Suomenlinna Blues

Today I went to Suomenlinna, an island a 20 minute ferry ride from downtown Helsinki that is known for its fortress and also its soft serve vanilla icecream. I went there with my friend Sonia, who, despite being born of an American dad and Finnish mom and speaking both languages perfectly, is actually Italian. Well, she was raised in Italy. To make matters more strange, she now makes her living as a French teacher.

Anyway, Sonia is currently in Helsinki so she decided to show me Suomenlinna. We walked around the south end of the island, checked out the cannons, and then I swam briefly in the Baltic Sea, my first time ever doing the breaststroke in this body of water. Afterward I went to look for the Russian Embassy, which basically looked like a grey version of the white house, flanked by gates on all sides and adorned with a hammer and sickle (I have no idea how to spell that) on top. But it was closed. On the door a sign said to go to a different address about a half hour walk away to the third floor of a building on a side street that looked difficult to find. Once I did get there I finally got in after waiting until some people in the building came out, and then knocked on the door which was opened by three Russian girls.

These were stereotypical Russian girls. They were wearing high heels. I have no idea why. I spoked to the first one and when she heard me speaking English she sent for another one, apparently the only English speaker in the group, and we discussed visa options. She said I needed to fill out an application online and go to a travel agency. She seemed very excited to be speaking English.

Afterward I got a beer and roamed the streets, just because it is legal here in Finland. The beer tasted like Stella Artois, which means it basically tasted like chemicals, which basically means I'll get into a fight in the next 15 minutes. I still have not received my bag from Icelandair (I haven't mentioned yet that it got lost) which means I still haven't used deodorant. I smell.

Smakkest betur!

I have precisely 250 Icelandic Krona in my pocket and 17 minutes to use the internet. That means 17 means of staring squinty-eyed at a screen in a room that is somehow dark despite the fact that it has no blinds and the sun hasn't set yet. It's 10pm. Everyone around me is speaking Icelandic and playing first-person shooter games except for one guy who appears to be reading the news. Icelandic is a weird-sounding language. It's soft. It sounds like a mix of German and Arabic and Finnish and English mixed with whispering and a hint of baby-babble. I'm convinced that if I approached an Icelandic person and just started cooing like a pigeon that would be able to derive some kind of significance from it. I have only learned two phrases so far, but I'm very happy with this considering I have not be trying at all. The first phrase is "good day", which basically sounds like "good dog" in English, and the second is "smakkest betur" which means "tastes better". I'm also pretty sure the word "Pida" means "Wait."

Tomorrow I go to Helsinki, a place where I actually do speak a bit of the language. But not much. In my year of Finnish at UW I mostly learned how to tell my friend Bo he looked like a girl. Or that he looked like other things. I was a master of the verb construction "to look like". I once told the one Finnish person in the UW French Department as a way of a conversation starter, "Hello, I look like a farmer" which was met with a hearty guffaw. But I'm sure I'll still speak mostly English. In the grand scheme of things my Finnish is basically non-existent. It will be nice to get away from the wind though, and hopefully into some weather that is actually somewhat summer like. The wind here in Iceland is like nothing I've ever seen. I felt like I was skydiving uphill when I went hiking earlier. My cheeks were actually being puffed up with air despite my attempts to maintain a normal facial expression. So in this way, I am very excited for Finland. The only thing I need to do now is figure out what 275 krona can buy, especially because I haven't eaten dinner. I could murder a slice of pizza right now. Or some Indian food. Or some Thai. Maybe some Nepalese.

Smakkest betur!

The Joys of Public Transportation

If I wanted to I could hear English all day. You get on a five hour flight to New York, another five hour flight to Reykjavik, you expect the exotic, and the guy checking you in to the hostel is from...Cleveland. What gives? And to top it off the hostel costs 3,800 krona for a dorm bed. A dorm bed! Thats like 35 dollars, and the guy checking me in isnt even Icelandic -- his name is Michael and he's from the Buckeye State.

But anyway. Luckily I am not confined to the confines of my ever so chic hostel where the breakfast looks delicious but costs 10 dollars. I can roam where I please, which is exactly what I did today, taking two buses to scale a mountain on the north side of the bay just north or Reykjavik. The buses were great. It seems standard in Iceland that at every three stops or so the bus let on about 50 kindergartners accompanied by about 5 chaperons. But this is the best part. The kids whistle in Icelandic. The kids play in Icelandic. And the kids sing in Icelandic. On the way back from the mountain a gaggle of kids burst into song and were singing songs I had grown up singing, albeit with Icelandic lyrics. It was perfect.

Back in Reykjavik I'm at an internet cafe that looks like it's frequented by people who would otherwise be hanging out in their parents' basements. It's almost empty and 35 minutes of internet cost me just over 3 dollars. I have actually no idea what the exchange rate is but I'm pretty sure it's around 100 krona to the dollar.

I had no idea what to expect with Iceland, but I'm enjoying it so far. It reminds me of a combination of Scotland and Alaska. Or Washington and Alaska. Or basically just the coast of Washington because it's always cold and windy and the air smells of salt. The people have been very nice so far. I asked the bus driver how to get to the center of town and he looked at my feet and said "You take that one and put it in front of the other one..." before bursting out laughing and grabbing my arm jovially.

I just bought what I thought was going to be Apple pop but it turned out to be Orange pop. I think I really really need a nap.

Snow and Mud in the Cascade Mountains

We got stuck. In the mud. In the snow and the mud and the snow. We never thought we were going to get out. As the sun set over the North Cascades I thought to myself "Hold on a second...is this bear country?" We were in the car for what seemed like hours. We talked about magnetic fields and what's going to happen in the year 2012. The dog slept peacefully in the back seat. This was all a game to her. But it wasn't a game to us. It was survival.

The minutes turned into hours and still we talked. I peaked my head out the car window and saw a sea of stars. Stars sown in the sky. Planted by hand. Thousands plucked from their strings and strewn across the heavens.

And still us in the snow and the mud and the snow.

Finally the trees to the left of the car lit up with light. I thought it was a UFO. The light got brighter and brighter and then I realized it was just the truck we had called to help us. A trusty friend with a trusty truck. Where I had struggled for several hours using rocks to pound other rocks under the tire he got us out in two minutes. The adventure was over. We were not going to die. And we were out of bear country.

Summer on Mount Smile

Today I walked way too far. My back has been ailing me lately. I should probably take it easy. Instead I walked at least 7 miles.

I might be exaggerating but when Jean-Claude was taking me to the trail head we were driving for at least 10 minutes. Quickly. When we were getting to the trailhead he said, Ive only seen two bears since Ive been living here. Plus, theyre just black bears. This was very comforting.

I walked to the "top" of Mont Sourire or Mount Smile in English. It took about 10 minutes and the whole time I was singing a Brandenburg concierto and saying "Salut les ours" just to make sure any bears heard me as I wandered into their territory. At the top I took a few pictures, talked a little more to myself, and began the trip back down.

To begin the real trip.

I walked for so long. The whole time a horsefly was making a home in my hair, or laying eggs, or vomiting, or just resting, or whatever it is horseflies do when they land on you. I couldnt get rid of it no matter how hard I tried, thus proving that man has not conquered nature. We can build dams and put out forest fires but if a fly wants to land on you repeatedly for several hours as your skin begins to boil in the hot Quebecois sun, there is basically nothing you can do. You are at its mercy.

Finally after I thought my back might fold in half I finally saw the bridge that signalled the entry into town, albeit with at least another mile of walking. Back at my hotel room I stretched and got ready to go jump in the lake when I noticed it was already 430 and the internet cafe closes at 500. So here I am. I just witnessed a conversation between the lady here who barely speaks English and two older men who barely speak French. There were complicated words like router and satellite used and I`m pretty sure no one understood anyone. Such can be the joys of communication.

Now it`s off to eat some pizza, lots and lots of pizza, and then finally jump in the lake. I love being on vacation.

Salut!

Monsieur La Fleur!

Yesterday I was trying to hitchhike from Sainte Agathe des Monts to Saint Donat, Quebec. I had been standing by the side of the road for about two minutes with my achilles tendinosis-riddled thumb thrust in the air when a brown Isuzu Trooper pulled to the side of the road. His name was Remi La Fleur and now we are more or less best friends despite the fact that I only understand about 30% of what he says.

Remi was probably in his 60s and going to precisely the town that I wanted to go to, Saint Donat, a little town of 4,000 whose population swells to 20,000 in the summer when people from all over Montreal come to spend the summer along lake Archambault and other area lakes in their chalets and cabins.

The bugs here are awful. For me, at this moment, they are more or less its defining feature, due in large part to the various open wounds along both of my forearms. I am completely bored out of my mind here. I am killing time. I dont know why I booked my ticket out of Quebec for so late. Today my day will most likely consist of swimming off the dock of my hotel, walking to the grocery store, and watching bad American sitcoms dubbed in French. But it is of course not all that bad. It is beautiful here. Cheese curds are plentiful. I am speaking a good amount of French. My entire car ride yesterday with Monsieur La Fleur was in French and also my conversation with Jean-Claude when I checked into the hotel. And the hotel is beautiful. It`s cheap -- 50 bucks a night -- and has a huge lawn extending down to a dock where one can swim and frolick in the water if one so desires. Yesterday I ate horribly. Pizza, fries, a cheeseburger, vanilla softserve dipped in chocolate, so of course today I feel guilty and have vowed to go the whole day without eating refined sugar. This will most likely last until about 2pm when I decide that the miles of walking I`ve done more than warrant the consumption of some kind of sweet good and I spend the rest of the day gorging myself on Twizzlers and icecream while watching more horrible Quebecois television. Last night I watched Top Gun. It was by far the highlight of my night. Except of when Goose died.

One more thing: the owner of the internet cafe I`m in is currently sitting at his computer smoking. Only in Quebec...

A Day With Porter

I love flying new airlines. I love flying in general. Jetsetting from one destination to the next, even if the destinations aren't terribly exotic. Air travel, no matter what, is always exotic because, well, you are flying through the air.

Today my friend Jenny and I had the privilege of flying Porter Airlines, a relatively new airline based out of Toronto that serves destinations in the eastern United States and Canada, including such out of the way seasonal destinations as Myrtle Beach.

The firs plus about Porter in Newark where we flew out of is that there was no line to check in. We literally walked right up to the counter and checked in, served by a boy/man who speak English, Spanish, and Portuguese. He seated us together with no problem or hesitation, we were able to check one bag completely free of charge, and after several minutes we were off.

At the gate where Porter was leaving from there was no one in the security line. Again, this is not an exaggeration, and this has also never happened to me. Going through security is generally one of the biggest drags of flying, but since Porter was one of the only airlines to fly out of that gate there was virtually no one around. Several more minutes and we were off again.\

Now, the flight did depart late. And it was also about 15 degrees fahrenheit in the waiting room at the gate. But I realize the temperature part is something out of Porter's control. I was afraid that the late departure would sour me on Porter, but they quickly made up for it in the air.

Though the "brunch" turned out to be just a snack, the vegetable chips we chose were not chips made from various vegetables, but actual single vegetables made into chips. You could tell what each chip used to be: a beet, a yam, a carrot -- then dried out and made into a delectable chip. The drinks were served in actually glasses. Made of glass. And the water bottles had the adorable raccoon porter logo on them and they gave you the whole bottle. If you wanted it, they gave you beer and wine for free. You could have as much of anything as you wanted, and they asked you several times, all the while smiling brightly as they knew they were working for one of the few airlines that actually provided these kinds of services, if you wanted anything more.

But the real delight started when we got to Toronto. We landed at Toronto City Airport, which is on an island or peninsula literally a stones throw (if you have an arm like Jay Buhner) from downtown Toronto. We cruised in low over Lake Ontario and felt like we were buzzing the tops of sailboats as we landed, all along the city a startling backdrop to our right of skyscrapers and the famed CN Tower. One cannot understate the closeness of Toronto City Airport to downtown Toronto, or it's convenience and aesthetic appeal. Imagine if flying into Seattle you landed on 4th Ave South instead flying into SeaTac. That's more or less how convenient the Toronto City Airport is.

In the Toronto airport we were treated to a lounge with more free drinks and snacks and a row of brand new Macs free of charge should we have decided to use the internet. We saw members of the Toronto FC MLS team lazing about the terminal. People were starting to speak French. I was starting to freak out about how great all of it was.

Finally after another short flight we landed in Montreal and tried to find a bus that could take us downtown. When were inquiring about the 747 Express bus a couple came up to us and asked if we wanted their tickets -- they were still good and they had no use for them. So we rode into downtown Montreal for free. This time not courtesy of Porter, but I wouldn't be surprised if Porter hired the couple to give the tickets to us just to make our travel experience that much better. It's Porter, after all.

I think I'm going to name my first born son "Porter".

The Chipotle Diaries: East Coast Trauma

Today I went to Chipotle in Woodley Park in the District of Columbia, also known to the lay-person as "Washington DC". I went to Chipotle because as a minor share-holder it is important for me to keep tabs on company operations and also to see how they are doing at various locations around the country. This was only my second East-Coast Chipotle experience, the first being the location just north of Bryant Park in New York where I spent over eight dollars on a burrito and briefly wept.

Today's experience was, to be Frank, slightly sub-par. I hadn't eaten Chipotle in well over a week so my body was starting to react violently, showing visible signs of withdrawal from lack of cilantro-infused rice and deliciously-seasoned chicken.

The first thing to throw me off in today's Chipotle experience was that the line was moving from left to right. At the U-District location in Seattle I am used to ordering from right to left, and this is my home Chipotle so anything different is slightly disconcerting. I hesitate even to eat at the downtown Seattle location for this very reason and also because I hate downtown Seattle.

I ordered a chicken burrito with black beans, lowering my voice a few octaves when ordering to denote authority and possible share-holder status, and grimaced with dismay as she scooped on a handful of watery black beans. The ration of chicken was also slightly meager, but luckily somewhat made up for by a jovial Mexican man who scooped on large portions of tomato salsa, cheese, and sour cream.

The first bite into the burrito was pure bliss. I thought I had died for a moment or at the very least slipped into some kind of a burrito-laden coma. I had never tasted chicken so good! But as the burrito wore on things got worse and worse, and I realized why the first bite was so good but why the rest of the burrito was overwhelming: salt. There was too much salt. It was almost a chore to eat the rest of the burrito. Chipotle is usually the most uplifting experience of my day, but this day may prove to be different.

I do not regret today's East Coast Chipotle Experience, but I do regret the amount of salt in my burrito. The only thing to do now is go to the hotel pool, pull some sunglasses down over my eyes, and try to forget that part of the burrito ever happened. With today's heat coupled with the amount of admiration I have amassed for Chipotle over the years, this should be pretty easy.

The Megabus to DC

A final respite from the heat. Today we will go to DC, where actually the temperature is not much lower -- today the high is 89. But yesterday as we were coming back from Spanish Harlem a thunderstorm came and instantly cooled the city down 20 degrees. Lee and I decided to make a run for it while the girls decided to try and take a cab. We ran for about 10 blocks in the pouring rain and at one point I took my shirt off -- ostensibly to not have the cotton clinging to my skin -- but also because my dream that day had been to go to the beach and go swimming, and now in a way I was getting my wish.

I finally got to test out out the "underwater" capabilities of my camera! Another thing I planned to do at the beach but something that was easily testable with the pouring rain. I took videos of Lee and I walking/running that will most likely prove to be horribly boring/unwatchable, but was still excited that my camera was able to function in a downpour and record nature's unmitigated fury. The only problem with taking pictures when it's wet is that the camera thinks that every rain drop touching the screen is a finger, which with a touch screen is a problem. The camera freaks out a little bit.

I didn't do much last night. I went to my friend Dan's dorm at NYU where he made French toast. Whether or not Dan admits it, he is 98% obsessed with French toast. Yesterday his eyes gleamed with excitement as he made French toast from scratch (though I don't know if there's any other way to make it) using cinnamon bread and -- get this -- "maple" syrup from scratch. Apparently this is how his family did it growing up. You boil a little water, throw in some sugar, throw in some "Maple-ine" imitation maple flavoring, and suddenly you've got something that tastes just as good as Aunt Jemima but without the high-fructose corn syrup. Maybe Dan is way ahead of his time. He is certainly a man of discerning tastes, especially proved by the handfuls of Cinnamom Toast Crunch he shoveled into his gaping maw afterterward, which everyone knows are basically just little bite sized shrunken French toasts.

Today is thankfully my last day at Duke's Cafe using their disgusting computers to use the internet. Like I said (or possibly didn't) we're getting on a bus in about an hour to go to DC. I am not particularly excited about this as last time I was in DC my only memories are what felt like miles and miles of Dr. Zhivago-like marching through several feet of snow to see monuments whose significance as a 17 year old I didn't really appreciate and a Smithsonian Museum that may or may not have been closed, but I am prepared to be more open minded this time around about our nation's capital.

For now it's time to get out of Duke's. I swear it's 15 degrees warmer out here than outside and my fingers feel like they're covered in food despite the fact that I haven't been eating.

Megabus!!!

Fat Cat

It's oppressively hot here in New York. A guy just walked into the deli where I am and said in a thick New York accent, "Man, it's hawt as hell in heyah." Today we are supposed to go lie in Central Park. I wanted to go the beach, but it looks like Central Park is in the cards. This is OK, because afterward we will be going to Spanish Harlem and trying to find ridiculously authentic Mexican food. If I don't speak Spanish at least once during our sojourn up there, I will be disappointed.

There is not too much to report from NYC. I got food poisoning two nights ago. I woke up at 130 in the morning, ran downstairs, and vomited up the shellfish I had been eating earlier that evening. I then proceeded to vomit once every ten minutes for the next three hours, finally falling asleep just as the sun was coming up at 5am. But now I feel amazing. It's as if the food poisoning was some sort of full body cleanse. It literally got everything out of me. They say the body is 80% water. I think my body was about 15% water after my few hours in the bathroom.

Last night we went to a jazz club called Fat Cat. I hate jazz. But it was still fun. We played shuffleboard and halfway through the shuffleboard I ditched my teammate to go play chess. I thought the kid was going to be good because he was studying a chess book and had a really concerned look on his face. But I was annihilating him within five minutes. And then I lost my queen. I was devastated but kept playing, and eventually, after at least an hour and half of staring at the board, he let me fork his kind and his queen and I won. I shook his hand, joined my friends, and it was still ridiculously hot outside.

Not it's off to Spanish Harlem. Probably time to get some coconut water, too.

The Moderately-Sized Apple

I am in New York City. Manhattan to be specific. Chelsea to be even more specific. Or actually SoHo. I'm in SoHo at an internet cafe called Duke's whose keyboards are covered with remnants of food due to the fact that this place doubles as a....cafe. Actually the cafe is the most prominent part of this operation. No one is at the computers besides me. I get the impression very few people use these computers. But to do some final stuff for UW, to truly start the summer vacation, internet access is imperative.

I got in last night at 1130 after a non-stop flight from Seattle. Flying non-stop is wonderful. It is infinitely superior to flying with layovers. When you fly non-stop all of the allure of air travel gets maximized. You go to the airport, you step into a metal tube with seats, and then a few hours later you are in an exotic destination, but more importantly, YOUR destination. The place where you want to be. The place where you will sleep that night. The place where your friends and family are. But when you don't fly non-stop it's a different story. You get to the plane, you get on the place, you're excited, the plane leaves, you're in the air!, you land, you step off the plane.......and you're in Milwaukee. And you're bummed. Now you have to wait a few hours, get on another plane, and by the time you do get to your final destination you're tired and cranky and the only thing you want to do is lie down. So I think flying non-stop is infinitely superior. But this might just be me.

Whenever I'm in New York I'm constantly reminded of my inadequacies. Everyone in New York is taller, more beautiful, speaking a different language, wearing something cooler, going someplace cooler, doing something cooler. When you're in certain parts of Manhattan you think to yourself: this is the center of the universe. There could be no place on earth more exciting than right here, right now. And for an instant you figure out why so many people move to New York at some point in their lives. They move to the city and they become obsessed with it. Friends and family get pushed aside as the become absorbed by what I just mentioned above: being more beautiful, wearing something cooler, doing something cooler. But for me after a few days in New York I long to get out of the city. I long for the country. I think of Western Montana or Bainbridge Island where I grew up or anything --Anything!-- that is not a massive and overwhelming.

Back in the internet cafe I am sweating. My legs are sweating. My shirt is sticking to the back of my chair, not because I'm sweating (or maybe because I'm sweating), but because there's some kind of food stuff on the backrest. Lee and Rosie and Jenny are hanging out back at the hotel and Kristina is no where to be found. She went shopping with Jenny and Rosie a few hours ago, said she was going to try on some stuff, and they still haven't seen her. Maybe I should be more worried about this but I'm not. She's probably at an internet cafe or getting a smoothie or maybe, less fortunately, struggling in the heat to find our hotel. Our hotel with three beds stuffed in a tiny room that smells lamentably like five people stuffed in a tiny room.

Tomorrow we are going to go to Central Park and then watch the Canucks game at a Canadian bar. I had no idea Canadian bars exist (I just imagine over-priced Molson and people pronouncing the word "house" "hoose"), but apparently one does. This is good though because we will be able to escape New York for a few hours. Go to a place where people aren't really trying to be cooler. A place where people wear hockey jerseys.

But for now i need to unstick my shirt from this backrest.

Hei Kaikki

I will be studying in Finland this summer in Savonlinna from early July to the end of July, and then hopefully going on to Russia. This blog is to document this experience for me, and also to talk about anything else that happens to me on the way. For example, last night I went to Maple Valley. If you have never been to Maple Valley, it is located more or less south of Issaquah and is home to a preponderance of people who enjoy activities like "wheelin'." But Maple Valley also has a certain sophisticated charm. My girlfriend and I went to a very posh neighborhood that reminded me of a gated community except for the fact that it didn't have a gate, where we hopped a fence, and jumped off a dock into Wilderness Lake. All along the lake we could see lights from houses glowing and the silhouettes of pine trees, and on the far side of the lake we could faintly hear people laughing around a camp fire.

Tomorrow I go to New York. I like New York. I didn't used to like it, but that's because the first time I went the only thing's I did that were touristy. However, the second time I went I didn't do anything touristy. In fact, I wasn't really even in New York; I was in the Hamptons eating 25 dollar crab sandwiches and riding in limousines in Montauk. The only time I was in the city I walked around the Lower Eastside, realized there are more hipsters in a half-block radius of the Lower Eastside than Capitol Hill could ever imagine, and then I ate seaweed at a Thai restaurant. Now I will go back to New York and I am excited to once again do nothing touristy and just hang out with friends, generally.

After I go to New York and I will go to DC and then fly up to Montreal. I am particularly excited about Montreal. Montreal is 70% French speaking. This is pretty high (Montreal is the second biggest French speaking city in the world [!]) but it will get a lot higher when I leave Montreal to go to Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, a city that from Wikipedia appears to be known for just about nothing besides the fact that it is relatively close to the ski area Mont Tremblant. However, French is spoken as a first language by over 90% of its inhabitants, and that's a good enough reason for me to visit. Then, I come back from Montreal, have eight days in Seattle, fly to Iceland, and finally fly to Finland on June 29th.

Like I said at the beginning, I have dropped out of school. Yesterday marked my final days as a student/teacher at the University of Washington. This is one of the reasons I wanted to start this blog. By dropping out of school and traveling to faraway lands and most likely growing a beard I will be venturing into the ever so hazardous territory of "finding myself." Ostensibly, this is the reason why many people travel. But I don't want to "find myself", because from what I can tell that just basically means turning into a hippie and no longer frowning upon drum circles. I want to find other things. I want to find other people. I want to find other places and other foods and other languages. And maybe I will discovery a few things about myself as well. But I will never, never play in a drum circle.