Stops August

Stops in Lapland. Moments. Sentences of wonder. An unoriginal attempt to parody Facebook statuses. An austere records, to which I’ve been forced to reduce a traditional lengthiness of my texts. Following an example of these sirs:

1^st August

• Introduction to Nepalese with whom I share an apartment. Likeable man just woke up, since he is working at night.

• An evening gathering with fellow students lasted until the dusk. That means one in the morning. I should buy a watch.

2^nd August

• I‘ve met another flat mate from Nepal. He mentioned that they stay together in one room to save for rent. And so I realized that I live with two men. The third equally large chamber is empty.

• I was rescued from the getting lost first time by a nice senior running nearby. He navigated me to the church, because “kirkko” was the only landmark name that I knew in Finnish.

• First milk bought in Lapland.

3^rd August

• The first cup of milk drunk in Lapland. The first cup of fat-free milk drunk in my life. Who would have thought that the color of cartons will be the same as in the Czech Republic and that 0% means 0% in Finnish too?

• New Nepalese face. Are they three then? We introduced ourselves and I’ve forgot this name also.

4^th August

• Efforts to establish an access to the Internet at home via the Internet suffer from the absence of access to the Internet. Reminders of the old times, such as coming to the office during opening hours and signing the contract, were a more difficult task than I expected.

• I’ve met a fourth Nepalese on the balcony.

• South Asian hospitality showed its advantages by beers for free. We were sitting with the boys from Nepal together. There were five of us, so I definitely made sure that I’m not introducing myself just to the one all over and again.

5^th August

• If someone shouts during the travel by bus “Poro, poro!”, you are supposed to turn to the window. You’ll see a reindeer.

• The fever of bicycle acquisition progresses. I do not count the value of goods in Euros now, but in bikes. The rent costs me three bicycles today.

6^th August

• The neighbor confided me to babysit her two children for a while. Observation: a two-year old Finn does not speak English either, although he is still young and young Finns should be able to, according to all the rumors!

• It is not possible to open a window in order to make a bit of draft in sauna.

• I valiantly taste my first salmiakki candy, the national Finnish treasure

7^th August

• Is seems that the number of Nepalese is stabilized to four with the end of week.

• I still taste the salmiakki candy.

8^th August

• Striking findings. Olive brine is not olive oil! You cannot fry anything except for the pan on it.

• Never inflate a tire-tube of your bike. If you do so, you cannot anymore excuse yourself that you aren’t capable to ascend a hill due to the empty tire.

9^th August

• My first cloth washing.

• My first pink t-shirt.

10^th August

• If you get lost in Lapland and therefore go towards the closest hill to look around, you won’t be coming back the same day.

11^th August

• If you like surprises, hence you choose that mysterious oval object wrapped in tinfoil as a main meal at you school canteen, you’ll find yourself eating potatoes with one baked potato....and a potato salad.

• It is lovely to watch squirrels prancing about in front of your window, while you’re sitting behind a writing-desk and should study Finnish instead.

12^th August

• Foolish and dangerous is any attempt to use knowledge of Finnish in real life. I had an extraordinary appetite for milk with a coffee flavor. Well knowing that the milk says "mielto" and coffee "kahvia" in Finnish, I grabbed the carton named "kahviamielto". Or in other words, this is a story how I drank a liter of milk to coffee in half an hour.

• Lappish bears have to be extraordinary small. Their meat can fit in a tin can, which is five centimeters big and costs 20€.

13^th August

• Socks shouldn’t make pairs - they should be gathered in one large pile. Afterwards, there is a direct correlation between an amount of socks and a probability that you take a bit similar two in the morning.

• When being in Finland, it is advisable to wean for a habit of promising reward beers. At least once you realize that the exchange of a handful of washing powder from the two Euros pack against one beer for four Euros was not the best deal in your life.

14^th August

• "I am Finnished!" This brilliant outcry came to my mind as a last note for ending of this blog. However, it is so good that I have to boast of it as soon as now. Amazing, isn’t it? We can just look forward when Stopky will come to the end and you will let yourself be surprised with it. So, Polish your monitors and Czech it out!

• As a pinnacle of sincerity can be considered that the closed and abandoned tourist information in a town of Kemijärvi says officially, "No Man's Land". But nothingness can be beautiful also.

• And of course, a piece of conversation from the trip that never gets old:
  - Who did make that picture? - "Judith." "No, I didn’t!"

15^th August

• Four Nepalese and one Bangladeshis. Evening debate in this society replaced learning of Finnish. But I'm starting to make headway in Hindi. Although all have a slight aversion to India, Bangladeshis usually communicates with the Nepalese in Hindi.

• It is not very wise to mock a ghost that supposedly haunts your room, while you are on the balcony. It will slam the door in return...with your keys lying inside.

 16^th August

• Slowly trying to cease hiding from the sauna steam. The result is identical.

• Discovery. Finnish is not the most appropriate language for the stuttering persons. It makes the words even longer.

• The idea that when you run, you can escape the lake mosquito, ubiquitous in the evening, proved to be wrong. Perhaps the method would have been more effective if I had actually run.

17^th August

• Another striking observation. When someone speaks Finnish and you respond, feeling so smart, "Anteeksi?" ("Excuse me?" in Finnish), the question is always repeated in Finnish. Not in English. This process can be being replayed forever.

• Squirrels climb on the spruces up and down, like if they were searching for the sense of life in the treetop...gosh, didn’t I want to start learning two hours ago?

18^th August

• Realization. Finnish is the only language in which I learned to distinguish between elk and reindeer sooner that the basic numbers.

• Salmiakki candy, lying from 7^th August on a table, commemorated itself with a blacker shade of its blackness. I drain the strength to eat it with a help of drinking terva, tar liquor.

19^th August

• My first swallowed salmiakki candy. If it is a possible description for a situation, when most of the matter stays on your teeth forever.

• Finnish friend managed to remember a professional term “Škrabadla zadků” almost as quickly as we with the word “Perkele.”

• The previous sentence has nothing to do with the salmiakki candy.

20^th August

• Surprise.  They don’t give makkara (sausage) as a Corpus Christi instead of communion wafers in the old Sámi church.

• From the folk festival. Whenever there meet children dressed in traditional Sámi clothes and children in traditional Bronx clothes and chat together, it means only one thing – Sámi chants and hip hop board the stage. Thanks to all the natural deities that not at once.

21^st August

• It's has come time for a moment of absolute poetry. The points of absolute poetry are the identical verses, and, since have no idea how to translate it, let’s stay on a Czech version.

Ten Sám

je sám!

 A protože je sobeček,

tak taky jeho sobeček.

What a masterpiece.

22^nd August

• When we cross the border of Arctic Circle, we go to the north...and still to the north. We are not going to the south. No, we are moving to the north. Without any change. North. It is good to bear on mind that an Arctic circle is not an Arctic pole before I try to perform the famous Cimrman’s scenes.

• I start to fear chessboards and chequered cards. They remind a salmiakki packaging.

 23^rd August

• A quote from a Finnish textbook in Lapland. To sketch a supposed Finnish reticence too.

- Onko täma Pietin poro? (Is it Pieti’s reindeer?)
- On. (It is.)
- Kenen poro tuo on? (Whose is that reindeer?)
- Minun. (Mine.)

• Note. This page is slowly changing into “My Little Poro” blog.

24^th August

• Squirrels are unbearably disturbing creatures. They don’t give you any opportunity to tilt the eyes to your workbook. They keep running and running and running all the time. Their nail scratching multiplies all the decibels in Lapland.

25^th August

• After the successful exam. I love the squirrels fussing in front of the window.

• Warning. It is very tricky to say in English, when you are out of bonbons, that you “need more sack” in plural.

• I cease to understand how anyone could live without two saunas per a day.

26^th August

• I enjoy another salmiakki ice-cream. Maybe the reason why it is so exquisite is that cold makes a tongue numb.

• Turnover. Finns are beginning to ask for the way in Rovaniemi. The joy can be clouded just by the fact that they usually require me to navigate them to Alko (the liquor store)...who else should know the location better than that flustering boy, right?

27^th August

• A swelling after a mosquito bite from 16^th August slowly starts to fade.

28^th August

• Sophisticated calculation that you will have remnants of yesterday's farewell encounter as you breakfast can be ruined if there is nothing left. Aside from the spicy Nepalese salad with a heat of burning phoenix.

• People whom I haven’t mentioned yet, those with whom we spent a month in the North and just who made it unique were great so indescribably that it would be impossible to write about them here. So at least, thank you and kiitos.