Flipping

It looks like I'm not the only one who has devoted some thought to one of summer's ultimate phenomena: flip-flops. Run a Wikipedia search, and you'll get a lengthy article with a brief history on the flip-flop, and even some health-related concerns about the flip-flop. For me, this it the first summer I have truly got used to wearing them. Before, I used to always find the idea of something rubbery between my toes somewhat skin-crawling, but since getting a pair in Italy a month ago, I don't really feel like wearing anything else.

It's not always easy, though: it took me a while to learn how to walk down stairs without that constant, well - flip-flopping banging all over the stairway. For some reason, the one on my right foot often tends to simply decide to tag along and I find myself taking a few steps back to retrieve it. This can sometimes be dangerous, as I learned during an incident while walking in Damascus. If I had needed one more second to get the damned thing back on my foot in the middle of Malki street I probably would have been run over instantly by the furiously honking cars.

But talking about summer, wouldn't it be so easy to just get used to this pace of life? My last days have followed a very loose routine consisting of waking up, walking to the park with my book, having lunch when I'm hungry, going out again, taking a look at something work-related (but often not), visiting the library, seeing friends in the evening, and going back to sleep past midnight. I think I've looked at my watch about twice during the last week. Yesterday, I had something scheduled for five o'clock. I had written it out on my calendar and all, but when I got a confused phone call some time after five, it took me a while to even understand what was going on.

I opened the suitcase with my old clothes. While some of the things went straight to UFF, quite many of the t-shirts inside were simply indispensable. Like the Cantores Minores American tour '98 -shirt. Or the fantastic "Zivi im Dienst" -shirt Annika gave me when I was working at DSH. It smells a little weird, but that's no surprise considering where it's been. One of the shirts was a Christmas gift from my grandmother many years ago. We all opened our packages to find these shirts with printed pictures of a volcano erupting. It's no surprise that, while the rest of Quito's population flocked inside with their gas masks to escape the rain of ash, my grandmother ran outside with her legendary Minolta camera, cursing because she couldn't get closer to the action. The picture on my shirt is already quite faded.

After reading so many fantastic books in English (Ian McEwan's Atonement was reread in two days and I instantly rented the movie and jumped on the bus to Pauli's and Iina's, who were so surprised by my spontaneous visit they weren't even at home yet when I arrived in Siltamäki, clutching the dvd), I thought I'd try something Finnish for a change. The book I took out looked promising enough but when I started reading it, it took me a while to get used to reading in Finnish - and what's more, the story was about a man who finds a troll and takes him in to live with him. A spectacular adventure highlighting the conflicts between man-made society and nature ensues... that's if you believe the back cover. What's the opposite of "page-turning"?

While my parents are working in Middle Finland, Dea is on some international cultural youth camp in Russia. We all thought she'd be in Nizhnyi Novgorod, but apparently the delegations were picked up from the train station and taken on a four-hour bus ride in some direction. It all sounds a little bit like our trip to Yuzhno Sakhalinsk back in 2003. Even the cities sound alike, with that sexy zhhhh blowing through one's teeth when one pronounces them.

Our temporary flatmate Johanna, who seems to be unable to decide whether she wants to work in the UN or at Stockmann's underwear department, was supposed to leave only tomorrow. However, I arrived home yesterday to find our corridor looking very empty without her shoes, and a handwritten note on the table next to the keys. And so the flat is all mine for a while now. I've been spending some time in front of the mirror examining some sort of strange bite on my neck. It doesn't look bad, but all these stories about tics swimming all the way to mess up your brain are enough to send me flying to Marianne so she can have a look at it. On the other hand, she probably has her hands full examining Markus's finger. Apparently he lost a nail yesterday during a night out. How do you do that? Mikko and him tried to explain it to me at lunch today, but it sounded like a complicated story.

The sound of rubber slapping against your heels is so addictive I now wish I had a reason to go out tonight wearing my flip-flops and one of my outgrown t-shirts with a faded picture on it. But maybe that's a reason in itself to go out?