Here I am in Finland. Long time no blogging. The last three weeks were very intensive and demanding (in all aspects) for me and Carol: apartment search, initial work-related activities, first zero-degree weather, first snow, first days in a totally strange place. It’s been a tragicomic experience (much more comic than tragic!). Finland is the exact oposite of Brazil in terms of culture (cold, quiet, silent, extremely organized, “self-service society”), economy (developed country, excelent social benefits for everyone, very expensive life, no poverty), politics (the least corrupt country of the world), weather (very cold, windy, and snowy). We’re are living in Espoo, very close to Helsinki, 15 minutes from office. Our neighborhood, Matinkyla, is beautiful and near to everything we need in a daily basis: supermarkets, drugstores, clothes stores, fast food, restaurants, etc.
Matinkyla, our neighborhood.
Work is great! Office is cool, people are kind. The coolest thing is that I’ll be working on the Desktop UI Framework Team which, as Karoliina has already mentioned, will try to get even closer to the GNOME community as our work has lots of similarities (I’ll write more about it in the next days). It’s just wondeful to be able to work on cool things as your official job!
Nokia Ruoholahti, where I work now.
I’ve been posting lots of pictures in Flickr from my N93. Also I’ve been posting some videos to YouTube with some daily frivolous activies in Finland but they are private, just for family and friends. If you want to watch them and you’re a not a stranger, send me your YouTube login and I’ll give you permission to watch them.
Freezing my butt in the park!
I hope to get back to my GNOME activities as now I have computer and internet connection at home. EOG has 186 open bugs! Normally I keep this list with less than 90. Lot of work to do! Cooool!
That’s all for now! A brazilian GNOME developer is back. And now with much more ice!
Nice photos! Keep us posted about what you see, foreign eyes always see interesting things :-)
I’m sure you are going to enjoy -25C and windy weather :) (seriously, it’s _really_ refreshing).
Hopefully we will get lots of snow this winter.
Welcome to Finland! I hope the culture shock hasn’t been too bad. :-)
Matinkylä really is a rather nice place, I live a couple of kilometers west from there, in Espoonlahti. Every now and then I shop there at Iso Omena (that’s Big Apple for all you nonfinnish people :-)).
It’s nice to see more Gnome developers in Finland (sadly, I’m not one of them due to a chronic lack of useful skills).
Hey Lucas,
Congrats on your big move and best of luck in this new adventure that unfolds before you and your wife! I experienced first hand the culture shock when I first moved to the US about 16 years ago, and can totally relate to you!
Enjoy the new country/job/life style and keep on hacking!
Cheers,
Og Maciel
Welcome to Finland! You really, really should have picked a different time of the year – November, and how horrible it is, is the classic response by Finns (and especially Helsinki residents) to foreigners telling us what a nice place it is. It’s not too bad at the moment, but it’s not usually quite this cold – when it goes back and forth between thawing and freezing and the ground is covered by slush, then it’s proper November :-)
But it’s better once we get to the proper winter, with enough snow and sun that stays up longer every day.
Heh, I used to live in Matinkylä few years ago (about 1 kilometer south of Iso Omena) :). These days I reside about 35 kilometers north of Helsinki, but I come to Helsinki every weekday for work.
A hint: In the summer, walk to the seashore and to the Haukilahti marina (and proceed to Westend if you feel like it). The scenery is beautiful, and the walk is very refreshing. I used to do that all the time back when I lived there.
Few more things: since you are used to the Brasilian summer, the Finnish winter (which we are heading towards) might seem overwhelming at first. But hang in there, it’s worth it. The summer is beautiful. And since I have seen an Indian guy (who stepped in a plane in middle of summer in India, and stepped otside the plane in middle of winter in Finland (february)), survive Finnish winter, I’m sure you will do fine as well :).
Interessante ver você trabalhando logo na Finlândia, lugar onde muitos fanáticos por Linus adorariam estar, mas ver você trabalhando em uma grande empresa no que sempre gostou de fazer é no mínimo motivador.
Estou escrevendo em português por dois motivos, o primeiro que meu inglês não é um dos melhores e que queria que você soubesse que nos brasileiros sempre estaremos torcendo pelo sucesso da nossa gente em qualquer lugar do mundo. Sucesso meu caro.
Freezing? Wait until the winter… Lol
You will experience your first real blizzard at -30C ;-)
Welcome to Finland, Lucas! You’re actually living very close to our office…
http://flickr.com/photos/bergie/158703772/
Congratulations, you seem very excited and happy with your new job.
I wish you the best and I’ll be waiting for more postings about how you adapt to the new situation.
jonny582