Helsinki- Worldcon 75

A little bird reminded me I have not updated in some time. I have not done anything interesting in a while, except to work, be lazy about running, work on learning some new languages,and brush up my Spanish through some work projects. But then we went to Helsinki, Finland for the long awaited Worldcon 75. My first Worldcon and my first time to Finland or Scandinavia. As a Minnesota transplant, this was a very interesting look at why Minnesota is the way it is and where those odd vowel pronunciations come from. Hearing people speak Swedish, Finnish, and Norwegian makes the various regional MN accents suddenly make souch sense. Dulut'! Why-zetta! I prepared by starting to learn Finnish through Teach Yourself, a phrasebook, some good Finnish websites, the Pod101 podcasts, and finally Pimsleur audio method CDs from the library. Each one gave me a little glimmer of the payterns, rules, and sounds. The latter really pumped up my skills. I got to Finland and tried to use them... I guess I learned the sounds good enough, because I would say hello and "Two coffees, please" and people would launch into the long series of syllables and expect an answer. And I would be like, "I'm..." And they would switch to English... This was different than Spain and France, where one look says Estados Unidos/Etats Unis and there is no chance of mangling their own language. Being able to be mistaken for a Suomea speaker was inspiring enough to make me take a class. I have only had a few, but it's become clear how badly I was saying the y, ö, and ä... We are making good progress towards maybe being able to get through a series of two or three exchanges before exhausting my vocab. It will be a long haul, but I'd love the chance to go back and see more of Finland beyond Helsinki and get more language immersion with a better base under my belt. Three reasons: 1) public transport, 2) the people, 3) the natural beauty. Well, and the coffee. All pretty awesome. Worldcon let me realize a bucket list type moment of being in a room listening to the fabulous Finnish writer Johanna Sinisalo read in Finnish and talk in both Finnish and English. She is as clever and funny as her books and stories, with the dry, sly wit Minnesota has taught me to appreciate, and a strong political edge. I stood in a very long line to hear her talk about the Iron Sky sequel (and see the trailer), and she walked right by us. I tried not to squee. I bought some of her books in the original, as inspiration. We'll see how that goes... I will write more about more interesting things about our trip later. First, pictures.