Even one of my French friends said, he was quite shocked to find out the drinking practice Finnish people have. Aaaam, before I go into details, I first want to say to Finnish readers, please dont get offended. I'm just trying to share my observations.

Quite often drinking practice here is that, you go to bar not to drink, but to get drunk. The French friend was telling, he used to go to bar quite often as well back in France, but mostly to hang around with friends and drinking bear was a part of the gossip. But here, quite often, getting trashed is quite often the target. Again, no offense please.

A quite funny thing happened few weeks before.
I have emailed to some office with some queries. My email was like this...

Sir/Madam,

bla bla
bla bla bla
bla bla

blaaah
--
Best Regards/Parhain Terveisin,

Abdullah Al Mazed (Gagan)
Codemate Ltd, Software Engineer

Isokatu 56, FIN-90100 OULU, FINLAND
http://www.codemate.fi 

The mail was sent to Dhaka and a lady replied

Dear Mr.Terveisin,

Thank you for your email.

bla bla
bla blal a
a

Regards,
Nblabla.C.Hblabla(Mrs)
Immigration Enquiries

Did you notice it? Look how she addressed me
Dear Mr.Terveisin
haha.

She was confused by my signature, which starts with

Best Regards/Parhain Terveisin,

Parhain Terveisin means Best Regards in Finnish!!

Funny!!
Dear Mr. best regards ;)

Well I kinda liked my new name Mr. Terveisin too :D

Did I tell you that I get really scared and excited to hear ambulance or fire brigade sirens? I dont know if it happens to you but when I hear the siren of an ambulance, my heartbeat rate increases sharply. I breathe fast and I horribly try to imagine what's the situation inside the ambulance? Is someone helplessly staring at a dear one suffering? Is someone holding his mom's hand in there? I almost panic.

It's interesting how life goes on! I can 'read' someone's life in 40 minutes, by reading a nice novel about some interesting people. I can 'watch' someone's life in 90 minutes, by watching a great movie. but my life... It took me 22 years to become 22 years old :)

I can try to fast forward my life since when I remember. I see a kid lying down on a bed, listening to music in an empty home, my mom went to pick my sister up from her school... I can see a school kid, forcefully being fed eggs and bananas by the mother ( I can almost feel the taste in the mouth now)... I see a 4 year kid driving a real motor bike (handles held by father though)...I see me and my sister running back home, afraid mom will catch us being late (soo sweet memories now)...then 10 years in one of the best school uniform, 2 years in the best college, 3 years in the best private university... memories of home, our distant grandma's home...asking mom to feed me (even at university life)...

Now I am going to add one more memory.

I am in a fast train to Helsinki, to travel around 530 km, writing in a laptop connected to internet using 3G phone, listening music, wonderful foreign summer outside....




And I am going to meet my wife and the best friend Shanila, who is now flying over the sky, to travel over 6300 km...


I believe it's another sweet memory!


Gagan
In train to Helsinki
Oulu time 11:57

It's a full bloomed summer here now in Oulu. Winter was not in so past that I completely forgot about it. Rather winter reminds me how wonderful summer actually is!!

Check this out. Here I have two versions of Oulu from my little window (in the kitchen ;) )

Labels: oulu winter summer

I had a huuge mess to clean up, coz i was lazy for last few weeks ;)
So gradually lot of relatively small cleaning jobs together made a big job to do. I was quite hesitating every day about when should I start.

Today, somehow I managed to start my day at 7:30! (wow)
Went to work at 8 ! (wow..wow..)

I came back before 5 (wow..wow..wow).

And then I started cleaning (enough wows already)
And while cleaning, I made my first time lapse video :) (no more wow)

Watch the small video(less than 2 minutes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65GEQ4WY-so

Labels: cleaning time lapse