Part of the charm with working at an international event like the hockey World Championships is seeing (and observing) people from all over the world. True, with hockey, it's mostly the white, male part of the population I can observe, but even in that sample, there are some fascinating observations to be made.

Really.

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Traveling can be a lonely business, even if you're surrounded by people all the time. The biggest number of people I've been surrounded by on this trip is 11 417 (capacity crowd) but of course it'd be nice with some familiar faces.

There's a family legend about one of my father's hockey trips. It's not about him, but I think it nicely captures the human need to feel at home. My Dad's' hockey team was in the Oldtimers' World Championships in the UK somewhere. I may confuse this with his trip to the Edinburgh tournament but it doesn't really matter.

There they were anyway, seeing the sights when a teammate of his said, "Look, there's a sign in Finnish!"

And indeed there was. The sign said "Coca-Cola."

Well, see this sign! It says "me". Made me feel welcome in Bern, Switzerland.

The suitcase is wide open on the living room floor, pretty much packed. I've got my essentials, my T-shirts, jeans, underwear, suit, shirts, shoes, and books to take me through the hockey world championship extravaganza in Switzerland.

How many pairs of jeans would I wear at home in the next three weeks? Probably 1.5. How many T-shirts? Probably just six different ones, but with a good rotation, and yes, washed in between uses. Why do I then pack 4 pairs of jeans and 15 T-shirts?

Because you never know, that's why. Better safe than sorry.

I've read two books in the past three weeks, which - on a rotating weekly average - is a record for the 2008-09 season, but for the trip, I've packed three novels, magazines, and hockey stats books.

Because, let's face it, covering 32 games in 17 days - with two off days which aren't really off days because those stories won't write themselves - is a walk in the park and I'll mostly be just reading and changing clothes.

So, for the next 20 days, I'll be blogging, twittering, and skyping from Berne, Switzerland about all that, hockey, and how to travel light right here, a little here, twittering here, and blogging some more on THN's site.

But right now, I'm already looking forward to coming back home in 20 days. And I imagine walking through those huge doors at the Arlanda airport, and seeing Jessica and the kids waiting for me, she holding a fresh caffe latte in her hand, and the kids dancing and singing songs about the best dad in the world. (Me.)

In Blink, Malcolm Gladwell writes about an experiment where people were given fifteen minutes to examine a student's college dormitory to gather information about him. Afterwards, they were interviewed, and it turned out that they could describe the subject’s personality more accurately than his or her own friends.

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In the blue corner, 95 centimeters, weighing 14.5 kilograms, at three years and 40 days we have Hilda who read this sign at a store yesterday.



Or at least the top part of it. She said, "Mother dear" - no, not really, but wouldn't it be great? - "the signs says 'stop'."

And as you can see, it sure does. So the girl can read at 3, tying the family record. That's what you get for doing everything your big brother does – if your big brother is the self-proclaimed "Reader Boy".

When movies get pirated, often the subtitles are missing. Or, if the subtitles are there, they’re as Chinese as the guy whose head you can see a couple of times between you and the movie.

And where there’s a will, there's a way. Demand meets supply, simple as that. There are several actors in the underground subtitling business in Sweden, for example, but they’re not all in it just out of the goodness of their hearts, making subtitles available on the Web to advance foreign films’ status in Sweden.

No, no.

Swedish Dagens Nyheter ran a story about just that the other day, with this quote from “Jimmi” at Swesub, one of those companies.

“If we upload new subtitles on [our site] at Swesub, they’ll be available at Undertexter in just a couple of minutes. It sucks that somebody’s making money off of our work, without giving anything back to us.”

It’s a crime, I say.

Sometimes it's difficult, even impossible, to see cause and effect in things and I suppose it may be meaningless as well. Since Doc Brown's DeLorean did get destroyed, we can't go back in time, and what's left is just a game of second-guessing.

The other day, I made a short trip to Finland on Finnair. I always check out the in-flight magazine out of professional curiosity and courtesy and this time, what caught my eye was a column about Finnish architecture.

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Yesterday, I interviewed a Finnish wind energy expert who gave me the name of another expert to talk to, this guy a Swedish one.

Nothing special, at all, you're right. I made a note of the email with the guy's contact info, but not much more. Today, I copied his email address off the email, typed a message and sent it off. Another day at the office, another interview booked. Five minutes later, I got an error message about the message being undeliverable so I had to send the message again. And because the address was wrong, I had to edit it.

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In my previous entry I wrote that "I was slow again", which is actually not really true. I'm not a slow person, at all, but when I typed that I was making a mental reference to one instance where I came late into the picture. I can't seem to find it anywhere on this blog, even though I was sure I had written about it.

Anyway. This is what happened.

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Here's my childhood hero, Lucky Luke, circa 1979.


And here's Luke in 2009.



Turns out he's not just lucky, he's smart as well. And, turns out I'm slow again. Apparently, Luke quit smoking and switched the cigarette to a straw in 1983. (Then again, of the 73 albums, only 21 have been published in 1983 or later. I remember him always having that cigarette in his mouth.)

Or, thereabouts. But never losing it.

Helsinki airport, April 4, 7.30 a.m. Temperature: +1° C

Boarding a plane to Stockholm, temperature at destination: +5° C.

But this is a Finnair flight:

Last night, a friend of mine was talking to a friend of his about me. And he said that I was from Joensuu, which he knows is a bit of sore point to me, then corrected himself and said, “Well, really, he’s from here but he…” and he glanced at me.

I was born in Helsinki, I lived here until I was 14, and moved back to Helsinki when I was 18.

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Probably the next big thing to come out of Finland: Liquorice. It's amazing that it hasn't conquered the world already but I predict that its time has come. It's delicious, it's delicious, and it's delicious.

There's already a great liquorice store in Stockholm, but if you ever get to Finland try to get your hands on Kouvolan Lakritsi (Kouvola Liquorice). It's the best liquorice in Finland. And they say so themselves.

I don't know how many times I've driven through Varkaus on my way to Joensuu where I went to high school and where my father lives, but it must be in the hundreds. And each time, and especially since meeting Jessica and making that trek together with her, I always say out loud: "This city is tops my list of 'cities I don't want to live in'".

Varkaus.

The word means "theft."

And the image of the city goes downhill from there. Varkaus is mostly hiding under the smoke - which is probably not real smoke but just steam - from the paper mill which is right in the center of the city. There's a unpleasant smell, and the buildings look a little run-down. I just want to keep driving.

Well, now I have spent a night at a local hotel, and I'm afraid my list stays unchanged. Time to hit the road.

But enough about me. Where would you never want to live?

Kuopio, a city in the Finnish heartland, some four hours north of Helsinki. Four hours and maybe a couple of years. It used to be about ten, but news travel fast these days.

Kuopio, a city in the heart of Savo, a region known for sneakiness and twisted humor. As the old Finnish proverb goes, "when somebody from Savo talks, the listener bears all responsibility." And like most clichés, this one is true, and very much alive.

As I arrived to the rink tonight, I was told to go to the door and ask for tickets that had been left for me there. I walked to the door and introduced myself, and said that there should be two tickets for me. The man at the door looked at me and goes, "no tickets here..."

My jaw dropped.

"... but I have your name on the list," he said, laughing so that his entire body shook.

Talking with these Savo people on April Fool's Day is just asking for it.

Being a Finn living in Sweden, I'm in the privileged position of always being right when there's a question of these two countries. "How dare you question my patriotism for Finland?" or "How dare you tell me that you know better what Swedes are like, I've been here for ten years – and my kids are Swedish." (Or Finnish, depends on who's asking).

A friend of mine always says I'm living behind the enemy lines. Well, I'm going back to the old country for a few days again, and I thought I'd blog my way through it. So come back and refresh often. (Really, grab that RSS feed while you can).

I'm going deep, too. Kuopio. Rhymes with nothing.