Monday nights from 21.00 (more like 21.30). Hämeentie 13 B
Siltanen is a cool cafe up on the Hämeentie hill. It sits just off the normal road and you have to cross a bridge to get in; Presumably it will also serve as a hipster fortress when the skinny-jean revolution kicks off proper. Inside it's v-cool. Beautiful hipster-staff, bearded hipster-DJ and obscure IPA's. The lights were stolen from a hospital in the 70s and the bar, annoyingly, has no stools.
NO STOOLS!!!
The open-mic night is great. Anyone can get up and those that do get a free drink at the bar.
The acts, this week at least, were brilliantly varied and all nicely amateur. First was a Neil Young lookalike in leather trousers and cowboy boots who played guitar like Richard Thompson and growled lyrics in Finnish. I have no idea what the words were but I'd bet my shoes they involved dragons and elves.
Richard Thompson - Scary good
Then up came a bouncy Uruguayan reggae singer in a giant Rasta hat so lop-sided that my OCD gene started to short-circuit.
Next were stand-up comedians, rappers, guitar players dedicating songs to their girlfriends and in between the bearded hipster DJ played mostly excellent records (bit too many versions of Hotline Bling for my taste).
Perhaps the high point of the evening was the wild-haired guy (think Lionel Richie in the 80s) who stumbled on to the stage and let go a relentless monologue, half Richard Pryor half Steve Buscemi in The Wedding Singer, swerving (and crashing) from awesome stream of consciousness to probably offensive. Eventually he was dragged off whilst the audience sat in confused silence.
Steve Buscemi
Lionel Richie
A great Monday night. Beers are a good price, lovely place, nice atmosphere and lots of fun acts to watch so you don't even have to talk to your friends.
Helsinki has frozen. Today temperatures raced up to a tropical -5 but in the past weeks the average has been around -15 with lows as low as -25. And it's snowing. "Too much snow" said my retired neighbor who has been diligently clearing the paths whilst Cat watches from the window like a prison guard.
In Finland, freeze or no freeze, life goes on. Buses pick up and drop off, offices open, pubs serve, schools teach. You get the idea. No problem. But some precautions are necessary. My skin has now been replaced temporarily by a Merino base layer. Wool is the key, wool is your friend. Cotton is evil.
Before venturing out take a photo so the police can recognise the body.
If I'm out on my bike then I'll use a total of at least three layers as well as a (synthetic) furry hat and three pairs of gloves. I cover my face up with a balaclava which then causes the water vapour in my breath to flow out past my eyes and freeze my eyelashes shut. This may sound inconvenient but blindness is better that leaving your poor nose abandoned to the elements. In the north my nose froze on a snowmobile/ice fishing trip and the skin began to peel like with sunburn. Not nice.
The other fun things about the cold are:
Crazy static electricty. There's some scientific rule about cold air, relative humidity and central heating causing static. I don't understand it but I do know that if I rub Cat on my jumper for a few minutes then I can stick him to the wall.
Static Cat
Crazy headphone wires. My usually cool white headphone cord freezes and stiffens like a metre long wonky pipe cleaner. Sometimes the ear buds come out and float around like charmed snakes.
Clean shoes. Nothing here sticks to your shoes except snow and that melts off when you get inside. You could eat your dinner off 'em.
Winter = Wool socks and clean shoes
Exploding plastics. Not many people know that at -21c plastic turns to glass. So far two zip-toggles have broken off in my hand and the lock-holder on my bike shattered spectacularly when I went down some steps.
Hello again everyone. It's been a while. Working up north left me little time to waffle here but now I'm back in Helsinki which, overcome with Star Wars fever, has dressed up as Ice Planet Hoth.
Helsinki
More about the frozen fun later, first let me first wrap up all things Ruka-related.
Christmas came and went and Girlf. arrived with Dog to makes things festive but mostly so we could watch Dog's first experience with snow. We have now established that her feet are cold-proof down to about -10 degrees. At -25 she malfunctions completely and I have to carry her home in my arms.
Dog auditioning for Cinderella
Christmas in Finland consisted of making lamps out of snowballs and a candle, and fantastically complicated and improvised lies about Joulupukki (Father Christmas) and his family/wife/elf sweat shop.
Girlf's snow lamp. So talented.
For Christmas dinner we were kindly invited to Kuksa, a swish restaurant with an all-you-can-eat buffet. The traditional offerings in Finland include a variety of what are called casseroles but are actually mashed vegetables (the swede is particularly good). These accompany salads, delicious mushrooms and lots of delicious fish including the wonderful smoked perch.
Perch (pre-smoking. Low-tar)
The guides had been assuring me that you could eat the perch that we'd been catching all month so it was nice to finally do so. These were certainly more goodies on offer but the bosses decided to buy a three-litre bottle of wine so the details are a little groggy.
How the world looks when you buy giant wine
The next day I was back at work then Girlf. went back to the capital and soon it was New Years Eve. Again, the bosses looked after us and treated us to beers and sauna. Here we also discussed the local hooch, Jalovina, which according to Wikipedia is a Cut Brandy.
The one-star has a generous 30% of brandy mixed in with the white-spirit/anti freeze that fills up the rest of the plastic bottle. However, it ain't too bad. Outside fireworks exploded all over the moonlit valley flashing the skies and booming across the frozen lakes. Pretty good start to 2016.
So finally, still under the delusion that somebody might actually find some useful information among te waffle on this blog, let me mention a few names.
Ruka Adventures. Great company, lovely people and the guides really know their stuff. Thanks to them I now know how many hairs per cm2 of reindeer and I can catch perch in a frozen lake.
Motel Willis West. Cheap and Cheerful and the German boss is the finest caterer in the region.
Sport House Ruka. Lovely people. Sorted me out with some cross country skis.
Erä-Susi Husky Farm. 200 huskies and an owner that looks like a Lord Of The Rings character. What's not to like? Also, driving a husky sled is something that everyone should do before they die.
In conclusion. An amazing experience. I want to go back and I'm already hatching a brilliant plan as to how. Ruka/Kuusamo is a great place to live. The contact with nature is so satisfying and the people that live there, like the trees covered in snow, seem to get along calmly and happily and with a glint in their eye that knowingly says, "my life is better than yours".
Guiding (or assisting to the guide) can be hard work. Thirty Spanish people can have a lot of problems and dealing with them takes patience and there wasn't a day that I didn't get home exhausted, but also happy. When your work day involves driving snowmobiles to the lake for ice-fishing you know you're onto a winner.
This video is insane
Finally, the area is perfect. In winter, as well as all the activities mentioned above, there is ice climbing and masses of cross country skiing, In summer the area is popular for its rivers and trekking, especally the 80km Karhunkierros trail (the Bear Trail). There are also bears. And Elk. Go there.
