Spring, spring

Among the creatures who now wake up after long and cold winter are the bums who drink on the bench at the bus 79 stop in Herttoniemi, and people who try to convert you to their religion.

While waiting for the bus I had 10 minutes in which to observe the bums (I think Finnish "pultsari" would be a better word - I mean the kind of people that drink outside on benches every morning, shave every week and take a shower every month) and suddenly I realized that what makes it most obvious that these people are pultsarit, as opposed to, say, a group of co-workers whose drunken party has continued till the morning, is not the quality of their clothes or drinks, the stubble or the smell: it's they way they talk to each other. They keep yelling at each other, much in the same way as regular people do when they are having a fight, but they are not really having a fight, or else they are having a perpetual fight.

A woman came up and talked to me and tried to give me some Jehova's Witness literature to read. I did not take it but was in a friendly mood, so I talked with her. At some point in the conversation she became visibly uncomfortable and clearly tried to get away. I don't know what scared her, I smiled to her so nicely.