i summon one kim

Hannu visited me for a few days, on his way to San Francisco. Also a member of the “people not seen often enough” club, it was great to have him. I just wish Teija would have been with him.

The great thing about visitors is that I get to play tourist, too, in my home town! We went to several places I had never visited before:

• The City Quilter — Hannu was picking up some fabrics to bring back for Teija. The staff at the store were absolutely wonderful, and really knew their product selection.
• Cathedral of St. John Divine — I even used to live nearby, but never got around to visit back then.
• The Bronx Zoo — Lots to see, but I’d recommend visiting during cooler weather. Not just to save yourself, but the animals won’t be hiding as much either.

The other great thing about visitors is that it is a great reason to arrange for some time off from work…

Yet another vacation is over, and I’m returning home. It’s been a relaxing two weeks, even with all the traveling. It has really been great that I had enough time to visit all over Finland (in Helsinki, Ylivieska, Kauhava and Lappeenranta).

Unusually I took a bus from Lappeenranta to Helsinki. I would have taken the train but it turned out that there is track construction going on, so no early trains were running. On the bus I had this woman, Anu, sitting behind me with (as I was to find out) her recently adopted dog. I thought it was overly demanding for the dog to sit so close to other people so I thought I’d let it sniff my hand. Since we were in Eastern Finland, it should be no surprise that a conversation between me and Anu continued until she got off the bus in Porvoo. And we seemed to arrive there in almost no time at all.

Back in Helsinki I had lunch with my friend and business partner Panu. He also qualifies for the “Top 10 People I Don’t See Often Enough” list.

So here I am at the airport hotel, waiting for tomorrow’s flight. As a nice surprise, the hotel has a WLAN for its guests, so I can chat on IRC and IM. However, it is going to be a long day tomorrow with a 5-hour layover at Heathrow, so less chat and more sleep is in order.

On Monday it was off to Lappeenranta. My parents took me here on the RV, and then had some vacation of their own driving back to the west side of Finland. I’ve been staying with my dear friends Hanna-Kaisa and Tapio, whom I haven’t seen in just too long. Hanna-Kaisa took me on the “usual” tour around town, visiting book stores and other places (like the new phenomenon called Lidl). And after a long (or short) day at work, Tapio would be in the kitchen (or by the barbeque) with Hanna-Kaisa, putting their secrets about Italian cuisine to work.

Otto also took me for a quick visit to the university to see a telecomms closet (the home of irc.lut.fi, no less). It happened that everyone I was planning to visit at the university turned up at that closet. Go figure… it is not next to the cafeteria or anything. Well, that just left more time for a relaxing drive around the nearby islands of lake Saimaa in Otto’s vintage Cadillac. I took some pictures about another ferry being obsoleted by a bridge.

Another frequently visited spot in Lappeenranta is the marina, with its floating beer bars. Lahi took me there — not for a beer, but for ice cream — on one evening. Next time I have to remember to go there for lunch to enjoy a vety (and perhaps a beer).

On Wednesday I took a train to Ylivieska to visit my parents. The great thing about being up north was that it didn’t get hot or humid. In Helsinki the humidity got to be a bit much at times, but in Ylivieska we would just lounge on the balcony, safe from rain (not that there was too much of that), sunburn and mosquitoes. We did leave the balcony a couple of times to walk around the town, for instance to the store for some new potatoes and smoked salmon and sourdough rye bread — Finnish delicacies at their best.

For the weekend we drove here to Kauhava, but surprisingly (at least to myself) I didn’t really feel like I would have to visit here anymore. It has always been more about visiting my parents anyway, than visiting the house where I grew up.

Helsinki was mostly rainy, but I managed to spend some time outdoors with the Selonen family. It is always great to see Arto, Laura, Katri and Karita, who keep welcoming me to their home time and again. Karita had become even more outgoing than what I remember last time — she didn’t hesitate a minute that first evening to announce that Kimmo was going to read her a bedtime story. :-) And if running about outside wasn’t enough, they also got me jumping around indoors (well, once at least) with this weird dance game.

Thanks to the organizational skills of Antti alias “Pooka” I also got to meet all the Finnish NetBSD developers one night over a dinner at La Bodega.

Well, I had never spent a week in Frankfurt before. I thought there’s nothing there (sorry). However, I was somewhat wrong, I guess.

During the days, Mark — a colleague of mine from NYC — was helping me find my way around the offices of the mother bank and to communicate with the colleagues in Frankfurt. In the evenings he was showing me that there is something to the city of business. You just have to spend some time looking around (as he has in the past) and have friends like Kirk who know these esoteric venues that you wouldn’t think to visit just by looking at them from the street (yeah, what was that about the book and its cover).

We also visited Mainz and Mark introduced me to some very welcoming friends of his, Karen and Helmut, who took us to a small village restaurant with excellent food and wine. Maybe it should be counted as an advantage of Frankfurt that you don’t have to go far outside to find some really nice places…

After all the flying is over today, I should be in Helsinki.

I’ve had a wonderful week in Freiburg, visiting my brother and his family. I wish I could make these trips more often. I felt so welcome — the kids were so enthusiastic about meeting their uncle that they kept telling everyone. I visited their kindergarten and their teacher knew immediately who I was. I just need to learn more German…

It’s been great walking about the neighborhood where they live and on some of the hillsides around. The Black Forest region is really beautiful, and the weather has been excellent.

Yesterday was so uniquely (southern) European: we walked up the nearby hill to an old Gasthaus and stopped for brunch. I guess we were a bit early, but soon the place filled with all the locals on their Sunday walk. We got a great table with a superb view down to the whole town, and the light breeze was keeping us cool in the sunshine. Can you spell p-e-r-f-e-c-t! As we were leaving, we took turns taking pictures so we could have everyone in at least one picture. A stranger stops us — to offer to take the picture for us, so that the whole family can be in one picture! (Not with my camera, so no link to a picture yet.)

On the way home we took a trail through the forest. It was great seeing how the kids were so excited about walking in the forest. They do so every week at the kindergarten, so it is a familiar yet ever interesting environment for them. No worrying about getting bored, I tell you.

In a couple of hours I’ll be arriving in Frankfurt. I felt sad leaving Freiburg, especially since we got to the train station a bit late, and there was no time for a proper goodbye. I had to just jump on the train as the doors were already closing. Need to plan that better next time…

Klaus and Bernd are NetBSD developers in Karlsruhe, who took me sightseeing (by foot) around the city yesterday, and then for a well-deserved beer and other nourishment. I had never visited Karlsruhe before, dispite having driven past it a number of times. I think it was about a year or maybe two earlier that Bernd and I tried to arrange for a meeting, but my schedule kept changing too much. I’m glad this time everything worked out perfectly.

It is now wonder that businessmen don’t complain a lot about the burden of traveling. Who cares if you have to arrive at the airport two or more hours early, if you can spend half of that time dining. On the plane you can then survive with a snack, instead of trying to operate a knife and fork in the tight space assigned to you. Not that the space is tight in business class…

After deboarding there is another excellent idea: the arrivals lounge. Unfortunately I had to hurry to a connecting flight, so I couldn’t visit it to enjoy a hot breakfast and a shower.

The second flight of the day (from London to Frankfurt) behind me I’m feeling a little bit well traveled for the day, especially after stewing for an hour in the sunny glass enclosure that is the Fernbahnhof at the Frankfurt airport. Here is a tip for anyone taking a train: go downstairs and sit by the tracks! It is nice and cool there, even if a bit noisy when trains arrive and depart. (more…)