Category: Finland

Working on a particularly nasty engineering problem with a co-worker – I slipped up and swore at the office. I immediately apologized, which brought about a round of confusion followed by a really interesting conversation.

I am working over seas and so although he is fluent, the co-workers in question has english as his second or third language. He made an interesting observation, that for non native speakers swearing gets used in english language popular media so much that it just seems part of the language. There are no levels or apparent filters. So while he understands that we don’t all walk around dropping f-bombs like in the movies or on TV, its totally unclear what the cultural contexts around swearing is. So as a result swearing is just seen as any other part of the language. Which is kind of fascinating given the range of feelings and social constructs that exist around swearing back home.

My apartment came with this clever drying rack that unfolds to a hold a surprising amount of clothes to dry over night, then folds back up into almost no space for storage.

Seattle is so damp that hanging your clothes outside to dry is sort of a gamble at the best of times. So I have not hang dried my clothes in years. I might have to get one of these drying racks for home though – they do a really good job and it leaves the fabric feeling starched.

And yes, I only brought packed black tee shirts and jeans on this trip. It was an accident.

I don’t care what advances gay rights or gay culture may have made in the states – we just can’t touch the Finns. I was doing some shopping, puzzling over labels on coffee – when I looked up and saw this bag of coffee.

I found out later that Tom of Finland was apparently a really important gay rights activist in Finland, and an artist. So as part of the 100 year celebration of the founding of Finland (in 1917), some of his art was being displayed on products here.

I was disappointed when I went back to get a few bags of this coffee to send home to a friends. They had sold out of that cover, and the new art was not anywhere near as good.

You can tell Helsinki is a port city. Like I said in earlier posts, they have a lot of beautiful detail in their older buildings. The oldest have a lot of tiny nautical themed details. For fairly typical example there are what appear to be a pair of salmon on the moldings of the windows at the office.

My favorite so far though is this building that has barnacles under the eves. Its so subtle that from a distance it just looks like a turbulent pattern of bumps.

Then when you look closer you can see it is incredibly detailed. Someone had a lot of fun with this, and it was done long enough ago to have been a hell of a lot of work.

Here is a riddle, what is the last thing a jew in a foreign city thousands of miles from home wants to see? Well if Nazi tanks are not the first thing on your list, that’s understandable, but they should be.

I was walking the streets around my apartment on a quiet Sunday afternoon to get to know the city. Out of the corner of my eye I spy what I think is a Nazi tank. So for like three or four meters I kept walking, figuring I must just be jet-lagged. I’m sure what I saw though – and it got my whole attention fast – so I backtracked.

Turns out – yup. It was two tanks. I found out a few days later – in what was an embarrassing cultural faux-pas that they are not in fact Nazi tanks. Luckily I made the mistake with a close friend, so he set me straight rather that get more than a little offended. This type of swastika was apparently in use in Finland before the Nazi’s came to power. It also seems complicated historically since the Fins allied with the Germans in world war two to fight off the Russians, then fought them when they were fleeing back out of Russia.

Anyway – I think this building is some sort of museum. Or possibly a barracks for a reserve unit. There was some artillery on what looked like display, but none of it looked functional. So I am going with museum.

There were some plaques on the side of the building. I’ll need to them translated, but I am waiting until I have a firmer grasp on what might offend people to ask.

and

The fins fought a bunch of battles that you tend not to hear about in western history books. They cut close and hard into the country. On some of the older buildings, even right in the center of the city, you see signs of damage from the war. The statue of the three blacksmiths I posted about has bomb damage on the anvil. Or the building with the tanks has this scarring on one wall which I think is from a bomb blast.

Easy to forget just how big the scope of world war II was, and what it cost everyone. I grew up in a place where our survival time in the event of world war III was measured in microseconds. The nuclear blasts from taking our the Nikey missile bases would roll across Seattle until they hit the mountains, then roll back as a shockwave leveling everything that was not vaporized in the initial blast. While horrifying, there was nothing we could do about it – so it didn’t impact our daily lives. Certainly not like this. It was a totally different type of war. Humans can do some tremendous things, but we also suck.

The office is so quiet. The first two days it was unsettling. It has that usual feeling startups get where the place is practically vibrating with energy and things being done – but the only conversations going on are about the work. (Update: It turns out I just needed to acclimate, but it is still an incredibly focused environment).

This description does not do the Finns justice. It makes them sound cold. There is laughter and even a general feeling of joy in the office. Today the CEO even ran and grabbed Champaign to deservedly celebrate a major milestone that was hit. Thing is they had a very quick, small, drink – and were right back to work in like five minutes. I have seen that same type of moment happen on projects at leas dozens of times in my career – but this just struck me as much more focused. It is hard to describe. People are here to get hard things done, then go home an be with their families. I like it. The american startup scene could definitely learn something from the Finns.