Awkward lunch

Today Emmi and I had lunch at one of the tiny restaurants in the kauppahalli. It was called City Sergio's restaurant, and I have to say it was a massive mistake.
I've always thought those restaurants were so cute and that it would be lovely to go to one of them, and that the atmosphere would be really unique. This place was very cheap, and perhaps that goes some way to explain the quality of the food. Emmi ate a kebab which she said really wasn't good, and I ate a pizza which, frankly, was absolutely foul. For some reason they had used pickled peppers as a topping, so there was a strong taste of vinegar, and the cheese was also extremely greasy. The whole thing was freshly prepared there and then, but it still tasted really bad. It was not an experience I intend to repeat. I suppose if you don't try you never know, but in this case I wish I'd never bothered to find out.
I really wanted the food to be good. I wanted it to be a nice experience, because the idea of sitting in the market, watching people shopping, and eating something nice is so appealing, but sadly it was not to be. I was very disappointed. There are several other restaurants and cafes there, selling various types of food, and I certainly hope that those places are better than the one we went to. It was a real let-down. I guess it was pretty bad advertising for them that we left two half-finished plates on the table; anyone walking past would see them.
After that we looked at the chocolate shop, and some of the things they sold were amazing. They had chocolate in all sorts of shapes, and even with images printed onto them, such as Finnish flags and the cathedral of Turku. It was really interesting. My favourite things were tiny chocolates in the shape of Karelian pies! They were really cute. Emmi pointed out chocolates in the shape of nuts and bolts, dusted with cocoa powder to look like rust. Everything was so cleverly made, and very impressive.
Go shopping in the kauppahalli, but definitely do not go to that restaurant.

Xenophobe's guide to the Finns

If you want to know about what I have to put up with every day, I recommend this book. Emmi had mentioned it to me a while ago, and yesterday we found some copies in Suomalainen Kirjakauppa. It's written by a Finnish woman, and it's all very funny, but also true. Just looking through it in the shop gave me answers to a few things. For example, I've been wondering why people in a cold country want to eat so much ice cream. Answer: to ensure they are still the leading consumers of ice cream in the world! Plus, it means beating Sweden at something, and that's always worthwhile. We both found it funny, and I should probably buy a copy sometime. I learned from the book that if a Finnish person makes a promise they will stick to it, and the only way they'll break it is if they happen to die. Even that is considered to be a poor excuse.
Happily, there's also a Xenophobe's guide to the English. I want that one too. It points out that the people of my glorious nation share "a collective dislike of anyone who 'goes too far'." I can't say that it's not true. That book reminds everyone of some important qualities of an English person - moderation and indifference. Good point.
Seeing these books, and remembering how many times I've written about Finnish things that I just don't understand, I've been thinking recently of the things that Finnish people don't understand about me/England. I'll get to that tomorrow, I've been writing a mental list.

So this is "normal"

I've had a brilliant week. I'm so happy that I've got this new job, not only from a financial point of view, but also that I now have some structure and routine in my life. Being unemployed for a long time is extremely boring. It's so nice to get up first thing in the morning, and have a purpose for the day. This was exactly what I needed.
I'm really enjoying the work - the family are all very nice, and the children are generally well behaved. I feel welcome in their home, and I don't have to do anything too extreme or taxing. It has been quite tiring this week, but I suppose it's a shock to my system to have to be up early and do lots of things after such a long time spent being idle. It's just a shame that this job, or something similar, never came up before now, as it's so perfect for me. I actually have all of the next week off because the children are going for a holiday, which is a bit disappointing as I'd like to be doing something. At least now I have a bit of money so I can actually do something nice, not just sit around at home.
Another nice thing about my work is that it's in the countryside, which is so different to what there is in my country, and it's quite a good experience to see this. I'm not really a countryside person, but it's interesting to see somewhere so different to Turku, and to have a change of scenery for a few hours each day. The downside is that I'm covered in insect bites as the weather has been extremely hot this week and bugs are everywhere.
On Thursday this week I went to visit Emma's sister at her home. She and her family live in Hirvensalo, which is an island connected to Turku by a bridge. I'd never been there before, but it's a very pretty area, which lots of trees and greenery. I doubt I'd choose to live there, but it was a nice place to visit, and it must be good for children living there as there's so much space. Hirvensalo is very suburban, whereas I'd much rather be in the city. I had a very nice dinner with them, and saw their home, which is lovely. It was nice to do something different and meet someone new.
On Friday Emmi and I went to see the medieval market that's being held in Turku this weekend. Unfortunately, that was the one time there was a heavy downpour of rain, and we got soaked. It's so hot that we dried off relatively quickly. We didn't buy anything, but there were lots of pretty craft items for sale, and it was good to see people dressed in costumes from the middle ages. We also saw a large hog roast, which didn't impress me much, being a vegetarian. I'm glad we went to have a look; it's a pretty big deal here and attracted a lot of attention. Many people had mentioned it to me and recommended it, so it was worth having a look.
I hope the next week will be equally enjoyable, and that I find something interesting to occupy myself. As I now have a travel card for buses, paid for by my employers, perhaps I can take a trip to Naantali or somewhere else nearby.
Plus it's my birthday in two weeks! All gifts and cash donations will be accepted, haha.

Turku is a happy place

I was walking home from my friend's house at 3am on Friday morning, and it was amazing to see that very far off in the distance the sky was red where the sun was just beginning to rise. It was beautiful and strange. At the moment I'm getting about five hours of darkness each night, and I find it almost impossible to believe, it's so far from what I'm used to. One evening last week I was talking to one of my English friends on Skype, it was around 10pm, and I showed him on the webcam what the sky looked liked outside. He said it looked the same as it was in England, which is two hours behind Finland. I'm sure that it's dark by 9 or 10pm there. At the moment the darkness here seems to be between 11pm and 4am. It's so strange.
Walking home like that seemed oddly magical. It's nice that I can walk home alone at night and still feel quite safe. When I lived in Canterbury I could also do that, it's smaller than Turku and very non-threatening, but there's no chance I'd do that in London, or even the city I come from. I love living here.
Yesterday was a quiet day, but I noticed something about a particular R-Kioski shop. For people reading this in Turku, it's the one in Erikinkatu next to Lidl. Every time I go in there I've noticed that the people working there are unbelievably cheerful and friendly, more so than in any other shop. Is the management putting something in the water?

Alko

I finally went to Alko yesterday! I've been here for almost seven months now but never needed anything from there, until yesterday when Minttu and I were going to the park and wanted a bottle of wine. Other people have always told me I need to go to there sometime, and the system it's part of is very different to in England.
For those who don't know: in Finland wine and spirits cannot be purchased at the supermarket. They are only available from a government controlled chain of off-licenses - Alko. Most large supermarkets have a branch of Alko next door. I'm told this is one of the measures, alongside alcohol only being available for purchase for 12 hours a day, to try to control alcohol consumption. I'll be honest, it's not really working. Norway seemed to have similar restrictions, and it wasn't working there much either. Still, it must provide plenty of money for the Finnish government, who own Alko, and therefore have a monopoly.
Anyway, it seemed to me pretty much the same as an English off-license, it wasn't that special. At least I've been in now anyway. I laughed when I found non-alcoholic wine on the shelf; that seemed a bit pointless. As always in Finland, there was a random drunk attempting to buy a bottle of vodka, who had it snatched from him by the lady on the till, and was shouted at until he wandered out and was jumped on by security staff. Standard. I'm not convinced to go there more often, beer is still a lot cheaper.
The other thing I've just noticed is that at the moment the sun starts rising at 3.30am. Not cool. I sometimes go through little phases of not going to sleep until around 3 or 4am, which is what's happening at the moment, and when I did try to go to sleep it was already light in the bedroom. It was a bit frustrating, and now I'm extremely tired but I don't want to waste the whole day in bed. It's not even the longest day yet! I think I'll have to sort out my sleeping pattern.

Shopping

Now that the weather is warmer and it's lighter for longer I've noticed how late the shops stay open in Finland. Today Emmi and I were buying shoes for her wedding outfit, and I noticed it was 7.15pm! It's rare for shops in England to be open at that time, but very normal here. Gives you extra shopping time so it must be a good thing. It also gave me more time to lust over shoes, and create a mental wishlist for when I have a job, and that's probably not such a good thing.
It did make me wonder why Finland doesn't have 24 hour supermarkets or corner shops though. It's definitely something I've taken for granted in England, and here I realise how useful such places are. The K-Extra opposite my house is open until 11pm but I believe that's the latest in the center of Turku.
I also heard today about a Finnish Easter tradition of growing a little patch of grass. Emmi didn't explain it too much but she insisted I take the free packet of seeds offered in the coffee shop. She said it's mainly a thing for children. English children normally just eat their chocolate egg and are satisfied with that. Maybe I should grow my Easter grass. I'm not entirely sure what the point of it would be but Emmi was very keen that I should try.

Kauppahalli and window shopping

I should stop going window shopping because I'm getting too many ideas. It's definitely a good thing that I'm broke. However, I did buy this very lovely purple hat, which I saw in the second hand shop yesterday but was unsure about. Only €2! Sadly it seems that the black dress I saw yesterday had since been sold, but at least the purple one was still available for now. We also went to the Salvation Army shop next to our house, and I bought a really stylish black tea/coffee cup and saucer set for 50 cents! There were several that were exactly the same but the rest were all marked as €1 per set, so I got lucky. We also found a very strange, slightly horrific red tie emblazoned with images of cartoon sheep in various sexual positions. I'm now a bit mentally scarred. Who on earth would wear such a thing? I was tempted to buy it just to make sure no one would ever wear it again.
Heli also took me to two shops I've noticed but never been into before, Cybershop and Leather Heaven. They're both the kind of places you'd expect to find in Camden, and both pretty similar to Blue Banana. Leather Heaven had a really beautiful purple dress I'm covetting just a little bit. If anyone out there thinks I deserve a new dress I will gladly accept €50 to pay for it! They also had a very sweet range of baby clothes. Cybershop was quite nice too, they had some cool legwarmers, and I've been wanting a second pair for a while now. I didn't like their clothes so much but they had a lot of appealing accessories and jewellery. When I'm able to I'd like to buy some legwarmers, but apart from that I don't think there's much I'd go out of my way to buy in there.
We also had a proper look around the Kauppahalli, which I really enjoyed. Every time I've gone to Little Britannia I've noticed interesting stuff all around but I'd never taken the time to look at it all. There are so many cool little places in there. There's lots of fresh food available, as well as foreign food products, and some places selling jewellery, bags, souvenirs for tourists, ornaments etc. I was really impressed with how many different things have been fitted in, yet it still doesn't seem overcrowded or over the top. As well as all these stalls there are a few tiny cafes and restaurants - coffee shops, a Chinese, a sushi bar, an Italian guy selling pizzas, another selling antipasto, and someone with lots of fresh salads and baguettes. It was a bit like the food section of the Stables in Camden, but with fewer pushy people yelling or waving battered chicken at you. I'm glad I made the effort to see it all because there are definitely some things I'd like to go back to. Obviously, I had to get some snacks in Little Britannia too. All in all it was a very pleasant afternoon, and I'm finding that Turku has a lot of cool, quirky places to shop if you make the effort to find them. The Hansa center dominates everything a bit, but if you look past that there are some much better places.

A good day for girly things

Today has turned out to be a lovely day. I finally got myself to Kela, and they turned out to be the most effective government agency I've had to deal with so far. Until now I've always been sent running around in circles, but Kela was fairly straightforward. I was lucky to be seen by a very good-humoured lady, who did not moan about me filling in the form with completely inaccurate information. I'm apparently too stupid to read the cost of my rent from one piece of paper and write it down on another one. I'm also apparently too stupid to know which month it is. Thankfully she just seemed to find it endearing. I'm a bit anxious that things will not go according to plan, seeing as most other official things here have been overly complicated, but I'm choosing to remain optimistic for the time being. If it fails there's still social services to fall back on, and I hear that they rarely refuse to help anyone. Fingers crossed, because if there's no way to pay my rent there's no way to stay here. If only I could have a decent, stable job and not have to worry about this kind of thing. I'd enjoy having a job, at least a few days a week, for something to do, if nothing else. Now that things are settling down for me I'm going to start making more of an effort again when it comes to finding something, because it is pretty boring not having that much to do. I should really get around to advertising as an English/art tutor.

After going there, Emmi and I went to two really nice shops. The first is only just up the street from where I live. It was a second hand shop, mainly selling clothing, but also some homeware items, and it reminded me so much of an English charity shop. I know a few people who could go completely crazy in there. As with any shops like that you had to rummage through the crap and be patient, but there were some really nice things hidden away. I bought a top/very short dress, which is simple but with a really pretty neckline, and only cost €3! I deserved a treat, and at that price I'm hardly breaking the bank. I also found two beautiful dresses, one for €10, the other for €13, which I was really excited about, and I'm really hoping my debit card arrives quickly so I can get them. One was a black, slightly EGL style dress, made of lace with long sleeves and a ribbon around the middle. The other was a bright purple asymmetric one. I think I'd need to try it on to be sure as the shape was strange; it might look amazing or it might look horrific. The black one, at least, has my name written all over it.
The next shop was a craft supply shop. Emmi is getting married in a couple of months so she needed stuff to make her wedding invitations with. I love visiting those kinds of shops, and this one had some very nice items, as well as some good quality acrylic paints and art supplies, which is good to know. There were a lot of really cool things in there, and now I've been inspired to try some more craft-type ideas, although I'm a bit unsure of where to start as I'm so used to doing more academic Fine Art work. I have had a couple of ideas this evening though. They sold jewellery-making wire in a wide range of colours, as well as wire and paper flowers, similar to those in the picture, also in a variety of colours and styles. I thought of buying some and making a necklace or bracelet for myself. They also sold papier-mache models of female busts, like mannequins, and I'd quite like to buy one and decorate it with some paper flowers, ribbon, and maybe paint. I've never really done something like that so it would be a nice experiment, and maybe if I turned out to be good at this stuff I could sell them. Even if it wasn't of high enough quality for that I'd like to have an ornament just for myself. Once my card comes I'm definitely going to look into this more, I think it would be fun to try. Going shopping might have been a bad idea, now I'm thinking of lots of things to spend money on.

Finally, Hyvää Naistenpäivä/Happy Women's Day! I'd never even heard of this until someone sent me a text saying that - I thought it was a Finnish thing similar to calendar days, but it's actually an international thing. In many countries it's a national holiday, and English lobbyists are apparently trying to get the same thing, but it was new to me. One of the girls in the house, Heli, said that in Finland it's normal to give flowers to your wife/daughter/mother/whoever, and that all day long she'd had text messages wishing her hyvää naistenpäivä. Anyway, the Ukrainian girl who lives in the house had bought some wine and chocolate for us all to have a little party with, because in her country it is a national holiday, and apparently quite a big deal. The wine was really good. I'm not normally that into red wine, but this one was spectacular! It was Bulgarian and I'm definitely going to have to hunt some down from Alko. The party was a lovely surprise, and very thoughtful of her to do. For me it was a new cultural thing too. I hear that today is Pancake Day in England, and I was slightly jealous, but I still got to do something special. It was good for us all to sit and chat together for a few hours. On the back of that Heli and I have decided to go explore second hand shops tomorrow too, seeing as I still want a new bed and some other household things, and she wants to see this clothing shop and the basement of the Salvation Army shop. It should be a nice day. Today has been great, and I hope everyone else has had a nice day, whether you were eating pancakes or being a woman!

Pervs and British things

Continuing with how thorough the Finnish medical profession are, they decided I needed to be swabbed for bacteria because I spent a day in an English hospital last summer. I had to do this twice, and let's just say that some of the swabs were...invasive. As if a very thorough internal examination wasn't enough. I'll leave it at that.
In addition to Kunto magazine, in Anttila yesterday I noticed a magazine, seemingly aimed at tweenieboppers entitled "Fani." It translates as "fan" but I still laughed. But then, I have to stifle a giggle whenever someone in a shop asks me if I want a bag. For English speakers, that's because the Finnish word for bag is a rather unpleasant word you might use as a name for female genitalia...or to refer to your cat.
This week has also been good for finding British products. I was craving cheese toasties, made with proper cheddar, which is hard to come by here. I'd heard that K-Supermarket sells Cathedral City, which I wouldn't normally buy, but I made a special trip anyway. I don't normally shop there but it was so worth it. I finished the whole block in one evening. That's probably not something to be proud of. This week I've also been reading British Glamour, Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire. It's really nice to have those magazines. Wicklund has a surprisingly large selection of foreign magazines, including various British ones. It's been a nice treat to have all this stuff available to me. In England I'm constantly reading magazines, so it's nice to have the chance to do that here. Especially as I'm madly stressed from losing both my keys and glasses, and having so many obstacles come up that the Kela stuff still hasn't been dealt with. I feel completely useless this week but I really hope to start getting my shit together from now on. My problem is that I let other people get in the way of what I'm doing, and don't prioritise myself enough. I've really learned that recently, and it has to stop. I need to start working harder on getting what I want and need, even if other people don't want me to.
It feels like there's not enough hours in the day, which is hardly a surprise when someone else promises to help you and then insists on making you watch tv with them all day, ignoring your pleas to go outside and get stuff done. I can't let anyone hold me back or drag me down for a day longer. I'm fed up with promises that don't quite stick, and my time being wasted as a result. From now on I'm sticking with the people who genuinely will help me, not put their desire to stay in bed over my need to get stuff done.

Lots of news

I'm very pleased to announce that, after one of the most stressful and overly complicated weeks of my life, I am in my own home! Yes, I have a key and everything. It's absolutely huge, but I'm sharing it with a few other girls. They all seem nice enough, but one girl admitted that they don't have a very sociable household so I'm glad I'm making more and more friends these days, I don't want to end up really isolated and lonely.
I now understand why a flat that's so central was dirt cheap - the oven doesn't work, it's freezing cold, the bathroom lock is broken, apparently there's an occasional ant infestation, and the bathroom ceiling was riddled with damp until a couple of weeks ago. I think it could be much worse though. I have the smallest room, but it doesn't matter because I have hardly any stuff. In fact being here has made me realise how little I brought with me. The room is a decent size though, and even with some more stuff in here I'd still have room for visitors from England to sleep. On the subject of stuff, I need a few things, some of which I'd rather not pay money for because I wouldn't be taking it back to England when I leave. There's a charity shop down the street which I know sells decent furniture and kitchen stuff quite cheaply, and I've already had some things donated to me, but if anyone has any of the following that they can give away or sell very cheaply, please let me know.
I need:
Clothes hangers
Coffee machine
Kettle
Oven gloves
General kitchen stuff (I only have a frying pan that I bought when I came here. I don't need anything fancy, just basic stuff like saucepans, knives etc)
Crockery and cutlery
A table/desk
A chair
Bookcase/shelving unit
Lamps
Plug socket extention lead (European sockets only)

If anyone does have these things going spare I'd be really grateful. You can even have it back when I leave if necessary.
I hate that new house feeling where it doesn't feel like it's yours, things aren't exactly how you want them, and you have hardly any entertainment. I'm so glad that today I was able to borrow a laptop and dongle because I was so bored last night! The feelings are even worse when you move somewhere that already has people living there. You feel so intrusive, like you shouldn't be there at all, or you're a guest. It's all so new - on my way home today I actually walked straight past my own front door!
Today I had a really lovely day. I went to meet a new friend, who's been reading this blog, and her children. I was excited that she has met Jasper Pääkkönen. Apparently he's very nice, and on his birthday he bought hot dogs for everyone! She showed me a couple of places where I can get a pretty good selection of English magazines (although none of the trash I usually like), and showed me somewhere to buy art materials. I was really impressed because everything there was Windsor & Newton, all decent stuff, and there was a really good product range. Then, at her house, I got to meet her cat! It's been way too long since I got to cuddle a cat.
This week has been pretty horrific overall but today was the silver lining. It was really nice to be able to do what I want for a change, and not have to panic about what someone else's reaction is going to be. I think that things are starting to fall into place a bit more. I've still got a couple of worries, but hopefully those things will also turn out ok, and I can really get things back on track. I'm optimistic now.

Reasons to love R-Kioski

I have been here for 3 months now, and it wasn't until today that I recalled that tattoo magazines are more widely available here, as they seem to be in many countries in mainland Europe. On one trip to Amsterdam I think my friend Emma and I bought about 6 between us. In England I only seem to find them in WHSmith, although there is one corner shop in Cockfosters Road with a surprisingly large selection.
The first time I went to Helsinki we went into a shop in Market Square to buy cigarettes, and found loads of tattoo magazines. On my second trip I made it very clear to Jussi that I absolutely had to go to this particular shop to get a magazine. How he did laugh when said shop turned out to be an R-Kioski, a nationwide convenience store chain.
Anyway, I suddenly remembered this today when I was a bit bored, and decided to go get a magazine. There was a decent selection available, one of which was entirely in English, but it seems I had also forgotten the price - all around €10, and I wasn't really keen to spend that much on a single magazine.
Then it got better. What, of all things, did I spy next to the tattoo magazines? BRITISH GLAMOUR! They had InStyle too, but I don't read that so often, whereas Glamour is fairly standard reading for me. It was all in English, and even though it was the international edition, the price wasn't any different to the regular English price. There were separate prices for USA and Canada, but for the rest of the world it's only £2.20, which according to xe.com is a very reasonable €2.55! Unfortunately the current issue is the same one I bought at Heathrow when I was returning from holiday, but I guess in a couple of weeks I'll have to get myself to R-Kioski for the new issue. This really is very pleasing for me - when I went on holiday I was quite surprised to see British Glamour being sold in one shop in Helsinki-Vantaa, so to find it in the shops is really great. Thank you R-Kioski!

The Finnish language

The language classes are going well enough, I feel a bit more comfortable in that scenario now. I am very annoyed that I was obliged to buy this textbook, which is the standard kind of thing anyone learns languages in school with ie. 3:1 ratio of pictures to words, about 100 pages long...for 35 fucking euros! What the bloody hell. Once I recovered from the minor heart attack I had in the bookshop I was ready to pay for it. How they can justify that is beyond me, especially when the course itself cost about 60 euros. Thankfully, Suski very kindly paid for that as a christmas present, so this was my only expense, but I think it's about 20 euros overpriced.
I think I'm keeping up quite well in the class, especially considering that a fair few people in the class have lived in Finland for years and/or already taken a Finnish language course before now. Last week I was chatting to a Hungarian lady from the class whilst I walked home; she asked when I had come to this country, and when I said October she kept saying what a short time it was, and how she remembered what it was like when she first arrived! Two years ago...
Some people mentioned that they had done whole degrees in Finnish universities, and are now taking this class. That was probably a case of "do something educational or get the hell out of Finland." I just wonder why on earth they have lived here for years but not attempted to learn the language of this country until now - I actually consider it to be quite disrespectful. With this is mind, I guess it shouldn't be much of a surprise that other people sometimes seem to know random bits of vocabulary that I've never even heard of.
Our teacher has a strategy of cheekily sneaking in bits of grammar, and that's my downfall. Even when I learnt languages in school I always really enjoyed learning new words but the grammar is quite boring for me, so it doesn't always sink in. Furthermore, Finnish grammar is ridiculously complicated, and I really don't know how I'm going to remember the rules. I don't even remember the names of the rules! One of them sounds a bit like party-tv, so everytime that gets mentioned I start thinking about parties, and that's probably not supposed to happen.
The teacher still seems to think I'm only pretending to be English...she's still asking where my name comes from, and earlier started suddenly asking lots of questions about British culture, possibly in an attempt to prove that I'm an illegal immigrant. She failed. Ha. After that a very nice Italian man asked me if Cornwall was in Wales...Bless.
We're still on quite a basic level. Today we looked at some examples of dialogues when out shopping. When I looked at the page I managed to work out what most of the conversation said, using words that I already knew, and some common sense, so I can't be doing that badly. I probably just need some practice and confidence, and to remember how to structure sentences. Then, once my vocabulary has improved I should be able to attempt conversations. I could definitely do the "what is your name, where are you from..." kinda thing, but we'll have to wait before I can tackle anything more advanced. I think I've set myself quite a challenge, and I hope I'm up to it.

Also...what in God's name is going on on the cover of that book? What are they up to? Anyone?

Amendment

Yesterday I wrote about Little Britannia, and claimed that the price of two bottles of Lucozade and a packet of crisps was 16 euros, and therefore a complete shocker. I would now like to clarify that the 16 euros on the till was change from 20 euros, making the prices reasonable, and me a moron.
This was clarified to me on Facebook by the genius man who opened the shop, and although the cost is still a little higher than the regular British prices, it's hardly unreasonable considering the import costs and the fact that food prices generally are higher in this country. So if anyone was put off by the prices, it was my mistake and had nothing to do with the actual shop.

Today the snow has gone completely bezerk, and even Jussi was saying he'd never seen anything like it. Overnight it went from nothing except ice and sludge to about 10cm depth, and it continued to snow until about an hour ago...

Little Britannia and the Kauppahalli

I've been to the Kauppahalli, which is a very sweet indoor market type thing. It reminded me of Covent Garden market, but with more food. Most of the kioskis and baby sized shops were selling fresh cheeses, bread, meat etc, and there were also some foreign shops and delis, such as Chinese, Indian, and British!
Kauppahalli is where Little Britannia, the British food shop is. My timing is perfect because it only opened last month. I've actually been in Turku longer than the shop has! Oh my god, it was lovely! I only got Lucozade and Walkers Salt & Vinegar today, but that was enough to put a massive smile on my face. They also had Monster Munch! But no pickled onion flavour today. They had loads of Cadburys products, including Dairy Milk and Whole Nut, shortbread biscuits, and lots of other British sweets. They also had canned haggis, custard and corned beef. Not for me.
I'd like it if they had more things like canned soup, but as they're new they probably don't have a full product range yet. The downside is the price - two bottles of Lucozade and a packet of crisps cost €16, as opposed to about £2 in Britain. Maybe it's not a surprise as everything is directly imported. However, it was so nice to see some familiar products and brand names, and really nice to have some comforting food from home.

Rule Britannia

Turns out there's a British grocery in Turku! I'll be there tomorrow! I've looked at their message board on Facebook and various people, both British and Finnish, have requested a lot of products I'd like to buy, such as pot noodles, Paxo stuffing, Quorn, salad cream and Cadburys. I don't really miss England but it would be so nice to have something from home.
I'll spend a fucking fortune in there!
And in the Irish pub tonight I got salt and vinegar crisps! They tasted dead sexy after all my cravings. The guy working there tonight was English, but he seemed like a twat so I didn't want to ask him about working there. I'll email the owner tomorrow when I'm not drunk. I think it's bedtime...

Turun Taidemuseo

Today I've been to Turun Taidemuseo, the city art gallery of Turku, and I really enjoyed it. It's really good for me to see work by Finnish artists, because that's not something you really hear about in England. There was a good combination of contemporary work and older works from the 20th century. It's also very convenient that it's a minute's walk from the house.
It's a shame that most of the information was in Finnish and Swedish, but a very enthusiastic member of staff showed me around some of the exhibitions and gave me some information about the artists.
I particularly enjoyed this piece, about the wartime deportation of the artist's family from Lithuania to Siberia. The juxtaposition between the film of a family, happily celebrating Christmas together, and the description of the torture and problems faced in Siberia made it very moving. If anyone in Turku is reading this I'd really recommend seeing it, it was quite haunting. Yeah, I just went all art student on your ass.
I also really liked the work by Hanna Haaslahti. I'm not usually that into audience participation based work because I find it a bit awkward and embarrassing, but as I seemed to be the only visitor this afternoon I had some fun with that. One piece periodically took second long films of your motions and replayed them, so that on the screen you could create a moving crowd comprised of yourself. It would probably be better with more than one person involved but it was fun to play with. She also had another piece in which your shadow on the floor was filled with images of clouds and blue sky, whilst the rest of the floor was black.
The main attraction at the moment is a show by Matts Leiderstam from Sweden, which I actually found to be the least interesting, mainly because I'm not that into landscapes. The other exhibition was depicting journeys, both physical and mental, made by Finnish artists. It kinda worked with my current situation, but again, it was less interesting for me due to the high quota of landscapes. The room dedicated to mental journeys was a bit more enjoyable, as there was some surrealist work, and work that required more thought from the viewer.
The gallery is quite small but I liked it, and I'd definitely be up for a return visit. Most of the current exhibitions seem to be closing this month, so I look forward to seeing some new things soon. I've also noticed various small commercial galleries on my travels around Turku, and I'm very keen to visit those. Personally I prefer that sort of space to larger museums, and in London I visited the contemporary galleries in Cork Street and Albemarle Street around once a month. I think these galleries would give me more opportunities to learn about Finnish contemporary art, so that's definitely a plan for another day.
After that I went to the nearby sewing shop for some needles. All the buttons fell off my new Primark coat a few days after I bought it! And as I'm here I can't even go back to Wood Green to complain! The weather's getting to the stage now where I really can't afford to not have a thick winter coat. Why are the old women who work in sewing shops always so scary? I'm not going back in there without back up. They had some really nice fabrics and craft items, which I'll be needing for a project I'm starting on. I can't say much about that yet because it might just be a Christmas present for a certain someone called Jussi...

10 things I miss from England

1. Greggs
2. Roast dinners (especially roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings)
3. Vegetarian English breakfasts (such as the one in wetherspoons)
4. Wetherspoons generally
5. Lucozade
6. Green relentless
7. Salt and vinegar crisps
8. Primark
9. Cyberdog
10. Decent cheese