TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

Friday, April 1, 2005

11:05 PM
Posted by jodi rose

It's Friday night, I've had a sauna, made leek and potato soup and now am enjoying my last 10 minutes of freedom before the cone of silence curfew drops over this strange apartment.
Kate moved into Linnunlaulu today, so I'm here on my own until Juha gets back on Wednesday, then moving out later that week. Will be glad to be in the city, by a gorgeous lake, able to stamp and scream as much as we want... well, maybe not. But at least talk normally. Keep getting sick here too, came back from Copenhagen and instantly had the flu again - although it may have been Jacob now I think about it. He was coming down with something the day we both left.

Anyway, I'm tired of having no energy and feeling grotty, so will take an early night and go walk around the lake in the morning with the ace miss kate. We're going to take turns around the living room when we have all our posse in the mansion, it's a fine Finnish Jane Austen setting.

Today's favourite activity was our trip to the Digita tower in Pasila, the home of ääniradio transmitter. After a slight delay due to some confusion in the Finnish translation between 'yes you have a transmitter' and 'who are you and what are you doing?' Sophea managed to get everything under control, although we start broadcasting on Monday now.

Ah well, it's the Beta Test Phase. Am learning to keep letting things go, it's an experiment, process, the outcome is unknown... thinking of bridges here, altho I do now have the very wonderful Tom on board testing the Millennium bridge for 3G access. yay.

Anyway, back to the tower - totally cool getting to rock up with Sophea's new mini mac and say, well, here's our radio station! Once the net access gets sorted (something else lost in translation), we'll be able to control everything remotely. The staff at Yle were incredibly helpful and patient, Kate and I ran around photographing everything sophea did, and revelling in the unusual situation we found ourselves. It's not everyday you get to cruise into a major national communications tower and start your own broadcast!
So ääniradio goes to air Monday with.. ahh no, I won't spoil the surprise - you'll have to tune in 99.4 FM in helsinki, or log on to ääniradio.org anywhere else in the world and find out what we choose to start this fantastic experiment.

All systems go for testing. Getting my 3G card in the next few days and going out to visit some of my favourite helsinki bridges, and see if their sounds will travel. At this point it would be appropriate - the media embargo having been lifted - to give a HUGE thank you to the Australia Council for the Arts, New Media Arts Board for their generous funding of the Bridge Stream research and development.
Thank you OZCO!

Definitely takes the edge off the past month, although uncertainty in every direction seems likely to continue on the many other levels of this operation. personal, professional.. I don't know, who needs stability anyway!? Not knowing is much more fun, once you can relax and enjoy where the journey takes you. she says, through gritted teeth. no, really, I mean it.
Looking forward to catching up with Mari tomorrow, since I missed her birthday - she texted my old Finnish mobile - and it's been nearly a month since the downhill sliding in Espoo. All the ice is melting now, it's light from 7am til 8pm already, and there's no-one walking on those lakes anymore. even the ducks have left their tiny corner and flown off somewhere.