Winter of kuopio

It was probably after I had seen ‘2 Days in Paris’. It must be, since I hadn’t had my camera with me. But it might very well be that I didn’t go there in the mood of taking photos. Living in Europe and not making any friends tends to wear you out.

So there I was in Kuopio, walking to be alone. Or to pretend I was part of that society. Just as detached to it as one is to his family. All grown-up.

There I found a road taking me to nowhere. On the left were strange woods. Left of it was a path to some stairs. No one looked to have tread that path. A rebellious mysticism took over me.

The picture wasn’t taken by me, of course. Courtesy: Lepod’s Blog

I wasn’t raised to tread into woods. That strange combination of an existing path and woods made me look like a tourist and not a crazy man who wants to get away. So I went on.

The stairs looked sturdy, but I was careful. I couldn’t know which plank might have a missing nail under so much of snow. Slowly I took each step, and when I had depleted my courage, my legs stopped.

Several deep breaths and another step. Some more deep breaths and another step. You can guess it took me awhile to get to the top.

The lack of such ‘adventure’ is proven by the fact that most of the lakes, such as above, have been pictured in summer.

All the lakes were frozen, as expected. But how many of them are there? It was beautiful and distant at the same time. The only metaphor I can think of is a bald with patches of hair. It might not be doing justice to the beauty, but it justifies the feeling I had at the moment – that of being placed into a foreign picture, where I have no role to play.

I left Europe a year after that.