Joachim Breitner's Homepage

DebConf has ended (big Kiitos to the organizers and all attendees from my side, too), and my holidays started. I spend Monday in Helsinki, walking around, watching sights, the market place, and a German Döner sign. Then I took the bus to the Island of Seurasaari which serves as an open air museum since 1909. This is a very recommendable place: Beautiful woods on the island, and a lot of houses from all over Finland, taken apart and re-built here complete with girls in traditional cloths as tourist guides. I found a piece of early pixel-graphic there. The pricing is reasonable, as well for the entrance as for the cake and coffe in one of those houses, served by appropriately dressed waitresses. All this is so authentic that you are really surprised to find one of them reading the newest Harry Potter. But then, that's a good excuse to begin a very interesting conversation on Finland, drinking, tourists and the beauty of Lappland. That evening, some remains of the DebConf attandees met for dinner. I had reeindeer, but I think it can be done better, although it was not bad. Then it was finally time to part.

My host for these days, Johnny Ström, took my by car to Vaasa today, which took quite a while. I had a inofficial test exam for the upcoming exam that is limiting my time in Scandinavia on my laptop, so I tried it in the car: 40 out of 60 points without preparation and no proper working environment let's me a bit relax, it does not seem to be too big of a problem to arrive a few days later in Germany if I want to...

In Vaasa, actually on an island near Vaasa, Johnny showed me a one hundred year old house that was not used for 60 years. It was like a journey back in time, especially when we went through the old books, letters, id cards, images and records from that time, including a grade sheet from 1921, a picture from the 19th century and a picture of a soldier stationed on Suomenlina, which I visited during DebConf.