Elämä Jatkuu

It means "Life Continues". And indeed it does. Today consisted of hoovering, cleaning, spending long hours trying to fix M's computer which, for no reason, slowed down to the speed of a Belgian civil service bureaucrat (for those of you who don't know, that means very slow. And for those of you who have suffered through this interminable ordeal, I feel your pain and I sympathise), and taking part in an activity which has gained growing importance over the last few weeks. This is lying/sitting/standing around with M and talking in increasingly desperate tones about where we can go next, which wonderful destination will receive us next time we get out of Helsinki, and in how many days this escape will take place. We've talked about South America and Iran. I've talked about Afghanistan, and M has looked at me doubtfully. Africa seems to be too big to be done this year so we need a trip to pass the time. Most likely the next one will be a day trip to Estonia when we really need something to do, but the will is there. Proof: we've reserved the Lonely Planet guide to Iran from the library and we're going to pick it up when it's available. Oh yes.

On Thursday I took part in a Finnish student tradition - the early-starting pub crawl. It also started in a traditionally Finnish student way - an agreement to go for "a beer". This beer was bought in a supermarket and drunk slowly with a donut on the stairs of the cathedral. We were then called up by a friend of a friend to go for a beer in a bar. OK, we said, but only one. Virtanenska, who lives downstairs, had to be back to do some hardcore studying and so had an especially good reason to be back early. We went to the bar, had one, then another, moved to another bar, had a couple there, and I won some money on the poker machine. This of course only encouraged me to carry on. M didn't need any encouragement (and she got bought a drink by a big hairy biker in the next bar so it certainly was a good choice) and Virtanenska was beyond caring by this point too. We called M's friend and had a few more with her. I remember coming home on the tram but I'm not really sure what time it was. The next day, in any case, I did nothing at all. This whole story isn't very interesting, we did nothing much interesting apart from sitting down, drinking beer, talking about various things and, in my case, get involved in an animated discussion with a Bangladeshi barman about why his colleague flatly refused to tell me where she was from, but I've written about it for you in order to complement my previous post.

My parents called the other day and wondered from my tone of voice if i was depressed. They also thought this last time I was here, and I haven't been. Last time I wasn't having the best time but I wasn't depressed. This time I'm very happy. They may have picked this up for two reasons: a) My dad called to talk about his dad's funeral, during which time I was obviously not going to sing him a cheery song and tell some jokes; and b) I think this is also slightly what Helsinki does to you. So to all of you who are concerned for my wellbeing, I'm not depressed at all, I'm purely slowly becoming an average Helsinkiläinen - monotonous and uninspired by my surroundings.

I'm also resolved to writing something positive for my next post - watch this space !!!