Helsinki/Helsingfors

We got to helsinki at four in the morning awoken by the call of 'centre!' by the woman i asked her in probably teh last russian i would speak of the trip if we had to get out but didt really listen to teh response, we got out to watch all the clubbers going home after their saturday night and then looked back at the van and realised that they had closed the curtains and everyone inside had just gone to sleep. i tapped on the window and asked again and she told me that we could infact stay until the morning. cool.

next mroning laden with all our things, including 3 1/2 litres of vodka and a crate of budvar, we proceeded to look around what was for both of us, our first experience of scandinavia. Again, like in Siberia we had no place to stay and was still waiting on the reply of the girl who we were supposedly going to stay with. we knew the internet in the library was free so we waited around in some empty shopping centre with and art gallery in it, and listened to music and read. when the library opened we found much to our pleasure that we did in fact have a place to stay, we went to meet anastasia (or nasta to her friends) at her work which was just across the square to the library and she told us she wanted to sort out some shit first and then we would meet her later at her place abour 4ish. we spent the rest of the afternoon in the afternoon in the central art gallery that had a really nice exibition fo the photos of a finnish photographer who had been photographing people from northern finland and norway and their life in the arctic. we got on teh bus out of town and met up with nasta and she took us back to her flat which was really nice bathroom kitchen to bedrooms and a biiig sofa that me and pierre were going to use as a double bed. it wasnt long before we tucked in our duty free (one crate of beer and a half litre of vodka)and headed into town. we were meant to go to a reggae night but nasta's flatmate, uli, wanted to go to a club called DTM which is a gay bar (stands for Dont Tell Momma). we told them we would meet up with them later becasue we had arranged to go to sinni, sana and anna's place (the finnish girls we met in st peter) to have some drinks at their place to celbrate me turning 19 on at midnight and then go to a bar. at their flat we did some more vodka shots, eventually finishing of the bottle (no pun intended!) but the girls had some sort of energy powder that they had got in the phillipines which u put on mouth take a shot shake ur head about and swallow, seariously if i was at all tired then i wasnt afterwards. we wnet to a club near their flat which was quite full for a sunday night, pierre started off buying me my birthday drinks in terrific style with a bottle of moet and i was like 'what the fuck?!!' but it was a joint plan to get me really drunk and impress sinni the finnish girl who he had been trying it on with for about 4 days. i put my name in for some kareoke, pointer sisters - automatic, i dunno why probably becuase it was the first song i recognised but as soon as pierre brought over teh second bottle my memory blacks out...

i woke up the next morning in an airport. i got up still very drunk and went over to some girls:
'hello, its my birthday'
'oh congratulations, do u want us to play you a song?' i look around and realise they are part of an orchestra but for some reason, probably because i have more important things to ask, i just rudely as if its a stupid notion reply, 'No!' then i continue,
'do u know how to get to the centre of town?'
'what helsinki?'
'good, so i'm still in finland'
'hah yeh u just go downsta blah blah blah

i go downstairs and walk out to the bus platform and instead of getting the finnair bus that costs 4.50 i just jump on teh bus that reads FREE BUS on the side, after a quick trip to the airport holiday inn i find myself back at the terminal at the finnair bus stop, but a city bus pulls up saying its going to town centre, i get on, say i'm 16 get a child fare and go back into town. whilst on the bus pierre calls me asking where the fuck am i, i tell him i woke up at the airport and i'll be in town in a minute. when i got into town i see pierre who is also slightly drunk eating a big mac for breakfast, he had stayed teh night with sinni, in her bed, BUT THEY DIDNT EVEN KISS. he says he has no heart left. that mroning we wondered about town for a bit i chatted to my rents about waking up in the airport etc.. pierre was getting really annoyed becuase i kept on singing 'its my birthday and i sleep where i want to, sleep where i want to, sleep where i want to...' eventually we got in contact with juli, nasta's flatmate to let us in to teh house to sleep. apparently while we there, pierre says cos he was awake and so was i apparently juli brought her girlfriend around and we both heard cos he nodded at me afterwards but i dont remember , but there were massive cries of LICK MY PUSSY!!! which i find so jokes, especially as i was to drunk the next day afternoon to remember.
that night we went to a club called redrum where they were selling pints for a euro until 1am. they were also playing quite mainstream/old skool hiphop which was cool as i hadnt heard any in about 3 months. nasta got a birthday drink which i thought was quite nice and we met a lot of there friends most notably a boy called pecka who is nasta's ex but theyre are still really good friends and he did 2 runs home to take on set of friends and then us back home. when we got back pierre hit the sack immedieately but me, nasta and pecka stayed up and drank some beers and played guitar for another hour or so which was cool.

are third day in finland was a lot more low key. we checked out the main sauna in town which was really cool apart from the amount of old finnish knob on display. we got our ferry tickets to sweden and pierre sent a box of unwanted shit home. that night we chilled out back of flat and watched last king of scotland which is a wicked film.

our last full day in finland we chilled out again, me and pierre got some sandwich ingredients from the supermarket and some beers and headed to one of the islands in the helsinki archipelego called semolina or something like that. we chilled out in the sun for the day watching the big baltic ferrys go past, and then went back to catch the champions league final. we gave the nasta the low down on the teams and made her support united as no1 likes a chelsea cunt and i tell you when van der sar saved anelka penalty she was actually celbrating like she meant it, anna was there as well and she was a lot mor keyed in about the footballer's such as 'love-rat ashley' - direct quote. after the football we went back to the flat where me and pierre got battered at Crash Team Racing by nasta and then we just went to sleep.

the next day juli gave us a lift to the ferry in her parents people carrier (which btw has an amazing sounsystem which we found out the night before) and we said our goodbyes.

the title of this post is in finnish/swedesh because for some reason helsinki is a bilingual city evn though i didnt hear a hint of swedish (not even in H&M where i got some wicked 8 euro jeans.) but where we were going there would be loads of swede's...