So the last post was from Chile. Weeks have passed since and we've seen more and more of Chile (avoiding the devastating earthquake by less than a day), and now we're in Buenos Aires. Argentina has been very nice. Iguazu falls were incredible although very touristy, as such places tend to be.

Just a few days left now. Around 9 months since I left Finland. Wonder if I'll suffer the biggest culture shock once I land in Vantaa.. not really looking forward to it much: it's >25 degrees here, yesterday rained (and they cancelled the Superclásico), but most days are sunny.

Buenos Aires is really nice. Almost as nice as DF in México (I'm biased of course). Having our own apartment in Palermo makes the experience even better and not really that much more expensive since we're three now that Eeva has joined us.

A few days ago we passed the border from Bolivia to Chile. The change is quite remarkable: from one of the poorest to the most developed nation. Prices went up a lot and due to the high season here we're suffering difficulties finding accomodation.

Still some nice places here, like San Pedro de Atacama in the desert and La Serena where we are right now. Thankfully Argentina should be cheaper again :)

Last three weeks were spent in Peru. Landed in Lima, continued to Huacachina to live on a desert oasis (sandboarding, dune buggy riding, etc.), proceeded to Cusco, where we spent 13 nights due to a need to wait for a trek from our chosen agency Lamapath.

Aino got a combination of different illnesses including salmonella which forced her to drop the trip, while I participated (no refunds, no other good dates).

When we finally got out of Cusco we headed out to lake Titicaca and visited the floating islands, stayed in a local family on an island, saw Puno and crossed the border to Copacabana. On the bus ride to the border we remembered that we left our money belts in the Puno hostel.. thankfully after some arranging with our bus company rep, we evaded the need to return to Peru and got the stuff via the company. The hostel didn't make it easy though as their phone was occupied 24/7, hence I do not recommend Qorikancha in Puno.

Now we're in La Paz and finally in front of a computer that has something better than internet explorer (which won't work with this blog). From here to the Jungle I guess.

And as an extra note, we missed the current crisis situation in Machu Picchu by a few days. The river did look quite scary already at that time. Aguas Calientes is a nice little place, but I wouldn't want to be stuck there...

Returned yesterday from a tour on the Mexican south-southwest coast. Went through Zipolite-Mazunte-Puerto Escondido-Acapulco-Zihuatanejo in a bit under 2 weeks. Mazunte was the best, Acapulco the worst. No surprise there.

During the 9 hour busride the environment changed from the continuous 30 degree beach to plus 15 or so here in DF. And it's great! I can wear a sweater! And I'm not sweating all the time!

Tomorrow I'm out of Mexico... off to South America. Sad to leave the good ol MX behind, but on the other hand it'll be nice to find entirely new places.

Last weekend we took a quick trip to the second (or third?) largest city in Mexico: Guadalajara. Very nice. Much easier for the passing tourist than D.F. as the city centre area is walkable and easily navigable (although my impeccable sense of direction led us astray once). Missed the Orozco murals which pains me. Perhaps I'll return one day.

Also we took a day tour to Tequila - an area famous for guess what.. it was wild (hostel provided the tour, so only youngsters), fun and educative! We visited three distilleries, the village of Tequila, fields of Blue Agave and got to experience and learn the process first hand. Of course we also tasted a Lot of different tequila - all 100% agave of course. Even the silver variety beats pretty much anything I've found in Finland.. not to mention the añejo or even extra añejo, of which I have one bottle awaiting my upcoming guests.

That was a week ago and I'm still feeling the consequences. This week has been spent mostly indoors. Working on stuff for uni. All the deadlines are now approaching fast.. fortunately I'm almost done with all the work now. Should perhaps focus on more important things like WELP..

A week spent in the U.S has been very relaxing. Weekend started in San Francisco from where we did excursions around the area with Mikko's BMW. On Sunday we arrived to the Silicon Valley and I've been hanging out here while Mikko goes to work. Every day a bit of swimming in the community pool, some work on projects and school presentations, etc.. Very, very relaxing.. could do this for weeks.

SF is a great city. I could envision myself living there. Not so much here in Silicon Valley. Services are great but there's no culture, no town center, no plaza, not that many bars, i.e. not much life. You need a car for everything. There's a train that connects some parts, but it's mostly a ghost train as nobody is using it.

Tomorrow we'll head out to Napa/Sonoma valley to taste a bit of wine. On Sunday I'll have to return to the developing world. Last month of lectures before the big trip..

Hmm.. kinda feel like grabbing a beer now after lunch.. why not.

Just a quick note on what I've been up to since the past weeks.

• Bought a plane ticket to San Francisco to visit Mikko in Santa Clara. This will unfortunately mean I'll miss Day of the Dead (a BIG minus), but at least I'll have a reason to return to México one day

• Climbed a mountain. Personal best is now 4660m. Incredible headache, sunburns and other pains followed, but it was worth it. See pics below.

• Visited Oaxaca again. This time with the photography class. Saw some of the same places again, but also a few new ones, like the tree of Tule, which was quite amazing.

El puente means bridge and the longer holiday we got after Independence day (15.9). A group of us set out to discover Oaxaca (indigenous name, pronounced something like OA-ha-ca, kinda like México is ME-hi-co). Oaxaca is a state to the south of Mexico, with a capital city of the same name. It's said to be one of the most beautiful cities in here, and not without reason. Filled with colonial beautiful buildings and lacking in ugly skyscrapers, it's one of the UNESCO world heritage sites.

We also visited Monte Albán one of the first large urban settlements in the Americas (dating back to 500BC according to WP, our guide talked about 1500BC..). The place is very impressive. Much more than its contemporary Teotihuacan (although it's darn impressive too). I recommend hiring a guide. Ours charged us only 300 pesos for two hours of interesting tales and history while walking around the site (we ended up paying quite a nice tip).

I took a panorama from Monte Albán. See it here

Puerto Escondido ("the hidden port") was our last destination. We took a minibus through a very, very, very curvy mountain road (The Alps are nothing compared to this) and landed in around 6 hours to the coast. Puerto Escondido is a relative small and quiet port with loads of white-sand beaches and possibilities to surf, go see turtles, etc.

After a few days of surfing and relaxing on the playas I returned to D.F. with an overnight bus (~750pesos/first class).

After around three weeks here, I feel confident to say that all the food I've had in Finland under the adjective "Mexican" is a lie. I knew it wasn't correct, but had no idea it would be this far off..

First I want to introduce the most important food for me so far: tacos. Especially Tacos al pastor, which could somehow be described as a delicious kebab (real - Turkish, not Finnish) meets Mexican spices and other ingredients, such as Tortillas. Normally you savour them with a selection of different salsas, lime, etc.

Then a few quick fixes:

• the tortillas we have in Finland (and presumably the rest of the Western World) are arab tortillas Locals here are not as big, but there are arab versions available if you want (this also explains why they are common in the east).
• fajitas are a joke.. original meaning here is the pieces of meat that don't get used. Not a food here.
• burritos are not Mexican. Invented in the U.S. (perhaps by Mexican immigrates).
• quesadillas do exist. They are tortillas filled with cheese and other ingredients.
• nachos also exits, but I haven't yet encountered nacho plates that they serve in "Mexican" restaurants outside MX.

Of course México is a huge country (compare to central Europe) and I haven't been outside D.F. yet. I might have more complaining to do once I've visited other places as well :)

blogging from iceland during the Raflost festival. Reykjavik is cool (in both senses of the word). We're building artsy stuff with people from very different backgrounds. It's fun and a valuable experience. You can't get much further than putting dancers and nerds work on the same project :)

I'm now following a lecture. Can't stop playing with processing...

ok. so. update. i was accepted to study at the university iberoamericana in mexico city next autumn. i'm signed in as a graphical design student even though my "application" mentioned interest areas as industrial and spacial design.. doesn't really matter - i guess i can move rather freely between departments.

the bigger issue is the need to learn spanish in advance. i was planning on taking a course in spain during the summer, but many people directed me to a more better approach of taking a course before the school starts in mexico city, so now i'm hunting for a course there. at least i'll save the airline tickets and won't pollute, but i would've wanted to visit spain as well.. some day..

in addition to this i needed to buy myself a laptop since the macbook pro i'm now using is from my work. so i got myself a eee 1000he.

only comes with XP, so the first things after i got the wireless up was a visit to www.getfirefox.com and then www.ubuntu.com. the new 9.04 netmix runs really nicely here.

the size, keyboard and battery life are really nice. flash is such a resource hog that some more highres flash sites are slow. otherwise all seems ok. the price is less than 400e so i don't have to be extra careful with it either (good thing in mexico city..).

the idea to buy this i got after our lovely visit to berlin with aino. almost bought a samsung x360 instead, but then came to my senses.. macs are good too, but something is driving me away from them.. maybe it's the fact that i have deal with them everyday in work/school. anyway berlin was excellent. i'll have to write a post on it once i have time to implement map embedding in this blog..

Some random notes to get a glimpse of the prices here:

• beer in bar: 0.5 - 1.5$

• 24-case'o'beer: 16$

• guesthouse, 2 bed room: 4 - 13$

• "simple food": 1.5$ - 2.5$

• a restaurant meal: 3.5$ -

• 150km in a taxi: $35

• bus ticket for the same: 7$

• rent a scooter for a day: 5$

Spent a few days in Phnom Pehn. The city was ok, but a few days is enough. One for the National Museum and the Royal Palace and one for the horrors of Khmer Rouge. The amount of air pollution and noise started to get to us and we wanted a break from it all.

And so yesterday we arrived to Sihanoukville - Costa del Sol of Cambodia.. not really. Can't really compare them, but it's a beach resort anyway. Makes me really appreciate the beautiful beaches of Montezuma and Samara in Costa Rica. The ones here are relatively crowded (at least on weekends), dirty and full of beggars.

We were both ready to quit already today and move forward but then we decided to hire a boat to take us to a secluded beach. We first went to snorkle a bit around some nice corals and then moved to a beach resort that was prepped for a party tonight. I'm guessing the island's name was Koh Kaip or something. Didn't stay there for too long, but still we both got really badly sunburned.. aww, how I really hate sunburns. Now my right arm is fckd, and my back entirely scorched.

But I guess we're still heading back to that beach for that party tonight :). That'll be the last one this time in Cambodia.

Second full day at Siem Reap started - like the days of so many other tourists - at 5AM with a tuktuk-drive to see sunrise at Angkor Wat. Place was already packed at that time. After eating breakfast in a food stall inside Angkor Thom, we saw Bayon, the weirdest of the Temples, Ta Prohm - also known as The Tombraider Temple - and several other magnificent structures.

The whole area is enormous and after a short while we're already suffering temple-fatigue, a variation of church-fatigue that everyone who's been church-sightseeing in Europe knows.

Now I'm tired. We promised to drink with out tuktuk-driver today, but I'm not sure if I have the strength :)

Entering Cambodia was a shock.. in a positive way. Arriving to the border 10 minutes before it was closing, we were greeted with shining hotels and casinos, something that was not surprising after reading Amit Gilboa's "Off the Rails in Phnom Pehn", but remarkable still. After we paid the very helpful border guards 1000 bath for a visa (20USD, so use dollars if you have any), we haggled a taxi to Siem Reap for 35USD.

After a three hour drive in total darkness evading pedestrians, stray dogs and huge trucks on a dirtroad that was in truly awful shape, we arrived to Siem Reap, the basic destination for anyone wanting to visit Angor Wat. We took a tuktuk to a hostel in the centre and after leaving our bags ventured out to get something to eat. The 'Bar street' in Siem Reap was quite packed even though it's not season.

A tip to anyone travelling to Cambodia from Bangkok: Don't use the basic tourist busses from Khao San. Take a public bus from Mo Chit to the border town. It costs around 215 bath (4e) + tuktuk to the border + taxi to Siem Reap, so it's a bit more expensive, but saves you time as the 'scam busses'take 12h to reach Siem Reap, and as the name suggests, they tend to scam tourists on visa costs, etc..

Now I'll have to stop this nonsense and return to the streets. Still a lot more to see in this town and even more in Angor Wat, which we'll probably visit tomorrow.

Stopping by at Khao San road - the notorious travellerghetto in Bangkok. We'll be catching a bus today to try and reach the border.

Last night I broke my arm, while climbing down from my bed on the train from Malaysia. Hurts like hell. Probably just a spasm, but will surely annoy me for a few days.

Khao San seems interesting as a money wasting target. Perhaps we'll stop here on our way back and buy some traditional traveller garbage - like a T-shirt that has a picture of a married couple and the text "Game Over".. not sure if Aino would appreciate it :)

My first trip to HK is now over and I have to admit that the four days I spent there have left a positive feeling about the metropolis: prices are cheap, people are nice, there's a lot to see and moving about is easy.

Stayed at Chung King mansions, a block full of hostels in Tsim Sha Tsui (Kowloon). Stay was cheap, with a night in a four bed dorm w/ shower costing 90 HK$ (~7e). Also got the chance to talk spanish with Oscar, an Argentine football star who played for his country against other youngsters and met a South Korean girl who is applying for the same school as I am (TAIK)... small world, eh?

Head to Wan Chai or NE Kowloon for electronics, Tsim Sha Tsui for lodging or museums and the Peak to get a nice view over the central part of the SAR.

Luckily I get to go to HK again on my way back. Maybe I'll have time to see the world's largest sitting Buddha.

Ok. So my summer 2006 trip so far: Tampere -> Wien (by plane through Frankfurt and Zurich) -> Klagenfurt (train). In Klagenfurt we went to see Riitta and Stefan and after that continued to Germany to see Hannu and Senni. Had fun, drank beer, went to Rock-im-Park.

Then I continued to Latvia. Aino went to Finland. I spent one night alone here (actually not that alone, met Scottish people and a few soldiers from U.S, stationed in Germany) before Tuomas arrived. Now he's here and we've been around town with Irina, our lovely guide Tuomas contacted through hospitality club. She was great: showed us all the sights and had the energy to direct us to the best bars (also thanks to Sofie, who also enlightened me on Riga history).

Once we got back to the hostel I got some bad news: the american soldiers got their wallets stolen last night in a night club (Essential) we we're hanging out at (thank god we left earlier). That wasn't the worse: some guy got drugged in the club and mugged/robbed afterwards :-(.

Tomorrow we're heading towards the awesome Palace of Science and Museum of Occupation. Irina promised to show us around Jurmala if we have the energy after wandering the whole day.