Remind me

Recent days have seen my cooking variety expand tremendously due to a couple of reasons. The first one was discovering a decent replacement for good old Koskenlaskija cheese. While these aren't quite as versatile in cooking due to slightly harder and hence not-as-easily-melting composition, they're good, very good. The other one was actually wandering into this Asian store I pass on almost daily basis. The window shows mostly oriental vases and different kinds of collectibles in all imaginable shapes, but it took me so long to actually go inside and discover all the grocery goodness. Thanks for the tip, E!

The weekend turned out to be fantastically refreshing, and helped to combat my lately slightly blue moods. A Swede from the Icelandic classes had invited me, friend N and an unclear number of other people to her birthday party on Friday. There we happily went, and it was probably the first time I've ever been in a room filled with archaeologists. While I deliberately formed the previous sentence to sound terribly exciting, well. Those archaeologists seem to drink quite like the rest of us. Maybe it's all the fresh air they get on the outdoor excavations. Nonetheless, the vibes were good and we got several good chuckles. Not least in expense of a couple late arrivals, one of which was a Finnish girl who had just graduated from high school. She claimed that she's able to recognize Finns everywhere yet it took her roughly 30 minutes to realize that I was speaking mostly Finnish with N. To be fair though, most of us can probably attest to the fact that there are times when perception just doesn't seem to kick in.

I've recently been pondering quite a lot about what will my Vaasa be like whenever I go back, since so much seems to have happened since I left. People seem to be moving away, moving together, leaving my old neighbourhood and doing whatever shenanigans they come up with when I'm not keeping an eye on them. Thus, it was incredibly delightful first to fall happily asleep after a great socializing Friday and wake up to a lazy Saturday morning and have the player instantly fire up Groove Armada's My Friend. Whenever I'm down / I call on you my friend / a helping hand you lend / in my time of need... It's a naive sounding little song, but there's also a lot of groove and fun. Another personal experience with the ultimate effect of music on us.

While I've never been good at making friends with everybody around me, that particular Groove Armada tune felt so completely fitting. I realized that while I'm probably regarded as the house oddity in our little community and haven't filled my phonebook with everyone's number, I've learned to know a couple of my kind of people.

Never stop learning, they say. It seems safe to assume that also applies to learning about yourself. This whole living over here thingy has proved to be excellent in that department.

There's been quite a lot of different movie experiences going on for me too. From watching the aforementioned and lovely Paris, je t'aime with Icelandic subtitles and understanding delightfully much of it to crashing lazily on the couch to witness penguin life and Emilie Simon's wonderful tunes in La Marche de l'empereur and yesterday's epic loudness and loud epicness of Frank Miller's 300. It's all good.

Plus, in the immediate vicinity we have this concert. And just a few days later in Ísafjörður there's Aldrei fór ég suður,which translates to I never went south. A rock festival named after an (apparently) popular Bubbi tune, with lots of Icelandic and a little international flavour as well, topped with a free entry. An excellent excuse to cram big masses of people into significantly smaller cars and enjoy some roadtrip awesomeness, West Fjords scenery and lots and lots of live music.

What's there not to love?