parawars

Moving on

2007-10-11T12:35:00.001+02:00

As you may have noticed, we are not updating parawars any more. It worked out that I was the only one posting to the blog, and therefore I created a new one, elsewhere at Tumblr. I have been posting there for a few months already, testing it out.

If you want to follow our updates, then please update your bookmarks and feeds to the new site.

Address - http://danr.tumblr.com
Feed - http://feeds.feedburner.com/danr

The new blog is a simple 'tumblelog' where it is much easier and faster for me to post quick images, videos, links as well as the usual text posts.

London

2007-07-22T19:00:00.001+02:00

We went down to London yesterday with James. We try to go every time we are in England.

First, we went to the Natural History Museum, which has free entry. We walked around the dinosaur section and then the mammals section with the massive blue whale hanging from the ceiling.

We then visited Oxford Street and then Camden, our favourite place in London. It's a shame that it was raining during most of the time that we weren't spending on the tube.

I am still uploading Amsterdam photos. This one seems to stand out and is also relevant to London.

Casino

2007-07-22T00:46:00.001+02:00

Return

2007-07-19T12:38:00.001+02:00

We left Amsterdam last Friday and we are now back in England with my family for three weeks. Amsterdam was great, if a little tiring as we walked probably about 4-5 kilometres every day around the city. Charlotte's Dad flew in on the Thursday and so we had about 20 hours or so with him around. I'm still uploading photos from our trip on Zooomr..... here's one of the girls at a historic place.

We are having a lovely, relaxing time in England, seeing people, visiting places, doing a bit of shopping. We bought a new MacBook (they are the cheapest we can find here in England) on Tuesday. We have nothing planned when we wake up each morning and that's a great feeling. It is nice to be able to mould the day as it goes on.

It's Dad's birthday tomorrow - must make a card.

Amsterdam

2007-07-10T11:40:00.001+02:00

We are in Amsterdam!

We arrived at around 10am yesterday morning, after a very early wake-up. It was rubbish weather in Helsinki so we were hoping for better weather here, and it was. We decided to try a taxi as our method of transport to the hotel, but it turned out to cost 66EUR (the train was just 3.60EUR and a 1km walk, which we could have managed on foot - we will try that route on the way home!).

As soon as we walked around close to our hotel and found a small cafe for lunch, it started thundering and raining hard, so we were stuck there for a while. We braved it back to the hotel after a while, and waited for it to stop being so wet before exploring the city. We found the main shopping street and then went to the train station briefly, and then headed to Anne Franck's house. There was a long queue, so we took photos outside instead of waiting and actually going in.

We then slept for a few hours back at the hotel as we only had about 4 hours sleep the previous night - we were out driving James up to Tampere until midnight.

Charlotte had been in contact with some other new UVA students that she will be going to university with, and they arrived in Amsterdam yesterday too. We met up with them for the evening and went out for the evening, and doing more exploring.

This morning we woke up to rain and another thunderstorm. We were planning to go to The Hague, where Charlotte and Milja visited in January, but as it is wet again, we will stay in Amsterdam and try some museums, specifically the Van Gogh museum.

Packing again

2007-07-08T11:08:00.001+02:00

This morning we have been packing again. We are off to Amsterdam early tomorrow morning, after driving James up to Tampere this evening for him to fly back to England.

We have have had a busy week doing lots of different things here in Helsinki. We visited Linnanmäki, the amusement park yesterday, and still had a brilliant time even though it rained heavily nearly all the time we were there. We saw Honka win 2-0 on Sunday, visited four museums, met with Janne and John last night, been shopping and spent time with the triplets and Laura. James and Charlotte have enjoyed themselves, and we are glad that we are going to be able to see James in 5 days again, once we get to England.

Amsterdam promises to be a great experience. I've never been there before, but Milja and Charlotte both visited The Hague in January.

I've put some photos up from the past weeks. Here is one of my favourites.

Out and about in the city I love the most

2007-07-01T15:02:00.001+02:00

Yesterday we all went out for a wander around Helsinki, to visit Kiasma and see some sights. The weather was lovely and warm and sunny.

Below Helsinki Cathedral

More photos on Zooomr.

James is here

2007-06-30T02:29:00.001+02:00

It is 3:25 am and we are just back at the flat after collecting James from Helsinki. He flew into Tampere on Ryanair and got the bus down. Milja, Charlotte and I were in the car waiting for about 1.5 hours for him, watching the club-goers and a drunk, naked man running around in the square. We eventually spotted James wandering around and we passed through McDonald's for a quick snack on the way home.

It is getting bright again. Well, I mean brighter. It has been light all the time. We will see the sunrise if we stay up for another 30 minutes.

Puppies

2007-06-29T21:34:00.001+02:00

I have also uploaded some photos of the puppies on Facebook - here is the public link...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2358&l=81a33&id=500932369

Graduation photos

2007-06-29T21:05:00.001+02:00

I have finally got round to uploading photos for the first time in 2 months. I put a few photos up from Milja's graduation day. You can browse them at zooomr.com/photos/danrowden.

Casper

2007-06-29T12:51:00.000+02:00

Casper died this morning. Our little white fluffball has passed on.

He had been ill since yesterday and Minna took him to the vets this morning. The vets think that bacteria from his intestines (that were making him ill) got into his blood and then went to his brain. Poor guy :(

It's hard enough to leave a pet in another country and have to wait for it to come over, but to lose him in that time makes it millions of times worse.

There will never be another Casper.

Settling in

2007-06-26T19:03:00.000+02:00

We have been back in Helsinki for 8 days now. We have spent a lot of time moving things back into the flat, painting, and fixing things, and also arranging passports, registering us and the car and going to IKEA a lot.

It is great to be back. Finnish Summer is the best.

Charlotte arrives here for her 2 week stay this evening. James comes on Friday.

Blog posts will be few and far between in the next few weeks - we still don't have internet at the flat.

Packed and set

2007-06-16T15:30:00.001+02:00

We are leaving to the airport in about 10 minutes. We have come to the end of our African adventure.

We will be back soon.

Goodbye Africa!

2 left

2007-06-14T13:07:00.001+02:00

This morning I had my exam. It went well, and I finished quite early. Other students in my class were at uni doing their group projects which are due next week.

Milja completed her exams on Tuesday. She has got a great set of results. She will get her final report tomorrow. Her graduation ceremony is in the morning followed by a luncheon with parents. Everyone is happy to have finished and having fun in these past few days which they have been given off after exams.

Emotions descend

2007-06-12T12:59:00.001+02:00

The thought of leaving finally hit me this morning. These next few days are going to be very hard.

Return

2007-06-09T17:41:00.001+02:00

Milja landed in Cape Town this morning, along with 1.9kg of Fazer chocolate, 1.2kg of liquorice (salmiakki), our The Office boxset, a new boxset of Band of Brothers and very few clothes. She left nearly all in Helsinki for next week.

Casper, technical whizz-kid

2007-06-08T19:29:00.000+02:00

Casper from Dan on Vimeo

You can also now follow Casper's antics on twitter! :)

The Ug-mobile

2007-06-07T22:45:00.001+02:00

Milja went to Lohja today and bought a car.

We had been hoping to buy one when we moved back to Helsinki to help get around and not depend on lifts from Raija or the use of Raija's car. I have been browsing Finnish used-car websites and we found a few that we liked the look of including an Opel Corsa, two Ford Ka's, a Peugeot 206 and a Citroen Saxo.

Milja and I both liked the look of the Ford Ka's. We chose the cheaper of the two and today Milja went to for to look at it and went for a test drive. I answered the phone this afternoon and it was Milja asking for my Finnish identity number, so I knew that she must have been in the process of buying it!

Raija and Milja drove it home and now it is sitting at Raija's house waiting for us to return. Milja loves it to bits. It is the perfect city car - small, nimble and cheap to run. I love its number plate "UGZ-803". It is from 1998 (two years after the ka was first launched) but still looking pretty.

Some quotes about the car...

"The suspension and steering settings allowed for spirited cornering and high levels of grip making it one of the best handling cars of the current generation superminis" WP

"...engine is near perfect for darting around the inner city.... A very practical and economical car with low emissions." New Car Reviews

Here are come photo taken from the car website (© Lehto-Media Oy)...

Now there's one more thing waiting for me in Finland that I can't wait to see, but this one I can drive!

End of Term

2007-06-07T21:57:00.001+02:00

This week I had my last lecture at CPUT. I have my exam still to do, which has been moved for me to next week, so I can take it before we leave. It has been a good experience studying here, even if it was just two mornings a week. Along with the online Java course I did and the Perl I learnt with Heikki, I have done more studying than I thought I was going to at the beginning of the year, and hopefully it will all count for something when I return to EVTEK.

Milja took her Uni of Helsinki entrance exam this morning. I think she felt it went well. She wrote lots and answered all the questions. Now she has the awful wait for the results, which will come out in July. She leaves Helsinki again tomorrow afternoon.

Back in Summer

2007-06-05T13:46:00.001+02:00

Milja is currently in Finland in order to take her entrance exam on Thursday. She arrived in Helsinki yesterday afternoon.

Apparently the weather is really summery and warm. Here, it is rainy, dull and rather quite windy. It is hard to picture sun and warmth.

Milja is enjoying being in Finland, seeing family and Helsinki again after over 10 months of being away. She managed to pack quite a lot of our stuff into her suitcase so we might just be able to take all the rest with us when we have weight allowance of two people next week.

Smoking jacket

2007-05-29T08:23:00.001+02:00

The jacket has a built-in pair of lungs on the front. As the wearer smokes, the lungs fill up with the exhaled cigarette smoke and begin to gradually darken over time.

Casper

2007-05-28T10:48:00.001+02:00

Here is the World's first look at Casper...

What a cutie.

And then there was one

2007-05-27T11:15:00.001+02:00

Yesterday, we adopted Casper from DARG. We have now had him and Checkerboard for over a month, and it was time for them to finally have their vaccinations (after battling with illnesses over the past weeks), meaning that they are ready for adoption. We now have to arrange things like rabies jabs, microchips, another vaccination and then a 3 month wait for a blood test before we can fly him up to Finland. We probably won't see him in Helsinki until September.

Checkerboard is leaving us today. She was picked for adoption a week or so ago and the lady will come and take her home this morning after the vaccinations happened yesterday. We will all be sad to see her and her poo-eating go, but we know she had to leave at some point, and the family she is going to seems nice.

In 10 days we have gone from a 3-puppy litter, to just one.

Prom

2007-05-27T10:49:00.001+02:00

Prom on Friday was amazing fun. Milja had been very ill during the week but was a bit better and had her hair done (after cancelling and rescheduling her appointments 2 times during the week!) in the afternoon and then it was the cocktail party at Charlottes with parents and some teachers. The school had made it that no alcohol was served at all during the evening, which made the idea of a cocktail party a bit of a joke, but Charlottes mum adapted and we had smoothies and soft drinks, along with a sushi bar (with chef) and nibbles. Everyone was dressed up and Jamie K had a kilt on, great fun.

The Prom itself, at the restaurant, was really good. The place was really well decorated (again by Charlotte's mum!) with red carpet outside and balloons, cards and chips everywhere (casino theme). All the Seniors (Milja's class) and Juniors (next class down) got a pack of cards with a photo of them all on the back of each card. The food was great and at 10pm we all headed upstairs to the bar, where there was dancing and poker and blackjack tables where we could play with fake money. That was fun, but everyone lost : ) Milja and I headed home early at about 11pm cos she still wasnt fully well again, but people stayed until 1.30ish i think, and most got to bed 4am.

All in all it was a perfect, dressed-up evening to signal the end of the year, and for all the guys who are leaving in the next months to have an amazing evening together.

It's time for Prom

2007-05-25T15:53:00.001+02:00

Tonight is the Prom for Milja's school. We are starting to get ready now and we are heading off to Charlotte's beforehand for a non-alcoholic cocktail party, thanks to the school. The actual Prom will be held at a very cool restaurant in Greenpoint, Stake, where we have visited before. Great place, quite intimate, with a stylish upstairs where we will party on down after the meal.

Milja has just been to the hairdressers and we have about an hour to put on our fancy gowns and suits ready for the evening.

Countdown

2007-05-17T19:14:00.001+02:00

We will be in Finland in a month. We a scheduled to land on June 17th late afternoon. We will have to start soon figuring out how to get all the stuff we have accumulated here back in the sam amount of space we came with. Thankfully Minna and co. will probably be flying to Helsinki in July and so we might be able to leave some things with them.

We only have 4 more Wednesday dinners left (Milja only has 3 because of her trip back to Finland in a few weeks time).

Vanilla

2007-05-17T19:00:00.001+02:00

We all miss you.

Sick as a puppy

2007-05-16T17:40:00.001+02:00

http://kapkaupunki.blogspot.com/2007/05/sweet-little-vanilla.html

Weekend streaming

2007-05-16T11:56:00.001+02:00

Saturday was a day that a lot of Finns had been preparing for and looking forward to - Eurovision! After winning the competition with style last year (with this song by Lordi) it was Finland's turn to host the competition.

We had planned to watch the online stream on both Thursday (semi-final) and the Final on the Saturday, although we had to settle for nothing on Thursday, and then just the Radio 2 coverage on Saturday. We were disappointed with the result and the quality of voting that plagued the scoring yet again, but it was still fun to hear it and experience it down here in Africa.

On Sunday Milja and I planned to watch the Ice Hockey World Championship Final between Finland and Canada online with our Canadian friends, the Lamontagnes (or "Fam Lam" for short). Fred bought the game and had a projector to display the game on a wall in their lounge. Unfortunately the game streams are protected by Windows-only DRM, and as our families have just Macs, we had a slight problem. Mid-way through the first period, Fred and I hurried to Dylan's to borrow his computer so we could watch the game. It was great fun watching with a projector and with supporters of the other team. In the end, and after a ballsy comeback from Finland late in the 3rd period, Canada won 4-2 (3-0, 0-0, 1-2) to become World Champions (again).

Busy, busy

2007-05-10T16:08:00.000+02:00

No posts for two weeks?

I have been online seldom in the past few weeks. Here's a short update...

Our first batch of five puppies were big enough to return to DARG at the weekend and are now boarding there. We went to visit them on Monday and already Belle had a home set up for her where she will move next Monday. We were all happy to see one of them move on to a home. Of course, as we left after dropping them up, we managed to pick up another litter, this time a group of four ten-day old puppies needing bottle feeding and help when nature calls. A lot of work. Minna hasn't slept much this week. We still have the second litter, the three small breed dogs, one of which we are keeping and taking with us to Finland (although he will arrive later than us as he has to be cleared for vaccinations and such).

I have been doing a lot of web development and have two new projects going, one of which I am hoping will be a success once we are back in Finland; the other being more of a side project.

Finland are doing OK in the Ice Hockey World Championships this year, and they play USA in the last quarter final in an hour's time. Hoping for a win, but not expecting one. They will play hosts Russia in the semi final if they go through, the only unbeaten team in the competition.

QPR finished their season at the weekend, finishing 18th (of 24). They managed to survive relegation again, and should look to improve the squad and hold on to the manager for consistency - something they haven't had much of in the past two seasons.

On the count down to Finland, we are now just 38 days away from landing in Helsinki. That's just 5 weeks.

Last night, Milja, Mila, one of her friends, and I went to see Hot Fuzz, which was amazing. Very, very funny but twisted in with action, suspence and horror, too. We've heard of people not finding it funny and it being a waste of two hours, but I think it will be one of the best films this year. We all really enjoyed it.

Vaccinations

2007-04-27T19:58:00.001+02:00

Yesterday Milja and I took the puppies back to DARG for their vaccinations. They were also all dewormed just in case. They behaved very well and only started crying when they needed the loo, which they did on the lawn back at home - they waited for about 30 minutes before relieving themselves - very disciplined.

While we were at DARG they mentioned that they had taken in a lot of puppies in the last few days and that we could take more if we wanted to. Today we went and collected three more puppies, these ones the same age as the others when we got them, but so much smaller. They are all white and one has black splodges, two females, one male. They are the cutest dogs and far smaller than the other 5 who have grown tremendously in the last 2 weeks. We still have the original puppies, but we won't be able to have them for too much longer - they are starting to eat solid food a lot more and so are eligible to be adopted by families.

Puppy photos

2007-04-25T12:46:00.001+02:00

Step out Hosted on Zooomr

Puppy love Hosted on Zooomr

One Tree Hill Hosted on Zooomr

Another one Hosted on Zooomr

Playful Hosted on Zooomr

Glory days Hosted on Zooomr

Rover Hosted on Zooomr

More photos here.

May the force

2007-04-25T12:35:00.001+02:00

Well, it's not quite May yet. But we have definitely had some April showers.

May the force Hosted on Zooomr

Taken during a huge downpour in the middle of last week.

We even had a thunderstorm on Monday night, which was a first for us here in Cape Town. Today, though, the sun is shining and I just went for a run with Megan.

Puppies going strong

2007-04-23T12:30:00.001+02:00

We have had the puppies now for 9 days, and they have definitely grown up. I am just going through some photos I took last week and they are much bigger nowadays. They don't get up as much in the night, and are eating food as well as drinking milk. I think they will leave us at the weekend, which will be sad, as we have got used to having them here. Hopefully we will get another 'batch' soon :) (We have a 5kg pot of milk powder arriving today, so I think we HAVE to have more someday soon!)

Namibia Road Trip: Day Seven

2007-04-23T12:27:00.001+02:00

Monday 9th April - 552km

We had a late start today, leaving the motel mid-morning. We wrote postcards, packed and played with the Motel's dog.

Today was filled, again, with a lot of driving. We drove for about 6 hours down through South Africa to Cape Town, and home. We were all exhausted, but we had had an amazing week, definitely recommended. A thick band of cloud awaited us as we approached the city reminding us that we were once back in more usual Autumn temperatures.

Namibia Road Trip: Day Six

2007-04-20T12:16:00.001+02:00

Sunday 8th April - 1044.6km

Today we had the earliest wake-up of all, leave before 4am. We had a whole lot of driving to do, and we were planning on reching the Namibi-South Africa border before we slept, and we were at the most Northerly place we had stayed. We drove back down the same road we had on Friday, this time South towards Aus. We were heading past Aus (literally past Klein Aus Vista) and Westwards towards the coastal town of Lüderitz.

About 10km before you reach Lüderitz, there is a tiny town called Kolmanskop. It was formed in the very early 1900s when a single diamond was discovered on the rail tracks, and since grew quickly into a small mining town. The town was deserted in the mid 1950s when the last families moved out. The miners had all moved further South as there were bigger diamonds and better opportunities there. Kolmanskop is now a ghost town.

I had been looking forward to visiting Kolmanskop the most out of anything we'd done on the trip. Ghost towns are really interesting - being able to walk around the place (nearly) as it was 50 years ago when everyone left. The place was great. There was a large town hall with a small bowling (or 'skittle') alley, a few dozen houses, the mine, an ice factory and a bakery. We walked around the hall and up to the bigger, two story houses which were on a rise behind the town. This is where the mine manger, the book keeper, and the more important residents lived. The houses were broken, full of sand and probably quite dangerous to be in! The 'Minenverwalter's (mine manager's) house had, we think, been recently renovated, as it was a lot less run down and had nice painted walls.

(See more in the set 'Kolmanskop Ghost Town')

We walked around for maybe an hour or so, and then got in the car and headed West to Lüderitz. It is a small, coastal town with a harbour and a population of near 13,000. We scouted round for a while trying to find somewhere to have lunch, but as it was Easter Sunday, we didn't have any luck. We got lunch from a supermarket instead.

On the drive back East towards Aus and beyond, we stopped and looked at wild horses. Their ancestors were once brought to the area by Germans when they rules the country, who had then escaped to the wild. The place we stopped at is the only source of water in the area for them, so we were guaranteed to see them. There were also oryx and ostriches there drinking.

Then started the long drive to the border. We drove for hours, this time taking a different route back. We drove along some dirt roads, through some towns, and then finally reached the Orange River, which runs along the border between the two countries before reaching the sea. We followed it East for what seemed like forever, and by dusk we reached the border crossing.

The officer there was called Heikki, can you believe. Finnish missionaries first came to Namibia in the 1870s, and the names, and even in some parts, the language, have been carried on to this day. He had given his daughters Finnish names.

We drove for another hours or so, back to the same motel we stayed at on the first night, but this time with freshly baked take-away pizza from town (Springbok). We slept well.

Namibia Road Trip: Day Five

2007-04-19T13:57:00.001+02:00

Today we had a mega early start. We were heading to the dunes at Sesriem so we were left at 5am in order to have visited the place before the sun had risen high enough to make the temperature unbearable. We were told at dinner the previous night that the gate opened at 6am, so to avoid the queues that gather, we left a whole hour before. I banged my knee badly on a step in the dark on the way out, which jarred the joint. Not so fun to sit huddled in the back of a Landrover on a bumpy gravel track!

The early rise worked out well, as we were the first car to reach the gate. Soon a queue of about 9 cars and a bus we behind us. While we waited for the gate to open at sunrise, we ate our breakfast - a box of goodies that the lodge made for us. At 6am, we were finally let in after about a half-hour wait, and we passed through the office to get a pass, then through a second gate, and then we were in. We drove for something like 20-30 minutes through the large expanse between dunes either side of us, and eventually reached Dune 45.

This is the most visited dune in Namibia, and it is possible to walk up it. Of course, we did. I was struggling with my now stiff right knee, but we all made it to the top, including India, who was carried by Milja and Heikki some of the way. Walking uphill is hard enough, but on sand, it is a lot more challenging. The views from the top were amazing. If you look on a satellite image of the area we were in, you can see that the sand seems to be brushed aside leaving a massive gap in the middle. Matias and I made it to the top first, and we sat and watched the sun rise higher over the dunes in the distance. Once everyone had arrived and had taken in the surroundings, we decided to head down the dunes, but not along the path. We headed down. We all scaled the steep side of the dune (which was difficult for me without being able to bend my leg properly), and had a lot of fun in the process. We were down the bottom by 7:30am.

Once de-sanded and back in the car, we continued driving West towards Sossusvlei, the area right at the end of the 'gap'. From there to the West coast, there is nothing but sand. We stopped, Heikki walked for a bit, Milja and I crammed in some reading, and then Matias and India had their turns at driving :)

On our way back to the lodge, we had a quick trip to another canyon, the Sesriem Canyon, this one a lot smaller than the Fish River Canyon we saw a few days previous. We saw some baboons running past on the other side, and had a quick peek down into the gorge.

Back at the lodge, we relaxed for the afternoon. We had some lunch, played cards and swam. At 3:45pm it was time for horse riding. I was looking forward to it this time, after riding properly for the first time two days ago. We had an amazing time on the Sunset Ride, speeding around on the very open, and massive, plains (which was actually quite scary!). At sunset we reached a spot where there was a table set up with drinks and finger food. By the time we were back on our horses to head home, it was dark, and we couldn't see much further than a few metres ahead all the way back. Apart from upwards. We could see the stars so clearly, and it was so beautiful. India fell aslep on her horse and was quickly transfered to Milja's horse with her to stop her from sliding off silently without us knowing. And as per usual, we were treated to another thunderstorm over the mountains ahead. We got back, had dinner and fell asleep early, as we had an even earlier start ahead on Sunday - we were heading home.

Namibia Road Trip: Day Four

2007-04-19T11:51:00.001+02:00

Friday 6th April - 336km

There was still no lie-in today either :) We had a hearty breakfast at the yummy buffet and then started packing the car for the journey. Another visitor came up to Heikki and pointed out that the rear left tyre had a puncture. Not too helpful on a road trip. A worker came and helped put the spare tyre on and we drove into Aus to the garage there to get the puntured tyre mended. Aus is a very small town - it looks like about 10 houses from the road. It's much more like a village than a town. Anyway after about 30 minutes the tyre was fixed and put back on and after buying a few drinks from the hotel down the road, we left Northwards.

We had quite a long drive, through long plains and we saw wildlife like springbok, zebras and ostriches. As we got more North we could start to see the red sand of the dunes that we were headed to. There is a long desert than runs along the West coast of the country, the Namib Desert and what we could see was the start of it. We eventually reached our next place of stay, the Desert Homestead and Horse Trails in the early afternoon.

It is another amazing place to stay, right in the middle of nowhere - no towns nearby, no other settlements, just a few other lodges a few kilometres away. We got our rooms, had some lunch and then relaxed, playing cards and swimming in the pool. By 5pm, when it was starting to get darker as the sun started to set behind a mountain, I decided to go running. Heikki also wanted to go walking and we both ventured up a path behind the lodge, along with Matias. The path, unbeknown to me, quickly turned up a hill (which completely knackered me out) and ended up at the top giving amazing views over the plain and the lodge below. I only had my small DV camera with me but Heikki, I'm sure, has some great photos from our high vantage point. There were storm clouds brewing over the mountains over the other side of the plain and a massive rainbow formed in front of them. It is the first ever full rainbow I've seen that I was able to pinpoint the start and the beginning of. A fantastic sight to see from such a high position.

The sunset grew into an overwhelming red glow. I managed to take a few photos after I had returned from the hill with the better camera. After dark, the whole family had a quick swim together and then got dressed ready for dinner. A lovely 3-course meal of pork followed and then it was back to our huts where Milja and I tried some more sociology reading.

Side note: We were planning on only staying at the Desert Homestead for one night (Friday), but we couldn't go riding on the horses as we had hoped on the Friday, so we booked them for the Saturday and the rooms for the extra night.

Puppies

2007-04-17T13:30:00.001+02:00

We had a call on Saturday morning from DARG sasking if we could foster five 5-week old puppies after we had left our details with them, saying that we are willing to do so.

Minna, Matias, Milja and India went to pick the little guys up and brought them back. Apparently they had been abandoned by their mum. They had flees and weren't too energetic. We had fun with them outside for a while, but they seemed to want to be inside together sleeping. They were treated for flees at DARG before we got them, so the flees were starting to drop off everywhere.

Looking after puppies is not hard. It is very tiring. The routine we are currently in with them is...

Sleep for 2-3 hours
Get up, wee, poo
Play
Eat
Wee, poo
Sleep fpr 2-3 hours
etc ...

With five of them running around it can get quite hectic.

We have named all the puppies, although, of course, the names probably won't stick forever as new owners will most likely want their own names. We have 3 girls and 2 boys, and in that mix we have a set of identical twins. We have Rover and Timmy (twin), and Bellle, Mozy (twin) and Tiger.

Minna has been attending to them pretty much constantly since we got them, feeding them when they are up and helping them get to the paper in time when they need to 'go'. I offered to sleep with them in the lounge and be awake with them in the night, and have done so for the last two nights. The lack of sleep caught up with me and I just woke up at 1pm after going back to sleep once people had gone to school and work. Minna has been up all this time with the puppies. Andrew, a family friend who is staying with us at the moment, has also been helping out - I wouldn't have survived yesterday on my own at home without him.

The puppies are a lot lot livelier than they were when they arrived 4 days ago. They are bigger, too. They wolf down food like there's no tomorrow, and we had to send Heikki rushing to get more milk powder for them yesterday after they finished their first box before we realised.

India loves playing with them, and Milja is attached, of course. I think we have the puppies for another week or so before we hand them back to DARG from where they will be adopted.

I have photos, but will wait until I have finally finished putting up the Namibia set before I publish them.

Fun with the car

2007-04-13T13:21:00.001+02:00

Today has been a bit crazy car-wise. This morning as I was just about to drive Milja to school, the car refused to start. It didn't even try - not even one of those nearly-shudder type noises. Just silence. Luckily Heikki was just leaving to work at the same time so he took her instead.

Minna phoned road side assistance and a guy came with a jump start kit and we managed to get the car running after three tries. I took it for a drive to Hout Bay with India to try and charge the battery, and Minna and I decided that I should take the car to a garage to see what the problem is. I took it to the Caltex in Hout Bay, and the guys there were sure they had to fill the battery up some more. They looked like they knew what they were doing - I certainly didn't have a clue - but it might have turned out that they ruined the battery.

I continued driving and went to the shop to get the food shopping. When I returned to the car with India and tried to start it, nothing. The same silent treatment. So I was stranded at Spar with India and four bags of shopping for about 40 minutes while we waited for the same guy to come and jump start the car again. He came and it just didn't work at all. Minna and Andrew showed up to pick up the shopping and they tried, but still nothing.

The guy suggested that I go back to the garage to ask what they had put in the battery. We drove there in his pick-up "bakkie" and asked the petrol attendant what he had put in and he swore that it was "battery water" but neither of us returned convinced.

Eventually Minna phoned a garage and one of the mechanics came and put in another battery and the car started immediately. We are getting a replacement battery on Monday and are loaning one over the weekend.

My guess is that the attendant at the garage didn't have a clue what he was doing and used something other to fill up the battery, which caused it to malfunction. In which case, it was down to me that the battery broke. Another option is that the battery is dead and just needed replacing. My third theory is that if I'd driven a bit longer then the battery might have recharged longer and been OK. We never will find out, I guess, but with a new battery coming on Monday, the car should perform fine for a while.

Getting somewhere

2007-04-12T15:10:00.001+02:00

That is my friend Ian's (trombone) band, Kid iD. They are getting quite big. Along with having this video, they have just released their first album, have been played on BBC Radio 2 by Mark Lamarr, had one of their songs used on a television advert, and have gigs coming out of their ears. Good luck guys, see on on MTV soon no doubt :)

Namibia Road Trip: Day Three

2007-04-12T11:22:00.001+02:00

Thursday 5th April - 445.6km

We were up early again. We had a few things planned for the day - visiting the Mesosaurus fossil park, the Giant's Playground and a Quiver tree forest. So we had a lovely buffet breakfast, which filled me up a treat, and got on our way.

First stop was a town called Keetmanshoop, where Minna and Heikki bought food for lunch and I developed some more photos for Milja's scrapbook. We then continued driving East towards our three destinations, and decided to go to the furthest one first, the fossil park, and work our way back through the others afterwards. What a good choice that was - the farm the fossils were on also had loads of quiver trees and the dolerite rock formations that formed the Giant's playground! Three birds with one stone (needless to say, we didn't bother with the others on the way back).

The fossil park, officially Mesosaurus Fossil Site & Quiver Tree Dolerite Park, has fossils in their found state and location (ie: "on-site"), which is a great way to view them. We were taken to a few different spots by the farm owner, to see the fossils still in the rock where they were discovered - there is a law meaning that he can't excavate them. The fossils are about 280 million years old, and one even had some bone from the animal. We also saw the grave of a German who died fighting the Namas in 1904 when the country was under German rule and known as "German South-West Africa".

After viewing the fossils, we taken along the track for another 2km to the farm's quiver trees. Milja and Matias rode on the back of the Landrover. The trees were everywhere and Heikki and I had a great time browsing around taking photos. The piles of dolerite looked fascinating just piled on top of eachother. The farm owner gave us a treat, too, by playing a tune with the rocks. Video below.

After driving back to the farmhouse on the back of the Landrover and having a chat with the owner, we left West again, back through Keetmanshoop and out the other side to a small town called Aus. It once had a prisoner of War camp during German reign of the country, and has a population of just 200 people. We were headed to Klein Aus Vista, a hotel a few kilometres out of town. The rooms are split into twos, grouped together like semidetached houses, and each room is like a mini house too. We rested, Milja and I did some reading for Milja's university sociology entrance exam, and after dark, went for dinner at the restaurant before falling asleep.

Namibia Road Trip: Day Two

2007-04-12T10:30:00.001+02:00

Wednesday 4th April - 410km

We awoke quite early on Wednesday in order to get through the Namibian border and on to our next place of stay. But first, we headed into town (Springbok) to get some breakfast and to fill up the tank. I also developed some photos for a scrapbook Milja made of our trip.

We got to the border at about 10:30am South African time, which is 9:30am Namibian time. We hid our electronic equipment as we were told before hand that we might have to pay the equivalent price of each item when we entered the country, although we would get it back as we left. The process was quite easy, first going through the different stages on the South African side, then driving a few hundred metres through a bit of a no-man's land to the Namibian offices, from where we were given clearance to proceed into the country. It was a lot hotter here than in Cape Town, the last place we had been outside during day time.

After a few hours of driving through Namibia and on the rocky, gravel roads, we reached the Cañon Roadhouse, an ex-farmhouse-turned-lodge in the middle of nowhere. We were about 20km from the Fish River Canyon, the second largest canyon in the world after the Grand Canyon in America.

The lodge is a very cool place, quite new and modern, and decoraterd with old signs and memorabilia.

We were quite hungry so we had lunch. It was very hot - mid 30s ° C. Luckily the lodge had a swimming pool! Minna had a rest in their room while the rest of us went out to cool down. Matias and I ended up doing 60+ lengths each after I challenged him, while Milja sunbathed.

We had booked a trip to another nearby place, the Cañon Lodge, to go horse riding. I had never been horse riding before, but Milja has been itching to go for a while, and India loves horses. The riding was fun; we followed the guide for about an hour in the lowering sun and returned tired but not as sore as I thought I would be!

[Waiting for photos from Heikki :)]

As the sun was setting, we were in a hurry - Heikki wanted to go and visit the canyon at sunset. The canyon was about 20km away from the Lodge, and unfortunately we didn't quite make it in time to see the sun set. As we arrived, there was just the vibrant red-yellow glow hanging above the horizon.

The canyon is massive. It was hard to comprehend just how big it was, as there wasn't anything to compare its size to, but it was definitely on the large side. We could see lightning coming down towards the North, over the canyon, in the midst of the pink clouds. Milja tried her hardest to capture the lightning on film, but it was infrequent enough to make that a tough challenge.

We headed back to the lodge and had an awesome meal. Milja ordered Oryx which we had never eaten before, and it was delicious - very tender - and definitely better tasting than my very regular-sounding rump steak :)

It was now dark and another thunderstorm was breaking out behind/over the mountain just a bit away from the lodge. We were again treated to an awesome display of sheet and fork lightning, and later on it came closer, although not over head, and we had a few spots of rain. Heikki managed to get a shot of some lightning...

[Waiting for photo from Heikki :)]

Namibia Road Trip: Day One

2007-04-11T09:52:00.001+02:00

Tuesday 3rd April - 586.9km

Our holiday started by leaving home in Hout Bay and driving to pick up Heikki from the University. We left from home at just after 2pm and so were fully on our way at about 3pm, driving North along N7 towards Namibia.

The drive wasn't too hard, just quite long for the first day. We slept, watched DVDs and read a bit to pass the time. Family friend, Tepo, had lent us his family's portable DVD player which turned out to be a valuable addition throughout the week.

We were treated to a beautiful, lingering sunset that seemed to last forever, and was followed by an amazing, and at some times, quite violent, thunderstorm above the mountains to the East. It was spitting out lightning at a rate of about 15 times per minute. Set to a background of Coldplay playing on the iPod, it was a beautiful end to the day.

We drove for about 6 hours in total and finally reached a small motel and caravan park just outside the town of Springbok, just over 100km South of the Namibian border. It was nothing special - a motel is a motel after all - but it did us well and we had a good night's sleep.

Photo: I was happy once

2007-04-10T12:43:00.001+02:00

I was happy once Hosted on Zooomr

Back in SA

2007-04-10T09:38:00.001+02:00

Hello :)

We arrived back in Cape Town yesterday evening from our week in Namibia. We had an amazing time, drove over 3,500 km and did so many things that it's going to be hard to write concise blog posts about our trip. I also have a ton of photos to get through and put online. Nevertheless, I will start writing up the week today and hopefully have something for you to read and see later on.

On hols

2007-04-02T17:42:00.001+02:00

We, as in the whole family, are off to Namibia tomorrow for a 6-day road-trip/holiday! Should be great fun.

Goodbye until Monday. We will return with stories and photos galore.

End of the road

2007-04-02T17:27:00.001+02:00

Sadly, this weekend was not such a good one for my sport teams, especially in Finland.

Espoo Blues (ice hockey) lost their third game in their Playoff Semi-final series against Kärpät. The series was over in the minimum 3 games (with scores 1-4, 2-3 and 2-3 (after pens)), and now Kärpät (first place in the league) will play Jokerit (second place in the league) in the Finals, so (maybe) it all worked out how it should have. The Blues play HPK in the Bronze game on Thursday

FC Honka (football) also lost in semi-finals. They were playing in the Liigacup, a warm-up competition for the league starting in a few weeks, against FC Inter. They lost 2-1.

And for QPR, a defeat this weekend was inevitable, playing promotion hopefuls West Brom.

Half way there

2007-04-02T17:13:00.001+02:00

Milja and Matias are now in their mid-term holiday. On Friday the school gave out the Third Quarter/Mid Semester report. Milja has been working extra hard this past semester, and her grades, thankfully, reflected her extra effort. She got straight As in her seven subjects, with a GPA of 3.96, which improved from 3.86 from last term. Hopefully, despite the extra work load from reading for her entrance exam in June, she can carry on with her high grades and finish the year ready for University.

I am also half-way through my studies and looking forward to going back and focusing on photography for the next two and a bit months before returning to Finland.

I love browsing for news and bits

2007-03-30T14:18:00.001+02:00

Some interesting things I found today...

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/article.html?in_article_id=43272&in_page_id=2

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4096586

http://www.vendian.org/envelope/dir2/day_of_dots_clock/

http://www.nopantsday.com/wp/about/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/broncovalerian/274872027/

And a cartoon to finish it off...

Games

2007-03-30T09:23:00.001+02:00

This morning I have found out about two interesting ideas for games.

The first is a game called LOST. It is an invite-only game, and the aim of the game is to gain points from inviting others before your timer runs out. You get a 30 day time period between each person who signs up from your invite link, and you lose the game if the timer runs out. So basically, the aim of the game is to make people follow your link and to sign up to the game. People do this on- and off-line, using photos, messages, links on blogs etc, some of which are very clever.

Currently I am 11,420th with 0 points :)

The second game I just found is called"The Game". It is a bit silly, but also fun if you have others 'playing' it too. The rules are simple...

Rule 1. You are playing The Game - This emphasises the fact that this is game is played continuously and that (players believe) once you start playing you can't stop.

Rule 2. Whenever you think about The Game, you lose - This emphasises how The Game is played and gives its objective: to forget that it exists. Some points about the specific wording of this rule (e.g. think about vs remember you are playing) are made here.

Rule 3. Loss of The Game must be announced - This emphasises the consequence of loss and is an important part of how The Game is spread.

Once you have heard about the game for the first time, you are playing. Unfortunately, that means you :) I am going to see if this takes off in our group of friends. (Hopefully some of them are reading this on Facebook).

Remember, don't think about it! (Darn, I lose).

Hey, big spender

2007-03-29T19:24:00.001+02:00

Anyone up for spending EUR8,000 on dinner? If you are, then check this out...

Dinner in the Sky

A unique event meant for anyone who wishes to transform an ordinary meal or meeting into a magical moment that will leave a lasting impression on their guests!

Dinner in the Sky takes place at a table suspended at a height of 50 metres by a team of professionals.

Feedback

2007-03-29T11:03:00.001+02:00

Yesterday I got my first marks for uni work at CPUT. I have completed a group presentation, a tutorial paper and two small writing/essay type exercises.

Presentation: 52/80 (group mark)
Tutorial: 78/85
Reflective piece: 15/20
Target Audience: 11/15

At the moment I am sitting on 83% overall, which would be much better without the low presentation mark, so that's annoying (I didn't do the presentation, I was one of the researchers). I have the end of semester test coming up in a few weeks, which will then determine my final semester grade.

Yesterday was the last lesson of this semester as it is test week next week, then holiday. That means I am half-way through my studies here! I will probably be taking the test two weeks late as we are going on holiday next week during the time I should be taking it.

Old Disneyland photos

2007-03-27T19:34:00.000+02:00

I just stumbled across this amazing set of photos taken around the time of the opening of Disneyland in 1955.

The set | Slideshow

Thembi

2007-03-27T12:09:00.001+02:00

IMG_1871_1 Hosted on Zooomr

The Blues

2007-03-26T14:01:00.001+02:00

A quick update on the Blues' route through the ice hockey playoffs in in Finland.

They came through the first round (quarterfinals) by 4 games to 1 (L2-3, W3-2, W7-1, W2-0) against Tappara and are now in the semi-finals! This is another best-of-7 round, this time against Kärpät, the team who topped the table at the end of regular season. The first game is on Wednesday. You can keep track of the results here.

Volunteer weekend

2007-03-26T13:45:00.000+02:00

On Saturday, AISCT hosted a fun day for the Baphumalele orphanage in Khayelitscha. I went with Milja to help out.

At 9am we helped set up. We had a braai going, an arts and craft area and sports set up on the field. The kids from the orphanage arrived at about half past ten, and ranged in age from 4 to 14 I think. When they first arrived they seemed a bit nervous and shy, but soon they were split into groups to start with some ice breakers and they livened up. After the ice breakers they rotated around the different activities and they seemed to be having a lot of fun. At about 1pm it was lunch time and we all ate burgers and hotdogs from the braai and crisps under the trees. After lunch they played more and then left at about 2-3ish.

Of course we had a camera along with us and we got a lot of photos, mostly cute ones of the orphans. It was a rewarding day and they all left smiling and waving.

More photos from the Baphumalele Fun Day

Yesterday, Milja and I went to DARG here in Hout Bay. It is a rescue centre mainly for dogs, but also for cats I think. Milja needs to complete her community service hours, and as she is a huge dog fan, DARG is the perfect place, and it is right down the road. The first thing we did was take all the dogs round the back out for walks. We took two or three at a time out to the field behind the offices and kennels and ran, walked, stroked etc for about 20 minutes a go. The sun was out and it was great to be doing some exercise and helping out at the same time.

After about an hour of walking we were offered the 'job' of playing with the puppies. We said yes, of course. We went to the new building, that, when it is finished will be an amazing addition to the place, and sat in one of the kennels with 3 boy puppies and their surrogate mum. I don't know what happened to their real mum, but this one was doing a great job. We stroked and played with the tiny pups for nearly an hour, and eventually they all settled down and slept. They seemed to like knawing on my belt buckle.

MeeLee

2007-03-26T12:49:00.001+02:00

MeeLee Hosted on Zooomr

Milja has picked up another nickname while she has been here.

Housesitting is easy

2007-03-26T11:36:00.001+02:00

I had a great time housesitting last week for Charlotte's family. I was there from Thursday morning at 8am until Friday until about 10pm, although they came back around 7pm. Looking after two teenage boys is not much of a challenge, so there wasn't much for me to do. I loved driving around Constantia in their Nissan Micra, the car that I learned to drive in - and a manual! Boy, I miss driving a manual :)

The only problem I had was that their electric fence seems to start alarming each evening so I had to phone Paul and get instructions on how to stop it. I ended up going out in the dark and rain to reset it. It worked, thank goodness.

Luckily I didn;t have uni on Thursday, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to do it, but it was fun... plus, I improved dramatically on NHL '07 on the XBox :P

Learning Finnish

2007-03-23T13:59:00.001+02:00

I have started a new blog. Not a replecement for this one, mind, but for Finnish language learners. From my new found thirst to improve my Finnish vocabulary, I have lists of new words written down, and I thought it would be worth it putting them online for other Finnish learners. I post new words when I encounter them and categorise them by letter and type (noun, adjective etc) making them easy to browse and search. Still, I think the best way to look at the content is to subscribe to the post feed so new words are sent directly to you.

The site is called 'Learn Finnish' (good, eh?) and is located at learnfinnish.wordpress.com

I am hoping that after a while I will have quite a comprehensive collection of words on the site. I have also, today, integrated Quizlet, the really good vocab learning resource, so that anyone using the site can test themselves on each week's words. Try out this week's word set here.

On the fly music sampling

2007-03-23T09:33:00.001+02:00

Check out this video...

Wii Loop Machine Demo on Vimeo

This guy has created a program (downloadable) that allows you to throw together loops and manipulate them real-time, all by using the remote for the new Nintendo Wii games console. The video pretty much explains it. Amazing.

Hiding in the vines

2007-03-22T11:17:00.001+02:00

Hiding in the vines Hosted on Zooomr

This is my favourite of my photos from last weekend.

Housesitting

2007-03-22T11:15:00.001+02:00

I am at Charlotte's house. I am housesitting and looking after her brothers until tomorrow evening while Charlotte and her parents are in Jo'burg overnight.

It is cold now. Milja and I both left the house this morning wearing jumpers. It is cloudy and rainy today, and I saw a rainbow this morning outside from Charlotte's lounge.

What if

2007-03-22T09:33:00.001+02:00

What if Hosted on Zooomr

Milja's Birthday Weekend

2007-03-21T10:10:00.000+02:00

Milja was 19 on Sunday and had planned a number of things to do as part of her birthday weekend.

Friday night we went to Jamie K's house for a small party/gathering. It was very relaxed and fun adn I ended up playing a silly little game with Jamie B for maybe an hour, trying to guess what the other person liked out of two options they gave.

On Saturday, Milja and I headed to Charlotte's house and then off out to lunch at a new restaurant for us, The Range, in Tokai. It was very sunny but also quite windy so we were cold, but it was a lovely restaurant on the edge of a vineyard. Lovely views to the vines and the mountains in the background. Mila joined us for lunch and we went back to Charlotte's for a bit. I played Xbox with her brothers while the girls, plus Hattie who'd arrived, sat outside in the sun. We also got bullied by Charlotte's aunt who was on a video call from Canada with Paul and Mary.

In the evening we drove out Spier, to go for dinner at the amazing restaurant there, Moyo. It is a great place to go and have some food. There is a huge buffet, with food being cooked in front of you, and it's in a huge tent with live music and African face painting. Outside the tent there are also tables in tree houses, although they were all booked up when we rang last week. The food was great, the music was wonderful and we had fun looking African with our face painting.

On Sunday, Milja's birthday, we went wine tasting with Charlotte and Hattie. We went to Anura, where we had been with Dad when he was here. We managed to taste 9 of the 14 wines they have, and we all picked out our favourites sitting in the sun and tanning nicely. As we were there for quite a long time, we decided to stay and have lunch at the Lily Pad restaurant nextdoor, rather than go to another wine estate. We had a delightful lunch in the garden under a tree. The waitress looked very disappointed when we didn't have wine with our meal :)

We then returned home and Milja opened some presents. We watched some Simpsons as a family and ate noodles before playing Scrabble all evening. It was a relaxing end to a lovely weekend.

I am in the process of putting photos online from the weekend. I have made a set here, and will add to it in the next few days with more when I put more photos up.

Invited to exams

2007-03-20T17:40:00.000+02:00

Yesterday, Milja received through the post a letter from the University of Helsinki inviting her to the entrance exams. This means that she is very welcome to go and study next year, and if she manages to get over 66% in the exam, she will get onto a course. It says in the letter that she might not get onto her chosen course even if she passes, although this will only mean that she gets put onto another, similar course (ie: something to do with sociology).

Now, Milja and Minna have to arrange flights for Milja to get to Helsinki. The exam is, unfortunately, in the week before we return to Finland from South Africa, so Milja will be travelling a lot in the first two weeks of June. There is the option of Milja staying in Finland after the exam and waiting for me to fly back the next week, but then she will miss her graduation and the last week with her 'crew' over here. It is more likely that she will make the trip to Helsinki twice.

We are all really happy over here, and hoping that Milja will get in. She has two long-ish books to read up on for the exam which will be difficult to do alongside her regular school work, but she is very determined and should fair fine.

Cape Argus Cycle Race photos

2007-03-20T09:51:00.001+02:00

Zooomr have been upgrading in the past week so I have only just been able to upload my photos from last Sunday from the cycle race. I have put them in a SmartSet here.

Here is the best photo of Charlotte's Dad, Paul, I got. He suddenly appeared and I didn't have time to get a good shot :)

On his way Hosted on Zooomr

By the moon

2007-03-20T09:42:00.001+02:00

By the moon Hosted on Zooomr

Uni work

2007-03-15T12:01:00.001+02:00

This morning I handed in my first big piece of work since I left EVTEK for a year last April. It felt good getting down and working hard in order to get something done for a target date. The Java course I did for 3 months at the end of last year was similar but as it was teach-yourself, there was no real pressure to work. The assignment was a 100-mark question paper about Multimedia and different aspects of it, including one question/task to create a suitable Multimedia work station with a budget of R20,000 (about £1,600), which was really fun.

In the lesson we had today we started our Photography module, 3 weeks early. It's going to be great to go into to class to do photography :) We were also given an assignment to take photos documenting the 26 letters of the alphabet using shapes, buildings etc. Should be great. I don't have to go in to uni next week because Wednesday is a Public Holiday and for Thursday I arranged with my teacher that, as all we will be doing is taking photos, I can stay here and do it in Hout Bay. I will post some of the photos online when I've done the task.

End of the season and a climb up the World table

2007-03-14T16:34:00.000+02:00

It has come to the end of regular season in both Salibandy and Ice Hockey in Finland.

Espoo Blues, my (very) local ice hockey team played their best season since I I first saw them play (3 seasons ago) They finished 5th, winning their last game 5-1, and automatically qualified for the playoffs for the first time ever (I think). They face the team who finished above them, Tappara, when the playoffs start tomorrow.

In salibandy, Janne's team, HIFK, won their last 5 games (after failing to win in the previous 11!) to come within one point of the playoffs. Shame they didn't make it, but that bad streak really hurt their playoff chances. Janne played well in the last game, scoring once and assisting once in the last game. He had said a few weeks ago that he would dedicate his next goal to me, so that one was mine :D He finished on 7 points (3 goals, 4 assists) in 23 games. Well in.

FC Honka (football) are mid-pre-season and doing well in the Liiga Cup, a warm-up (literally!) competition before the season starts. Their first league game is April 22nd and we will arrive back in Finland at precisely half-way through their season :)

In other Finnish football news, the National side has climbed 15 places (the biggest climb in the top 50) in the latest FIFA World Rankings and are now 33rd, the highest the country has ever been before! Looks like Roy Hodgson has done a lot in helping the side improve.

Tea Bags in Finnish

2007-03-13T14:48:00.001+02:00

I have chosen the Finnish book I will read and learn words with. It is called "Nimelt Tea Bag" ("By the name of Tea Bag") and it is by Henning Mankell, a Swedish author and playwrite. The book was originally written in Swedish. There is no English translation as of yet, so I won't be able to check if I'm doing alright unless I ask a Finn :)

Fork

2007-03-12T14:42:00.001+02:00

On Friday evening, Milja, Hattie, Charlotte and I went into Cape Town to try out a new restaurant called Fork. We go out for meals all the time and we have semi created an eating club, meaning we try to go to different restaurants each time we eat.

Charlotte and Hattie booked us a table at a small little restaurant on Long Street. We only managed to get a table because Charlotte told them we were there to try out the food and location for the school's Prom in May. The venue was chosen a while ago, so this was in fact a lie :)

Fork is a tapas restaurant which serves purely tapas and desserts. Having tapas is a great way to eat as you can get a near continuous stream of food to your table throughout the night without feeling full at all, and it allows for free-flowing conversation as you are never stuck with a whole plate to eat to stop chit-chat. The only down side is that it can get slightly more pricey than having a usual one or two course meal, as each plate (which contained four pieces at Fork) costs R30 or R45. Luckily Charlotte's Mum, who is on the Prom Committee, gave us some extra money in order to help pay as it was her idea to go.

The food was delicious and it was great to be able to order a wide variety of dishes. I would love to go again to try out the dishes that we didn't try this time around.

At Fork Hosted on Zooomr

New Finnish words

2007-03-12T11:09:00.000+02:00

I have decided to brush up on my Finnish, learn some new words and basically prepare myself for a return to Finland in June. I am planning to use Finnish a lot more than I have before, as I tended to rely on English to get by.

I found a website called Quizlet a while ago which helps you to learn stuff. You can put in terms and definitions and it gives you different ways of learning, using games, timed exercises etc.

My idea is to try and read one of Minna and Heikki's Finnish books (recently put into the new shelving we have in the dining room) and learn the new vocab the book spits at me.

Here is an example of some new words I just found browsing through the dictionary. See how well you do! I finished in 23 seconds.

The Cape Argus bike race

2007-03-12T10:55:00.001+02:00

Yesterday was the 30th annual Cape Argus bike race around the Cape. It is a 109km race that leaves Cape Town, heads South to Cape Point, then turns North again, passing through Hout Bay, and finishing back in Cape Town. Charlotte's Dad, Paul, and Hattie's Dad, Kevin, both took part. The race is the biggest timed cycle race in the world - there were over 30,000 participants this year, including former football star Lucas Radebe, former rugby star Francois Pienaar, and past Tour de France winners, Greg LeMond and Jan Ullrich.

The race heads through Hout Bay coming off Chapman's Peak Drive and up the steep hill, called Suikerbossie, towards Llandudno. Suikerbossie is known as the best place to watch the race because everyone slows down as they attempt to cycle up the steepest hill on the race after already riding for 90 kilometres. Luckily for us, the road is only about 100 metres away from our house and it was possible to see the riders from our drive. Hattie and Charlotte came over in the morning to watch their Dad's whizz past. We saw Paul, but Hattie's Dad came through after we left watching.

The winner finished in 2 hours 32 minutes - Paul finished in 3 hours 50 minutes, and Kevin finished in just over 6 hours. Creditable results! I wonder how I would have faired doing the race. I could not imagine riding from Cape Town to Cape Point, let alone all the way back. I just checked, and it is about the same distance between Helsinki and H (where Raija's summer cottage is). That is crazy.

Ostrich Air

2007-03-12T09:58:00.001+02:00

On Thursday last week, Milja and I went to AISCT to watch the latest school play, Ostrich Air. The play is set in an airport terminal, and then in an aeroplane, with the action going on around you as the audience are passengers too.

It was quite a bold play to put on because of the unpredictablity of the audience. We had people trying to get other passengers to take drugs onto the plane, security guards wrongly accusing passengers and some double dating going on. We had to check in and then board and we all found our seats on the plane.

It was the first night they had done the play with an audience and unfortunately it showed. The play was a bit scrappy and stilted and there were some technical problems. Even still, the play was funny and it was interesting and fun being in between all the action. Apparently the next night, when Heikki, Matias and Sinekaya, went a lot smoother.

View photos here.

Glass Harp

2007-03-12T09:43:00.001+02:00

Amazing glass-playing.

Glass Harp on Vimeo

Weather

2007-03-09T14:53:00.001+02:00

The weather has been getting gradualy less Summer-y recently, with lower tempertaures and more cloudy days. When Mum and the girls were over we had a week with rain and cloud but then it got better again. Last weekend was awful with near-constant rain and no sun at all.

This week, however, is has got back to 30 degrees, today being 36 degrees in some places. I heard on the radio yesterday someone saying that we're not in a heat wave, but we are experiencing warmer weather than usual in March. Even though, it is now much colder in the evenings, especially inside.

It's time for the prom

2007-03-09T12:45:00.001+02:00

AISCT is having a Senior Prom in May. They are still in the planning stages, and I was asked on Wednesday to design the tickets, and yesterday to design the invitations. I have been busy the past two days creating a draft of the tickets, which has come out quite well in my opinion. I have sent it to Charlotte who is on the planning committee to see what she says. I will await further instructions and comments on the draft before I start on the invitations.

Haircut

2007-03-08T11:47:00.001+02:00

I got a quick trim on Monday while I waited for Milja and Matias to finish school. I went for a lovely lunch at this really cool new-ish cafe in Constantia Village (been there the last three days running, in fact) and then went to the barbers.

As always, I came out with a lot less hair than I wanted and I look a bit stupid in my opinion :) It's a bit like an army crewcut, except more grown out - shorter around the sides but longer on top. Hmmm, I'll just have to wait until it grows out or shave my head, which can be an answer to any hair problems :)

Cape Town Flash Mob Pillow Fight

2007-03-06T10:00:00.000+02:00

On Saturday, Charlotte told us about a Flash Mob (more here) event happening in the middle of The Waterfront shopping centre in Cape Town. We quickly arranged to go and watch. The event, a random pillow fight, which would end after about a minute when everyone would lie down on the floor with their pillows, was arranged completely on Facebook.

It was a horrible day, lots of rain and cloud - very English. On the way to town, we picked up Hattie, Ryana, Roxi, Pri, Charlotte and Mila (yes, all girls!). We got to the Waterfront at just before 12pm, a few minutes before the event was supposed to start, at 12:07pm. We could see loads of people huddling away from the rain with their pillows under their shirts or in plastic bags. We found a vantage point above the area where it was supposed to kick off and were ready with our cameras rolling by 12:05.

Right on time people started running towards eachother with pillows drawn, but unfortunately for us, everyone gathered in an area blocked mostly by trees from where we were standing. We could still see it happening, though, and it was hilarious when everyone suddenly stopped to lay down. Brilliant. Straight away they got up and then dispersed, leaving passers-by confused and wondering what on earth was going on.

About 150 people were guessed to have turned up to fight, which was good considering that it was the first Cape Town Flash Mob event. The Sunday paper had a story about the fight, with even a small bit on the front page!

More photos here if you're signed in to Facebook.

Both Milja and I shot video, but Milja's turned out better.

Cape Town Flash-Mob Pillow Fight on Vimeo

There is also a good close-up video on YouTube here.

It was good to see so many people out in the rain, and the next event is going to be so much better. Hundreds of new members have joined the group on Facebook, which shouolld mean that more people will partake at the next one.

Guy from Green Wing

2007-03-06T07:48:00.001+02:00

If anyone has seen the brilliant Channel 4 sitcom, Green Wing, then you will hopefully see the resembelance between Charlotte's brother Patrick and Guy Secretan from the show.

Guy from Green Wing on Vimeo

Gone blue

2007-03-02T08:22:00.001+02:00

I just quickly changed the colour of links on parawars, and now it looks a lot more relaxed and blue. I did like the previous red, but I'll try this blue out and see how it goes.

I also added my latest videos to the right menu towards the bottom.

If you have time, check this photo out. Scary!

Interesting (and slightly strange) news from Asia

2007-03-01T17:05:00.001+02:00

You have to read this... It is one of the weirdest articles I have ever read.

http://news.asiaone.com/a1news/20070228_story20_1.html

At the Waterfront

2007-03-01T14:04:00.001+02:00

Yesterday was Ryana's birthday. She had arranged that a gang of us go to a lovely restaurant where there was live African music just by the Clock Tower at the Waterfront in town.

Milja and I picked up Pri, Hattie and Charlotte on our way to the Waterfront earlier than everyone else so we could get some dinner. We had fun walking around for a bit and taking photos before dusk came, and then we went upstairs to the balcony for drinks and food. We were there for a while before we were moved inside to a larger table so that when everyone else arrived there would be more room.

I took the opportunity of being at the Waterfront at dusk to take photos while the sun set and it got dark. I came home with some decent-enough shots...

I also shot some videos, but I'll have to wait until later before I edit them and put them online. I am becoming a bit of a video freak, too, now.

Our food was tasty and as more people arrived, we waited for Ryana to turn up. She did eventually, but we only stayed about an hour after wards and we headed home. We had some more fun with the cameras in the lifts and in the car park and we dropped off the girls on our way back to Hout Bay.

Helsinki model

2007-03-01T13:27:00.001+02:00

I came across a young photographer based in Helsinki on Flickr recently. His name is Samuli Ikäheimo, and he has even had his photos in national newspapers. Crazy stuff.

This photo is another example of tilt/shift, making the objects in a photo seem like they are tiny little models. The photo is taken from Kamppi, the new bus station.

Little sister

2007-02-28T16:51:00.000+02:00

IMG_1372_1 Hosted on Zooomr

(Btw, this is the 300th post on parawars!)

The best summer

2007-02-28T13:04:00.001+02:00

I cannot wait for this Summer. I think it will be the best one ever.

We are in South Africa until June 16th, when we leave in the evening to Helsinki, via London. We then spend nearly four weeks in Helsinki, seeing family and friends we haven't seen for a year, getting back into the flat and hopefully buying our first car and a new camera :) Our Canadian friend from here, Charlotte arrives in late June and stays with us for two weeks.

We then all leave to Amsterdam on July 9th for four nights and nearly five full days of fun, where Annie will be joining us. Charlotte's mum has paid for our accommodation our two Mum's have paid for our flights (thanks to all!).

Milja, Annie and I will then fly to England while Charlotte heads back to the American continent, where we will be floating around, visiting London, Cambridge etc, and seeing school friends (some who will have finished uni, scary!) and finally celebrating my 21st birthday. We will also look at buying a new computer while we are over. We fly back to Helsinki on 6th August.

We then have about four weeks to settle back in the Finnish swing of things before university starts for me in very late August and for Milja, too, if she squeezes herself onto the course she's applied to. If not, then she can be like I was for almost eight months, a bum :D

Art project

2007-02-28T12:47:00.001+02:00

IMG_1478_1 Hosted on Zooomr

Yesterday I was painted on for Milja's art project. She is doing Life's Journey I think, and it is coming out quite well so far. I am always impressed with the quality that she produces and I hope that she can continue to be arty when she finishes school in the Summer and goes to Uni (maybe not this year) to do a Social-based subject.

Old Helsinki

2007-02-27T09:11:00.001+02:00

While Minna was in Finland last month, she bought a book of photos from the very early 1900s taken by Signe Brander. It is a great book, and I can even recognise places in the photos, even though it was 100 years ago.

Flicking through the book I found this very funny photo. I showed it to Minna, who laughed but said that she hadn't realised as it is normal to have the Swedish and Finnish together on signs.

Bad Sauna Hosted on Zooomr

Here are some more photo from the book...

Old Helsinki 2 Hosted on Zooomr

Old Helsinki 1 Hosted on Zooomr

International Day

2007-02-26T09:58:00.001+02:00

Saturday was International Day at AISCT. We were at last year's event too - we were over here on holiday when it was on. Milja had signed up, along with most of her class, to help with set-up and some of the games during the day, meaning she could collect some of her mandatory 20 hours of community service.

We spent a total of about seven hours there in the hot sun. We both were a little burnt by the time we left. It was a great day though. We helped with the ball throw and the bowling, and one of the bouncy castles, which was abandoned quite early on because it was too hot for little feet to jump on.

There were baskets to bid on, made up of products and items from different countries. Minna and Matias were bidding right up until the last second, trying to win two of the baskets, which indeed they did buy. They won the Vietnamese basket and one of the African ones.

Milja has now completed almost half of her community service and will volunteer at nearby DARG, a dog rescue centre, to complete the rest. She will not graduate without first finishing her 20 hours work.

Sand dune jumping

2007-02-22T20:17:00.001+02:00

Sand dune jumping 2 on Vimeo

[Blogged with Flock]

Amsterdam

2007-02-22T14:58:00.001+02:00

Last night, after Peddlars, Milja and I (and Sean who was with us and had to stay until we left) went to Charlotte's to arrange and book flights for our trip to Amsterdam in July.

We booked them using STA Travel, and managed to get reasonable prices. Charlotte is arriving in Helsinki in the evening of June 26th, and then us three will all fly on the same flight
to Amsterdam on July 9th, where will be stay for 4 nights. Charlotte's mum very kindly offered to pay for the hotel because we are putting Charlotte up for 2 weeks in Helsinki.

Charlotte is flying into Amsterdam with her family on June 26th, and then coming to us in Helsinki, while her family will carry on to America - she got a return ticket AMS-HEL. It took us a while to figure out which flights matched and which didn't and when to fly etc. We managed to leave before 10pm, about 2 hours after we started planning.

Now we need to book flights from Amsteram to Stansted (9th July), and then from Stansted to Helsinki (early August). Our Summer is shaping up!

[Blogged with Flock]

If it was up to me

2007-02-22T11:11:00.001+02:00

If it was up to me Hosted on Zooomr

Digital Fortress

2007-02-22T11:03:00.001+02:00

I have just started this book, an older one by Dan Brown. I'm really enjoying it so far - it is based around a computer security algorithm that has to be stopped from being released worldwide, of course entwined with the mystery and adventure that is present in Dan Brown's novels.

Recommended if you enjoy Dan Brown and computers. (I'm not going to see Milja read it any time soon!)

Blogged with Flock

Sickness

2007-02-22T09:00:00.001+02:00

There seems to be a small round of illnes going round the family. Yesterday Heikki stayed home ill with a cold, and I had a minor sore throat. When I woke up today it had become much more raw and Milja told me to stay home. Minna is also home today with a cold, and Matias almost stayed home because his temperature was 38° C this morning, although it went down before he left for school.

[Blogged with Flock]

How many of me

2007-02-20T15:11:00.000+02:00

I found this site today, which is quite fun - see how many people there are with your name (only USA at the moment).

howmanyofme.com

HowManyOfMe.com

There are:
26
people with my name
in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

You asked for half a cup

2007-02-20T09:18:00.000+02:00

You asked for half a cup Hosted on Zooomr

Weekend

2007-02-19T13:09:00.000+02:00

The past weekend was very quiet. Family was gone, and we even had the house to ourselves for most of Saturday and some of Sunday.

Yesterday was Sean's birthday. He celebrated it on Saturday. We went round briefly during the day where he was haning out with Jamie B. We left at lunchtime to get some Primi takeaway. We went home, Milja slept for a few hours, I read and then we went back for his party. It was fun and we met some of Sean's friends from Johannesburg. We left before midnight because we were knackered.

Yesterday we didn't do much at all. We watched The Simpsons for a while in the morning, sunbathed, had a lovely quiche for lunch, and then Minna, Heikki and the kids came back from their trip. I slept most of the afternoon on and off, and Milja did some school work.

We were planning on going to the movies in the evening as usual, but in the end we decided against it and stayed in and watched a Green Wing before falling asleep.

No EVTEK

2007-02-16T21:21:00.000+02:00

In the end, after all the problems I had about study status in the Autumn, I will not in fact return to study at EVTEK in the summer.

:)

This is because EVTEK has merged (or will, this month) with another institute, Stadia, to form 'Metropolia', which is where I will return to to continue my studies.

Read more (in Finnish).

I passed Java

2007-02-16T14:01:00.000+02:00

I just receievd my Assessment 2 results for my online Java course that I finished last month. I passed! :D

I didn't get as much as my 82% mark in the first assessment, but I did manage to pull out an "excellent Helicopter program" for one of the questions.