Helsinki: Quick, pretend I update this regularly

Previously on this blog...

-Cosby Show dreams
-How to develop diabetes in Finland without really trying

More of the latter today, and less of the former. I know that this is sad for all of us, but it's time to let go.

'Twas a truly torrid affair.

I've been in Helsinki for almost a week now, having been run out of Vaasa for being too odd to live (apparently eating half a box of raw Mämmi, a traditional Easter food made primarily of rye malt, molasses, and more molasses, makes you some sort of freak?) (or maybe my language course just ended and I was never actually run out at all, but it makes a better story?). In that time, I have done, to paraphrase the poet Robert Frost, craploads of things before I slept, including some paths less traveled by and some paths that probably lots of people travel by all the time.

Five hours of trains took me to Helsinki, where I immediately started griping about the humidity. Ah, it felt good to be back. Some standard-issue nature was photographed, some food was probably consumed, I saw Scandinavian Music Group in concert, and they were quite good.

HIS GREATNESS CANNOT BE CAPTURED ON FILM.
Or, at least, not by my crappy phone camera. Sad day.

Music times in Finland continued on Monday with Raphael Saadiq (HEARTS IN MY EYES), who is from Oakland and therefore basically grew up a city away from me and performs in the Bay Area all the time, and so maybe it's a bit ridiculous that I saw him for the first time in Finland. Maybe. Regardless, there he was. And I'm going to be shamelessly fangirlish here, but HE TOUCHED MY HAND FROM ONSTAGE GAHHHHH

gah.

It was enough to turn my then-boyfriend from an unenthused bystander to a very, very enthused bystander, so I consider it a success on multiple levels. (Also, Raphael did the final encore without a shirt on. For art. And music. And aesthetics. So many aesthetics.)

Deep in the Caribbean, SUCKAS

Enough. You, the reader, have little enough respect for me as it is. So! The next day, I got married. NO BIG DEAL, you say, PEOPLE GET MARRIED IN FINLAND ALL THE TIME. But we had a Monkey Island-based cake, and so we are the winners. AND WHY WAS I NOT INVITED, you ask, at which point I would urge you to quiet down, because it's late at night here in Helsinki. And also, you were, but you would have had to know where it was, as well as pay for your own plane ticket. Anyway, all the blue food coloring we used may or may not turn certain bodily waste green, so you're welcome (especially for that mental image). And we're all still twitching from the sheer amounts of sugar we consumed, so you're also welcome re: your health being that much more intact.

Post-cake, we spent three nights at the very fancy, Kalevala-themed Klaus K. hotel, where we had free breakfast every day and blew at least one fuse. SO WHAT, you say, ignoring my request that you quiet down, PEOPLE GO ON HONEYMOONS ALL THE TIME, AND YOU DIDN'T EVEN LEAVE THE COUNTRY IN WHICH YOU WERE MARRIED.

Ah, my apologies! Did I not mention that our breakfast took place one table over from Finnish actress Pihla Viitala, with whom I am more than slightly infatuated? I suppose I would have, had you not been yelling so much, but no matter. We will move on to pictures, if you will stop yelling.

The Sibelius monument from underneath looks like the inverse of the Death Star explosion or something.

The sad part is that my feet are actually more tan than usual.

My first thought when I stepped into our hotel room was about whether or not the bathrooms were any good. Jennifer, if you're reading this, I hope you realize what an impact you've had on me.

Suomenlinna: where a drunk guy told me I sounded like I was from Eastern Finland, and also that he loved all people everywhere.

Temppeliaukio: it's over behind the tourist buses.

Hesburger is for those of us who are too ashamed of our tourist status to go to McDonald's. (Alt: That time the Imperials ambushed me at Hesburger.)