20. Dental floss gadgets

In my defense, even the manufacturer doesn't provide a proper name for the thing above on their website. It's kind of a silly thing to name as one of your favourite things, but it really is. I have a very small mouth and over-lapping teeth, so using dental floss was always a massive hassle and tooth picks were useless. Using this thing is brilliant because it doesn't involve trying to stuff my fingers into my mouth and dental floss slipping and me giving up on dental hygiene.

There are probably other manufactorers as well, but here's one website I was able to find: http://www.jordan.no/en/dental-care/Products/Jordan-inter-dental-products/Jordan-Dental-Floss/Dental-floss-Miracle-adult/

19. Museums

Here's a confession: some museums bore me. As someone studying Archaeology and arts in general, I often feel I should appreciate museums' collections more. The more collections I see, however, the more I learn to appreaciate lay-out and presentation - and size. Gigantic collections such as The National Archaeological Museum at Athens, not to mention the National Museum at Istanbul, which is in parts well laid-out but in others chaotic, just tend to depress me. There are so many exceptional pieces that you quickly become numb.

Too many hours walked around on sore feet and trying to bring myself to care have taught me two lessons: 1) Be selective and 2) Look out for small collections. I am slowly learning to fight my OCD tendencies and to only look at things that catch my attention. It's okay to walk past that tenth cabinet with flint knives or even part of "Agamemnon's treasure" at Athens. (Yes, I said it. I did it.)

I've also learned that even the most gorgeous object loses a lot of its interest value if it has no tag explaining what it is. Museums aren't merely deposits for artefacts; they are places where people can find information, explanations, and learn about history or culture with the support of the "physical" material. I have to take my hat off for the Brits here: while I think a lot of British sights are obnoxiously expensive and as such elitist, I also think they have done a marvellous job bringing history to life. They do a lot of museum tours with well-informed guides. Better yet, many museums have guides in period dress playing out parts - usually with a hearty dose of humour thrown in. If you don't feel like paying £15 for a cleric to show you around for an hour at Westminster Abbey, some smaller churches and museums have volunteers who will show you around for free. (If you're ever at St Giles in Edinburgh, ask for John. He literally knows every stone of the church and is a jolly old chap in addition.)

Here are some museums, sights, or random places that I've enjoyed. They're mostly limited to the British Isles and the Mediterranean as those are places I've had the chance to travel around in.

British Isles:

Stirling Castle. I personally enjoyed it much more than I did Edinburgh castle. It's less crowded, to begin with! I think there's a remarkable integrity to what archaeologists and historians have done at the castle: the dining hall has been completely reconstructed and has people in period-dress talking about the castle. Other buildings are mostly left as they were (with some restoration carried out to protect the structures as well as the tourists), but there are extremely helpful plaques explaining what the rooms would have looked like. The plaques give an insight into archaeological thinking: instead of holes in the wall, you learn to look for timber holes indicating an upper storey, etc. There is a reconstructed kitchen complete with the smell of meat cooking and medieval recipes. I think you can see medieval handicrafts at the castle as well.

The Prison Museum, Stirling. I went into this museum thinking, "Could they come up with a more boring museum" and came out gushing. The museum itself is far from spectacular, but there is an absolutely brilliant guided tour with an actor. The man played at least five different roles in under an hour, from a rabid prison guard to prisoners to a Victorian idealist.

Dunvegan Castle, Caisteal Dhùn Bheagan, Isle of Skye, An t-Eilean Sgitheanach. This castle is a curiosities cabinet of sorts, but a very charming one. It's filled with the treasures and heirlooms of the MacLeod clan. The premises are beautiful and there's a lovely garden with extravagant structures built for the ladies of the clan. It's a great place to go and feel a romantic longing for the Gaelic past, Bonnie Prince Charlie, and make the guardians' day by saying "Madainn mhath".

Museum of the Isles, Armadale, Isle Of Skye. It's ironic to go to Scotland to say God bless America, but it's nice that the offspring of people looking for a better life in the New World generously sponsor this nice Centre. As a result, the museum on Clan Donald and the Western Isles in general is extremely well laid out with informative plaques, modern design, and multimedia.

Kilmainham Jail, Dublin. More prisons! I don't recommend going here if mentioning IRA makes you see red. Once more, what makes the museum special are the tour guides who are sentimental, nationalistic, but also really, really good. Seeing the encouraging inscriptions prisoners with no hope of escaping the punishment of the British government as well as seeing where prisoners were shot to death felt unexpectedly bad - maybe it's the Ausschwitz syndrome. (I've had friends tell of unexpectedly bursting into tears at Ausschwitz because there's such an aura of sadness still hanging over the area.) Bonus points for the guide introducing himself bilingually.

The Tower, London. Such a cliché, not to mention ridiculously expensive, but the beefeaters are absolutely hilarious. Old sarcastic British soldiers talking about medieval gore, how could it be anything less than brilliant!

The British Museum. It's so big it's daunting, but they sure managed to hoard some nice stuff during those wild years of "colonialist archaeology". I mostly focused on the Greek and Roman collections, because three visits to the museum wasn't nearly enough to see everything, and there are some pretty unique objects. One of my favourites was this little thing next to the Portland Vase (and no, it's not just because there's buggery going on):

There was a shortage of staff and many of the rooms I was interested in were closed when I was in London. I went to the information desk to ask if the rooms would be open some other day, but instead I was told to wait for a staff member to come let me in. I was let in, the staff member chattered about the artefacts, the museum, and life, and let me take my time looking. Amazing customer service.

Greece:

Delphi. I always tell people to skip Athens and go see Delphi. The site itself is very poorly laid out, but the location and surroundings are breath-taking. The sanctuary looks down into a deep valley which is green even when the rest of Greece is sun-burnt desert land (this might have something to do with the fountain of the Muses running in the area). Go early in the morning or in the evening to avoid tourist masses and heatstroke. The museum is a flagship museum (along with the up-coming new Acropolis Museum in Athens). Viva la France for sponsoring it! It's shiny, modern, and airy with plenty of room. Best of all, there's a limited amount of artefacts on display which allows you to really look at the exhibitions. I would say it's the best museum I've seen in Greece (if not anywhere), and I've seen quite a few.

Aegina. I'm still uncertain whether it's due to chance or pedantic German archaeologist who restored the site, but the temple of Aphaia forms a perfect section of a Doric temple. It's a great place to study temple architecture and building technique in general. There are plaques explaining eg how the massive stones were heaved up, and you can see the corresponding holes or grooves still in the stones:

I hope the picture's big enough to see the U-shaped grooves on the stones high up - ropes ran along the grooves and a pulley system was used. Similarly the museum has building fragments and scuplture which were buried (I think) and as a result have remarkably well-preserved remains of paint. All in all, the place is like a crash course in ancient architecture.

Kerameikos, Athens. Kerameikos was the area for potterers near the gates of Athens in the ancient times, and there was also a cemetery lining the road leading into the city. Nowadays the cemetery is a lovely haven amidst the dust, honking cars and sweat that is Athens. There is a museum with a smallish exhibition and a lot of information on changes in burials. The cemetery itself has some signs as well, but I mostly found myself enjoying just strolling around.

Piraeus Museum (near Athens). It's tucked away a bit, but I'm glad I took the time to hunt the museum down. The finds from shipwrecks around the area are taken here, and some of the finest Classical bronzes we have are in the Piraeus Museum. Once more, the collection is small enough to actually appreciate, but there are many important pieces of ancient art. There's also a stone with measurements based on the human body chiselled into it that I thought was sweet.

Syntagma metro station, Athens. Yes, it's a metro station, but the coolest one around. When the metro was built and extended, there was much worry in the international community of archaeologist over the preservation of the archaeology of the area. Much was destroyed, no doubt, but the Greeks did pull of a miracle in excavating and documenting huge areas. Some of the finds are now displayed at various metro stations. One entire wall at Syntagma is a section of the stratigraphy of the area.

Italy:

Herculaneum. I'm recommending Herculaneum because it's less hassle and on a more controllable scale than Pompeii but with many of the same benefits. I know there are many wonders to be seen at Pompeii, but personally all I remember is nearly passing out of dehydration. My recollections of Herculaneum are quite similar, but at least my feet didn't hurt quite as much.

Villa Borghese, Rome. The villa is located in a big lush park, which in itself makes it worth a visit. I know very little of Renaissance sculpture and find it difficult to analyse it apart from "That's pretty", but the pieces by Bernini at Villa Borghese somehow stuck in my head and made me think. Daphne and Apollo is so vivid and intricate in real life that I detest looking at photos of it because they never do it justice. Truth made me feel vaguely disgusted, but it's interesting he would choose to present Truth as a sprawling, cackling woman.

Finland:

Vapriikki, Tampere. This is me promoting my home town. As well as fairly boring modern history exhibitions, the museum has temporary exhibitions with themes ranging from Imperial Russian art to Indonesian tribes. The museum is housed in old factory buildings, which are worth a visit in themselves.

The National Museum, Helsinki. This is the real reason I made this post - to share pictures of my friend and I being total dorks. The regular displays at the museum are informative, but I particularly enjoyed the thematic exhibition for this year on the Swedish-Russian war of 1808-1809. Upstairs there's a playroom for children with all sorts of activities that proved too difficult for us, such as harnessing a horse, figuring out past leaders of the country, and setting up a table with cutlery from different periods. Better yet, there's a room called "information centre" where adults are allowed to play around. For this exhibition, there were uniforms modelled after those of the Russian and Swedish soldiers circe 1808 that you could try on.

Suggestions for great museums are more than welcome. (I'm going to Florence in March, so any gems in Tuscany are especially wanted. I've already seen the most clichéd places in Florence, Accademia, Uffizi, etc.)

18. Same-sex marriage and adoption

I had a flatmate who believed sexual orientation is a choice – usually one made out of spite in the case of sexual minorities – but I don’t think anyone would choose to be gay or bisexual, not in the world we live in. I have friends and family who’ve lived in denial for over twenty years, friends who tuck away pieces of themselves because their families wouldn’t approve. I have friends who have mutilated themselves, lived in destructive relationships, and developed eating disorders because they’ve been so terrified of being different, wanting and loving things they shouldn’t. I have a friend who has no legal rights towards her own child despite living under the same roof with the child’s biological mother and looking after and adoring the baby as much as any parent could. No, there are simply too many every-day hardships to believe anyone would choose to belong to a sexual minority if given the choice. Too many shoves, too many dirty looks, too many glass roofs, too much trodding of basic rights.

That said, I know many people who find that battle worthwhile and in hindsight would not change it no matter how much they’ve been hurt along the way. I know a middle-aged lesbian couple with a grown-up child they brought up together from a baby, and I can only imagine the terror they might feel when thinking ”What if I had given up? What if I had continued conforming? What if I had ’chosen’ to be straight?” Others, I can imagine asking the same questions, but because denying their sexuality would be denying a part of their identity. (There seems to be a need to validate or white-wash sexual minorities by emphasizing long-term relationships. Single gay people or people in casual relationships have the right to their identity as much as gay people in long-term relationships. This post is, however, about relationships and families, so please excuse the one-sided approach. Similarly, the focus is on same-sex relationships. This isn’t to neglect different-sex relationships of bisexual or transgender people – their issues are just different.)

I do not believe sexual orientation is a choice, and I don’t think granting sexual minorities rights should be a choice any more than, say, granting the same rights to people with a different skin colour from the majority. People will not stop being gay, bisexual, or transgender if we refuse to acknowledge them. Families with same-sex parents will not stop having babies. (This, by the way, is not a new phenomenon brought on by our times’ moral corruption. As mentioned, I know adults brought up by same-sex couples – usually lesbian for practical reasons – and I’m sure such families have existed for ages in one form or another.) The only question is whether we acknowledge their rights as regards to their families, their spouses and their children.

As it stands, a child can be taken from a loving parent she or he has known all her or his life in favour of a biological parent who has hardly even met the child. In Finland, same-sex couples can have their relationships acknowledged and thus have legal rights when it comes to things such as inheritance and property. In many countries, it is still possible for a partner of fifty years to be evicted from a shared home after the death of the loved one under whose name the property is. Imagine being left adrift after losing your spouse, your partner. Imagine knowing you have no way to protect your partner if something happens to you.

I have a friend with a beautiful baby girl whom both she and the other mother adore. They have fought for this baby, they have gone through fatiguing fertility treatments, they have rearranged their entire lives. They have done all this with the knowledge that should anything happen to the biological mother, my friend would have no rights to the baby. They have done it in hopes that change will come, that people will see families like theirs and stop being so cruel. They are very brave.

I don’t rally for the right to a church wedding. If Churches refuse to acknowledge same-sex relationships, that is their choice. In countries that supposedly separate state and Church, however, denying sexual minorities their legal rights based on certain intepretations of the Bible is unacceptable. There are no arguments for it, only excuses. The current legislation in most countries is blatantly discriminatory and tramples on basic rights of people, and we should all fight it however we can.

17. Skin

Skin is our biggest organ, and protects us from all sorts of nasty things in our environment. Skin has to deal with a lot of daily, er, wear and tear. Especially during winter time a lot of people suffer from dry skin or rashes. Here are some tips that might help against itchy, dry skin, written from the viewpoint of someone with atopic dermatitis. (See here for Wikipedia article, but be warned for a rather nasty picture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atopic_dermatitis.) Oh and, beware of potentially gross medical details.


Preventative or long-term measures:

Turn the heat or air con down. Both heating and air conditioning remove moisture from the air. Cold, wintery air is dry as it is, so it's a good idea to try and keep inside air as moist as possible. I've heard about placing a bowl of warm water near a heater, but the one time I tried it I didn't really notice any difference. Also, take gloves and other excess clothing off when on the bus/shopping/whatever. Sweating is not good.

Make sure you get enough vitamin D. Wikipedia informs me that vitamin D prevents certain cancers or speeds up the recovery process, is crucial to bones, and can prevent cardiovascular disease. The article doesn't mention anything about the skin needing vitamin D, merely that it produces it. Sunlight, however, is extremely important to the skin's well-being exactly because UV rays stimulate the skin to produce vitamin D. If you live in a nasty, dark place as I do, eat supplementary vitamin D in the winter time unless you eat large amounts of fatty fish (which contains the vitamin). In many countries, dairy products have added vitamin D.

Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. 'Nuff said, really. Skin needs moisture from both outside and inside.

Wear rubber gloves like a classy (desperate) housewife. Hands are often especially prone to eczema. Dish-washing liquids are especially designed to remove fats/oil, and it'll remove the oil from your skin as well. I wear hot pink rubber gloves when doing the dishes. My flatmates giggled at first, but hey, at least I still have skin on my palms.

Relax and look after yourself. Skin is a bitch about stress, especially if you have a sensitive skin. Adequate sleep, loads of vegetables, and getting organized instead of freaking out work wonders. I know it's not always easy to manage it - I certainly don't a lot of the time - but taking the time to eat that carrot can really help prevent eczema.


When you already have a rash or if you know you're prone to them:

Slip slap slop. Seriously, pharmaceutical companies should pay me for all the testing I've done for them. The thing is, it doesn't as much matter what lotion you use, but how often and how much of it you use. Well, perhaps obviously you should use lotions without added fragrance, colourings or such junk. (Then again, a pharmacist once recommended Dove to me in Scotland, so maybe it's not so obvious. Dove, Nivea, and most similar products are bad. Bad.) I know British pharmacies have inexpensive "aquaeous creme" that comes in huge tubs - I'm sure many places have similar stuff. When my skin is at its driest, only vaseline helps.

Anyways, the trick is to use loads of the stuff several times a day. This, of course, depending on just how dry your skin is. When my skin is particularly nasty, I literally layer lotion on until it forms a thick white layer. Always put on lotion after a shower. Keeping the lotion in the fridge to cool it off might help alleviate itching and that nasty feeling of your skin burning up.

If you have rashes proper as opposed to dry skin, cortisone creams might help. Problem is, cortisone also makes your skin thin and is not healthy for your body in the long run. So always use cortisone locally where you really need it, and use it regularly for a few days until your skin heals properly rather than slapping it on whenever you get itchy. Don't apply cortisone on your face as the skin is already thin as it is.

Do not use cortisone for blisters or if your skin is seeping out blood or fluids. I've used creams with bacitracin and neomycin - I'm sure pharmacists can recommend the right kind of products.

Hygiene in moderation. Being downright dirty is not good for your skin, but showers remove moisture and protective oils from your skin, so it might be worth considering to slacken a particularly rigorous cleaning routine. Keep your showers short and lukewarm rather than hot, and use either a mild soap or preferably lotion for washing. (Lotion will even get rid of eye make-up.)

Eczema can also affect the scalp. A lot of hairdressers or the like will recommend shampoos against dandruff, but they don't really work because it's rash-induced flaky skin, not dandruff. I will shamelessly plug a line called Ducray, which you can get from pharmacies. It calms the scalp and in general works wonders.

Take antihistamine. I can't really personally recommend this as it did nothing for me, but hey, it's one more straw to grab at.

Wear natural fibres. Lycra, acrylic and goodness knows what synthetic fibres can irritate sensitive skin. Cotton and silk are best - wool easily itches on skin.

Travel to the Bahamas. Yeah, I wish. UV radiation is very effective in treating dry and irritated skin. A tanning booth has its own dangers, but that's still the treatment one of my friends received when she was hospitalized because of horrid eczema. There's no reason to overdo it - Wikipedia informs me, again, that the skin uses and processes only about twenty minutes' worth of sunlight/UV at a time. Very careful sunbathing or even a tanning booth can, however, work if all else fails.


Let me know if you have any tips for skincare - they're always more than welcome.

I love you skin - please never leave me.

16. Parties (and alcohol)

I do not advocate binge drinking. There is nothing glamorous about getting so sloshed you can't control your actions, embarrass yourself, and feel like you've been put through a blender the next day. One of the most fun times I've had was at a strictly no-drinking party playing board games and drinking 30 litres of juice. That said, some of the best and most absurd times I've had have been while roughly four and a half sheets into the wind.

While out partying, I have fallen down off a platform only to be "risen!risen!" with the help of a mob of Turkish men. I have used pick-up lines such as "So you're a sheep-shagger, eh?" and "Your hair was so gorgeous I just had to stalk you". (Surprisingly, neither of them worked. Oh well.) I have climbed a museum train. I have laid flowers on a memorial while singing something suitably respectable while wearing torn fishnet stockings and more glitter than should be legal. I have had conversations that changed someone's life that I couldn't remember the next day. I have stood outside a Scottish-Irish pub squealing "Am I causing a scene?" and magically was only laughed at by the bouncer. I have been asked to do vocals on a rock album after singing Gaelic folk songs in a Scottish castle.

As for house parties, theme parties never get old. Tequila parties always end up in complete and utter mayhem. At toga parties I can rock my peplos:

(Why yes, I was already a freak at 18.) I believe I also wore this to a party themed "Roman Ruin". I've thrown parties with pimps 'n hos and harem women as well as soldiers of the Persian Great King. Most recently, I threw a party themed "Hedgehogs and Koalas". The evening started fairly normally with me aiming for a hedgehog but ending up more Kate Bush:

The evening ended thus:

(To protect the honour of the male in the picture, I feel I should point out he's a kind friend who's saved me from falling on my head many a time and always indulges my whims, even when they include waltzing on a freezing cold balcony.)

Next up: mythology party. Shall I be a muse with my lyre or Medusa with my hair? (Medusa being this pretty little thing, courtesy of Caravaggio:)

In conclusion, dance and be merry. It's the stupidest things that'll seem funniest a few years from now.