SciFest, an Umbrella and a Bicycle

 

I like a place where you know the numerical temperature just by looking out the window.  When I woke up it was raining, then it was snowing, and when I got on my bike it was raining again.  Do people normally use an umbrella on a bicycle?  I have no idea, but I was going to use my umbrella and I had two goals for the early part of the day - to get to the post office to pay my state and federal taxes, and go to the SciFest.

I made it to the post office through the drizzling rain and with a bit of help from Tuula was able to ask the Postmaster to postmark my letters and send them registered mail.  Here is the translation she told me to ask the Postmaster:  

"Haluan lähettää nämä kirjeet kirjattuna. Niissä pitäisi myös olla tämän päivän postileima. Onko se mahdollista?"

Clearly, I would be lost without Tuula.  She saves me at least twice a week!

I had to ask Tuula if it was okay to ride her bicycle in the rain and she seemed surprised.  (When I was a child I rode my bike in the rain and got in trouble for it because my father said it would make the bike rust.)  Tuula said, "Why do you ask?"  I said in southern California it doesn't rain very much and when it does, we usually don't ride our bikes.  She laughed, as did the others in the room as if to say, "If we stopped riding bikes because of the weather we wouldn't be riding our bikes very often."  

The next stop was SciFest, held in the Joensuu arena.

The SciFest is an event held in Joensuu every April and is focused on providing hands-on activities for young people to learn about science, technology and the environment.  It is held over a period of four days and students from the local schools visit for the day, the afternoon, or a Saturday, and are fortunate to have exhibits and movies and public speakers all at their disposal.  There are puzzles and robotics, microscopes, computers, broadcast equipment, airplanes to build and fly and rockets to launch.  Most of the arena floor is covered with engaging activities. It is great to see so many young people, and the adults that mentor them, enjoying the afternoon by solving puzzles.  The expected number of visitors was no less than 10,000 and that is a respectable turnout considering the population of Joensuu is just a bit more than 74,000 people.