1st day at work
I am posting this from an Internet cafe, so no pictures today. I met my supervisor, Jan Sjoström this morning and he took me around FOI, which is the Swedish defence research institute I will be working in. The social benefits of Swedish workers are far ahead of anything in Canada.
#1 Benefit: Free Coffee
How can you not love working in a place that offers free (good) coffee all day long? My caffiene habit is no doubt going to completely through the roof. I don't care: I love being completely buzzed. I am far more productive that way.
#2 Benefit: Free bananas at break. OK, not all day long, but still. They are bananas and they are free. On behalf of my satisfied stomach - Thank you Swedish taxpayers!
Tomorrow is day 2 at work. I plan on curing cancer. You laugh, but with free bananas and coffee, anything is possible.
Gen. George Patton
Although Patton probably wasn't as good as a lot of people make him out to be (to be fair, Monty probably wasn't either), he did say one thing that has rung true to me:
"Do not take counsel of your fears"
No matter what it is I encounter, it seems that the anticipation was always a lot worse than the thing itself. If you hold your breath and just DO it, that thing you feared usually ends up working out just fine.
I may do a regular quotes thing here. I am rather fond of them.
First impressions
This is a nice place. I walked around for a few hours this evening, and this town has serious potential. In a lot of ways it reminds me of Kingston. It is a small city (100 000), based around the university, on the water (Umea river) and with a nice downtown. The demographics are also quite young, a function of it being a university town, I guess. Here is a photo of the waterfront:
And now for something completely different
First view of Sweden
This was taken off the ferry as we arrived in Umea. Nobody said the waterfront was St. Tropez...
And this is my first step on Swedish territory.
Mon aparte a Umea
Salut!
Ici sont quelques photos de mon apart:
Ma chambre...
Mon RDC/chambre d'invités... (check les planchers en bois franc, chaque planch est 1.5 pieds de large!)
Ma cuisine...
et bien sur mon (ma?) sauna!
Quebec vs. Finlande
Je suis vraiment surpris avec la façon que Finlande est vraiment semblable a Quebec. Les forêts, la terrain, tout est juste comme chez nous. En bas est un photo que j'ai pris sur l'autoroute entre Lahti et Joensuu
On dirais que ça pourrait être le 40 entre Quebec et Trois Rivières. C'est beaucoup plus pareil que n'importe autre pays que j'ai visité a date. Je sens très a l'aise ici, malgré le fait que je ne comprends strictement rien (vois mon commentaire sur la langue).
Kajaani-Vaasa
This was a pretty sporty trip. Arrived at the Kajaani train station to find that the ticketing booth was closed. The automatic ticketing machine was only in Finnish and Swedish, which was pretty much useless to me, seeing how I had to book a complex overnight trip. So, I held my breath and got on the train at 22h45 with no ticket. Happily, it turns out that in Finland you can purchase tickets from the conductor. In Switzerland, you would get a pretty stiff fine for not having a ticket when you board. I got a sleeper between Kajaani and Tampere, arriving at 05h15. I had to change trains again in Seinajoki, and then haul my bags through the streets of Vaasa to find the bus to take me to the ferry terminal. Incidentally, I do not recommend hauling a 90 lb skibag and 60 lb duffel bag around Finland. Here is a map showing the towns I went through.
http://www.google.ca/maphp?hl=en&q=&ie=UTF8&z=7&ll=62.593341,24.916992&spn=2.397512,8.55835&om=1Kajaani is just a bit north of Isalmi.
I get on the ferry in 2 hours, and should be in Umea in 5 hours.
Vuokatti III - moi dans le tunnel
Ils sont cochon, ces Finlandaises!
Vuokatti II
Entrance fee to ski in tunnel: 5€
Room and board for 1 1/2 days in Vuokatti : 90€
Travel costs to and from Vuokatti: 150€
Checking off one more item from my list of things to do before I die: Priceless
Vuokatti
Well, I am finally in Vuokatti.
This small town hosts Finland's premiere nordic sports training facility, and is famous for its 2.4 km of indoor ski trails. I have wanted to come here ever since the ski tunnel (as it is commonly known) opened in 1998. I was expecting there to be a lot of national teams training here, but it turns out that most of them left to go to the glaciers of central Europe a week or two ago. In fact, there is only one team training here right now. L'equipe du Quebec. Talk about a small world. I walked into the dining hall after arriving and saw one of the athletes with a triathlon t-shirt bearing a Caisse Desjardins logo. Crazy, crazy. I took this photo of them as proof just before I joined them on a 1 hour run yesterday afternoon. Their coach, Luc Germain is 4th from the right. They are the future of skiing in Canada, and I will watch their season with interest from afar. Here is a link with more information about the team
http://www.skiquebec.qc.ca/skifond/index2.htm
The tunnel was closed yesterday. It opens in 2 hours, and I plan on getting in a 3 hour ski before catching the bus to Kajaani this evening. From there I take the overnight sleeper train to Vaasa on the west coast. Tomorrow I am on the ferry across the Strait of Bothnia to Umeå.
You know you are in Finland when...
Crazy Finnish language
The Finnish language is truly baffling. Anywhere else in Europe, a working knowledge of English and French will give you the tools necessary to find something to hook onto in Spanish, Italian, German, you name it. Especially if things are written down. At least the word roots are the same. Not in Finnish. I am truly staggered by how weird this language is. At least half the letters in a given word will be vowels. The average word length must be 15 letters, and I have seen signs which have words that reach from one side of the sign to the other. Even people's names are beyond me. I have to ask at least 3 times to get a name right, and even then I have no idea how it is spelled. This can obviously get kind of embarrassing.
Kiitos. That is the one and only Finnish word I have learned and can pronounce consistently. It means Thank you and it is extremely useful when you have no idea of what is going on and constantly depend on the goodwill and kindness of strangers to accomplish even the most basic of tasks.
Nightclubbing
If anyone happens to be in Lahti on a Saturday night with nothing to do, I highly recommend you visit the Onnela nightclub.
http://www.ravintolaonnela.fi/The link is all in Finnish, but is pretty nifty nonetheless.
In particular, the Suomi Pop room (Which exclusively plays Finnish pop music) is worth a visit, if for no other reason than to take in the girls gyrating from the monkey bars on the ceiling. Not that any Canadians would participate in such tomfoolery. Right Liddie?
We were a truly international group, with Finns, Estonians and Canadians showing Lahti how to tie one on. We missed Paul McIntyre, but he was apparently occupied on the base with some military instruction concerning how to conduct section attacks under the influence of Finnish beer.
Saut de ski de Lahti...
Desole pour mes lecteurs francophone - les ordinateurs ici ne sont strictement pas fait pour les accents francais, et je ne suis pas assez brillant pour changer la clavier. Je pourrais probablement trouver le facon, main mon temps sur l'ordi est limite, et c'est mieux utilise en l'ecriture. Par contre, j'ai la possibilite d'utiliser les ä, ö, et å...
Comme j'ai dit dans mon dernier post, Lahti etait la ville hote pour les championnats mondial nordic en 2001. Ici sont quelques photos de la saut de ski. Dans la premier, tu vois tout just un sauteur dans l'air. Ca donne l'echelle de cette affaire de folie.
Dans la deuxieme, on vois ce que un sauteur vois avant de se suicider. Ehhh, je voulais dire avant de sauter. Ils sont vraiment fou, ces sauteurs. Et si je le dis, tu devrais le croire. J'ai plein de cicatrices...
Ici est un flo de 13 ans qui est en train de sauter.
Ils s'entraine en ete sur les pistes fait en ceramique, avec l'eau qui coule endans - comme les petits glissades d'eau pour chaque ski. Ses skis sont chacqu'un dans une des petits glissades. L'atterrissage est fait sur un genre de velcro vert qui laisse glisser les skis. Je n'aimerais pas tomber au dessus, c'est certain.
Je crois que je vais rester content avec la ski de fonds et l'orienteering.
AESOR 2006
The Canadian Forces have sent me to Lahti Finland to act as a liason officer between my sport - CIOR Pentathlon, and AESOR heptathlon. Yes, life is sometimes tough. For those of you who don't know much about these military sports, check out http://www.cior.net/Disciplines.762.0.html . AESOR doesn't seem to have any English language websites, but it is fundamentally similar to CIOR except it is a competition for reservist non commissioned officers. Anyhow.
The AESOR competition was in Lahti Finland, which is a place I have known about for years because it is the home of the Finlandia Hiihto ski loppet, as well as being host to the 2001 nordic ski championships. I would rate it as being easily one of the meccas for nordic skiing, behind legendary places like Holmenkollen in Norway and Mora or Ostersund in Sweden. So I was obviously happy to go.
Although my friend Pascal Tremblay ( a legend in CIOR) was instrumental in getting Canada's AESOR team off the ground a few years ago, this was my first contact with the Canadian team. I was really impressed. The team was composed of 6 reservist NCM's from Sergeant to Master Warrant Officer. These are some of the best people the Canadian Forces has to offer, and they reflect well on the Canadian Forces in general and the reserves in particular. They are all motivated, dynamic people who are physically fit and genuinely enjoyable to be with. The average age is about a decade older than CIOR athletes (32 vs about 22-24), so there is a certain amount of life experience and maturity on the team as well. It was my pleasure to meet them, and I hope that we can start building some bridges between our two sports. I believe both teams would profit from some cross-pollination.
Here are a few photos of the two teams I took during the obstacle course portion of the competition.
In the first shot Sgt Steve Koch (L) and PO Sean Neraasen (R) are just over the Gate obstacle, with WO Danny Boulay just behind them.
In the second shot, PO Elizabeth `Liddie´ Krawchuk, Sgt Annick `Celine´ Hardy and MWO Paul `Pull my finger` McIntyre are crossing over the 3 walls at the very end of the obstacle course. I would like to point out that Paul is courageously leading his team of girls from the rear.
Salut!
Je ne veux pas redire exactement ce que j'ai dit en anglais - je vais essayer de poster les choses soit en anglais, soit en français (soit en suédois...) cependant mon préference de l'instant. Pour ceux qui sont interessé, je suis dans la ville d'Umea, dans la nord de la suéde. Voir la lines en bas de Google Maps:
http://maps.google.ca/maps?hl=en&q=Svenska&ie=UTF8&ll=63.704722,20.917969&spn=9.58945,29.619141&om=1Mon appartement est ici (Je n'ai aucun idée ce que ça dis - tout la site est écris en suédois) :
http://www.umu.se/umu/lokal/umu_internt/Gastforskarbostader.htmJe crois que c'est dans le coin de la nom"Berghem" sur la carte:
http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=l&hl=en&q=Teg&near=&ie=UTF8&ll=63.828254,20.317841&spn=0.148701,0.462799&om=1En tout cas, une fois que je sais plus, je vais faire une update!
Hi everyone
I have created this blog to keep my friends, family ( and anyone else who is interested) up to date about my adventures in Sweden. I am moving to Umea, Sweden for a year and I am really excited about this opportunity. I will be living, working and playing as Swedes do, and I will try to faithfully report my adventures and photos via this blog. I will probably start posting regularly in early September, so stay tuned! This will be to my knowledge the only trilingual English-French-Swedish blog on the planet. Be patient. My English is poor, my French worse and my Swedish nonexistant (currently - that will change).
