. All major grocery stores, kwik-e-mart’s and you name its’ are closed, geschlossen, as the all too familiar sign says on many store doors. However, as with any major law, this one also has a loophole. Apparently IF a store is located within a railway station it may stay open even on a Sunday (somebody correct me on this if you know better). As if I was carrying a lucky rabbit’s foot in my pocket, my surprisingly good luck seemed to have no end to it. There was a local grocery store, within walking distance of my home, and more importantly within an inner city railway station. I decided to make use of this trip, by taking with me my trusty companion, my camera, in hopes of snapping some random photos on my way to the store.

As I walked in the misty outdoors, which climate wise reminded me more of mid-May in Finland, I could not help but think to myself at times, “where are the people?”. Berlin, a city of more than 3.4 Million people should be buzzing with pedestrians. Still on many streets there wasn’t a single soul in sight. Having spent the last couple of weeks in a Finnish town of 20.000 inhabitants, it was almost funny how similar some streets of Berlin seemed to be to those of Jämsä (The town), in the sense that there were no cars or people moving on them. Frankly told though, the lack of people didn’t really bother me much. I had my earphones on and was clicking my camera to the beat, trying to get at least one decent shot to have fun with on photoshop later on.

After a purposely done detour, I finally put down my camera and headed to the store, where apparently all the people that I was previously wondering about had found their way as well. Happy with my simple choices of a water bottle and some quark for the morning, I went on my merry way and headed home. To my displeasure, I was sad to notice that most of the pictures I had taken were harshly out of focus or otherwise blurred due to possibly the rain that had blessed me with its presence. After playing with photoshop for a while, I managed to “save” a couple of photos which, although are not nearly in the category of great, can be at least looked upon, without having a “frowny face”.

If someone actually had the energy to read through all of that, I tip my beanie/hat off to you, simultaneously chanting “hazaa!hazaa!hazaa!” to magnify this gesture of gratitude. That’s all for now and if you have some opinions on the photos or on life, do share!