philippe's house
land cruisers with russian felt boots
the neighbors
hill across the road i have to walk over in order to take the bus/hitchike
pup belonging to philippe's vet friend. it really liked to eat ice and bite my boots
the oven where we cooked some eats
the oven in it's non-roaring state
grazing reindeer outside the window
old church at sodankylä. observe the tiny door - i am 4"11 and would have to stoop a little to enter
Vesa Suomalainen eating the perfect Karelian rice pie
a typical meal by Vesa. home-made raisin wine in the decanter
black tea or coffee flavored with oranges and chocolate his brother sent from Stockholm completed each meal. he had some beautiful cups from Georgia
time warp 70's coffee shop Vesa and i would go to every day to read the paper/drink more coffee/watch soap operas
Le Car (dormitory in the background)
the river at 3am (?). it was a 2km walk from the center to Vesa's
sign outside my room in the dormitory
goodbye Sodankylä
hitchiking sign to Rovaniemi
waiting for a ride in the rain. after an hour i got a ride from a nice engineer renovating a nightclub in Rovaniemi
the night after i arrived in Rovaniemi, we went to see Tuomari Nurmio (see last entry). here he is covering Elvis' "I'm All Shook Up" on a home-made guitar
dancin
a band whose name i can't remember but was awesome
Petri and Tomi. Tomi is a media professor at the University and puppeteer. we talked about the Rovaniemi puppet scene and many other exciting subjects
more rocking out
need i mention it was €1 drinks this night?
on a more educational note, here i am at the Arktikum museum in their exhibit about climate change. we got a free tour from Olli's mom's pal
teaching Olli a lesson
.....................i'll have to continue with other photos in a second pos latert, because for some reason the photo feature stopped working just now
anyway, other things i did but have no photos of:
+went to my first real Finnish sauna with Matti's girlfriend, Katri
+watched lots of ice hockey - Finland lost to Canada in the final championship
+watched EUROVISION song contest. for those of you who don't know, Finland won last year with this monster-rock band, Lordi, who have been literally elevated to national heroes here. thus, the contest this year was held in Helsinki. Serbia won, though i think the Ukraine was the best (awesome drag queen with an amazingly catchy song in Ukranian)
+nearly vomited after trying the traditional drink salamaki(?), which consists of vodka and black salty licorice candy in a shotglass, i.e. gross
+listened to lots and lots of Killing Joke with Olli
+learning about the Komi Republic of Russia at a new exhibit Olli's mom was working on at the Arctic Center Research Library. the Komi Republic is the easternmost point in continental Europe.
oh yeah, tomorrow i'm gonna to hitchike to Inari, 225 km north of where i'm currently staying. wish me luck.
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1 comment:
Salmiakki! I didn't know it was the name of a drink, just the licorice itself. Intense stuff!
I love this entry Elisa; so many pictures. I read a gazillion blogs but always look forward to your entries and check for 'em daily. It makes me really happy that you're hitching after all; Lapland is a pretty non-scary place to do it, but the waits can be long sometimes can't they? In a city I may only get a ride from one of 300 people, but 100 people go past in five minutes. In Lapland, one of five people will pick me up, but it might be two hours before five cars have gone by.
My favorite place in Finland - not too terribly south of Lapland; a bit from Kuusamo if I recall correctly - is this art installation called The Quiet People. You should look it up. I'm not sure if it's left there through the winter but it's a bunch of strawpeople dressed up in fancy colorful clothing. Hundreds of figures in the middle of nowhere; terribly striking.
Where do you expect you'll be in two weeks time? How shall I find you?!? I have a world phone and am hoping to get a European sim card, so maybe you can tell me what my best bet is.
scandinavia@gmail.com
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