Finland - The End

I know you are thinking this saga will never end but I promise this will be the last post.

Friday was more meetings and then off to ride snowmobiles. You wear a rented suit consisting of boots, coveralls, helmet and gloves. The coveralls all smell like they have been soaking in urine for a hot month and are 10x too warm. By the end of the trip I had all the vents open and the legs unzipped. It was a sunny day and only about 40F but the heat in those things builds up quickly. The rental guy convinced us all to go in just underwear (I have never been less clothed with more people than this trip) and it was a godsend. If I had worn jeans under the rubber suit I would have died of heat stroke in 10 minutes.

I don't know the size or details of the snowmobiles but they go fast. We topped out on the straightways at an even 100 KM/H which if you look on your speedometer will tell you is about 60 MPH. That fast w/ no seat belt and laughable safety equipment is AWESOME. They handle pretty well and even have brakes although I still can't figure out what the hell they brake on. We made a 35 K course which stops at a beautiful old cabin in the woods were a 7' tall woman made us chocolate cake and really good coffee. Her place was converted into an art gallery and people evidently rent the place out for exhibitions, poetry readings etc. I love the image of a bunch of pointy heads on snow scooters screaming along all dressed up under their rubber rental suits going to an exhibition 20 miles from nowhere.

Our final night was at the Hulla Luppa (sp?) which means Mad Reindeer (and thats Mad as the Brits use it). Its a largish bar w/ a stage for live music and a dance floor cause those Finns they love to boogie. The singer is a kind of faded has-been who has been famous for like 30 years in Finland. Our hosts assured us we were quite fortunate to see him live. He had 1 name but I can't spell or pronounce it. We will call him Matti because that is what all the other men in Finland are called. Matti comes out to a minor smoke and light show and opens with the Whitesnake classic "Here I Go Again" and what must have been the Finnish version of 'Levi!!! Are you ready to rock?!?!?!?'. All in all it was not a bad rendition. Matti is about 50, paunchy with long-y half-permed hair, WAY TOO TIGHT JEANS, and a shirt unbuttoned to his navel. Paunchy was a bit kind, dude was fat and it was hard to look up there as he got sweatier through the night. All considered, he gave a good show, everyone danced and we got a bit drunk with all the Huurugi Gurrugi (sp?) calls which means 'down the hatch' and is a signal to kill whatever drink is in your hand.

I eventually wandered over to the Blackjack table where I discovered that they were dealing from a 2 deck shoe and the dealer moved like molasses. Even in my semi-sloppy state I thought surely I could count the cards enough to make a few Euros. Turns out I was right, between the drunks arguing over the total of their hand and the glacial pace of the dealer, I was able to keep track of the count without much trouble. Its been several years since I worked on this but even conservatively I was making money turning 10 Euro into 75. I was so engrossed that I didn't notice my phone had been ringing for an hour and that my gang had already gone home. Sobering slightly in the cold air by the taxi stand I was able to piece together enough of a description of where I was staying that the driver got me there after only about 6 wrong turns.

More meetings the next day, flight home where they lost my bag and the story ends. A quick afterword though.

John (the other American) and I are waiting for the airport train to take us to the city when a girl walks by carrying a 4' tall iron tepee shaped....thing. imagine the skeleton of an inverted cone made of blackened steel. She set it down and asked us to borrow a phone to call someone to pick her up, we chatted and learned that she is an English circus performer (to be fair she bristled when we asked her what kind of circus performer she was but never corrected us with a more correct title) coming to a special school outside of Stockholm. The inverted cone is a device she commissioned and is the only one in the world. It attaches at the narrow end of the cone to something that is way off the ground and she does some kind of routine involving hanging, spinning, flipping etc.

We all exchanged numbers so she is supposed to check in before she leaves and let us know how her audition went. No real point here, I just seem to be on a bit of a streak meeting odd people.