Hot as Helsinki
Next stop in the Eugene World Tour 2009 - Helsinki, Finland!
-Flew into Helsinki airport from London Gatwick on Easyjet. Hey fellas - two words: Scandinavian Stewardesses. Nuff said.
-The whole "it's cold in Finland" thing? Lies. Damn filthy lies. Helsinki was brutally hot. And I live in the San Fernando Valley. I know what hot is. It wasn't Woodland Hills hot... but it was hot.
-Guys in Finland all kinda look alike. Like a cross between Dolph Lundgren and Bruce Timm.
-The neighborhood near the hotel and train station was a little nuts - with a samba Carnival going on, and a separate street party. The street party was a weird mix of goths, skaters, burn-outs, hippies, ravers, alcoholics, and homeless. Now picture them taking off their shirts to expose their pasty white skin to the sun, smoking cigarettes, drawing on the street with colored chalk, and dancing to terrible, TERRIBLE techno music. More on them in a bit...
-While visiting the Church in the Rock, got into a nice chat with an older German gentleman. He took one look at me and my family, then asked, "Californians?" Apparently we're easy to spot. I should've asked him if he was a fan of Baywatch...
-It's funny how teenage boys arer just like teenage boys in all other countries in the world. In Finland, the boys were hanging out, chattering in perfect English, dogging on their friends, and talking about their favorite YouTube videos. If it wasn't for jetlag, I could've been overhearing kids in Los Angeles.
-Spent a quiet moment outside the iconic Helsinki Lutheran Cathedral in the impressive Senate Square. There were people around, but it was kinda quiet... until the naked guy came running. Didn't see where he came from, but he was running laps around the statue of Czar Alexander II while his friends cheered. Soon there was a fan club of teenagers and skaters all egging him on. One yelled, "Riverdance!" Unfortunately for humanity, he obliged.
-Towards the end of the day, the sun finally got blocked by some cloud cover. Because Helsinki's so far north, it was 7pm at night and the sun was still high in the sky.
Then the clouds opened up and started pouring! Thunder, lightning, chubby rain...
And wet hippies.
The rain sent them scrambling for cover in the areas around my hotel. Under every overhang and dry spot was a bunch of burn-outs getting hammered on cheap beer, playing off-tune guitars, and lamenting the end of their party. One of the homeless guys was even talking to the sky, trying to get the rain to stop.
-Watched a little Finnish Disney Channel - Phineas & Ferb and the Replacements in Finnish, Fairly OddParents and Hannah Montana in English. MTV Europe shows actual honest-to-goodness music videos.
-Wish I'd had more time in Helsinki. Minus the wet-hippies, this is fun little town.
And for those few of you who got the "chubby rain" reference, "gotcha suckas!"
-Flew into Helsinki airport from London Gatwick on Easyjet. Hey fellas - two words: Scandinavian Stewardesses. Nuff said.
-The whole "it's cold in Finland" thing? Lies. Damn filthy lies. Helsinki was brutally hot. And I live in the San Fernando Valley. I know what hot is. It wasn't Woodland Hills hot... but it was hot.
-Guys in Finland all kinda look alike. Like a cross between Dolph Lundgren and Bruce Timm.
-The neighborhood near the hotel and train station was a little nuts - with a samba Carnival going on, and a separate street party. The street party was a weird mix of goths, skaters, burn-outs, hippies, ravers, alcoholics, and homeless. Now picture them taking off their shirts to expose their pasty white skin to the sun, smoking cigarettes, drawing on the street with colored chalk, and dancing to terrible, TERRIBLE techno music. More on them in a bit...
-While visiting the Church in the Rock, got into a nice chat with an older German gentleman. He took one look at me and my family, then asked, "Californians?" Apparently we're easy to spot. I should've asked him if he was a fan of Baywatch...
-It's funny how teenage boys arer just like teenage boys in all other countries in the world. In Finland, the boys were hanging out, chattering in perfect English, dogging on their friends, and talking about their favorite YouTube videos. If it wasn't for jetlag, I could've been overhearing kids in Los Angeles.
-Spent a quiet moment outside the iconic Helsinki Lutheran Cathedral in the impressive Senate Square. There were people around, but it was kinda quiet... until the naked guy came running. Didn't see where he came from, but he was running laps around the statue of Czar Alexander II while his friends cheered. Soon there was a fan club of teenagers and skaters all egging him on. One yelled, "Riverdance!" Unfortunately for humanity, he obliged.
-Towards the end of the day, the sun finally got blocked by some cloud cover. Because Helsinki's so far north, it was 7pm at night and the sun was still high in the sky.
Then the clouds opened up and started pouring! Thunder, lightning, chubby rain...
And wet hippies.
The rain sent them scrambling for cover in the areas around my hotel. Under every overhang and dry spot was a bunch of burn-outs getting hammered on cheap beer, playing off-tune guitars, and lamenting the end of their party. One of the homeless guys was even talking to the sky, trying to get the rain to stop.
-Watched a little Finnish Disney Channel - Phineas & Ferb and the Replacements in Finnish, Fairly OddParents and Hannah Montana in English. MTV Europe shows actual honest-to-goodness music videos.
-Wish I'd had more time in Helsinki. Minus the wet-hippies, this is fun little town.
And for those few of you who got the "chubby rain" reference, "gotcha suckas!"
posted by Eugene at 9:05 AM
2 Comments:
This post has been removed by the author.
Chubby rain? Oh no, aliens!
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