So SOUMI! Part Yksi

So SOUMI! (Not just a greasy spoon in H-town… it’s an entire COUNTRY! Wah.)
Part Yksi: The Helsinki Chronicles

I’m here. I’M HERE! Greasy, frazzled and jet-lagged having slept approximately 3 hours in the past two days, I’m ready to charm and dazzle Tomas, giving him my very best impression of a good impression. I stare down the crowd, willing him to appear, and he does. Smiling warmly he shakes my hand and leads me to his frickin SWEET Audi. Well, I think so, and I tell him as much but he doesn’t seem particularly prideful of his smashing vehicle, and as I gaze around the parking lot it occurs to me that most all of the cars are 12.376 times nicer than the rickety Dodge Neon I was so attached to back home. Apparently Helsinkians drive nice cars. And so my education begins.
We go to coffee and I can feel the fertilization of hair follicles on my chest. Finns drink their mud with their biceps fully flexed. I clenched my butt and sucked it down… Aaaaah. Good stuff. Tomas drops me at the hotel and I wander down to the center of the city to purchase some cheap fuel (the fruit and yogurt variety) and buy a European adaptor. Mission accomplished. Everyone under the age of 50 speaks fluent English, the weather is perfect, the people or gorgeous, the city is rolling with bikes and paths and art fills the gardens. Yeah, I think I can tough this place out for a few more days. I arrive back at the hotel and black out before my head hits the pillow.
I wake up and give Tomas a jingle. He invites me for dinner and we drive to a little Italian joint on the water, complete with sailboats, yachts, swans and a lovely view of the city. He’s dressed in a nicer shirt than most of my male friends in the U.S. even own and some clean dark jeans. Very chic. I managed to throw on a clean t-shirt so at least I don’t smell. I have a sneaking suspicion that being “out-fashioned” by Europeans will be an amusingly common experience in the next 6 months. Tomas and Wickipedia provide educational entertainment with these following fun facts:
The Baltic is only 0.7% salt while the Ocean is 3%--- doesn’t hurt your eyes as much!
Finland declared independence from Russia in 1917
Had a brief and bitter civil war in 1918
Had some wars against the Soviet Union (Germans helped them)
Had a war against Nazi Germany (Ever heard of WWII?)
Is currently ranked the second most stable country in the world (its because they’re all chilaxed from taking so many saunas in addition to never fighting because they’re too shy to speak to strangers)
Okay, maybe they’re not fun facts by Joe Mama’s standards, but I was undeniably impressed with his memory for dates, and eager not to appear too pathetic in history buffology. I attempt to pull a nugget of knowledge out of my historical grab bag, and all I come up with is “Columbus sailed the ocean blue in the year of 1492!” I decide this little treasure is too valuable to waste, so I put it in my panic pocket and save it for when he starts asking me for information about MY homeland. That’s all I need to ruin my ambassadorial status as an American, a history lesson on my own country from a European. Ay caramba!
Post food consumption Tomas delivers me to my recently arrived kin. Leelee McPheelee, Mamasita-bonita-chikita-banana, and Doodles-Bo-diddy-Dude have survived the long flight from Hancock to Helsinki, only to get lost on the way to the Hotelli and wonder “Where the Helsinki are we?” I only laugh a little at their misfortune. We spin around the city on foot and try our best to crash for the night, which is much more difficult than anticipated. I’m officially nocturnal in Finland, and after a fitful night I wake up and go for a 5:30 run around the central park, through the trees and gardens lacing the sea that has crept into the center of the city by means of sparkling canals reflecting the pinks, oranges, and reds of a sun already low in the sky for its refusal to set more than a few winks each night. I follow this up with some Pilates in the park, enjoying that I’m relatively unnoticed with my legs spread wide over my head, booty in the air breathing rhythmically to a beat I’m jamming in my head. Aaaaand spent. Nice move Luc… now I’m so whipped during the day a nap is inescapable. My sleep schedule is officially F@#$ed and unbeknownst to me will continue to be totally moop for the rest of the week. I walk back to the apartment, repack my junket, and head out to view the city with my family and a touristy flare.
We visit the church in the rock, a giant underground chapel with a grandiose pipe organ and a ceiling made of glass, the Russian Orthodox Dieses, a marvel seemingly picked up out of St. Petersburg and dropped haughtily into Lutheran dominated Finland, and the port where we see an enormous pirate ship docked next to a cruise whose booty they are most certainly looting as we stand slack jawed and gawking at its sheer shipliness.
Its time to go and we snag a cab back to our rented car and prepare to hit the road ahead of Helsinki. This city is fabulous. Water, trees, art, science, politics, bicycles, really hot Finish guys… I’ll be returning to take in the “view” again in another week. Good start!