When the summer depends on the calendar

Image by victor_nuno via Flickr

The other day I've seen an ad saying 'summer is coming'. That's very funny since here in Helsinki it's still -3 and there is a good amount of snow on the streets, the sea still looks frozen (even though probably I wouldn't dare walking on that) and cars have still the winter tires. But in Finland is like this. Seasons don't depend on the weather (there wouldn't be summer as such otherwise probably) but rather on the calendar. And the even more funny thing is that seasons don't start at solstices or equinoxes (as in the rest of the world) but on the first of the month. So this 1st of march spring started. And 1st of June will be summer. We have time to prepare anyhow...

Pan di stelle

There is one thing that I miss from Italy that I still wasn't able to get here in Finland. The pan di stelle biscuits. Well bored of waiting somebody to import them from Italy I found the recipe and baked them.

Below is the result. The taste is much better :D

News from Finland (you don't expect)

Image via Wikipedia

For the series 'Uskomatonta mutta totta' (Incredible but true!) finnish newspaper Helsingin sanomat reports us a study from Gallup that reveals how 25% percent of finns is irritated by loud phone conversations.

Well you can imagine how loud can be a (non drunk) finn so being italian you can guess how much I am actually pleased to hear somebody talking in the bus or in any other public places. I mean I like Finland and finns but you can say anything but they are loud :D

Hibernation

This has nothing to do with any IT thing. It's just me going in hibernation every day more. The sun raises every day a bit later and sets every day a bit earlier and I'm starting to fear that some day it just won't raise at all... :(

This is the darkest period in Finland (today we have around 6 hrs of sun theoretically, the clouds are doing the rest) and the only thing I would do is to sleep the whole day... unfortunately that's not possible...

1137 days of Finland (and still counting)

that means over 3 yrs... this is the moment when you realize that you either love it or hate it. It might take less but honestly Finland is a difficult country to decipher, first of all for the language that is really hard to speak, second because of the average way of being of Finns (it takes a lot to go deep in their feelings).

Well so far I'm still counting... that means something at least :D

Entering the digital (SLR) era

My friend mooch (if he is reading) will be happy to know that after 2 years of "I'll buy it..." I bought my first DSLR camera: a Canon EOS 450D. Long expected purchase, that finally allows me to make some "real" photo (not that crappy stuff I was making before).
Just unpacked and studied all the instructions, here's one of the first shots:

 

TG1, la voce dell'innocenza...

chapeau..