It's been a month here now and things are settling down. I'm legal. I have a job. I pay taxes. This immigrant can begin to strut a little.

Tampere

I'm even beginning to get the hang of Helsinki; link places together, get around without a map and say please and thankyou (it's the same word-yes!). So on the weekend, ready to broaden my horizons (and visit the mother-in-law), I got the bus with Dog and Girlf. up to Tampere (above). One definite plus of Finland is that dogs are allowed on public transport here, you don't even have to pretend to be blind.

Dog claiming her right to ride the bus. 

Tampere is also known as the Manchester of Finland. It's the old industrial centre with big warehouses and giant chimneys. It's sat in-between two big lakes which you can swim in in summer and skate on in winter. Definitely worth a visit. A good friend of mine was playing an excellent selection of punk records at the Soho Bar and I got the chance to talk with some of the locals. I insist that talking to people in pubs is by far the best way to learn about a country and sure enough, within just a couple of pints, I had learned that bears don't attack women because they are scared of their pussies. University of life.

Summer has also begun to leave us. In Helsinki the change of the seasons is pretty drastic. I found this cool graph (I'm mostly nerd) which shows the crazy seasonal change in comparison to Madrid, Spain. Don't be too confused; Basically the light blue line shows the number of daylight hours throughout the year for Madrid. The Dark blue line the same for Helsinki.

Obviously to get from 19 hours of daylight to just 6 is going to take some pretty drastic change and that's what's happening now. Winter is coming a bit like The Day After Tomorrow.

Ridiculous movie

OK. Well not quite, but the leaves are turning yellow.

On the plus side this means that the mushroom season is go. Watch out Ray Mears,

God

Legalize it.

It turns out that arriving to and entering Finland was easy. Unfortunately, long gone the days of Victoria, my British Passport mighty as it has been doesn't allow me just to waltz into town and work/sign on/get sick as and when I want.

So, I've had to wander through the bureaucratic hoops to get into the system. Here's how to do it.

• ADVICE: First the City Hall on Esplanadi has an advice service (and free wifi and amazing toilets, also free). Make an appointment (they seem keen on appointments here) and Hamed will talk you through your options which basically boil down to, get someone to offer you a job.
• TAX: Once you have a job and more importantly a contract, and it doesn't seem to have to be a particularly concrete one, go and see Vero, the tax office. I love tax offices. Perhaps unsurprisingly they're always the most efficient and coherent government institution and Vero is no exception. The only problem is when the one employee attending the immigrants disappears off for lunch for an hour and you just have to wait for her to come back. Tip, get there early. However, once she sees your contract she'll give you an ID number (Henkilötunnus) and you're in. You can now pay taxes - Huzzah!
• FIVE-O: Then go to International Police where a big viking man will send you to the lovely lady who will explain in perfect English that you don't really need to sign in and you're free to work here as long as you leave the country every three months. 
• BANK: Another appointment will get you a meeting with a bank person. Mine's called Matilda. As long as you have the Henkilötunnus (above), a contract and you haven't previously stiffed any Finnish banks then they'll give you an account and you get to choose from a selection of 12 designs for your debit card. I went for cassette. Retro. 
• DOLE: I also registered at the cleanest job centre I've ever seen in my life but I'm yet to hear back from them.

English Job Centre

And that's it. You're good to go. Everyone was lovely, they all spoke good English and knew their job.

Not sure what'll happen if the idiots back home decide to take Britain out of the EU but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

For now, all being well, I'll be working by the end of the month. Hello Finland.

Suomi

We made it.. After crossing almost all of the latitudes and six longitudes I stumbled into an almost deserted Helsinki airport, picked up my bags and found my shaken but very alive pets and walked into Finland. After all the worry and stress of the preparations it was all amazingly easy. A bit of an anti-climax really.

On the morning of the 23rd I drove to the airport with Santiago's finest Taxi-Service (not a corrupt policeman), checked in, watched Dog and Cat get wheeled away, got on plane, drank a few red wines, fell asleep, woke up and watched The Big Lebowski, changed plane, walked around Schipol airport for about an hour (it's huge), got on another plane, got off, no passport control, no pet check, welcome to Helsinki.

Now we just have to figure out how to live here. Can't wait.

THREE WEEKS to go - Goodbyes

All being well, three weeks from now I'll be sitting in a cramped seat high above the Atlantic trying to get drunk enough to stop worrying about the pets freaking out in the hold below. Three weeks to go!

Already the lasts have begun. I had my last class at a business to the north of the city and cycled home for the last time via the old road with it's magnificent views of Santiago to the west and The Andes to the east. I marked exams for the last time today and used the bathroom on the 3rd floor with the paper towel dispenser that doesn't work for the last time. I paid the bills for the last time and sent out invoices for the last time. What was so long quotidian has just become nostalgic.

And with the lasts come the goodbye parties. On Sunday I had my first with one of the families that has adopted me here in Chile. My mum died when I was 16 and ever since I seem to have carried around a lost puppy vibe which makes people want to look after me. Here in Chile I have two families that have treated me like a son so it was a bit emotional saying goodbye to them. But, with a cocimiento* and my special Irish Whiskeys (the secret is extra whiskey) we made the best of it.

Next I have my goodbye DJ set at my local pub and then the 'danceable' goodbye party with my friends (I'm trying to think how to anglicise it. I wonder if Aga-doo would go down well). Then I'll have my goodbye picnic in the Andes. That will almost certainly be emotional.

A few people are trying to string out the goodbyes for as long as possible by accompanying me to the airport. I'm not having it. Getting to the airport is stressful enough. I don't need to be worrying about the logistics of 30 or so wallies half of whom are still on their way and half of whom need the toilet. Nope. The final few days will be just for me to say goodbye the way I want to. Snif.

*Cocimiento is a traditional dish from the south of Chile. Get a huge pot, fry up chicken, pork, sausage and some veg, fill it full of white wine, bung in a few kilos of shell fish, eat, sleep.

Oh Arturo!

We're all a bit confused at the moment.

Chile's star player Rey Arturo Vidal (King Arthur) went to a casino, had a few drinks, crashed his Ferrari into another car and then with all the air of the Lord of the manor threatened a policeman who refused to let him off.

It seems that most people are dealing with this in the way that we deal with most issues that, though wrong, would be inconvenient for us to take a stand against. Better to say no more about it and carry on as we were. Principals are often the loser when they have to fight with personal interests.

Apart from the media, perhaps the most obviously guilty of such behviour is Chile's head coach Jorge Sampaoli. The tiny man has taken a big brush and swept everything under a now very lumpy carpet. It's hard to imagine his predecessor Marcelo Bielsa, a man he is often compared favourably to, doing the same. Bielsa is all about principles, so much so that he once refused to speak to President Piñera at an official reception for the team.

So on Friday we settled down to watch Chile, with Vidal, play Bolivia and it all seemed a bit different to me. Then Chile won 5-0 and everyone drove around the streets celebrating until the early hours beeping horns and dancing on statues.

Maybe it's just me that's a bit confused.

Happy Father's day.

Five weeks and nine days to go - Ringworm and Finnish

Here in Chile everybody has football fever. What time is it? It's football o'clock, Who's your favourite player? Pele, etc etc. Yes. It's the Copa America.

The main difference this makes, apart from the increasingly annoying Chile chant (above), is that the streets are full of Chinese-made football tat and you can just about make out the occasional vuvuzela above the noise of the traffic. Apart from the amazing tension tangible throughout the city when the national team are playing, my favourite thing is the random cheers erupting as various immigrant groups celebrate their team's goals. I live in the centre surrounded tower blocks filled with Colombians, Peruvians, Bolivians and, as I discovered today when their cheers almost shook the cat off the balcony, Venezuelans. So, go red wine!*

Apart from football, it's cold. Today the temperature dipped down to zero for the first time this year (in Santiago). I took Dog for a long walk in the park around 8am and I don't think either of us particularly enjoyed it. My hands hurt and her ball chasing was particularly lacklustre. I had a quick check on temperatures in Finland and discovered that most years there are between 60-80 days when the average (AVERAGE!) temperature is below zero. Dog and I are going to have to get our act together quicksmart. 

Finally, Cat has tiña, ringworm in English. Strangely this is neither a worm nor a ring but a fungus. It also means that I have to shampoo his ears three times a week. How has it come to this? I found him on the bloody street!

Right, time for the final espisode of Game of Thrones. Speak soon. 

*The Venezuelan national team is nicknamed the Vinotinto, red wine, because they play in burgundy shirts. 

Six weeks and four days to go - Smog, More Strikes and Incan Gods.

So. Lots to report on.

Firstly, winter has arrived; however, this doesn't mean snowy streets and snowmen with inappropriately placed carrots but instead disgusting levels of air-contamination trapped in the city by the cooler air which, as any science teacher will tell you, is less disposed to rising and taking the filth with it. Normally this is assuaged (big-word high-five!) somewhat by winter-rains washing the air clean but this year Kon* is angry (or not paying attention) and it hasn't rained since Kon knows when.

Kon-man

Pre-emergency level has been declared for the last couple of weeks which means that children aren't allowed to do Physical Education at school because breathing too heavily might turn them into Dickens style urchins coughing up black lumps into a dirty tissue.

A very long snorkel please

Talking of school, there hasn't been much of it lately, nor University neither because everyone's on strike. I've mentioned the strikes before, they're kind of a tradition. That said, normally they'd have resolved themselves by now and we'd be back in class making up for lost time. This year the strikes have become quite hardcore: sporadic and passionate. Not quite at the level of the impressive 2011 protests which saw running battles day and night between students and police and eventually caused the academic year to be cancelled completely, but serious all the same.

Video recorded from my balcony. 2011.

The main problem is that Chile is The Neo-Liberal paradise. State control has long been sold off to the highest bidder and schools are now independently run much as any other business is. As we all know, businesses exist first and foremost to make money; that means reducing costs (low salaries, little investment) and increasing profits (high tuition fees). Teachers are pissed off with the low salaries, students are pissed off with the high tuition fees and everyone is pissed off with the lack of investment. You don't need much of an education to see that A+B+C = Strike!

Let the lesson be that education is not a good to be bought and sold (Who voted 'Cameron?').

OK. That'll do for now. I'll be back soon with details of my cat's scabby ears.

*Godchecker.com. YOUR GUIDE TO THE GODS
Discover almost 4,000 gods, goddesses and spirits from around the world - Genius.