h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's been too long..
*Gives a big *

Hey!!!

How are you?!!

I'm pretty thanks
I'm dieting, hungry as though
How've you been? I've been lurking around occasionally, noticed you went to Korea for a bit.. How was that?

Dieting? that sucks! Get yourself some yummy low-fat food so you don't starve!

yeah, I've been pretty good - Korea was absolutely awesome, worked for 4 weeks and travelled for 3...unreal fun. I want to travel even more now though, but I don't have a job or any money or anything, so it looks like I'm stuck here for a while!

At uni now - well, on holidays, sorta....got exams in about a week...it'll be so nice to not have anything to do!

What've you been up to? How's your niece? How's w*rk??

Yeah, dieting is no picnic. However, I've lost about 9kg in the past two months, so I'm still quite motivated. And I've learned I just love tomato soup! :D

I know what you mean by travelling.. I'm at that point again where I really want to go to London but my last trips nearly bankrupted me. Well, a coppel of months ago I was on a work trip to Sweden. My first work trip abroad! Well, I was in Sweden for only eight hours but still.

Other than that, it's been nothing but work for me. Six long weeks for me before my summer vacation. It's been so beautiful and sunny here that I'm sure that's when all the storms and rain kicks in.

My nieces and nephew are very well, thanks. My sis had her 22nd birthday on Thursday and the little angels were a bit shy for some reason. After five minutes, though, both of them were trying to top each other yelling to me "unca, look!". Can't but love 'em, they're such sweeties. Haven't seen my youngest niece in ages, unfortunately but Mom says she's fine too.

What do you study at uni?

9kg in two months?! Well done!!

Mmmm...soup....love it! and it's the right time of year for it here!

Working abroad would be unreal - even if it is only for 8 hours at a time London...it's meant to be the most expensive city in the world, isn't it? I'd love to go there!! Have you made it to any of the meets??

6 weeks before summer vacation? Oh...so long! How long do you get off???

I'm studying Outdoor Education at Uni, so I get to do lots of fun stuff like this: http://cafram.tripod.com

That SO doesn't look like something I'm likely to do!

My work trip wasn't that much of work, it was more of a seminar on the ferry to Stockholm, where we had the day for ourselves to do a bit of running around. London is quite expensive, I admit that, but I still love it. It's one of those very few cities I could totally imagine living in. I found it irresistable. Unfortunately I haven't been to the meets, my first trip was just one week off! The second one was about a month off. The problem is that because travelling is so expensive I need about six months getting-ready time to collect enough money (if there's such a thing as enough).

In Finland we have comparatively quite long holidays and we get even more when staying with the same employer. My ten years with the city gives me 30 days holiday a year, that's six whole weeks . I'm having four weeks on the summer and saving two weeks for the winter. When I've been 15 years where I am, I get 8 more days of holiday. Can't wait, really.

Nah, it's heaps of fun!

A seminar on a ferry?! How weird! Pretty cool though

A few of my friends have gone to work in pubs etc in London - they've all loved it - I'm so jealous!! If you think it's expensive to get from Finland to London, you should try going from Australia! I will get there one day...eventually...all my money's kind of dissappered this year though

Your holidays for work sound like they're about as long as my uni holidays! It's so nice to have ages off! What're you going to do over summer?

Well, ferry isn't exactly the right word, however it's what the Finns call 'em. Another descriptions for them are "a swimming shopping centre" and "a swimming hotel". The ferry has nearly 1000 cabins and can hold almost 3000 passengers, so not your average ferries, I suppose. As far as I know, there are only two tax-free zones within the EU; the Canary Islands of Spain and the other one is Åland, which is a part of Finland. Tax-free shopping is pretty much the point of these ferries. The transportation between Finland and Sweden is secondary. Another brilliant scheme to get rid of your money.

Hmm.. my holiday.. well, my primary holiday plan for now is pretty much doing nothing. If there's any time left from that, I've been wondering if I finally should do my Christmas cleaning of the house. I'm a little behind schedule, you see.. Mostly done just quick tidying up but I'm due for a proper cleaning. There always seems to be something more interesting to do.. 've you planned your holiday yet?

So it's basically a big floating rip-off? Sounds....uh...great I bet there's a casino on board, right?

Doing nothing sounds like a great idea - and cleaning from Christmas - that's even more disorganised than me!! give you a chance to catch up on things, which is always fun

I'm doing nothing for my holidays...well, when I say nothing, I'm going surfing (in winter! ), rockclimbing, driving to Canberra (8 hours away ) and catching up with as many friends as possible. But I haven't actually planned anything, so I *could*, theoretically, be doing nothing

A floating rip-off sounds about right. It's a lot of fun too. Usually I can be found at the disco or watching the midnight show. And yes, there actually is a casino, a small one though. There's a roulette table and a blackjack table and that's it, actually. There are some video games and pinball machines too. And around the ship there are lots of slots machines, but they're not too bad. The stakes are very small on the slots and they're required by law to donate a big portion of the profits from those to different charities.

Disorganised? No, I wouldn't say that. I.. umm.. haven't.. err.. just gotten round to it just yet, is all.

Surfing seems lots of fun. I suppose it requires some sence of balance though, which I have about none. And usually surfing here is usually as productive as ing on a swimming pool. We just don't have the waves for that. Rock climbing.. . Catching up with friends is always fun.

I just came from grocery shopping. There was this family biking, mom, dad and two kids. The other kid fell with his bike, the mom nearly hit him, didn't quite but her bike fell down. There was this other kid on a safety seat (luckily they all had helmets on) and fell with the bike, nearly got hit by a bus, and that stupid bus driver had the nerve to honk at them! Like they did that deliberately! Luckily nothing more serious happened but it looked a bit scary for a moment.

How long does the boat ride take? How often do they go? Sounds pretty good

Haven't got round to cleaning is ok....but from Christmas?! things could be growing!

I've never been surfing before I don't even know if it'll actually happen....it *is* getting pretty cold here! That means there'll be bigger waves though, apparently! Rock climbing is heaps of fun - once again not much fun in the cold though!

Been catching up with friends over the past couple of days - meant to go out again tonight but I've got a nasty cold, so i think I might just stay home in front of the fire and watch tv.

bike accidents are always scary - the poor family! they must've been terrified! Thank goodness they were all wearing helmets! I haven't had any accidents on my bike, but I do silly things like ride home from the pub at 2am...weaving all over the road...not a good thing.

Hiya!

The whole trip takes 36 hours, of which you have about 8 hours to spend in Stockholm. They are two competing shipping companies, the other sells with lower prices and the other one sells with good quality. Both of them sail once a day every day, except on Christmas Eve and Christmas day. And they're heaps of fun! (I seem to have catched a new phrase.. )

I have done *some* cleaning since Christmas, just not very thorough ones. Like my windows and floors need a bit of washing and annoying things like that.

It's a bit disorienting thinking that it might be cold there. Our summer's just begun, after all! You have a fire place?!?

I had a biking accident once. Not the brightest of ideas, I might say. I was supposed to take my Mom's dog, a borzoi, out for a walk. I was feeling a bit lazy and went to walk her with a bike. Then she saw another doggie and decided to go and say hi. I hit my head a little (I had no helmet), had a small concussion and forgot about everything what had happened that day, even what day it was or if I've been to school that day. Nothing too serious happened fortunately, I spent the night at a hospital and I started to remember things again.

36 hours?! that's ages!! Even with an 8-hour stopover...ouch!

Windows, floors, cobwebs......ugh. Fun!

We've just started winter, so it'll only get colder from now on! In about a month I'm going cross-country skiing with uni. Yeah, we've got two fireplaces at home - one of them we don't use cos it smokes out the whole house, but the other is enclosed, so it's all good. Toasty warm to sit in front of, just annoying to find wood for! At my dad's place there's in-floor heating, which is fantastic.

What kind of dog is a borzoi? I've done that before, without the dog on a leash though, silly! And no helmet...tut tut tut...concussion would *not* be fun!

Yep, 36 hours. It's great fun, though. The boat sets sail at 17:30 (Finnish time) and is in Stockholm the next morning at 9:30 (Swedish time, which is one hour less than Finnish). Then at 17:30 (Swedish time) it sets sail again and surprisingly enough, is in Helsinki at 9:30 (Finnish time). The time on the boat can be spent productively by shopping, eating, drinking, dancing, gambling, at the sauna, in the jacuzzi. I have my own tradition on how things are done. On the first evening the first thing to do is to relax in the sauna and the jacuzzi. After that dinner, a little lurking in the disco, watch the midnight show in the nightclub and more discolurking, then to bed. On the way back it's shopping the gifts for the family - things are a bit cheaper on the boat than in the mainland - and then dinner, discolurking, midnight show and more discolurking and to bed.

Oi! In-floor heating! Mankinds greatest invention, well, right after h2g2! Wish I had one.. It'd make winters just so much more tolerable.

Borzois look a bit like these: http://www.geocities.com/finborzoi
The one that has his nose down (Castamir) had to be put down last November, though. He had bone cancer. Haven't done much of updating on the page lately.. I was a bit surprised it even existed still. After all, I hadn't logged in there in a couple of years.. It was 1997 I think.. And still I remembered the password! Could you believe that?!?

Yeah, no helmet.. But in my excuse I'd like to point out that I was 13 at the time. 15 years ago!!! I was young and stupid´back then. I'm no longer young.

Wow - that sounds great! The only experience I have with ferries that I can remember was in Korea - a 12 hour boat trip on a boat that had one overpriced canteen, and a couple of big rooms with about 300 people in them. No furniture or anything, just grab a bit of floor and hope no one kicks you! It was a cultural thing, I think

You've been a busy boy lately, haven't you?! Almost always top of the busiest posters list...wow!!

mmm....in-floor heating with slate floor and big shaggy rugs is the best

Borzois look like a bit of a Lassie dog, only a bit more lanky. Big, anyway!! I hate when animals have to be put down - quite possibly the most traumatic moment in my life was when our dog had to be put down...as well as when my mum ran over my dog....and when the cat had to be put down on my birthday. It was exactly a year older than me.

28 is still young!! My mum's just hit 50...she's getting all distressed about being called a senior citizen!! If *she* is still young, than you're just a baby!

Busy? Me? No, you must mistake me for someone with the same name and user number and password.. Ok, I admit. I've been having a bit of fun here. A couple of days ago we were giving with Hati the moderators something to do. We managed to get a lot of hidden messages in her space. Did you know that it takes about 15 minutes before the message is actually hidden? Yesterday I actually used a Finnish word and it did NOT get hidden! http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/FFM52345?thread=100892&skip=6560&show=20#p2099279

Yeah, borzois are quite big, slim but tall. Last summer Daniel, my nephew always insisted that he should walk one of the dogs and if there were no other dogs around, we usually let him. It looked a bit funny when he was walking a dog, the dog being taller than the one on the other end of the leash. Nonetheless, the dog is still called Mom's little poodle. And trust me, it's not fun when the "little poodle" decides to sit on your lap.. He does that sometimes.

Yeah, I guess 28 is still young. But I have to practise for when I'm 30. . That could be a problem sometimes though, since actually I'm 23. For five years in a row now. My Mom turned 47 some while ago, but sometimes I feel she's younger than I am. She's great fun, really.

well done! I thought they were doing some translating thing now??

How similar is Finnish to Swedish and...whatever it is they speak in Iceland and Norway??

- I can just picture the huge dog taking your poor Nephew for a walk! My labrador often jumps onto my lap - she's beautiful, she just doesn't realise how heavy she is!

5 years in a row you've turned 23? That's some achievement! I had a teacher once who was 50-something, yet he swore he was 22...

30's not old either - you're only as old as you think you are, or as you act, or something like that...don't let age get you down! It's just more experience and stuff - age is a *good* thing!

That translation thing is still on the works, I believe. I asked about it the other day and there's no news yet. Linda's working on it but I bet she has h**l of a lot of other things to manage as well.

Finnish and Swedish actually aren't that similar. Finnish and Estonian are, though. Surprisingly enough they speak Norwegian in Norway, Icelandic in Iceland and Danish in Denmark. Those three resemble Swedish somewhat.

Dogs are quite fun.. The borzois are pretty smart creatures, as I'm sure labradors (I used to call them laboratories when I was a child, it was a difficult word ) are. Few years ago mom's dogs figured out a nice game. They picked some of their toys up and dropped them out of the window. We lived on the 6th floor at the time. And dogs learn pretty fast too! My sis had a Polish sighthound (http://members.aol.com/Houndski/) once. For some reason he decided to chew on the electric cord of a radio which was on. He never did that again.. My sis couldn't keep him though and he went back to his breeder.

As for age, I try to think it more like "growing older is compulsory, growing up is optional" kind of thing. I'd just like to stay young and pretty. Well, young anyway; pretty needs a lot of work first.

Yeha, there's so much for the poor Italics to be doing - I feel bad every time I ask how something's coming along!

Yeah, I remember that now! There're people in my course from Norway, Sweden and Iceland, and they can all communicate pretty well - especially the Norweigan and the Swede. I just remembered someone having a diary with Thursday written the way you had it in thta other forum.

Dogs are excellent - I can never make up my mind if I'm a dog or a cat person though! We let our lab in in the mornings and she runs around the house searching for her teddy! Dogs dropping toys out the window....I wonder what the people downstairs would have said when they say the stuffed animals flying past?!

my mum's got a thing which says "you are only young once, but you can stay immature indefinately". It suits her