Ok well I was going to post a commentary on our weekend trip to Finland, but my mate Rob has written a bloody damn good email about it. I am not going to be able to write it any better without plagiarising large parts of it. So I'll just post his commentary instead. I will also add though that they have blackjack and roulette tables in nightclubs in Finland. I will also add that I am not very good at blackjack.
What do you do when you arrive at Helsinki airport at midnight with the temperature gauge at minus 5 degrees Celsius and nothing to wear but the jeans and jumper you already have on? Well, that was the prospect facing our Mikey when he was informed that BA had decided that his backpack with all his warm clothing was better off remaining in London..........
Thankfully, that was the only hiccup during our foray to Finland. And, in fact, Mike dealt with it surprisingly well. After arriving and transferring to our hotel we decided to relax with a pint in the hotel bar. We then discovered that our hotel also had a night club and, lured by the prospect of free entry, we were given some insight in the Finnish culture.......which was something else all together........ The night club was beyond tragic with the floors, walls and seating completely cover in 1970s velvet wallpaper with a floral motif, and even a fish bowl window looking onto the dance room which was painted blood red. The place was so retro that it managed to by-pass cool by such a distance that it made you think they were actually trying to make the place look like a brothel...... What's worse is that there was hardly anyone there. We were just about to leave when we were presented with some entertainment options as some really drunk people started to hit the dancefloor. We ended up sticking around to watch the circus which ensued, but decided that it was time to pull the pin when we bought some shooters of local alcohol - They looked like mud, had the consistency of porridge and tasted like dencorub. Given that the time difference had stripped us of 2 hours and it was by then 4am, it is still debateable whether we had stayed for one drink too many?.......
As we always do, we rallied in the morning, taking an early bus out to the quaint town of Lahti. After checking in to the hotel, and each donating a piece of clothing to Mike, we rugged up and had a pleasant stroll through the town which was newly covered with pristine light snow. We eventually reached our destination which was the Lahti Salpausselan Kisat the scene of the 2006 ski-jumping competition. For those who don't know, ski jumping is a sport where competitors launch themselves [at speeds just under 90km/h] off a massive jump and try to "fly" as far as possible - In this instance the winning distance was 129m. As we arrived during the (ironically named) "warm-ups", with the temperature still hovering around the minus 5 degree mark, we took the opportunity of doing some warming up of our own by staking a toasty piece of real estate in the beer tent. It was a fair while before our be ercoats had generated enough layers to allow us to venture outside, but we made sporadic trips to watch various jumper compete in this crazy sport.
Unfortunately in the evening the temperature dropped significantly and when my feet were still cold after having put on my "emergency" socks - the 3rd pair I was then wearing - we decided that, despite our genetic compulsion to watch sports, this was well beyond sane according to Australian standards so we decided to retreat to the warmth of our hotel. In fact, our hotel was actually equipped with a sauna which we decided to take advantage of. However, having been deserted by my travelling companions, I was soon joined by a Finnish sauna veteran who was obviously trying to thaw 30 winters out of his bones and turned the heat up to an unbearable level. When he was joined by his 3 naked friends and celebrated each of their arrival by turning the heat up 5 degrees each time, I took my cue to leave.........
Finally warm and fed, we decided to check out the hotel's night club which this time turned out to be more aligned to our usual tastes and, in fact, quite busy. We were also really enjoying ordering beers, with the local drop being called Koff and there being 4 of us, somehow sidling up to the bar and telling the barman "Four Koff" just seemed to get funnier....... In the night club we stuck it out through the choking fog of cigarette smoke, and the 30 minutes set of strobe lighting, but at 3.30am when "Love is in the Air" started blaring through the speakers we were again looking down the barrel of a new debate - This time whether we had stayed for one song too many?............
The next day, after a bit of a lay in, we again headed to the ski jump arena to watch some more competition. The temperature was not as bad as the minus 10 they were predicting, but we again still spent our fair share of time in the beer tent. With the Austrians taking the team title we decided that this was close enough to an Austr[al]ian victory, so we hopped on the bus for the 100km journey back to Helsinki airport. We checked-in just in time for BA to tell Mike that his bag had just arrived and ask whether he would like to check it for the flight home............ The weekend really was both unique and random, but it was altogether interesting and made even better that once again I was able to enjoy the crazy experience with my closest mates JC, Rolly and Mike in the loony way we always do. And, as an added bonus, when I got out of bed on Monday morning facing the prospect of going to work in 3 degree temperatures, suddenly I thought "Hey, this isn't so cold" - Something I never would've expected to be saying in London.......
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