Helsinki!

Helsinki!

Wow, what a trip.  The trip there seemed to take a long time, since I needed to be up at seven in the a but didn’t get into Helsinki until 5.30p (Finnish Time); Finland is two hours ahead of Ireland.  I meet Scotty, my buddy from Edmonton, at a hockey rink about an hour after landing.  Since I only had a carryon and clearing customs from within the EU was as fast as getting a shinny new stamp on my passport.

The first thing I noticed about Finland that just made me simile was that they drove on the RIGHT!  I haven’t been able to adjust very well to everyone driving on the left over here.  Finland also reminded me a lot of Edmonton they have the same type of climate, same type of foliage and Helsinki felt a bit like a hockey town (maybe because where we spent most of our time).  Helsinki was also very clean city, they don’t have billboards anywhere and on the back of the cars there aren’t any words or writing just a logo of the car company.

Finland gave me my hockey fix, I watched six different teams in three different rinks in three days, (Blues 2 -  Ässät 3,  HIFK 3- Tappara 6, Jokerit  4 – Ilves 1) though the Finnish have a lot to learn about how to put on a hockey game.  I do have to give them credit for a few things that we could incorporate; the fan zone, cheerleaders and restaurants at the game.  First off the fan zone is a section behind the away team’s goal where the fan start chants, dance and even sing.  The tickets in that section are fairly cheap like 10 EUR and it looks like everyone is into the game.  Secondly the cheerleaders, between whistles there are about two cheerleaders per section dancing in the isle around the stadium, nothing wrong with more girls at a hockey game.  Lastly a couple of the rinks have restaurants on one of the levels where you can eat and enjoy a pint while watching the game.  This is a great idea for the games that aren’t selling out, but I don’t think we could afford the space at Rexal.

They could also learn a lot from the NHL though, like allow beer in your seats and have vendors going up and down the stands (might have to choose between vendor and cheerleaders).  Also I miss not having a 50/50 draw at the game.  Being the stupid tourist that I am I didn’t know the rule about not having beer in your seat, I just assumed you buy a beer and then go watch the game.  No one gave me shit for it but I took me a period to notice that I was the only guy drinking beer in the stands.

Finnish people loved the fact two Canadian guys came to their country to watch hockey.  Everyone we chatted with was interested in us and I think they enjoyed the opportunity to speak English as well.  In addition everyone knew were Edmonton was, home of Jari Kurri and Esa Ticken, which always gave us something to talk about. Our second night in Helsinki we meet two girls that were huge hockey fans and even had extra tickets to the game we wanted to see the next night.  So for three games I only spent like 30 EUR on tickets.

Before one of the hockey games Scotty found a pub close to the rink we figure it would good to have a few pints with the home team fans before the game.  We also wanted to grab a bite, however the menu was in Finnish so trying to play it cool we both just ordered what we thought sounded good.  Scott went with the Tonnikalavihannesmunakas, since it was the longest thing on the menu, yes that is spelt correctly.  I went with the Grillattua porsasta – paistettua tomaattia, sipulia, since it sounded like pasta with a tomato sauce.  Scotty’s choice turned out to be a tuna omelet with corn and other veg; mine as you may have guessed was fried pork with onions and fries; both choices were delicious.

Besides the hockey Scotty and I spent an hour at Serena, it’s a water park just outside of Helsinki.  They had some great slides one of them is the black hole which was completely dark except in a few places before a drop or a turn.  In the summertime they have an outdoor park too much like Silvan Lake, with the half pipe slide and stuff.  Also in the summer they have huge toboggan hill / waterside where everyone goes down the side of the mountain in a tube.  The place was great, but I think it would be even more fun in the summer.

After talk to several locals they recommended we try a fisherman’s restaurant by the port and have the halibut.  We were server about 15 small halibut on top of a huge stack of mash potatoes; I wish I took a picture.  The fish was battered and fried as whole except for the head, the bones and the tail still attached.  After making weak attempts at removing the bones one of the guy were we chatting with shows us how it was done, he grabbed the fish by the tail and eat it whole in one bit.  Since I am wanted to get the full Finnish experience and had to give it try.  The fish was so fresh that all the bones were soft, but one was enough.

Finland was great I am looking forward to going back to another Scandinavian city to watch more hockey and meet more foreign hockey fans.

 

Celebrity Encounter

Just when I start to settle down and move into my own space life has gotten busy again.  The week started off as usual, the guys talking about poker and the WSOPE (World Series of Poker Europe).  I heard our pros where doing good and John Juanda had one of the bigger events, then later that day I saw Chris Ferguson walking down the hall of the office.  I remembered the guys talking about how the pros used to come by the office when they were in LA, but I didn’t expect anyone to come to the Dublin office.

I was playing it cool and just kept on working, then one of the senior guys at the company started introducing everyone and I got a chance to meet him quickly, nothing special but none the more I got meet him.  Although a few hours later I got invited to go to lunch with Chris and a few other guys and was able to get to know him a little and found out that Chris was going to be in town for the next week.

Tuesday night there was a party organized for him and a couple of hours into the party they busted out the geeky games.  Some guys at work play geeky games weekly, I have joined them a couple of times but I am still learning.  It started with a simple game of RoboRally, a great game for programmers, where Chris won and a strong second place finish for myself.  The games continued into a three game 6 hour battle between the host, Chris and both of my boss’.  Next was Medici, a great game where everyone bids on cargo for their ship trying to maximize their profits.  Medici is a great game theory type of game, which with that group of players proved to be very challenging, yet I only missed first by one point.

The decision to start the third game at 2am maybe wasn’t a wise one, but how often do you get a chance to play games with Chris Ferguson.  Carcassonne, a game Chris never played before seemed easy for him to understand, strategize and win, maybe everyone took it easy on him since he was learning it but I finished second for the third time that night.  After the games we all watched the US presidential debate and I didn’t end up getting home till after five.

 

No longer homeless

After a couple of days of looking for a place I finally found one.  It took me so long since I started looking at bachelor for under 1,000 EUR, but most of them where in a basement and about the size of my room back home plus a tiny kitchen.  After that I moved on to looking for a place to share with randoms, it was really hard to find a good place, in a good location with cool housemates.  After meeting with a half dozen groups of people I finally found a great group, within walking distance of city centre and a nice room.  There are six of us that share a house three Irish girls; one is a nurse, one is a part time nurse going back to school and one is a legal drug deal (pharmaceutical sales). There is also a couple; the girl is from Oz and the guy is Irish, everyone gets along great.  I think it will be good to hang out with some people outside of work.

I saw Keith Barry, a great show a couple of weeks ago, it was at the Olympia Theater which I think is few hundred years old.  Keith is a illusionist, hypnotist and other mind tricks; there is a great Ted Talk video that give you a good idea of what the show is like.

Work is going really well we added another guy to our team last week and we are trying to hire another one.   I have been working strange hours, coming in at 9.30am some days and not until 11am on others, but sleeping in comes with a price so I have been staying as late as 9pm some nights.  I am working on an automatic spam chat ban for the company, which I hope will be released in the next couple of weeks.  Spam on the site has become a real problem so there is a big rush to get this out and do it right.

Just when I started to get a bit of home sick, I saw a sign that said Tim Horton’s severed here at convince store, so I had to give it a try.  It was out of a vending machine and it was a Americano, basically it was “good” vending machine coffee if that makes any sense, but as far as tim’s goes it wasn’t even close.  I haven’t found a place to servers drip coffee everything here is espresso based, I do miss my tims.

 

Dublin Found

Instead of emailing everyone I decided to do what the “cool kids” have been doing for the last 8 years and create a blog.  I know, I know I have changed since moving but I think this might just work out. :p

Just giving everyone hello and an update of life in Dublin.  My flight was pretty good there was a couple of hour delay in Hethrow due to rainy weather, you think they could handle that better since it rains all the time.  No problems with baggage or customs, I don’t think the Irish ever check what you bring into the country.

Once I landed I got a message from my friend / boss Aaron about a party at the CEOs place that night, but after flying all night and not sleeping in the last 40 hrs how could I say no.  I didn’t have time to take a nap, just a showered a was off to the party.  Aaron ceased to tell him that this wasn’t a ordinary party it was a retirement party for Howard Letterer, it was fully catered, full bar with many premium bottles and a house of cards poker cake.  I got a chance to chat with Howard a bit, he was reading a book on logic puzzles and was sharing some of the ones that stumped him.  I gave him some hard logic puzzles that I had solved, however they were nothing new for him.  Howard had quite a presence in the rooms, I think hes about 6.5 feet, but it wasn’t just his size, just a very smart man, also he wasn’t full of himself and doesn’t act like a celebrity.  Anyways since he was leaving the company and I as coming in I tried to shotgun his office, it didn’t seem to work, maybe they don’t know the shotgun rules in Dublin.

It took be a few days to adjust to the jet lag, but I’m doing fine now.  Work have been going really good, I have been given a lot of responsibility and I will have a important role within the company.  They are very willing to give me any resources I need to get my projects done and aren’t afraid to spend the money.  The company uses the top of the line everything, from my development computer fresh out of the box (8 GB ram, 8 cores) with dual monitors and the company has the fastest internet connection I have very used, I was downloading some files at over 10MBs / s, its nice not to have to wait.

Dublin has a lot of shows coming through town, last week Tenacious D opened up for a Metallica show and Cris Rock is coming to town just to name a few I’ve heard about.  I am staying one block from St. Steven’s Cathedral, so I am right in City Centre (downtown), it’s nice to be able to walk everywhere.  I have a temporary apartment until I can find my own place, so I am going to start looking next week, I think I am going to look for a place close to City Centre.

I am planning on doing a trip to Finland to see a couple of hockey games with my friend from Edmonton Scotty.  Its going to be for a weekend in early October.  Also talking to a guy from work they are planning a few trips to catch some English football games during the season, which I would love to be a part of.  I even heard there is surfing just outside of Dublin and a few guys are going up to the north west coast in November for a weekend surfing trip.

Dublin so far has been grand (Irish slag) and it sounds like there is always stuff going on.  I think I am going to keep busy at work and on the weekends.  Work Hard, Play Hard.  Even with all this stuff going on I miss the people back home the most, I hope you can visit me sometime and you will make sure you have a place to stay.