Do Espoo City decision makers have balls?

The elected decision makers in our home town Espoo in Finland decided to make a saving in what they thought was a right place: 4th grade students Independence day reception. It has been a tradition in neigbouring city of Helsinki and last year the students and teacheres were told the reception party will be held this year too.

Except, it is now cancelled. The BIG question is, how do you answer to a 10 year old kid that asks if you don't need to at the end keep promises you have made? Well, there is no way out.

Our neighbours in Helsinki just decided to postpone, not cancel but postpone, their reception due to the "pig flue" until March. To repeat myself, this was due to N1H1 virus a.k.a. "pig flue", not cost savings.

If our representatives in Espoo have a backbone, they will either cancel ALL receptions planned for Independence day, Christmas and New Year, particularly since these are mainly targeted for the inner circle - spicedup with few citizens to make the news.
Let's see how many decision maker events will be cancelled due to cost savings...

Sorry folks, only in Finnish but you can always go to http://www.translate.google.com/
Klikkaa artikkelia sen suurentamiseksi.

Malmö - a suburb of Copenhagen

This morning I took a "red eye" -flight from Helsinki to Copenhagen, Denmark, having Malmö, Sweden, as my destination. Why red eye? Some of you know too well the 6 am flights where all passenges are tired with red eyes...

As always, landing in CPH is not pleasant as it feels you are landing in the water and last moment you have cross the coastline.

After landing in Copenhagen after about 1.5 hour flight - at the time guys in Brussels were waking up - I grabbed a bite at the airport (since my flight ticket included only coffee, tea or water as a breakfast) and headed to the train station downstairs of the terminal.

I bought a ticket from the machine, checked that it had a time stamp and a note that it is valid for 24 hours and off I go to the platform. Smooth, trains to Malmö every 20 minutes and it takes only about 20+ minutes (didn't check the time...). Ticket Ticket was 156 DKK, which is about 20 Euros. I have used both taxi and rental car but I must say this was very smooth, fast and economic. However, wait until you get to the downside at the end of the story.

I crossed the water via tunnel and the bridge with a morning sun glazing from the water and a row of windmills. Scene was pretty nice, just like it is when crossing with a car (unless you are driving and need to focus on the traffic).

Öresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden.

While I am enjoying the scenery there comes the train conductor as expected. No worries, I should have all covered. But I don't. I have an illegal ticket and I am sitting in a wrong place.

I should have stamped the ticket separately in a yellow box and should have know I am not allowed to sit in the first car. But I didn't. I guess it was highlighted somewhere but I am not a pro with the public transportation. Luckily the conductor was nice and let me off the hook, guided me with the ticket and let me sit for the 5 more minutes in the business car.

As a company I got two Swedish customs officers who apparently travel back & forth all day. They sat down next to me and started to read the latest Metro newspape. Soon we were approaching the Copenhagen suburb Malmö and a 3rd officer joined them and I was starting to worry about me not reporting a box of Salmiakki Läkerol.

Talking about the border control, a positive thing in traveling within Nordics is that you don't need a passport, a driving licence is enough.

I gotta say the landscape just before Malmö is not the something you can see in the postcards but the city centre is another story with some nice old houses. Luckily the sun was shining as it helps also the mind to lighten up.

One tip for Malmö visitors is to try out the traditional sauna on a peer. Take a swim in the ocean and enjoy the view to CPH across the sea. For pictures, click the "Bilder" link on the left side of the front page. More info also from here. (Many thanks Reine for the experience, that one I will never forget!)

Yes, the Bjerreds Saltsjöbad sauna is at the end of the peer.

Malmö also has got many nice restaurants, that one also can be a consequence of being a suburb of CPH. If you wish to have a tip of a good seafood restaurant, let me know. I would put the name here but I forgot to ask for the restaurant card so gotta check with a colleague.

They have also a nice way to see the city form the top.

Just before leaving Malmö I got another proof that it is a suburb of Copenhagen: People are bicycle maniacs!
They have even built a floating bicycle parking place next to the train station. Hundreds of bikes, almost as mad as in Holland...

Ok, overall it is not as bad as in Holland where people drive over you if you are walkingon a wrong lane of the sidewalk.

When I landed back in Helsinki I had the good old friend Mr Rain welcoming me. When sitting in a taxi I got a reminder what can be a result of limited competition: The meter shows 10 Euros before we take off!

Well, the Sweden approach might not be the best either so before copying them do the homework. Good side is that you have many taxis available but the flipside of the coin is fairly low quality and flexible pricing.

Swedish colleagues told me the Malmö train station is THE worst place in Sweden to take a taxi. They compared it with a country south from Mediterranean: While a normal price for a taxi between the station and our office has been about 110 SEK, nowadays the imigrant drivers have a cartell of >250 SEK price.

It looks like November

This morning I woke up to a gray weather - it looks like November. While living in subtropical Belgium, I said I am not looking forward to go back to the November rains when it is pouring for 3 days in a row, feels like the sun does not raise at all and the rain drops fly sideways...

In Belgium it rains quite often, but there it almost never lasts for a full day, not to talk about raining 3 days non-stop. You might have sunny morning, rainy midday and the day can end with a nice sunset. This brings the feeling it rains a lot, but the truth has got also a sunny side.

Well, the weather man said we might see the good old friend Mr Sun again later today. Let's hope for the best but I am not counting on it. Winter please come back...

Still, it is Saturday and I am happy!

Wet wet wet

Sorry, no goofy historical music if that's what you were expecting from the title.

When I left the office on Wednesday it was raining. And dark. I had to take the kids to the sports back & forth and it was raining.

On Thursday morning I woke up into dark, rainy morning and the day turned out to be gray and rainy.

Towards the evening the weather turned to dark and rainy. It was the same at midnight.

This morning  the sun raise again. This time behind some gray clouds.The gray morning continued as quite gray day that nicely after sunset was - rainy and dark.

You think I am only complaining?
Nooooo, I'm so happy it was not raining sideways!

Have a grayt weekend!

Gourmet @ Office Canteen?

Put your hand up if you can say the office canteen offers good quality food.

If it is up, consider yourself as one of the lucky ones. Or smart ones if you

had something to do with the decision making...

I don't feel lucky.

One day this week we had at the office canteen a "sausage stake" on a menu.

Yes, a "wanna-be-steak" made of sausage. It is made out of the basic, cheap 

sausage with some veggies and cheese cover on top. I have not tasted it and 

neither I am planning to. 

You can find some more info of the sausage from from here. 

Direct translation for the sausage is "Saturday Sausage" and in French it is
"Saucission de Jambon". Gotta say the Belge version was a bit more meaty. 

That steak day I actually had a camera in the car (froze during the day 

I guess) so I could have taken a pic but I didn't dare to. 

This was not the first time they served this dish. This time they had made 

it a tex-mex version, and first I guessed it meant changing the green peas into 

corn... The "tex-mex steak" version was that exact sausage with a bit of 

tomato salsa on top and covered with some cheese. Few moments in the oven 

and voilá, lunch is served - for someone else then me!

After I started again here in Finland, wanna guess what happened when I 

asked for olive oil and vinegar?

No way Jose!

Some creamy stuff was available in a bucket. 

Tabasco?

No.

Pepper and salt I can find from a shelf on top of where we leave the 

dirty dishes.

If someone still complaints about the BRU canteen, I will kick their ass 

and drag them up here for a week ;o)

PS How do I like my sausage best then? Well, cooked like this...

PSS Sorry about the line spacing, when copy/pasting from another format does not 

always work like it should... 

Snow Betrayal

Imagine you are a kid that has been promised a Christmas party. When is the time for the party, it appears to be a cup of warm juice, a balloon and one cookie. By yourself.

That's how I felt today.

The weather man promised and we expected 20-30 cm snow this morning and during the day, but just guess how it turned out. It was snowing quite nicely in the morning, but since the temperature was above zero celcius, too much of it melted right away.

Now there is barely enough snow to cover the grass and the watery slid has turned into icy surface on the roads. Since the same has happened on the sidewalks, we can estimate busy times for the emergency rooms after people fall down on slippery pavements.

While I am wishing for a proper winter weather, it is not that normal to have permanent snow in November. Up in Lapland there is the slalom World Cup at Levi, and for that region is normal to have permanent snow but not down here.

I truly hope this winter we will have proper snow in Helsinki area too!

I love snow!

On Wed night we got again a taster of the winter. This time it stayed over night and actually it was veeeery icy on Thursday morning. It was fantastic to see the yard again in light. I knew well that the snow brings the glow but again it was amazing to realize the contrast between the wet, dark backyard and the same yard with the snow.

I was dooming our nation with the darkness last week, but I gotta say the snow brings some compensation at least in my mind. Last week the airport was barely visible due to gray weather, but yesterday time to time it was not visible at all thanks to the snow.

I love the winter weather! At least until it turns into watery slid and I start missing subtropical Belgium. Also it gets me back to the time I was choosing if I should continue playing football (soccer) or basketball. Yes, we played the winter series outdoors – no matter rain, shine or snow…

Anyways, today almost all the snow was gone at Helsinki area. But we had loads of slid = loskapaskaa, perkele! Tonight it has snowed again, but down here it is barely cold enough for any snow to stay white. You can check the latest road weather from here. Click one of the links on the main map or on the left side frame.

I can’t wait to get to the ski slopes – just hope they won’t screw up the Levi Worldcup with the strikes they have in mind.

Again it is about the money: Companies want to give 0.5 % raise while the workers ( = union ) want 3%. Go and figure who is right, but we gotta keep the service and price levels reasonably low in order to attract any tourists to this far edge of the world.

PS I have been bad mouthing the airports so much that it is time to say again something positive: Helsinki Airport luggage handling received award for world’s best baggage delivery! In addition to local paper Helsingin Sanomat, this was noticed also down at India. See the article at The Times of India.