Duties

Despite Dragon's impending cold, we got out this morning to do our (moral) duties as Finnish citizens - we went to vote in the Presidential elections at Honorary Consulate of Finland. It's a small place, only one room in an office shared with (I would guess) Honorary Consulate of Sweden. The office is in a big office building that was obviously closed on a Saturday, but after trying to open the front door, an elderly guard that had been sitting in the lobby came to the door and asked if we were there to vote - to which we replied "yes", to which he said "No siinä tapauksessa tervetuloa!" and let us in.

Funny thing is, we went to vote in the London Embassy several times, and there were always lot of people there - but never any interaction. It was just like in Finland, Finns came there to do their duty and that was it and there was no reason to smile or say anything to anyone else as it wasn't their business anyway. There weren't many people here, but the atmosphere was completely different - a man was leaving when we came in who warmly greeted us, and we also politely greeted the lady who was voting just before us. The Honorary Vice Consul herself who was taking our votes merrily chatted with us and thanked us for coming. And there was nothing forced about it, it all seemed very natural. What is it - the different culture he that has rubbed off to people? In any case, I quite like it.

We might have done some shopping too, but Vancouver was being it's rainy self so we came home instead... I had also planned to go to the beach to take some photos afterwards (my new camera actually captures the essence of the clouds here, they are like nowhere else) but it was far to wet for that and I have a sneaking suspicion my glamorous assistant wasn't in the mood for standing in the rain holding an umbrella for me. So instead we spent the day watching the rest of Studio Julmahuvi and Mennen Tullen. I have to say that I actually preferred Mennen Tullen - I'm a sucker for detective drama (which, despite being comedy, Mennen Tullen was), but also because Studio Julmahuvi suffers a bit from the bane of all sketch series: repetition. Not as much as many others, but still. Mennen Tullen was much more complete and compact - fantastic story and good implementation.

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