Life In Helsinki - Part 1

...And so begins my series on life in Helsinki.

Disclaimer : This series may not be completely pleasing to any Helsinkiläiset who are especially proud of their city. To them, I say I'm very sorry. You have a beautiful country, but your capital city is, in my opinion, a bit of a hole. Having kept my identity secret from all except those who know me (and let's be honest, does anyone else actually read this thing ?) I will proceed to be completely undiplomatic safe in the knowledge that no hordes of angry citizens will be showing up at my front door armed with axes, hockey sticks and smashed bottles of Lapin Kulta and Suomi-viina baying for my blood. So here goes.

The first section will be dealing with quite a regular scene for most people in this city - the "restaurant". This is a name that Finns give to a pub or a nightclub in order to make it seem different to what it actually is. Despite the fact that the Finnish word for restaurant, ravintola, includes the word ravinto which basically means food, there is no guarantee at all that such a restaurant will serve food of any sort. They will be full of people of all ages, from the "just out of school" kids exploiting their newly-found freedom, to the aging women who will happily tell you through beer-soaked breath that their 6-year-old son is waiting for them at home. They are generally boozed up on overpriced crap beer and dancing to awful music (in the case of a night club) or sitting down listening to awful music (in the case of a bar). In fact, these are the only two types of place to seek entertainment in Helsinki's night scene. Being out at night in one of Helsinki's night-spots can be compared to being in a middle-sized English town. Someone who parachutes into an English town can never know where they are as they all look exactly the same. Similarly, someone who wakes up in a bar in Helsinki will have no idea where they are as all places play the same music and have the same atmopshere.

This, however, appears to be attractive to the average member of the clientele as most places are absolutely packed over the weekends in particular. I went to a bar called "Cuba" last week, which opened since I left in October. M tells me it used to be good but it now sounds and looks much like every other bar in the city. It does sell mojitos, though, which does make it retain the faintest air of Cubanness. When I listened very carefully, I could also hear faint latin rhythms being played in the toilets. Quite sad.

There is also the tradition of pikku-viikonloppu, which means "small weekend". This, in turn, means Wednesday night, where people once again emerge from their homes to get battered. Whether this is because they are unable to wait from Saturday to Friday to get battered again or if they want to enjoy to atmosphere of Helsinki's delightful nightspots I'm yet to find out, but in any case the rate at which they charge through the sauce is quite impressive. You know when you've got accustomed to living in Helsinki when seeing middle-aged men fall over tables on terraces outside without blinking, and going to morning lectures sitting next to some completely battered guy on the tram at 9am. A few years back my metro was delayed because a drunk had fallen off the platform onto the tracks at 11am. Instead of thinking that this was ridiculous, I saw it as an inconvience instead. Minä olen Helsinkiläinen.

It's somehow difficult to avoid this though as Helsinki gets its grip onto you. "What shall we do today ?" is usually followed by a brief pause as the mind thinks well... the weather's too crap to do anything outside. What else is there to do ?...

"...Let's go for a beer ?"
"Yeh, spose so."

A few hours and many Euros later, the conversation will generally turn to how crap the nightlife is. In our own little way, while trying to entertain ourselves, we are contributing to our own downfall.