Update from the Land of Licorice

tags:

A sunny day in Helsinki, Finland.

Image: GrrlScientist, 25 February 2009 [larger view].

As you can see from the image above, yesterday was a gorgeous, sunny day. It was so warm, comparatively speaking, that I thought that some of the snow might melt. I spent part of the day at the Viikki campus of the University of Helsinki, where the biological sciences are located. I went to a grad student seminar where a mathematical model regarding reproductive strategies (brood parasitism versus stay-at-home-and-nest versus a mixture of these two strategies) was being tested for Barrow's Goldeneyes. It had been a long long time since I'd attended a departmental seminar, so I was very happy about this.

Before attending the seminar, I ate lunch at the wonderful public greenhouse, Gardenia-Helsinki, which is a joint project of the city of Helsinki and the University, where it is located. I managed to get a bunch of wonderful images, some of which will be popping up here over the next few days. I also hope to put together a photoessay about this greenhouse for you.

Here are my plans so far:

  1. Visit the Heureka, Finland's science center.
  2. Attend a seminar Monday - Wednesday (?) where the graduate students in the Biology department at the University of Helsinki present their data to the public [schedule]. I will try to "live-blog" it, but may instead have to make notes and rely on those to help me later write about the individual presentations on my blog.
  3. Short trip to Estonia next week.
  4. Visit Suomenlinna with my camera again, hopefully with a native Finn whose hobby is the history of Finland, so he can give me more insight into the island and its history.
  5. Explore the Helsinki subways looking for more subway art to photograph.
  6. Explore downtown Helsinki on one of the trams, jumping off at each stop to photograph the buildings.
  7. Make my podcasting debut by documenting how to say three swear words (sh*t, f*ck, and d*mn) in as many languages as I can find being spoken here (at least in Finnish, Swedish, Russian and English, but I suspect there are a few more languages to be discovered here).
  8. Photograph one of the commuter trains rushing past my camera lens at high speed, preferably when snow is blowing around.
  9. Photograph a big pile of licorice.

More like this

tags: flower, Gardenia-Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, Viikki, image of the day Still Life: Flower in a vase. Photographed at Gardenia-Helsinki, the public greenhouse at the University of Helsinki, Viikki campus, Helsinki, Finland. Image: GrrlScientist, 25 February 2009 [larger view]. I…
tags: Gardenia, Gardenia jasminoides, flower, Gardenia-Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, Viikki, image of the day Gardenia, Gardenia jasminoides. Photographed at Gardenia-Helsinki, the public greenhouse at the University of Helsinki, Viikki campus, Helsinki, Finland. Image: GrrlScientist, 25…
tags: plants, Gardenia-Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, Viikki, image of the day Curl. Photographed at Gardenia-Helsinki, the public greenhouse at the University of Helsinki, Viikki campus, Helsinki, Finland. Image: GrrlScientist, 25 February 2009 [larger view].
tags: dock, Seurasaari, Helsinki, Finland, image of the day Public dock in downtown Helsinki, Finland. Photographed as I walked through Helsinki, Finland, from Seurasaari. Image: GrrlScientist, 4 July 2009 [larger view]. (raw image) Here is a lovely public dock located in downtown Helsinki (…

Sörnäinen has only drunks for decoration...and Kalasatama is also lacking in art (and drunks), Kamppi has some installations, plus you can see the pink granite of the earth on the way down...I think Kamppi might have the longest escalators also, which are pretty great. And the 3T/3B tram is a pretty good one to take for a tour of Helsinki... have fun!

By Anonymous (not verified) on 26 Feb 2009 #permalink