Local news

A moose on the loose in the southern part of town near the harbor. Unfortunately the poor beast got shot by the police, as usual. :(

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Oh, well... :D

Experiments continue

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Holy shit.



My recommendation?

Drink the Jelen from glass bottles that come with tankard. That's one is pretty good. The one from the plastic bottle is shit though. At least it was when I drank it last time.
Staropramen is okayish, but nowhere near the original stuff. Same goes for Amstel.
Zaječarsko is fine for the price. Sort of. I hope you found some in the glass bottle - that's pretty good.
Nikšićko is great, but alas, not from Serbia haha

But why am I telling you any of this?
You know far more about beer than I do. I will stop, don't wanna embarrass myself.

In any case, glad you got the Jelen tankard. I'm very satisfied with mine and thought that the whole promotional run with those was over a month ago.
 
The not Jelen-stuff we got for friends who collect ... beer cans. :D And I usually like to sample as many local beers as I can, when I'm in a foreign country out of curiosity.
We just ran amok in a Novi Sad supermarket to spend the dinars we had left and figured beer was a good investment. I like the tankard promotion, because I collect beer glasses and tankards. In retrospect, I should have gotten a bottle of rakija od krusi, but maybe next time.
We drank some of the beer on the road, but there was a lot left. The customs guy was rather amused - they were asking us if we had bought cigarettes and asked us to open the trunk. There was lots of beer, some clothes and a freezer bag (with beer). So they let us through ;)
BTW, I noticed in Novi Sad - in shop windows and in a glass display in the center - panels with photos of what we figured were high school graduates. Can you tell me what is this all about?
 
BTW, I noticed in Novi Sad - in shop windows and in a glass display in the center - panels with photos of what we figured were high school graduates. Can you tell me what is this all about?

That's most likely just it - photos of high school graduates, or as it is called here, maturanti.
If I'm not wrong, it's some sort of tradition going several decades back, if not more. When maturanti graduate high school there are big photo sessions etc. and in the vein of that tradition, photos are displayed in windows of various shops. To be honest, I'm not sure why is that done so and how it originally began, but I assume that during post-WW2 period, after everything country had gone through, having a new generation of young men and women graduate high school was a sort of festive event, something worth celebrating. So pictures were placed like that in various places, most prominently shop windows.

It's not an ever-present phenomenon in the whole country though - there wasn't anything like that when I graduated - even though, IIRC, our school director (who is very old) expressed her wishes to have a comeback of that picture displaying, but it didn't happen. We had photo sessions though. Ugh. Waste of time.
I think only some schools celebrate the graduation in that sort of way, and mainly schools from "up north" i.e. Belgrade, Novi Sad etc.




In any case, how did you like the beer? And more importantly, how was the concert?
 
We just got a new prime minister, and I'm afraid he's gonna be even worse than the old one. To be fair, of the other two candidates one might have been more dangerous and the other hardly a whole lot better. Good night Finland, enjoy your capitalist dream before it inevitably turns into a nightmare. :(
 
Alexander Stubbs or Stubb? I listen to the YLE uutiest selkosuomeksi podcast! I looked up the party, Kokoomus, and it still seems worlds better than the Conservatives here. Do you mind talking about the differences between the parties there? What worries you about him in particular? Thank you!
 
Stubb. On the plus side, I agree that Kokoomus isn't as far right as your average Republican when it comes to people's private lives (for example, they have no problem with gay marriage), but their economic stance is far too right-wing for my taste. I'm not gonna pollute this forum with political rants, but I believe that to pull Finland out of its current recession, we need more domestic demand < higher buying power < renewed consumer confidence < less existential fear among private households < secure income < more support for domestic companies who struggle to create and maintain jobs, combined with sanctions against those who cut staff without dire need (i.e. who indirectly undermine their own customer base and directly put unnecessary stress on the national welfare system, just to squeeze out a little more short-term profit and pimp their quarterly reports).

Unfortunately Kokoomus is far less interested in grassroots economy than in paving the way for multinational corporations and investors, who are greedy for our natural resources without any interest in creating long-term workplaces, paying community taxes and stabilizing the local economy. I'm sure this dude is already fantasizing about our lakes. :ill:
 
In any case, how did you like the beer? And more importantly, how was the concert?

The beer was great :D
The concert was ... mindblowing. I still can't quite get my head around it.
I've seen QOTSA last summer in Helsinki and it was really good, but this was much better. It was a headliner gig so we got 1.45 mins of sheer madness, especially the encores. Considering that you, people, are rather tall, I didn't get to see much (I am the average 1.70m), but I nevertheless enjoyed myself immensely. We danced and we sang and we had a jolly good time. The light show was great, though the sound was a bit quiet, imho. But still, it was wonderful. And... I met more friends and acquaintances for half a day in Novi Sad, than I would meet in downtown Sofia for a half a month. - Bulgarians went in droves - some even rented busses and the border guard was asking us what was that thing in Novi Sad with so many people going there on that day. And, mind you, we crossed the border at 8 a.m.
Generally, I really like travelling to Serbia - your food is better, your beer is better, your customer service is much better than ours and Serbian men are really good-looking ;)
 
Temperature got down to -6,2 degrees at the Saana fell in Kilpisjärvi last night, which is not too far off the all-time low for June. Hasn't gone sub-zero here but we still got snow, and it's the freaking midsummer week!

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Apparently it even snowed in some parts of HKI this morning, although the sun was shining in my back yard. Freaky sh*t. Kinda glad I'm not going to Nummirock this year...


In other news, what used to be a metal club called Dante's Highlight in the glory days a few years back will soon be restored to its original purpose - a church...
 
North eastern Bulgaria is absolute hell right now. Floods in various areas killed at least 13 people yesterday.
Instead of doing something sensible, the politicians are slinging mud at each other.
 
One of this year's biggest disc golf tournaments, the European Masters, was broadcast live on Finnish and Swedish TV today. The stream can be viewed worldwide here until August 19. There are several Finnish players featured.