Finland. Its a place with things to do.

Beat that birch

So there seems to be a bunch of things that you have to do while you're in Finland and I'm happy to say that over my two trips here I think I've done almost all of them.

1. Sauna. You think sauna is all about towels and a gentle relaxing time right? Well, you're kinda right. The saunas we have back home are nowhere near hot enough. Here its considered cold if its anywhere under 90 degrees Celsius which is a bit different to the 70 degree ones back home. So firstly its god damn hot. Secondly, unlike at home, its a naked fest for all concerned and those caught waring pants are often scorned for such behavior. Then theres the masochistic acts that are often done together with sauna. Namely vihta and snow diving. Snow diving is pretty self explanatory, you run from the sauna to the snow and jump in. Naked. Its great, trust me. Vihta is a bunch of birch branches tied together that you use whip your self and generally cover the sauna in leaves. Its great, trust me.

Easily more interesting than reindeer

2. See a reindeer. Yeah, its an animal that lives here. They're pretty swell but I prefer squirrels.

3. See santa. Yeah he lives here apparently. I met him one time.

4. Get drunk on vodka. Honestly actual vodka is hard to get here because a) they tax alcohol a lot here and b) they have really high standards when it comes to vodka. Absolute is treated as rubbish here. But yeah, I've done it.

5. Walk over a frozen river/lake. It gets cold enough here that in mid winter, when the ice is thick enough, they open up pathways across the frozen river to foot traffic and snow mobiles to use. Its a pretty odd experience when you're casually walking over the middle of one of the biggest rivers in Finland. I'm usually scared that it'll break and I'll sink to a watery grave.

6. Swim in afore mentioned river/lake. Some person thought it would be a good idea to cut a hole in the ice and swim in the freezing water underneath. Lord knows why, that shit's cold yo. When I do it, the second I get in the water I wonder what the hell I'm doing.

The lights above the neighbor's house

7. Northern lights. This is actually something worth seeing. Tonight I was enchanted by the dancing green and red lights in the sky over the apartments I live in. I didn't even notice that it was about -15 even though I was only wearing my gym clothes. I recommend seeing them to anyone. Its like watching the dreams of a whimsical child spill across the sky.

And thus concludes my list of things that most people think you should do here. Yup.

Happy friend day to all

I don't like Valentine's day. And not for the usual reasons that people have like single people being jealous of happy couples and the like. My beef is with the notion that you have to have a special day to show someone how much you love them. What the dicks is up with that? If you love someone you should make sure they know it all the time, not one day a year cooked up to sell cards loosely based on the story of a saint.

Friends together are strong

Enter The Finnish translation of Valentine's day: Ystavanpaiva. Literally translated it means "Friend Day". Now to be honest I have no idea what Finn's do on friend day as I have spent most of it locked in my flat avoiding reading a design research book and listening to Immortal and generally not talking to people at all. BUT what I would like to think this day is about up this neck o' the woods (do woods have necks?) is a celebration of friendship, something most seem to take for granted that doesn't seem to be celebrated unless you're really drunk. Friendship is great. I like it, you like it. Lets celebrate it. Grab a friend, grab a mutually shared interest and celebrate the fact that you enjoy being around certain people more than others.

Most of my dear friends aren't in this country, but I sure wish they were. Happy friend day friends.

I walked on a river today

The river is so frozen now its safe to walk over to the uni on it. I did that today. Yup.

Mina en puhu suomea. Anteeksi.

Finland, its a place that I am. Its cold and until recently it was dark. But its pretty swell. And hence forth I shall start rambling in no particular order about nothing in particular.

Getting here: Getting here involved sleeping in some uncomfortable places (cars, floors, planes, trains), being quite close to people I have never met for extended periods of time, sitting for pretty much 12 hours straight and having a reaaaall hard time trying to find a good cappuccino in Amsterdam airport. Oh and they edited all the best parts of Goldeneye out on the in-flight movie selection, I mean why did they get rid of the toilet scene? So getting here was a pain in the ass and I don't plan on doing any intercontinental travel again any time in the next few months.

Drinking: My casual alcohol consumption has sky rocketed over the last two weeks. From maybe one night out a month to several nights out on the piss per week. Why just this Monday night I was at a party. And for some reason there was a child there. Apparently he shows up at heaps of parties. There is more than one night club in this town but for some reason, so far I have only been in one. Now I normally don't like night clubs, but this one has the ok from me because they played some Jimmy Hendrix for me and my friend last night. I don't think mooseheads would do that. Oh and mooseheads isn't full of cute Europeans.

Recreation: This place is great for the old recreation. I have a gym in my basement, a ski slope a 20 minute walk away and hiking is 5 minutes away. Last night I went rock climbing for a mere 5 Euro which was grand. I'm yet to go ice skating, but I hear its marvelous, and free. I don't think I've been so constantly physically active for a while.

Food: The uni will give me a massive meal for less than 2.50 which is amazing. Shame I'm never there at the right times. Other than that I'm getting pretty good at making shit up with a meager selection of ingredients. Yesterday I made ANZAC biscuits too which was swell.

Exchange students: They're fun to hang out with. I just pop over to their building and there's always some sort of fun happening. I wandered into a French flat last night and ended up as a member of the "Buffalo Club" which is a super cool exciting thing to be a part of apparently. Mostly I just hang out with the Irish though. They're great fun.

Straya day: Yup its not a thing here, but I'm gunna cook up some sausages anyway. Happy Straya day!

Thoughts on departure

I'll say this for moving overseas for an extended period, it sure does make you popular. Just today I received at least 4 phone calls from 4 different people requesting my company, which I sadly had to decline due to prior arrangements. Never in my life have I felt so popular. I should move more often.

But mostly its just a pain in the ass. Happily a lot of the annoying things have been taken care of like flights, visas, housing ect. but there are still many annoying things about moving OS on a student budget.

Packing: Currently I have been tasked with trying to cram pretty much everything I'll need for 2 years in to one suitcase with a limit of 20kg, a backpack and the pair of pants with the biggest pockets I can find. Currently I've had to cull my precious t-shirt collection down to "must-haves", I'm trying to figure out how best to get my skateboard over there or if its more cost effective to send it and leaving my precious N64 at home for 2 years is going to be the end of me most likely. And there is also the concern that anything left behind will either be damaged or thrown out by my family members while they have the chance to clear out my "clutter". All I can say is that if anyone even TOUCHES my CD collection without my permission, they will be killed.

Money: Shit's expensive yo. I currently don't have enough money to live comfortably for two years AND fly back to Australia when I'm done. Let's see how that goes...

The questions and tips: For the last 6 months I have been bombarded with the same god damn questions (some times by the same people) or being given "helpful tips" every second day and frankly I'm sick of answering/hearing them. I get them everyday and I have been to Lapland before SO in order to try and prevent more silly questions, here we go... I leave Canberra on the second of January and Australia on the fifth from Melbourne. I am in Melbourne to visit my Nan. I will visit friends in Helsinki and Oulu before arriving in Rovaniemi on the eighth. I will be studying a master's degree of Industrial Design at the University of Lapland and I'm doing it because its free and why the hell not? I already have a flat and will be sharing it my Polish friend Aleks, who I met last time I was there. My flat is 3km from the uni. Yes, I can legally get a job in Finland but it will be difficult since I do not speak Finnish. Yes, I will be learning Finnish. Yes, I intend to keep doing parkour, strength training and longboarding while I am there, just because I'm in a different place doesn't mean I will enjoy these activities less. Yes I would like to go skiing/snowboarding. I am aware that Finland in winter is very cold and that I will need warm clothes. Yes I have a Finnish bank account. Finland is on the Euro. I don't know if I can drive in Finland. No I don't like fish. Yes Finland is very dark in the winter and I will not see the sun for days on end. It is the opposite in summer. Yes I intend to visit other countries if I can afford it. Yes I want you to come visit me. Yes I would like to come back to Australia half way though, feel free to buy me a ticket. Yes I'm having a farewell, its tomorrow.

BUT this all has the pay off of me living in a beautiful country where drunken nudity is not only accepted, but expected, for a decent amount of time. Come see me, it'll be like a dream.

Similarities between Norse and Christian religions pt.2

So I realized I missed some points in my previous post. Here comes some more mindless drivel!

Significant people sacrificing them selves.


So you of course know that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. What an upstanding thing to do. Not sure what beef the Romans had with him but oh well. Its alright he rose up again 3 days later.


BUT did you know Odin also sacrificed him self for the good of others? Well mostly. When you look at it, his actions could also been seen as overly selfish, but I choose to believe he has every one's best interests at heart. Basically, Odin first sacrificed one of his eyes at Mimir's well in exchange for a drink from the waters in order to gain great wisdom. He became wise but wanted to be more wise (so he could help people right?) so he hung him self from Yggdrasil (the world tree) for 9 days and was pierced by his own spear as an offering to him self. Yes, he sacrificed him self to him self. While hanging from the tree he observed all the 9 worlds and gained great wisdom. He learned 18 runes (18 is a multiple of 9, noticing a pattern here?) that gave him various powers that he could use to help him self or others. He had certain powers just for him, such as a rune that made it impossible to tie him up, but many for others that mostly gave great advantage in battle (very important in Viking culture) such as invulnerability, blunting enemy weapons, the ability to catch arrows etc. etc. There were also a few more practical ones such as one that allowed him to save ships from storms. All up some pretty spiffing things for a chap to be able to do for you. Anyway he learned all this while he was dying on the tree, but its ok he was fine after a good lie down.

Apple theft.

Adam and Eve, those naughty devils, ate some of God's apples in the garden of Eden after being convinced to do so by a sneeky snake and as a result they were promptly ejected from the premises. Harsh drag.

Well I'm sure you'll be amazed to hear that there is a similar story in Norse myth! In this version a giant called Thiazi steals not only the apples of the gods but the god who grows them too. This is all in a cunning plot to see the gods wither into old age (the apples provide eternal youth) and the giant makes off with the goddess Idun to his home in Jountenheim. Loki is sent to retrieve Idun (I won't tell the story but its his fault she was kidnapped) so he transforms into a falcon and flies to the land of giants to get her. He finds her, uses magic runes to turn her into a nut and starts to fly back to Asgaard, but not before Thiazi finds out that Idun is gone! Thiazi thurns into an eagle and chases Loki down just as he reaches the realm of the gods, but luckily the gods are awaiting his and Loki's arrival and they promptly set him on fire and kill him for stealing their apples. That's how that tale goes down. I like it because people are turning into things all the time and there is a chase scene.

In both versions the perpetrators learn not to steal apples. Adam and Eve via being kicked out of paradise and Thiazi by being set on fire then killed. The lesson here is gods really like apples.

Copyrite or coincidence?

I don't feel the urge to write often but this is a thing I've been thinking about lately and figure I should put it down somewhere before I forget.

I'm just going to put this out there, this could be offensive if you are a religious type, but that's not what I'm getting at here. I just find this real interesting.

As you may or may not know, I have quite the liking for things both Norse and mythological, so it stands to reason that Norse mythology is something I like to investigate. Over the time that I have been reading Norse myths about creation and general activities of gods and what not I have noticed some rather curious similarities between them and my limited understanding of Christianity (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about anything though. Most of my Religious education comes from the Simpsons) so if you care to read on I will be rambling on at no particular rate about what I've noticed...


The general structure of the world.
-The Christian model for how the universe is generally put together is pretty well known. Up the top you have Heaven, a place where God lives and where all the good and righteous chaps and chapettes go when they die, if they have earned God's favor. Then there's the Earth where people go about their lives, its pretty uninteresting generally. But they do have skateboards and rock concerts so its not all that bad. Then underneath is Hell, a generally hot, firey, uncomfortable place lorded over by a fallen angel called Satan who was kicked out of Heaven because God was afraid he'd start shit. Satan is generally seen as a flaming daemon type character bent on destroying the realm of Heaven and generally causing a rukus. This is where you go if you're a bad egg when you die.

Yggdrasil

-The Christian structure is all pretty well known. But do you know how the Norse world is structured? Well for a start its all in a tree called Yggdrasil that has three main levels with several worlds with in them (nine in total). At the top is Asgaard, the realm of the Gods. Here is where Odin (the all father, more on him later) and his family and friends hang out for the most part. It is also where Odin's hall of Valhalla is located. This hall is where valiant warriors who fall in battle go when they die, to await to fight along side the gods at Ragnarok, the great battle at the end of the world. Beneath Asgaard lies Midgaard, the world of men (this shares the same level as the realm of giants called Jotunheim) and is generally pretty uninteresting until the Gods poke their nose in. Below is the underworld which importantly contains Nifelheim and Muspelheim, the realms of cold and ice and heat and flame respectively. In Nifelheim is Hel (yes with one "L"), domain of demigoddess Hella, who was expelled from Asgaard because Odin and co. were afraid she'd start shit (her father was Loki, God of mischief and change). She's half dead and half alive and generally just looks after the dead. Next to Nifelheim is Muspelheim where in dwells Surt, a flaming daemon type character bent on destroying the world and generally causing a rukus. It is said that at Ragnarok the armies of Muspel will rise up to fight the Gods and men.

Now I'm just putting it out there that there are more than a few similarities here. In fact I'd go so far as to say the two are pretty much identical save for a few minor details like names and the like. Obviously Christianity's version is lacking a big old ash tree but the similarities between the two are quite interesting. I particularly find the way the Christian underworld seems to be a blending of the two realms and main occupants of its Norse counterpart to be of great interest, it even borrows the name. With Hella and Surt being combined to create Satan and the realms of Nifelheim and Muspelheim combining to create Hell. Interesting no?

Creation and all that Jazz. 
-So from what I've heard God was a pretty swell fellow and made us the world in 6 days and also invented taking a day off too (what a rad dude). I have no idea what he used to make it from or anything like that but he certainly didn't just rock up on a pre built place and get his divinity on. He built everything from scratch. He then made two people, a man and a woman, called Adam and Eve who then went on to spawn all humans on Earth. Then later on God flooded the Earth to cleanse it of the wicked (yeah I know that isn't a part of creation but bear with me here).

Odin riding his 8 legged horse Sleipnir, followed by his two ravens and wolf

-In Norse mythology the creation of the world is a little more complex as it also involves the creation of the universe too (the story is similar to that of the big bang if you ask me...). In the start there was just Nifelheim and Muspelheim (remember them from before?). A realm of ice and once of fire. My understanding is that they expanded, with rivers of ice flowing from Nifelheim and heat and fire from Muspel, until they came together in a place called Ginnugagap where the fires of Muspel started to melt the Ice of Nifelheim. Eventually the drops of water from the melting ice formed into Yimir, the first frost giant. From here it goes on similarly with various characters emerging from the ice in various ways (the first "man" is licked out of the ice by a cow). Basically from here there were a bunch of dudes hanging out, both men and giants. The men fathered Odin and his brothers Vili and Ve. Those giants were causing a rukus and generally messing the place up and Odin and his bros didn't take kindly to that, no sir! Basically they just decided to kill Yimir. So they did. Then they dragged his body to the middle Ginnungagap and over some time made the world out of his body (did you know that clouds are actually a giant's brain?). The three brothers then later made the first man and woman called Ask and Embla out of an ash and an elm. They then went on to populate the world. During the creation of the world, there was a great flood of blood  (keeping in mind the world was being made from Yimir's body) that drowned all the giants bar two, a giant named Bergelmir and his wife, who survived the flood in a boat made from a hollowed out tree.

The similarities are pretty obvious here. God(s) made the world. Made people. Killed wicked creatures with a flood, which was survived by few in a boat.

God/Gods getting ladies knocked up.
-Basic tale of Christmas, Marry is pregnant with Jesus, Joseph has nothing to do with it. Cuckolded by God, nice.

-In the Viking world there were three castes of people. Basically put, slaves, free men and kings and the like. The way these three castes were established is told in the song of Rig, where in the god Heimdrall heads into Midgaard posing as a man called Rig. In the tale he travels about and on three separate nights he seeks shelter from three different couples, in three different houses of three different levels of niceness. That is to say one was rubbish, then comfortable, then real nice. While staying in these places he would sleep between the man and woman living there and the next morning the woman would be pregnant. The children of these encounters would be the beginnings of the three castes. Summary: Heimdrall is a dick and you shouldn't let him stay at your house or he'll knock up your wife while you're sleeping next to him.

The end of the world.
-I'll be the first to admit I know very little about the Christian version of the end of the world BUT my understanding of it goes something like this. The Rapture, all those who God deems worthy get taken to Heaven. For every one else its Hell on earth basically, with the armies of Satan running rampant about the place causing havoc, death and destruction. So far as I know the four horsemen of he apocalypse ride out and cause a bit of a mess too, basically heralding the end of everything. I'm also under the impression that a happy fellow known as Leviathan rises from the bottom of the ocean and starts to churn up a storm. So much rukus is happening no one really knows what's going on.

Gods face their enemies at Ragnarok

-In Nosre mythology the end of the world is seen as a big battle called Ragnarok. During Ragnarok various creatures rise up against the gods of Asgaard to destroy the world. It is somewhat similar to the Christian version but not quite. Instead of those chosen by the gods being taken to safety, they instead ride proudly into battle against the forces of evil along side the gods to fight in a battle they know they'll loose. This is where the armies of Surt (that Satan like fellow from before) ride on the rest of the world, setting things on fire and what not. There are several heralds of the Apocalypse, namely Loki and his sons Fenrir and Jormagand, who's arrival can be seen somewhat like that of the four horse men. At the end of the world Loki joins in the mess with Surt by committing an army of Giants the fray. Fenrir the wolf breaks his bonds (he had been bound by the gods because they were scared that he would start shit) and runs rampant on the earth opening his mouth so wide that his lower jaw scrapes the ground and his upper touches the sky. His brother Jormagand (also known as the Midgaard serpent) churns up the oceans and makes way for dry land and promptly starts spitting venom all over the place. The gods fight against these characters ending in both sides being killed. Generally there is so much rukus happening no one really knows what's going on. After the battle everyone is dead. Gods, monsters, everyone. Except for two humans who hid inside Yggdrasil. These two go in to repopulate the world and everything starts again.

In my simple mind these two events are almost the same save a few choice details. There's armies of evil running about the place. The chosen of God/the gods are involved in some way. There are heralds and there is a big sea creature that basically messes up anything he can. But in the Norse version everything keeps going after.

So what?
What I wonder is if it is a coincidence that there are so many overlapping elements of these religions i.e do people find the same ways to explain things no matter where they are? Or is it more that the Christian missionaries were influenced by the Viking religion when they arrived in the region? Perhaps the populous changed the religion around their pre-existing beliefs? Or did Christianity just think these were some cool stories that they'd kinda like in their religion too? Who knows, I just think its real interesting.

/rant