Eating reindeer pizza and taking Santa hostage in Finland....(somebody had to do it!)

My Finland post, finally!

Hopped on the 3 hour ferry from Tallinn, Estonia to Helsinki, Finland. After almost three months of planes, trains, mini-buses, bikes, double-decker buses, subways, Tubes, Metros, trams, double-decker trams, I finally hopped on a boat!

Upon checking into the boat, I met Villu, the baggage attendant. I saw a sign that it would cost one euro to leave my backpack during the journey. So, I reached into my bag of change of random currencies I have picked up throughout my travels, and pulled out a one euro coin. I gave Villu my one euro, but he proceeded to poke into my hand and grabbed a British pound and spoke all kinds of Estonian gibberish. My first impression was that he was trying to take me for a ride because I saw very clearly on the sign that it only cost one euro. Then I thought, maybe I don't have to pay as much?? Or maybe that I need to pay more??? Or perhaps he didn't hve enough change to give me??? His English was worse than my Estonian, so if you can imagine how confused we both were. He just kept pointing to my British pound and this went back and forth for a few minutes, and for bettter or worse, there was nobody behind me to help translate. Finally, through tons of hand gesturing, nodding and naying, I figured out that he wanted to know what kind of currency the British pound was. He pointed to himself, then he pointed to a book on his desk, and he said, "I like" and I figured out that he was a coin collector and that he has yet to see, nor collect a coin from the UK. So I gave him my 2 pence coin, and he refused at first, (I think because it actually is a rather large coin) and perhaps thought it was worth tons, but I explained to him with more hand gesturing and nodding and naying that it was no biggie. This made him very happy, and it made my day.

Finland, as many of you know is an extremely expensive country. It cost me 15 bucks for a footlong meatball sandwich at Subway. That subway guy Jared would have lost a lot more weight in a shorter amount of time if he went on the Subway diet in Finland. Thankfully I met a few Finnish people while I was in Tallinn, including a girl named Emmi, whose last name literally translates into "wooden leg." The jury is still out on whether she is a pirate!!

I learned many things while in Finland, including the fact that Finland considers alcoholism a national disease. There was not a day that didn't go by with some crazy drunk causing a ruckus on the tram or on the street in the middle of the day. It's not that booze is cheap either. Finland has one of the highest tax rates on alcohol. Which reminds me of one of my favorite welcome signs so far. Prior to exiting my ferry in Helsinki everybody and I mean EVERYBODY hauls carts and trolleys of booze from Estonia. Grandmas and kids not excluded.

My buddy Cameron came out to visit me from Tallinn to travel with me a bit around Finland. After the first day in Helsinki we sat around a table, trying to decide what to do next-- hop on a boat to Sweden or head north to the Arctic Circle, to a town called Rovaniemi. Cameron did a quick search on google about Rovaniemi and it turns out it is home to Santa Claus! Needless to say, we decided to go pay a visit to Santa. I mean, the fat bastard never showed up when I was a kid so I had a few things to say to him.

On our way to Rovaniemi from Helsinki, we met Rohan on the train and we played poker for quite some tome. He recommended we visit his hometown of Oulu on our way back down which was really cool. He mentioned there were tons of outdoor parties and concerts during the summer. That was enough for us and we decided to head down later. Anyway on our first day in Rovaniemi we rented a couple of bikes for, get this, 30 bucks a day! From a rental car agency of course. To put it into perspective it cost less to stay in our cabin for the night.

The next day we decided to go visit Santa. Cameron thought it would be a good idea to put a gun to Santa and take a picture. Sold! We went to a market, picked up a couple of cap guns and off we went. We weren't sure if there were any 9/11 type security measures in place but while we were in line we asked one of the elves if we could take a picture of Santa with a gun pointed at him. He said that in his enitre life as an elf, nobody has ever asked that and that we would have to take it up with Santa himself. When our time came and I told Santa that we had a special request and that we wanted to take a picture with a gun pointed at him. He paused for a moment and asked, "Will you be nice the rest of the year?" to which Cameron and I nodded assuringly and said in unison "Of course!" I mean, why would he have any reason to doubt us? Besides I gave Villi a two pence coin earlier, which counts, right??! Anyway needless to say now that Santa is under our hostage we have total control over all the toys, and whether or not Christmas will happen this year! (This is actually a picture of a picture we had to fork over 30 Euros for 5 pictures. Santa needs money to pay the elves apparently.)

Cameron and I played poker one night, because there was nothing else better to do in the cabin. We made a pretty serious dent into a bottle of Captain Morgan, and needless to say we (ok, fine, I, made some stupid wagers.) After 7 games, I ended up having to wash the dishes, carry Cameron's backpack back to town (about 20 minutes bike ride away, on top of my own 15 kg backpack!), buy the son of a bitch a cup of coffee, AND carry all of our trash into town. Cameron came out alright... all he had to do was give me the fifth postcard that we paid for together, and to take a shower without the use of a towel or clothes to dry off with. Sigh... I guess you guys won't be seeing me on the World Poker Tour anytime soon....

The next day we went to Oulu, about two hours south of Rovaniemi, at the suggestion of Rohan. Our first evening there, we stumbled into an outdoor concert-- something Rohan mentioned was quite common during the summer. When we arrived into the area, the scene was pretty dead... it was actually a Christian concert event, headlined by a Finnish rapper, who apparently, used to be a "gangsta" rapper and has since reformed and cleaned up his act. His name, I kid you not, is Rudolph. Rudolph the reformed Finnish gangsta rapper.... soonafter, a mime act followed and I had no idea what was going on. I asked a girl next to me what the hell (sorry, what the heck) was going on and she said she had no idea either, since she was just passing through as well. We chatted a bit more and we ended up heading to a bar to discuss all things Finnish, American, and Australian. She recommended we go to Finlandia for some reindeer pizza. Wasn't bad...

One of the other things I wanted to do was to visit Nokia, the city. I thought it would be cool to call somebody on a Nokia (which Cameron had) while actually in Nokia! We arrived into town around 6am and virtually everything was closed so Cameron and I decided to sleep in the train station, on the concrete floor, between two locker stalls. Not exactly a highlight, but merely a point to demonstrate to what extent we were willing to go through to make a phone call from a Nokia, in a town called Nokia. I know, such is life when travelling with no real agenda. "Hey, let's go visit Santa and bust a cap in his ass!" OK! "Hey, let's go to Nokia and make a phone call from a Nokia!!!" OK!!! I expected the town of Nokia to be full of high rises, glass skyscrapers, with everybody talking on brand new space-age Nokias, with the occasional dog or two equipped with a cell phone chatting away. But, that would be too predictable. Instead, we found a pretty run-down, dare I say, depressing, industrial town with no signs of anything Nokia. So we decided that since it was beer o'clock, and we had a few hours to kill before the next train back, we knocked back a couple at a bar where supposedly they serve the cheapest beer in Nokia. At this said bar, there were quite a few drunks (wait, that was us) in the middle of the day. Cameron, ladies man that he is, was approached by a 60 year old hottie.... check out the slideshow and see for yourself!!