Biking in the Ǻland Islands

200 kilometers of extreme beauty is what we saw. Everything was beautiful in Ǻland, even the weather. Get ready for a whole lot of pictures because I couldn't stop taking them! Ǻland is an Autonomous State, over which Finland has sovereignty. Most residents are Swedish speakers. Their ethnicity is a touchy subject, which I've heard described as ethnic Swedes or Swedish-speaking Finns.
Hannele, a colleague from the lab, and I biked and camped through the islands, ferries and bridges. There were a few other cyclists around to keep us intermittent company, but we were mostly on our own. Some of the ferries were easy to catch. We just waited where the cyclists were gathered and a boat would come. Most of the other tourists were Swedish.
We piled all of the bikes on there and off we went!This is a Huvudfastet fort, which was built to defend the islands.
One of the islands has Kastelholm Castle. We stayed just long enough to learn how to say Kastelholm.

This was our our portable five star palace. It was nice and cozy, light, and easy to pack up every day!

Alot of the houses had old mills, or something like that. They looked cool but didn't appear to be in use anymore.

I almost fell into the water after this shot, but not quite!
We arrived to this dock, which was completely vacant. Actually the road ended into this dock. What are we supposed to do? We wondered. Trafficsomething? It looks like a schedule, but "it's" not open for very long. Oh wait. Look at that sign. Is that a button? I pressed it to see what would happen. Nothing happened, so I pressed it five or six more times. I felt like we were on Mars.
About five minutes later we could see a ferry coming from across the water. "Hey! It worked! We called ferry with the magic button. " If they were mad at me for pushing the button so many times, they didn't show it. The cemetery on Mariehamn had graves that dated back to the 1800s and were quite elaborate and well kept. Actually, everything was quite elaborate and well kept. Many people were living abroad when they died and came back to Aland to be buried.

We dropped by the church in Mariehamn, just before hopping on the ferry back home.
This is the monstrously huge ferry that takes me to Sweden and Aland. It's comfortable and cheap, especially for daytime cruises. It turns into drunken mayhem at night.

Arctic Circle!

My face was pressed firmly against the floor as I examined the control dials beneath the sauna. “There are two controls! One goes from one to six, the other from one to 30!” I was shouting to my sister from the ground as we tried to figure out how to turn on the sauna. For some reason the temperature control was installed very close to the floor. We were certainly doing something wrong. The pressure was on because this was the first time that I was responsible for running the sauna. If I’ve learned one thing in Finland, it should be how to operate a sauna. It sort of comes naturally to those Finns, who had always taken the lead in my other sauna experiences. After a series of trials and errors, we finally got it going… just like real Finnish people.

Right after she landed in Helsinki, Robin and I hopped on an overnight train up north to a town called Äkäslompolo, not far from Ylläs in the Arctic Circle. The Arctic Circle is the area of the earth that has at least one day with 24 hours of sun, and at least one day of complete darkness each year. The Arctic Circle locals seemed pretty relaxed. Several people stopped to talk to us or offered us rides, even though we were obviously outsiders. While the towns are small, life seemed to be pretty “normal.” The weather was lovely and there was lots of electricity, running water, a couple of restaurants, and grocery stores. There were some mosquitoes, but not nearly as many as the folks in Tampere prepared me for.

This picture was taken at midnight!

Ylläsjarvi is where we saw the first reindeer… just after eating reindeer for dinner. Reindeer with mashed potatoes and lingonberry sauce is a common dish in the area. The reindeer roam free, but they are tagged and owned by a reindeer farmer who harvests them when the time is right. While I had reindeer nightmares (believe it or not) before coming to Finland, it tastes delightful. Aaaand it’s good for you! Robin didn’t like it as much as I did. Maybe it takes a few months of living in Finland. First you learn to operate a sauna, and then you can enjoy the taste of reindeer! ‘Course, Robin kinda learned to operate the sauna already.

We headed back down south through Sweden. Our final stop was in Stockholm, a city that is intertwined with its surrounding bodies of both salt and fresh water. I was excited to go to Sweden because of the Vikings. They’re famous for conquering much of the northern world, and maybe even parts of Canada and the States. I was however, quite distraught when I found out that those Viking hats with two horns: they’re fake. The experts don’t think the Vikings actually wore hats like that. And I got the impression that the locals don’t think the hats are as cool as I think they are. It seemed like some people think they’re an annoying tourist gimmick. Oh well. My Viking hat visions were shattered. Robin and I had a wonderful time. I look forward to going back for World Water Week next month.

You can borrow bikes like these in Stockholm (as well as many European cities), if you need a quick way to get around.

This is an exhibit in the Nordic Museum of every day items used in Swedish and Nordic history.

These are a few shots from the ferry trip from Stockholm to Turku (Finland). We went through the Swedish and the Finnish archepelagos, with a brief stoppover on one of the Aland Islands.

Juhannus: Life is Good

Life is good. I'm happy. I feel great. I have lots of energy. Maybe I'll go for a run. It's four o'clock the morning. Maybe I should go to sleep. I can't decide: sleep or run? I'm hungry.

We just celebrated Midsummer (or Juhannus), which was convenient for us Seattleites because it closely aligns with the Summer Solstice celebrations down south. My biological clock told me that I was supposed to be celebrating. To me, Juhannus was a celebration of surviving the winter and welcoming the summer into my life. It also has religious significance. Most people vacate the cities and go out to their summer cottages in the countryside for Juhannus.

I did not do as the Finns do. I went to Helsinki for Juhannus, which is actually the biggest city in Finland. There aren’t many summer cottages in Helsinki proper. Everyone warned me "don't do it!" or "Helsinki is boring during Juhannus." I was planning to be in Helsinki anyway because my sister and I were meeting there before launching into the Arctic Circle, coincidentally the day after Juhannus.

Eric told me there was a bonfire celebration on Seurasaari, an island that you can drive to from Helsinki. Sounds exciting! Katherine, Rebecca, Eric and I hopped on the bus and off we were. We briefly had a conversation about eating kangaroo meat on the way there (not traditional Finnish cuisine, but a solid conversation topic, nonetheless). An Australian woman who seemed to be planted next to us (and our kangaroo conversation) revealed herself and confirmed Katherine’s prognosis: eating kangaroo meat is, in fact, not a good idea. So, on to the bonfires! We were excited because bonfires are always fun! There’s a primordial party instinct that comes out during bonfires… at least that’s what I thought.

It’s apparently an American party instinct. My favorite quote of the evening was from a five or six year old American (or maybe Canadian, but I think American) girl who looked around at the thousands of people blankly waiting for bonfire to start and then looked up at her dad and asked “Daddy, are these people excited for the bonfires?” I was wondering the same thing. We all show our excitement in different ways, I suppose.

Seurasaari has an open air museum of cottages from all over Finland that have been deconstructed, restored, transplanted, and reconstructed for our convenient viewing pleasure, right where Finland’s heart beats. They represent rural countryside life from the 18^th to 20^th century. There was a Finnish drama production about the Aland Islands, which was difficult to understand, with my limited Finnish. Since I had so much trouble with the dialogue, I was a little shocked when the lead grabbed the villain (maybe… it was hard to tell if he was good or bad) by his wrap-around trousers and untwirrled him down to his bare buns. Still no response from the crowd. However, it was an unexpected twist for me in what I thought was a production about Finnish history. But then it reminded me of the naked cyclist parade that was probably happening simultaneously in Seattle. Cool.

We spend at least 40 minutes watching a beautiful family of swans. I got some really good photos, but was perhaps too entertained by the swans when I was supposed to be partying it up at the bonfire. Anyway, I found Juhannus entertaining in a different way than I was expecting. It seems to happen a lot in the Finnish territory.

No semi-wild celebration is complete without a visit to the Alvar Aalto- designed Stockmann Bookstore. It sounds a little nerdy, but it's actually quite pleasant to hang out and people watch, plan your next trip, or find the best reindeer-blood recipe (if you're into that sort of thing). Aaaaaand If you're Rebecca's height, you have a perfect sized chin-rest to accommodate you during your people-watching endeavors.

IWHA 2007- Women in Science!

It’s been amazing here! The sun shines almost twenty hours per day now. It has shined throughout our intensive water sampling period, the complementary midnight lab analyses, a visit from my father, and the annual IWHA conference, which all happened almost simultaneously. There’s been lots of work and lots of fun… and not much sleeping.

The IWHA conference was titled The History and Futures of Water. I gave a presentation on the history and future of chlorine disinfection. I talked about some broader issues pertaining to the study of household drinking water treatment. I feel that our scientific results are quite a bit different than what actually happens in the real world, making some of the literature perhaps misleading. So I gave my talk, and answered a few questions. The chair person, who introduced each of the five presenters, pointed out that pH has a substantial effect on the efficacy of chlorine, and I didn’t mention that in my presentation.

I agree that pH is a very important chemical property of water. I measured pH when I was doing my field work in Ecuador. I also measured free and total chlorine concentration, turbidity, and took field surveys, among other things. However, my presentation at the IWHA conference was not about pH, so of course I didn’t mention it. I only had 15 minutes. It was not really about chlorine efficacy either, though I did mention that. It was about the use of chlorine in rural households. I made an argument in my presentation that most current chlorine studies are quite different that actual, real-world (visit-a-village-and-see-how-it’s-used) chlorine use. For example, most chlorine studies educate their participants (and subjects) in some way before or during their sampling period. In the real world, however, education is not necessarily part of household chlorine use. Maybe this is important. That’s why I gave my presentation.

I do appreciate comments. But it was hard not to notice that I was at least 20 years younger than the other four presenters and I was the only woman presenting in this session. AND everyone else got a complement from the chairperson about how good their presentations were, regardless of how good their presentations were. At the time, I thought “whoops, I really need to work on a better way to communicate this idea. It’s very difficult to understand. I think chairperson missed the main idea of my presentation.” It was not good news, but it was my fault. You can’t win ‘um all.

Later on, I was helping out with the equipment in another session where my session’s chairperson was giving his presentation. He had some technical problems with his presentation. When we opened up his PowerPoint file, some of his photos were missing. Yikes! Murphy’s Law was giving him a run for his money.

“Well, we’ve got ten minutes,” I said. “Do you want to download your pictures again and put them back in presentation?” One of his colleagues/another presenter came over to see what the commotion was.

The colleague/other presenter gave me a series of unnecessary commands (the kind that you get from elderly men who don’t know that they aren’t the only smart ones around), not realizing that he was almost entirely redundant. “Click on pictures. Type this keyword. Click that picture. Copy. Paste.” Etc. etc. etc. We replaced one of chairperson’s pictures. Actually, I replaced one of chairperson’s pictures, and I thought of solving the problem in the first place.

Chairperson was so impressed. So what did he say, you ask? He said “Wow colleague/other presenter, you’re a real technical whiz! I can’t believe you fixed my problem so quickly!”

OK gentlemen, I do things that are much more amazing than downloading pictures... every day. But I would like to point out that this is an example of men undeservingly getting most of the credit in a scientific environment. It starts in the educational process, in our scientific discussions, and in our presentations. Women have to work much harder and have their sources in order to get people to listen (and believe) what they have to say.

I challenge you all, men and women alike. If you’re about to discount a smart woman, think about why you don’t believe what she has to say. Do you have a real reason, or is it cultural? Do you understand what she’s talking about? Then ask her, instead of assuming she made a mistake (and forgot to mention pH, for example). Maybe she can teach you something that will benefit the scientific community. Did she give you an idea? Give her credit for it. Let her know. If she has something to contribute, include her in your papers, in your lab, and in your research.

Tampere's Water!

I was inspired by the architecture Valle (the scholarship program that’s funding me) students’ abilities to connect their work to the non-architects. So I’m giving it a try with my own work in Tampere. While my project in the lab is involves molecular biology, nucleotides, polymerase, statistical significance, and sampling plans, it also involves water. Civilizations are formed around convenient water supplies. We all swim, wash, transport ourselves and our things, and most of all, we drink water. The architects have the fancy interiors, exteriors, and photographically artistic presentation, but I have the substance that makes up more than half of your body and 70% of your planet’s surface. Tampere has its history, present, and future which, in order for it to survive, has been centered around water.

Tampere’s Water System

Tampere is geographically sandwiched between two large lakes, Näsijärvi (the largest lake in the Tampere area**, 257 km²) and Pyhäjärvi. The city was originally established on the Pispala ridge, around the Tammerkoski Rapids. These rapids run from north to south, out of Näsijärvi and into Pyhäjärvi. Since there is an elevation difference of 18 meters between the two lakes, the rapids can produce energy. Power plants from Finlayson, Tampella and Liljeroos were able to use the rapids as Tampere’s sole energy source until 1916. If you look down the Tampere Rapids today, the view is dominated by historical industrial buildings that were once used to produce cotton, wood, shoes and textiles. In spite of the drive for industrial development, Koskipuisto Park was deliberately left undeveloped for the public to enjoy. Tampere is the largest inland Nordic city and the third largest city in Finland, currently with 200,000 residents.

Tampere’s Water History

From 1835 to 1921, just after the industrial revolution, Tampere grew from approximately 1,600 to over 40,000 residents. At the beginning of this period, the major objective of a water system was to provide fire-fighting protection, but simultaneously led to improved hygienic conditions. Throughout history, Tampere’s water has been provided by both ground and surface water sources. The first municipal pumping station was installed in 1835 and was used to fill buckets for household distribution. Free-flowing ditches were later used to direct wastewater into lake Pyhäjärvi. In 1866 a municipal committee was formed to control drainage, as a measure to address the Typhoid problem that was worst in the least drained areas of Tampere (Germ Theory and microbes had not yet been discovered). This committee proposed a sewer network to separate sewage from drinking water. In 1876, the sewer construction began. The city’s first health official, A. Ahlberg- a civil engineer (like me!)- proposed the first modern drinking water distribution and sewage system in Tampere. He recommended charging for water by the household. He also suggested constructing a robust and sustainable system, rather than quickly solving the short-term water shortage problems. The city constructed the first waterworks in 1882, without using Ahlberg’s recommendations. Unfortunately, the system lacked the pressure necessary to provide water to everyone, did not resolve water quality issues, and did not meter water usage to equitably charge consumers. The sewer system was completed in various parts of the city between 1883 and 1894. A second drinking water system was constructed in 1898 with higher pressure, but still no water treatment. There was a serious Typhoid problem that was said to have spread along the water pipe network.

In the early 1900s, Lake Näsijärvi was considered polluted and Typhoid outbreaks were common. It wasn’t until 1917, when Tampere began to chlorinate its drinking water, that the Typhoid problem was contained. There have been no Typhoid epidemics since this time. To address taste and turbidity problems, the city opened a new treatment plant in Kaupinoja, which used both chlorination and sand filters to treat the Lake Näsijärvi’s water. A second plant was built in 1931 in Mältinranta to serve the western part of the city. In 1972 the water source was changed to Lake Roinejärvi, which currently provides 70% of Tampere’s water, while the other 30% comes from various groundwater sources. In comparison, Finland receives about 50% of its water from surface sources and 50% from groundwater sources.

It seems like Tampere is unusual with such a water centered history, but you'd be surprised. Do you know where your water comes from? Do you know why your city was founded where it is?

Warning: the following section contains more science than usual!

Artificial Groundwater Recharge (AGR)

Reija, one of my collegues at the lab, is focusing on AGR for her PhD work. The main idea of AGR is to load up aquifers with untreated water. The natural microbial processes in groundwater are capable of removing certain contaminants that are currently removed at the treatment plant. Her results may help the City of Tampere decide on its best future water treatment option.

She has two sets of reactors installed at the local water treatment plant. She varies temperature and oxygen with time in one set. Some people worry that the CO₃^2- in the system will turn to organic matter instead of CO₂ and cause the AGR system to clog and shut down. She has some smaller fluidized bed reactors that provide a small, but perfectly porous material to simulate ideal aquifer conditions. In the fluidized bed reactors, Reija studies the effects of varying the hydraulic retention time, fluidization rate, temperature, and phosphorus and nitrogen concentrations on the microbial communities. She’s currently using stable carbon isotopes to measure the biodegradation rate. She’s getting approximately 30 to 50% biodegredation, based on the ¹²C:¹³C ratio.

Tampere’s Water Treatment Plant

The present-day treatment plant was built in the end of the 1970s and is located in Rusko, approximately 2 km from the Tampere University of Technology (TUT). It’s time for a renovation, but there is a hot political debate over whether to switch to artificial groundwater recharge (AGR) that is holding up plans for renovation. AGR is (not coincidentally) also a hot research topic in our lab at TUT. The city doesn’t want to renovate or build a new treatment plant if it is going to switch to AGR, which requires much less water treatment. AGR consists of pumping surface (or whatever type of) water into the ground and letting the microbes in the soil do the treatment. It would still require chlorination, but almost entirely eliminates the need for a water treatment plant. However, we need some science to tell us if it’s a viable option for Tampere.

The current treatment plant consists of 720 km of pipelines and five steps of treatment, with a flow rate of 1800 to 2200 m³/hr. These are the five treatment steps:

1. Calcium carbonate addition. This prevents corrosion
2. Hypochlorite addition. This prevents biofilm from forming on the sand filters.
1. It may also unfortunately cause disinfection byproducts to form, which cause cancer in lab animals at high doses
3. Rapid sand filtration. There is a one meter deep sand bed that is backwashed once per day. This process removes natural organic matter and iron. Some people think the rapid sand filtration should go before the hypochlorite addition to reduce the formation of disinfection byproducts.
4. Air flotation. This treatment process is considered advanced and efficient. Ferric sulfide sticks to the organic matter and forms flocs. These flocs adhere to bubbles that are diffused through the water column, bringing the organic matter to surface where it can be scraped off.
5. Activated carbon filtration. Water is filtered, the pH is raised to 8.5, and the final chlorination takes place before the treated water is stored in one of Tampere’s five water towers.

So wow! Before I drink that water, it sure goes through a lot! It's pretty nice that we don't get Typhoid here anymore. That's not the case everywhere!

By the way, there’s a new policy to keep the door shut at the water treatment plant in Rusko. Since you need an appointment to get into our water treatment plants in Seattle, and you have to go drive past intimidating signage that makes you think you have to go to prison if you make a wrong turn, I really noticed the cultural difference.

**Näsijärvi is nowhere near the largest lake in Finland, that was a mistake (see Sannamari's comment)!

Eurovision My-o-vision

Eurovision 2007 made me love Helsinki!

The Eurovision Song Contest is a tradition that started way back in 1956. Some say it was one of the traditions that lead to the formation of the EU, by bringing the war torn European community together. Each country submits a song that is performed by a corresponding singer. Each country selects its own performer, sometimes selected by voting… I think. The overall winner of the Eurovision Song Contest is selected by international cell phone voting. You can’t vote for your own country’s performer, but you can vote for your neighbors. There is obviously some politicking, especially considering some of the winners. It’s not entirely based on talent. Or maybe not at all based on talent. Last year, Finland won. In accordance with the tradition, this means that it also hosted this year’s contest in Helsinki. This is also the first time Finland has ever hosted because they had never ever won before.

If you really want to understand the contest, check out Lordi’s winning performance from last year. He and his band dressed up like monsters and played a hard rock/metal song called Hard Rock Hallelujah. The funny part of the story is, those monster outfits are the only way that the Finnish public knows Lordi and his band. That’s right; they’ve never made a public appearance without the masks. Aaaaand, the even funnier part of the story is that Lordi was invited to the Annual National Ball at the President’s house on Independence Day last year. He didn’t show up because masks were not allowed at the event (due to security concerns). There was lots of national suspense: would Lordi uncover his appearance and go to the National Ball? We were all left in disappointing wonder when he still hadn’t shown up by the end of the evening. What does his bright, shiny, death metal face look like? Still don’t know. The Finnish territory is covered with Lordi goods and paraphernalia that range from soda to action figures.

Here's their 2006 winning performance:

Most of the performances at Eurovision are very similar sounding pop songs. Lordy was different. Occasionally the winner makes it big. Some examples are ABBA, Olivia Newton John, and Celine Dion. You might notice from these examples that the nationality of the performer doesn’t have to correspond to the country that they are representing… if any of you non-Europeans want to give it a try. Most of the time, nothing becomes of the winner. It’s generally pretty awful music, but it’s incredibly entertaining to know about.

We were not able to get tickets to the actual Eurovision performance in Helsinki because they sold out faster than I could dial the number on my Nokia. However, we went to Helsinki to witness the mayhem anyway. It was nothing less than awesome! There were performers in the street, break-dancers, people displaying their national Eurovision pride by wearing their country’s flags, and free concerts. A whole lot of Europe actually came to Finland. Finland doesn’t get a lot of attention, so it was fun to witness. We also took a trip over to Suomenlinna, Finland’s island fortress, for a relaxing lunch. In Helsinki you can find both mayhem and relaxation on any given day! This weekend, made me LOVE Helsinki!