The River Runs Through It

[kyrasantae]

Turku is a silly city because it's in the west, and it used to be the capital, so street signs are bilingual. It helps me guess at what they mean, but not by much. There are hardly any really old buildings here, because they've burnt down in great fires a century ago. And there is a river through the city. It's probably the only river in Finland [given the way they talk about it], and in the downtown there are restaurants/bars on boats in the river. The water is always muddy and dirty, but there's fish to eat in the restaurants (argh, not salmon again!).

People here have a funny thing with the river, too. Things are either on This Side (täl'pual') or the Other Side (tois'pual') of it, where This Side is defined as the side with the church, and the Other Side is the other side, no matter where you actually are.

This Saturday seemed to be a normal one, for once - when nightlife actually starts around 11pm instead of earlier in the evening, except for the rambling (and cursing) drunks, who are affectionately called "riverbank people" (because people like to drink by the river). As with every Saturday, there's a handful of people dressed in silly costumes for their bachelor/bachelorette parties.

Karaoke was rather epic fail. The place, I think, had more English songs than Finnish songs, and it was really more of a young people's hangout. Note to self: even if you know the song pretty well, don't choose a fast song that you don't know super-well because you can't keep up with "reading" the words since you, after all, don't actually know it to the point you can fill in the whole word simply with a glance, especially long words. I didn't feel like I really showed my best there at all since choices were so limited.

Samuel ordered for me a rullakebab (basically a kebab wrapped in something reminiscent of roti bread) Sunday lunch, which was great, but it was huge and it was rather a mistake to stuff myself with it since with all the walking through farmlands on the outskirts had me throwing up pretty quickly. We walked back to his temporary apartment (ugh, dorm rooms, but hey, a bigger washroom!) [as fast as we could] and I crashed on his futon while he played WoW. Then he left the radio on the Suomipop station all evening, which meant I could have my "ooh I know this song" feeling almost every other song. I'm actually a bit surprised that I recognized so many songs.

Turkulaiset talk funny too. Their accent sounds more swallowed and in the throat, and there's a pair of words that they use interchangeably in a certain context while they are different in standard, but Samuel couldn't remember what it was. He also uses "moro" (and I've heard other people say "morjens") as greeting, because he thinks "moi" and "hei" are kinda sissy. I guess that's true; "moro" definitely sounds more manly.

Comments

[fakiiri.livejournal.com]

'it used to be the capital, so street signs are bilingual'

It has nothing to do with being the old capital. It's because there are above a certain percent of natively Swedish speaking people living in Turku. In fact, most of the towns in Finland have bilingual street signs.


'It's probably the only river in Finland'

Bwahaha! Not by far!

[kyrasantae.livejournal.com]

jkl doesn't have bilingual signs ;P

Well, I'll admit that I think Tampere had a river too.

[fakiiri.livejournal.com]

But Tampere and Helsinki do :-þ

Have a look at the pohjanmaa map and start counting the rivers...

[kyrasantae.livejournal.com]

But mai map! it iz in teh Kanada :p

[(Anonymous)]

Do we have to deduct your geek points?-)
http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=65.687692,25.252075&spn=0.986101,2.790527&z=9
In the land of 10000s lakes there ought to be equally many rivers. Otherwise they'd be ponds instead of lakes.

[kyrasantae.livejournal.com]

You could possibly blame my lack of my poster map and the lack of computerness when I wrote that :P

P.S. I know who you are ;)

[(Anonymous)]

All the cities near the coast has bilingual signs, PK-seutu (pääkaupungi, Helsinki, Vantaa, Espoo), Turku, Hanko, Pori. Dunno bout Tampere tho. Tammerkoski in Tampere is a wonderful place at summers : )