Saunas are a
big deal in Suomi. Most houses have one,
even in the city. A relative we visited
has one in his one-bed flat. (There are
flats in British cities that don’t have room for a toilet. In Helsinki, they’ve got room for a sauna.)
It’s ladies
first in the sauna – as is (presumably) traditional. I will hear later that the girls have gone au
naturel. The Lads will not.
I’ve never
been in a sauna (I know, I know, sheltered life, or whatever). It’s pretty hot.
There’s a
fire in the corner, with a bucket of stones and a bucket of water on top. And when you pour water on the stones it gets
crazy hot for a couple of minutes, and then settles down.
At first
it’s quite difficult, especially breathing (which I do all the time) because
that somehow makes the face even hotter.
But after a few minutes, it becomes more familiar and comfortable. And then it’s quite nice.
The thing to
do is apparently to jump into icy water, straight out of the sauna…and then get
back in the sauna. I don’t think I could
do that without my Mum (or any British Mum) shouting “You’ll catch your death!”
at me. It seems like a bracing,
enjoyable way to get a cold. I don’t
have the option, because it’s summer and we’re not near enough to a lake. So we settle for a hot tub, which has been
heating all day and is lovely. The hot
tub is not traditional, but having a really nice time is.
On balance,
I think the hot tub was a good choice.
(I’ve never been in one of those before either. Yes, again, I have apparently led a sheltered
life.)
I am treated
to some more Finnish lessons, and learn how to say “Golden Crumble” in
Suomalainen, which is not a dessert, but a term of endearment. I rather like it. When I say it, people say “Awwwww”.
I don’t know
if this is a Juhannus tradition, but we listen to a very particular kind of
Finnish music: American/British pop hits
of the 60s and 70s, sung in (allegedly) badly-translated Finnish. Our Suomalainen friends chuckle at these,
which apparently make the bad poetry of pop songs even more clumsy in
translation. The idea itself also raises
a self-conscious smile from Finns. (We
hear The Beatles, The Stones, Elvis, Hotel California, California Dreamin’ and
Unchained Melody subjected to this.) Do
they do this in other countries/languages?
I’ve heard
it’s big in South Korea…
I’m also
treated to some Finnish Rap. The Finnish
word for Rap is Rappi, which makes me happy – you have to roll the ‘r’, which
only sweetens it further.
Hip Hop is
Hip Hoppi.
Love this
country.
Later,
there’s a lively (and confusing) debate about whether Finland really is part of
Scandinavia. K– states, apparently in
all seriousness, that it is not “geographically” part of the club, even though
everyone has just agreed to the obvious point that it most definitely is, at
very least, even if in no other way, geographically part of Scandinavia. To which K– repeats “No, but geographically…”
I’m not sure
what’s going on with this, or exactly the point she’s trying to make. So we just let it slide.
Sitting out
through the evening gives me a better appreciation of the light, and because
we’ve been drinking most of the day, it feels like a festival. A small, friendly one, rather than the
muntfest some of them turn in to. It’s
all very relaxed here, we’re living the Juhannus dream.
Day Four is
Juhannus! Officially mid-summer’s
day. So, the traditional saunas,
barbecue, all-day drinking – and the non-traditional hot tub. I play guitar on the porch in the morning,
and we sit and watch the rain.
Thug life,
yo.
We head to
the supermarket for more supplies, while others take a long walk through the
woods.
Finnish
Supermarkets are exactly the same as British ones. Supermarkets, whether part of the same chain
or not, have very good “harmonisation”: they are equally horrible places to be
the world over.
But the trip
is all worthwhile for the food mountain we construct later. It includes smoked salmon, which I usually
don’t like, but holidays are all about new experiences, aren’t they? This particular lot has been hot-smoked along
with the barbecue. It’s really good.
Thatcher’s
cider seems popular with Finns, and is pronounced Tatch-erss. One of the lads is drinking a Finnish beer that’s
named after a very popular former President (or maybe Prime Minister), and the
cans feature a photo with his distinctive big glasses and pork pie hat. Some of our Finnish friends ask, laughingly,
if anyone would put Margaret Thatcher on a cider can. I reply, laughingly, maybe if it were a
picture of her head on a spike…
As the
international crew swap stories, cultural differences, human similarities and
enough food and drink to sink a battleship, I play an impromptu gig at about 1
am, with half my audience still in the hot tub.
(I’ve been asked, I’m not just rockin up and singing at people (you
know, like I usually would)). I’m always
more nervy playing to a small group of friends than to a room full of paying
strangers, for some reason. But everyone
is nice and I enjoy it and hopefully they do as well. At one point, towards the end of a song, I
feel something on my face. E- pulls it
off my cheek. It’s only a bloody mozzy,
isn’t it? The bastard’s bit me while I’m
trying to entertain. (No manners, but
what a critic.)
The second
round of barbecue is under way afterwards, with sausages. In my usual holiday fashion, I am doubling my
bodyweight in a most enjoyable way. It
feels good in the moment, but if you do it for more than a week at a time…
On Day Five
we have a big clear-up of the house, which belongs to our friend’s parents; it
reminds me of being sixteen, staying up all night drinking at someone’s
parents’ house while they’re on holiday.
(Although with less drug abuse, sexual intrigue and broken
furniture. I am not sixteen
anymore. Thankfully.)
On my first
two days in Espoo I got a couple of mosquito bites, which I didn’t really
notice at first. By the Sunday I’ve got
several and they are itchy. R- points
out that it could be worse, at least these ones aren’t Malarial. Which shuts me about mosquitos for a while.
We play a
strange bi-lingual version of Charades, with cards that give teams the word to
act out in Finnish, but all guesses in English.
Hilarity ensues. With lots of
“What’s the English word for….?”
There’s also
a game a bit like Skittles, with numbered wooden blocks. Players have to knock the blocks over with
another block. I like games based on
throwing things at other things. (That
sounds sarcastic, but it isn’t.)
We say our
goodbyes to the crew and head back to the city in the sunshine for a wandering
end to Juhannus. Finding a good hill, we
discuss the politics of Finland, Zimbabwe and the UK over a couple of tins of
Lapin Kulta, another Finnish beer (the name means Lappish (as in Lapland) Gold,
or something like that).
I realise
both my legs are covered in the bastard mosquito bites. Others have suffered far worse, with more
bites and worse reactions, but it doesn’t stop me moaning, obviously.
It is a bit
annoying. (The bites, not my moaning
about it. Which is probably worse, but
you’d have to ask someone else about that…)
We’re
staying at L-‘s flat, so we end the evening at her local bar. It’s the kind of cool wee place European
cities seem to have in abundance – it’s a neighbourhood bar that is cool (but
not so much as to be annoying) and still cheap – a pint here costs FOUR EURO,
by a long way the cheapest drink I’ve had this week. Wishing we could stay up chatting all night
with L- and R-, (they’re both working tomorrow) we compensate by drinking an
evening’s worth of gloriously cheap beer in the couple of hours we have with
them. To be alive is a joy; to be drunk
and in good company is very heaven.
So, on Day
Six, I wake up to my first hangover of the week. Pretty good going considering I’ve been
drinking the whole time…but it’s no fun, I can tell you. It’s mercifully brief, and passes in time for
The Last Day Of The Holiday.
As a wee
treat, we’re spending our last night in a hotel. I’m not used to hotels, but it’s a deal and
the place looks interesting. After
checking in, we have a wander around town and get a recommendation for dinner:
a Lappish restaurant near the hotel.
Lapland is
in the far north of the country, and is well in the Arctic Circle. The culture reflects this: people eat some
stuff we – that’s us, from more hospitable climes – might find unusual…needs
must innit. So we order a set menu to
check out the array of Lapland delicacies, which turn out to include: lake
fish, reindeer (two different kinds), salmon, potatoes, cheese, dill (another
Finnish favourite), bread. And
bear. Yes, that’s right: bear.
I don’t see
a moral difference between eating different non-endangered animals: if it’s OK to eat a pig or a sheep, why is not
OK to eat a horse or a bear? The
difference isn’t moral, it’s cultural.
But I probably wouldn’t order bear.
It’s on the platter, though, so I eat it. It tastes alright. The reindeer is nice. (Neither tastes a bit like chicken.)
We head back
to the Torni for a last long look at Helsinki from above, as the sun goes down
(it doesn’t really go down, obviously.
It just dips a bit. In fact, the
sun doesn’t go down at all, it just looks like it does as a result of the earth
turning – as fans of The Flaming Lips will be well aware.)
It’s a
beautiful place to be.
Fuckin mozzy
bites, mind….
On Day
Seven, the final day, we wake up late and rush downstairs just in time for the continental
breakfast for which we intended to be up in plenty of time. I probably won’t eat bread and cheese for
breakfast for a while after this. We
check out and, with Euros burning a hole in our pockets, head to the harbour to
get seafood and tourist tat for the family.
(We’ve already loaded up on chocolate, with several bars of Fazer, the
Finnish Cadbury’s.)
We make one
last family visit, and it’s Goodbye, Finland.
As the plane climbs into the sky, we see Rajamaki Church, where E-‘s
parents got married, where she was christened, where her Mummu was buried. This place is home to many wonderful people.
And we have
met many wonderful people and had many new experiences. We’ve eaten, drank, sang, said, watched and
done some odd and lovely stuff.
What a
brilliant place.
Näkemiin…
Hei Hei, Suomi
No comments:
Post a Comment