Fun in Finland...

Finnish: one of Europe's most difficult languages!

Having experienced one night in the true land of the midnight sun in Narvik, we jumped back on the train, which by now has become our second home, and headed the 7 hours back down to Boden, Sweden, where we walked to the bus station that would take us 1.5 hours to the border with Finland (for some reason that we couldn't figure out, and no one could explain sufficiently, to get from Sweden to Finland, one must bus from Boden to a border town called Haparanda, walk 1 km across the border into Tornio, Finland, and catch another bus or a cab from there to a town 25 km away called Kemi, where there's a train station connecting with the line down to Helsinki.) As we were asking for more specific information about the transitions from bus, foot, cab, etc, the bus we needed to get to make the last night train down to Helsinki pulled out of the station. Blast. At first we were a little frustrated and unsure what our next step would be. We kept our stay in Narvik short so that we could catch that bus and the night train, and now it seemed unlikely we'd make our connection to Helsinki. After brief deliberation, we decided to throw ourselves in to adventure and hop on the next bus. Neither of us wanted to go back to Stockholm without a taste of Finland, and we thought there was a narrow, narrow chance of catching the train (turns out we were wrong because of the time change, but our bus went so slow it became irrelevant to consider catching the train). If we couldn't get the night train, we'd try hitching to the Kemi train station and find a place to stay, perhaps in a field with sleeping bags.

The trajectory

Upon arrival to Haparanda, we followed the signs to the border of Suomi (Finland in Finnish), and casually strolled across, grinning broadly as we stuck our thumbs out at any cars that passed. We got smiles and honks but no takers. More walking, we decided. At one point we strayed from the highway that would take us to Kemi, and realized after a trucker stopped offering to pick us up that we were 1 km down the wrong road. "ok" we thought, "we'll ask this woman walking with her dog to be sure of where we need to go." Stumbelina was a short woman with dyed red hair and a huge dog that looked like a long-haired greyhound relative, and at first she appeared to speak no english. She babbled Finnish at us with one eye squinted shut and gave a huge, slightly offputting grin after every statement, waiting for a response from us. Every question from her was met by us giggling about the language barrier and indicating we didn't understand. I joked to Billy that she had said "I'd like to kis s your cute friend", and "is that vodka in your waterbottle?" She kept indicating for us to follow her, and since we were going to walk that way in any case, we decided to tag along at her slow drunk pace with the dog and tried to interact with her the best we could. eventually she was able to summon a few english words and explained to us "i not bad girl; i good girl. my boyfriend loves me. loves dog." we think she also invited us to come sleep at her house and have some coffee, and perhaps we'd have said yes to a less sketchy arrangement, but we gestured that we had to go to get to Helsinki on time and said our goodbyes.

Only 5 minutes later, we scored a ride from a young trucker named Tommy (roughly). He said he could give us a lift to Kemi, and as we chatted more he eventually offered to take us as far as Oulu, where he lives, and where there's also a train station. We gladly agreed to tag along, and the sun set and rose again in the window between midnight and 2 am that we rode along in his truck. He seemed basically to enjoy trucking, (although it meant being away from his 4 year old son alot) and gave us a little insight into the friction between Finland and Russia. There are a number of Russian truckers who'll come into Scandinavia, but next to no Scandinavian truckers willing to sit in the 40 km long border crossing line to get back and forth into Russia, unable to sleep for several days and having to eek forward only a few meters at a time. He also said it's fairly common for Russian truckers to rob Scandinavian ones, and talked about making sure he picks well-lit truckstops to try to avoid getting robber himself, but he said he could understand why - Russian truckers make a fraction of the wage in Scandinavia.
(Billy in front of the 25 meter-long truck at 2 am - this is bigger than most European trucks, but Tommy say he wants to go to Australia, where they drive trucks up to 54 m long)

Tommy wasn't overly expressive, but was curious enough to ask questions about our travels and our lives and seemed to enjoy trying to answer our questions about Finland. His view of the European Union was that it was a fine arrangement that didn't really seem to impact his life so directly, except that there were a lot of stupid silly regulations, like how much light the cab of a truck could give off. (He showed us a ticket he'd gotten for this in Sweden, but shrugged it off as "the company's problem; it's their truck"). By the time we reached Oulu, he offered us a place to stay at his apartment, only 3 blocks from the train station. Both Billy and I trusted him and were excited to not have to sleep outside, so we accepted and konked out on the living room floor around 3, just as the sun was starting to come in through the windows.

Friday we awoke and caught the train to Helsinki. I became a groggy zombie for the entire 7 hour ride after ingesting an anti-nausea pill, so I didn't see much of the countryside, but Finland is known for having thousands and thousands of lakes. The bulk of these, rumouredly the most beautiful terrain, is in the east of the country, and we were in the western half near the sea.

Upon arrival in Helsinki, we met up with our delightful couchsurfing host, Renato. An Italian who moved to Finland "for a girl-- there are 2 reasons Italian men come here: to chase a girl, or to work for Nokia." Renato studies Finnish, among many other languages, is vegan, and doesn't drink, so he offered a humorous, if cynical, take on the heavy alcohol consumption of the Finns. Sure enough, when the 3 of us went out to a bar to check out the scene, the first thing we saw when we hopped off the bus was a guy peeing straight in our direction, and while at the bar, we saw someone get beer thrown in his face, as well as a beer bottle get thrown against the wall. When the management came to investigate, those at the table held up their beers as evidence that he or she were inculpable. The odd bottle out had to leave. Also of note: the Finnish are super into black metal music, and the bar was dominated by black attire, long hair, and dog collar jewelry. As an "outsider" himself to Finnish culture, I think it was really valuable to hear Renato's observations about living in Finland. He joked about how it's common in Finland for a woman to ask a man on a date or to take him home, and how this would "never ever ever" happen in Italy and took some getting used to. As an extra bonus, he also works at the only vegan restaurant in town and brings home leftovers which he freezes and keeps for later, so we had some delicious cuisine at his flat. Before we left the next day, he showed us around a little more and let us print out some readings for our Africa trip at the university library (where printing is free!) We took some fun photos (below) and said our goodbyes. Hopefully we will meet again.

Traditional Finnish dress observed in the market aquare

The "White Church" in Helsinki

(Billy's into leg lifts, can you tell?)


Hmmm....


Billy and Bear reflect...

Then, it was off to the Silja Serenade, a huge 12 story ferry with casino, nightclub, fancy restaurants, tax-free shopping, andddddddddddddd... Karaoke! (Yep, see our video blog above of Libbilly and the Critters!) In some ways the ferry was repulsive and in other ways, fun. We both agreed that we liked Helsinki better looking at it from the ferry as we pulled away, rather than being surrounded by stumbling, fighting drunks.

The ferry pretty much embodied the spirit of capital - every "opportunity" was a chance to splurge, and if you're money sticklers like us, good luck! We didn't spend a dime, and even walked away with a huge box of expensive chocolates (each) for participating in a survey about chocolate box styles. Billy commented that maybe the over-the-topness of the boat was an attempt to compensate for the absolute horror of ship passage in the past. We and the critters enjoyed a beautiful sunset, though we're still far enough north that it never got dark, only lingered for hours and hours and grew light again. We each had a bunk in gendered 4-person cabins in the very bottom of the boat, free with our Eurail passes!
Atlantis Nightclub & Casino
free chocolate!

(Wingman and Bear enjoy a good sunset smooch)

When we awoke as we arrived back to Stockholm, it was a rainy dreary day, and the 3 hour train ride from Stockholm to Karlstad so we could hop on a bus north to KulturStationen felt truncated and short -- we're so used to 7 hour (minimum) chunks of train time that we felt we'd barely settled into the ride when we arrived. Now we're snuggled down at Kulturstationen and it feels good to be outside the train/bus/boat windows and in nature, stationary for a while.