August 11. Sunny Helsinki. Bookstore.

Helsinki is sunny. That's what it is. I spend a beautiful day walking around the city. My friendly host Hanna has given me a map and indicated some interesting places. This is my second time in Helsinki. I don't feel like a tourist but I see the city museum. Only a few centuries ago, Helsinki was a fisher's village with a population of 500. Under Russian rule Helsinki became the new capital. It is closer to Russian territory than Turku. I see objects on display but I can't concentrate. Whenever confronted with too much and too well presented information, my inferiority complex strikes. Oh man, that's bad. You have to go to a process, and ta-dah, you will learn to be happy digesting information that is entirely new to you. But that's not your problem. I like the city and I am amazed by the amount of luxury stores here. The Finns seem to have an extremely good life. Hanna tells me that even the right-wing party supports free education and free healthcare. It is a paradise from the outset, but of course not everybody is happy. I won't get into that now.

Bad. There is a nice bookstore with a friendly French-British owner who shows me some Dutch books he cherishes as part of his collection. I read and again the inferiority complex strikes. This time, I smile about it. I am not a genius because I don't write with my dick. Pardon. There is a little concert which is very nice. Piano, clarinet, singer, cello. Happiness fills the room. I have to leave early to do something stupid. But almost through with that. Last dependencies rapidly dissolved, cutting the umbilical cord with not too rusty clippers.

I see people looking so forty, and I want to so something, paint a daisy on my nose when I turn forty. Then I have a beer with Ilpo and his friends, it is good.

August 9. A short night later.

A short night later, Olga and I say goodbye and I drag my backpack once again through the metro system of Saint Petersburg, this time to hotel Oktobrskaya where the minibuses to Helsinki leave. Olga has even made a reservation for me and a very Russian looking man in a jean jacket approached me and mentioned my name. Yes, it's me, thank you. I have a cup of coffee in the bookstore and the same guy comes in to sell me a ticket (1100 rubli). He forgets his big black calender and I bring it to him. Spasiba. The busride is boring and the seats not comfortable. Crossing the border to Finland takes a long time. I arrive in Helsinki at about 2pm and walk around. Go sit in a bar in Kallio, write and chat, yes, with my friends, until I am tired. Then I take my stuff and sleep on a grass-covered hill. It is a good night but I have to explain that to some people. O how much more important is love to a gentle soul / than a bed or a pillow / how much more does he gain / from a caring embrace than from any wealth his hands may collect? / how long can he be longing for love / before his very idea of love goes bad? So, there goes another day of useless existence. Other human beings have at least reviewed tax returns or sold some stock and I have done nothing...

...are we just traveling to collect memories we can grow fond of? Is it yet another strategy our mind plays in the face of death, our mind the friendly gecko crawling over the face of death.

Helsinki #8. Writing at the kitchen table.

The title of this post contains pretty much all there is to say about this day. It was rainy outside so I decided not to leave to Lapland yet. Anna-Sofia left me with all conveniences, which I really appreciated. Fortunately I was able to express my gratitude by going to the supermarket, where I found some German chocolate as a symbolic gift and tomatoes from Spain and Finland. I had to make a picture of those, because the make an interesting comparison. The Spanish ones were 1.90€ a kilo, the Finnish 3.40€. Later I learned the energy involved in glasshouse farming in Finland is even more than a truck ride from the far south of the continent requires.

I also tuned the guitar, first according to my own stubborn idea that all strings hat to be a quart apart, resulting in an E-A-D-G-C-F tuning which exists but is quite uncommon. After a glance in the Magic Box we call computer I got it and tuned a proper E-A-D-G-B-E. Unfortunately I had rehearsed my 'happy birthday' in the other tuning, and couldn't really make the transformation. By the way, Anna-Sofia just got 28.

I produced a few pages for my novel at the kitchen table, and was really content in the evening. I was happy I was able to spend another night with my incredibly friendly host.

Helsinki #7. Common Ground.

The next day I met with Lyndsey again at the train station, and we went for a walk in the rain, which was no big deal since we both come from proverbially rainy countries. She suggested to go to the botanical gardens, which I found a good idea. It took us a little while to find the entrance, but once we were inside, we did enjoy the tropical atmosphere and the fine collection of plants very much.

After that we went for a walk heading for a castle that looked great on the map, on its weirdly shaped island, but turned out to be too far and not so interesting. My feet got wet again, the crack was not yet overcome. So we entered a tiny house at the shore, which turned out to be the famous Regatta. We ordered some tea and sat down for a while, drying my shoes and getting a towel and some plastic bags from the compassionate bartender. The rain coming down in streams outside, occasional tourist visitors escaping the harsh winds which we could see in all four directions - it was a remarkable scene, which reminded us of being alive and all that.

Dried up we walked a bit bit further, passing the Sibelius monument, a huge organ on some slippery rocks. As the rain got stronger, we decided to go back and have some drink somewhere in the city center (worth noticing since the Helsinki area is huge). We landed behind the Kamppi in a pool bar, which offered tasty toast. I had to wait pretty long for it, so the waiter justified himself jokingly that I should have gotten it from the toaster myself. Justification on the merest occasion - well, the German and the Finns do share a common ground, was just a thought that trickled through my mind.

Anyway, I accompanied Lyndsey to a subway station, and walked back to Ilpo's place. I caught him in the act of playing an interesting but complicated looking board game I didn't want to interrupt, so I said goodbye to him too and headed to Anna-Sofia's apartment in Kallio, the area where the beer was allegedly cheaper and the people allegedly acting accordingly. I was very welcome once again on a real comfortable couch. Anna-Sofia revealed that she studied Spanish, and was actually writing a novel herself, which gave us some common ground, and incited a nice conversation.

We went to a bar nearby, which looked like a typical Kaurismaki place, Anna-Sofia told me. I remembered only one movie by one of the Kaurismaki brothers, the man without a past, but I got the idea. A typical finnish drunk joined in and made us leave after some not so pleasant remarks. I slept very well that night.

Helsinki #6. A beer in the Belly.

Got up late. Apart from writing, done not much.

At night, we went to a well-known Helsinki pub called Belly. So we had a beer and played a game of table soccer. Two DJ's played some modern jazz which became pretty danceable after not too much alcohol. I ran into two Dutch guys who where on their way back from Moscow, and enjoyed speaking Dutch through the beats.

At 1am streets were packed with outgoing people, there was a really nice atmosphere. We were a bit tired though, and went back home.

Helsinki #5. Writing.

Friday, October 24th. Wrote a few pages and I was quite content because I could feel my fingers.
In the evening an other group came at Ilpo's place, and we chatted until one. They were nice exchange students who studied in Finland from France, Spain, and Germany. I got to speak German again which felt good. At night, they went to a bar while I stayed in the apartment, a bit tired.

Helsinki #4. Suomenlinna.

The rhythm of 11 o'clock awakening seemed to have been established. It rained that day, but cleared up enough for me to decide to visit the famous island with the castle on it, Suomenlinna.

On the ferry, that was included in Helsinki's regular transportation system, I met a British girl called Lyndsey, and since she was on her own as well, we agreed on exploring the island together.
First we walked across a wooden bridge which connected to a neighboring island, where barrack-like flats housed some of the 900 people who live on Suomenlinna.
We saw some cannon barrels and went through a dark tunnel, that I very poorly lit with my pocket LED (the smart little energy saver I promote at every occasion). The cannons were Russian built and had the year 1752 engraved in their side. We wondered who had used them against whom. I read in the brochure that the island was used by the Swedes, the Finnish and the Russians as a defense bastion. In the Krimean war it was destroyed by French and German armies.

We walked through the cannon chambers and were really stunned by the thickness of the walls (about 2 meters!) The light was exceptional! We couldn't stop making pictures of the scene. Inside a huge hall of connected chambers it was as if the light was artificial, but it was actually the sun shining through the window holes.

We went back across the bridge to the central island of our tiny archipelago, and visited a Lutheran church, which looked more like a Stalinist monument. Then we passed a visitor's center and a submarine, and reached a green garden-like area where we sat down for a while. From here we could look at the open sea, and so could the cannons, which were put here in impressive quantities. As I said, the little island had been used as a defense structure by three different nations, which makes it pretty unique I guess.
We were a bit hungry and after finding several cafe's closed, we bought a good lunch in the supermarket (the only store on the island) consisting of olive bread, green cheese, bananas and more. Upon seeing the ferry arriving we decided to take that one back and have a coffee in central Helsinki, where we thus landed in a very fancy place with live music and exceptional coffee. We both texted our friends but got no reply, so we went to a bar in the artist quarter. Over a few grand Carlsberg beers we had a good conversation about eggs, ex'es, x's, eventually framing our lives on an x-axis and rolling on the floor laughing, as you say in internet jargon. Unfortunately, time ran out for us and public transport considerations made us leave the bar. I got home savely and slept like a kitten at Ilpo's.

I forgot to mention the construction frames we saw on the Suomenlinna island, which reminded me of Don Quichote.

Helsinki #3. Dry feet.

Another day started with a lazy morning and a tasty breakfast. I joined Ilpo to his office and decided to go to the Art Museum "Atheneum". Before that I walked in another shoemaker's shop and asked him if you could repair the crack in my sole. He said "yes, I can", and started working immediately. Ten minutes later he had neatly glued a piece of rubber onto it and charged me only one euro. I went outside and stepped in the first pool carefully. The second and the third one still didn't get me wet feet. So sometimes a one-euro-repair is much better than a free repair, now that's a motto.

The museum presented actually a couple of interesting collections. I saw a collection of Ukiyoe drawings from the Edo period in Japan (around 1850). They were nicely presented and gave a good insight in the culture of that period.
More impressive though was a collection of 64 photographs by 8 Japanese photographers. One set depicted the consequences of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, another the results of Japan's rapid industrialization.
On the upper floor they presented some movies based on work by Mika Waltari, Finland's most famous writer, as well as a representative series of Finnish paintings.
In the main hall they'd projected moving Finnish words on the ceiling and the walls, and since I heard the Finnish language is endangered I found that moving indeed.



We had a delicious lunch in a Mexican place with two nice girls. Over a spinach chicken pineapple wrap we had a little conversation about the inconsistency of me being an environmentalist but not a vegetarian, and about practicing what you preach. My wrap tasted so terrific that I actually managed to say "Well, catholic priests also don't practice what they preach. Isn't go and reproduce yourself a vital motto of Christendom, and yet they never do it." Such an argument is indefeasible of course, and we finished our lunch with a healthy laugh about the issue.

That afternoon I spent writing in the post office, and reading the current edition of Time magazine. In an English language newspaper I read about Anni-Kristiina Juuso, a very pretty Sami-actress, hardly known among the Finnish, who lives in the north, and constitutes yet another reason for me to go up there.

I had dinner together with Ilpo, who had prepared rice and tofu; it was really tasty. After a short nap we went to a fancy bar and over a Fosters we discussed techniques of approaching woman, and I learned that I should really read this book 'The Game' by Neil Strauss. Soon enough we could see some of it in practice, albeit not in a way we fancied. On my way to the toilet I waited for another guy in the doorpost of the men's room, so that the little man on it could easily escape the sight of the person behind me. A very female looking person passed me and entered the toilet, invoking me to cough loud enough to catch her attention. The soft-skinned man smiled and it was only after I had directed my eyes on his chest that I recognized my mistake. It was a very funny situation, and I don't think it was such an embarrassment for him. Aren't gender roles to be played and played with freely?

It was not so late when we arrived back home and went to sleep.

Helsinki #2. Wet feet.

My night on the couch at Inko's place was very comfortable, and I woke up around 11. A quick breakfast with cereals and pesto-toast replenished my energy, and I walked into a mild Helsinki day. I spent this day writing and blogging, but I was concerned about my shoes, because the left one had a crack in its sole. A young friendly shoemaker looked at it and said "no, it is unrepairable". However he filled the crack with a kind of liquid that he airdried fast, and told me, it won't hold very long but it's better than nothing. And added "it's on the house". Carefully striding with my newly repaired shoes I found a foodcourt with the possibility to avoid the big M, and had a chicken schnitzel that looked better than the picture.
On my way home my feet became wet though. I tried to bury my curses in inner laughs, and almost succeeded by the time I arrived at Inko's place. We watched a 2004 movie called "Napoleon Dynamite", a hilarious comedy about the typical American loser-cliche which got us laughing (in fact, "O no!"-ing) more than once.