holiday season here in helsinki. everyone gone, trams have 20% less people in them, free newspapers stop publishing, the english language section of the main newspaper isnt being updated, places that have job offers on websites asking you to email them automatically reply straight away to the email saying “olen lomalla” (i am on holidays), college acceptance papers dropped off at an college that is all locked up and empty, libraries close weekends, even god tv has gone off air for the month, small shops are locked up for a few weeks with a little note explaining when they’ll be back and to have a nice summer.

it has been a nice summer so far, havent done too much, did spend a few weekends in country cottages, a few day trips, read three books, got a farmers tan. in a few weeks we’re off to a music festival and then to saarenmaa for a few days. saarenmaa is a small island off the west coast of estonia. when i inter-railed here back in 2000 i wanted to go there for some strange compulsive reason. i never got there as i just ran out of time. so now päivis boss has a house there that we can stay in and look at geese and ducks apparently. then i come back and start back into winter doing the language course and the 3d visualisation course.

between these two courses, i’ll have four eleven hour days and one seven hour day a week. this is part of my “total immersion finnish kieli plan” that im going for. less time online talking in english, more time listening to finnish all day. thats it.