end of october news

again unable to update this page, which seems to be getting mainly readers who look for stuff on the bauhaus. are there any friends out there reading this?

today we had a nice MA-year gathering with maria and vibe here in helsinki, which was really nice. what’s up details are mainly in the notorious facebook and in my work blog polemics. it’s so great to find old friends through the facebook.

my postdoc funding/work situation is still a bit problematic for 2008, but i’m trying my best. i’ve also become an actor in the scene of culture and politics as the editor of ydin, an established magazine on politics here in finland. it’s just a hobby and voluntary work, though. but also a great chance to meet interesting people and to have some kind of affiliation and identity in finland, the land of the precariat academic.

i’ve also had a few days off in the US, where I participated in a workshop on place naming in the University of East Carolina. such wonderful countryside! i did my share of driving for a while exploring the eastern part of north carolina, and my share of used plastic plates and cups, too. seems like they’ve benned washing-up liquid over there.

 

virtual realities – life, locality and escape

while i’m trying to ground myself here in finland, settle in something like a physical universe, locality and so on… the virtual reality keeps developing.

what am i talking about? to start with, the facebook. i’ve been pretty anti-facebook, but i decided to give it a try. so now i’m on it. not hooked yet, but i decided not to touch it during work and i have been adding friends and am concidering joining networks and groups – beyond the colchester peace campaign. it’s soooo exciting to see familiar faces from years and miles away, and find out how and where they are. now, in this intertextuality of the web, i wonder if facebook meets my blog.

and beyond facebook there’s linkedin and the hungarian iwiw. one of my friends friends contacted me recently as he thought i’m in berlin, and since we have a friend in common, we could meet. but the programme hadn’t updated my location, even though i tried it already, so he had wrong info. anyways, the mutual friend has over 600 “friends” in this iwiw networking programme. and that’s in no way abnormal. it seems pretty common to declare a contact with everyone one had ever met in one’s life. it becomes a bit counter-productive. i tried to see who else is friends with my friend and realised how pointless it was to deal with this mass of people.

second, having an office at the university means that i’ll be bumping into colleagues in corridors and meeting people on the streets in the maze of a centre campus on helsinki. but now with the web – and the fact that people (especially those who have offices and even more those who do not have work but do have a good internet connection) actually use it – being present and connected exchanging ideas, how-you-are-s, culture, even doing politics is not limited to the locality. while having your coffee in the privacy of your workspace, you may have an equal number of refreshing encounters as in a coffee room. sometimes these may even be more effective, exciting or thorough than those in the coffee room. other times the human tough, being physically there helps. in some ways i find it super exciting, in other ways a bit scary.

perhaps we do not need a locality anymore? i’ve been joking that if i could have my library in an electronic form i wouldn’t mind having the mobile academic life that i’ve been leading, with only a few months in one country, city and institute at the time.

also, i’m in touch with people in my home city via skype or messenger. now perhaps even more often than when i was away. does it mean that the local is universalising away – disappearing into the virtual supralocal reality? would that indicate that the local really matters, and that in fact while using the tools that ought to be designed to talk to those who live far away, i’m precisely cherishing the local, and even putting it over the global.

on the other hand, i’m really not the best person to be talking about the local – as for me local has always been plural, intense and even a short experience (despite its long-lasting effects). i’m yet to discover how it feels to be living in a place for longer than 14 months. actually, that’s precisely what i’d love to do (even if it were painful).

but now, as i told inna who was skyping from belarus, i need to put my wrist at rest. i’m seeing a doctor tomorrow about it – today was a heavy day as the teaching started and i was having to lift and copy heavy books. don’t worry it’s not the RSI – i hit my wrist when i was twisting my angle on friday night at juha’s summer cottage. the angle fared better than the wrist. so, i’m not even starting to comment the second life here. i’m not in it. this life, with it’s many sub-lifes, is enough.

but at least i now have, in theory, a more fixed locality where to fill my time (until now the time has only been sucked by constant travelling, meeting, socialising, suriving, packing, you name it, which obviously has not been all that bad, but…).

 

after the cultural weekend

the flow festival with gilles peterson, cocorosie, !!!, and architecture in helsinki and some finnish contemporary music was great last weekend, and so was tero saarinen dance company performance on sunday.

what a cultural times in helsinki! just made me think about my friends and colleagues: especially karen in london and eva in berlin with whom i share the love for gilles, alex in paris and onur in istambul from whom i learned about cocorosie and architecture in helsinki. greetings to you guys and the rest, wish you great tunes in your home cities (which shouldn’t be too difficult either…)!

tero saarinen moves to the international scene after these performances which were totally amazing – in terms of music, lights, costumes, theatre and the dance itself. (umut and others, hope you’ll have the chance to see him!) i stay on in helsinki. the organisation of the international conference is progressing. looking at the poster i designed i learned that i’m a better photographer than graphic designer. tonight, i hope i’ll be able to work on some of my texts, too, and be what i should and wanna be: a researcher.

 

settling in helsinki

i’m blogging from my own (rented, of course, but self-furnished) new (fifties, really) home in helsinki, listening to one of my favourite radio stations, radio helsinki.

the weather has been amazingly hot, almost 30 degrees here in helsinki – but my new home is the coolest place i’ve been to over the last two weeks. (facing north and east with a french window.)

i had to furnish it from the scratch as i’ve been living abroad for the last ten years or so, and before that in a friend’s place. i got old furniture in great condition from the recycling centre (kierrätyskeskus). then i went to ikea and some other shops, as well as to my family to find some pieces of furniture. now i have a set of sofas, bookshelves, other shelving and a dinner table with chairs in the livingroom and a not-so-squeeky bed and wardrobes in the bedroom. it all looks pretty lived in, even if i only moved here just under two weeks ago.

already had the visit of my mother (crucial test: an appraised approval!) some of my best friends and my aunt and old friend with her family. they all felt pretty much at home here. which makes me happy, as i do, too.

the job at the university also has started, and although so far it’s been too much admin and too little research or even editing of old texts, it’s all fine. the community of colleagues seems nice.

moreover, there are hobbies. i’ve been seeing family and friends, celebrating their birthdays and looking for a bike to get to work and about for the few months before the snow arrives (worried how to cope with that after the ten year absence). this weekend, i’m going to the flow festival: seeing gilles peterson, cocorosie, and architecture in helsinki, in this let alone the local five corners quinted and many others in this home town of mine will be a great way to settle in.

and for those friends of mine who are reading this from a bit further away: i’ve got a spare mattress and a good couch. do come and check this all out!

 

ja, ja, ja… summer in dessau

Sorry, I haven’t really been updating my blogs recently. I wonder if anyone still bothers to turn up here.

Well, I have actually been based back Germany since early May. It’s to finish the Bauhaus Kolleg programme in Dessau, while doing research for another project. We did fieldwork in Luxembourg 1-9 June, Sibiu 11-19 June and then I went to the yearly Hungarian political science conference in Péc and further to Essex for a workshop. I was back in Dessau 28 June. It was the heaviest travel I’ve done so far – and those who know me, know that I travel a lot (which is quite apparent from this website displaying my gypsy life, for those who only know me virtually). It was however very interesting and exciting, I think I got a better hang of the both cities Luxembourg and Sibiu – and it was great to see all the friends that I managed in my short visits to Hungary and England!

Since then I’ve been here, and will do so until I leave for Finland 27 July.  The final presentations are 26 July. In Finland I’m then from 1 August until end of February, when I have a chance to go to Hungary March-July. That means another year of the postdoc funded.

While engaging with architecture and urban studies, this year I have been also developing towards the cultural artistic field. I have just created another blog/website for a new project: the EU flag memorial. It’s been good to take up a role different to that of an academic or an activist, leave the previous tags for a while.

Dessau has been an interesting experience. It’s about getting to know the DDR Germany of which in Berlin there is not that much beyond the ‘Ostalgia’ left. Frameworks of organisation, knowledge production and attitudes, which are different from Hungary, my previous home and from the inbetween East and West that one can find in Vienna or Helsinki.

The collective living, working and being has been nice and interesting. By now however I feel I’m ready to move on though from this collective and intercultural context, and I’m trying to get a rental flat of my own in Helsinki. I’ll miss my friends and colleagues, of course, but that’s a continuous story in this gypsy life.

What’s been great about staying in Dessau, too, is that I’ve had the chance to see more of my friends in Berlin, will miss Berlin, probably more than Dessau.

Now, however, I’ll move on again to finish off all the necessary stuff for the presentation, for the conference in September, and for my future life in Helsinki.

Many greetings from Dessau, Germany…

 

finland, finland, finland

…the place i would like to be.

actually yes, at the moment it’s great to be in finland. i came on friday. i have been meeting a lot of friends and new people with them. there have been exhibition openings, 30th birthdays, contemporary dance theater and election gigs. i’ve seen my dad and my brother (will see baby ilona and my sister-in-law tonight). my uncle’s 60th birthday seminar is in jyväskylä on friday, yet another lovely occasion to meet friends and colleagues. yet another 30th birthday is coming up with the oldest school friends at the weekend. then i’ll meet my mother and my aunt, too.

i’m living with tiina, my spare mom, and her two 9 and 6-year-old girls. it’s really lovely family life.

i’ve been telling everybody that i’m trying to hang out here in finland for most part of 2007. it’s looking pretty positive at the moment. i know already a lot of lovely people and am getting to know more. work is inspiring, i’ve got a job as a researcher until the end of the year and i’m teaching now in march at the university of jyväskylä. i’ve also started an inofficial seminar group in helsinki on discourse theory. there’s a core of three lovely women. in two weeks we’ll see what’s the extended group like.

we have been planning my 30th birthday and the conference in september. it all sounds quite exciting, and perhaps i can start doing things i did abroad here in finland, too, to have a life looking like mine…

 

posters: bauhaus break starts

tomorrow i will present three posters, which i guess could have been one big poster, but are three small (A1 and A2) ones.

it’s the end of the crazy first term when i have learned that there are people who think visually. like to the extent that there’s little point in jotting words down. i have learned at least a little bit of this thinking. ways of thinking of forms and other stuff by examining and working with images. taking a pen in my hand and drawing… this i’m still reluctant to do, but at least i give it a try sometimes. for instance when i need to explain what i have in my mind.

i arrived here as a professional, as we all did. now i feel i’m a non-professional. which makes it perfect postdoctoral training. who would have though i’ll have so much fun learning something new. a new way of thinking about the things i think about anyway.

pretty much convinced this is actually contributing to my research. being able to do a set of posters on my own research topic enables me to rethink it in a new way. next time i also need to get more stuff on paper. also to turn my posters into publications. perhaps with pictures, however.

**

on the less work-based note, i’ll be off to finland on friday 2 march to see the friends and family there. great thing!

lately, i’ve been catching up with old friends over the skype: argentina, england and israel. a lot of baby stuff going on!

i also saw my hungarian family last weekend, when i made a conference visit and met up with friends in budapest too.

it will be funny, however, to leave this 24-hour life where i’ve been living and working with the colleagues and friends at the kolleg and at the ‘carrot’. it’s an absence of over two months: i’ll be back in dessay on 6 may.

 

some pictures from dessau

i posted some pictures from dessau on my finnish blog.

 

happy 2007

What an incredibly busy life I have been leading here at the Bauhaus. No chance for blogging (apart from in Finnish…) and I feel bad about this.

Nevertheless, I have happily started the new year. There are good and bad sides. Having my bike stolen is on the worse side, having finished an application for a postdoc last week, arranged for a conference to take place in Helsinki and finished first stages for two interventions in the European Capitals of Culture 2007 are on the positive side.

The field-work periods were fascinating, but totally hectic. We managed to do a lot of work, which we try to engage with now, but there seems to be so much of it. I try blogging on the two cities later. 😉 promises…

I had a lovely Christmas break with some travels in Germany, meeting Dagmar and Ole in Hamburg, being ill in Dresden with my mother, flying off to the generous Xmas table of my brother and his newly wedded wife (and baby Ilona) on the 24th, going to Lapland to work on publications rather than do ski between Xmas and new years, and finally opening the 2007 with our Helsinki-originating gang of five girls and their boyfriends. Three of us, me and two couples live abroad, so this complete setting we hadn’t seen for years. I spent lovely time, while working on publications and applications, at my second-mom Tiina and her two lovely kids before heading back to Dessau on the 14th of January.

It’s great to be back, too. The only thing I regret is that I can’t find time going to meet my friends abroad. Not even in good old England. A shame. But at least I got in touch after years and years with Golde, my good good friend from the MA year. A while back, that is. And all thanks to the Skype, and the fact that Little One was explaining how Golde too, had had it for years. It was about the time to go and find ourselves on it. Same would apply to other people, hopefully some the old friends will bump into this blog.

Happy 2007! A bit over a month late. At least the new year has already been tested and prooved ok, until now.

 

travelling for fieldwork

the program is great. fantastic people. a lot of interesting stuff!

But here is our fieldwork train schedule:

9 november 2006 (9.14am) Dessau-Leipzig-Nürnberg-Wien-Simeria-Sibiu (10 nov 10.37am) 24 h 23 min
16 november 2006 (7.30pm) Sibiu-Mdedias-Budapest-Dresden-Leipzig-Dessau (17 nov 6.46pm) 24 h 16 min
and
18 november 2006 (8.52am) Dessau-Magdeburg-Hannover-Köln-Luxemburg (18 nov 5.39pm) 8 h 47 min
24 november 2006 (8.24am) Luxemburg-Düsseldorf-Köthen-Dessau (24 nov 5.59pm) 9 h 32 min.

cheer madness?
but good news: I’ve got the key to the laundy room for 17 november!

 

Bauhaus Dessau

So it happened that i found myself in Dessau.

There is a program on EU Urbanism organised by the Bauhaus Foundation.

We are the Bauhaus Kolleg 2006/07. A bunch of professionals from all disciplines dealing with the urban. Architects, designers, urban planners, ethnologists, curators and me, the political theorist/scientist. The point is to get grips with new concepts of European Urbanism by working together. This is collective research, where we all have our input and gain input for our own work.

Such as skills. I never constructed a model house before, but now I’ve done it with my own hands. First time I have touched a cutting knife for anything else than food for at least 15 years.

I’m sure this will become a good way to gain a vision of what European cities are or could be. We go for field research in Luxemburg and Sibiu this autumn and will use these skills of constructing the city in the process of deconstructing or reading it.

People here are great. From all around the world, really. We all 20 live in the same building and work at the same Bauhaus Dessau workshop. So it’s very intensive living.

Which might as well be so, as Dessau itself has not that very much to offer…

My next task is to get myself a bike. There are lovely forests and parks around. Time to enjoy the countryside after all the cities that I have been living in recently – and to get a break from the study of cities.

 

project funding success

It seems I’ve been all too busy and travelling around to be keeping in touch with updating this blog. Nevertheless, good news: our research project got three year funding! That would mean something like a year (2007) for me in Helsinki, and another one in Budapest. Fantastic news! Will try to come back with more reflections later. Until then, liebe Gruesse aus Weimar!

 

Budapest – szerelem

Arriving in Budapest I made myself reflect on the question of how does it feel to be back here. The short reply was: I’m feel in at home, at my home city (or to be precise in one of them) – everything is familiar, I feel comfortable. I love this city. Yet, I’m not sure that I would want to be living here at the moment.

Thankfully, then I’m indeed not living here now, but on my way to the UK tomorrow – and then to live in Finland five weeks. I wonder if London will have the same effect on me as Budapest. I bet Helsinki will – but are there both the same closeness and distance?

After landing in my former home – the Raul Wallenberg Guesthouse of the Collegium Budapest, also the seminar we organised was making me feel at home. My academic families both from Jyväskylä and from Budapest were present. I was enjoying the debates. (My paper presentation was not very good, admittedly – I was having trouble making up the distance that I had created during the two weeks in Cortona. You know when sometimes you can’t really deal with seeing your own text. I have to improve my approach to my own work by the end of this week and the political theory workshops in Manchester where I’m facing the same task…) It had been really important for me to bring these two worlds together, and organise something international here in Hungary for the discourse/rhetoric/conceptual history people, who seem to feel quite isolated often. I’m so glad the Finnagora, the Colbud, the Jyväskylä and Budapest crowds all agreed and later enjoyed themselves. So lovely to see everyone – I wish I could have spent more time with each and every person. Not to mention my other friends in Hungary.

So I went to see my ‘Hungarian mother’ and my ‘brothers’ on Sunday. A lovely day in the countryside – the mother, though, is not doing that well, hard to convince her that she should keep strength and get better. I hope the pictures I showed from my trips, of my niece and the rest of my family, and of my graduation cheered her up. She’s telling me that she hopes she will see me still – I can’t bare the thought that she would not be there. On my way back to the city, the train was an hour delayed – on the trip of one hour – and I felt like in Britain.

Currently, I’m supposed to be in the library, digging on a specific topic that I need to present on at the end of this month. But I’ve been having a migraine and finding it difficult to leave. Besides, the whole morning I was doing administration for my course that starts next week in Helsinki. Now I simply climb up to the Collegium Budapest and later make it to the library. Tonight I will be meeting with a few friends and try to make it to the opening of an exhibition at the Finnagora, and again meet some more people…

The weirdest thing is that recently when leaving Budapest, I always knew when I would be coming back. This time I have no clue – and after all this is one of my home cities and home countries..!

Tomorrow it’ll be good old England. Another story to tell.

 

the journey – over half way through

And so I flew from Tampere (after a visit to a friend to have lunch) to the former US military airport of Frankfurt Hahn. It was lovely to have someone waiting for me when I arrived: Eva took me out to the apple-wine places of Frankfurt – or in fact Schönhausen – and finally to her home/parents near Aschaffenburg. Was lovely to meet some of the Berlin gang (who mainly are from around Frankfurt).

The next day I flew over to another US base: Bologna Forli – which serves more Rimini than Bologna. The weather there as in Germany was cold and rainy – quite a shock after Finland. Decided to head for Bologna, where the weather indeed was much better. I was worried as I didn’t have a booking, so I asked my dad to book one online since he happened to be online – we could figure it all out with few SMSs. Thanks dad! The hotel was in the historical centre so I found there without a map and could walk around the city for the evening and the morning I had to spend there.

The thing I was most impressed about in Bologna was a library-bookshop in the municipal building which was open until late. I went and browsed the guidebooks and found myself the perfect Italian language book. How to learn to speak in a few days without any need to consult other languages. Italian seemed so easy – on the basis of my Spanish and French I understood most of what was going on, at least half of the language, but felt at the same time handicapped to speak. Later I figured that yes indeed, I do understand half, but only the half of what’s going on. But if one compares this to Hungarian and its obscure words…

Sunday, then I was the time to make it to Cortona, which I did, arriving at the same time as some of the few people I knew I would know at the summer school. How lovely. Cortona is an old (dates to Etruscan time) town on a steep hill, which over-looks a largfe valley. As the whole of Tuscany, it seems, it is populated by tourists in August. Many of them were British, brought over to a Under Tuscan Sun classical music festival. The colleagues who had been in the previous summer schools told us, the newcomers, that the city was really different to what it used to be even three years ago.

Some of this was really positive, such as the swimming pool on the top of the hill. It was a 20-minute walk from the old monastery we stayed in to climb up the hill for a swim and we did it some of the times – the times when we had already done the reading, usually in the hammocks put up between the trees in the garden of the hotel. The views we saw from the lecture room were only comparable to one experience I had in the past – those from the Villa Lante, the Finnish Cultural Institute on the Giannicopolo Hill in Rome. Simply breathtaking.

Solidarity was a theme we explored from many different directions. One to mention here was the book by a British-born historian Tony Judt: Postwar. In the league of books on Europe, it is unique, phenomenal in terms of language, readability and the balance between the East and West. What was fascinating was to hear people from the East and West of Europe – plus some north Americans and an Argentinian discuss about the European welfare state and englargement processes. And later in the evening over a glass of wine or the dinner about their own work – or life in general.
But all good things were to come to an end. On Saturday, a couple of us stayed overnight at a friend and collegue of us in Florence. It was my first time, but I thought the couple of hours in the city were enough for the attempt to digest the rich and busy city. The next day two of us headed off to Bologna – which I find more normal as it was not flocked by neither tourists nor students – nor indeed locals as everyone still seemed to be on holiday. The hotel we found was great, beautiful and affordable – would recommend Il Guercino to anyone!

Yesterday, Monday, I sent off Postwar – the two-kilo book to Finland, and headed in the afternoon for Venice for the evening. I didn’t see much, but enough to enjoy it and want to go back one day. I suppose one’s reaction to Venice largely depends on the preconceptions. I had heard a lot of negative things about it, but finally: I was clever enough to travel on the public transport in the canals, sit around on some non-commercial surroundings and go and have a meal with wine and water for under 9 euros in a place which was filling with locals and others coming to see football.

I had to give up football and the beautiful Venice and catch my train instead. I had booked a 3-bed compartment since I thought the ticket was so decent price – and was lucky to have it all for myself. I got off the train on the Hungarian border and took a local train to Pécs. In total under 14 hours. I met a friend of mine at the train station – it’s all as when we met last in the end of April. She’s now planning her teaching, I’m checking my mails and reading for the weekend’s seminar in Budapest – then we will catch up and have some food, szalon barna (local dark beer, and my favourite in Hungary) and perhaps see a film. Until next time (which is hopefully sooner than my previous post – sorry about the silence)!

 

chaotic departures

I find it quite ironic that when i’m leaving Varkaus, the lovely Savo region, I leave my calendar, with the details of my complicated one-month trip ‘to Europe’ and my passport with it. Luckily (after calling all the places that I visited on the 1.5hour car journey to Mikkeli, including police stations), it was found in Varkaus and I should receive it by mail tomorrow. The flight is the following day!

I’m currently printing some of the reading for the trip. I guess I need to read most of it in electronic format since it would be a pretty heavy and expensive folder otherwise (though my thanks go to my uncle for providing the printing facilities)!

I’m quite excited about the trip – though also exhausted beforehand. Imagine all the rambling and the carrying of things. I try to keep it down to minimum, but inevitably it always feels too much to carry. Besides, not all the arrangements have been done yet. I had postponed booking my flights from Budapest to the UK – and now when I did it yesterday, I had to stay until Tuesday 5 September. The next conference is in Manchester on the 6th already… I return to Finland on the Saturday the 9th as my teaching in Helsinki starts on the Monday. So little time for the UK, sorry, for those of you over there who might be reading this blog.

Soon, I’m off to Helsinki to have a lunch with my brother, go to the University Library, and meet later, for instance with my Spanish comrade Carlos (who apparently has had great times in Finland for the last six months or so – should be inspiring to hear what he thinks!).

Personally I’ve been mostly culture-schocked, which is weird when one is supposed to be in one’s own/home/native country. First night it was the habit of having dinner at 5pm. Now I got an invitation for a birthday dinner at 6pm – and I was no longer schocked but resigned about these local customs. Yesterday was a schock, though: I can’t believe even the briefing meetings at the Job Centre start minutes before the the hour, not five minutes late as I’m accustomed to ‘in Europe’! My mother lectured that keeping in time is the most important thing in Finland. Being fifteen minutes late anywhere is a major display of disinterest. And yet, although I fought really hard to be on time this morning – Mr. Murphy was with me. I was precisely those fifteen minutes late for my appointment.

Do wish me luck for my journey!

 

from the lake…

Relaxing lovely holiday (of sorts) by the lake. I’ve made my records in swimming and had a lot of sauna. No rain, no berry or mushroom picking. Perhaps its only ok, as I also managed to do some work, though today I’ve seen my childhood friend Ninni and her newest son and new house.  Fantastic! It’s so lovely to see friends settling in a nice way – and in the case of her and her two sons and husband next to the grandparents. Her new house is less than 100meters from her childhood home!

Spent some time today here at the parking lot of the airport – where I found a free unsecured WLAN connection.  Fantastic! Though, I think they noticed me in the morning and cut the connection. Let’s see whether I manage to post this one this time.  In this rural context I think it would be just fair – my mom has done all she can inorder to save this airport which serves the industrial town of Varkaus, but is located in my village, just next to our lake. There’s no air trafic – apart from for a hobby for the moment. This is pretty universal: Finland is deep on holidays.

It will probably wake up after next week, when I’m already far away in Europe. The plan is to fly first down south to Frankfurt (Hahn), and stay over at my friends in Aschaffenburg. Then take the night train to Milan and continue to Florence and Cortona in Tuscany. That’s where there’s a summer school on Solidarity for two weeks.

Before that, I need to write two applications and one paper – and send yet another edited paper off. And make some flight bookings – naturally that’s the thing I should do here by the airport.

On the news side: I’ve been accepted to the Bauhaus Kolleg, Dessau, Germany for their first semester 16 October – 1 March. Can’t wait as they run a program on European urbanism and Capitals of Culture – prime place to be for my postdoc research. And for my research interest on politics and architecture! They offer a room and excursions but that’s about it. Hopefully I’ll get some further funding!

 

summertime: Finnish lakes

Dear all,

I’ve finally made it to Finland – my favourite country to spend the summer in. Imagine the beautiful landscape, green forests, lakes, quietness, nature, sauna and swimming in clean soft water. All the summer berries and mushrooms to pick.

Well, it’s an idyll, but by the time I reached it, it was dry and cold. All those months of +30’C degrees in Berlin and England I had been waiting to chill out in the Finnish lakes, and sure – with nights as cold as +9’C and days that dwell between +12-16’C, I did chill. Ironically, the weather had been really warm here too, before I arrived.

There’s been enough sun nevertheless, and I also got enough sun during the three days on the lakes. And a red nose – from something else than beer (the Finnish national drink, next to milk).

Also, the lack of rain in Finland over the last months means that the water in the lake Saimaa – where our summer cottage is – is extremely low. We do still manage to make our way with the boat from the mainland to our island. We even made it fishing – and caught a pike last night! Poor thing, it hadn’t eaten much lately. Mom argued that the fact that we caught it saved many perches and small fish by catching it…

The lack of rain means that the planned trips to the forests to pick berries and mushrooms have to be postponed – perhaps even until next year… Hopefully we get some rain soon to make the mushrooms spring up!

Politically speaking: it’s really interesting that in Finland people have started to think about the possibilities of lack of water, now that in many places wells are empty.

There are some pictures from the lakes in my Finnish blog.

 

The Graduation

The Graduation was a lot of fun! Apart from having to wear a heavy hot gown and hat in 30’C heat!

Also my girlfriends Karen and Mette Marie were graduating the same day, which was great. As did Dave Lewis, my dear old buddy I hadn’t seen for years!!

It was of course a fantastic experience for my two moms. I’m so glad they were there. Otherwise it might have seemed a bit pointless… But they got really excited about my HarryPotter-ish look, and so I did as well.

Here‘s some more pictures up in my Finnish blog, and below’s a picture of all the graduating PhDs in my department (those who came to the departmental reception, too, that is).

Afterwards had a lovely drink with Karen and her family and our friend Kris, and then a lovely dinner with Mette Marie and her family, my moms, Sarah and Funda. So it was a lovely celebration with friends and family.

The following day I was really exhausted, but caught up with some of my friends who still stay in Essex in the loveliest parts of Colchester.

 

graduation trip – London

Greetings from London where I’m having my graduation trip. The actual graduation is at Essex on Friday, but I’m here at my friend Sarah’s house, and my mom and Tiina (her best friend and my ‘second mom’ at whom i stayed in Helsinki the last three years of school) are enjoying London, too.

I’ve seen two of my friends new flats and houses in Gravesend and one in Acton Town – been very impressed. My mom and Tiina came for a dinner at Minna’s who’s was my best friend when I stayed at Tiina, and who’s settled here. It was a lovely reunion! Also it was great to introduce the mothers to Sarah (who’s also been taking good care of me), and tomorrow it’s the time for my Hungarian friend Marianna to meet them. Marianna’s mom is my ‘Hungarian mother’ at whom I’ve stayed much in Hungary and with whom i’ve struggled to learned to speak the language too, so some motherhood circles seems to be coming to the close.

It really is a mothers’ trip as tonight I’ve been to see the Phantom of the Opera. My first musical in London, even if I lived here for three years once (admittedly as a poor student). It was really a lovely event as I knew the music well: Tiina had seen the musical in Toronto in ’92 and bought the CD in ’93 when I moved to hers. I remember us two singing to it so that her chandeliers were shaking…

There are more people I really would have wanted to meet this time, but already trying to spend time with the mothers in town takes up a lot of my energy so more elaborate hanging outs will have to be saved for a later date. 

Before the actual graduation ceremony, though, I should add that this has been an innovative graduation – i’ve already decided on the next certificate i wanna achieve: one for a nordic walking trainer. I’m tomorrow meeting someone who’s actually a journalist and a mother, and doing this as a well-paying hobby in hyde park… I’d do it already of the joy of converting people to stick-walking! But I hear that however much one’s heart were in it, doing it for free is not ok for the other personal trainers…

 

afterthoughts: my world cup in germany

So it’s all over. I had a great world cup seeing football with various friends and family – visitors and locals – in places ranging from a church garden to a cinema and from the fan mile and ‘puma centre’ in cafe moscau to a variety of local pubs and restaurants – and my own livingroom. Seeing the local and national carnevals, the football tourists and the Germans (from the grannies to punks and the gays to the Turkish Germans) celebrating has been fantastic.

The great thing about the world cup is that it’s really heavy, intensive – and at best like this year here on home ground in Germany at least – a festival! Intuitively, i’m against those wanting to increase the frequency to every two years: the event would suffer from inflation! Ideally, one would be on holiday during the world cup, although a lot of lazyness at workplace is allowed during the competition. If that’d happen every two years, or including the continental contest, like here the European Cup, every year – things would not be quite the same. In comparison I would point to the ice-hockey world championships that take place every year – and people cannot be bothered to express their excitement to the same extent – even in the ice-hockey countries like my native Finland.

Nevertheless, there are a lot of things that I disliked about the world cup:

1) commercialization: everything was for sale – or sold to the large companies who bought out a monopoly of advertisement.

2) lack of truly public space: even in the football capital city berlin there weren’t really truely public screens. even the fan zone was gated. one had to see the games at pubs, restaurants on these designated, specifically catered areas. i had had this vision of berlin with big screens everywhere in the public spaces of the city. for example on squares

3) hierarchies: related to the previous there was a real issue of access to the stadiums and the venues to watch the broadcast. tellingly, on the fan mile there were two sets of seats where to see the screen, but these were VIP areas. i’m alright with broadcasted football – this seems to be the norm by now in many places and with the fans’s international interests, but then this really should be radically democratic. In four years I can imagine people watching football on the big screens in front of the Viennese City Hall – the same way as they watch opera there during the summer… (if the opera lovers wouldn’t mind too much, of course!)

4) defensive play: boring to watch when teams try to hang on and wait for the penalties – which they, with the 50:50 chance, often lose. at least the germans have been transformed under ‘Klinsi’ but even they lost against Italy in part because of this anticipation and the strong belief in Lehmann’s hands.

What was really amazing was how the Germans have rediscovered the concept of nationhood (that they hopefully will start ignoring more now that the games are over). By getting so excited about football, in a way that continued until the end was a fantastic thing. They provided a really great World Cup for themselves and for their guests. At some point I really got worried thinking that perhaps they would be so upset if they’d lose that they would simply give up interest on the competition. This didn’t happen – and they confessed being happier for the third place and having won their last game than they would have been had they made it to the final and lost it.

And how do the Italians feel? – I hope to catch up with my Italian friend today or tomorrow to get an idea.

 

last saturday in Berlin: reflections on language

It’s my last Saturday for a while in Berlin. Busy week ahead, nine busy weeks behind…  I’m sitting in a cafe in Kreuzberg having had a Berlin breakfast, boiled egg and bread rolls with milchkaffee. A friend of mine joined me here for a WLAN session. It’s just nice sitting and typing away together on a summery terasse – though, the weather has turned colder just over +20’C after big storms yesterday and the day before.

There is a long list of things I haven’t done and people I haven’t met. Somehow the anemia still tires me, even though I’ve been taking iron supplements for a month. I also had a league of visitors – wonderful ones and we had great time also seeing around Berlin – but all this also took time out from my local and everyday life. A good question is: can one have local and everyday life when staying somewhere for only two months?

Two month’s is really too short a time for settling down – I knew from the beginning that it would take me 4-6 weeks to settle down and then one starts to think about leaving. Extending the stay for two more weeks didn’t really help. Also, in getting into a new language and culture two months is an annoyingly short period.

In some ways, two months is enough, though. One also starts getting a hang of a city and its people. For sure, I don’t feel I’ve been just a tourist here.

One of the points of spending time in Germany was the language. Slowly I have started to realise how much I could know and speak German (that I studied at school over 5 years, taking my exam in autumn 1996). It’s the fourth time I’m in a new context trying to survive on my language skills (or fifth if one includes the American and British varians). I’ve known for a while that after three months one is used to the foreign-language environment and starts communicating without too much problems. Now I could already see it coming. However, I have to admit that after so many times of having done this – always sounding like an idiot trying to construct sensible sentences in foreign language, and feeling like one trying to get the point of the random (unguessable) stuff people telling me – I’m feeling lazy. Not again! Could we not speak English? For once, unlike most of my experiences in Hungary, these people do communicate in other languages, too!

In fact, it’s generally difficult to get Germans to speak their language to a foreigner. I’ve been lucky enough to meet many who would. And a lot of foreigners who speak good German and would be wanting to chat with me in that language. That leaves me feel ungreatful and guilty if I don’t. And communicating with foreigners in disbelief, makes me wonder whether I deep down really think that English is the world language… Has it got something to do with my years in the imperial Britain?

Yesterday I had a whole day seminar in German – I even made some points and people got them! I was told that I have a Spanish accent… Yippiii… Does this mean that I should brush up my Spanish next?

The journey continues…

 

and so does portugal

3) and the same happened with the portugiese: no goals no final. what a boring game. i had more faith in the portugiese, and i have to say that on the last minutes of that game last night in the fan mile in Berlin tiergarten the many many french supporters were quiet – and some of us were hoping that the portugiese (such as their goal keeper ricardo) would put the ball into the net to ensure last exciting 30 minutes of extra time. it didn’t happen – but if the germans can be bothered (!) to put their normal (not the reserve team!) into the saturday’s match it will be a good one.

the football fever is wearing off a bit here in berlin, though one can see more italian and french shirts already. the fan zone was not overcrowded even if it was the third last match of the tournament.

also, the neonazis are apparently upset about the raise in german nationalism – basically this multi-kulti german nationalism is not their cup-of-tea and anyways alternative ways of channelling national feeling are a threat to their movement. so it seems like hard core lefties were wrong about looking at flag-waving with a bad eye.

yesterday i wore a t-shirt “es ist liebe” – the football world cup slogan by die taz, the left newspaper – trying to make the point that football was the main thing in the world cup not victory. i don’t know how many people actually got my point…

meanwhile my italian former flatmate and friend replied that he cannot make the final but will be here by chance next week. looking forward to a reunion!

also, it’s time to start thinking about life without or at least beyond football. there are so many other things to do, such as the open-air cinemas, the open-air concert hall next to my workplace on gendarmenmarkt. these, similarily to the open air football venues are gated areas, where only the few can go in – or where there are vip-stands and all other kinds of imposed hierarchies.

but you might say it’s not over yet – well, of course in finland, when i go there end of july, there’s still football season. i should go and see my team KuPS play – live! – in Kuopio, my birth town.

 

“Wir fahren nach Stuttgart”

The last week of the Football World Cup is here – and It’s been all quite interesting.

1) supporting England: How can I be an England supporter? I’m not English, not a real Essex girl – thank gods. Nevertheless, I felt that England is closest to my home country – not only in the World Cup, though, but this time definitely of all the countries participating. As many people from England I am a bit weary of that identification – and the identification with a red-and-white football supporters and even more so with the hooligans.

Nevertheless, this was my choice, and the affiliation I saw as the most natural one. I tried to find ways of flagging it. Finding a shirt with the St.Stephen’s Cross on the front and number seven in my back. Beckham – he’s ok, he’s ex-ManU and I’m ex-ManU (now FC United) supporter. But why would I – an unbaptised pagan – start looking like a crusader? The next t-shirt I found was red: it said England on the front and Rooney at the back. If Becks is far from my taste for men how would I look as a Rooney-girl? It would have been a good piece of memorabilia for this World Cup, though. So they went and lost. I was sad, but hey – if a team cannot score, they should perhaps not go forward in a cup…

2)  …which is what happened to the Germans. How sad! Selfishly speaking, it would have been great to be in Berlin with Germany in the final. Nevertheless, my German friends have welcomed all their Italian friends over here – not that the Germans would be supporting Italy in the final, but it feels good. I also invited my old Italian flatmate with whom I unfortunately lost touch.

Last night was quieter than the previous nights after a German victory. During the matches the whole Berlin is empty – the previous time, during the Argentina match, I witnessed it from the air as I needed to board when the extra-time started. Nevertheless, five minutes after the Italy match the street became live again. With celebrating Italians – and Germans trying to hide their disappointment into celebration.

“Shade” was one of the most common words of the German commentator (with a Hungarian name – I always wondered if the miracle/tragedy of Bern in 1954 had any thing to do with his career choices?). Indeed, what a shame. I hope the Germans will be still cheering for their team in the battle over the third match. The slogan “We fahren nach Berlin” turned into a travelling to Stuttgart. Doesn’t sound as fancy, but I hope it catches on and the atmosphere of a great Football Festival remains.

 

berlin…

here's a picture of me and umut, a friend and collegue from one of my first days in berlin – taken by another friend and colleague I (thanks max!) in front of the brandenburger tor – where it's impossible to take this kind of pics these days as the whole place is taken over by football. it's the beginning of the fan mile in berlin.

 the t-shirt i'm wearing bears the picture of the finnish president tarja halonen (who looks like my sister-in-law).

last week was quite busy: i had my friend georgia on a visit and then the visit of my brother, sister-in-law and their three-month-old baby girl (whose name will be in the public reliese only after next sunday when the name-giving party will be (the finns do not hurry in these things, but my brother and riikka even less). now i have my mother over until friday – when i'll fly over to helsinki for a weekend – moving my stuffs from here…

 

google earth…

and where was i again? with google earth i could see my balcony: 52°29’27.91N 13°23’43.00E

 

world cup in berlin

I’m writing from one of the many local bars that show football world cup games. It’s really incredible football fever here. the streets stay busy throughout the night. a lot of tourists around and a lot of flagging of national symphaties, a lot of noice and colours.
I’ve been watching the games in all kinds of places: from the alternative berlin, to the fifa fan mile, from the local pubs and restaurants to the house of world cultures (http://www.hkw.de/en/index.php), to puma centre based at cafe moskau.
it’s been all very cool – the alternative world cup to those with tickets, or in fact, as no one has tickets the mainstream world cup, at least in berlin…
i’m based here in berlin at the humboldt university, institute for european ethnology and at the department of urban sociology. the lovely thing about berlin, is that i already have a lot of friends here from my previous stops in europe and i’ve been making more contacts on the spot. i have a lot of interesting colleagues, for instance. also, there are almost too many things to do in berlin, and you can always go around alone too, which is nice.
the only problem i’ve had is a bad anemia, which must have been plaguing me for months already – makes me really tired and unproductive, i always seem to be too busy. it shows in the lack of text on this blog, for instance. it also meant that i didn’t want to promote it to anyone – no text, no fun.
the world cup is great: i wish all my friends were here to support their respective teams – since they, you, are not, i try to do my best in supporting a lot of them. currently mexico..!

 

settling down in berlin

So, settling down in Berlin is going well. The weather is beautiful. It's summer and I have done my first stick walk today at the Neuköln park – which is massive, and full of people sun bathing and young black men hanging around (alone, spread out across the park different corners), and theres’s also a Tivoli and a police car… When it comes to the weather I think May and June were the perfect timing for this stay abroad.

I’m not the only one who’s into this city. Also by chance I met on the street next to my flat another IDA (Ideology and Discourse Analysis) colleague from Essex, Coady, who was kinda looking for a flat here for himself and the family. It’s so cool to see many of the IDA people next week in Colchester when I come for a few days.

Now, to finish the official parts of the day, I need to go and register as a resident here today and open a bank account if I still have the time. And get the German SIM card for my phone…

 

in Berlin

Sunny Berlin. I am settling down in Berlin with my 95 kilos of luggage. The rest, 135 kilos, I shipped to Finland where they should be waiting for me when I arrive in July for the rest of the year.

The first week passed with one conference to attend and guests to host and hang around in Berlin. First of May was quieter in my local Kreuzberg than any other year in the 2000s.

Generally things are really well, I still have to sort out internet for home and a local sim card for my mobile. I’ve met a lot of nice people, of course also old friends, including Eva, formerly from Essex. Can’t wait to spend these two months here.

 

Another start – challenging the distance

This is the first post of my new blog. When I moved the last time in September 2005 to Hungary I started my first one, in Finnish, http://epalonen.vuodatus.net . The point was that my friends and family, who are used to not having a clue about where I am or what's up with me, should have a chance to follow my life.

Since, however, most of my friends are not Finnish speakers, they were getting increasingly anxious to hear from me too. *I'm so popular? No I'm too lazy to email, or in fact unable physically to spend enough time emailing!* The solution was to start to blog in English.

Perhaps I should just give another brief introduction, since all this might just become too complicated – even for the readership who are my friends. I left my native Finland in 1994 for a year in rural Quebec, and then after finishing my school at 19 I left for the UK to study at the university.

I stayed there for a number of years studying first Contemporary East European Studies in London for three years, and – as if that wouldn't sound complicated enough – Ideology and Discourse Analysis in Essex (Colchester) for another five. In between I've been staying in Hungary, and in 2005 six months in Vienna. I finally finished with a doctorate this January, so the university studies are hopefully over.

I have been living eight months in Budapest now, and will be moving to Berlin next week for another two. From July, after nine years abroad, I'll stay in Finland for the rest of 2006 – which means that I will be seeing more of the Finnish friends and family and I really should start blogging in English.

And what's the point of all this? To challenge the distance, the geographical one, between me and the people i care about…