Day 7

Yesterday I went to the local swimming pool, Malik. It has quite a magnificent view, it has big windows facing the nearby mountain range. It was a bit lost on me, because I didn't bring my contacts and have to swim without my glasses on. But I saw a blurry version of the view and I think it's really nice! Especially with the sun setting and then pool having this Friday "quiet night" event where children aren't allowed (or they have to be really quiet, I don't know. I can't see any of the swimmer so they might as well have been frogs for all I know), the lights are dim and they play this peaceful piano tune. It was quite zen. Plus it was nice to have a long hot shower. They even had a sauna, though not exactly a Finnish sauna, because you weren't allowed to throw water on the rocks. I'm not actually such a sauna person, despite being a Finn. I go maybe four times a year or something. But here I sometimes miss sauna, especially after an evening walk when you get sweaty and then all cold, it would be great to just sit in a really hot room for a while.

My hair is green now, by the way. It used to be really bleached blonde with maybe a hint of blue. After the swimming and after a few bouts of hair washing, it's now sort of greenish. I think it might be copper in the pipes or maybe the chlorine. Something like this happened to me before once, when I was washing my hair in an older house in Finland that also had copper pipes. I read I should put ketchup in my hair for 30 minutes and it would help. I'm probably not going to. I'm in somebody else's house and there isn't that much hot water so I'm really uncomfortable with the idea of having ketchup in my hair and then having to wash it off. With my luck, the whole house would end up looking like bloody murder.

I'm not a big fan of green, I like pastel hair but would definitely prefer purple or blue, or even pink. But it is what it is now. I think I might cut my hair anyway when I return home, I've been wanting to for a while. Oh and I now also have a lot of weird freckles on my face that make me look like I either have a mustache or have eaten a lot of chocolate and not washed my face. So yeah. I'm not dirty, my skin just reacts a bit weird to a lot of sun.


I've been thinking about the ravens. I went up one hill the other day and left them a little bit of bread to eat. The day after that, I felt they were hanging around me a bit more (might be my imagination). And now I've left pieces of bread on my balcony. The ravens hung around a bit, but they haven't eaten anything yet, not even during the night. Maybe they're afraid to land on the balcony. Well, I can't help that but let's see how it goes. I guess I could buy them some food they'd like better than bread but not too crazy about the idea of having raw meat on my balcony.

Also saw a cat the other day! It was near the Soviet apartment block, just sitting and looking at the setting sun. I think it had a home; in the outside door there was a small hole where it ran into when I got too close. I couldn't get a better shot, I was too afraid to even change my lens so that it wouldn't run away. When I went too close, it ran back into the hole. I left but when I turned around, I saw the kitty had come back out. I miss petting a cat!



I've seen these animals only from a distance, that's why the pics are kind of crappy. I will try to get closer in the future. And the guitar is one of my fave landmarks in this city, it's on the wall of a music shop I think. It looks so western, so frontier, in a way. Very southern gothic, except not. Northern Gothic, I guess.