the absence has been caused by several things. boredom, nothing going on and general “here comes the winter” blues. but, due to several factors including helsingin taiteiden y� (helsinki’s art night) last night and cashing in 140� worth of coins has made the situation a bit better.

anyway, last night was spent walking around a clogged city centre. thousands of people going from event to event, museum to museum, alko shop to park to discos. it was the 15th annual “art night” here in helsinki. we started off watching propoganda movies from the 40’s onwards in lasipalatsi (but they were all in finnish/swedish/german, so we left). then onto the helsingin kaupunginmuseo (helsinki’s city museum) to see the history of the city. then onto sanamato to see two photo exhibitions, then finally to the tulisirkus (fire circus) that was taking place in the park beside t��l�lahti. amazing stuff, huge crowd. the walk home was spent staring at the dominant 1952 olympic tower that i walked by on the way home. (see this picture)

last night was one of the highlights of “helsingin juhla viikot” (helsinki’s party weeks), which goes from 22.08 to 07.09, that i think marks the end of summer.