Birthdays, Sauna, Speaking Finnish

I had my birthday on 7 Feb (shame on you for not calling! ;-), and as a birthday suprise Tracy's brother Shawn came to visit. He had some work nearby and managed to find his way here. It was so good to see someone from home, and we had a great time exploring the city. He also brought lots of goodies from the parentals - we are munching away on biltong, rusks, chocolate, nuts etc.

The pics are of us taking a ferry, and yes we sailed through the ice!

As part of a birthday treat, Shawn and I went to a sauna in town. It is one of the oldest woodfired public saunas in Helsinki, and maybe Finland. After undressing in the cloakroom, you have a shower (no cubicles) and then proceed to the sauna room. Of course the men go separately from the women...

The room is like a fair size lounge, but has concrete steps that go all the way round, and to the top. Here are arrayed men of all shapes and sizes - au naturel. When it gets to hot, you go and buy a beer and stand outside, covered by your towel. Shawn and I even dared rolling in the snow. Some poms lauged at this and said they would never do that - it's too cold. A hardened local then responded by saying "O we do that lots, just not here because of the dogshit..."

Learning Finnish is taking a while, the other day someone phoned me from a company and started speaking Finnish. So thinking I would be clever I said in my best Finnish, "Sorry, I don't speak any English". This was met by a stunned silence, and she promptly switched to English! So I guess I got the message across, although not as elegantly as I would have hoped.

I have been working flatout to get my proposal ready, which is why the posts are few and far apart. I had to present it at a seminar on Friday, which went well, but also pointed out some weaknesses that need to be addressed. Two weeks before it's due - so still some time.

Tracy has been working hard to get her CV out, with no success yet, but we are not in a hurry and am still feeling hopeful. She has also been scrubbing the walls, which were filthy - and are now much cleaner. The line on the picture is clean on the right and dirty on the left.

We also led worship at a womans meeting on Saturday, which was recieved very well, and played in church this morning. We are hoping to be able to transform the worship here, which has been a bit staid - and make it a bit more interesting.