TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

Sunday, August 22, 2004

1:57 PM
Posted by jodi rose

street sign in tallin - I understood it as 'there will be dancing' - but later realised it was a warning about pickpockets.

Good Morning!
Last night was the Grilli Radio walking tour and live broadcast from grilli kiosks around Helsinki. Lotta took us on a fantastic journey, through the history, architecture and cultural significance of the grilli. Sirpa and I interviewed people at various locations, on a phone line that was connected to the radio transmitter - with andrew the phone cowboy (will have the word for that in Finnish later) doing an excellent job of wrangling the connections with his online mobile messaging back to the radio HQ- (pirakki piper: kids, rats, media artists was one series of entries from various people chatting) Then the call would come through on our mobile and we would go live to air, talking with people about their greasiest grilli memories, what was good to eat on the menu - mainly anything once you were drunk enough! - there were some local specialites, one involving a sausage (of course) and then the belgian finnish french fries with ketchup and thousand island dressing.

Found out about the best hot dog stand in Iceland, from Päll, who said the most memorable moments there are ones you can't remember, and the husband of the grilli empire heiress, who met his wife skiing in lapland - he was very impressed when her father rocked up with the mobile grilli, and thought hmmm I will have sausages for the rest of my life!

Sadly I don't have any photos as the phone ran out of battery, but did take some video on the mobile I was using - will give url for documentation when it's ready.

So, now I am also a radio star in helsinki, on grilli radio anyway!
After the broadcast finished, and the bar closed we went to the flow festival - more electronic music, my uncle simon who is at the conference says Helsinki should have a 'dangerously cool' rating on the old fire danger system which we have applied to culture, the Finns are very cool - with a posse including Joni, (from sydney now living in berlin), who said people keep thinking that she is me - oh, you did that work with bridges! - no, that's the other Jo from sydney! Also Andreas, Katya, John, Nils, Andrew, and I can't remember the other names now. It was also the post-isea party, so lots more familiar faces on the dance floor, Andrew and I danced to Jazzanova until the very end - great vibe, very smooth funky beats and it was a total blast. Then went back to the radio HQ at SIBA (Sibelius Academi Centre for Music and Technology) and chilled out with Sophea, Teri, Pier, Rasmus and Andrew until it was time for Teri to catch her plane back to Baltimore, and then I waited until the trams started again at 6am. Helsinki was quite wild at 4am, lines of people waiting for taxi's, bustling crowds coming out of clubs, we revisited the final grilli for a late night snack - and one last live broadcast - but at 6am it was a city of giant seagulls - huge like small dogs - feasting on left over snaggari wrappers at the bus terminali.

In the past few days I've had a few moments of ... dislocation, being in this state of flux where I am not really here or there, feeling very aware that I am only here for a moment, and the future is completely uncertain, but today that is not so much a problem. The magic of staying out all night and dancing has worked it's spell again, and the world seems full of possibilities and I'm feeling sanguine again.

Now it is time to go and listen to Sigma with their falling through space music, which I greatly enjoyed from the couch at their rehearsal last week - Mari is doing live video, at the PoikkiTaideTeltta KontuFestarilla. Also Lotta gave me some home made jam in exchange for my bridge CD, and I will meet Peter and Adam for a drink later once they have cleaned their apartment, before flying back to Barcelona and Budapest respectively in the morning.