Arctic line and beyond..............
This weekend Timo invited me to come to Oulu with him as he was returning there for the weekend. Little did I know we would be travelling 900 km.
Friday, Arrival in Oulu
Oulu is quite a large seaside city with population around 100,000. Although it was raining and cold when we arrived ('round 7pm), Timo decided it was a good time to go water skiing. So we drove to his boat and picked up a friend of his and headed out into the bay. It was incredibly windy and choppy with at least a meter of swell and the boat was launching clear of the water untill we slowed down a little. Eventually we found a sheltered place for skiing but it was freezing!! Had a short ski and headed back. When we had almost reached teh mooring the sun came out and the wind died down and the rain stopped.
Picture of Timo Skiing
Flying kites in a thunderstorm near Oulu (making finnish glass)
O(l)ut in Oulu
Oulu has a great nightlife, some good pubs and friendly locals (except for the odd stabbing by teenagers). While we were there there was a festival in the city at the seaside, so there were bands playing good covers of boring 80s pop songs and people bungie jumping from an enourmous cherry picker. Copious amounts of teenagers hanging around (not stabbing anyone as far as I could tell), outdoor bars doing a roaring trade and other festival things. See photos below.
The night ended with many games of pool at the local snooker hall, several beers at a local bar, playing Mettalica's 'nothin' else matters' on a tuneless piano for some drunken Finns, and a long walk home arriving round 4am (where do the hours go here???)
Outdoor bar
Crane bungee
Seedy snooker hall (not the one we played at, it was way classier)
Local bar for local people.
The karaoke was going off! I sang backing vox for some finnish guy who was singing whip it almost incomprehensibly (comobination of Finnish accent and being outrageously drunk.)
I sang the 'you must whip it' bit
Saturday
Up at the crack of midday on Saturday we prepared to head north.
Timo and I headed up to Ylitornio to stay at his father in law's summer cabin Saturday night.
Sturdy cabin (built of huge old timber logs the materials alone cost over 10000 euros, however, along with the cockroaches, it will survive an extinction level meteor impact, or nuclear detonation)
Woohoo upstairs room for me
Kitchen for cooking potatoes
Nice view from the shower and sauna
Bogan
Timo and I spent several hours fishing, to little avail. The views were great though and the weather was perfect. We were searching foro Salmon and Harjus but didn't find either. Only some small tasteless fish that were sent back.
On the way up we crossed to the dark side
And lo and behold, the first thing we see.....
So yes, you can feel free to make jokes about IKEA and Sweden
However, it must be conceded that Swden make the best music.
For example: The best cover of an ABBA song ever!
Also this song by the same band
And this was just the beginning of my music education, with more than 12 hours of driving (and therefore metal) I fear I am becoming a metal head. Truth be told, there is a lot to appreciate in much of this music, especially the good Finish and Swedish stuff.
The Finnish Kangaroo!!
Thats right the reindeer, there are 203700 reindeer living in Finland, finlands population is currently around 5360400, so for every for every 26 humans there is 1 reindeer. So santa clause robbed 208 people of their share in reindeer to provide the propulsion for his sleigh. Jerk!
Go back to Rovaniemi. and buy a Prius!!
(Actually, the reindeer would be better in terms of emissions. I did the math and the reindeers would produce roughly 40,600 t of equivalent greenhouse gases (based on methane production) on the 200 million km journey around the word, whilst, the prius (based on a LCA) would produce more than 75000 t. Go reindeer power!!)
Anyhow, the point of this section of the blog is not to rant about Santa's apparently efficient transport method, but rather to say that I saw a reindeer in the wild, well on the road anyway. And technically we were in Sweden at this point so it doesn't count. Here is a photo.
From Ylitornio we again headed north until we reached Pello. On the way........
Woot, Arctic circle! The real north!
Why is it that the arctic circle looks more like a straight line to me and not a circle at all?? The earth is definitely flat, the whole sphere thing is a sham! See, in this picture here the arctic circle is a straight line across the car park.
This irrefutably proves that the earth is flat.
Guns and knives
Ok, as promised, here is the guns and knives section of the blog.
Timo's sister is currently ranked Finlands second best female shooter so when we visited his mother for a meal and a yarn we played with her guns. Technically they werent allowed out of the house except to transport them to competitions, however.....
We needed to go shopping
Near Pullo there lies a shop called Porroporro (reindeereindeer) we called in to buy some proper air dried reindeer, the kind the herders eat when hearding, and puukko. Finland (arguably) produce some of the worlds best knives. I think this comes from lappish tradition where good sharp knives were used everyday herding reigndeer and hunting elk, rabbits etc. These knives are commonly known as puukko.
Every Finn has at least 1 of these, (children don't receive a candle at their christening, they receive a puukko)
I bought two. I am now an official Finnish citizen and can now travel freely in the EU. Yay!!
Hoh!! I drove 160 km in Timo's car from Oulu to Pyhäsalmi, AND DIDN'T CRASH! Woot!! Top speed for me 150 (although his car could pull 200 without trying). Driving on the wrong side of the road and car is not so bad, except I couldn't help drifting to the right occationally trying to put myself in the usual position in the lane. Also, roundabouts are a bit confusing but luckily I didn't go the wrong way.
Finally, around midnight (although its not dark at all) I arived back at Pyhäsalmi.
Home sweet home.
Lake Pyhäjärvi
25 °C
30 °C
with Arto (pronounced like R2, the star wars character except roll the R) a student from Oulu and my boisterous larrikin boss Timo Pekkala. He is of course the life of the dept., has a helthy sense of humor and is a fanatical Germany supporter(this morning I had the German national anthem ready to play as he walked in to celebrate Germany's 4-0 thrashing of Argentina on the weekend, whereby he tried to hang his Germany jacket he wears everyday to the wall, like a flag, with magnets. Everyday there are 2 coffee breaks at 9am and 2pm sharp which are taken very seriously. I was told I would be fired if I did not attend the coffee room at these times, with a hint of humor ;-) .................. Just as I finished writing that Timo jumped out of his chair and proclaimed 'Coffee Break!' and strode out of the room, my computer clock read 9:00.
