The issue of travel has come from a potential event which didn't actually happen. The idea of going on a cruise was floated (sic.) last night, but it never really got off the ground. To 99,9% of the world's population, the word "cruise" conjures up images of cocktails, evening socials, outside swimming pools on deck, luxury cabins and sunrises in the Bahamas. To women with an active imagination, it also conjures up images of a short, dashing Scientologist who appears in action movies. The remaining 0,01% of the world's population, however, are Finns. The word takes on a slightly different meaning here. There are 2 choices from Helsinki - you get on a very large boat and go over to Sweden on an 18-hour-each-way sailing, with a potential stop to do nothing much in the Åland Islands on the way; or you go to Tallinn in Estonia which takes around 3 hours each way. There are no palm trees, no outdoor swimming pool and ladies in ballroom dresses don't sip expensive cocktails while chatting with gentlemen in tuxedos. The idea yesterday was to hop on a boat at 9pm tonight, return to Helsinki tomorrow afternoon, and in the mean time go over to Tallinn.
The first surprise to the outsider is that "going over to Tallinn" on this cruise, for a lot of people, does not actually involve going to Tallinn at all. The boat sails over, docks in the harbour, and people stay on the boat and get drunk. This is encouraged by the ferry companies and on this particular trip, even though the boat arrives in Tallinn at midnight, no one would be allowed off the boat until 8.30 the next morning. The advantage for others is that, given that people go on these boats with the sole aim of getting trashed, astronomical amounts of money are spent on booze. This drives ticket prices down and you can get over to Stockholm and back for as little as 25€, and to Tallinn for 10€ return.
The majority of people who disembark at the other end will go to the closest shop, stack up with Estonian price vodka and cigarettes, get back onto the boat and start drinking again, stopping only when the ferry arrives back in Helsinki. When the time comes to step back onto Finnish soil, you see a gang of Finns lined up like cattle in front of the door with trolleys specially designed to hold the maximum allowance of cigarettes and vodka. After they have smoked and drunk everything, they book another cruise to Tallinn. It's quite amusing and quite depressing at the same time.
Despite the enormous size of the boats (most of the friends I've had over to visit have been so amazed by the scale of the beasts that they've taken pictures of them) there really isn't all that much to do on them. The boats to Sweden, for instance, are on about 12 floors - mostly car parking spaces, cabins to sleep off hangovers, restaurants, bars and a nightclub to get pissed in and a duty free shop to buy booze and cigarettes in, and lines and lines of one-arm bandits and poker machines, seemingly to encourage kids to lose their money. Add to this the fact that the aforementioned bars and nightclubs are crap, and you suddenly find that joining the cattle in the duty free shop and getting sauced up and facing the prospect of wandering around Stockholm hungover isn't such an unattractive idea after all. In fact, it's almost compulsory to do so in order to divert your mind from jumping off the deck and swimming to shore just to give yourself something to do.
During the course of the trip, you'll probably see most, if not all of the following :
- A bunch of students dressed up as superheroes or wearing stupid wigs on a stag night
- A middle aged man/woman in a severe state of emotional decay, with the possible presence of tears and a consoling friend
- Someone wandering aimlessly along the cabin corridors, drunkenly staggering from one wall to the other
- Groups of people standing, not talking to each other (see most other posts for further details)
- A balding man in a suit desperately looking for younger female company
- Someone asleep on the floor
The slightly richer Finn takes these trips on Silja line, which is more expensive. I've never been with this company so I'm unable to comment on it but I'd imagine it's a higher class example of exactly the same thing. The much richer Finn will generally go on a package tour to Thailand, lie on the beach and come back with a tan and, in the case of single men, a wife. A Finn who goes anywhere else has undoubtedly declared him/herself to foreigners as "not the typical Finn" and, in my opinion, this isn't so far from the truth.
So to you all I would suggest the following - indulge yourself in the Finnish travel industry, hit the boats, go on a "cruise" - It'll probably be one of those things you'll be happy you did but won't be jumping to do again...
Showing posts with label Helsinki. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Helsinki. Show all posts
Jun 19, 2008
Apr 5, 2008
Clouds, Beer, Blonds
You guessed it - I'm back in Helsinki ! It had been about 6 months since I last set foot in this country but when I landed in Tampere airport it seemed like just yesterday. Nothing much has changed here and everything seemed familiar. It's great to see M again and I've moved in with her, living in a one room apartment by the sea in a suburb not too far from the centre. It's going to be hard to fit back in I'd imagine - the culture, the language, the climate, the fact that life is quite different here to what it is like in Brussels. Still, it's temporary - I'm going to finish the studies, I've got my old job back and life is going to get started again after this week of moving in, sorting things out and bumming around with M getting to know each other again.
The 6 lane road has disappeared to be replaced by the Baltic Sea but the itchy feet are still there. Coming here is the next step towards the big rollercoaster of life - a place where I can get money coming in, work a job which actually pays, get the Masters finished and find out where I'm going. As long as I can avoid spending it all on overpriced beer...
On that note, I'm off for a beer.
The 6 lane road has disappeared to be replaced by the Baltic Sea but the itchy feet are still there. Coming here is the next step towards the big rollercoaster of life - a place where I can get money coming in, work a job which actually pays, get the Masters finished and find out where I'm going. As long as I can avoid spending it all on overpriced beer...
On that note, I'm off for a beer.
Feb 28, 2008
Intro
This blog was born at 1pm on February 28th 2008, in an office in the centre of Brussels, to mixed parentage. On one side, I wanted something to do while i was eating my sandwich. On the other side, it reflects a desire to see things, express them as I see them, and take it with me along the wild ride of life. Back in my suburb on a rainy, miserable and windy evening, I'm ready to have my first conversation with the newborn.
At the moment, I'm in Belgium. I'm here for several reasons. Firstly, I grew up here and Brussels is as close as I have to a hometown. Secondly, I found an internship here which would act as a blade of grass to my desertified CV. Thirdly, I quite like the place. And now that I write, I think that's about it. It gets a lot of crap, this place, without really deserving it, and simultaneously while deserving all of it. It's seen as boring, pointless city in an equally boring and pointless country where gangs of guys in suits tell everyone else in Europe what to do. having spent 8 years here since I moved over, I know it quite well and, even if the roads are falling apart, the system is infuriatingly dysfunctional whenever you need it and totally inflexible when it works, and it rains all the time, there are some decent things to do. My bank account informs me that I have 3€ left so i might not be able to have the sort of entertainment that the gangs of guys in suits might be able to enjoy but this is one of the few cities I've been to in Europe where i can walk around aimlessly and actually enjoy it. That's not to say I want to stay here. 8 years anywhere is far more than enough. 8 years of battling with Belgian bureaucracy is also far more than enough. More on that another day.
Fortunately for me then, in 4 and a half weeks, I'm moving out, to Finland. Helsinki's a place I know a little, given that I lived there for 2½ years before I came back here for a bit last October. Although it's a pretty unattractive and boring place, there are several reasons I want to go back there too. Firstly, in the right conditions, it's not a bad place to be. This means either at the beginning of the winter, when you haven't become bored of the snow, or at the beginning of the summer, before you've realised that it's not going to get above 20C this year. Again. Secondly, Finland in general is a very attractive place which I could happily bum around in for quite a while. I'd imagine that if you don't like lakes, trees or mosquitos then you'd probably like it quite a bit less, given that there's not much else, but I happen to like two of those three things. Thirdly, you don't get taxed out of your eyes and nose, it's possible to live cheaply and the pay is pretty decent, which is all completely the opposite of here. I've got a job probably waiting for me as soon as I arrive, which is lucky because they're tough to find if you don't speak Finnish or Swedish. Once you get onto the system though, saving up to do something big is quite easy there. And I'm saving up to do something big. Fourthly, and surely the biggest reason, is that M is there.
I'm going to miss the mitraillettes, the waffles, the chocolate, and drinking beer that can actually be tasted but it'll be worth the move and I'm looking forward to it. And that's all. I'll be spending the next 24 hours trying to poke around and find my identity in cyberspace, identity that I've been looking to avoid outside the screen. And I'm also sure that no one will have read this.
At the moment, I'm in Belgium. I'm here for several reasons. Firstly, I grew up here and Brussels is as close as I have to a hometown. Secondly, I found an internship here which would act as a blade of grass to my desertified CV. Thirdly, I quite like the place. And now that I write, I think that's about it. It gets a lot of crap, this place, without really deserving it, and simultaneously while deserving all of it. It's seen as boring, pointless city in an equally boring and pointless country where gangs of guys in suits tell everyone else in Europe what to do. having spent 8 years here since I moved over, I know it quite well and, even if the roads are falling apart, the system is infuriatingly dysfunctional whenever you need it and totally inflexible when it works, and it rains all the time, there are some decent things to do. My bank account informs me that I have 3€ left so i might not be able to have the sort of entertainment that the gangs of guys in suits might be able to enjoy but this is one of the few cities I've been to in Europe where i can walk around aimlessly and actually enjoy it. That's not to say I want to stay here. 8 years anywhere is far more than enough. 8 years of battling with Belgian bureaucracy is also far more than enough. More on that another day.
Fortunately for me then, in 4 and a half weeks, I'm moving out, to Finland. Helsinki's a place I know a little, given that I lived there for 2½ years before I came back here for a bit last October. Although it's a pretty unattractive and boring place, there are several reasons I want to go back there too. Firstly, in the right conditions, it's not a bad place to be. This means either at the beginning of the winter, when you haven't become bored of the snow, or at the beginning of the summer, before you've realised that it's not going to get above 20C this year. Again. Secondly, Finland in general is a very attractive place which I could happily bum around in for quite a while. I'd imagine that if you don't like lakes, trees or mosquitos then you'd probably like it quite a bit less, given that there's not much else, but I happen to like two of those three things. Thirdly, you don't get taxed out of your eyes and nose, it's possible to live cheaply and the pay is pretty decent, which is all completely the opposite of here. I've got a job probably waiting for me as soon as I arrive, which is lucky because they're tough to find if you don't speak Finnish or Swedish. Once you get onto the system though, saving up to do something big is quite easy there. And I'm saving up to do something big. Fourthly, and surely the biggest reason, is that M is there.
I'm going to miss the mitraillettes, the waffles, the chocolate, and drinking beer that can actually be tasted but it'll be worth the move and I'm looking forward to it. And that's all. I'll be spending the next 24 hours trying to poke around and find my identity in cyberspace, identity that I've been looking to avoid outside the screen. And I'm also sure that no one will have read this.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.JPG)