St. Goar am Rhein, Germany

I was wisiting in St. Goar, which is extremely small city. Small and cosy, Actually I would not (to be honest) even call that as city. Maybe it is just a small village (not even a town), but in that sense very cosy, friendly and nice. Fast train going down to The Rhein (river in Germany) and every here and there are small villages almost next to each others. About couple thousand to even much much smaller. Lots of cultural heritage and different condition castles in the hills. Nice view.

After you step out from the fast train following the Rhein, you step to totally stopped world. Everything looks like stopped. First you are not even sure, if the whole village has been closed for some reason. Then, after corner, you can verify real people...then next one... someone has bought things from shop, someone is carrying beer to the local restaurant. You enter to their rhythm and living and find that more relax than your own one. You can see long boats going up and down to the river and while watching those, take a beer or two. That is very important learning while hectic life... you can time to time take a pitstop :-)

Rotten Finnish Political Elite!

For some reason I have lost faith to Finnish celebrities and our political elite (if we have celebrities or elite). In that sense we have Kimi Räikkönen, the formula driver, who was having shit while Michael got trophy. He said that in the live TV!!! Oh My God!!! Sooooo what? Is is surprise that he needs to visit toilet? He cannot say it because of...? Why? Why it is big deal to anyone? Can anyone of you avoid shitting? No.... so it is natural thing.

In Finland, we have cultural minister, the ex Miss Finland. That is so terrible, that she cannot do her job, because everyone is trying to found something to complain. She has now husband, who said in some magazine, that he would like to punch some other guy... the other guy was not rising the issue, but what did finnish female political elite!!! Each of those "fine ladies" went to evening news and tabloids to tell their own opinion how rude it was. So... what kind of pathetic fishing of public opinion. At least Olli was honest, as well as Mr. Heinäluoma was also smiling to that... but our excellent political persons were there to comment immediately. At the same time other celebrity of Finland, Tiina Jylhä, published her book full of sex and drugs, but that is ok... Playing with drugs is ok, because of....? I dont get that? So, why we dont go to public to blame her from something.... In that sense... it is more suitable having drugs, but not visiting in toilet and tell that, like Kimi Räikkönen?

By the way, Finnish magazines are most rude to Kimi and I dont understand why? He is not any kind of messanger of Finland... he is driver, now driving with Ferrari, not driving for Finland, so why making it so big deal?

Le Cedre du Liban, Brussels, Belgium

Le Cedre du Liban...or course. I was arriving from Paris via train to Belgium. Brussels was not totally new city to me, so I was here last about two years ago, visiting then in the centrum and I saw during that time also manneken piss.... so the small pissing boy. In that sense this time the visit was pretty different: I woked up in Paris at 06:30 AM and managed to go to Gare du Nord via subway, then jumping to Thalys (train company) and using very very confortable and nice train to from Paris to Brussels. Price for that was 75 EUR. The train tool approximately 1.5 hours to go to the Gare du Midi, Brussels... well.... in that sense when I arrived, of course I was very hungry. Then, walking here and there (and you can quess what kind of atmosphere there is near railwaystations), I managed to found all kind of places, but nothing where to eat. Then, after walking like 10-15 minutes, I saw sign, that there are Lebanon restaurant... well.... I checked in and it was pretty full and persons were eating.... so in that sense pretty safe.

I ordered some kind of plate of ....something.... I thought that if it looks suspicious, then I dont probably need to eat it anyway.... Restaurant was full of the people from restaurant homebase, so in that sense I might be pretty exotic person visiting there.... at least several persons where pretty much looking at the table I was sitting... but I need to admit, that food was excellent and I was very full afterwards... and the service was excellent as well, so who knows.... maybe that will be my visiting place every time I go to the Brussels :-)

Finally, Paris

After travelling in work and leisure trips all over the globe, I have managed to visit in US, UK, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Poland, Cyprus, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Estonia, Slovakia, China (HongKong, Shanghai, Xian, Guangzhou, Beijing, Fuzhou), Taiwan, Singapore and several other places, but funny part is, that I haven't never ever visit in France. Later on, I have thought, that actually why I haven't ever visit in France before, even several times it has been pretty close, but I cannot figure out.

This time the notice was short, so I managed to get fly ticket (Finnair of course) and I have read about Paris and Charles De Gaulle airport, but still I didn't know what to notice. When the plain eventually arrived to CDG, I was a little bit surprised. The airport was small.... or consists several small parts and it looked like 1970's airports, like Heathrow in UK.... so little bit "oldish", but ok otherwise. Then I took my luggages and went to taxi pole. There was some 20 meter queue and the first 10 meters was a already upset and pulse was near 300 (heartbeat), because taxi queue didnt get any shorter (lack of taxis).... Merde and other interesting, easy understandble words was thrown to the air. For some reason I started to smile.... somehow it was meeting my expectations from France.

The other point was in beginning of taxi trip. I said to French driver, that my address is "Rue de Bercy" with Finnish-English dialect.... He didnt probably got it and asked something like "arrdpöösi" and I said that "no no, rue de bercy" and this we continued several times, when I saw the paper and pen in the console and asked him to give those to me. After I got those, I wroted that "Rue de Bercy" and I saw it to taxi driver.... He was so happy rising hands (scary in French traffic) and saying Qui Qui, arrdpöösi... so, eventually we had same address but totally different pronancement. Of course he speaks French in own country, but for me, this was interesting possibility to check the odd language (maybe thay think same about Finnish, and I cannot blame them).

Well.... Paris is city of love, At near evening, about 19:00 I was walking to see Eiffel tower and I was walking to take this picture near river side, when I was in the park bench sitting old guy and young lady. Guy was sitting in behind and kissing girls neck and grabbing breasts at the same time when tens of persons were walking by. Girl was just closed her eyes.... I didnt dare to stear, but in some sense I quess that kind of activities you can expected when you are in Paris :-)

BTW: Paris subway is a probably the biggest mess and pretty hard to understand, even the trains are very modern (like in London they are not)

Visiting Minh & Emilie in Paris, France

In some sense, big cities are much much easier to meet first times, if you have local help to get you to the right tracks. I was lucky, because I met my friend Minh in Paris and also get familiar with Emilie. So, I managed to get very very valuable information. For example, I was researching the Paris near Francois Mitterand library somewhere....hmm.... a little bit more far away from centrum downtown... I didnt even know where to found subway, so Emilie was very kind of show me where I should go and gave to me even her tube connection map.

In that sense, it is very easy to be lost in space, because there was connections to all over and it was changing when you was needed to get up to which pear from the "waiting area". I would probably figure out that bymyself, but not sure if that would take about one hour or one total day. In that sense I can always appreciate help.

Building yard paths, Espoo, Finland

Building yard is something which takes time, planning and actual doing is more and more time taking than can be understod. For example our small yard, we have been ordered about 50.000 kg of sand and it now probably starts to be enough.

For some reason, there are lots of things to do. At the middle of October, we had pleasure to get Olli and Milla to visit us during weekend. Olli is like brother to me (looooong history) as well as Olli's brother Mikko. We have basically grown together and I was Olli's bestman during the wedding not even one year ago.... so we have also very good option to get Olli and Milla helping, because Milla has lots of experience about "architectural" issues and was very effective. In the picture girls are basically putting stones to near house and we are driving about 2000 kg or sand from place A to place B with Olli. Laura seems to be so fast, that she appeared to picture from somewhere... in that sense knowing my daugter already, so it should not be surprised :-)

The whole yard would be excellent to get in shape before the yard is under ice and freezed and it's start snowing, but on the otherhand, that is just one vision of that, so there are also possibility to continue during next spring, because there are not that much rush and the yard doesnt disappear anyway to anywhere.

Youtube.com

OMG!!! Oh My God!!!!

I have now got several "pings" about www.youtube.com service. Several friends has been sending different kind of links and all other things to provide fancy and interesting stuff. What are the rights behind and if someone or somebody is breaking the law (probably is), is not something is interests me. Today there was several news, that Google is going to buy that service..well...we will see.... I just want to show you some examples from youtube.com what kind of interesting material you can found from the site:

Gaybar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqZVCE6BpJw

Job Interview (Finnish):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNR7DI1iqXY

Cameron vs. Blair (British politics)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYkGThMYmbk

So, in that sense I dont have any kind of understanding how long thse will be available, but let's enjoy as long as these are here :-)

New gizmo: Sanyo Xacti C40

New gizmo for me. I have figured out, that because I own already a bigger video cameras, which tapes inside and all kind of bags around, I just figured out, should I have also a smaller, really pocket size video camera with me. I was figured out, that why not. I dont need that for purpose of making movie, more or less making memories about everyday average joys... this far the requirements for the video camera has been

1) pocket size, so able to carry without problems

2) using some memory card to store content

3) Deasant battery life

4) Easy to use, not too much features

5) Price should be reasonable

Well... What I then found out was pretty cheap Sanyo Xacti C 40, which has all kind of features, like red-eye correction, 1.8 inch LCD monitor, Talking navigation guide, quick standby, playback, voice recorder function with a 1GB SD memory card and all kind of other more or less usefull or useless features... well... I will tell more when getting a little bit more experiences...