While we were in Finland, we noticed something interesting… while not noticing any dwarves persons of restricted growth out and about, we did notice that they were catered for all over the place.

For example… the hotel reception had steps so the little fellas could get up to the desk without having to jump…

They also have special low ’stop’ buttons on the busses, so that the teeny tiny little people don’t have to ask a passing stranger to press the button for them (like Mr. Small did in the Roger Hargreaves book)…

And how are they ever going to get their cute little hands around a pint glass? They’re not! Of course, a dwarf non-proportional person of restricted growth would be fine, but a midget proportional person of restricted growth might have some real trouble.

Never fear… teeny tiny little glasses…

And best of all?

Have you ever met a person of restricted growth? You have? What’s the first thing you noticed? That’s right… the smell.

You see, persons of restricted growth can’t shower like you or I. They have to run around at the bottom of the cubicle trying to get individual drops of water to land on them.

Well… Finland, as usual, has the answer. A dwarf person of restricted growth shower in the hotel bathroom… I’m not sure why it was situated next to the toilet, but who am I to question…

Finland, as a nation, deserves some kind of award and recognition for it’s services to those poor persons of restricted growth. Well done, Finland!

This has been the most effort I have ever expended for a single, rather poor joke. I hope you’re happy.

While we were up the Näsinneula observation tower, H spotted a couple of dots moving across the ice on the lake. We realised they were skaters. Then, like when you look at the stars, the more we looked the more we saw.

The best, though, was the person absolutely tanking across the ice with a slightly bigger dot weaving around in front of them. They made it out from the shore to the Siilinkaari reef pictured in what seemed like a matter of minutes. What a way to cover distance on ice…

On the shore of the frozen lake Pyhäjärvi. We found this route back to our hotel from the city at the end of our first full day in Tampere. We couldn’t have hoped for a better location to stay - close enough (2 miles) to the centre to walk, but far enough that we were basically in the ‘countryside’…

click for large

Did we do it?

Oh yes we did!

This was my third of five dips in the water…

The temperature difference was greater than previously estimated… The sauna was at just over 110° C and the water at -0.4°C

Spotted in the Näsinneula tower, Särkänniemi.

No dancing barefoot on the escalator!

Spotted in Stockmann’s, Hämeenkatu, Tampere.

Introduction

So… we’re soon off for a holiday in Finland to experience some proper snow and ice and amazing sub-arctic weather.

Temperature comparison

Loughborough: -3.2°C
Tampere: -1.0°C

Conclusion

FAIL

I recently blogged about a cold-water experience in Dartmoor.

I have a funny feeling this place is going to be colder…

Bring it on!

Sorry, but when you find out that you’re going to be visiting the city with, and I quote, “the best winterswimming sauna in the world”, you’ve just gotta have a go, no?

DANGER!

Yes, they’re home-made spiked tyres…

I’ve often heard that Finnish is one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn. However, I’ve found Swedish is significantly harder for me to pick up. I think the key with Finnish is to throw away your Latin/Romance roots which help with English, French, Spanish, Italian and the like, and instead see it as a pure logic problem.

All you have to do is learn the rules, and you’ll do just fine. Unfortunately the rules tend to look something like this:

RULE: if the dictionary verb form ends NN RR SS or ST followed by -A/-Ä, then the A/Ä is dropped as well as the immediately preceding consonant. Before adding the personal ending add e for the present/future tense or i for the past tense. If, to the left of the N L R or S there is a weak form consonant or consonant cluster, it is strengthened in all of the present/future/imperfect forms.

And all that because I accidentally wrote opetellan instead of opettelen.

By way of example, so you don’t have to actually read the rule… työskeNNeLLä is the word for ‘work’. To get to ‘I work’, the ‘ä’ is dropped from the end, as well as the ’sticky L’ of LL, so the word becomes työskeNNeL-

BUT, now that we have L (a weak consonant), not LL (a strong consonant), the NN, which was a weakened form of NT is now allowed to be strong again… that gives työskeNTeL-

And then the present tense, first person ending is put on to make ‘I work’… työskeNTeLen.

These rules do become natural in the end… for example, the place name Joensuu is an interesting one… it comes from two words… ‘Joen’ - of the river and ‘Suu’ - mouth.

The word for river, though is Joki, the ‘e’ having been formed from the ‘i’ when the genitive ‘of’ ending was put on, and because the ‘en’ ending is strong, the ‘k’ which is also strong had to be dropped.

Like I said… easy!