Last week in review

I have been having many problems this week. As I walk around Oulu I have hordes of little children running after me.

They think I am Father Christmas. What do you think?



Their mother's on the other hand think I am the Pied Piper of Oulu. Children dash after me!! They wave at me from across the road. Or is it my imagination....

I think a good chocolate factory should stuff my pockets with delicious goodies, half for me the other half for the children. :-)

And what is the BBC coming to these days. Here is a picture I took off the tele yesterday.



Is the "stiff upper lip" for correctness vanishing from England, or was it rather a deliberate statement and the coining of a new word?

A few rays of sunshine hit Oulu last week lighting the gloomy days.



Sunrise today was at 9:55 am and the winter sunset already was at 14:21 hours.



Both the reindeer and the squirrel that ran across the road, in front of my car, were much happier with the arrival of some snow.





During the week I passed by the now shut down cellulose factory that was designed, in part, by the famous Finnish Architect Alvar Aalto. There still stands one building of the complex. I got a shot of it for posterity. I wonder whether this will be torn down like the rest of the factory.



And yesterday, Annikki created her Northern lights in the Oulu Garden, the only place probably in Finland where you can see the this phenomena at Annikki's will. I will get better photographs later this year. She put on this show for our visitor from India, Sidharth Mazumdar.



Sidharth will study Biotechnology at Kuopio University and do Master's thesis as part of a group of 8 students, 6 from the international arena and two from Finland.

Today he is getting a taste of Finnish culture as one of his new Finnish friends has asked him to visit the city on the Arctic Circle, Rovaniemi, to enjoy a "Pikkujoulu" or a "Little Christmas Party". This is the rage around Finland among work colleagues and students as many of them try to release their work tensions by having a "few beers" together.

Usually it does not stop at a few beers! Sidharth, will, however, take the train back at 18:00 hours as he travels back the 200+ km from his first visit to the "real" Arctic!

Maybe 200 km south of it does not qualify Oulu to claim it is in the Arctic and us to be Articians?