sunnuntai 28. lokakuuta 2018

The Macedonian moment



The year 2018 has been exceptionally warm and the mid October was still much above the average temperatures.  So when I considered whether to change the winter tires the idea sounded silly in the temperature of plus 17 Celsius. The idea sounded even sillier when the consideration was should I need winter tires as we come back from Thessaloniki where the temperature would be constantly over twenty degrees. I also looked at the long term forecast and noticed the temperature would be over zero in the night we would come back. So I didn’t change the tires.

Biking just before the trip to Thessaloniki

And no, we didn’t drive to Thessaloniki, we flew. The flight was a bit silly, first fly over the destination to Athens and then fly backwards over the Aegean sea. And we had quite a hurry, the check in was almost completed when we landed. However we were guided straight to the gate via extra route – it seems Greeks are masters of handling exception situations.     

Happy to get the connecting flight from Athens

   The first evening at the balcony of the hotel

  Our view to the sea

The hotel has the name The Queen Olga. Olga was a daughter of the Russian emperor Nikolai the First and married the Greek King Giorgios.

Meeting Queen Olga
The hotel is situated about two kilometres from the centre of the city. It is run by a family, my travel bureau (= my spouse) prefers booking this kind of hotels to support the local people. 

     The room service was ok.
Thessaloniki is the second-largest city in Greece, with over 1 million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of Greek Macedonia. It is situated by the Aegean Sea. It is founded  just after Alexander the Great period and have lived Hellenistic , Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman and finally the nowadays Greek periods.  The city became a part of Greece as late as 1912 after the war between Turkey and Greece. Then the big amount of population was sort of swapped: The Turks living there for centuries had to go and the Greeks who had lived in Anatolia area moved to town.
  
The town has been damaged quite a lot during the various wars so the whole picture is a mixture of old and new. The essential element is a Byzantine church, smaller and bigger here and there. The archaeological excavations may be seen everywhere, you just cannot build anything there without hitting something from the ancient world. The remains of the old fortress system may be seen in the White Tower by the sea and the bigger ruin area on the top of the hill.

Walking to the city at the seaside
At the White Tower 

The first morning we decided to get the overall of the city. So we walked by the sea to the White Tower and took the Hoponhopoff through the city to the fortress hill. On the hill also the old town is situated but opposite to many other towns it is mostly for living and there is only very few shops and bars. We walked through the ruins and old streets and admired the view to the town and the sea beneath us.

The twigs of the trees swept our heads while travelling in the second store



 
At the wall of the fortress
















We took another hoponhopoff to the city to have something to eat. We chose a fish restaurant. In the menu I chose bream fillet. Bream is a very common fish in Finnish lakes and also considerable tasty but very rarely available, mostly because of its bony flesh. This one I was served was even tastier and without a single bone! Later it turned out bream actually meant gilthead which actually is related to perch and not at all any bream. 

With the so-called bream
When we wanted to pay the check the result was an extra dessert. The result of the second request was free collection of  liquers and rakis....

In the evening we were invited to a concert by Iphigeneia. She is a friend of my spouse from their time at the University in German and they haven’t met for over thirty years. So Iphigeneia came to get us to the Concert Hall in her car. When Iphigeneia and my spouse met it was like there wouldn’t have been any gap in their friendship.

The concert repertoire consisted of chamber music of a Russian-German composer Alfred Scnittke. Scnittke uses the musical material very economically and on the other hand he combines the late romantic and modern material opposing each others.

After the concert we were invited to the after party by the pianist of the concert. So we had a nice evening with Greek ladies.

With Iphigeneia...




...and the other ladies
According to the forecast the next day was said to be the warmest during our visit so we chose it for our beach trip. There aren’t any beaches very near Thessaloniki but a bit further in the east there are a lot of beaches available. There are three peninsulas east of the city with lots of sand and sun. The problem was we had to use the bus and the bus station was about ten kilometres away from the city, obviously because of a gigantic Ikea near it. Luckily Iphigeneia drove us there, otherwise we would have to take a bus to Ikea and another to the bus station!

We chose the nearest peninsula. The bus had no hurry in getting there so we had a marvellous opportunity to see Macedonian views. This part of the province had quite small hills covered by olive trees, wineyards and fruit trees of different kinds. The autumn colours in the fruit trees were from yellow to very bright orange. I also spotted some artificially looking hills which I presumed to be ancient tombs.
A view from the bus window
Our destination was a little village Kallithea on the eastern side of the peninsula. The village situates  near the sea lying down under the steep slope. The tourist season was over and there were only few people in the village and on the beach. The wind was calm and the waves very gentle so it was very pleasant just to relax in the sea. After swimming we had a little sunbath. It was pleasant to shut the eyes and hear the sound of diagonally entering waves wandering from the right ear to the left ear.


Souvlaki moment in the village 
In the gentle waves of the Aegean Sea
We, two Russian lads and a Swedish family on the beach

The next day we spent quite a lot of time in the Archaeological Museum. There we saw the basic exhibition and special exhibition about the handicraft from the stone ages to the Byzantine era. The Macedonian district is rich of many kinds of reminiscences of the past. And it turned out I had been right during our bus trip, the artificial looking hills really were tombs.


Masterpieces from the ancient era
In the afternoon we were invited for a dinner to the home of Iphigeneia. She lives with her 90 years old mother in the flat quite near our hotel. Because of Air bnb boom she had lost her cottage in the same peninsula we just visited. And it had just turned out she have to move from the flat they have hired the last 44 years for almost similar plans of the landlord.

The dinner visit was prolonged to the evening, we had so much to talk about. The mother turned out to be a very bright and civilized lady and she told us about the life in Thessaloniki and other parts of Europe where she and her family have lived. She also seemed to like me specially – once she had had two brothers and an old closet full of wonderful old ladies costumes which they all three tried on when they used to played as they were kids.


The last day we still walked in the city to spot some historical places, such as the main cathedral and an ancient forum area. Naturally we also made some shopping, for example I updated my red handbag.

The main Cathedral, not too big though 

The Thessaloniki Forum
At noon we took a taxi to the airport. We took some extra time to be in time and not to hurry in any way. Unfortunately it didn’t help to be in time the whole trip: The connecting flight from Munich to Helsinki was almost two hours late! So when we arrived in Helsinki airport car park it was about 1.30 a.m. And despite the forecast the temperature was below the zero and the car covered with frost. Since we hadn’t winter tires I had to be extra careful in foggy places where there was a danger of black ice on the surface of the road. But as you can see we made it.


After such an experience it wasn’t too hard to entice myself to change the tires.


The blog may be commented in English

Blogia voi kommentoida myös suomeksi.

Bloggen kan kommenteras även på Svenska.

keskiviikko 10. lokakuuta 2018

Mixed fruit soup of something between

fot
This blog is a report of the period between the start of the semester and the autumn holiday.

I have worked as myself most of the time, only the days I have customers outside of our organization I've made exceptions. The situation feels sort of natural for me and it seems it is regarded to be natural by my work environment as well.





Since last winter there has been the metro also in Espoo. It goes from the Iso Omena mall in Matinkylä to Helsinki via several stations. For me it means the trip to Helsinki takes about fifteen minutes longer than it used to be with a single bus: Five to ten minutes more to get to Iso Omena and five to ten minutes more from Iso Omena to Helsinki, depending the waiting time for the metro departure.




                                 A very early morning at the bus stop


So I have preferred use my bike instead of the metro. It is faster and naturally also healthier. Unfortunately my knee has been a little sore and there is quite a high uphill on the way to work.  To solve the problem I have used a hybrid solution: Biking to the nearest train station, taking the bike to the train and biking to my work places from the station near them. It has turned out to be the fastest way and I’ve used the metro very seldom. 


                                  Waiting for the train.


                 There is some room for bikes and prams in the trains



The life of part time lady is full of surprises and confusion. I was invited to health inspection by an occupational health nurse. She was a new one and never met me. When I went there properly in time I saw her through the open door, obviously looking for a male customer to enter the corridor. Some minutes after my appointment time she came out and seemingly annoyed shouted my name – she probably thought it was another lad late…

She also sent me to blood test. The procedure was carried out by a bioanalyst with whom I chatted for some time before the official things. The first official thing was to check my info from my health insurance card. When doing it she literally dropped my card and began to claim it was a wrong one. I just replied it isn’t and that kind of confusion happens sometimes. Yet I was astonished my male voice didn't any bell to her. 




        At the occupational health care station after causing some confusion



The mushroom season in Finland has been excellent. In my forest the situation has not been as good as it could have been. Actually the main season is approximately a month late compared to an average year. Fortunately the weather seems to continue exceptionally warm so I hope I can pick them longer than I use to do normally.




            I still found pretty much gipsy mushrooms (kehnäsieni)


Last times I have been lazy with my night life. There was an exception though: Some of my friends organized a big happening with theme of seventies. Last time I attended their show I accidently won the best costume price. This time I thought someone else may win it but anyhow decided to dress up in the mood of seventies. When I thought what to wear I tried to remember the variety of styles: Hippie, Abba glitter, Saturday night fever disco style, long salsa skirts...  I also remembered  the Star Trek style but foud out the series was stopped 1969, though it was seen later in Finland. Finally I decided to choose the casual seventies style. It naturally included trumpet jeans or pants which I didn’t have. The casual colour of the decade was brown so I chose the brown-green pleated skirt with dark brown tights and matching striped shirt mimicking Marimekko shirt, a typical casual shirt that time. I also found a pair of slippers with very thick heels in 70s style. Then I remembered the girls used to colour their hair with henna colour and took a red-brown wig. 

As I assumed the trophy went to other people who had really invested in the theme. On the other hand I thought the younger people even didn’t spot my 70s elements, the stereotypical picture of the era consist of the top fashion instead of the casual and most typical clothing.



              A girl from seventies having fun at the Kaisaniemi restaurant.


The music consisted of 70s disco hits which I used to hear and dance in seventies discos. This time I could do in the outfit I would like to do it then and this thing made me very emotional.


The Dreamwear Club Autumn meeting took place in Vähäjärvi near Hämeenlinna. I have been in the board of the club and now I was elected to the chair of the board. Last year we were very active and because of it we got some extra financing from our central organization Seta. The increased activity was carried out with old financing so this year we have some extra resources to do things a bit differently.


                                           A musical moment with Tuija

                                          Old and new chairs together


The icon of Finnish Transvestites, BB told us about the trans scene in 1960s and 1970s in Helsinki


                       Tanja telling about trans legislation all over the world 



And last episode is about my political activities...

One day I was at the Helsinki Pop Jazz Conservatory to introduce Seta activity with a friend Pauliina. One of the aims was to tell both the students and the staff that it is very possible to meet a student representing sexual or gender minority and how to cope with it. It seemed the students were very busy with their rehearsals but the staff stayed longer time with us. We were happy to give them Seta material about this issue and on the other hand we had very fruitful discussion with the student welfare team members.



                            With Pauliina at the Seta material table


I also had another opportunity for lobbying my agenda when I was invited to give a lecture about discrimination on basis of the gender diversity at work places. The invitation came from the Trade Union Pro. So I told about the gender diversity, about myself, about the survey we did two years ago and about the best practices to avoid discrimination. The audience was very active and we had a long talk about the issues after my lecture. It seems that these issues are still quite unfamiliar to many people and there is still very much to be done. Anyway I was very happy to have this opportunity to tell about things I know and regard as very important. I have an intuition the main attitude has rapidly turned to non discriminative direction but it may gain some boost on knowledge and personal presence.



                         Lecturing at the Trade Union Pro session





The blog may be commented in English.

Bloggen kan kommenteras även på Svenska.

Blogia voi kommentoida myös suomeksi.