infobits - infopalat

What I wanted to express was, "I lost it [a necklace] about 10 years ago." or "Se katosi noin 10 vuotta sitten."
What I actually said was, "It wandered off by itself about 10 years ago." or "Se eksyi noin kymmenen vuotta sitten."

Un/fortunately, the women at the store did not correct me.

Stuff:
Two sanitized jars, from the pantry
Two sanitized jar lids, from the pantry
Viili culture
Spoon
Milk
Room temperature cupboard, or countertop if you do not have animals

What to do with the stuff:

1. Put two spoonfuls of viili culture into a sanitized jar.
2. Half-fill the jar with organic, semi-fat milk.
3. With a spoon, thoroughly mix the viili culture and milk.
4. Put the jar into the cupboard and leave it uncovered and undisturbed for 12 hours.
   More than +/- 30 minutes is suboptimal.
5. Remove the viili from the cupboard.
6. Put a lid on the viili and put it into the fridge for at least 6 hours.
7. Ideally, repeat every 24 or 48 hours.
   If left too many days, the viili becomes acidic and you have to make a couple batches before you can eat it again.
   Worst case, the culture dies and I will have to order a new culture.

I am conscious about the sounds we make as house guests. Over breakfast, I hear a relatively quiet fart from the rocking chair under a blanket of typing. Over here, I clear my sinuses. Not for the sake of smelling the fart. Must be a joy for our friends.

For some reason, the word kuitti (receipt) sounds like a Swedish word. It threw me off in a store today because I thought the woman was speaking Swedish to me. My reaction caused this chain reaction:

Cashier: (In Finnish) "Would you like a receipt?"
Me: [Thinking, "Why did she just speak to me in Swedish?" Blank jetlag stare.]
Cashier: (In English) "Would you like a receipt?"
Me: (In Spanish) "Yes." (In Finnish) "Err, yes."
Cashier: (In Finnish and slightly embarrassed) "Sorry that I spoke to you in English."
Me: (In Finnish) "You can also speak to me in Spanish too, if you'd like."

The other observation that again became clear is that Finnish people do not know how to talk around language difficulties if someone does not grasp a term. The pressure is on the learner to make his/herself understood. Today's term was vourokautta (24-hour periods of time), in the context of buying a multi-day bus pass. I worked around this with, "All day long for three days." She persisted with vuorokautta to make sure that she was selling me the correct thing. What made things clear was the advanced notion that the pass would cost somewhere 20-some euros. She said, "24 euros" and I said "okei".

On another note, you cannot look up vuorokautta in a paper dictionary without knowing how to conjugate it to its dictionary form. No problem there, fortunately.

I have been awake for 1.5 hours and have just realized that it is just now getting to be 05:30. Oops. The timezone on my laptop is incorrect.

Here's what the world gave me at 04:00:

The extrememly fresh air is gently circulating amidst still trees whose green gold are not shimmering. The still makes my ears ring in the absense of high-tech white noise. My senses are fully open: ears, eyes, nose. The stimuli of sitting in a chair with viili and a cup of very early morning jetlag tea makes me feel younger.

My body is alive and awake. I am drinking TWININGS™ BLACKCURRANT tea that gives me a warm, content feeling that roots me in moments of an earlier trip here nearly 20 years ago.
Ah!, I hear the squirrel running across the side of the building. Gosia mentioneed this squirrel. Our sleeping accommodations are on a balcony. We get to smell some of the most clean air in the world, all night long.

Today we are off to wander around Helsinki for the day. Perhaps tomorrow I will ask for my Polish lesson that Gosia promised me on her visit to San Francisco a couple months ago.

Ok, what time is it really? I think I am an hour off. It's only now beginning to be 05:20 it seems. I might have woken up at 4 AM instead of 5 AM. Interesting.

Now all showered and ready to go at 06:30. What a weird day already.