Distractions, reflections

David Ing, at large … Sometimes, my mind wanders

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2007/01/09 Helsinki city centre, Stadia great hall

We met Gary and Teri at a dinner with Karlos at Eatz, and walked the next morning to Stadia, where we planned for the next day’s workshop.
For the Helsinki portion of the Rendez workshop, we were joined by Gary and Teri, who had just flown in. With DLH in town for such a short trip, Karlos joined us for dinner at Eatz.

Eatz, Helsinki

Although I prefer the apartments at the Accome Parliament, the rest of the group stayed at the SAS Radisson Plaza just east of the Central Railway Station. The 20-minute walk to Stadia started by a new Ice Park directly on Railway Square.

Ice rink by the train station Continue reading2007/01/09 Helsinki city centre, Stadia great hall

2006/10/24 Rainy overlooks of Helsinki and Espoo

Some snapshots from the Kone tower in Espoo, on a rainy visit to Finland.
As part of the study tour for NJIT executive MBA students visiting Finland and Helsinki Polytechic Stadia, the group visited Kone Corporation — that’s the elevator company!

One perk of visiting an elevator company is the ride up to the top to check out the view. Here’s the view eastward, over a small marina where a few people commute from their islands into work, with Helsinki on the horizon.
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Continue reading2006/10/24 Rainy overlooks of Helsinki and Espoo

2006/09/03 Kauppatori, Helsinki

Minna helped me move over to another hotel by the Kauppatori, and we had salmon paella for lunch.
For the second week of my two week stay in Helsinki, the first apartment hotel was full, so I was booked at another location over by the ferry docks, and kauppatori — the market square. Minna drove over, to help me move from one apartment to the other.

On the Sunday, the market hall (main building) at the kauppatori was closed, but the stalls outside on the market square were still open for business. Since the apartment hotel had cooking facilities, I bought a few vegetables for dinner.

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Minna and I shopped around for lunch. The best alternative (given my aversion to shrimp and dairy products) was a salmon paella. (As I do with Diana, I gave Minna my olives).

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There’s lots of tourist-type opportunities for shopping in the outdoor stalls, but mainly, Minna was just fooling around.

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Minna actually pointed out some watercolors by a local painter. She thought that they would be good when she gets a bonus cheque!

Culinary diversity in Finland

Ritva takes me to Hakaniemi for lunch at Silvoplee, and shopping for Chinese groceries at Vii Voan.
When I visit at someone’s home for more than a day, I inevitability offer to cook at least a few meals. Since my family had a restaurant in Gravenhurst — I think that my grandfather and father sold the Queen’s Cafe circa 1966 — I’ve always cooked. When I was a student at Northwestern University in the early 1980s, I started cooking for myself pretty well every day. It was there that I hosted my first ten-course meal with my foster relatives. Even after getting married, I still do more than the average share of cooking, because I’m faster than Diana, and it’s more constructive for me to cook than criticize. Cooking while travelling has turned out to be more than a habit; it’s now a reputation. When I go to Finland, I’ve had a habit of packing more than a few distinct Chinese ingredients in my suitcase, because (a) I can only find brands that I prefer less in the K Citymarket or Prisma hypermarkets at the Iso Omena mall at much higher prices, or (b) I can’t find them all in Finland.

In addition, when I travel, people discover that I’m generally not into fine-dining establishments, with lavish service as would be expected in a hotel. I much prefer local food, or barring that, Asian cuisine over European cuisine. When in Finland, it’s so convenient to pick up a litre of blueberry soup in the dairy section (as I skip past the milk and yogurt packages!), and the local bread is great. While the local Chinese restaurants around Helsinki and Espoo are fine,I’m sure that I can prepare meals just as well.

After my lectures at Stadia, Ritva and I have a traditional of going out for lunch. If Ritva has tight schedule between classes, there’s enough variety near the Bulevardi area that we may go for Nepalese food or a nice cafeteria. This time, Ritva suggested that me might take walk to main subway station at Kamppi — it’s a minor thrill for me to use my mobile phone to buy a transit ticket! — to go over to Hakaniemi. This was definitely fun for me, because the area is outside of the usual tourist spots in Helsinki, and not a place that out-of-towners would be likely to go!

First, we went to Silvoplee, which is a well-known vegetarian restaurant owned and operated by two former Finnish actresses. There was a wonderful buffet there, with a touch of Indian and East Asian flavours, and fresh salad greens. It’s a casual cafe atmosphere, and, if I weren’t doing my own cooking, I could see it becoming a hangout for meals for me.

Walking down the street, after viewing a number of South Asian and African grocery stores, we happened into Vii Voan. This is a tidy, well-stocked Vietnamese grocery store. I was able to find not only Chinese soy sauce, but also more obscure items that I would purchase at home, e.g. Korean buckwheat noodles — at reasonable prices on a scale in line with Toronto. Unfortunately, the selection of greens was rather narrow, but I was able to get some Shanghai bok choy. I loaded up my knapsack with supplies to take back on the subway and bus.

Ritva also took me around the local market at Hakaniemi, near the subway station. This is a local version of the market hall that tourists see on the Helsinki harbour near the waterfront. Ritva pointed out that table at the upstairs cafe where the Finnish president, Tarja Halonen, has a reserved space. North American television watchers would be most familiar with Tarja Halonen as the elected candidate who Conan O’Brien endorsed as a look-alike twin.

I’m now confident that I can make trips to the Helsinki area without having to pack so many Chinese groceries with me. Although my folding bike has probably lost most of the smell from a broken soy sauce bottle on a trip to Finland in 2004, I think that the suitcase in which it was packed still has a distinct aroma ….

Wed. Nov. 16, 2006: Advising, Indian dinner, trams

On the two week trip to Finland, there’s some opportunities to get away from the computer!
There are a few things that David can’t do over the Internet.

(by David): Although I really would prefer to be an introvert, it’s important for me to come to Finland to keep the ties strong. When I’m on the Internet, though, I begin to wonder if it really makes a difference.

I’ve spent most of the day searching out software packages for journals and memberships for the ISSS site. I think that I’ve found two candidates that will work out, and have requested they be installed to try out.

The faculty sometimes ask me to meet with a few students who are close to my profile, i.e. business people back doing their Ph.D.s. I’ve been a researcher for a while, and have published a few articles, so I know which way is up. This candidate came over to the hotel for morning’s conversation over a coffee, which extended into a 3.5 hour advising session. The Finns are getting their return on social capital invested, this trip.

Since I didn’t leave the hotel for all of the daylight hours, Annaleena and I went out to Namaskar, which is reputed as the best Indian restaurant in town. I would agree with that assessment. We ordered a meat thali and a vegetable thali, each with three little stews and side dishes, so we got a good sample of tastes.

Annaleena picked me up at the hotel with her car, and we parked near her apartment. We took the tram into the centre of town, because it’s hard to find parking there. I did the Finnish thing, and paid for the tram fare using my mobile phone. Create an SMS message, and send it to a phone number, and the return message gives an electronic ticket with an expiry time. Neat feature.

Fri. Nov. 11, 2006: Missed the flight

Fatigue is evident at the start of the journey.
David sees signals of overload in missing his flight to Helsinki via Frankfurt.

(by David): It looks like I’ve really maxed out on stress. My colleague in my day job said that I always look like I’m not under stress, but I guess I hide it better than most. I know when I’m tired, and try to watch out. On Thursday morning, when I drove into the office, I pulled into 3 parking spaces, before I decided to choose one. I got into the client office late — after making a stop at our downtown office to pick up printouts — and the remaining parking spaces were pretty tight. Since I was tired, I decided that I shouldn’t take any chances, and gave up on 3 parking spaces before I found a space that wasn’t so tight.

On Friday, in packing, I seemed to lose sense of time. I know that it usually takes 4 to 5 hours to pack for a trip of 2 weeks to Finland, if I don’t do any packing in advance. I got up late (having stayed up until 4 a.m. finishing up a report, and then puttered away at things that needed to be done: re-registering on the company’s medical plan (on the last day of registration), and checking in with DLH (since people in Finland will ask about him).

Diana picked up Mary — they were planning to go shopping out the direction of the airport, after dropping me off — and I was still packing. With a 5:15 p.m. flight, I had planned to leave around 2:30 p.m., knowing that if I left around 3:00 p.m., that I would probably still be okay. By 3:30 p.m., I was throwing things into the suitcase, and we were rushing to leave.

And … by 3:30 p.m., we were hitting rush hour traffic. I’ve been doing the trip to the airport almost every day for the past 8 weeks — the client office is right across the street from the airport — and Mary said that it was clear that I was taking all of the right side routes to get out of traffic — but it still took about 40 minutes to get airport. When I got to the Air Canada counter at about 4:30, the check-in clerk said that I was arriving about 20 minutes after the flight had closed, and that I would have to rebook.

I walked across to the ticket desk. In line, I phoned AmEx, and they said that the alternative flight at 7:15 to Frankfurt was full, so I might have to go the next day. When I got to the ticket counter, the check-in clerk was very nice, and said that I could get the last seat on the flight to Munich. I’ve taken that route before, so I said yes. She checked with some other reservation clerks, and put stickers on my tickets. Since I was booked on Air Canada for the whole trip — yes, the Germany-Finland legs are actually Lufthansa, but they’re Air Canada codeshares — she said that Air Canada usually charges for ticket changes, but that she wouldn’t charge me today. I thanked her profusely.

At the other end, Annaleena was scheduled to pick me up from the airport, but when I looked at my PDA, I hadn’t updated her phone number from when she was in Sweden. I phoned DLH, and asked if he could call Annaleena. At that point, since the time would have been past midnight in Finland, DLH said that he would phone Annaleena.

As soon as I got on the Toronto-Munich leg of the flight, I put on the eye shades, and went right to sleep. (The plane was full, so I was in upright seating). On the Munich-Helsinki leg, I tried to do some reading, but still fell asleep.

When I arrived at the Helsinki airport, Annaleena wasn’t there. I phoned her, and she said that she had come to pick me up for the original flight, but I wasn’t there. (Sorry). I took a taxi to the hotel, instead.

I’ve been definitely stressed out this past week. I know that DLH has been pretty stressed out recently, but I guess that I was so stressed that I forgot that, and he probably miscalculated the time zones to speak with Annaleena. These are signals that everyone is just too busy.

Postscript, adding injury to stress: As the flight was landing in Munich, the overhead door flew open, and someone’s laptop fell onto my lap. The top of my left thigh hurt initially, and then was okay. After sitting on the Munich-Frankfurt flight, my thigh started to hurt again, and I’ve been walking with a limp. It could have been worse … it could have hit a bone ….

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