From Mariehamn we took another ferry, a big one this time, for the six-hour journey back to Turku. We booked passage on the Viking Line again, and the ship was identical to the one we had taken several days earlier. The weather was sultry and glorious, and standing on deck watching the myriad islands pass by felt like a dream. Some of them were so close you felt you could reach out and touch them. Once in Turku, we headed straight for the train station. We had hoped to accept Torben and Piia's invitation to spend a night with them in Hameenlinna and ride down from there to Helsinki.
But it was too late; there were no more rail connections for the day. It was Fred's turn to find us lodgings, and he was rightfully proud of himself for stumbling upon a truly excellent room. Our hotel had commissioned artists to design individual \"fantasy\" rooms, and we scored big time with the \"North Star\" room, in which all the bizarre furniture was handmade, including lamps made from kitchen implements and a telephone encrusted with jewel-like bumps. It was easily the most original hotel room either of us had ever stayed in (and this includes the \"Gypsy Rock\" room at the Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo), and we were thrilled to have found it in such an unlikely place.
Turku was amazingly happening for a Thursday night. I suppose the hot weather forced everyone out of doors, because the sidewalks were packed with boisterous Finns. We stopped to rehydrate in a sidewalk café on the central square, where we were quickly joined at our table by an inebriated and slightly creepy dude called Johannis. He insisted on buying us a round (of cider) and tried to teach us some Finnish words, which was hopeless. When I learned that the Finnish word for \"eighty-eight\" is \"kahdeksankymmentakahdesksan,\" I abandoned any further desire to progress beyond the relatively simple \"kiitos\" (meaning thank you).
Our conversation was interrupted at one point when a girl at a neighboring table stood up, swayed a bit, and vomited profusely as she made her way onto the sidewalk. We soon learned that this is completely acceptable behavior in Finland. Everyone else seated on the terrace took this display in stride; after only a couple of minutes a café employee came out with a bucket no doubt reserved for vomit-cleaning purposes and calmly washed the mess into the gutter. Fearing that Johannis would soon be following suit, we bid our host adieu. From here we moved on to a gay bar called \"Jack's and Mike's,\"
whose butch female staff made it feel more like \"Jills and Dykes.\" We found a tiny table in a cramped corner, where we were soon joined by a trio of friendly Finns. Mari is a fantastically gorgeous blond creature, a straight girl who had fallen in love with a Turk on a recent trip to Bodrum; Franz is a forty-something architect who had designed a room at our hotel (but not ours); and Syrpa is a beautiful young lesbian in men's pants and into kink. All three of them were way hip without being self-concious about it, convincing Fred that we had fallen in with the creme de la creme of gay Turku.
The five of us gabbed for hours, finishing the evening (no pun intended) at a heinous faux-Mexican joint full of drunk and horny heteros. Sure enough, our friend Johannis was there, but he was way too far gone to recognize us, let alone walk in a straight line. Realizing it was past two a.m., we excused ourselves and walked home through the sultry night air, amazed by the Finns' seemingly unlimited capacity for partying. Not surprisingly, it was hot again the next day. We had already decided to take a train part of the way to Helsinki, nearly two hundred kilometers away on a busy highway.
The train was like a rolling Finnish sauna, so hot and airless it was. We shared our compartment with a large group of young Frenchies who --judging by their appearance and odor---had just spent an extended period of time camping in the wilderness. Boarding the train, one fifteen-year old girl shot us an accusatory glance and said to her friend, \"It stinks in here.\" I resisted retorting that unlike them, we had showered that morning. In less than an hour we were in the town of Salo, the alleged center of Finland's answer to Silicon Valley. It was here that I saw my first Nordic street person, while I waited for Fred to emerge from the grocery store.
He looked and smelled like a homeless person anywhere, and the people passing him in the street acted shocked to see such a display of deviant behavior. It was a very hard day's pedal, with lots of hills, a deadly headwind, and temperatures hovering around 30 degrees Celsius. The stream of cars and trucks racing by us didn't help matters any, either. At least we found a shaded place by the side of a lake to have our picnic, where Fred tried his hardest to finish the kilo of yogurt he had purchased. After eating, I jumped into the brown water and thought I had found God.
The refreshing effect of the water didn't last long, however, and I began to worry about my dwindling and then non-existent water supply. As we pedaled past more lakes dotting the wilderness, the brown tannic water began to look more and more inviting, but this time as a beverage. I was on the verge of sticking my face into one and sucking sludge when a country store appeared out of nowhere, like a mirage in the desert. We were a disgusting sweaty mess, but the friendly proprietress gladly filled our water bottles, going so far as to stuff them with ice.
Had she been sent by God? Near a town called Inkoo --where we filled up our water bottles yet again--- we joined a high-speed highway that made the previous road look like a country lane. At least there was a shoulder, but the traffic combined with the wind, heat and road grit made the whole experience an unpleasant one. It was a long sixty-five more kilometers to Helsinki, made longer by a flat on my front tire. Crossing Helsinki's ring road, we penetrated into what I thought would mark the beginnings of Finland's only metropolis. But what greeted us were many more miles of forest, moose-crossing signs, and a continuous stream of Volvo station wagons zooming towards the country for the weekend.
When we finally reached what appeared to be suburbs, we began asking directions to Helsinki by bike (the divided highway being off-limits to cycles) and everyone looked at us as if we were asking how to get to China. Indeed, the capital was still very far away, and the route was poorly marked. By the time we finally reached what looked like a town, we were at the end of our tethers both physically and emotionally. Arriving at our hotel just past nine p.m. I felt like I could go straight to bed and stay there for the weekend. But Olivier would be there in just a few hours and would surely want to hit the town.
Our room was yet another Finnish sauna, as was the restaurant where we had dinner. Apparently Finland was experiencing a freak heat wave, with no air conditioning to be found anywhere. We chose a table directly below a fan, but found ourselves bathed in sweat from the mere effort of lifting a fork. Crossing a street on our way back, a middle-aged Finnish gentleman staggered over and berated us in English: \"You guys haven't had enough to drink.\" We looked around us and noticed that everyone else in the street was barely capable of walking, and that belches and farts and puking sounds resounded loudly, practically echoing in the streets.
Olivier showed up right on schedule, excited to be in such an alien place and anxious to investigate its nightlife. Before leaving the room, he unscrewed one of the windows in order to let more air in, but it didn't help much. The walk over to Helsinki's biggest queer disco (\"Don't tell Mama\", which was predictably stifling), was like a hallucination, with so many drunken young Finns swaying and barfing in the street. Had we stepped into another dimension? By day this charming Nordic town of Helsinki is offering a large palette of colorful funny architecture in different style from different invasions ; few cute islands are easily reached by boat, vodka on board from paradisinki , where naturists exi-bite facing the shuttling of the huge ferries.
All those nice blond faces are topped with antenas: tiny cute wool hat for the baby with a pointy top, and portable phone for everybody. It's a charming family atmosphere, an ice cream type of life. By night it becomes nuts; welcome to hell sink in. They already start in the morning by beer \"a la terrasse et a la pression,\" and through the night up to 4 o'clock a.m., the main central plaza become a huge drunk roach motel. Geography says 10% of Finland is covered by water but it's filled up of 90% of vodka, and out of that 90%, 2O% is recycled into a Baltic version of Niagara Falls of puke, the result of a decadent ballet of \"absolut\"
excess. With good humor, they combine to create an exceptionally smooth ,rounded flavor with a delicate aroma and a well-balanced finish. Experience it.