Hyvää päivää!
Well, I was not originally going to do a blog. I was going to live offline, so I thought, and live life in the real world as we all started off millions of years ago. Well, times have changed, and the internet is pretty wonderful for staying in touch. Saying goodbye is different from before; now you only say goodbye in the physical world. I also owe this blog to these other two wonderful blogs:
Aaron and Mandy's road treks here: http://eyesoutforsnails.weebly.com/
Kevin's wild adventures here: http://startingoutsolivagant.wordpress.com/
It's nice to know what friends are up to, and so here's to you, the story of my journey.
I have been in Helsinki for the past 4 days. Nordic countries are nice places to start off big adventures in: they are not too overwhelming, and not too bustling. Plus the long days helps the jetlag I suppose. I was forced to sleep in the airport after landing at midnight, but didn't get much sleep there, and left early in the morning. Who knew I would ever be up so early that I was waiting on the grocery store to open and let me buy some food there. Ended up getting some rye bread, with some dipping cheese to dip it in. After eating that, I decided I was exhausted and found a grassy divot in a rocky hill, and lay down and slept there for 6 hours. That gave me somewhat of a sunburn on my face!
I have a friend in Finland who I met last year in Macedonia, and so he came to see me in Helsinki. We planned to stay at his sister's place in Helsinki. He met me and took me there, and while there we bought various Finnish items like Karellian Pies, beers, and sandwich items. I even tried some canned raw salted fish on my bread, and I can say that it tasted quite strong.
We had some adventures around town, one of the most memoriable being the sauna. The public sauna has a locker room, a shower, and the sauna room. It is seperated by gender, and everybody strips completely down. I was a bit self concious at first, but the Finns have no problem with it. They sit on elevated concrete steps in the sauna room, basking in the heat. It must have been somewhere between 60 - 80 C in there, but that's prime relaxation climate! The heat tingles and occationally stings the face, and it feels like it wraps you around all over. After about 10 minutes of the sauna, my friend, Tommi, advised my to put the shower on maximum coldness after stepping out. We then wrapped a towel around ourselves and hung outside the front door of the sauna building. The cool air was so refreshing, like the feeling of stepping into an air conditioned building! And then we would chat and go back into the sauna room. Towards the end, this Russian guy came in and declared he would show the Finns how to sauna, and dumped tons of water on the rocks to steam the room. He also had a pine branch with the needles and hit himself all over with it (common in saunas). The Finns were not to be outdone however, and retailated by adding so much steam that half the people left. Including me and the Russian guy, but the ones who stayed celebrated the victory, I suppose.
I explored around the city some more today, ate some fried fish, and feel my strengh returned from the jetlag. I have a morning train to St. Petersburg tomorrow, and I am getting very excited! I will meet some couchsurfing hosts, and see the splendor of the great Russian motherland.
näkemiin