ok first of all i have to add that the new 'content warning' is not becuase any thing out of the blue has happended just that i thought it would be jokes, there is some use for it, and it makes teh blog look cooler.
ok now thats out of the way on to our well welfared friends. finland really suprised me, i thought if anything its the least famous of our scandinavian buddies (except maybe denmark, but who cares about them anyway) and their also a bit different due to there unique language, theyve also been part of either the swedish or the russian empire for like the last 500 years. The thing about Helsinki that i liked the most was that it felt like helsinki, it felt like scandinavia but with a bit of edge u know, something that would set it apart from the rest, and i think it was really cool that we got to stay with nasta and juuli, and met up with siini sanna and anna cos they together managed to show us the cool side and meet some cool finnish people. the fact that i had my birthday there also helped...
stockholm, and i guess the whole of sweden, despite what the swede's from outside stockholm said, is a land of ridiculous. ridiculously beautiful women, ridiculous prices, the town itself is ridiculously nice, and thats the best way to describe it, in terms of the city of stockholm itself nothing stood out to me particularly - well, infact thats a lie because the natural beauty of this city, and it may sound weird talking about the natural beauty of a city, but really is amazing, so green, set on an archepelego i think, or a river estury but in the centre of town, or near enough THE WATER IS SWIMABLE. anyways, the people we met in stockholm were really cool also.
it was a shame we couldnt meet up with the swedish girls living in norway that we met in beijing cos in the words of pierre 'it would have been a right laugh', but our (especially my) wallets wernt big enough and we were getting a bit scared of the costs so thats why we ran back to eastern europe via some ridiculous ferry.
STANDINGS:
the same, we didnt get a sniff...
Showing posts with label scandinavia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scandinavia. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Party ferry 2
ok take 2, we get on the ferry and get to our cabin which this timw is shared, there\s a respectable old man in there watching tv so we dump our stuff and take our 2.75% Koppenburg cider to teh viewing deck to have our last toast to sweden, eventually we get going, i take some snaps and it gets cols so we go inside. after having my dinner of cream cheese and lettuce sanwiches, i change some euros to get some EEK or estonian kroons (which have a 25 note!) so i could by a crate of beer and a jumbo bucket of peanuts so we can have a jam. whilst we're chillaxing having a beer, playing cards we realise there are a lot of young people on the boat, i dont mean cool young i mean too young. after w while 3 girls stop and say 'heeeeey' and i'm like 'alright?' as monotone as poss. after talking to them for about 20 seconds i realise that they are members of the school group that slowed down the bus to the boat (remember them readers..?). well anyway we got rid of them and then carried on playing. after a while we went and tried to chat up the photo girls asked to look at our terrible pictures and then got to talking about where we're going what we're doing etc, after a while they looked bored and when one of them started mocking our tase in music we decided it was time to go back to the beer and peanuts. on returning from the toilet one time i relised that the 3 school girls that had started talking to us earlier had started to terrorise pierre. they started asking us where we were going to party tonight, not the old persons (30 year olds) night club but the sportrs bar where they play house, ok - how old are you, 19, no, 17, no, 16, she is 15, woah ok stay away. the brown one of the group (fake tan, not african) was saying how much the blonde one liked me and she obviously had the hots for pierre, i mean she was all over him. after we got rid of them again pierre told me she bit him, and not even in a sensual way just a pure bite to the neck. some lebonese guy came and sat with us but didnt talk, just used his laptop and then again on returning from teh toilet there was some huge swede who when i sat down said 'ok, well i know he is gay' erm no. after finishing our nuts and getting 5/6ths through the crate we hit the club which was painfully full of 15/16 year olds. the music was good but you felt like you were in a school disco so we had to leave. on the way out the same big swedish guy started wrestling me! i'm not entirely sure why or how it started but at one point i got bored so i let him go and he kept going, then on the way back to teh cabin the lebanese guy asked me if i could take one of his bags off the boat for him... erm no thanks. we giot back to our cabin which stank due to some smelly estonian man, who in the morning decided to strip for the shower outside giving us nowhere to look and also revealing that he was going commando,
what a party...!
what a party...!
Pierre's 'Promised Land'
after getting the bus into town and drinking the remainder of our juice we checked teh internet and saw that we still had no couch surfing replies, which, in combination with 22 euro per night hostels, means we had no bed for the night. we proceeded into town and were stunned, nay shocked by the amount of beanies there were in the street. maybe it was the fact that the sun was out but my gosh it was amzing, one of the things we were exited about was going to teh flagship H&M which we wern't sure where it was. we went to all 4 in central stockholm so if it started in the capital then we deffinately went to the first one, i got some shorts as a momento. in the afternoon we went into teh old part of town and checked our messages again. we had a reply from a girl named sara who was full but she had told us about some stuff we were doing and we could meet up with her and the person she was hosting, some american guy called derek. we spent the afternoon over a 5 euro beer (if ur under 21 you cant buy alchohol over 3.5% in a shop. and ate some felafel (lunch and dinner). we had arranged to meet derek to see some crazy gypsy band and we were to meet him outtside some metro station on the south side of town. we tucked into our (very expensive) six pack and as soon as we cracked the first one open some security gurads told us that u cant drink on the stockholm metro so we had to throw it away, a whole can!! when we got out we started chatting to some drunken swede and he was telling us about some date he had with a 19 year old (he was about 28) in which the first thing he said to her after she asked him what he wanted to do (her friends were there as well) was 'i want to fuck you in that alleyway'... about half an hour later her friends asked him politely to go home. we told him we were going to slussen and he told us it was one of the best rock venues in the world! when we got there we realised that we could get into teh bar but not the venue because it had an 20 age limit. derek could go and we let him cos we didnt want to ruin his night but we arranged to see him later. meanwhile we went on a little adventure with the drunk swede who apparently knew lots of cheap bars with easy girls where they would let us in. strangely enough half an hour later aftre trying 4 places we let him go in and have fun, then went a cotched in a square and munched on some felafel (3rd of the day). we then got on the tube to meet derek and sara at in the main square. when we met them sara, out of teh goodness of her amazingly loving couchsurfer heart let us stay at her place even though she was hosting derek and picking up another 2 couchsurfers, she had her dads place free as well so she stayed there and derek stayed there as well, while me, pierre and mabel and jonathan (a couple from singapore) stayed in saras flat. derek was leaving the next morning so sara wuld let us stay for 3 nights, result!
the next day we went into town to get our bags and walk around the town centre to watch the beanies some more, we also decided that we wernt gonna see the rest of scandinavia anymore as it was too expensive even just to travel around in it, (the day before i had spent 50 euros (including the shorts) and that was with a free nights accomodation, grand master thrift left me for that day. we then went and got our ferry tickets to estonia which wernt too expensive as the website suggested and then we went back to sara's to chillout. that night i cooked dinner for everyone except the singaporians and my mum called me and still managed to be an over the shoulder cook even though she was about 1000 miles away. sara's friend jimmy came round who is a an english teacher here and has it pretty easy going as he lives with a swedish family so gets free food and accomodation, as well as not having to learn the language cos all his friends speak english (as well as everyone else) and on top of that he gets a fairly decent wage. jimmy and sara took us to a anarchist collective party, that sara had told us about the day before which is one of the reasons we really wanted to meet up with her. the house was made out of shipping containers and found wood but had working elctricity et al. and was in some forrest in the suburbs of stockholm becasue they had been trying to find a squat in teh centre but swedish squatting laws are really strict. there were a good number of people there but they preferred to sit around the massive bombfire and chat rather than rave inside to teh pumping elctro, in true squat rave style they were selling cheaper-than-a-bar-standard beer and vegetarin pasta salad. we met a few of sara's other friends who were really cool. the music was decent but it never really felt packed enough and so in order to get the last metro we left at about 3-ish.
on our last full day in stockholm we went to the park and had a picnic and had a bit of a kick around, which was so good as i havnt had more than one touch of a football in about 3 months. then me an pierre stayed around and had a little snooze. we got back to sara's and had some pesto (another thing i hadnt had in ages) and watched 'control' the biopic of Ian Curtis, the Joy Division lead singer and then jimmy and Mika, one of sara's friends that we met teh night before put on some anarchist video so i went to bed.
the next day we said our goodbyes to sara and went a checked out the town hall, which is a really nice building, and if you go to the top of tower which cost about 2 euros then u can see the whole of stockholm. our ferry was at 6 so we had to be at the terminal by 5 so we aimed to get the bus from town at 4 along the way some school group got on and they slowed the whole journey down we booked our tickets through silija line so we though our ferry was going from there terminal so first after me not being able to get off and going an extra stop i run to catch up with pierre who is finding out that we've gone to the wrong terminal we then SAS it too the car entrance and there like no go around this was blah blah, anotehr 15 minuts and we finally make it to the passenger terminal for TALLINK and get the on the ferry via the buff photography women who take a photo of you all sweaty and bothered just before you board the boat.
'promised land' my taint, it was cool but my 'calling' was better.
the next day we went into town to get our bags and walk around the town centre to watch the beanies some more, we also decided that we wernt gonna see the rest of scandinavia anymore as it was too expensive even just to travel around in it, (the day before i had spent 50 euros (including the shorts) and that was with a free nights accomodation, grand master thrift left me for that day. we then went and got our ferry tickets to estonia which wernt too expensive as the website suggested and then we went back to sara's to chillout. that night i cooked dinner for everyone except the singaporians and my mum called me and still managed to be an over the shoulder cook even though she was about 1000 miles away. sara's friend jimmy came round who is a an english teacher here and has it pretty easy going as he lives with a swedish family so gets free food and accomodation, as well as not having to learn the language cos all his friends speak english (as well as everyone else) and on top of that he gets a fairly decent wage. jimmy and sara took us to a anarchist collective party, that sara had told us about the day before which is one of the reasons we really wanted to meet up with her. the house was made out of shipping containers and found wood but had working elctricity et al. and was in some forrest in the suburbs of stockholm becasue they had been trying to find a squat in teh centre but swedish squatting laws are really strict. there were a good number of people there but they preferred to sit around the massive bombfire and chat rather than rave inside to teh pumping elctro, in true squat rave style they were selling cheaper-than-a-bar-standard beer and vegetarin pasta salad. we met a few of sara's other friends who were really cool. the music was decent but it never really felt packed enough and so in order to get the last metro we left at about 3-ish.
on our last full day in stockholm we went to the park and had a picnic and had a bit of a kick around, which was so good as i havnt had more than one touch of a football in about 3 months. then me an pierre stayed around and had a little snooze. we got back to sara's and had some pesto (another thing i hadnt had in ages) and watched 'control' the biopic of Ian Curtis, the Joy Division lead singer and then jimmy and Mika, one of sara's friends that we met teh night before put on some anarchist video so i went to bed.
the next day we said our goodbyes to sara and went a checked out the town hall, which is a really nice building, and if you go to the top of tower which cost about 2 euros then u can see the whole of stockholm. our ferry was at 6 so we had to be at the terminal by 5 so we aimed to get the bus from town at 4 along the way some school group got on and they slowed the whole journey down we booked our tickets through silija line so we though our ferry was going from there terminal so first after me not being able to get off and going an extra stop i run to catch up with pierre who is finding out that we've gone to the wrong terminal we then SAS it too the car entrance and there like no go around this was blah blah, anotehr 15 minuts and we finally make it to the passenger terminal for TALLINK and get the on the ferry via the buff photography women who take a photo of you all sweaty and bothered just before you board the boat.
'promised land' my taint, it was cool but my 'calling' was better.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Party ferry
we got on the boat that we had been told was a party ferry with 3 of our 3 and a half litres of vodka still in posession. we got some crackers and cheese and made some dinner. afterwards we had a look around and saw that there was, as we were rightly told a nightclub on board. we wnt back to our cabin and listened to some house music and drink some vodka and then we took it up to the viewing deck. after a while we got chatting with some finns who later invited me to there cabin, i left pierre on deck with some crazy finnish girl who kept asking him WHY DID U GO TO FINLAND, I AM A MODEL AND I DONT EVEN LIKE IT she wasnt even attractive which made her comments more ridiculous. the finns gave me some spirit which tasted like licorice listorine and a few beers, we then had a long chat about the finnish civil war and then returned to deck. when we got up ther epierre was alone and he was liek mate i am too drunk i am going to sleep- by this point we had had a litre of vodka between us and it was only 11, what makes it worse is that because of how far north we were the sun hadnt evn set yet. i was feeling a bit tired too so i exused myself from the finns and set my alarm for 1 to catch the party. when i wake up next its 5am and ive slept through the alarm, i have terrible dry mouthbut go back to sleep. next time i wake up its the cleaner saying we've been in stockholm for an hour and a half, its time to leave.
what a party.
what a party.
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...
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...
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