A good day

The end of the wold, so say some, is nigh. So I haveaa task for you:

 All I want you to do, my loyal readers, is to imagine your ideal day from start to finish. What time of year is it? What's the weather like, and what do you do? With whom?

Please reply with your ideal day in the comments section below. Click the title of this post and then scroll to the page's end, where you can type in your ideal day.

After the first such day is received, I will post my perfect day.

Now make it happen, before it's too late!


(P.S. Der tag will be back soon, but it's going to be awhile)

Painting the hat box

So after it was assembled I painted it...

It has come out very well. I applied a spray-gloss over the flat base for a cool semi-gloss look. My next post will be about when I have finished the box, but I just wanted you to know I have not stopped working on it.

How to Make a Hat Box

This Blog has been "published" under two separate names. Old-timers and longstanding fans (if I had more than Susanna Koivisto; http://susanna-behindmyeyes.blogspot.com/ , excellent blog, jos puhut suomea, she has even more) will remember the original name, "Seriffitähti" wich I changed to "The Hat Box" in an attempt to boost readership. (This did not work)  So today a special treat, part one of "Making a Hat Box" which I actually set about doing. That's right I am MAKING A HAT BOX! It's a gift/exchange item/favor/ I dunno... but here we go, step by step:

1. A box needs a base and a lid first

Get out your compass and get ready for some greometric constructions! An octagon, in this case.

I settled on an octagon, but an irregular one. in this case composed of two octagons about a quarter inch apart, expanded to fill the entire 13"x14" specification I had used.

Finally, cut them out... cut one and use it as a stencil for the other. I used a bandsaw because let's face it, it's easier.

2. Measure and cut the walls of the box... this is made much easier with a tablesaw.

Ear muffs, Eye protection, and a lot of care. (No I did not use the mitre with the fence (That's bad))

How to mount the wall to the base.

3. Lining : I used (cheated) with 3M spray adheisive and this weird red fabric:

Pre and post lining

And there is all the work I could do in a day. Tomorrow I will fill in the iperfections, sand, and then maybe appy the first coat of paint. See you then!

Der Tag 5 (chaapter 3 part 1)

3.

                Somehow I did find a way to get to sleep, but only barely, and of course, that night I dreamed about her. It wasn’t a romantic dream in the sense of a Hollywood kiss in some famous location, but rather a simple fantasy. We were simply walking across the Golden Gate Bridge, (which I knew we wouldn’t do) and holding hands, and nothing more. The dream bounced around as a dream will do, and soon Mirjam was replaced, but soon thereafter my eyes lightened, and I knew it was a dream.

                Regardless, today was the day! Der Tag as the title continuously screams. And I was alone in my house. My parents and siblings had driven off to play softball in Davis, California. (or something like that) So I breakfasted on my cereal alone.

                I had a few objectives before I could go meet the Swiss; I wanted to buy them a gift, and I had a few ideas. The first was rather simple. All I had to do was locate a state quarter from every state they had passed through on their journey around the Southwest. I narrowed this down to only six states: Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado. Then there was the problem of finding those particular quarters. I went to my desk and pulled out the drawer where I keep my coins, and pulled out the quarter rolls, as well as my piggy bank from its shelf. Far from decoration, it carried all of the leftover coins that did not fit in the bank-style rolls.

                All was well and good for the first view minutes, as I located Utah and New Mexico. Utah’s coin has an image of the transcontinental railroad completion, and New Mexico has a rather boring silhouette of that state. My primary goal was to find my home state; California, with its beautiful image of John Muir, and a California condor flying against a backdrop of Yosemite. The problem was my bank did not have one. My rolls did not have one either. I wandered throughout the house, looking in the kitchen and in our change jar in the back bedroom, before finally locating a specimen. The remaining quarter hunt was completed quickly, with a bonus; the National Park special quarters of Yosemite and the Grand Canyon.

                Now the waiting began. My BART train into the city left at 12:30, and I had nothing to do. So I watched “I Love Lucy” reruns and when the time came I retrieved the keys to my truck, (I had gotten my license only weeks before) and started it up. After the big diesel roared to life I calmly edged it out of the driveway, before slowly idling back onto the street, at which point I realized that I had not driven the truck for three months and was no longer used to it in the slightest. So instead of going straight to the BART station I drove it around the block a few times to get a feel for the monster.
                Just cruising through the neighborhood made me glad I was on foot in the city proper; the Ford F-350 is not exactly the most maneuverable pony in the stable, but it will get you where you need to go, provided you have a lot of time to get there.  Fortunately, I did have a lot of time to go the mile and a half to the station parking lot, and when I got there, I parked and proceeded to check the status of my train. After ascertaining I was a good twenty minutes ahead of schedule, I walked across the street into a grocery store to buy my second gift.

                For just under two dollars and five minutes later I emerged successfully with a box of Swiss Miss hot chocolate, the perfect gift for my Swiss miss. I actually didn’t know what she would think of it, so I had one other emergency present stowed on me as well. Old Glory, the American flag, properly folded into its triangles was in my jacket pocket, and with this trio of gifts I was finally ready to go to the City. I placed twelve dollars into the ticket machine and promptly walked through the turnstile and into the station proper.

                It is often remarkable to realize how often a man is in conflict with something in his life, and this moment was no exception. As soon as I strolled through the turnstile, I discovered I had to use the toilet. No matter, restrooms were conveniently provided, the only trouble being that the men’s room was occupied. I waited and waited outside that door, and soon another man came up and waited alongside, before losing patience and using the women’s room instead. The thought had certainly crossed my mind as well, when as soon as he came out, a security guard appeared from his little kiosk and began to come talk to the man. The old black man did not notice the security guard, and proceeded up onto the platform via an escalator. The guard followed and this path took him around the corner, out of a direct line of sight for me. I went into the lady’s room, did what I had come for and exited, before cruising quite non-challantly up the other escalator towards a different platform. As I ascended the guard descended opposite me, and I never saw him again.

                Once on the platform, I learned that my train was ten minutes away, and I surveyed my surroundings. Between my little Fremont and the great big San Francisco there is a baseball stadium and a on that particular Tag there was a baseball game. (As opposed to?) Thus the platform was crowded with baseball fans; and a group of them recognized me and called me over.

                I would tell you their names, but I didn’t recognize them at all. Unfortunately, they recognized me, and we talked about baseball until the train came. There was a man who was walking around up and down the platform past the bench I was sitting on, who had and excellent voice for broadcasting. I only made this decision because he was, in fact, talking to himself as if he were on a sports talk show.  He was very good at whatever he was saying, but he was also crazy, and no one paid him any attention.

                I struck up conversation about the Oakland Athletics, a team which for the first time in six long years was on the verge of making the playoffs. The folks I was talking to had an extra ticket to the game, but I did not even think about blowing off Mirjam that day. I apologized and explained what I was doing before declining the offer.

                Soon thereafter, the train arrived, and I climbed aboard a different car than my conversational partners. In this car I knew know one, and that was to be expected. I sat in my seat and drifted into thought once again.

                My thoughts were admittedly rather boring, but eventually came to settle on the Bay Area Rapid Transit (or BART) system; an important topic, seeing as it was my transportation to my friend.

                The system, due to celebrate its fortieth year of service that fall, was built in the 1960’s-70’s and was seen as a revolution in rail travel. In my day, the system connected San Francisco to East Bay in Richmond, Fremont, Pleasanton, and Antioch. The Lines also continued past downtown into the industrial areas of Daily City and South San Francisco, eventually reaching the Airport at San Bruno.

                The line is very convenient for those who live near it and whose destinations are on it, although each station stop was more or less timed with local buses and trolleys. My trip would be a model of public transit; though I would be driving to Union City BART instead of taking a bus, once boarding that train I would be on public transit until I came home. The most important line of travel for me would be the F-line in San Francisco, as it would get me to my meeting place at the pier.

                A typical BART trip requires buying a ticket from a kiosk, and then walking through a turstyle-sque machine to get into the paid area of the station, from which one either descends or climbs to the platform. After a few minutes the train arrives, and glides into the station, stopping with the doors always lined up exactly with the marks on the platform. How they managed to do that always amazed me, but do it they could.           

                The inside of the cars themselves have grey floors and off-white walls, with relatively comfortable blue seats. The floors are either carpeted or laminated depending on the age of the car, as is the advance of yellowing on the cars plastic walls. The cars have a central aisle, and near the doors there are fold-down jump-seats for wheelchairs and bicycle storage. The trains can move at upwards of seventy miles per hour and is powered by an electrified third rail beside it. The ride is comfortable, but as the fleet is aging, it can be a little noisy.

                Unfortunately, on a Sunday the system does not serve San Francisco directly from Fremont so I would have to transfer at a station called “Bayfair” from an “orange” train to a “blue” train. This would not be difficult however, as the station had been designed with that concept in mind. The platform was between the two opposite tracks, so it was only necessary to cross the platform. Once in the BART system, it is not necessary to exit it, you must only have enough money at your destination to pay from your original departure point. Thus the system can theoretically be ridden indefinitely.

                Needless to say I departed at Bayfair and transferred without a hitch. My new train zipped my along up the east bay and eventually dove into a marvel of engineering, the Transbay Tube.

                The tube is a tunnel under the bay, and is approximately three miles long. It was created by building prefabricated segments, which were then sunk to the bottom of the bay and joined together to make a tunnel. The tube begins near the Oakland landing of the bay bridge and ends in a subway segment underneath Market Street in San Francisco. The first station on the San Francisco side of the tube is Embarcadero, which corresponds to the street above it. My destination.

There's was not to wonder why, there's was but to do and die.

Those are words from a rather famous poem, about "The Charge of the Light Brigade" The story of a British charge in the Crimean war which was totally obliterated.
So I am inspired to relate:

I suppose I never really cared
About our little Bunny
our stupid, boring, sleeping hare.
I thought it rather funny.

But, like every other thing

Alive in this sweet place

My Rabbits name, doth it ring

and passed on to it's fate.

I am sorry Mr. Rabbit

that I ever mocked you so

For I did make it such a habit
I was so sad to see you go

Lay peacefully at rest

in your grave in the ground

in heaven with your brethrin abreast

Happily eat and bound.

For  you never really did receive

The love you did diserve

I'm sorry I did not believe

in your eternal worth.

So goodbye my sweet pet Lop

My underappreciated friend

Across Elysian fields hop

Until universe's end.

Goodbye Mr. Nibbles the Rabbit
Unkown birth (But purchased at county fair 3 years ago) - 10.20.12.

I suppose it is rather childish to write a poem to a departed pet, such as my rabbit, or to even shed a tear at it's death. But I am indeed saddened, for it brings us all a little closer to our inevitable demise, in a way, and to me, it shows us we must cherish what we love now, rather than once it is too late to do so.

The QM, Long beach, and a vacation

Alll I could think of when I laid eyes on her the first time was:

WHAT A BIG, ENORMOUS, GIGANTIC BOAT!

This is a segment running opposite "Der Tag" wherein I tell of my vacation over last summer:

We had a little while in Long Beach before our plane left so we went and visited the ship. She is now a luxery hotel.

I had to make her picture huge too, notice how she dwarfs her submarine companion. Notice the Russian sub has windows.

After having a look at the queen of the ocean, we went to the Long beach airport for our plane to Alaska.

The Original art-deco terminal has been preserved, and is definately a great example of 1950's airport design at it's best.

You get on the old-fashioned way at Long Beach, up the stairs... Or, since our plane was so tiny, up a modest ramp.

And there you have it, heading north to ALASKA!

You know you talk to Finns too much:

You know you talk to Finns too much when:

1. Your mother yells at you from down the hall, and you reply “MITÄ?!?!?”
2. A väiski becomes a reasonably fashionable piece of headwear.
3. You discover you sometimes write about this ja that.
4. You know every trick to using a sauna, except you’ve never used one.
5. You sub-consciously refer to you house as taloni.
6. You know 10 different ways to say hello in Finnish. Your friends know 30.
7. You begin to hum random Chisu songs to yourself
8. You start cheering for Räikkönen in F1 competitions
9. You know how to pronounce ö
10. You know there is a difference between U and UU or A and AA etc.
11. Though you’ve asked a 100 times, you still don’t know exactly what they eat.
12. You hang a Suomenlippu (Finnish Flag) in your bedroom.
13. Muumi junk starts arriving in the mail
14. You get into arguments over the difference between U and Y
15. You now accept an alphabet with nine vowels
16. You start pricing flights to Finland
17. Your friends subscribe you to magazines in the Finnish language
18. You start speaking Finnish, and your friends actually understand you
19. You answer any question with Hmm, Mhm, Mmh, or Mm, and still get the point across
20. Your Advent calendar counts down to Joulu
21. US to Metric conversions are Automatic
22. You spend hours learning how to roll Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
23. Mooses remind you of your friends
24. You tell your friends it’s 50 degrees and raining in November, and they envy you
25. The Kalevala is used for literary entertainment
26. You think you actually want to live in Finland
27. You draw little Finnish flags everywhere.
28. You start feeling guilty when it isn’t below zero outside
29. You have memorized codes such as ALT-0228, which enables you to type: ä
30. You start insult anyone you see who is Swedish.
31. You plan to go to yliopisto
32. You have papers in your desk with Finnish conjugation rules
33. You start to celebrate nameday
34. When you ask for a translation of a Finnish word, you expect 3 totally different English ones
35. You know Aku Anka... and read it... a lot 
36. You think the best place in the world is Finland : )

Please feel free to comment with other ideas!

Let me tell you a secret

Swiped from Youtube:
I love this song, maybe you do too:

--------------------------George Strait

Der Tag 4

                The evening before der Tag, I called Mirjam to make final arrangements. I looked up the the number of their hotel, and I knew her room number from an email. My phone is a little older than most. First comes the dial tone; BONNNNNNNNNNNNNG… And then I dial the first number: Whrrrrr…CLICK, and then six more times. Finally the ringtone. Then there’s a soft clicking and a voice came on. The call went something like this:
                Me, “Hello?”
                “Hallo, Jimmy?”
                “Yes, it’s me, is this Mirjam?”
                “Ja… Yes, it’s me.” (Her English was rather slow, but still well spoken, and though she was quiet, I assumed that came from her accent)
                “Good evening Mirjam.” (Fighting tears, amazingly) “It is nice to hear your voice, my dear. But I am sorry, I had forgotten your accent, I suppose it’s the year we’ve been apart.”

                “Yes, it is… You wanted to make our plans? My family wanted to see the wharves and maybe the cable cars.”

                “Okay Miri, ummm….. Does your family have an idea of where they want to meet?”

                “Yes, they say Pier 39”

                Warning bells sounded in my head; Pier 39 is one of the busiest tourist traps in the entire City, and it is ALWAYS filled with tourists. Therefore:
                “Miri we can’t meet there, too many people. How about pier 41?” (Forgetting that pier 41 is not really a pier in itself; I wanted pier 45)

                “There are SOOO many piers Jimmy… Forty-one, forty-three-and-a-half, forty-five? Soooo many...”
                “So how about Pier 41?”
                “I’ll ask my parents.” (Then I heard a lot of German; I think) “Yes we can meet at pier 41”

                “OH WAIT! I meant pier 45! Next to the submarine!”

                “Ohhh, okei.”

                “The submarine is called the Pompanito, but I can’t spell that so don’t ask.”

                “Okei Jimmy.” (She giggled)

                “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.” (I smiled)

                “Yes, and we will eat ice cream.”

                “I know… there is so much to do, Ghirardelli, the cable cars, the trams, the pier,, and especially the ice cream” (Thoroughly pleased)

                “I must go to sleep Jimmy”

                “Goodnight Mirjam”

Which I said as if I could sleep.

Der Tag 3

Chapter 2, part 1

2.

                Now a break from our story, for a small history lesson

                The city of San Francisco is without question one of the moat naturally beautiful cities in the world. It is surrounded by a vast, pristine bay and golden hills that turn a lush green in the winter. The city sits on a peninsula, which divides San Francisco’s Bay from the Pacific Ocean. Where the ocean meets the western edge of the City is the Sunset district, which features a lovely beach and freezing water. Towards the southern border, the Lake Merced area provides shelter for groves of fog-shrouded cypress, which can only be found on the California coast.

                Add the above to an impressive number of beautiful man-made structures, from the ferry building to the Golden Gate Bridge, and you are presented with a city that has a greater variety of postcards than any other.

                The area of what became San Francisco was discovered in the late 1700’s by the Spanish, who had been exploring up and down the coast of California for a few hundred years without ever noticing it. Regardless, the Spanish did eventually settle the area, establishing a number of missions and erecting a fort (called the presidio) at the entrance to the bay to protect the town from any seaborne invasion force. The city remained a small outpost with a mission for a less than a hundred years. During that time a country called America was formed, a man named Napoleon won and then lost Europe, and the world moved into it’s new century.

                But in San Francisco the vacqueros didn’t mind. No, they just did their ranch work as always, without the distractions of world affairs. They were far off and isolated.

                The next development of San Francisco took place a hundred miles north by northeast, when a Swiss emigrant by the name of Sutter opened up a small estate which he called “Sutter’s Fort” at the end of the overland immigrant trail. After six long months on the trail, people were always in need of supplies, and Sutter provided them. As his business expanded and blossomed, Sutter began to build a mill in 1848 on the American River in the nearby Sierra Nevada Mountains, but the mill was never finished. Something was found that changed the very history of the state and the world.

                Gold.

                And just like that they flocked to California and San Francisco. They meant everyone. They came from all over the world, the rich wanting to be richer, the poor wanting to be rich. The entire Sierra Foothills became swamped with miners and merchants. Towns with funny names appeared; Hangtown for its lawlessness, Dutch Flat and Chinese Flat for their nationalities.

                And the nearest port to the gold? San Francisco bay. Ship after ship arrived daily, and most ships were doomed never to leave; their crews, masters, owners and captains venturing out to look for gold. The first known photograph of the city comes from this period, it shows the harbor littered with the masts of hundreds of abandoned ships bobbing into eternity at the wharf.

                                The 49er’s (as they came to be called) quickly discovered, however, that prospecting is actually rather tedious work; that California’s mountains are a miserable place to be; and that San Francisco offered jobs that would pay the bills. The loose placer gold that could be discovered easily by hand began to pan out, and the deeper gold embedded in veins in bedrock could only be mined by a labor-intensive and expensive process

                So the miners settled down; most were broke. They couldn’t afford passage back or didn’t want to go. Land was cheap and plentiful, and though some people did return to their eastern homes, a multitude stayed behind. During that time, California became a state, (on the side of the Union) and after the civil war, the Transcontinental Railroad arrived, allowing passengers a six day journey to the west. San Francisco was here to stay.

                Or was it? The rapidly expanding city became a center of trade and commerce, until the morning of April eighteenth, 1906. The Great Earthquake. The Firestorm. The utter destruction of a beautiful city. The great loss of life and property was something the nation had not seen since Sherman’s march through the sea. But the people of San Francisco rebounded; aid poured in from around the country and the world. The city’s buildings were either razed and replaced; or restored. The City of San Francisco rose from it’s ashes into the twentieth century.

                The next hundred years saw the beginning of hippies and the end of streetcars; the rise and fall of naval presence in the bay, and the establishment of a cosmopolitan city. Today San Francisco is known simply as “The City” to all of Northern California. Traveler’s can reach The City in three primary arteries; either the Bay or Golden Gate Bridges, or up the peninsula on one of the three highways that snake down to San Jose.

                A motorist arriving from Sacramento and lands beyond, one must first cross the Bay Bridge, after paying a modest five-dollar toll for the privilege. The Bay Bridge is a complex truss structure for its first half, before landing on Yerba Buena Island, and after a short tunnel, it appears on the other side as a beautifully simple suspension bridge, with a terriffic view. The island hides the city skyline for a few miles, long enough that the driver’s first view of it out of the tunnel is surprisingly close. In minutes he would arrive downtown and get should he be so inclined to exit the freeway, (which ends a mile of that point anyway) he would instantly be in the area known as SOMA; the South Of MArket district.

                A motorist from the south would be traveling up highway 101 or 280, but more scenic route is the Pacific Coast highway up the coast past the Country Clubs flanking Lake Merced. Apart from the coastal beauty of the route, it serves one more purpose: it is the most direct route to get to Taraval Street and the Days Inn where Mirjiam was going to stay. Though I questioned that particular choice of hotel, it was cheap, and a major plus for the Swiss, it was serviced directly by the Taraval streetcar route. Zurich has one of the largest streetcar systems in the world, and Mirjam took a “tram” every day to school, so they were well versed in that form of travel. I hoped they knew how slow it would be.

                The day was rapidly approaching, and each night I would text or email Mirjam to make final adjustments. When they saw me, they wanted to see Fisherman’s Wharf and that area in the northeast corner of the city. As this area is close to Ghirardelli Square, I knew we could get an ice cream sundae straight from Memory Lane.
                I would also have to get permission from my parents, and I knew this might not be an easy task. As a sixteen year old boy in the City, I might not be ready to take on that challenge alone. My plan to get there would be simple enough; a rapid transit train into the city proper from effectively my house, and then board the F line streetcar, a trolley route serving the wharf directly from the Market Street train stations. I would then walk to wherever we would meet. After that, I would wander around with them and see what they wanted to do. I just didn’t know what they wanted to do, and neither did they! They said I knew best, I told them to tell me what they wanted to see. Though my father might not have liked that plan I thought it was going to be fun.

Thing Called Love

These lyrics belong to Columbia records. I take no credit for their creation, or their popularity as made by Johny Cash

Six-foot-six, he stood on the ground
Weighed two-hundred and thirty-five pounds
but I saw that giant of a man brought down
to his knees by love...

He was the kind of a man that would gamble on luck;
look you in the eye and never back up
But I saw him crying like a little whipped pup
because of love

You can't see it in your eye;
hold it in your hand
but like the wind that covers our land;
strong enough to rule the heart of any man
this thing called love.

It can lift you up
never let you down
take your world and turn it all around
Ever since time nothings ever been found
stronger than love

The song goes on, but that is all I feel like saying at the moment;
Love let me down today, but it will pick me up again soon...
if anything, I have God's love.

Big Change to 100 dollar bill

I am one of those people in the world who love old

things. I keep a typewriter under my desk, and my telephone has a rotary dial. I think that a mid-80's HP calculator is better than a Ti-anything, and I love the shape and design of American money. I will show you the prettiest bill ever made:

photo at http://planetoddity.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/old-100-dollar-bill-17.jpg



My opinion anyway... all of the US paper money printed used to look like this, the only thing that changed was the value in the corners and the face in the middle. But as time passed and counterfeiters got better, new features were created:

 

The "Large portrait" Bill (from wikimedia)



And I honestly like this bill too. It appears a sleek and modern version of its older cousin, and it is still a c-note. Unfortunately the US bureau of engraving and printing has decided to launch a new series of bill:



The Newest Bill



 Now what is this????!!!!!?????  It looks so decidedly European and ugly! It isn't even green anymore! When I first saw this bill design I almost cried; I cannot believe they would allow such a radical bill into circulation....

But I want to hear from you? What do you think? To leave a comment, click the post title and then go to the bottom of the page. Is this bill obnoxious or am I just stubborn? Should our money even be green anyway? What do you think of that purple bar-thing-y running down the right side? Let us know!

Der Tag; part 2

Chapter 1 part 2

Of course when you meet in passing and develop friendships in fifteen minutes over ice cream, (which everyone ought to do before they die) there is little you can do with them, all of your plans are more or less set, and you cannot throw your plan away and wander around with your newfound friends. You can however exchange contact information, and that is what we did.

                Our hotels were conveniently close, and they came to visit me every day on the promise I would one day visit them. I never did. I truly did want to, but I never had the time, even though I should have. They understood and did not mind however, and when it was time for me to return home, they came to see me off, and we made absolutely sure that we would write each other.

                And then I let their memory slip into oblivion, and honestly I had forgotten them until they loyally sent me a letter and an Email. From that point a friendship developed and blossomed between us, and Miri, Eli, Ursi and I became very good friends. We used all of the resources we had after that to stay in contact; the pen, the computer and the telephone became our means, and we talked as much as our schedules allowed. Unfortunately with the difficulty of Swiss school, (Kantonschule) as often as we could was not so often after all.

                I was simply overjoyed when I got the message informing me Mirjam was coming. She broke the news in the fun “guess what!” style we all know; as I was rushing to school she told me she’d be coming to the United States, and then I asked where.

                “Are you coming here?”

                A single word “Yes.”

                Needless to say I was late for school that day. I started asking her a host of questions, and allowing my thoughts to run wild. I asked for her itinerary and plans, and she told me she would not be coming for four months. I didn’t care. The point was she was coming, and I was in trouble when I got to class.
                As the days passed and zipped from the drizzly days of February to the slightly sunnier days of March, Mirjam, her friends and I spent the days fantasizing over her impending arrival. I could envision myself being the ultimate tour guide; meeting them wherever they arrived and chaperoning them all over the place, as if I was an adult actually hosting them as a friend. I could not imagine anything else, but slowly more details of their plans emerged, and my thoughts became more rational.

                The Schnüringers would be arriving in late July in Los Angeles, and drive around the American southwest going as far as Lake Powell, before returning through the desert and coming up to San Francisco. They would be in San Francisco for three days over a weekend, arriving on Friday and leaving after Monday. I would only be able to see them on one of those days, and I knew I had to make it count, so I chose to meet them on Sunday, although I did not know what they wanted to do. With still a month to go before their arrival, I rapidly began to put together a plan; how to entertain a family of four Swiss people in the City of Fog, while not ruining my own wallet.

America quiz, and Finland quiz

A long time ago, I had a Finnish girlfriend. And just after we decidid we loved each other, we each made up little quizes abbout our countries for fun. So I present them here:

It's SOOOOO (NIIIIIIIN) On!

 















ENJOY YOUR QUIZES, AND NO INTERNET!!!!!!!!

American quiz for Inkeri Seppälä:

1.      What is a gear-jammer

a.       A special American football play

b.      A poor machine

c.       A truck driver

d.      A police officer in the detective department.

2.      If I say I will “Catch you on the flip side!” It is because I intend to…

a.       Flip you over and catch you.

b.      See you tomorrow

c.       Go to school

d.      Smack you.

3.      In Finnish, you say Perkele to swear. If you say Percolate in America, you are going to?

a.       Well, swear of course!

b.      Complain about your problems

c.       Argue with a baseball umpire

d.      Make coffee

4.      I tell you to jump in a lake, why?

a.       You told me to do something I do not want.

b.      I love you.

c.       You need to change television channels

d.      You’re too pretty

5.      When I say I am putting my foot down,

a.       It’s the last straw

b.      I am fed up

c.       I am adamant you stop

d.      All of the above.

6.      7 eleven is a

a.       Yeah, I already told you.

7.      In American Football, you are losing 14 to 6. You score a touchdown with 5 minutes left. Do you go for two?

a.       Yes, because then you are tied

b.      No, because there is enough time to get the ball back.

c.       No, because you if you fail, you are still losing.

d.      What the hell am I talking about?

8.      If I were to really love you, I would tell you by…

a.       Phone

b.      Letter

c.       Face to face

d.      Trick question, by email because you are in Finland

9.      What is Chili?

a.       A bean filled sauce

b.      A slang term for a banana.

c.       A snowball

d.      A car.

10.   The best place to buy a hamburger (according to me) is at….

a.       McDonald’s

b.      Burger King

c.       A&W

d.      I have no idea; McDonald’s is the only place to buy Hamburgers in Finland.

11.   America has four big sports. Which one has the longest season?

a.       Baseball

b.      Football

c.       Ice Hockey (We do play it here)

d.      Basketball

12.   A brush-back is a?

a.       A way of sweeping a floor

b.      A baseball tactic

c.       To try to punch something behind you

d.      A device for cleaning your back.

13.  Which word is spelled correctly?

a.       Colour

b.      Flavour

c.       Thurough

d.      Meter

 True or False

14.  A slinky is a type of snake native to Oregon.

15.  Everyone here can tell you where Finland is.

16.  What is the American term for this, “Hiukset vapaana”?

17.  Does it snow where I live?

Finland Quiz

I didn't use internet or any other outside-my-head-information in my quiz, so I hope you try to do this without them too. Enjoy! :)

1. What's the Finland's national sport?

            a. Jääkiekko (ice hockey)  It is probabaly D, but you seem crazy for it. I wish it were c,       naturally

            b. Jalkapallo (football

            c. Pesäpallo (baseball)

d. Suunnistus (orienteering)

2. What happens the first of May, vappu?

            a. Nothing. It's a boooring day.

            b. It's a working class celebration, and people decorate places with balloons and streamer.

            c. It's our independence day, so we celebrate Finland and watch TV.

            d. 'vappu' means spring, so it's just in calendars so that people know it's spring.

3. Which famous technology brand is from Finland?

            a. Volvo 

            b. Nokia

            c. Sony

            d. Apple

4. If you want to go to movie in Finland, where you should go?

            a. Finnkino

            b. Leffaluola

            c. Movieparadice

            d. Elo-kuva

5. What's the meaning of sauna for Finns?

            a. Well, it's a Finnish invention, but no one ever goes there, it's so uncomfortable.

            b. It's very important, almost a holy place. We clean it every week, we go there every day.

            c. Almost every residence here includes sauna, and we go there 1-4 times a week.

            d. Some like, some don’t like, and they who like go there about once a month or something.

6. When we say ’ei ole kaikki muumit laaksossa’ (all the moomins are not in the valley) what do we mean with that?

            a. one have lost something

            b. one don’t have any money

            c. it means just what it says

            d. one isn’t very clever

 7. What's scouting in Finnish?

            a. partio

            b. kattila

            c. kuori

            d. lounas

8. Which one of these is spelled correctly?

            a. Osan

            b. puhuun

            c. soitavat

            d. halaat (I just think so, which is too bad, because I say I want to learn this)

9. Who was Jean Sibelius?

            a. He's from France, what's this question??

            b. He was our second president

            c. He was our national composer

            d. He invented modern rye bread

10. If a stereotypic Finn is in the middle of other people, what is he/she thinking?

            a. Uhh, bacterias!

            b. What do those people think of me?

            c. Oh yeah, so much new friends here!

            d. I must show those people I'm here- (and he/she starts to dance or sing very loud)

11. What's 'mämmi'?

            a. It's a traditional, brown dessert

            b. We call our grandmothers that way

            c. It's the hero of our legends

            d. It's a style of music   

12. Finland is a bilingual country. Which is the second language?

            a. English

            b. Swedish

            c. Russian

            d. Saame

13. Why I don't like to keep my hair down in the winter?

            a. Because it's not cool

            b. Because I just like braids so much

            c. Because the frost makes them stick out and it looks freaky because they are so long

            d. Because they cling everywhere

 14. In the mid winter, how long is our day?

            a. Twelwe hours, of course.

            b. Three hours and fiftyfour minutes.

            c. As long as my school day.

            d. What day? We don't have a day then.

15. If you were lost in Turku, what landmark would you search?

            a. The cathedral

            b. 'näsineula'-tower

            c. Eiffel-tower

            d. No idea. (

16. Home is an English word, but it's also a Finnish word. What does that mean?

            a. Same as in English

            b. Mould

            c. Very dear friend 

            d. Soap

18. When will you visit here in Finland?

 Leave your Answers in the Comments section and I will score it for you!