the original flying finn was paavo nurmi- the long distance runner- as anyone who ever took part in a quiz and used the bournvita book to prepare knows.
not to be confused with the flying dutchman, who's reknown is based on the legend of captain van der decken, who hit a storm near south africa and proclaimed "I WILL round this Cape even if I have to keep sailing until doomsday!" and apparently, he still is.
but i digress. returning to finland, i suddenly remembered the country because i had a finnish penpal. "ow did 'at 'appen?", you ask in your cockney way.
well, there was an international penpal provider based in suomi, finland. all of us signed up for penpals, listed our hobbies (swimming, reading) and language skills.. everyone asked for correspondents from australia, canada and france. some of us got those, but were generously awarded finnish penpals too.
it used to be such a thrill to get a thick envelope with finnish stamps.. the letter (always in pencil and without the letters joint) would talk about pets, family, occasional photos and how iveforgottenhernamehowcouldisoilljustcallher katrikki's sister had watched the mahabharat.
wonder if kids still have penpals. not with all this emailing about, i suppose.
endnote: a brother who shall remain nameless once wanted a russian penfriend. so he addressed a polite letter asking for one. to mikhail gorbachev, president USSR, kremlin, moscow.
and he got a penpal!
from chernobyl!
5 comments:
Item #1: "...not to be confused with the flying dutchman..."
Disambiguation needed, apropos Flying Dutchman. Was certainly a ghost ship. Der fliegende Holländer is also eine opera by Richard Wagner. Was also nickname of one Johann Cruyff, and so on. So there.
Item #2: "...based in suomi, finland..."
Err...umm...isn't 'Suomi' Finnish for Finland? One used to be a philatelist, and one remembers getting all these Finnish stamps that said Suomi on them.
Love the Finns, meself. Eeero Hosiasluomiaowedrwefpjoqwef will testify.
if you carefully read the post, you'll realise that i said that the legend is based on captain von wotisname, not that he WAS the dutchman that flew. besides, both he and the dutchman are supposedly haunting the seas.
its not that i dont welcome criticism and corrections (picture mr. burns trying to press the button that will make homer fall into the pit, but the button is jammed)
.. but did you know that there's a town in finland called nokia?
so if i'd said "ooh a town called nokia" without any links, you'd have pounced and said "nokia is a cellphone company"
no dammit, you'd have found the town and provided the link with its gps coordinates and reccomendations on its saunas.
and now you can sing "you can be my eeero, baby"
Err...umm...Touche. Get the feeling that I had that coming. Am slithering my chitious self back under the rock whence it emerged.
Well writing... with my big foot in my even bigger mouth. My apologies.
Yeah I am very much the Shreyas u are talking about.
What are u upto these days. and Where are u these days?
I am doing fine. Actually managed to be CA now i work with PricewaterhouseCoopers.
umm shreyas.. dinnt wanna reveal identity, so not terribly keen on revealing address etc. lets just say i work at an undisclosed location in bangalore, carrying out seemingly mundane tasks which are actually part of a plot for world domination.
where are you, anyway? why dont you email me -there's a link at the end of each post.
seek and ye might find.
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