The Wheels of Bureaucracy Go Round and Round

My struggles with official documents in Finland started as soon as I arrived in the country.  I've always been a bit of a traditionalist and assumed I would take my husband's family name when we got married. But by accident I (stupidly) registered myself in my maiden name and it's been a nightmare rollercoaster ride up and down the mountains of paperwork to get it sorted out ever since.  When people in government offices are arguing with you about what your real name is, it tends to make you question the reality of your own existence.  Just call me Jason Bourne.  And why do I have this random Russian passport?

The fact that our little family addition also needed documentation for both countries has only made the thrills and spills that more nauseating.  But hopefully we're on the last loop-de-loop of paperwork, at least for a while anyway.

In brighter news, the summer weather here in the north has managed to hang around a little for our return home, so we're sporting sockless feet and short sleeves as long as we possibly can.  The grocery stores are chock full of fresh summer veg at a fraction of the cost in the wintertime so I've been frantically snapping them up in an effort to set a little aside for those long, cheerless winter months when the only green thing to be found are the faces of those eating root vegetables for the last 9 months.

And, just a reminder to be grateful for the little things, my 'mother-in-law's tongue' finally sprouted enough shoots to fill my trio of pots in the kitchen so I don't have to shell out 16 euros for two more.  I told you  green things don't come cheap here.

Only took me 2 years to complete this little DIY project.

Going...Going...Gone

Titusville newsstand

We got up early, ate our breakfast with shaky excited hands, smiled at the fellow diners with JFK t-shirts celebrating 50 years of space exploration, and headed out into the steadily growing stream of traffic.  By the time we got to Titusville, the town with a population one third of our weensy Finnish city, it was swarming with the shuttle faithful.  Nervous spectators, like ourselves, picked the first available parking spots and hiked the couple of miles further into town.  The brave pressed on, hoping to find that one better vantage point.

Where exactly was the launchpad?  Our neighbors pointed out the two towers, barely visible through the haze, 12 miles away across the shimmering water.  We staked our claim in front of a half-empty bank parking lot with our buggy, blanket, and camping chair.  And then we waited, for three and a half hours in impossibly high humidity.  One of our neighbors used to work at the base.  There was nothing in the town in those days, according to his wife, no Lowe's or Home Depot, no mall to speak of.  She wondered about the town's future, some of the store fronts were already empty.

Spectators continued to flow in, by car, on foot, on bicycle, by rickshaw.  Parents pulled bob-haired, pacifier-sucking toddlers in little red wagons.  Older gentlemen with binoculars shuffled slowly and determinedly toward the shore, eyes gazing upward, already anticipating the trajectory.  Mothers with infants sought out shade wherever they could find it.

Forty-five minutes to go.  With street parking at a premium, drivers started leaving their cars on the grass in the middle of the divided highway.  In the spirit of the moment, police officers armed to the teeth in flack jackets and automatic rifles turned a blind eye.

More and more frenzied drivers appeared, desperately looking for a place to stop.  Thirty minutes left, and tv-watching sisters called to say that everything still looked good for the launch. Nine minutes left, or was it fourteen?  People scurried toward the shore.  Others started to chant the countdown.  My heart was fluttering in my throat.  Someone nearby said there was a hold at 31 seconds.  Phones rang again to explain the delay.  How long was the hold?  No one knew.

Suddenly, voices raised the countdown again.  A cloud billowed from the right side.  Whistles and cheers started their crescendo.  A spark and then the tower was split.  A dark cone shape rose, powered by a plume of blinding flame and smoke visible against the hazy sky.  The crowd was in full, 'WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!' as the craft rocketed upward, revealing the mass and power that distance and perspective had dwarfed...

Ironically, the day the Challenger broke into pieces was the day my interest in all things space-related was piqued and like a lot of kids growing up in the '80s, I dreamed of becoming an astronaut.  It was a dream that would remain with me for several years, until it became clear that I'd probably be better at writing about space shuttles than riding in them.

So as I watched Atlantis make her final voyage that day, soaring heavenward with confidence and grace, I cried, for dreams deferred, for the chance, in a minute way, to be part of this massive undertaking wrought by human hands, for the endeavoring spirit in all of us that drew almost a million people to witness this event together, for the actual lives on board the shuttle being carried away from the comforts of home, and for the uncertain future of the space program.

I watched Atlantis go until she was suddenly swallowed up by the clouds, like a curtain falling on the last act of a play.

Happy Birthday, America!

Happy Independence Day, everyone!  Just a post to celebrate the freedoms we enjoy in this great country of ours and the people who fought to give them to us.

 

And please ignore the irony that as I'm posting in order to celebrate this day of freedom, I'm actually using a photo of caged bald eagles.

Of Arms and the Manatees I Sing

'Navel gazing' seems to be a term that gets thrown around a lot in the blog world but, for lack of a better phrase, or because it just seems to suit, that's how this day started out.  One of those real downward death spirals of over-self-analysis.

And then I got a few of those confirmation messages that tells me someone out there is listening:

A song on the radio:

I’m not gonna lay around and whine and moan
’cause somebody done, done me wrong
Don’t think for a minute that I’m gonna sit around
And sing some old sad song
I believe it’s half full, not a half empty glass
Every day I wake up knowing it could be my last

 A sign on a church billboard:  Battle Within

A road sign:  Follow Your Dreams Blvd. (I'm not even kidding)

And then we went to a Manatee wildlife park and there's no way you can be moody watching those cute-as-a-button giant coffee beans with eyes floating around.

 

That one at the top looks like a mushroom from here.

They look and move like really sweet lumps of concrete.

And then we added a little sand from the Gulf coast to the sand from the Atlantic coast and the growing pile of Sun Chip crumbs, pizza crust bits, Cadbury chocolate corners, and crushed Cheez-its in the back of the car.  The water was warmer and more lake-like than I had imagined but gave us our beach-y fix for the weekend anyway.

Some little fish were nibbling my toes, but you can't really see them here, 
possibly because the whiteness of my leg is piercing your retinas.

Devil's Millhopper, It's Not a Kind of Beer

So today we went to visit a sinkhole.  No, really, stay with me.  Devil's Millhopper is a 120-foot-deep depression in the earth caused by ground water erosion of the underlying limestone, creating a miniature, year-round rainforest despite the drier conditions above ground.  Thread-like waterfalls that trickle down the steep sides of the sink create a lush environment which houses plant and animal species otherwise unknown in northern Florida.

Its name's connection to the underworld is two-fold.  European settlers thought the shape resembled a hopper in a mill, the funnel part that grain fed into.  Fossilized animal remains, including shark's teeth, found in the bottom of the hole, led them to believe that they had been funneled down to the devil's stomach, hence Devil's Millhopper.   A Native American legend also related that a beautiful princess caught the eye of the devil, who couldn't resist her physical charms and carried her off for himself.  When the warriors from her tribe realized what had happened, they chased after the devil, who caused a giant hole to swallow them up.  When the warriors tried to climb out after him, he turned them all to stones, and the tears of the warriors for their lost princess can still be seen running down the sides of the hole to this day.

Sitting at the bottom of this impressive natural formation is a bit like being in an upside-down terrarium chapel, with light softly filtering down through the dense forest canopy and the chiming of little streams in a full circle around your head.

Serenity now.

COPE-enhagen, Part the Third

 I felt like the queen of the castle that day.

Inside the dimly lit cellar we were greeted by a neutral-faced security guard brandishing a walk-talkie, seemingly ready to pounce on any slight infringement of the treasury room rules.  A big sign with a laughing profile and a red slash mark through it made it clear that no noise would be tolerated within this inner sanctum.  The guard took one look at the baby and I could feel sweat beads forming as she warned, 'You should be careful because any high pitched noise will set off the alarms....'  And then her eyes got all gooey and her mouth broke out into a huge grin and she stooped down to address the baby at eye level in a sing song baby voice, 'It often happens to groups of Italian women in this room.'  Sorry Italians, but I was too relieved to point out the overt stereotyping.

Obligatory mermaid pose.  Yeah, I'm not sure what I'm doing either.

We made it through the castle and then took the obligatory trip to see Den Lille Havrefrue (see, I even had time to pick up some Danish!) and catch a little bit of dinner at the famous Cafe Norden where we sat for hours munching on their huge servings of food with nary an eyebrow raised at our unabashed occupation of the table in an otherwise busy and full establishment. One man in the combined men's/women's bathroom handwashing station (I know, how Scandinavian), where I had gone for a diaper change, looked at the baby as he dried off his hands and told me, 'Oh, this is the best time of life, enjoy it!'

So if you're a parent with a young child looking for somewhere far and exotic to go to but dreading the thought of hauling your little screamer out into public, especially a FOREIGN public, go, run!, to Copenhagen, they WANT your children there. From the coffee shop owner who helped me lug the buggy down the steep steps that seem to be in front of every little below-street-level shop in the city, who told me that in Copenhagen the philosophy is that you just take your children with you everywhere, to the canal boat tour guide who told me to leave our buggy on the dock while we took the tour because no one would bother it (they didn't), to the thousands and thousands of bicycles I saw with baby carriers in the front or back or both and those crazy front compartment rickshaw things full of kids being bicycle-pooled by their parents, Copenhagen just screamed kid-friendly.


And if you're looking for another nice little cafe for lunch, check out Bliss which offers really fresh local dishes at reasonable prices and has really nice wait staff who 'ninja-ed' (his words) our hot elderflower drinks with cute napkin bibs.

Drinks well and truly ninja-ed.

Solstice Survivor

I already have two posts waiting in the wings of my draft box, which you would know if I'd get around to finishing them, because I've already explained this in the last one.  So here's my back up back up entry.

Now that we've reached that time of year, the official kickoff of summer, I've noticed other fellow bloggers out there starting to dip their toes into the open water of the subject of summer vacations.  Well, throw me a life preserver, because I'm already in over my head in summer vacation.

Here's a little run down of my holiday so far.  And remember, you can add the phrase "with an infant" after each one, kind of like that fortune cookie joke, only more wholesome.

• 14+ hour solo plane journey, which involved one overnight sleepover with relatives and a 2 hour layover
• physically hauling kitchen shelves, METAL, kitchen shelves, across the Atlantic
• 800 mile road trip to visit relatives
• another 1000 miles by car to spend 6 weeks in university housing, AGAIN!
• another 1000 miles by car back
•  5000 miles home

Can anyone top that?

COPE-enhagen, Part the Second

Not only did we manage to make it to almost everything on the list, but we were greeted with smiles and open arms wherever we went.  As a new mom, I carry around this slightly irrational fear of THE PUBLIC SCENE, a nightmare scenario in which I take the baby out, he starts crying his fool head off, and I incur the wrath of dirty looks or worse from strangers who jab their steely gazes right down to the heart of my deepest insecurity, which is that I don't know what I'm doing most of the time.  In all honesty, Little P is a gem for the most part, but you just never know when the screaming will start.

But instead of fleeing in horror at my potentially peace-disrupting bundle of cuteness, complete strangers actually made a beeline for him, tugging on his delicious baby feet and cooing at him in Danish.  Even grown men would bend down with gooey eyes and high-pitched voices to offer him a finger, which he was only too happy to repay with one of his pure-joy-radiating, gummy smiles.  If it's one thing that makes my heart melt it's grown men making goo goo noises.  Gets me every time.

The tensest moment for me came on our visit to Rosenborg Castle, home of the Danish crown jewels,  because there are serious museum-goers out there, people.  Museum-goers who buy the audio guides and actually want to listen to the muffled voice coming out of the plastic box telling them in excruciating detail about the mathematical phenomenon of the stained glass windows.  Museum-goers who linger for inordinate amounts of time over cases of ancient Roman lead tablets in a vain attempt to put their four years of high school Latin to good use uninterrupted.  I know, I used to be one of those museum-goers.

So it was with a little trepidation that we entered the heavily fortified portals of the treasury room.

COPE-enhagen, Part the First

Usually, I'm pretty well prepared as a traveller. I've looked up things to see, noted seasonal opening hours, mastered relevant phrases for locating toilets, mapped a route from the airport to the hotel, sandwich bagged my unmentionables, making sure to pack some in my carry-on lest I'm eternally separated from my check-in luggage. But this trip was different. This trip was post single girl on the go. This was international travel with an infant. With not much time for browsing through travel guides (does Rick Steves recommend this?) I packed as best as I could, anticipating colds, colic, and croup, and headed off for Denmark, husband and child in tow, not knowing a lick of Danish or even exactly where Copenhagen was on the map. Turns out it's on the east side, not the north like I had envisioned. Also Denmark is above Germany, not Belgium where I had placed it in my mental map. My mental map has a lot to answer for, particularly when I get lost anywhere in Philadelphia and wind up in New Jersey. But I digress.

Little did I know that away to the west, my sister, she of the usually cafe-hopping/people-watching bent, was furiously scribbling out two pages of A5 size paper of important sights to be seen in Copenhagen (there was definitely underlining on there, I saw it) while the husband slogged through two days of conference.  I was dubious and skeptical.  We'd be lucky to cross off the first thing on the list before we'd be scrambling the cobblestone streets, desperately searching for the baby changing facilities I had failed to locate beforehand with an ever-dampening and furious five-month-old, I thought to myself.

Oh Copenhagen, did I ever underestimate you!

Fashion Forward

Since I was told that my current winter clothes were too 'muumuu'ish, I caved in and got new ones.  What do you think?

Can I just vent a little about how difficult it is to be trendy in subarctic temperatures?  My one indulgence while traveling is to purchase a few lighthearted fashion magazines for some carefree viewing while on train or plane.  But most of the time I just wind up snorting at pictures of open toe, gladiator high heels and gossamer-thin silk shirts thinking just how many seconds a body would last in those in below-freezing temps.  I see people around here waiting for the bus in skinny jeans and Converse sneakers, slouched over so that their clothes don't actually touch any part of their bare skin, with their hands in their pockets, and I know they must be hurting.

Show me a way to make snow boots look sexy oh ye fashion editors and I'll be a loyal reader for life.

Gotta go, just got annoyed with the husband for chewing in my ear and singing to our newborn son.  Think someone needs a nap...

Funny Labels

And now for one of my favorite pastimes, collecting hilarious bits of English language.

Check out this one:

What, is the word 'pretzel' copyrighted or something?  I just hope they washed out that crusty crock before they made them.

The One in Which David Attenborough Appears in My Local S-Market

The BBC has recently released, in the vein of legendary nature documentaries such as Life on Earth and the Living Planet, their latest production, Human Planet, which promises to take viewers "to the most remote locations on Earth to find stories about man's remarkable relationship with the natural world."  I happened to watch a clip from the show, one in which a reindeer herder presumably from somewhere in Lapland has the daunting task of driving her herd across a wide river making sure one of them doesn't panic and swim back to shore thus setting off a mass retreat that would spell disaster for all of their lives.  It was remarkable, but was made more personally remarkable by the fact that they were filming in a place not too far away from here, both geographically and climactically (is that even a word?  Spell check says no).  Which got me thinking that I really AM living in one of the most remote locations on Earth.  I'm living in nature documentary-worthy territory.  The BBC said so.  So maybe they'd be interested in doing a bit the next time I have to cycle to the grocery store when it's 20 below.