Posts tagged "finland"

63Random

63 random things from the past 3 months (inspired by Michael Ruby's "Fleeting Memories")

1. Arriving in Budapest knowing absolutely nothing about Hungary
2. Drinking palinka for the first time, feeling the flush
3. The Hungarian energy drinks I drank while wearing funny hats
4. Walking with team Photogotchi along the Halászbástya, feeling a little like Ezio Auditore da Firenze
5. The boys who were carrying giant swans and crocodile paddle boats onto Lake Balaton
6. Sitting in the yard of old times
7. Leaving Hungary thinking fröccs is the best idea in the world
8. Arriving in frosty Helsinki once again
9. The cute studio in Apila
10. That Finnish rapper in a Tiki bar
11. Being miserable, cold and desperately wanting you
12. More palinka, Timo's flat, tiny spaces and uncrossable chasms
13. Red-heads in the rain
14. Remembering that karaoke in northern Europe is pretty damn weird
15. Mushroom-picking, mushroom-cooking
16. Cycling on a Jopo through the rain
17. Beautiful Finnish brunches on Sunday mornings
18. A lot of fish
19. Tactical Nuclear Penguin
20. American Airlines, truly a terrible way to fly
21. Arriving in America for the first time
22. Pacific Heights. Not having change for the bus to Market Street.
23. Speaking badly in Cantonese.
24. Father of my future children showing me a iBaby monitor in the Apple Store
25. Brilliant people all over San Francisco.
26. Being chased up a flight of stairs by a bouncer in the Castro for not having an ID.
27. Losing my ID. And my credit cards. And my iPhone. In a bar. In the Tenderloin.
28. Being stupid.
29. Being on a work call with Sydney while sitting next to a painting called The Chronological Wall of Dicks and Cunts. Ah, San Francisco.
30. Staff at the Singapore consulate giving me cup noodles and soya bean milk from their personal stashes.
31. Buying a bright yellow Fuji Finest on my second day in San Francisco.
32. Toning my ass, cycling uphill everywhere
33. Excellent vegetarian Japanese food in Valencia followed by a free meditation class down the road.
34. Folsom Street Fair. Many things cannot be unseen, once seen.
35. Ethiopian with Jiten and Family.
36. Family of four sitting in a hipster coffeeshop in San Jose, each with a parrot on their heads.
37. Watching The Nationals vs the Phillies at the Nats Stadium.
38. You never forget your first Shake Shack.
39. America is so great because you can order beer and hot dogs online, and expect to have them arrive at your seat in a baseball stadium in three minutes.
40. One day I will understand more of this great nation, the same one that invented SPAM and Chicken in a Biskit. These inventions speak more about a national character than any other great invention.
41. Rolling my eyes at groupies of ‘famous tech people'.
42. Walking to the Lincoln Memorial, wishing I had seen it earlier because all I see now in that statue is Abraham Lincoln (Vampire Killer)
43. Eating fish tacos with Jason Scott Jones, who knows more about Brooklyn than anybody else
44. Having the cashier ask me why I want to pay US$12 for a can of tuna. Not having a good answer other than ‘it's very good tuna. Spanish.'
45. My crazy/beautiful Crown Heights pad.
46. Being in love with New York, like they all said I would.
47. Talking to my aunt at JFK for longer than we have ever spoken to each other, all our lives.
48. My 27th birthday party in Crown Heights.
49. The Met Museum with Michael Ruby and Dave Gurien.
50. Leaving New York, loving New York.
51. New York to Budapest via London, Budapest to Singapore via Doha, 12 hours apart
52. Those miserable long layovers in Doha.
53. Wanton mee
54. Having everything fall into place the moment I got home
55. The first day Cookie got home
56. Cooking a delicious spare ribs pasta
57. IKEA, burgers, Thai supermarkets and Mustafa
58. Finally getting my diving license
59. Doing the Gangnam Style at 10m underwater
60. The corner store in Tioman
61. Thinking that learning to dive in the middle of the monsoon was probably not too clever
62. Floating upwards uncontrollably before learning to trust my own buoyancy
63. I am finally ready, maybe.

Chocolate, Nudity, Helsinki

I have seen some places in my short travelling life, but rarely a place that offers me chocolate and naked women within two hours of arriving.

Helsinki turned out to be such a place.

Unknown to me, mostly since I knew so little about Finland other than Nokia, Angry Birds and the cold, when I pinged some local friends on what I should do while waiting for them to be done with work, they almost universally said: have lunch and chocolates at Karl Fazer Cafe, and then go to the pool and sauna at Yrjönkatu Swimming Hall — it was a women-only day the day I got to Helsinki.

What should I wear to Yrjönkatu, I asked? I came prepared: I brought a bikini, even though bringing a bikini to a place that was going to be 0 degrees Celsius seemed a little silly.

Erm.. you wear nothing. That is the idea, my Finnish friends said, so it might not be for everybody._

I stuffed myself silly with soup and chocolates at Fazer (sidenote: starting to be quite a fan of Fazer chocolates, they ARE tasty), then cycled around downtown Helsinki for a bit. I thought I would worry about the sauna only if I saw it — I wasn't about to go out and look for a place just because of pfft naked women — but of course I found it within minutes.

When travelling, especially when travelling alone, one has the tendency to do as the Romans (or Finns) do, and plunge right into the deep end, so to speak. Not knowing any Finnish at all, I timidly found my way around the inner workings of a place dedicated to the dark arts of naked bathing and steaming.

Like tattoos, dating twins, and other much-talked-about concepts, this is something I would do just once; the downsides are far worse than the supposed benefits. But maybe I'm just unimaginative: I don't really feel like I can breathe in a sauna, and I get toe cramps the moment I hit cold water naked. Travel expands your horizons, makes you learn things about yourself: I learned I would rather be warm and fully clothed, around other fully clothed women.

Miracles.

After such a colourful start to my Nordic adventures, things only got better from there. I have met some great people, eaten some nice food, and done quite a number of things. If you have Instagram, you can follow me at my regular online handle; if you don't, you can use this instead. I update Twitter, Facebook and Instagram in real time while I'm here. I'm just taking it slow and chilling out — a lot — a lot for me anyway.

Four Hours Light

"Tallinn, Estonia 028 - Catedral Alexander Nevsky/ Alexander Nevsky Cathedral by Claudio.Ar, on Flickr"

Somewhere between lying in a hospital bed, travelling, and coming back to a hospital again, I decided: man, I really need to go away. I knew that my default go-to place was India. Until it wasn't.

Don't get me wrong, I still love India very much and it still holds a special place in my heart, as the one country that has given me much, but in 8 years of intensive India travel it is no longer "a destination I know nothing about" type of experience. India is a home I go back to, in grief and in celebration, and always will; I just needed to flirt briefly with other countries and climes, and so I will.

Tomorrow, I depart for Helsinki. After that, Tallinn, Stockholm, Skinnskatteberg, Malmö, Copenhagen. I know I said in my previous post that I needed to slow down, and learn to live again — this is exactly my idea of slowing down. It sounds mad, but I have a plan.

Ever since the hospital, I've stopped smoking and drinking, even casually. Even if not life-threatening, the episode convinced me that I wanted to do more with my life, where lifestyle was concerned — it also convinced me that I wanted to see more of the outdoors. I've been cycling, running, and cycling even more. I will bring my bicycle with me to the Nordic states (yes, I know I can rent bicycles there… but. I want my bicycle! Not somebody's else's!), and I will get to enjoy the onset of spring in some of the best cities in the world for bicycle commuting.

I don't know what to expect: I know so little about that part of the world. The only thing I know for certain is I will be cold. I've prepared for it, but I've never been in that type of cold until now, so I'm just going to have to make it up as I go. I'll be completely shut off from work for a while, which will be the first time in some years. I will be completely shut off from the world, and the world wide web, for a couple of days, too, which will be the first time… since I discovered the world wide web. Work-wise, I'm excited about that part of the world as it's the land of Spotify, Angry Birds, Minecraft — some of my favourite things in the world — along with awesome salmon and mesost, which I also love. I spent 3 all too brief days in Stockholm in 2010, and now I'm going to be back there, in the company of friends this time with the possibility of a superb dinner.

I can't wait.