Dili Days Decrease

I had a couple of drafts posts that I only published now, so here we go. I was hoping to put some pictures there, but since I haven’t been carrying the camera with me, that doesn’t work.

I thought I would have had time to organise photographs, write long stories, email friends etc., but it looks like I’ve managed to construct an unsolvable equation (again). I’m furnishing my flat, attending two PhD classes and trying to finalise a conference paper, on top of which I’m anxious to take some classes in Latin and ancient history as well. It would help if I could wake up earlier on Mornings, but I like sleeping far too much…

Posted by Janne at 15:17 | Permalink | Comments

A whole week already passed in Finland! As anticipated, my furniture arrived this morning. Now I could invite other people and offer them a seat.

The weather has improved as the temperature is approaching zero (from the negative side). It has also been very sunny, so this is what people here call an excellent skiing weather. Yet, I think I won’t try such extremes now.

I was very pleased and slightly surprised to note that there is fairly decent sushi available in a new shopping mall built above the bus station, very near to the Department of Economics. They had a Japanese chef who nevertheless speaks quite fluent Finnish.

Finnish spoken with foreign accent in large scale is something that has definitely changed recently. In three years I was away, Helsinki has really become a much more colourful, multiethnic city. It’s no more only the expat Estonians and occasional Mormons who would attempt to twist their tongues to pronounce the beautiful Finnish diphthongs in accordance with the 15 grammatical cases, but everywhere I go there are people of all colours behind the service desks speaking very fluent Finnish with an exotic accent. This, in a way, makes me feel more easily home here, I think, after the ‘global village’ that Dili is without a doubt.

Posted by Janne at 15:26 | Permalink | Comments

My flat is rather empty at the moment, since my shipment from Dili won't arrive until some time, and there are also many items still waiting to be bought. I had some simple chair stored in the attic, but the locks had been recently changed. Hence, I needed to get the new keys. One may think that would be solved rather easily, if one didn’t know how the house management and maintenance of apartment buildings is organised here: both of these tasks have been outsourced – to different companies, of course.

So, I had received a letter from the house management company that the new keys can be obtained from the maintenance company. So far so good, I called the maintenance company, who confirmed that they have keys and I can come and get one from their office. Now, here comes the interesting part: the office is located in the other side of the city, and they have introduced special ‘service time’ for the house residents. This service time, which they claim on the house notice board is introduced to provide better service, is one hour once a week. Luckily this hour happened to be on Mondays, so I got the key, and chairs, yesterday.

I also wanted some more comfortable seating and bought a sofa and armchairs today. The furniture shop is located approximately 200 meters from my house, so guess how long it’ll take to deliver the couch? Yes, three days (‘only’, according to the salesman, so it should be with me on Friday); this again thanks to an optimised, efficient logistics system.

Yesterday, I started my first course for long time. It was actually quite a pleasant feeling sitting at the lecture again. I thought I would start disciplined, and arrived to the classroom two minutes before the scheduled starting time. Too bad my time was three minutes behind the one in the lecturer’s watch, so she had already started.

On Sunday, when I was waiting for a bus at the stop, I heard an elderly lady telling a horror story that had greatly disturbed her. She complained that in past six months, the bus had arrived to the stop two minutes before the indicative time presented in the timetable thrice, whereby she had missed the bus and had to wait another 10 minutes for the next one! She went on telling that first two times she had let it go, but after the third time she had called the bus company and complained.

So what is the moral of these incidents? It takes quite some time for simple things to happen, but then they will happen at the exact moment according to a schedule. I’m not quite sure whether I like this feature or not. Or whether it is a feature at all.

Posted by Janne at 10:35 | Permalink | Comments

Now I've been in Helsinki for one whole day. The temperature here is not for humans. I woke up really early today (time difference?), at 6 o'clock, and the thermometre was showing -20°C outside. Here's a picture taken this morning from my bedroom window - note the white substance covering the ground.

Other than temperature shocks, I experienced one in Alepa grocery store: following the previous customer, I figured out that I am supposed to put the goods from the basket to the chain myself. Yet, I didn't realise that I should have purchased a plastic bag and stood stupid at the end of the chain waiting in vain that somebody would pack the things for me.

Posted by Janne at 12:15 | Permalink | Comments

I'm now on my way to Finland. Still in the moderate climate in Bangkok (though the airport is quite aggressively airconed), I'm slightly worried about the weather report, which indicates temperature 10 degrees below zero in Helsinki. I was under the impression it should be spring now, but maybe I've been away too long and have lost the idea about these things.

Otherwise, I haven't been able to much prepare for the return lately, as the usual backlog at work had to be finished, which practically took all my time past week. However, I did manage to make a hectic souvenir run yesterday at lunch break; I've had more than three years to by whatever Timorese artifacts I would have liked, but not surprisingly, I had left most of it to last moment. Of course I'll have a second chance when I go back to Dili for short visit in a month.

Posted by Janne at 16:06 | Permalink | Comments