Tuesday, July 24, 2007

It's only been 46 years...

As I work my two beloved jobs right through the summer (no posh Finnish six-week vacation for this freelancer with no job waiting in TO), Mr. O has been crossing things off a long list. One of these has been The Documents, which first had to be translated (traded a friend's services for our big off-white shag wool rug), and then notarized, legalized, etc. at three or four different offices, which is not only a big pain in the ass, but also expensive. According to Mr. O, the Notary Public in Finland charges €6 per document, then the Foreign Ministry of Finland charges €20 per document, and then the Canadian Embassy (God bless 'em) charges $50, which is about €35 per document. For five documents (the bare minimum) the grand total is 305 euros, or 436.67 CAD. This turned out to be the reason behind the recent muttering and one ranting email...and I had to admit it seemed a bit exorbitant.

Most countries avoid this kind of extortionist Brazilian bureaucracy (the film, not the country) with a fancy little thing called the Hague Convention of 1961 Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents. (If that kind of thing makes you hot you can read the full text.) Pretty much everybody and their mother, certainly the rest of the formerly-known-as-the Commonwealth, has signed this puppy, like, before I was born. But not my motherland. Nope, apparently the provinces have their own special ways of notarizing things (everybody gets their own stamp) and the federal government body known as DFAIT has been slaving tirelessly for the past 46 years to push it through on the federal level. If that's the kind of thing that gets you hot, you can read the weird PDF.

So let's recap:

2 certificates for getting an Ontario driver's licence
+1 spotless criminal record
+2 population data records
________________________
Nearly the same price as our second-hand, mint condition, queen-sized Sealy Posturepedic Sweet Escape Eurotop (Health Plus) mattress, giftwrapped in an allergen/spill protection cover and purchased in advance today from a nice girl on Craigslist. And I'll have that mattress for at least 46 years.

Sunday, July 15, 2007

Keepin it in the family

So a few months back, as I told her about our plans to furnish our new place completely in recycled and vintage furniture, appliances, etc., my GTA born-and-bred girl Alli mentioned that her grandparents were moving out of their place, and might have a big old table for us. With grandparents it can go either way, but Alli doesn't seem the type to have shelves of china dogs in her family so I asked her to send photos. The attached is a bit blurry, but just look at the line on that leg. 25+ years old, solid Danish teak. Closed, the whole thing is as long as I am, while opened it could fit all eight of my brothers and sisters plus Mr. O and myself comfortably. You'll also notice a matching sideboard – how I love it when things come with matching sideboards! Needless to say Alli is happy to keep it in the family, and we are proud to have our very first piece of grownup furniture, complete with history, no assembly required. Anybody willing and able to lend a hand to drag the beast home from Kingston will earn him- or herself a place around it, fo sho.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Packing day

As of today our apartment (all whopping 60m2 of it) has been divided into two camps: keeping and leaving. The keeping camp is, theoretically at least, smaller and more precious than the leaving side, which is a side only metaphorically, as it includes all of our furniture, which will remain evenly dispersed across the aforementioned tiny territory that is our home for another 17 days.

In fact the whole thing is barely a metaphor at the moment, but hopefully as the week progresses a clearer picture will emerge...ordering boxes on Monday and somehow doubting that the original 10 will be enough. We have, to be blunt, a whole lot of crap. I am, right now, publicly declaring that I shall not be purchasing another item of clothing or footwear before I leave. Nor books. Not a one. So there. But I'm not at the sacrifice-making point yet. We're going to Pori Jazz next weekend, after which the real line will be drawn. In fact, my whole schema for life is now divided into Things I Need to Do Before PJ and Things That Can Be Done Afterward. It's been working quite well, thus far, as anybody who knows me knows how much I loathe moving. Ironic, masochistic even, but true.

At least that nagging feeling that this is all a huge, horrible mistake has disappeared. Helsinki has been beautiful this summer and I've been, ahem, drinking it all in, taking midnight bike rides, seeing beautiful friends, etc., so I think that that's made it easier, actually. We just spent a week in the archipelago which has also left me very appreciative and zen. I'm still sorry to leave, of course, but I'm also getting very excited to arrive...

Friday, July 13, 2007

One month and counting

I have been a bad immigrant, out bike riding instead of in blogging. Time has been moving fast, and yesterday we passed the one-month-left mark while wrapping up a week at a tiny sauna cabin on the Finnish archipelago.
No rest for the wicked, however, and things have been moving along; we have an apartment, apparently, although the landlord hasn't mailed us the lease or cashed our deposit cheque yet, so hopefully it will still be there when we land. We've also sold almost all of our furniture, and expect more to go at our sale. We gave up our lease on our flat here in Helsinki and will move into a friend's place around the corner on August 1. I think I'm going to keep my phone number till August 15th or so. What am I forgetting?