I woke up and asked the guy who had been in the bed next to me if the hostel did breakfast. Nope, just free coffee and tea. He nicely asked if I wanted some of his breakfast and I politely declined. I probably should have accepted because I got wicked hungry later. He's a good guy named Philipp from Switzerland. I think he's my height or taller. He served in the army and now is headed to technical school to work in automation. He went fishing with his friends in the northern part of Finland and said it was chill. Waking up at 9 and going fishing with not many mosquitoes. After that, he hiked 400 km in northern Norway and Sweden. He was leaving that day at 4 pm to go back to Switzerland, but he said let's go when I asked him if he'd like to go with me and Sylvain to the Finnish Fortress.
When Philipp and I were walking to the harbor, a light was taking a very long time to change from red don't walk man to green walk man. Philipp said "The green man is on holiday, too!" and I hella laughed.
We met up with Sylvain and went to Sveaborg (I think that's how it's spelled). It was an amazing little island. The Swedish had originally built this fortress when Finland was under their control in the 1700s I believe. They later lost it to the Russians who later lost it to the Finns. There are many ancient walls and small lookout windows. Big, long range cannons top some hills. Let's see if some pictures do it justice.
I don't think this cannon was loaded.
On the ridges, Philipp was asking me about all the different professional sports teams in LA since I had my Dodgers hat on. He said I was the first person he's seen wearing one that's actually from LA.
He had to go because he wanted to make sure to make his flight.
I was super hungry since I only ate a protein bar and tea for breakfast. I had to spring for the buffet on the island. The crab bisque soup was good. I had a sweet roll that looked better than it tasted. It had an odd spice on it that ruined it for me.
After that, Sylvain Boureau and I went to the museum about the island. There was some good history and a cool coat of arms.
We wandered around the island for quite a while and found the still functioning ship yard with big bulbous water gates.
After we got back to the Helsinki city center, we went to The Rock Church. It was opened in 1969 and is made of granite blocks and a circular ceiling. The ceiling has an overlay of a wrapped copper coil that is 13 miles long! It was a beautiful church despite all the noisy Asians. The receptionist was cute and smart with short hair and was getting all mad at them after telling me it's a Lutheran church.
We parted ways, and I got changed for the Helsinki Pub Crawl. This one was a proper pub crawl. I'm not going to talk about EVERY bar and detail because it was a long night.
Let's start with facts and people in order of increasing interest. There were like 4 Brazilian guys who lived up to their country's party attitude. They cornered these two pretty German girls. The German girls didn't go out of their way to meet anyone, just let it come to them, so I never actually met them. Ended up it didn't matter because I would have to fight off and one up the Brazilian guys. Four on one, I didn't really feel up to it. Plus, the redhead turned out to be pretty darn slutty. She was making out with the one Brazilian guy and grinding him by the fourth bar that had a decent live band playing. It was actually pretty nasty because no one in Scandinavia dances that explicitly. Her blonde (and probably prettier) friend seemed content with just being flattered verbally. She did talk to me for a bit about me being from the USA.
There was a super annoying Chilean guy named Pablo who showed up a bit late. He was fat and way too eager to tell you how he didn't care that he was out partying and drinking too much. Ok dude, this isn't college, you don't have to talk about partying while you party. He spoke English really well, though. He would sing with the Brazilian guys while walking to the next bar. He grabbed me and we sung Santaria by Sublime and that was kinda fun. He just kept drinking and sweating and I believe he did dance with the mobile redhead German at the nightclub called The Vatican. I joked to Sylvain that "I've been to Rome!" as I pointed to my The Vatican wrist band. Easily the funniest part of the night was seeing the bouncers kick drunk Pablo out of The Vatican. I was totally laughing and unsympathetic as the leaders of the crawl did nothing.
There was a Lithuanian guy named Edward who looked a little shady and spoke in a Russian accent. But he was a cool, smart, witty guy. I was only wearing a collared shirt (no undershirt) and was getting cold during the walks. He reminded me that it isn't LA and that Captain Hindsight would tell me I should have brought a coat. I heeeella laughed at his Russian accent saying "Kep-ten Hindsight", a South Park reference. It's so funny to hear a Lithuanian guy in Finland talk about one of my favorite shows.
Two guys who came together were Riley from Michigan and Tristan from Newcastle, UK. I like these guys. Tristan had a striped Polo on and is good looking and blonde. Riley is taller, a little more lanky with perhaps unwashed dark hair. They are young and Riley likes to talk about drinking Vodka, mainly because he is studying in St. Petersburg, Russia. Tristan doesn't have a strong accent, but he is a little hard to understand. Maybe he talks fast or dips the volume on words or maybe that's just the Newcastle accent. They were on the Pub Crawl for the third day straight. Tristan told a story about a girl jamming some snuss up his lip at the nightclub the night before. It's like a packet of chewing tobacco and he said it hit him fast because he's not a smoker. Riley said he was talking to a pretty girl for quite a while before he figured out she was a lesbian (more from Friday on why I'm not now surprised she talked to him for that long). They didn't stay too long because they were saving money and had been out 3 nights in a row.
There was a couple who were Helsinki locals. I can't remember their names and didn't talk to them too much, but I really liked them. The guy was blonde, short but strong from weightlifting. He is studying physical therapy and told me about a variety of Finnish stuff. He said parking is a problem because it's expensive and underground and inconvenient. I asked about Finnish power metal bands I knew and he assured me that Nightwish is huge and gets airplay next to other rock artists on the mainstream radio. His girlfriend was smaller than him and very pretty. Lots of makeup and flashy black clothes and heels. She was really cute and loved to dance and it was fun dancing with her at the Vatican because she was into the lyrics and I would sing and dance next to her.
The leader was a really small Finnish girl named Trish. She was spunky and liked yelling directions. She was cute with blonde hair and big, square glasses. She was really short. She introduced me to the Finnish drink "Long Drink". It's a grapefruit flavored drink with gin in it. It's almost like a less carbonated Squirt soda, but pleasantly less sweet. They serve it with ice, so it's like a drinkable Smirnoff Ice. It is excellent and I really miss it. Trish was telling me that I need to be more aggressive if I wanted to have a one night stand. I told her it wasn't my thing, but she kept saying that she wanted me to do it and to have fun. I was surprised how easy she made it seem. But she was really nice about it and came at it from a caring perspective. I told her not to worry because I was having fun. The last bar we went to was not part of the pub crawl because one of the guys on the crawl, Samu (talked about soon) suggested we move. I paid for Trish's coat check fee (basically entrance fee) and it was only like 2 euro, but she said she would buy me a drink. I said, "You KNOW what drink I want!" referring to the long drink, and she said, oh yeah. I found her after a few minutes at the bar next to Samuel (Samu's friend, talked about soon) and she said, "Here you go, a white Russian!" I laughed and said that this is delicious but I wanted a long drink. She said she was ordering it and just got me one. Hey, Steve abides.
The other leader was Tim. He's from Australia and kind of annoyed me. He would speak Finnish to the bartenders and they wouldn't understand him or answer in English, and he would complain about it. I'm like, uh, dude, your Australian, it's hard to even understand your English and you've only been here for four months. I'm pretty sure your Finnish isn't great. He wanted to keep traveling outside of Australia, so he applied to work in hostels in Scandinavia. He finally got hired by one in Helsinki. He was the owner of the company and kept talking about how great of a job Trish was doing. It was fine, but if you want to sound professional, don't draw attention to business details. At the entrance to one bar, he made a big announcement and said "Let's hear it for Trish who's doing an awesome job!" and so we were obliged to clap. He was like, "I don't even have to be here, she's doing so well, I'm just hanging out, having fun!" I dunno, felt forced. He was loud and talkative and expected us to laud him with praise and agreement when he praised the Guns and Roses live show he saw. I don't give a crap about those butt rockers, so I just said, oh yeah, ok. When the mobile German redhead was grinding and kissing the one Brazilian guy, Tim said to me and someone else something like, "It looks like she paired up. Too bad I can't do anything." I was obliged to ask, "Because it's your company?" And he said yeah, and some other excuse and then said, "What's he gonna offer her? A bid (bed) in a hostel dormitory! I've got my own apartment!" Hahah, he just seemed like bummed out and super jealous that he didn't have a that girl all over him. When he left, he made it a big point to say goodbye to everyone individually and then a big double hand waving goodbye to the group like, "Your beloved owner is leaving!" I dunno, he was a friendly, talkative guy, but kinda rubbed me the wrong way.
Samu and Samuel were my favorite guys on the pub crawl. They come from the same town I think (not Helsinki), but now Samu lives in Helsinki and Samuel was visiting him before moving to Switzerland for phd in math. Samu is a very interesting guy. He is the owner of 3 businesses and he's my age (29). He spends the most time connecting Finnish companies to sell to interested international companies. They put together the sales model, and he does all the legwork of arranging meetings and setting up connections. He has a lot of people who speak other languages working for him. He is part owner of two other companies (one is construction), but his friends do most of the work for those. It was really interesting to meet a young Finnish entrepreneur because you usually associate Scandinavian countries with big, state owned companies.
We got to talking fairly extensively about Finland's politics and it was super interesting to hear inside information from an intelligent local. I'll talk about a few of the main points from this possibly hour-long conversation. Finland is the least corrupt country in the world, but that means bribes are not tolerated. However, the "Good Brother Network" works just like our military industrial complex. He says doctors are some of the most powerful people because their union is tightly controlled and powerful. Only Finnish speakers can become doctors, so there are very few foreign doctors. They attempt to see as many patients as possible to seem efficient. This leads to a high level of addiction to anti depressants because the doctors are quick to throw pills at the problems.
The state pays for food and housing for citizens if they don't have a job, so Samu said many Gypsy citizens just live off the state and never work ever in their lives. The state sets up job interviews, but they just have to bomb them and can stay free loading. Samu talked about having them do 10 to 15 hours a week of community service type work just so they are doing SOMETHING to be productive members of society, but the social government won't change. The rich can pay upwards of 60% of their income in tax, so they always find a workaround. Sometimes it's better for people NOT to get raises in order to not get bumped to a higher taxes bracket. He said their problems aren't huge, but they exist and rarely change due to the status quo and the Good Brother Network.
Samu introduced me to Fishot, a traditional Finnish shot. It's made by crushing menthol candies that fisherman like and letting vodka soak in for days in the freezer. The result is a cold, cool, menthol or throat lozenge tasting shot. I LOVED it. It leaves your mouth fresh and I like the taste. He also told me about Minttu. It's a very strong mint shot. I loved it, too. This is the bottle that I bought for the party the next day (talked about in the next post).
I love the Yeti on the inside of the back sticker of the bottle.
Samuel is Samu's (and now my) friend. He was taller and has perhaps straighter teeth, but both look very Finnish. They always speak in English in my presence so I can understand them. He's a little less talkative, and maybe not quite as forward with his opinions and viewpoints, but a really nice guy. I'll talk a bit more about them in the next post.
The last person I'll mention in Stephanie. She is a German girl brought to the pub crawl by a German guy named Fritz who I think joined late. I saw her about half way through the crawl, but she was talking with Fritz and maybe a Brazilian guy (Btw, I think one Brazilian guy picked up a not very good looking local and left with her fairly early on) for most of the bars. Finally at The Vatican, (pictured below, complete with stripper poles that were primarily used by young guys, haha)
we ended up being introduced by Samu. She is pretty and blonde and wears glasses and dressed nicely but definitely not in slutty club attire. She had a nice white sweater on and a scarf that had red in it. We ended up dancing next to each other right under a fan that was mounted on the wall at the back of the dance floor. I don't exactly remember everything, but we did get to talking and I ended up casually vying for her attention between comments to her from one of the Brazilian guys. She didn't seem very interested in his comments and remarks and seemed to break eye contact during his lines. I took it as a sign she wasn't interested in him and made my own comments to her that made her smile. We bonded over the fact that we were dancing right by the fan. It was great to be cool on the dance floor! She was saying that it was hot and I tugged on her scarf and sweater and said "because you've got all this on!" I was kinda waving or shaking my hands horizontally at a build up point in a song, and she said "What are you doing?" I said, "I'm waiting for the drop!" and hella boogied down when it hit. She laughed and didn't question my dancing further. I was a little bit interested by this girl.
At the next bar we moved to at Samu's encouraging, she found me standing a bit on my own. She came up to me and kinda put her arms at her side in a small defeated gesture and said "There's no fan in here!" So I laughed and we started talking. I probably gave her a drink of my white Russian. I found out she's a student doing an exchange in Finland. She had to choose her classes in person I think later that day, and it was probably 3 am at that point! She's doing business finance and said it's very popular in Germany. I told her about my schooling and work and schooling. I like her. She's cute and mellow and easy to talk to. She doesn't blab and blab and blab and it makes her seem a bit more mature than her age and the slutty other German girl. She was complaining about shoe prices I think and I told her I'd bring her some Converse when I visit her. She wanted the red ones. She would hold her glasses because she didn't like wearing them. She used to have contacts, but for some reason wasn't wearing them anymore. We traded glasses for a bit and hers were stronger than mine.
I was really enjoying talking to her, but Samu came up and talked for a bit before asking if she wanted to dance. I probably should have done that. I met them out there after a few minutes, but then she went to the restroom and didn't come back until late in the next song which happened to be the last. Bon Jovi's "Always" is the standard Finnish closing time song apparently. Samu said it was their most famous. I disagreed. Maybe in Finland it is! Anyway, neither of us slow danced with her, but it's possible I could have. We were well met. When we said goodbye, she was next to Fritz outside and we shook hands. Then she said, "Oh, did you want a hug?" probably reading my body language. So of course, that was nice. She was obliged to hug Samu and Edward after me, but I like to think I started it. Even though she's probably 8 years my junior and studying in Finland, I definitely regret not trying to connect with her on Facebook. Oh well, good times!
I got two hot dogs, walked home in the dreesell, and hit the hostel by about 430 am. As soon as I got to my "room", I heard very loud snoring. Of course, it was a big fat old guy in the bed right next to me. Hahaha, just what I needed at 5 am. I did easily sleep with my earplugs, however, so all was well.
When Philipp and I were walking to the harbor, a light was taking a very long time to change from red don't walk man to green walk man. Philipp said "The green man is on holiday, too!" and I hella laughed.
We met up with Sylvain and went to Sveaborg (I think that's how it's spelled). It was an amazing little island. The Swedish had originally built this fortress when Finland was under their control in the 1700s I believe. They later lost it to the Russians who later lost it to the Finns. There are many ancient walls and small lookout windows. Big, long range cannons top some hills. Let's see if some pictures do it justice.
I don't think this cannon was loaded.
On the ridges, Philipp was asking me about all the different professional sports teams in LA since I had my Dodgers hat on. He said I was the first person he's seen wearing one that's actually from LA.
He had to go because he wanted to make sure to make his flight.
I was super hungry since I only ate a protein bar and tea for breakfast. I had to spring for the buffet on the island. The crab bisque soup was good. I had a sweet roll that looked better than it tasted. It had an odd spice on it that ruined it for me.
After that, Sylvain Boureau and I went to the museum about the island. There was some good history and a cool coat of arms.
We wandered around the island for quite a while and found the still functioning ship yard with big bulbous water gates.
After we got back to the Helsinki city center, we went to The Rock Church. It was opened in 1969 and is made of granite blocks and a circular ceiling. The ceiling has an overlay of a wrapped copper coil that is 13 miles long! It was a beautiful church despite all the noisy Asians. The receptionist was cute and smart with short hair and was getting all mad at them after telling me it's a Lutheran church.
We parted ways, and I got changed for the Helsinki Pub Crawl. This one was a proper pub crawl. I'm not going to talk about EVERY bar and detail because it was a long night.
Let's start with facts and people in order of increasing interest. There were like 4 Brazilian guys who lived up to their country's party attitude. They cornered these two pretty German girls. The German girls didn't go out of their way to meet anyone, just let it come to them, so I never actually met them. Ended up it didn't matter because I would have to fight off and one up the Brazilian guys. Four on one, I didn't really feel up to it. Plus, the redhead turned out to be pretty darn slutty. She was making out with the one Brazilian guy and grinding him by the fourth bar that had a decent live band playing. It was actually pretty nasty because no one in Scandinavia dances that explicitly. Her blonde (and probably prettier) friend seemed content with just being flattered verbally. She did talk to me for a bit about me being from the USA.
There was a super annoying Chilean guy named Pablo who showed up a bit late. He was fat and way too eager to tell you how he didn't care that he was out partying and drinking too much. Ok dude, this isn't college, you don't have to talk about partying while you party. He spoke English really well, though. He would sing with the Brazilian guys while walking to the next bar. He grabbed me and we sung Santaria by Sublime and that was kinda fun. He just kept drinking and sweating and I believe he did dance with the mobile redhead German at the nightclub called The Vatican. I joked to Sylvain that "I've been to Rome!" as I pointed to my The Vatican wrist band. Easily the funniest part of the night was seeing the bouncers kick drunk Pablo out of The Vatican. I was totally laughing and unsympathetic as the leaders of the crawl did nothing.
There was a Lithuanian guy named Edward who looked a little shady and spoke in a Russian accent. But he was a cool, smart, witty guy. I was only wearing a collared shirt (no undershirt) and was getting cold during the walks. He reminded me that it isn't LA and that Captain Hindsight would tell me I should have brought a coat. I heeeella laughed at his Russian accent saying "Kep-ten Hindsight", a South Park reference. It's so funny to hear a Lithuanian guy in Finland talk about one of my favorite shows.
Two guys who came together were Riley from Michigan and Tristan from Newcastle, UK. I like these guys. Tristan had a striped Polo on and is good looking and blonde. Riley is taller, a little more lanky with perhaps unwashed dark hair. They are young and Riley likes to talk about drinking Vodka, mainly because he is studying in St. Petersburg, Russia. Tristan doesn't have a strong accent, but he is a little hard to understand. Maybe he talks fast or dips the volume on words or maybe that's just the Newcastle accent. They were on the Pub Crawl for the third day straight. Tristan told a story about a girl jamming some snuss up his lip at the nightclub the night before. It's like a packet of chewing tobacco and he said it hit him fast because he's not a smoker. Riley said he was talking to a pretty girl for quite a while before he figured out she was a lesbian (more from Friday on why I'm not now surprised she talked to him for that long). They didn't stay too long because they were saving money and had been out 3 nights in a row.
There was a couple who were Helsinki locals. I can't remember their names and didn't talk to them too much, but I really liked them. The guy was blonde, short but strong from weightlifting. He is studying physical therapy and told me about a variety of Finnish stuff. He said parking is a problem because it's expensive and underground and inconvenient. I asked about Finnish power metal bands I knew and he assured me that Nightwish is huge and gets airplay next to other rock artists on the mainstream radio. His girlfriend was smaller than him and very pretty. Lots of makeup and flashy black clothes and heels. She was really cute and loved to dance and it was fun dancing with her at the Vatican because she was into the lyrics and I would sing and dance next to her.
The leader was a really small Finnish girl named Trish. She was spunky and liked yelling directions. She was cute with blonde hair and big, square glasses. She was really short. She introduced me to the Finnish drink "Long Drink". It's a grapefruit flavored drink with gin in it. It's almost like a less carbonated Squirt soda, but pleasantly less sweet. They serve it with ice, so it's like a drinkable Smirnoff Ice. It is excellent and I really miss it. Trish was telling me that I need to be more aggressive if I wanted to have a one night stand. I told her it wasn't my thing, but she kept saying that she wanted me to do it and to have fun. I was surprised how easy she made it seem. But she was really nice about it and came at it from a caring perspective. I told her not to worry because I was having fun. The last bar we went to was not part of the pub crawl because one of the guys on the crawl, Samu (talked about soon) suggested we move. I paid for Trish's coat check fee (basically entrance fee) and it was only like 2 euro, but she said she would buy me a drink. I said, "You KNOW what drink I want!" referring to the long drink, and she said, oh yeah. I found her after a few minutes at the bar next to Samuel (Samu's friend, talked about soon) and she said, "Here you go, a white Russian!" I laughed and said that this is delicious but I wanted a long drink. She said she was ordering it and just got me one. Hey, Steve abides.
The other leader was Tim. He's from Australia and kind of annoyed me. He would speak Finnish to the bartenders and they wouldn't understand him or answer in English, and he would complain about it. I'm like, uh, dude, your Australian, it's hard to even understand your English and you've only been here for four months. I'm pretty sure your Finnish isn't great. He wanted to keep traveling outside of Australia, so he applied to work in hostels in Scandinavia. He finally got hired by one in Helsinki. He was the owner of the company and kept talking about how great of a job Trish was doing. It was fine, but if you want to sound professional, don't draw attention to business details. At the entrance to one bar, he made a big announcement and said "Let's hear it for Trish who's doing an awesome job!" and so we were obliged to clap. He was like, "I don't even have to be here, she's doing so well, I'm just hanging out, having fun!" I dunno, felt forced. He was loud and talkative and expected us to laud him with praise and agreement when he praised the Guns and Roses live show he saw. I don't give a crap about those butt rockers, so I just said, oh yeah, ok. When the mobile German redhead was grinding and kissing the one Brazilian guy, Tim said to me and someone else something like, "It looks like she paired up. Too bad I can't do anything." I was obliged to ask, "Because it's your company?" And he said yeah, and some other excuse and then said, "What's he gonna offer her? A bid (bed) in a hostel dormitory! I've got my own apartment!" Hahah, he just seemed like bummed out and super jealous that he didn't have a that girl all over him. When he left, he made it a big point to say goodbye to everyone individually and then a big double hand waving goodbye to the group like, "Your beloved owner is leaving!" I dunno, he was a friendly, talkative guy, but kinda rubbed me the wrong way.
Samu and Samuel were my favorite guys on the pub crawl. They come from the same town I think (not Helsinki), but now Samu lives in Helsinki and Samuel was visiting him before moving to Switzerland for phd in math. Samu is a very interesting guy. He is the owner of 3 businesses and he's my age (29). He spends the most time connecting Finnish companies to sell to interested international companies. They put together the sales model, and he does all the legwork of arranging meetings and setting up connections. He has a lot of people who speak other languages working for him. He is part owner of two other companies (one is construction), but his friends do most of the work for those. It was really interesting to meet a young Finnish entrepreneur because you usually associate Scandinavian countries with big, state owned companies.
We got to talking fairly extensively about Finland's politics and it was super interesting to hear inside information from an intelligent local. I'll talk about a few of the main points from this possibly hour-long conversation. Finland is the least corrupt country in the world, but that means bribes are not tolerated. However, the "Good Brother Network" works just like our military industrial complex. He says doctors are some of the most powerful people because their union is tightly controlled and powerful. Only Finnish speakers can become doctors, so there are very few foreign doctors. They attempt to see as many patients as possible to seem efficient. This leads to a high level of addiction to anti depressants because the doctors are quick to throw pills at the problems.
The state pays for food and housing for citizens if they don't have a job, so Samu said many Gypsy citizens just live off the state and never work ever in their lives. The state sets up job interviews, but they just have to bomb them and can stay free loading. Samu talked about having them do 10 to 15 hours a week of community service type work just so they are doing SOMETHING to be productive members of society, but the social government won't change. The rich can pay upwards of 60% of their income in tax, so they always find a workaround. Sometimes it's better for people NOT to get raises in order to not get bumped to a higher taxes bracket. He said their problems aren't huge, but they exist and rarely change due to the status quo and the Good Brother Network.
Samu introduced me to Fishot, a traditional Finnish shot. It's made by crushing menthol candies that fisherman like and letting vodka soak in for days in the freezer. The result is a cold, cool, menthol or throat lozenge tasting shot. I LOVED it. It leaves your mouth fresh and I like the taste. He also told me about Minttu. It's a very strong mint shot. I loved it, too. This is the bottle that I bought for the party the next day (talked about in the next post).
I love the Yeti on the inside of the back sticker of the bottle.
Samuel is Samu's (and now my) friend. He was taller and has perhaps straighter teeth, but both look very Finnish. They always speak in English in my presence so I can understand them. He's a little less talkative, and maybe not quite as forward with his opinions and viewpoints, but a really nice guy. I'll talk a bit more about them in the next post.
The last person I'll mention in Stephanie. She is a German girl brought to the pub crawl by a German guy named Fritz who I think joined late. I saw her about half way through the crawl, but she was talking with Fritz and maybe a Brazilian guy (Btw, I think one Brazilian guy picked up a not very good looking local and left with her fairly early on) for most of the bars. Finally at The Vatican, (pictured below, complete with stripper poles that were primarily used by young guys, haha)
we ended up being introduced by Samu. She is pretty and blonde and wears glasses and dressed nicely but definitely not in slutty club attire. She had a nice white sweater on and a scarf that had red in it. We ended up dancing next to each other right under a fan that was mounted on the wall at the back of the dance floor. I don't exactly remember everything, but we did get to talking and I ended up casually vying for her attention between comments to her from one of the Brazilian guys. She didn't seem very interested in his comments and remarks and seemed to break eye contact during his lines. I took it as a sign she wasn't interested in him and made my own comments to her that made her smile. We bonded over the fact that we were dancing right by the fan. It was great to be cool on the dance floor! She was saying that it was hot and I tugged on her scarf and sweater and said "because you've got all this on!" I was kinda waving or shaking my hands horizontally at a build up point in a song, and she said "What are you doing?" I said, "I'm waiting for the drop!" and hella boogied down when it hit. She laughed and didn't question my dancing further. I was a little bit interested by this girl.
At the next bar we moved to at Samu's encouraging, she found me standing a bit on my own. She came up to me and kinda put her arms at her side in a small defeated gesture and said "There's no fan in here!" So I laughed and we started talking. I probably gave her a drink of my white Russian. I found out she's a student doing an exchange in Finland. She had to choose her classes in person I think later that day, and it was probably 3 am at that point! She's doing business finance and said it's very popular in Germany. I told her about my schooling and work and schooling. I like her. She's cute and mellow and easy to talk to. She doesn't blab and blab and blab and it makes her seem a bit more mature than her age and the slutty other German girl. She was complaining about shoe prices I think and I told her I'd bring her some Converse when I visit her. She wanted the red ones. She would hold her glasses because she didn't like wearing them. She used to have contacts, but for some reason wasn't wearing them anymore. We traded glasses for a bit and hers were stronger than mine.
I was really enjoying talking to her, but Samu came up and talked for a bit before asking if she wanted to dance. I probably should have done that. I met them out there after a few minutes, but then she went to the restroom and didn't come back until late in the next song which happened to be the last. Bon Jovi's "Always" is the standard Finnish closing time song apparently. Samu said it was their most famous. I disagreed. Maybe in Finland it is! Anyway, neither of us slow danced with her, but it's possible I could have. We were well met. When we said goodbye, she was next to Fritz outside and we shook hands. Then she said, "Oh, did you want a hug?" probably reading my body language. So of course, that was nice. She was obliged to hug Samu and Edward after me, but I like to think I started it. Even though she's probably 8 years my junior and studying in Finland, I definitely regret not trying to connect with her on Facebook. Oh well, good times!
I got two hot dogs, walked home in the dreesell, and hit the hostel by about 430 am. As soon as I got to my "room", I heard very loud snoring. Of course, it was a big fat old guy in the bed right next to me. Hahaha, just what I needed at 5 am. I did easily sleep with my earplugs, however, so all was well.
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