Helsinki - Summer /Autumn

Thanks for all the comments you have been giving me offline which helped to motivate me writing this blog.. Well there is one more reason, its Xmas season and I dont have much work in office ...zapak chess,online poker,facebook,orkut sucks after sometime. So here I am thinking (yeah that happens sometimes), back in time what happened during Summer and Autumn o'er in Helsinki.

Summer has been really good and here are the major changes I have seen so far.

1. Light:
Sun rises by 2am in the morning and sets again by 11:30 pm.Unlike winter, when you cant see sun before and after coming from office, now you would see Sun before entering a night party and after coming out.It is literally like "Sun never sets". You also feel refreshed seeing the bright sunlight and feels there is a lot of time left even after 10 pm has strike in the clock.

2. Climate :
Temperature still comes in the discussion when you talk with bar.( 29 degrees is the max I could notice during Summer )
Finn : " Wow its 26 degrees today. am going enjoy this weekend in the beach "
Ukrainien : " So what, its like spring in my country. whats so much to rejoice about it ?"
Indian : "Well, Am not even going to tell you what it means 26 degrees in my hometown.. I need to put my jacket on.I feel cold. :( "

3. Dress:
Everyone wears colorful clothes. Strickly no black ( Thank God! I got frustrated when I used to see everyone wearing black dress )
I could spot girls wearing bikini and walking by if temp goes more than 24. They know that this could be the only time in the yr when they could wear such dress.
Halloween is also a special day when you could see people wearing costumes. http://www.hs.fi/kotimaa/artikkeli/Halloween%20marssii%20jo%20pyh%C3%A4inp%C3%A4iv%C3%A4n%20maineen%20p%C3%A4%C3%A4lle/1135250406897


4. Johannos: ( Read as 'Yohannos' )
I never knew in my school days what it meant by June 21st -longest day of the year.After coming here, I realised the difference. On this day ,people drink all day ( thats common in any scenario ),put logs of wood in a river and fire it.There will be music,dance,beer and everyone enjoys it. Unfortunately , I missed Johannos celeb in finland because I was busy seeing the most beautiful place I have seen so far in my life - Norway.

5. Travel :
Everyone travels now to see the beautiful places nearby mainly to south Europe so that they can get brown coloured tanned skin( sun-burn ) when they come back.Indians might not get the logic why people need to get tanned skin, but believe me here people dig dark race. I decided to see Norway during Johannos.4 days,750€,Bergen & Oslo and I am glad that I made that trip.They have beautiful flam rails, beautiful big river/sea flowing in between snow capped mountains and you can enjoy a cruise journey in that sea,waterfalls on the way,sculpture park which has only naked sculptures ( I could even see a couple of people naked, maybe they got highly motivated by the sculptures or maybe it was just the Sun ).I cant explain how beautiful the place is,maybe these pics could tell 10% of the beauty present there ( http://picasaweb.google.com/rakeshcherian/Norway# ). I then travelled to Italy during Autumn (http://picasaweb.google.com/rakeshcherian/Italy#) and there were quite some breath-taking moments there as well ( seeing the Colloseum, Rome , Vatican Church and Leaning Tower,Pisa ). This time I was travelling alone, and I felt good. You decide upon where to go,what to see, when to wake up.Unlike going in a group where you stick together with the group, here going alone helps you to mingle with other fellow travellers.Luckily I met couple of good Italians who showed me the whole Rome at night.I was surprised by the number of nuns,priests from Kerala who I could see in Rome/Vatican...Venice too was beautiful, but as coming from Kerala, Venice did not fascinate me.But Rome is something you should never miss if you get a chance. I also visited couple of places in Finland (hiking ) and visited the famous Helsinki zoo where you can see exotic animals.( Only that when I went, those animals were either sleeping or having lunch somewhere inside :( )

6. Activity:
Lots of new activities,prob if I was in India I would not get a chance to do it.I tried beach volley,cannoing,bunjee jumping( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lScGZk-FUI ),frisbee,cycling round the city,jogging,bowling. Helsinki has only one beach( well as per my standards, beach needs to have some sand in it ) and it is calm with no waves. You can easily 'swim' ( read as 'walk' ) for long distance in the water and still feel relaxed. I met a cool group of finns who would celebrate 2 days in everyweek , and they organise parties/picnics which are quite fun.

7. Samba:
Summer festivals start with Samba dancers( from Finland, Sweden and Brazil ) and the pics speak for themselves. ( http://picasaweb.google.com/rakeshcherian/SambaFestHelsinki# ). Yes its quite similar to Goan Carnival.

8. Swine Flue & Recession:
After travelling to Latin American Countries during Summer,couple of them were infected by swine flue virus, and for this reason everyone was scared. But the most pleasant news I heard was Onine Studies. Major schools prepared online courses so that children need not come to School . They can learn from home and avoid getting contacted with swine flue. This is how they protect virus from speading ( apart from isolating if you are already infected ). Recession also affected Finland and mainly into their business( paper industry lost job as everyone moved to e-world, steel industry lost job as demand of cars went down, IT industry also lost couple of jobs).


9. Independence Day - India
Indians do meet up in the embassy during Independence day."Meet the ambassador and shake hands with him"- Indians who have lived for more than 3 years were telling this since the day I landed up here. Well I was not too keen into hand-shaking business.My basic idea of going there was to eat the delicious Indian cuisines served after the flag hoisting cermony. Reaching there I realised that ambassador is a down-to-earth person and it is an honor to have a hand-shake.During the event, Ambassador read a letter from the Indian President which was quite long( 7 mts 20 seconds), I lost myself soon after the first page of that 5 page letter was read.But the most shocking act on that day was the distribution of " National Anthem,pledge" in paper format to all Indians who were present there and I could see people taking out their spectacles out to read those papers.

10. Happiness:
Last but not least, everyone is happy. Walk through the streets and if it is a sunny day , you can receive happy nodes and smiles from everyone.I remember not getting such happy smiles during summer even if they were drunk.I never knew before coming here, how much infuence sunlight could bring on a person.

Couple of photos :
http://picasaweb.google.com/rakeshcherian/HelsinkiSummer#
http://picasaweb.google.com/rakeshcherian/HelsinkiAutumn#