Sunday, October 14, 2012

The tastes of Home.

So what have I been up to since I last wrote on my blog?

A friend of Tanja's and I, Sonja, texted Tanja the other day to inform us that Lidl was selling Manx cheese. So we decided that we would have to go and buy some of this Manx cheese on Friday. I went to meet up with a friend and have a catch up before going to see Tanja for when she finished work at 3. I had persuaded Tanja to come to the Northern Ostrobothnia Museum (Pohjois-Pohjanmaan museo in Finnish). It was a pretty cool museum, they had an exhibition about the Doghill Kids which is a children's storybook series first written in 1980 by Mauri Kunnas. Within the exhibition there were headbands with ears so children (or in this case Tanja and I) could be the different characters in the books.




They had a section on the shipping industry of Oulu, which was a big factor in the towns growth right up until the mid- 1900's. An area about fishing, they had a video of traditional fishing and they were catching Nahkiainen (European river Lamprey) in the Oulu river. There was an exhibit about the military history of the area, this was of much interest to me because of my other blog. So I spent at least 15 minutes within this area just taking photos.


They had a very interesting area on the Lapps, they had a 'grave' which showed that shamanism was alive and well in Northern Finland/Lapland. On the ground floor there was a scale model of Oulu from 1938, two years before it was bombed by the Soviet Union during the Wars.


So after an hour and a half of dragging my lovely, understanding wife around the museum, which I found highly interesting but think she only found half as interesting, we met up with Sonja to cycle to get Cheese. It turned out that the Manx cheese was put under the company name Deluxe and they had three different kinds of cheese, Vintage Manx, Mature English and Mild Coloured Scottish. Turns out all came from the Isle of Man creameries and so we bought the Mature and Vintage.


It tasted so good. We finished that night by watching the Snowwhite movie and the new Underworld, which was accompanied by meatballs and pasta and 12 euros worth of Sweeties. The Snow white was a good movie but the Underworld was a let down, they had changed the director and writers and it appeared it was just fight scene after fight scene with no real storyline but just bits thrown out there and not explained.

What other things have I been up to? Well I went to the local library. Now that was fun, it is massive, spread out over 4 floors, tons of books but sadly most were in Finnish. they have a big archive section which I am sure I will make use of in the future. 

I saw the Northern lights for the first time the other night too. Amazing, words fails me on how to describe it to you. It was only one ribbon and very faint at times. It lasted about 20 minutes, a dull, hazy green, constantly changing shape but wow, breathtaking. I love this country and that made me fall deeper in love with it. I feel so privileged to know that I can see that regularly throughout the winter.

Anyway it is late here and so my bed calls. I hope to write some more on my other blog soon.

Hyvää yötä (Good Night)


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