The next day I had to check how Huupisaaret looks now, but this time it was the normal situation, the one I got used to when I lived one august in Oulu. Also the fountains found back to their old size 
And it was getting warmer (or I got used to the temperatures after having already enjoyed more than enough degrees Celsius this year in Heidelberg), so no scarf needed any more.
The market near to the harbour got also more populated.
From my point of view, the finnish people are in general quite sorted. They wait until the traffic lights turn green (at least everywhere but Helsinki, but even there). A finnish exchange student here in Heidelberg who I met on my way back in Pirkkala is of the opinion that it’s the same in Finland and Germany, but I’m sure in Germany there are less people seriously looking at traffic lights. I’m talking about pedestrians, not about car drivers *g*. The first days in Finland I caught myself a few times just watching if a car was coming and then crossing the street. It’s not so common there, thus I stopped also doing this soon And got used again to listening to the beeping sound of the traffic lights for the blind instead of looking at the lights. This system exists also in Germany, but it’s usually not at every crossing (it’s not at every crossing in finland, but almost, let’s say).
But still, signs are ignored everywhere, especially such:
Linnanmaa was ‘home’ for one month in 2006 and in Kaijonharju is the next big shop next to university (and a post office … ):
Even though I was more than twice in Oulu and one time for a month, I never managed to visit the cathedral (tuomiokirkko) in the centre. and you always cross that one street in front when you’re going from linnanmaa along huupisaaret to the centre, those days for example at least once a week to Onnela.
Suprising sticker on the glass door of the church. otherwise there is nothing on this door:
Sometimes I wish we’d have such nice bicycle roads in Germany. On the other side we can be happy to have them at least, comparing France or Spain where there’s almost none of them.
After having been in the Art museum (which is currently in NUKU, since the other building near to tietomaa is renovated) and having written some postcards I returned to alex place, preparing then the food and eating rhubarb cake from the day before, at some point the alarm clock started ringing, indicating that it’s alex and elina’s sauna turn in the common sauna in the basement. oikea suomalainen sauna again, not that strange thing you sometimes might find in germany, also called finnish sauna.
After having created our great karelian pies, we had to document our work *g*. Half of them were ‘normal’, the others contained that elk-meat, aubergine, zucchini, chili, … -sauce from the day before together with rice. very delicious.
When it started to lighten up again outside and I wanted to go to bed, Fabio, another EILC course student from 2006, an italian who is now back in Oulu for his thesis, called if we wanted to come for a beer to the centre. So we did, I mean, wasn’t dark anyway ;)
Since at 2 a.m. almost everything was about to close we went to the shore next to the harbour:
On the way back, almost at 3 a.m. the main street with the cathedral looked like this:
And it was possible to take panorama pictures in the harbour without the need for a tripod …
The next day Alex had a big project at work, I wanted to leave towards Kuopio to visit 2 portugese students I met once in Helsinki, when they needed a place to stay after arriving there and before going to the language course in Oulu in 2007, our successors ‘so to say’.
- more Pictures in the Gallery
- the next day: Leaving to Kuopio
- back to overview post for this finland trip