Yummy?

Lunch yesterday was delicious. Kim, Thomas, Miika, and Thomas - that's not a typo, 2 Thomas' - took me to a restaurant near work that serves meals like mamma makes. I ordered a Swedish dish made with ham and potatoes called skinkfrestelse (nope, I can't pronounce it either - Kim helped me). As we were talking about the different foods they eat here in Finland - foods that include bear (they swear it's really good), reindeer, moose (the poor man's reindeer), etc., they raved about a traditional Russian starter dish: Pickles (from the info I've found on-line, I think they're referring to Sweet and Sour pickles or Russian pickles), sour cream and honey. Take your pickle spear, dip it in the honey, then dip it in the sour cream. They were so emphatic about how yummy this is, I might just have to try it.

Things to know about Helsinki/Finland

1. Finland has 2 official languages: Finnish and Swedish (since Finland used to belong to Sweden). From what I’ve been told, if a town has a Swedish-speaking minority over 6%, then all public signs and services must be offered in both Finnish and Swedish. Since I don’t speak either, it doesn’t help me at all, but it’s cool. The pictures below are street names - the top name in Finnish and the bottom name in Swedish.



2. When I walked into the hotel on Saturday afternoon, the front-desk clerk greeted me with a “hey.” I thought this was a little informal, but hey, what do I know. Then, when I went to dinner on Sunday night (dinner Saturday night didn’t count since it was a Thai restaurant and they spoke English with everyone), the hostess greeted me with a “hey” as well. As it turns out, Finns use the greeting “hei” (hello or hi) which sounds like “hey.”

3. As much as I hate to eavesdrop, I’ve been hearing the same word over and over again in conversations. I somewhat figured out its meaning by the context (yes, you can determine context even if you don’t understand anything that is being spoken). So, yesterday I asked Kim M., a guy I’m working with AND a Swedish speaking Finn, what it means. I was right – the word is “joo” pronounced “yo” like “yo, Adrian!” (Kim says it’s not pronounced “yo,” but I can only detect a minor difference when he says both words). Anywho, it means “yeah,” or “uh-huh.” Yo!

Finlandia - Day 1 (well, day 1/2 actually)

Last Friday, I left Salt Lake City for a week long work assignment in Helsinki, Finland. I’ve never been to Finland, so I've been quite excited. I flew from SLC to Paris, and then Paris to Helsinki. Evidently the 2+ hour layover in Paris wasn’t long enough, because on arrival at baggage claim at the Helsinki airport I heard over the intercom: “Will passenger Blomquist please come to Arrival Assistance?” or something similar. Uh, oh. Not a good sign. HOWEVER, I must point out that they did pronounce my last name correctly. WooHoo! Anyway, my luggage didn’t make the connection. Even though I had come prepared with extra undies, a toothbrush, toothpaste and deodorant in my carry-on, by bag arrived at 9:45 p.m. - the only problem was staying up that late to get my bag.

Helsinki is really quite quaint. My taxi driver made a point of telling my how safe Helsinki is – “you can walk around in the dead of night without fear of violence.”

My hotel room is really cool. MUCH larger than my hotel room in London. It also has a nice flat-screen TV hanging on the wall.



You have to put your room key in this slot in order for the lights to turn on. I guess that stops you from wasting energy by keeping the lights on when you’re not in your room.


When I asked the hotel hostess for some restaurant suggestions, the first two she suggested were a Thai place and an Indian place (the hotel restaurant is an Italian restaurant, and is supposed to be really good). So, I hit the Thai place. Really YUMMY!!

I walked down the street from my hotel to a little grocery store for some bottled water and saw these cool buildings. The pink building (according to my taxi driver) is the old Helsinki Opera House.



More to come...

Do you speak English?

Blogging two days in a row? Crazy, I know. Anywho, last night I went to Tucano's (Brazilian Grill) with a couple of friends visiting from England. John and I ordered the delicious Brazilian Lemonade to drink. Ellen wasn't sure what to drink, so the waiter started describing his favorite drink - fruits blended with vanilla ice cream, etc. Sounded YUMMY! Anyway, Ellen asked if the drink was fizzy. The waiter gave her a very confused look, so she repeated herself - just in case he hadn't heard her over the cacophony that surrounded us. Still looking confused, he looked to me for a translation. So, being bilingual (speaking both English and American - actually I'm trilingual since I also speak French) I said "you know, carbonated?" Ah, yes, that cleared up everything. After that everything the waiter described was "fizzy."
"Can I interest you in a fizzy dessert?" "Do you want to fill out a fizzy survey?"

I know it's March, but...

I know I’m about a month late blogging about it, but I had a GREAT Valentine’s Day this year. My youngest nephew is going on an LDS mission to Zurich, Switzerland (yes, you read that right, my youngest nephew is 19). So, on Valentine’s Day, we had a big family day at the Salt Lake City temple as Kyle went through the temple for the first time. My sister even flew in to town for the event.

Kyle - I mean Elder Blomquist

If that wasn’t cool enough, my newest niece Madison (formerly known as Lupita – see Look ma, no hands & Will someone explain this to me, please?) was sealed to my brother and sister-in-law. It really was a privilege to be a part of this day.

Then we all went to dinner – there were probably around 30-40 of us. Being the quiet, subdued family that we are, no one even knew we were there.

Madison and her "twin" McKenzi

Harold, Kathy, McKenzi and Madison

Harold and Mom

Funny story of the day

I teach the 6-7 year olds at church. I have a great bunch of kids. Today our lesson was on Prophets. This is how our lesson went.

Who was the first prophet? Adam.
Who was the first prophet of the latter-days? Joseph Smith.
Who is the president and prophet today? Obama.

I think we cleared it up. What I found interesting is that out of the mouths of babes come the opinions of their parents.

Things that make me go "huh"

We had a baby blessing today at church. The child's name? Alpha Son . What will #2 son be called? Beta Son? Huh...

Baby, it’s cold outside

The past several days in Pittsburgh have been very cold, like below-freezing cold. It was 12 degrees one morning, 7 degrees another morning, and 2 degrees another morning. However, as I was driving to the airport this morning, this is what my car registered as the outside temperature (OK, this isn’t MY car – my phone wouldn’t take a good picture, but my co-worker’s phone did). I haven't been this cold since I was last in Alaska.


When I arrived back to Utah, it was 34 degrees – only 2 degrees above freezing, and yet, 47 degrees higher than Pittsburgh. I didn’t even wear my coat…

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas... in January

As you may know, I’m still in Pittsburgh this week. Today, Amanda and I decided we needed a break away from the office, so, in spite of the 15-degree temperature, icy sidewalks, and falling snow, we walked to the Oyster House for lunch. The Oyster House is a local restaurant that serves fish sandwiches the size of your face. Check out the picture! Yes, that's TWO fish fillets.


Pittsburgh still has the big Christmas tree up downtown (yes, I know it’s the 14th of January, what's your point?), so on the way back to the newspaper I thought I should take a picture of it. What’s funny is that as I was thinking about taking a picture of the tree, Amanda asked me to take her picture in front of it. What’s that they say about great minds?

I'm famous

Well, not really. I’m back in Pittsburgh, PA this week and next, upgrading the Post-Gazette to a new version of software. I’ve been to Pittsburgh several times over the past, oh, I’d say 7 years – crikey, has it really been that long? – and I’m pretty good friends with most of the people here. Anyway, my friends Ced and Tim record a podcast once a week called Tech Talk, and yesterday they asked me to join them. It was fun – we just sat around a table talking about different technology-related news articles. I’m not sure why, but Ced assigned the article about on-line dating to me… What does that mean?

You know how when you listen to your voice on a recording (video or audio) and it doesn’t sound at all like your voice sounds in your head? I know it’s me on the recording, but it doesn’t sound like what I think I sound like. OK, I’m rambling now…

So, I’m really not famous (they jokingly say they only have a 3-person listenership – is that a word? Spell check offers "listener ship" and "listeners hip" as alternatives) – but if you want to listen (it’s a little long, so you can fast forward as needed), click here: Tech Talk 01/06/09