Kauheessa...

License to Kill

2008-02-20T08:47:00.002+03:00

By the time I started writing this post, weeks ago now, the government issued a shoot to kill order against anyone causing any kind of trouble. People couldn't come to work, go downtown and we were one security phase short of evacuation. That's when I realized that this wasn't another Florida, these people would not quietly shuffle back home grumbling and wait for the next elections. The camel's back had been broken. Right around that time I started asking the locals their opinions on the matter, to form some kind of a general understanding why people were hacking each other to pieces with machetes. I talked to taxi drivers, students, local Kenyans, local muzungus, UN staff and so on. The following is my rough understanding of what went down and why. Obviously it is grossly simplified and generalized, partly to avoid writing a novel, partly because no one, myself included, knows all the details, and "truth" is a relative concept in Kenya.

By the time Kenya got its independence, it had been a colony for ages. The locals owned nothing and were all equally miserable. Then, once the country became independent, a huge amount of power and money was suddenly up for grabs. Unfortunately for everyone else, the Kikuyus and a few minor tribes got there first. They lived in the areas that had the most natural resources, the most international trade and so on, and claimed them theirs as the whiteys left the building. They got all the jobs, all the land that wasn't owned by white men with mustaches and safari hats, and the rest of the tribes were left to fight for the leftovers. As the notion of "African democracy" is largely an oxymoron, things weren't going to change very fast through politics, and they didn't either. After all, the world history isn't exactly packed with men (yes, just men) who were willing to give up any power once they got to taste it, and so Kikuyus (the the few other, much smaller tribes) remained largely as the "haves" and the rest were different varieties of "have-nots".

Fast forward 40 years. President Kibaki's administration hadn't delivered what it had promised, among which was a new constitution that was supposed to take power away from the president and give it to the people. People were already ticked off and longed for a change. They voted in record numbers, hoping the next guy would different, but knowing all the while that that was hardly going to happen. Well, no matter, there wasn't a next guy. Mr. Raila Odinga of the opposition, and of the Luo tribe, led the polls just before the elections, he lead by almost 500,000 votes when they were counting the votes, and then something inexplicable. Due to a "breakdown in communications" Kibaki went from down by 500,000 votes to winning the elections by a landslide, over a million votes. No wonder the people headed for the barricades. Now, I don't know about you, but I have never seen such blatant cheating, not even by the Finnish cross-country skiers or anyone at least remotely connected to cycling. It was the political equivalent of screaming "LOOK, IT'S DEMOCRACY, RIGHT BEHIND YOU!!" and whacking them over the head with a cricket bat when they turn to look. Moreover, one peculiar phenomenon that didn't exactly help the credibility was that Kibaki, who "won" the election got 44 seats in the parliament, while Odinga got 99. Wait a minute, so you're telling me that the majority of the people voted for Kibaki, but also voted for Odinga's party for the parliament? Hmmmm... Obviously every non-Kikuyu thought the elections were rigged, and the Kikuyus tried to stay quiet and hope no-one confronts them. No such luck. If there ever was an example of the shit hitting the fan, this was it. You probably caught at least some of the footage on the news so I don't have to recap the horrible things that the Kenyans did to their countrymen. Suffice it to say, to quote an African proverb, that "When two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers."

Three quick tips for future reference:
1) IF you have to cheat in the elections, try to do it in a subtle fashion, than stating: "yes, I was behind when only 1,5 million of the votes had not been counted, but they all turned out to be for me.." I'm not exactly a math whiz, but in an election where there are 1500 candidates to begin with (true story), it is more likely for a person to spontaneously combust WHILE getting eating by a shark WHILE winning the lottery, than to get 1,5 million votes in a row. For god's sake people, haven't you watched West Wing?

2) IF for some reason you decide to play it fair, do everything you possibly can to be as transparent as possible about it. Hire people to call villages to tell them preliminary results every five minutes, make sure the international media is all over the elections, re-count the votes a few times and so on. Cause people who have been oppressed for a couple of centuries will most certainly not just shrug, say "well that was unlikely.." and go back to their shacks, if someone pulls a comeback of the century out of their ass, pardon my French.

3) IF you claim that you actually have played it by the book, do not announce election results where the voting percentage in several parts of the country is over 100%. It doesn't look good on paper.

So first everyone blamed the Kikuyus, then things calmed down for a while, until the Kikuyus (and everyone else who had been harassed) decided it was payback time. By this time Kofi Annan was packing his suits to whip these jackasses into shape. There were peace messages everywhere, and I mean EVERYWHERE. Radio stations, tv-channels, newspapers, internet, fliers on the streets, banners inside the UN compound.. I even got a text message that urged me to be peaceful and love my fellow Kenyans. Now, this is all fine and dandy, but I honestly doubt that half of the poor Kenyans living in the slums and the tiny villages could understand the messages, all written in almost poetically elaborate English OR that they had access to most or any of the above media. Without a political, long-term solution this would be like trying to stop global warming by throwing ice cubes in the sea. Luckily Mr Annan is kind of a big deal in Africa, deservedly (his office smells of rich mahogany and he has many leather-bound books), and results seemed to be around the corner.

It still is, but we can already see a slice of it. There is hope, the violence has ceased for the most part, and there is talk of a new constitution, again. Perhaps Kenya can pull through after all.

However, as I understood from talking to the locals, the problem is far deeper than who is the president. There is a huge amount of young, poor, unemployed people, mostly men, whose patience has grown thin over the decades, and if the people in power don't soon start looking at the big picture, creating jobs, and dividing power and land, we're looking at a civil war. In case you didn't know, the members of the parliament in Kenya are among the best paid in the WORLD (e.g. more than in the U.S.), while the country's GDP isn't even in the top 100.

One person who I have to mention in this context is a young man by the name of Felix Oduor. I met him through some German interns who had worked with him in the colossal slum of Kibera. He was well-spoken, smart, politically very aware, and poorer than any of us. He had a surprisingly clear picture of the situation and he was willing to discuss and debate the problem and its possible solutions.
But at the end of the day he told me, without blinking an eye: "If a firing squad (that roamed the country then) came here right now and asked who supported Odinga, to kill them, I would stand up and look into their eyes as they would pull the trigger." How many of us would do that for any of the politicians in our respective countries? This just goes to show that the time for beating around the bushes, bending over backwards and accepting the harsh reality is coming to a close.

The license to "shoot to kill" hasn't been used in a couple of weeks now by the authorities, but mark my words, if something is not done about the situation in the very near future, the people of Kenya won't be asking for a license. Hell, they won't even need guns to take what they think is theirs. And that, my friends, is when whoever is in the ivory tower needs to go out and buy a bigger fan, because the other ingredient hitting it will be provided in abundance.

The Color of Money

2008-01-29T16:38:00.000+03:00

So there I was, sitting on my bed, chuckling for the umpteenth time at Eddie Izzard's witty remarks about Jeff, the god of biscuits, when my phone started vibrating.

- Hey man, you up for a few beers?
- Always
- Meet me at Gypsie's in 30 mins, k?
- Got it

I wasn't actually feeling like beer at the moment, but he was the guy who was supposed to hook me up with job in investment banking, so I wanted to know if he had some news. I took a cab to Westlands, the part of Nairobi "where it's all happening", and I don't mean the violence, but the nightlife. I hadn't been at Gypsie's before, but I had heard that it's one of the nice local places, where all kinds of people were able to enjoy each other's company in peace. That turned out to be both right and wrong, depending how you look at it.

It was still early, but the place was already filling up quickly and the DJ was setting up his huge PA on the terrace. I looked around for Vince, the guy I was supposed to meet, and soon found him hanging by the bar with a frosty Tusker, the official beer of my visit to Kenya. He was wearing cargo shorts, a print t-shirt and baseball cap with the acronym of his college in the US.

- 'Sup, bro?
- I'm good, I'm good, how 'bout yourself
- All good.. You wanna Tusker?
- Do I have a choice? (grin)
- Hell, no!! (laugh)

We sit down and he starts explaining the situation regarding me possibly working for his dad's company. I pay close attention for the few minutes, until I gather that I've heard all the important parts and the rest is just details that will change completely even IF I end up getting the job. It would include me basically being the human resources manager of a small investment bank, in other words, boss for all the local employees. I have no experience from an investment bank, or any other kind of bank for that matter, nor do I have any education on the subject under my belt. BUT, I'm theoretically a marine, which is a huge help when dealing with anything American, AND I can tell (borderline) offensive jokes in four languages (learned a few new ones from the bush babies in Zanzibar), which counts for several university degrees and years of experience in any field. So I'm not worried about the details, and instead concentrate on the people in the bar. It really is a colorful lot, locals, tourists, KC's (Kenyan Colonials: old money whiteys, who think they're royals), Europeans working in Nairobi etc. I smile at a German guy's severely short shorts, that reveal his blindingly white hamstrings, as he orders a beer with an accent that he has stolen from a B-class WWII-movie. I shake my head and simultaneously catch a glimpse of a girl whose looking my way. I look behind me to avoid the classic "I'm so money I don't even know it"-mistake, only to find a wall. She keeps looking at, I am convinced, me. Don't get me wrong, women have looked at me before, but this time there are several things that don't add up:
1) I haven't shaved my beard in a couple of days
2) I'm sporting an overgrown buzz-cut
3) I'm sporting my Top Gun t-shirt, compliments of the Amsterdam-connection
4) There is a South American-looking beef cake with his hand on her hip
5) She looks like the girl from..well..any of Nelly's music videos

Vince soon notices that my attention has been distracted and looks over his shoulder. Instantly he finds what I'm looking at and turns back around laughing, just in time to catch my best impression of Human Question Mark.

- You wanna hit that?
- .....WHAT?
- I said do you wanna go talk to her?

My brain quickly runs through all the information that it has on situations like this (no matches), and the through all the euphemisms and subtexts in the English language (plenty, but none fit).

- Ummmm...no, thanks
- Really, she's hot, though, don't you think?
- Well, sure (also, most water is somewhat wet and the sky is occasionally blue..)

I walk him through steps 1 to 5 and place some emphasis on additional, and perhaps the most important step number 6 - the reason I'm in this logic-forsaken, post-election mayhem in the first place - Tsuuls.

He shrugs, admits that it might be a bad idea and takes a big gulp from his Tusker.

- But seriously, IF you'd want to, any girl in here, man..ANY girl.

We engage in a lengthy conversation about inter-racial relationships in Kenya, and I feel like I should be taking notes, just to avoid getting unwanted girlfriends while asking for directions during my time in Nairobi.

- Hey, you mind if we go for a ride, I'd like to change clothes and I could show you something
- Sure man, you're the host

We hop into his SUV and head east. After about 20 minutes of driving I have no idea where we are, since none of the roads have visible signs and none of them are straight for more that 40 meters at a time. Suddenly Vince makes a hard left and a uniformed Kenyan jumps out of nowhere to open a gate in front of us. We pull up at the parking lot of a huge mansion-like building as the guard salutes us, as if we were somehow very important.

- We're here, at The Muthaiga Club

I find out that I'm suddenly a guest at the most prestigious and cash-money country club in East Africa, whose members include the "president" Mwai Kibaki, for example. We strut in the door of the "men's bar", a bar where women have never been allowed. I feel I should have a gray mustache and monocle, maybe even a pipe. This problem is soon fixed, as Vince exchanges a few friendly lines in Swahili with the bartender, who whips out the cigar box. We help ourselves to a pair of nice Cubans and proceed to pick a whiskey, or actually a whisky, since I pick the Scottish Jameson, fearing that I might have to pay for this fun. Politely I reach for my wallet, but Vince will not have any of that and casually signs a notebook and ushers me forward. The library has the "who's who" of Kenyan history on its walls and a collection of business publications on its tables. Vince walks me through a few important (white) dudes and cheerily tells the tale of the president bringing his mistress to this library through the back door while his wife had to wait outside the front door of the "men's bar". Growing fearful that I will O.D. of chauvinism I ask him to show me the rest of the place.

Vince kicks open doors and gives me the tour of the impressive facilities that the members have at their disposal: the dining halls, the terraces, the hotel rooms upstairs (seemingly exclusively designed for extramarital activities), the tennis courts, and shows me where the golf course begins. Not too shabby for the J-Man.. Not that I'll ever be a member, but still.. Moments later our cigars are butts in an ashtray, our glasses are empty on the bar, and we have hopped back into the SUV to continue my shock therapy.

Vince's house is huge. This didn't exactly come as a surprise, but the size of the house is nonetheless compelling. Vince's amiable huskey comes to greet us and I scratch it while Vince disables the security. We step in and he shows me the bar, while he goes to change into something a little more executive than shorts and sandals. I whip up a round of Grant's, again consciously avoiding the expensive stuff, and making sure that Vince's drink is mostly rocks, after all, he is the driver. We hang out at the gargantuan balcony for a while and I explain the concept of Sauna to him, as well as the importance of wearing everything one owns when it's -66 C with the wind-chill factor.

An hour later we're back at Gypsie's, talking to some KC girls that Vince finds attractive. To me they look like your average skinny British chippies, but he must have his reasons. Perhaps a fetish in bad teeth or general ignorance.. Still, the guy's been more than generous to me so I play the wing-man, a role that I have played more times than Hugh Grant has played a goofy romantic. Because of my vast experience in this kind of activity it only takes a slice of my attention and I can resume my people-watching. Highlights include an old fart who has deliberately forgotten to button the last 6 buttons of his linen shirt for that "wild lover"-look. He's hanging out with four prostitutes, of which one is pregnant and the other keep competing in who has the best "I hate my life"-expression. There is some commotion on the dance floor as its average height suddenly rises by a foot, when a young Dutch couple decide to show everyone else how it's done to the beat of Darude's Sandstorm. Again I shake my head in amused disbelief and again I catch a glimpse of the music video girl..

She's still there, still glued to the Latin dude, and still staring at me, but this time on the dance floor. Vince's girls suddenly feel like dancing to some techno-crap and naturally I have to follow. About two minutes later Vince and the girls start arguing about something in front of the DJ-booth. The music is blaring into my ear, so I can't hear what they saying, so I do the "awkward white man" 2-step and look like an idiot. (vast experience there, too) Then I see the music video girl approaching, the Latin guy in tow. She's coming right towards me and my head spins like that of a baby owl, hoping to fold pre-flop, thus avoiding a fight with the Latin dude. Behind me is a speaker, on my left Vince is putting on the vibe, so the only way to go is right. It turns out that even right is sometimes wrong, because I practically run into a drunken English-looking woman, who is having an epileptic seizure...or dancing..it's hard to tell. She screams in my ear that she's Lucy's mom. I have no idea who Lucy is, or why the hell her mom wants to dance/seize with me. However, terrified to turn around, I rely on the "awkward white man" 2-step, until Lucy's mom starts to compliment "my awesome moves". I feel nauseous. Quickly excusing myself I beeline for the bathroom to get away from it all. Vince soon enters the bathroom, together with an extremely tanned Caucasian with a funny accent.

- ..is what it's all about!!, the Caucasian emphasizes
- What is?, I ask
- Africa. It's where it's all happenin'. I've been an international journalist for 25 years and I can tell you: THIS...is where it's all happenin'.
- So you from S.A., right?, Vince asks
- Yup, Johannesburg. The only place that beats Kenya.

They compare a handful of African countries while taking a leak, and I decide to go for the 80's hang by the hand dryer.

- So J-Man, why did you run away from the hottie?, Vince inquires
- She was a bit too intense, the guy wanted to kick my ass, and I think she was a prostitute
- Well, sure, but you wouldn't have to pay, the South African interjects
- ...WHAT?
- Yeah. Young, sporty guys like you, you're a jackpot for them. It's kinda like a long-term investment for them. They may not get money right NOW, but if they're your "girlfriend", you'll end up buying them stuff. Besides, hanging out with a muzungu raises a local girl's status like nothing else..TRUST ME, I've been there.
Vince nods at me, smiling.
- True story, bro.
- What about the Latin guy then?, I ask, thoroughly puzzled
- Survival of the fittest. She thinks you're hotter, richer, or Latin guy is old news. Either way, she's yours, if you want, the South African breaks it down.
I proceed to explain my reason for being in Africa and the guys back down.
- All right, man. Good talk, though. See you guys later.

The South African guy exits and we soon follow him back to the bar. Vince goes back to his girls and I sit at the bar, in desperate need of a large Tusker. As I'm sipping away I feel someone graze my back and turn to see the behind of the music video girl going to the bathroom. Phew.

Finally Vince is done with the ladies and we can go home. The whole ride home I try to process everything I have heard and seen during this somewhat hectic night as Vince explains how things went with the Brits. As we pull up in front of our gate I thank him for everything and start wrestling with the lock.

Just as I'm coming to the front door and I think I can finally relax I see Kiki, the host family's adult daughter, and Russo, the old and angry German Shepherd with it's teeth exposed. Not cool. Kiki tells me to head for the door slowly, which I do with ninja-like smoothness. Too late. Russo jumps at me and I pivot to avoid receiving it in my lap. However, the few Tuskers have slowed my reflexes down to not-so-ninja-like and Russo bites down on my knuckles. I manage to shake myself free and walk to the door swearing like a pirate.
- Did he get you?
- Nono, sometimes I just bleed for the hell of it..

As I take my bloody pants off to go to bed I empty my pockets and what do I find in my back pocket...

It turns out that Paul Newman and Tom Cruise were wrong. Even though the green dollar may be the universal currency, even in Tanzania, in Africa the color of money is white. And it comes with blood..

Wild Life

2008-01-17T17:20:00.000+03:00

Right. Time to wrap up the Zanzibar trip:

To get away from the hustle and bustle of Stone Town, Jewelz had reserved a room for us at Santa Maria Coral Park, a small resort on the eastern coast of Zanzibar. Once the minibus had dropped everyone else off at their respective hotels, the Spice Tour driver took us across the island to Pengwa, where out resort was located. The poorly paved road turned into a gravel road, which soon turned into an even smaller and bumpier road. That, however, only took for two minutes and soon we had arrived at our destination.

There was not a soul to be seen. Nor did we hear anyone or anything, save the wind and the soothing sound of the tide coming back in. I stood still and a growing smile appeared on my face. Now THIS was what I was talking about. Shortly a dude appeared, wearing shorts, a sleeveless t-shirt and a huge smile. The reception was outdoors, as was everything else. They weren't that big on walls on Zanzibar either. Jewelz checked us in while I grabbed the key to our bungalow or "banda" and rushed to the bathroom, which would be my trademark on this paradise island..

All in all the place had only six bungalows, each housing two people, so the ambiance of the resort was peaceful, to say the least. The wind and tide, that turned out to be famously huge, drowned out all the other sounds, except at night, when it became background noise to the hooting of the birds and the manic laughter of bush babies.

On the second day we got to talking with a Swedish couple from Göteborg. We became friends for the few days and formed, together with the staff of the resort, the nucleus of the New Year's festivities. Well, to be honest, the other guests were nowhere to be found, but had they been there, we would have definitely been the nucleus.

Or, to be completely honest, the nuclei, because the party was at two physical locations. The bar next to the beach, and the bonfire on it. (the beach, not the bar) The beach party, however, was somewhat smaller, as it consisted only of Jewelz and the extremely eager and happy snorkeling instructor/handyman Suli, and some burning sticks. But what it lacked in size it made up in intensity..

Still, the best part of the stay was definitely the nature. The sea was obviously amazing, in good and bad. The water was warm and the snorkeling was a lot of fun. I saw a huge bright red starfish and dozens of smaller ones. As I don't possess an underwater camera, below is a picture of a smaller version that lived on the beach. The coolest maritime animal was, however, the blowfish. This bad boy was huge when Suli threw it into the boat, but suffered soon an acute case of asphyxiation (and possibly lupus), and shrunk to 1/5th of it original size. Hilarious. Naturally I put the poor bastard back into the ocean before its pulmonary system failed completely.

Notice the cool diving mask lines..

Moving on to the amphibian creatures, the crabs were plenty all over the place. There were sand crabs, like Crab Man in the previous post and the "hermit" crabs that inhabited empty shells. Lisa even became an unintentional murderer of one of these critters. She found a large beautiful seashell on the beach and took it to their banda. A couple of hours later they came back from lunch to find a dead crab that had managed to drag its body out of the shell, but sadly never made it back to the beach. So kids, whenever you pick up a seashell, make sure nobody's home!!

Don't worry, he's still alive.

As for others species that we encountered, there were obviously a lot of birds. They, however, were loud and rather boring, as they mostly stayed hidden and just concentrated on waking up people at steady intervals. But the award for the coolest animal is very close, almost a tie. The silver goes to Jeff the Lizard! This guy set up camp in our bathroom and casually hung out with us, even through showers. It's hard to tell from the pic, but he was about the size of my palm, but still managed to stay on the wall and the ceiling.

"Crap, they spotted me!"

And the winner isss.......

Komba!(swahili) Or Eddie the Bushbaby. This nocturnal fur ball came to visit us on New Year's Eve, right after dessert. The receptionist told us that they love mango, which explained its sudden interest in us. I tried to invite it to hang with us, but seeing that we had already selfishly eaten all the mango, it hopped into a bush (oh, so that's where it comes from..) and joined its buddies in the tree tops. The lot of them then spent the rest of the night laughing their hairy butts off, with a voice that sounded exactly like Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop, hence the name. During daytime they were nowhere to be found, so I deducted that they must have been somewhere coming up with new knock-knock jokes to tell each other the next night.

On the morning of the fourth day I was filthy (salt, sand, sweat...combination of factors, really), quite severely sunburnt and ready to go back to Nairobi. I appraised Jewelz in her wisdom, as she had booked us flights from Zanzibar airport to Nairobi, and we didn't have to repeat the horrendous, yet interesting, bus ride back.

Once we got to the airport, it looked like all hell had broken loose. And it had, in Kenya. I will discuss the volatile situation in the country in a later post, but suffice to say that everyone was very keen to go home, or wherever they were going, and one flight had already been canceled. One American couple had been waiting at the airport from 5 in the morning and they looked like they were either going to break down in tears or go on a killing spree if they didn't make it to the afternoon flight. One thing that didn't exactly help the situation was the local authorities habit to routinely overbook the flights in order to maximize the capacity usage. Fortunately we boarded the plane with time to spare (8 mins after it was supposed to take off), after paying the "leaving-the-country-tax", my first one, ever. It had to be paid in dollars, naturally, while the plane tickets were paid in Tanzanian Shillings..

I bet the airport has seen some fascinating scenes, when cranky tourists, stressed to make their flight connections, have been asked a random amount of dollars in the name of a mysterious tax that is "built into the ticket prices" in other countries and airports, when they're out of cash and the nearest ATM is a 30 min taxi ride away, after which the money has to be exchanged to shillings. And the only information on this ridiculous tax is a torn piece paper that looked like an old flier, in the corridor leading to the bathrooms (read. holes). OutSTANding, isn't it?

Well anyway, we made it, and even got a glimpse of the great Kilimanjaro, which I was supposed to climb, before one jackass decided to inconspicuously rig the elections by a quiet 1,5 million votes. Sadly that may be closest I ever got to that peak. Mt. Kenya, however, is still on the table. After all, I have to climb something after buying a shitload of equipment and dragging it to another continent.

I shall leave you today with this hilarious onomatopoeic detail:

Top 4 Photos from Zanzibar

2008-01-12T17:19:00.000+03:00

4. Mosque in Stone Town (by Jelwelz)

3. Tree at The Market (by The J-Man)

2. Heart-shaped Stone (by both)

1. Crab Man (by The J-Man)

Depending on where you read this, you can send me comments about the blog on the blog's website: kauheessa.blogspot.com, on Facebook, or on Better Than Sliced Bread's website. Thank You for all of your comments so far. They are appreciated and make writing this blog all the more fun..

Gran Spice Turismo

2008-01-12T15:48:00.000+03:00

Having survived Stone Town with its numerous nocturnal challenges it was time to take a "spice tour". At 900 hours a van came to pick us up from our "hotel" and we headed for the central parts of the Spice Island. After about 45 minutes of all kinds of roads we arrived at the plantations. The government owns 95% of the plantations, which guarantees their conservation and the plantations that we visited were, therefore, a kind of mosaic of different plants, grown for tourist and research purposes. Although, as far as I could tell, the research consisted of a bunch of teenage boys climbing the trees, peeling the fruit and the plants, and crafting all sorts of accessories and gizmos for the visitors, in hope of a few shillings. One dude even weaved an ornate frog-shaped necklace out of palm leaves, which he gave to an ignorant German girl, who took everything they made (the necklace, rings, drinking cups, bracelets etc.) and was appalled and thoroughly flabbergasted when the kids politely asked if the lady cared to spare a few coins for their efforts at the end of the tour. (never hit a woman...never hit a woman...)

Our cheerful guide, whose name is impossible to pronounce without dislocating one's jaw (there's a silent g somewhere in there), took the charge and proceeded to tell the story of a fruit that smells like old hell but tastes brilliant. It turns out that, if one is not too fond of the copious amounts of prostitutes that will invariably surround the said person at any Tanzanian night club, one should eat a couple of these bad boys and the problem solves itself. (will try later) After a good chuckle the guide started the tour and we naturally followed. We walked around narrow paths and gravel roads marveling the different fruit and spice trees and bushes. Some personal favorites were:

The mysterious "hairy strawberry" that was mostly used for its color as lipstick, in food, and on the forehead of Indian women.

The Egg Nog fruit, that has been used in East Africa as an aphrodisiac for women for centuries. Should men try to take a bite, they would shortly fall asleep, we were told. Unfortunately we didn't have the time to subject this uncanny fruit to empirical testing. Oh, and it's other parts make for outstanding chili.

The palm tree. There are three different varieties on Zanzibar which are all used differently. One is good for building houses, other's coconuts taste better, the third one's leaves are the thickest and provide excellent raw material for building durable roofs. According to the guide, the palm tree is the most useful plant of them all, because every part of it can be put to significant use and it thrives in a wide variety of surroundings.

We also found out that clove tea cures diarrhea and papaya seeds constipation, so that one can play stop'n'go games with ones stomach, if need be. Moreover, papaya makes for brilliant booze, although its production is now illegal, since it can turn you blind on random occasions. A cheaper "light" version of Russian Roulette, anyone? Ginger turned out to be quite a plant, too. All of its parts smell and taste different, AND it's root IS Chinese "tiger balm". Smells exactly the same and has the same effects, who knew? Finally, when I discovered that I have been lied to all my life and that black, white, and red pepper are all the same plant, I could safely conclude that I had learned more during the previous hours than during all of the home ec./cooking classes combined.

After the tour we got to visit an old cave, where an Arab sheik had kept his slaves after slave trade was banned in Zanzibar. It was damp, painfully hot and breathing in the cave was like breathing through a straw. The lad who told us the story of the cave also told us that it has two fake exits, made by the vindictive Mother Nature herself. The first one, crowded with spiders and other nasty creepy crawlies, ends in a dead end after becoming narrower and narrower all the while, so that one eventually suffocates to death. The other one is perhaps even more cruel. Similarly, it goes on for ages, until there is a part where one has to crawl down an extremely narrow hole. The good news: after this the slaves could witness the light of day coming from ahead. The bad news: the hole is in a vertical cliff, dozens of meters from the ground, and it is impossible to climb back, so the only option is to base jump without parachute. And perhaps the most grim part of all of this is that the other slaves had no way of knowing whether their comrades had managed to escape, other than following them, to which you already know the result...

You can imagine that we were rather relieved to be able to take the stairs on the way out, and even more so after spending the next hour on a hidden paradise beach, half a mile from the demonic cave.

How to Sleep Well in Stone Town, Zanzibar

2008-01-10T16:05:00.000+03:00

0. Do not eat Pasta Arrabiata for lunch (or add local chili to it)

1. Do not eat shrimps for dinner
2. If you have to eat shrimps, don't take the "spicier" dish
3. If you do the above anyway, do not order spiced tea "to calm down your stomach"

4. Do not turn down the fan from "full" to "2/4", prioritizing silence over temperature
5. Do not move the table in front of the door "for security reasons"
6. If you do, remember that it is there when you go to the bathroom

7. Make sure there is plenty of toilet paper available before you go to bed
8. If there isn't, make sure that the water from the hand shower isn't too cold
9. When you jump up from the toilet, be aware of the wet floor
10. After using the hand shower, make sure it doesn't leak on the floor

11. Do not try to wet your sheets with cool water and hang them below the fan to "enhance the cooling"
12. Remember to remove the mosquito net BEFORE getting out of bed
13. see number 6

14. Make sure that there aren't any roosters on the backyard BEFORE you accept the room
15. If there are no other rooms available, make sure you have a silenced rifle in the room
16. Make sure that your room is not close to a mosque, where the Imam invites people to pray at 5.30 am
17. see number 15

18. If you have to go to the bathroom every 5 minutes, there's no point in going to bed in between, just sleep on the toilet seat.
19. Remember the 5 cm of water on the bathroom floor, before you try to sleep on it.

As a matter of fact, your best bet is to avoid sleeping in Stone Town at all costs. Unless you want to pay 250$ for an air-conditioned, hopefully soundproof room, and bring your own food (and a rifle, just in case).

Damnation Without Relief

2008-01-07T11:10:00.000+03:00

Since rest (much like lunch) is for wimps, we woke at 5am the following morning in order to catch the 6.30 bus to Dar-Es-Salaam. I had set myself a pot limit with the Tuskers the previous night just in case, for which I thanked myself on several occasions during this little sprint across Kenya and Tanzania. This whole trip to Zanzibar was carefully planned by Jewelz, so all I had to do was follow her, fill in obscure forms every few hours and pay random amounts in various currencies, which I'll get to later. This may sound like a walk in the park, but please, read on.

The city center was already crowded. It was election day and everyone wanted to cast their vote in time, which they had plenty, until 6 pm, but I guess no one wanted to take any chances. Unfortunately, despite the zeal to vote and more than enough time to do it, the election would become a sad, violent farce, which I will cover in another post altogether together with its repercussions. Anyway, the streets were filled with antsy and slightly cranky Kenyans, as was the bus station when we arrived. There were two buses. One that was in rather good condition even in western standards and even had a toilet. I assume I do not surprise you when I tell you that it was not our bus. Our bus was probably from the 80's or early 90's, had no toilet, no air conditioning, seats that reclined but refused to re-incline, a corridor that was about 35 cm wide and windows that would open just enough to allow a gust of air to graze the 'fro of the person behind you, but had no effect in your personal state of overheating. But because we had no expectations whatsoever regarding the transport system, we weren't that disappointed. It wasn't too hot (yet) and we even got something of a breakfast (water, a mysterious meat roll, and an egg) ((like you do)).

About four hours later we arrived at the Tanzanian border.

(notice how the skilled photographer missed both mountain tops, cut the beautiful tree in half and inclued a piece-of-shit-Toyota...thanks)

We had filled some forms and followed the crowd through a small village into what tried vigorously to be an office and failed miserably. The visa payment was made in dollars, since it's such a relevant and strong currency especially in East Africa.. (WAKEY WAKEY!!!) We got some faint, unclear stamps and continued by foot to Tanzania, where the bus was hopefully waiting. Miraculously it was there, and we boarded it after quickly visiting a local toilet located "behind other building, next to big tree". As soon as we had sat down the driver started the bus and straightened his ankle. During all this time no one had uttered a single advice or notification, nor had there been any signs to tell the odd tourist what on earth to do at the border. We felt like we had dodged a bullet because nothing had been stolen and the bus hadn't left without us. Africa tends to lower one's expectations pretty quickly.

The roads in Tanzania reminded of the part in Ace Ventura II, where Jim Carrey is bouncing around violently in the driver's seat of a safari jeep. And when the camera zooms out the spectator can see that the road is perfectly paved, and that the chubby guy on the passenger seat is sitting completely still. The only difference was that we were bouncing involuntarily because the road was light years from being perfect. Nevertheless, they were still far better than the roads on Kenya's side, because calling them "roads" would be pushing the term quite a bit. So in that way, the trip had taken a turn for the better. In other ways it was deteriorating at a steady pace. We had water, but we didn't dare to drink it, because nobody knew when we'd stop next. The sun was getting hotter and there were no curtains to block its furious rays. The smells were getting more aggressive and the plains were only interesting for the first 6 hours.

Every couple of hours we'd stop (for gas, or a couple of times because the driver wanted to chat for a moment with his homeboys in the tiny villages. Whenever the bus stopped, however, the locals flooded the bus and tried all to sell us soda and peanuts, both a huge no-no. Peanuts make you thirsty, when you're thirsty you drink, when you drink you pee.. Sadly this complicated cause and effect system didn't occur to any of the villagers or the driver and no one bought anything. IF the passengers had been allowed a 5 minute bathroom break every 2 hours or so, the villagers' sales would undoubtedly quadrupled and the trip would have been hugely less agonizing, but the driver wouldn't have any of that..

The second of the total two (2) stops on this 15,5-hour pleasure cruise was on a gas station in the middle of nowhere. Again, there was no indication whatsoever how long we had so we ran for the toilets. After a minute of careful aiming we returned to the bus only to find that its doors were closed. We didn't want to in to the station because the smells had exacerbated significantly and the food they served was nothing short of just plain scary. So there we stood outside like a couple of idiots, back towards the wind that blew clouds of sand on us, repeatedly declining offers to buy "meni fruut for gud prais". Personal note: "not taking no for an answer isn't always positive". After what seemed like an eternity but was actually about 20 minutes the jolly chauffeur reappeared and let us in with our fruit (a person can only say no for 236 consecutive times until his brain implodes).

Only moments (5-6 hours) later we arrived at Dar-Es-Salaam bus terminal, which was still a good 5 km outside the urban area (WHY?). The taxi drivers had cleverly decided that they'd bill five times the regular price, because there was no other way to get to town and everyone was desperate to go to the bathroom, shower, eat, sleep or basically just be as far away as possible from the tin can from hell that was the bus. After some minor haggling we were on our way to the Executive Hotel.

Don't take me wrong, I'm not saying that the Executive Hotel wouldn't have good qualities. All I'm saying is that it has one very bad one: it does not exist. Jewelz had booked AND paid the room at this infamous hotel through a UN travel agent, who said that the hotel didn't have web pages but was otherwise very reliable and nice. She had given Jewelz the name, the phone number and the area where the hotel was allegedly located. None of the 15 taxi drivers knew exactly where it was, so we aimed for the area first and took it from there. Once we asked for directions around the area we were informed that such a hotel does not exist. There is an Exclusive Lodge, which we checked, but they had never heard about us. We called the phone number, where an uninterested lady told us that she was no hotel and stop calling. Well..

We browsed the Lonely Planet East Africa, desperately trying to find any hotel that was at least somehow safe and under 200$/night. We found one, but they didn't take any cards or Kenyan dollars, but would have taken Swiss Francs or Euros, the man said smiling. Another taxi to the only ATM that was open at night and back to a third hotel, where the receptionist from the second hotel had made a reservation for us. I had some trouble understanding his business logic but let it go before my brain started "If it weren't for my horse...".

The only two positive things about the night were that the hotel room had some local music channel that played early nineties pop/rap music videos, which gave us a few chuckles, and the fact that my superior calculus skills confused the taxi driver so badly when exchanging the rates from Kenyan Shillings to Tanzanian Shillings to US dollars to Tanzanian Shillings that we ended up paying about half of the price that he originally asked us.

Viciously grinning I fell asleep with my Leatherman under my pillow, ready to unleash hell on any poor soul who would have the nerve to touch our door.

Black and White

2008-01-05T18:26:00.000+03:00

As has been the trend in my hitherto adventures, once I arrived at Nairobi, I hit the ground running. After sleeping a few hours, shaving my beard and listening to derogatory comments about the shortness of my hair it was time for my first African dinner..

As getting around in Nairobi is about as safe as juggling burning zippos at a gas station blindfolded, it pays to have a reliable taxi service that one can use without greater concerns for getting robbed. Sadly the driving habits of the locals, including the cab drivers, as well as the abysmal roads, ensure that death might always be around the corner, like 2Pac put it back in the dizzay. But hey, you only live once, twice or nine times, depending if you're human, 007, or a cat, right? Either way, a couple of the guys from the local taxi service, that the UN interns have found quite affordable and even surprisingly reliable, wanted to take us to a christmas dinner at a local restaurant. Thankful for the nice gesture we agreed and hopped in the cabs, that took us to the first "restaurant".

Now, generally I'm not too picky where I eat, especially considering the circumstances, but in my case the word restaurant usually provokes a mental image that includes food, glasses, cutlery, walls, door, waiter/tress and maybe even tablecloths. This place had none of the above. None. We walked in to the shack/saloon-like contraption, sat on two benches at a table that had things on it that I failed to recognize. After sitting there like a bunch of idiots for about 15 minutes, making small talk with the two cabbies that were our hosts for the evening, one of them hollered something in Swahili at a random drunken dude sitting at what must have been the bar to which the the dude grumbled an unclear reply. The cabbie smiled at us, got up, and curtly ejaculated: "We must go another place, here is no food left." To quote perhaps the most famous pet detective in the world: "AAAAAAALLLLLLLRIGHTYTHEN!!" We hopped in the cab and speculated in Finnish what the next place could possibly be like..

About 20 minutes later we arrived at "Chicken Palace". Again, the name was a bit misleading, since it was neither a palace, nor did they serve chicken, but we didn't let those pesky details slow us down. After carefully dodging the spike mats!!! leading to the parking lot and getting out of the cab we got the first good glimpse of the place. It was a three-storey wooden house/veranda/balcony unlike no building that I had seen. The Swalihi reggaeton music was blaring close to a pain-threshold volume while the children played in the swings outside. There was almost no light with the exception of a few dim lights from the inside, that was actually the outside, because they're not big on walls here. The place was packed and we had to elbow our way in, blindly following our native hosts. Past the dance floor and up the stairs we waded, desperately trying to keep up with the others. Halfway up the stairs a little girl froze in her steps, pointed at me with her finger and whispered loudly in mixed confusion and terror "MUZUNGU!!" ("whitey"). I tried to smile mildly and avoid scaring the poor girl more. As we finally sat down in a dark corner (the only kind there) one of our hosts, Anthony, explained that this was a popular place around christmas time, and that a lot of the people here came from villages outside Nairobi, and that I was probably the first white man she had ever seen. No wonder she freaked out.

The purpose of the visit was to enjoy njama choma, a local delicacy, which was basically roasted goat (or other) meat with no sauce. Having learned a tad of solidarity from my mentor in that area, F'baian, I smiled and looked excited. Actually I had probably never felt so out of place in my life. I was the only white (more like whiter shade of pale, actually) man out of the hundreds of people in the building (if you don't count a Korean/Swedish/Finnish guy with sunglasses on), I couldn't see anything because "the locals they do not like lights", and I didn't even have a beer in my hand to focus attention to. Slowly things started going our way as we finally got some cool beer, the cabbies arranged a candle for us, and some locals came up to us to introduce their children to us, so that they would stop being terrified. And I'll tell you this for free: THAT felt a little weird, but I suspected that wasn't going to be the last weird feeling of my time in Africa, so I dealt with it. After waiting for about an hour and a half, during which I had to explain to our dark-as-the-night-cabbies a couple of Eddie Murphy's nigga-jokes (which was kinda intense), we got out njama choma. Apparently there weren't any goats left in the country because of the season, so we got beef (lol). A solemn guy showed up with a wooden plank with a huge lump of meat on it, and an even bigger knife, which he started swishing around with commendable accuracy, to chop up the meat to edible bits, naturally. To my genuine surprise the meat was partly well done and all right, partly medium and delectable. Kudos to the chefs for concocting excellent food with just fire, meat and some salt, but I guess that's all you need.

(Myself blending in to the couch, Tsuuls, and Kennedy the Cabby)

After this highly original dinner and another round of beers we paid (nothing) and decided not to start a break-dance circle but headed back home. In retrospect, the second place didn't have glasses, cutlery, walls or tablecloths either, but at least they had food, a door, an even a sorry excuse of a waitress. :)

The next day we were scheduled to attend a Boxing Day brunch at James's house, which we did fashionably late. The house could not have been a more complete opposite of the Chicken Palace if it had tried. It has some serious walls, for one. First the outer brick walls with armed guards and guard dogs. Then sturdy house walls with bars in all the windows, and finally a panic room upstairs with bullet-proof doors and walls thick enough to take a missile at close range. The owner of the house had been one of the founders of the Nairobi stock exchange and currently ran his own investment bank, so it wasn't a great surprise that they had had THREE!! robbery attempts within the last year. Where is Macaulay Culkin when you need him?

After getting over the security arrangements I concentrated on the people, who were overwhelmingly white. The only ones who weren't, were the staff, which took some getting used to, but apparently they liked their jobs and got paid fairly well. There were people from all over from Nairobi, connected through international school, work and more importantly money and skin color. It sounds nasty, but it is the naked truth. Because of this realization I felt initially a little out of place as well, but soon one of the Americans asked me about the Finnish army and my frown turned into a smile. An hour later he offered me a job as a human resources supervisor in his firm. True story. I'm still considering his offer.

The food was western, tasty and abundant, and even the beer was cold. After careful consideration (six bottles) I decided that Tusker Malt was better than regular Tusker, and nodded politely when the host offered me another one of those frosty bad boys. Some more people showed up, including an Irish/Kenyan DJ, whom I especially enjoyed talking with. Being well-educated, a native Kenyan, but also a European, he offered a very fresh and all-around view on both the political and the sosio-economic situation in the country. Naturally we also viewed the current status of the melodic house music industry in Mombasa, where my natural skills of improvising (= bullshitting) showed to be very useful. Upon his exit we shared about 14 different rap-hugs and/or handshakes, which I pulled off without greater awkwardness and promised to hang out later. We stayed for a while and talked to the others, who all turned out to be quite amiable people, albeit a bit spoiled on some occasions. No offense, just being real.

All in all it was a very special double header for the J-Man. As a final note I have to add, that no matter how much people can (and should!) look beyond skin color, it is something that is always there, and it would only be naïve to claim that it would not be a factor in all interracial contact. But whether it becomes a positive or a negative factor is, of course, up to the people in question.

Peace, and remember: "We're all black when you turn off the light" (unless there are candles, or it's daytime..)

Flights, Fidel and Facial Hair

2008-01-04T17:58:00.001+03:00

So here I am, in the UN headquarters in North-Western Nairobi. It's only been a little over a week and I already have enough material to write a book. That's Africa for you. But seeing as the tense situation in the city isn't going to cool in the next few days and I don't have a lot to do right now, why not start at the beginning..

Just days before christmas I realized that my hair was too long and I didn't have time to get a haircut. Kindly my Sancho Pancha, Mark, stepped up and offered to help me in cutting it with a home barber machine. Due to a miscommunication in the process (I thought Mark had put a plastic part back on to the cutting blade, but obviously he hadn't.) I ended up with a bald streak from my forehead to my monkey butt, so I had to shave it all off. The feedback was abundant. My new look also reduced Mark into a hysterically giggling heap every five minutes for the next day or so.. It seems to be turning into a farewell ritual.

My last night in Helsinki didn't exactly go as planned either, as a cheerful reunion turned into an awkward smiling-session, so when the morning finally came I was more than ready to leave the country.

The people-watching turned out to be a lot more boring that I thought. Instead of the dynamic, high-paced, multicultural airport that I thought Heathrow to be, I found myself in a crowded, uninteresting Terminal 3 with a lot of cranky people, who waited for the same 5 flights leaving in several hours. On the upside, I got to spend that time with two of my fellow country-persons, K and A. They were heading to Nairobi as well and were did a pretty good job at killing the 12 hours. It included wondering what the multi-faith prayer room might look like and being too lazy to actually walk the 15 meters, having a rather absurd christmas dinner at TGI Friday's, building innovative lounging systems out of benches and chairs that were clearly not designed for it, arguing over who won the useless guessing quiz, telling international stories (mostly me) and complimenting me on all the international achievements (also mostly me), buying 3 different types of adapters and returning them all, and so on..

The flight itself was mind-numbingly uneventful. I was actually hoping for turbulence at one point, just to see some action, but it was no use. I was sitting between an African-American African woman (i.e. a black Kenyan) and an obese Englishman (a fat geezer), so I if would have tried to get comfortable, let alone sleep I would surely created some kind of minority issue. So I was stuck watching bad movies at ever poorer quality on a screen that was literally smaller than the one in my cell phone (it's 2008, British Airways, wake the funk up!!). Finally we touched down and miraculously I found the tiny blondie that I am often affiliated with. The weather was amazing and hasn't changed since, go figure. We got home, which turned out to be a lovely house in a safe neighborhood, and to my surprise, our room was big, clean and cool. I suddenly remembered that I had slept about 2 hours in the last 2 days and passed out.

Two definite christmas highlights for The J-Man:

1) a dude on the plane that looked exactly like Fidel Castro (not resembling slightly, but as if he were Fidel's clone or at least a twin brother). Naturally I stared at him in amusement until he couldn't decide whether I was hitting on him or plotting to kill him and asked me if he could help me. I wrestled with the urge to ask him if he knew how to run a medium size Caribbean country, but chickened out at the last minute and uttered something to the extent of "sorry, no, yes..moustache..it was steve..sorry"

2) I was forced to shave my beard again, due to a bet that got me nothing, even though I won it. That sucked. But I guess it's better that my garufrendoo talks to me if we're going to share a bed for the next few months.

Check back for a report on race, beer and meat within the week-end.

Leaving on a jet plane

2007-12-23T18:40:00.000+03:00

That's it, I'm done. All packed up, goodbyes said, beard in its apex (pics later), and a valid visa in my passport. To be honest it feels really weird to just wait. No schoolwork, deadlines, no shifts left at the restaurant, nothing. I still can't believe I got everything done in time, because it seemed close to impossible a couple of weeks ago. Oh well, must be my all-around general awesomeness, which is incidentally my second greatest virtue after my utmost modesty. Although, I will indubitably write here a couple of weeks later to tell you about all the things I actually forgot.

But I'll deal with that then and concentrate now on the slight panic and the incredulousness that I'm actually leaving in about 12 hours. In case you've just joined us, or I haven't told you in the previous posts, I'm flying via London, where I have a crispy 12-hour layover, from whence I then continue to Nairobi on an over-night flight. Then Zanzibar, then safari in Masai Mara, then Kilimanjaro, then something else. But I'll tell you all about the aforementioned in due time, in shorter intervals than 2 weeks, if I only have access to the wonder of the interweb.

In the meantime, look for my people-watching report from Heathrow, possibly even tomorrow. Of course most people might claim that they might have better things to do on Christmas Eve, but they would obviously be lying. So, see you guys there then.. I'd ask you to wish me luck, but as I am more a skill-oriented person, I won't.

Peace, love and understanding to you all.

(maybe I still have some time to grab a few pints with the lads...)
((outstanding idea..))

Do You Take Visa?

2007-12-06T23:54:00.000+03:00

Yo!

Haven't heard that in a while, have you? I mean the "yo", not the title. Unless you're a part-time waiter like myself. Or a part-time lover, to use a rather strong euphemism that is also an oxymoron. No point here, just though about that for some reason.

ALTHOUGH, it is one of those words that can make your day. Words that you haven't heard in ages and have almost forgotten entirely. They may have once been used commonly or even been "cool", but have since then slowly slid to oblivion. Then, when you least expect it, someone called Joey says "hence", or utters "moist" in an especially saucy way and you crack up uncontrollably and simultaneously start thinking furiously when you heard that particular word last. You may even find yourself smiling on several occasions later that week when that word pops up in your frontal cortex for no apparent reason. I know the examples above may not spark the same response in all of you, but you still know what I mean, right? I find it amazing or even "rad" that a something so simple as a single word can make a day. Additionally, even rare use keeps a word alive, enriching the language and keeping it from turning it into a boring mode of communication, a clinical, crude creole, that carries a message but lacks flavor, or "sound" as one particularly laid back artist, that sports a mullet and pulls it off, would say. So call me pompous and pretentious, but I plan to plant the seeds of language wherever I go. After all, being a little lackadaisical and phantasmagoric about language occasionally is almost a requirement, when one trots the globe boasting to be a cunning linguist.

Granted, a bit too deep for a Thursday night, but try and stop me. I couldn't.

Meanwhile, the preparations for conquering my fourth continent are going as planned. Actually even better, because I forgot to plan a bunch of things and still managed to get them done before I got thoroughly screwed. One of these things was getting a visa for Kenya. Being a European who is used to jumping between countries with little or no documentation at all, getting a visa slipped my mind for several weeks, until I stumbled upon a document that had the instructions for applying a Kenyan visa. This turned out to be quite a process. First I had to e-mail the closest Kenyan embassy that happened to be in Sweden of all places, so that they'd send me an application. So I waited for that a couple of days. Then I had to take several black and white passport photos to be enclosed with the application, fill the application that was honestly photocopied in the 90's (it had a date) and put my passport in that same envelope. After having taken my time with the things above I mailed the package to Sweden and thought about a couple of things: 1) Not a whole hell of a lot of people want to travel to Kenya because they haven't had to update the system in over 20 years. 2) I had just practically sent my identity to Sweden, in regular, good old-fashioned mail. 3) It might not make it back in time with the visa

Number one was more a general wonder-ing-ment, but the two later issues troubled me just a wee bit. What kind of jackass sends his passport, all his personal information in the form of a filled, well..form, together with several current photographs and a bank receipt with the bank's name, the account number etc.? It would take a retarded monkey no more than 12 seconds to steal my identity with that little starter-kit, and the next thing I'd know I'd allegedly stay in several expensive hotels, have bought most of the stuff that is sold online and would be test-driving a Ferrari F430 without actually doing anything than banging my head into a wall for being the single dumbest dude to ever be allowed in a University.

What's more, the application instructions specifically said that they should be allowed 4-6 weeks to mail my passport and visa back to me, and I mailed it to them with about 3 weeks before the trip. So if I wouldn't get them back in time, I would have to report my passport as a missing identity document to the police that would follow the protocol and put it to the international list of "wanted" documents. I would have to pay an arm and a leg for an express passport AND I would have to try to get an entry visa from the Kenyatta airport in Nairobi. WOW!! That went really bad really fast. Well, as luck would have it, the ever so efficient Swedes processed the (probably only) application in record time and I now have an official permission to enter the bliss that is Kenya and in some drawer in Stockholm there is a picture of me, looking like Tom Hanks in "Castaway", only with shorter hair and bald spot.

Alas!, this was came out to be a "Much Ado About Nothing"- type of post, but why not. At least I got a Shakespeare reference in at the last minute.

Rock on.

One Step Closer

2007-11-27T21:30:00.000+03:00

Jambo, dear fellow humans!

As I promised, this is an update on how the travel preparations for Africa are going, together with some misguided remarks and whatnot.

I have decided to save the packing for the last night. We have plans to go out with some friends to celebrate this country getting rid of me again, and getting a rich guy and a hot girl in return. And although I, myself, am not actually a general manager of any sports team, this three-way trade between Finland, UK and Japan is a friggin' steal for the land of lakes and drunken dudes, I'll tell you this for free. So here's the plan: the dinner starts around seven, probably ends around 22 hundred hours, then some drinks, maybe a shot or 4, a final sauna at the after party at Fab's pad, after having watched the end of Gladiator with tears in my eyes, again, and I'll be home at 5, which gives me a good three hours to pack my stuff and be at the airport by 6am, fresh as a baby's behind. Martijn, that old horse thief, executed a similar strategy in high school and found himself hung over in Switzerland with no underwear, (aspirated initial h-sound)whatsoever, and carefully folded swimming trunks, so I'm looking forward to matching that.

If you're deductive powers have not failed you, you may have noticed that I'm talking about a particular flight, ergo, I have bought some tickets. Unsurprisingly, flying to Africa cost like a bee-hotch, so I got my tickets for the 24th, which saved me quite a few doubloons. The downside, for those "glass is half-broken on the floor"-people, is that I have to wake up before most roosters of my time zone, and spend my X-mas alone at Heathrow airport... However, that gives my oodles of time for people-watching and most likely some interesting stories to share with you, if I ever go online again, that is. And if I don't mistake a pair of ever-so seductive "cannons" or "long John's" for my laptop.

Once I get to Kenyatta airport the next morning I'll be completely prepared to never see my luggage again, but either way, Jewelz, the ghetto fabulous tree-hugger, should be there waiting for me. If she's not, it's gonna be a hell of a blog post, but if she is, cool.

And here comes the cool part: for New Year's we're going to Zanzibar!! How you like them apples? And yes, some of you might have been there and so on, but it's still sweet as hell for me so screw you guys! In order to get there we have to take a 13-hour bus ride to Dar-es-Salaam and then cross over (like Iverson) to the island with a ferry, but I firmly believe it's going to be worth it.

THEN, once we get back from that little getaway, it looks like I'll be climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro with Martijn. HmmmI should probably go jogging a couple of times before that.. Naaaw, bench press and biceps is all I'll ever need to look like an ass globally.

So that's it for now, my munchkins and jigglewigglers, keep on keepin' on. (whatever that means)

Below: ZANZIBAAARRRRR!!!

Africa, I hear you asking..

2007-11-02T01:36:00.000+03:00

I think you agree with me, enough about Spain. Now it's time to look ahead, to

KENYA

You heard me.

The story started when I was coming back from the gym one day at the Vigo university campus. I was listening to 2Pac, vigorously trying to forget the tights that the other dudes were wearing, AGAIN, when Jewelz, the light of my days, calls me. She tells me she got the internship at UN. I'm of course thrilled for her and, after congratulating her, proceed to ask where of the possible locations the internship might take place. "Bruxelles, D.C., or New York"? "Nairobi", she replies. I stop, take my other earphone out of my ear, and ask her to repeat what she said, because I obviously heard wrong. "Nairobi", she insists. "But that's in Africa", I cleverly point out. "Yeah, in Kenya, to be exact.", she clarifies.

Well. There go all of my plans for the future. After confirming the previously revealed facts, I hang up the phone, get on the bus and sit quietly with a moronic, blank look on my face until I get to Plaza America, where I get off. I walk home, collapse on my hammock, and start reasoning: "I can't let her go by herself, it might be dangerous, and we're already currently apart for 6 months because of my exchange program. And it would be stupid to just visit for a couple of weeks. The plane tickets cost like a bitch, I need to like 6 different vaccinations, malaria medication, and a visa. She can't fly here, or to Finland, where I'd actually be at that time, because of her work. ERGO, it looks like I'm moving to Africa. HOLY SHIT-BALLS, I'M MOVING TO AFRICA!!"

That was it, my mind was made up. Through the flawless logical deduction process described above I decided I'd move to Nairobi around New Year's. I was aware of those dozens of stories I had heard about guys who marry the wrong woman and end up moving to Vishnu knows where. My old basketball coach being one of them. But then again, I had resisted the urge of falling on one knee even on those dangerous moments on Sunday mornings when you're not exactly feeling like a 100 bucks, or smackers as my man IGL ("eagle") calls them, and your logic is clouded by the remains of alcohol in your cerebellum and an attractive lady that, for some peculiar reason, does not kick you out of bed, even when you smell like asparagus. So I'm good, nothing to worry about.

Except for the few facts I found out after doing a little research on that paradise on Earth I was moving to. For one, it turns out Nairobi's nick-name is Nai-robbery, because of the thriving street crime. Fun. Also, several foreign ministries advise travelers to stay away from Kenya, especially from Nairobi, unless they really really have to. AND, while trying to get travel insurance my current insurance company casually informed me that Kenya was on their list of war-risk zones and that the insurance would cost me an arm and a leg. AH! Oh well, I merely switched all my insurances to another company who didn't think there was anything wrong with going to Kenya. Who says ignorance isn't bliss? The silver lining, if you really want to see it, is that I had to take so many vaccinations that I can now have sex with Pamela Anderson, should that become necessary at some point in the future. Hell, Borat got close and he's even hairier than I am, so the odds don't look too bad after all.

Moving on..

SO, obviously I had to start organizing stuff, like how I can keep receiving student money from the government while in Kenya, without actually studying anything at all. Furthermore, we would have to sublet the apartment to avoid paying two rents and so on. AND to keep my sorry excuse for an academic career going somewhere, I had to complete a year's worth of classes in four months. I could list more things but you get the picture. A lot to do, little time. Which is why I haven't written here in a while. Well, that and the fact that I'm a lazy bastard most of the time, with moments of shining and uncanny efficiency. And now back to the drawing board. I'll let you know how the preparations are going in the flashest of flashes, trust me. :)

Peace up, N-town!

P.S. Here's a pointless picture of a Nairobian giraffe for those who only check in for the photos :

Closing the Lid on Spain...Finally!!

2007-10-29T13:54:00.000+03:00

I believe I once promised you a list of all the things that sucked in Spain. Or at least the Top 50. I realize that listing the things that sucked might sound like complaining, but if you wanted only the good things, you could just as well ask a travel agency. Besides, as the hard-hitting journalist that I am, I feel compelled to tell my readers the truth, the whole truth and a little more than the truth, so help me Jeff, the god of biscuits. So here it is:

THINGS THAT SUCKED IN SPAIN (in random order)

1. The rain
2. Phones that never work
3. Fish, as a main course. Just a whole fish, nothing more. What the hell is that?

4. Gallego, the local language (what the hell happened to Spanish, I'm in Spain!)
5. The 35 min bus ride to the mountain campus in a jam-packed bus with no air
6. The dubbing
7. The local public transportation "system" (although, it's not really a system, per se)

8. The lack of parks, trees etc. in the city
9. The lack of basketball courts
10. The lack of skills of the local basketball players (there may be a connection..)
11. The infrastructure of the country
12. The hypocracy of some of the exchange student girls (different area code...)
13. Too many cars on the streets (by about 500 %)
14. "Put your hands up for Detroit" WAY too many times at clubs
15. The offensively tall transvestite who harassed me in front of Gazty
16. The motor of Citroen C3 in the mountains
17. The grenades that are classified as "fireworks" in Valencia and Sagunto
18. Sub-zero temperatures while in shorts (hung like a seahorse)
19. The constant drizzle that wouldn't quit...ever
20. The professional sports teams in Vigo
21. The Italian guy who kept hitting on anything that moved (I stood very still..)
22. My friend, Fab, who kept hitting on anything that moved
23. Me not being able to be hitting on anything that moved
24. Summer not showing up until I was just leaving
25. The water pressure (non-existent, obviously..)
26. Fat-Kat, who ate all the wires, earphones, chargers and kept hanging out in bags and literally chilling IN the fridge

27. The 4 simultaneous English accents of a teacher (it actually hurts)
28. Having to run to the bus stop EVERY morning due to lack of motivation
29. Having to run a half-marathon by accident
30. Having to run into the crazy girl who stalked me, repeatedly
31. The girl who thought and dressed as if she looked like Jessica Alba,

when she actually looked like Fat Bastard

31. Being called a "hairy fatto" by Nick

32. Actually looking like a hairy fatto in the photo above..
33. Losing my A-town cap in Madrid because of a cheese incident

34. The pouring monsoon-type of rain
35. Having to shave my beard (but HAHAA, I already have a new one!!)
36. The "food" at a "famous" restaurant in Segovia
37. The San Pepe festival that made Roskilde look like a tea party at the Hendersons'
38. The unattractive lesbian couple that got WAY too physical at the Brasilian club
39. The lack of attractive lesbian couples altogether
40. Having to lather Aloe Vera on Houdini's burnt hamstrings, 'cause he COULDN'T!
41. People who "commented" my blog, but never actually commented on anything..
42. Being the only guy in the class whose teacher is a raging feminist.. (got a 9,5)
43. Almost getting killed by an angry and jealous bouncer in Barcelona
44. Almost getting killed by a huge wave in Bayona
45. Almost getting killed when Kataya was behind the wheel in the mountains

46. The type of rain that goes into your nostrils
47. The men in tights at the gym
48. The people who just STOOD AROUND on the dance floor, smoking (It's Spain!!)
49. My lumpy hammock that the land-lady called a "bed"
50. Having to come back..

As you may guess from no. 50, these things, although sucky at the time, gave birth to the stories in this blog and created even more memories. I wouldn't trade my time in Vigo and elsewhere in Spain for (almost) anything and I urge all of you to use all the chances you get to hang out abroad at various locations, doing various things. It truly is "all that and a bag of potato chips".

So like Ben Stiller would say in Starsky & Hutch: "DO IT!"

Check in soon for the intro of the next trip

TOP 4 Sporting Events in Vigo (The J-Man's Back!!)

2007-10-18T16:03:00.000+03:00

Well, dear friends.

It looks like it's been a while again, and for that I apologize, but fear not my peoples, for I shall once again open the bag of stories that is my mouth and tell you stories stranger than fiction. For the record, I do realize that technically I'm not opening anything because I'm writing this and not dictating, but please just accept the poor metaphor and move on. Here are the TOP 4 sports stories from my time in Vigo. (Next time, final recap on Spain and future plans..very excited..)

4. Yell the town red!!
sport: Screaming

Having already spent a couple of months in Vigo I finally found out where the local basketball team was playing. And before you think "well you should've checked the website, I bet it's there", I dare you, as a matter of fact, it's a DOUBLEDARE, try it yourself. It's a lot of fun, until you find out it would be significantly quicker to build them a new arena than finding the current one. AAAANYWAY.. I found the place and heard there was a game against Mallorca (I think). Cool, count me in.

At first the signs were promising: Spain was the reigning world champion, the fans couldn't sit still and there was even a BLIMP floating around aimlessly above the court!! From there things went bad fast:

The fans would not give the referee a second of peace (shocking..NOT), the field goal percentage (shooting accuracy) was in single digits througout the game, honestly, I could hit more jump shots after a gallon of bad sangria, the cheerleaders (all girls) looked like me, but chubbier and some hairier, AND Mallorca's coach was about to have a stroke from all the screaming.

Since the quality of the game sucked so much I concentrated on the coo-coo coach. He was yelling at the ref, his players, the other team's players, the other team's coach, the fans, and I'm pretty sure he even gave an earful to the poor cheerleaders after a time-out. He went from regular red (like one looks like when one screams very loud), to fire engine red, to a purple-ish blue with spots of white. I was both amazed by the sheer volume (double meaning: loudness AND amount) of the yelling, and the fact that evidently this guy wouldn't go down. He couldn't have had a single O2 molecule left in his body when they finally threw him out in 5 minutes into the last quarter, but he wouldn't let biology get in his way.

He fought his way back to the court from the corridor leading to the locker rooms and two more security guards had to carry him away.. I had to get up and applaud the man's dedication. Luckily the home team scored only moments later, so I wasn't lynched by the fans and lived to tell the tale. And the funny thing is, as far as I know, the coach is still alive, too.

3. Half-marathon by accident
sports: running, idiocy

I had just watched 300 on my computer. Now don't blame me, because the Spaniards don't do subtitles because they don't have to because they're special because they're Spanish. (the old "Fuck it, I'm French-syndrome")

So it was going to be either:
"Este es locura!!"
"Locura!?!...Este...es...SPARTAA!!" in the movie theater,

or the illegal version in English. Can you guess which I picked?

Ladies, you have to understand that a movie like 300 can be very emotional for guys. I've heard stories about guys wandering around in the yard naked after some serious drinking, screaming "Is there no one else?!?!", and I probably would have killed a friend of mine after seeing Matrix the first time, when he somehow would have failed miserably in dodging the approaching bullets in slo-mo, both of us singing Rage Against the Machine's Freedom in a "Pa-naa-na-naa-na"-version. If we would have had a gun, that is.

So there I was, topless (only way to watch that movie), and wanted very much to go out and buy a shield. But the Spanish word for shield escaped me at that moment, so I was forced to go running, because there was no gym within a 3 mile radius to get rid of the excess adrenaline. I picked a direction and I ran. I came to the sea and started following the coast. After a while I got to the beach where we used to go and ventured onward. Soon I was dangerously dehydrated and stopped to drink from a questionable fountain, while watching a terrible street-ball game. Minutes later I felt like the Mallorca coach in the story above and thought it essential to keep running. I was already pretty far away but getting close to a long, narrow bridge leading to a small island with only a handful of houses.

Had I been a cat, I probably would have died of curiosity like in the proverb, but I came close as a human, too. I made it to the other end of the bridge and saw a gate. There was a guardhouse and a guard with a gun. I had to think on my feet, but since my feet were really, really tired, all I could come up with was a loud HOULA!! He didn't look like he invented the wheel, but even he could see I had no business on that island. He asked me for credentials, which I didn't have, since I had NOTHING except for a pair of sweaty shorts, socks and shoes. I tried to tell him that although I didn't live on the island, per se, my friend, Julio did. For a while he believed me, until I had to tell him where Julio lived. It turned out there is no "Rua del Mar 2".. AH.. The dude told me to take a hike, and I ignored the screaming irony.

Well, clearly I had not thought this through. I listed my options. There were two. 1) run back home, which might kill me 2) start shit with the armed guard, which would most definitely at least wound me mortally. Again, I opted for living to tell the tale ("It's a self-preservation thing" - which movie, I ask you??), so I started running again.

Several painful miles later I arrived at my ghetto-fabulous pad, checked my map and got a total of 22,4 kilometers run, and decided to buy an Eng-Spa dictionary.

I'm gonna save you some time and some knees. The word is Escudo. Just buy the shield.

2. Anti-Depo
sports: soccer, yelling, hating

I had already seen one soccer match in Vigo when Celta had played Werder Bremen in UEFA-Cup, but that game was quite lame, unfortunately. So I was excited when I found out about the local rivalry Celta-Depertivo (L)a Coruña. Rivalries are always fun, but one in Spain would have to kick the crap out of anything we have back home. With the exception of Finland-Sweden in hockey, maybe.

Since NONE of the guys that I knew wanted to go see the game!!!! (which is why they didn't make the cut to life-long international friends, those cunts), I had to go with girls. Ella, a Finnish girl in the same exchange program and her hot, although fantastically sunburnt, friend who was visiting her. The atmosphere before the game was intense, to put it mildly. There were enough armed police officers to overthrow the Spanish government (which might not have been a bad idea..), and the stadium was filled to the brim.

I'm not going to give you a detailed account of the game itself. It was an OK as soccer matches go, and Celta actually ended up winning 1-0. But the fact that made this game special were the fans. Well, I guess it would be wrong to call the fans, a word which has a positive connotation, because they were far from positive. The fans at the previous game had cheered Celta on and were genuinely disappointed when Bremen scored a crap goal to win the game. These "fans", in turn, were just plain mean.

The weather was nice and the full stadium looked impressive with hundreds of flags waving in rhythm above the masses of people. However, I soon noticed that there were almost no Celta Vigo banners or flags to be found. Odd, it WAS, after all, Celta's home game. Instead, everyone had ANTI-DEPO!! flags, banners, even scarves!

These "fans" didn't care if Celta won, all they cared about was Deportivo losing, and preferably getting seriously injured in the process. The rivalry was so out of hand that it wasn't even about sports anymore. It was closer to a civil war. Even the women and children were shouting stuff that would have made experienced pirates cringe, blush, and shield their ears. (EARMUFFS!!) Getting worried about the safety of my friends (and myself), we left the stadium a couple of minutes before the final whistle, because we didn't have any Pro-Celta OR Anti-Depo apparel, which had to mean that we didn't hate Depo enough to be allowed to live.

I read in the paper the next day that ONLY 12 people got arrested after the game, which was a 5-year low..

1. Houdini finds home
sports: orientering, survival

Just as my time in Vigo was coming to an end, two of my buddies decided to grace me with their presence. They came to wreak havoc, get dangerously sunburned, hit on anything that moves (at least one of them), and drink copious amounts of SUPABOCK!! (a very intense beer), 1906 (try to pronounce milnovecientosyseis to the bartender after the first few), aguardiente (dear lord), and basically to burn all the bridges that i had built in the first 5 months. And that they did..

Of the many stories I could - but should not - tell you there is one that beats the others as a sporting event. It's a one man's survival battle against complex city-planning, non-existent public transport system, enough drinks to compromise a man's ability to speak his mother tongue, let alone any other language, and finally the ridiculously poor English skills of the people of Vigo.

It was the second night that guys were in town, and thus also the second party. Normally, after a night of that caliber one's resistance to king alcohol would be as high as Snoop, but the drinking games and the general the fact that we were simply having so much fun caused two things:

1) Fab (friend 1) concentrated all his energy on hitting on a outrageously hot girl who was leaving the country the next, while I concentrated on cheering him on as a completely unnecessary wing-man..

2) Houdini (friend 2) vanished into thin air.

Now, the fact that his nickname (one of many) was Houdini even before this story should have told us that perhaps someone should keep on an eye on him, but the aforementioned girl was simply way too hot for us to pay attention to useless details like our best friends survival in a foreign country, thus forcing us to blatantly violate the sacred "bro's before ho's"-code. Whoops.

The problem, or more accurately the problems were:
1) We had no idea, whatsoever, where Houdini might have gone
2) He wasn't picking up his phone
3) We didn't notice that he had vanished until we had switched bars/clubs at least twice
4) Houdini didn't speak a word of Spanish and the locals didn't really speak English
5) He didn't know my address
6) That very address (home) was on the other side of town
7) The last time Houdini got lost he said he was going back to the hotel (north) and started walking southwest towards Compton (we were in L.A.)

As our livers were burning the booze, our brains starter getting increasingly worried about Houdini. He had done this before, but then we had had maybe 2/7 of the problems above at a time. After failing to take the girl back to her friend who had casually abandoned her earlier (a kind of a trend that night), we took her to my place, but the battle was lost. We looked like shit, she would probably miss her flight, and there was no sign of Houdini, which kinda killed the after party. Then, about 45 mins after we had all gone to separate beds my phone rings. It's Houdini. He says, can you please buzz me in, I'd very much like to sleep..

To this day we have no confirmation on how in the name of Zeus's butt-hole did he find his way back home, but he did. He said he had remembered a plaza and a blacksmith of some sorts and the name Tomas, and maybe taken a cab at some point.. I lived at Travesia Tomas Alonso, 200 metres from Plaza Eugenio Fadrique, a famous sculptor. I guess luck favors the brave.. And after all, Houdini wasn't great because he escaped, he was great because he always came back.

As I mentioned earlier, next time: Spain recap and future plans (Africa, I hear you asking...)

Bar Celona

2007-06-16T21:28:00.000+03:00

Finally, Barcelona. By this time we had walked way too much and were pretty sick and tired of seeing fantastically old things and taking hundreds of photos, so we concentrated onjust having fun. As we arrived at the main bus station from the airport Mart-Man was already there. He was the leader of a one-man recon team that we had sent to scope out the target area. And sure enough, he had obtained the specs of the local underground network (metro map) and a safehouse for regrouping (a couple of campus dorm rooms reserved for us). We dropped the Americans to their hostel smack in the middle of Barcelona centre, called ABBA, oddly enough. The reception-DUDE was sick, bored, high and/or drunk, and it was actually quite hilarious watching him struggle with stacks of papers, Spanish computer engineering (an oxymoron, btw), and his 8 remaining brain cells. Finally he managed to provide our comrades some kind of accomodations and we went to seek for some late dinner. Luckily there was a semi-decent restaurant that was still open at that time (late, as I recall), and we were able to get our hands on some local delicacies. Most of them were, as per usal, questionable to say the least, but isn't that exactly the point?...The jury's still out on that one. Either way, we had some baby squid, extremely spungy flan and sliced PIGS EARS! Remember my blog post on the Top 4 nastiest things? Right up there.

After this interesting meal and casual conversation in 3 different languages everyone was rather full, disgusted, tired and confused, so our attempt to still go out for a few drinks was like the losers hitting on Jennifer Lopez in the movie Out of Sight, D.O.A. The day's indisputable highlight was Mart-Man's story about his arrival at the campus lodgings. As you may know, the Spaniards are not exactly specialists in foreign languages, and neither is my man Martijn, so some difficulties were imminent. However, the part where I produced a Jerry Bruckheimer-style special effect explosion in bursting into laughter and spraying whatever was in my mouth at the time through most of the holes in my head (and maybe a little pee came out, who knows), was when Mart-Man went to the reception of our "hostel" to ask for directions. The reception guy whips out a map, mumbles something for a while and asks (I swear, I couldn't make this up if I tried): "Are you ex-military?" After staring at the gentleman on the other side of the counter with an incredulously blank expression on his face Mart-Man leans forward and articulates carefully, as Dane Cook has taught us, "WHAT?". The man leans in, too, and repeats his previous inquiry about whether or not my friend is an ex-military operator. Blank stare... Being a master adapter Mart-Man decides to play along, switches to his ex-military expression (cause we all have one, don't we), which in Mart-Man's case is a mixture of Dirty Harry and Harry Potter, and replies in a low voice: "Yes, I AM ex-military."The man's face lights up and he starts giving Mart-Man directions, lacking only a pair of binoculars (pronounced bainokjylaaas), and some artillery fire in the background.

I chuckled myself to sleep that night, having decided that not only is that question one of the Top 4 Random Questions that I've heard in recent years, but also one that I am definitely going to start using in awkward situations, in order to make them even more awkward.

Kataya had informed us very explicitly that she is not to be woken up under any circumstances, so the next morning Mart-Man and myself headed out as just the of us. (...building castles in the sky...) First stop: Monjuic (Moont Djuus, according to Mart-Man). That impressive hill/mountain is interesting for numerous reasons. Firstly, it offers a magnificient view of the city,

(Columbus can be seen pointing the way to the New World, standing on top of the tall column in the background), the sea and Mount Tibidabo.

Reader Quiz: In what TV-series is Mount Tibidabo mentioned in context with backpacking through Europe? Answers in Comments or Guest Book, por favor.

It also has the Olympic stadium of the 1992 olympics

a creepy but beautiful cemetary,

a statue of Dante Alighieri,

an old fortress with huge cannons,

and every type of cactus on the planet, which is my favorite useless detail about Barcelona.

We also went to check out one of the more impressive churches ever: La Sagrada Familia, which still isn't complete. And to think that it's only because its architect Gaudi, the poor bastard, got hit by a tram midway through the building, and no one wanted to help him because he looked like a homeless person. Well done there.

For the rest of our time in Barcelona we concentrated on the first syllable of the city, as the title of this post might imply. We found a very cozy little joint quite close to the beach, that was owned by two Dutch brothers from HOLLAND!! (ihsn't it veird?)

There I met also the next Random Dude, a phonomenon that had become an essential part of the trip.

Yan from Canada was an ex-music video director, an art major, a border-line alcoholic and a connoisseur of cinematography who was currently working on a cruise ship. We got into a remarkable and lenghty conversation about various twisted but brilliant movies, such as Irreversible and Lost Highway, to the point where the rest of the people were convinced that we were on an amazing first date and were about to start making out at any moment. To their disappointment we switched the topic to women and the public was denied any dude-on-dude action. As the evening developed we all wanted to go to a club to party like it would be 1992, and soon enough got directions to a chic night club. Unfortunately, and quite obviously, the bouncers laughed in my face when I approached them to negotiate our entrance. Apparently it would have required some serious cash, at least two models in skimpy dresses per guy, and an Armani suit. I went 0 for 3 and the rest of the guys didn't do much better, so it was time for a reality check. Yet somehow, only minutes later we scammed ourselves into a relatively classy night club whose name escapes me. This might have something to do with the fact that the music was abysmal, there was some dancing between some of our friends and I didn't want to disturb, hence I repeatedly found myself hanging by the bar, putting out the vibe. Of course by this point of the trip I was so far past my budget (exceeded it in London with the round of vodkas, if you remember..), that the only drink I could afford was, ironically, raw vodka. 'nuff said.

The following morning (read: afternoon) Mart-Man and I agreed that there was absolutely no chance that we would visit any museum that day, but instead went for some serious chicken in KFC, the pinnacle of traditional Catalonian cuisine. The evening came quickly, since we woke up muy tarde, and it was time to go out again. This time we got another recommendation and followed it. Lucky for me, I didn't have any small bills in my pocket upon entering this particular facility, because I would have no doubt gotten my scrawny behind kicked for harrassing the personnel. Let me clarify, they looked like this:

When the gentleman on the right sold me my third beer I almost apologized to him for my overwhelming physical inferiority, but managed to hoist the bottle to my lips before further embarassing myself. Don't get me wrong, it was a lot of fun, just very, VERY different. Like a strip club, but with dancing and with less money shoved in people's underwear.

Finally, as the place started to empty, I got a wonderful idea. Thinking about You, dear readers, I approached one of the waitresses to ask her for a photo-op. I know, I'm a genius. SOO, what happened was that she told me that it was not going to happen and that I should proceed to the exits, as the club was now closed. Ah. BUT, knowing that sometimes women mean YES, although the repeatedly say NO, I decided to offer her some money for the photo. Even better, right? SOO, one of the waiters/bouncers (no difference in size) came over and I tried to explain to him that I was not, in fact, a sexual predator or a creepy guy trying to buy illegal services. However, it turned out that the guy was this girl's boyfriend and was far from impressed by my polite offer. Naturally, if it weren't for my innate bullshitting skills, I probably would not be writing this post right now, at least not two-handed, but somehow I talked myself out of that seemingly bottomless hole. At the same time, as I was toying with death, my main-man Martijn saw it fit to, instead of coming to help me or drag me out of there, take a picture of me on the verge of getting the white smacked out of me:

Two more things about Barca: 1) People smoke copious amounts of weed. We went to sit in the sun on some giant concrete cubes that formed a tiny peninsula extending from the beach to the sea. As we sat on one of the cubes an older couple who spoke German sat down underneath us and started casually to roll a joint.

A bit odd, I thought. But after they had finished with their spliff I could still smell the sweet aroma and looked around.. Everyone else was blazing up a doobie as well:

The blonde on the right in the grey shirt held one in her hand, the guy in the red shirt is passing a bone to his buddy on the next rock and the two women in red and white shirts, respectively, were also rolling a jazz-cigarette together. Maybe it was the official place for "puff-puff-give" in Barcelona but no one had told us, so instead of "passing it to the left" (because the right is the wrong), we passed altogether.

2) The local cops don't really mind public nudity. I saw a guy walking down the crowded La Rambla, the biggest boulevard in Barcelona in the middle of the day, dressed only in his underwear. The problem was that the underwear wasn't actually fabric but ink. You heard me, he was sporting nothing but tattooed swimming trunks. And to complete the look he had decided to wear some jewelry, yes, there. So what happened was that large groups of people started following him towards the statue of Cristobal Colon at the end of the street. Obviously everyone wanted to see what the guy would do once he got to the end of the boulevard, myself included. Two police officers walked by and I thought: "YOU ARE SO BUSTED, PRINCE ALBERT-CREEP!!" Wrong. They walked by him without batting an eye, as if it was completely healthy for the numerous children walking with their parents to witness a geezer strutting his stuff with jewelry in all the wrong places. Not cool. Funny, but not cool..

A couple of hours later we were sittin in a plane on our way to Porto, from whence we then took a bus to return to Vigo, the city of seafood and crappy weather. I was tired, but happy. After 11 days, 4 coutries, 237 photos, 1085 euros, numerous drinks, a couple of hangovers, 3 new shirts, a pair of Italian shoes, a watch, a lost bracelet, a ripped jacket, a ruined shirt, minor emotional trauma (Prince Albert-guy), several Random Guys, and hours and hours of laughter I was back. Not bad, not at all bad, if I say so myself.

And there you have it, an epic 11-day journey explained painstakingly thoroughly. I hope you liked it. And even if you didn't, it's always nice to get feedback, so don't hesitate to drop me a line, or HOLLA BACK, if you happen to be into rhythmically accentuated poetry.

Next time, TOP 4 Sporting events in Vigo

When in Rome..

2007-06-02T14:50:00.000+03:00

Sorry about the delay. Won't happen again. (blatant lie, obviously) But I'll work on it, I promise.

SO, after London the next stop was Rome, the controlled chaos including way too many churches, vespas and pizza. At the airport, which turned out to be over 100 km's outside Rome (thanks again, Ryanair), everything went surprisingly well. People spoke either English or Spanish, they knew where the buses departed from, and no luggage was lost. Obviously that seemed too good to be true...and it was.

But then again, that is exactly what makes all this so much fun: NOTHING is going to turn out like you plan it, no matter how much you try, so what you need to do is just adjust your attitude a little bit, laugh at yourself and enjoy the ride. (For more advice on how to live your life, please do read the Mary Scmich column from '97 that Baz Luhrman later made into a relatively famous song.)

And back to Rome..
While the Americans had booked their hostel in time, Katja and I went for the more adventurous "book as late as you can-style" and ended up in this hole that called itself a hostel. Let me give you some visual aids to paint a more vivid picture:

The breakfast. (from left to right) Pear juice, that had lumps and tasted a bit like rancid milk; Chocolate cake-thingy, that had more unnatural substances than Austrian Gatorade; "Peach" muffin-cake-bread contraption, which, I'm sure, had no such fruit in them, or any other fruit for that matter; Apple, that was almost normal; and my personal favorite, the Easter egg!! The wrapping had a Christmas theme and the chocolate was from 1998. De-friggin'-licious!

Bunk beds! YEY! Army-flashbacks.. And the cherry on the cake: a fan/lamp from from the movie Boogie Nights. We were even told that our room had a view of the Colosseum, but apparently it was blocked by some buildings, so it wasn't really a VIEW of the Colosseum, per se.

The corridor just outside our room. One of those "picture speaks more than a 1000 words" moments isn't it? There was also a hole in the floor.

The first night Katja and I went out for dinner and, once again, met a legendary random dude. The waiter, who bore a striking resemblance of Luigi, Mario's co-plumber from countless Nintendo games. He would call us his friends, congratulate me on amazing choices from the menu, and most importantly, sing bits of classic Broadway tunes. I swear, this guy was the long lost brother of the man in the van of the London story. The pizza was fantastic, too, so we went back there a couple of days later, only to find all of what I just described, plus Supper Mario, the chef. Priceless. The night got a fittingly nostalgic end when we saw:

Notice Kataya's infinitely cool 80's hang with the bended knee. (Perfected by Matthew McConaughey in Fast times at Ridgemont High, and later by Brian the dog in Family Guy, together with the legendary quote: "That's what I like about high school girls, I get older, they stay the same age..")

Next day: POPE STORE!!! It's true, I found it, I'm awesome.

My question to you is: How do they stay in business? Is there a minority of people in Rome who go around blessing people just for giggles, or is the "Papa" too holy for wearing the same piece of clothing twice?

The colosseum was..well, colossal, gargantuan, gigantic. Consult Mr. Felin for 14 more synonyms, of which at least 4 only used in the Bible. Not even my frantically flexed tricep could block it.

The Colosseum was also rather remarkable.

We managed to get ourselves on a tour with a guide who had as much sarcasm as she had information and cool details. Rarely has learning been so much fun. For instance, did you know that when regular gladiator battles started getting boring, the Romans built this huge complicated system that directed water from the aqueducts and filled the arena, making it possible to arrange naval battles! I also re-enacted Russell Crowe's entrance to the arena, because it's awesome. (Sadly Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Felix legions, father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife, never really existed, but the film is still one of my all-time favorites.)

Apart from the Colosseum, we also saw EVERYTHING else in Rome, as we walked around for several days, but I'm not going to bore you with random sights and their history.

Instead, I'm going to tell you about three interesting personalities. The first one is not human. She was the canine version of Ronaldinho, or Totti since we were in Italy. No one really knew where her owner was, or if she actually had one, but no one seemed to care. Even the cops who were patrolling (i.e. standing around, adjusting their berets, smoking, stroking their lover-beards, and hitting on passers-by) the square followed the dog's every move. The dog was so uncanny that everyone just stared and laughed in disbelief for several minutes. I bet one could have stolen at least 15 wallets without anyone noticing anything. It's just too bad that dogs aren't allowed in national teams, she would have made an excellent addition to the Finnish roster, and maybe we'd WIN a game every once in a while.

The second person is the Scotsman. He was also a tour guide, a hilarious man in his late twenties, who educated us on the quite colorful history of the Palatine Hill, where there once stood a luxurious palace, until it was stolen, cut up to pieces and shipped to the Vatican. This was a part of his hysterical rant against the Catholic church with all its numerous screw-ups, that I wish I had caught on tape. Also, the word "purple" comes from "purpura", which is Latin for a specific type of coloured marble, that no longer exists. (Also where the Finnish word "purppura" comes from, incidentally.) The ladies, of course, didn't hear any of this because they were concentrating more on undressing him with their eyes. And call me crazy, but I think I heard Kataya purr a little when he said the word "unfortunately" in his Scottish accent. Something for everyone, I guess.

Thirdly, there was Jerry. He was a teacher from England who we bumped into at a bar. We were waiting for the final of the NCAA Final Four to begin and we got to talking. He turned out to be one of the more fascinating people that I've met in a long time. He was thirty-something, smart and civilized, but still one of the craziest dudes in Europe, in a good way. For example, he was going to a small village outside Milan to stay with his cousins fiancée's friend's place. He had no clue how long he was going to be there, or what he would do after it. He had not reserved a hotel room for himself in Rome. He was going to talk to some people, have som drinks, and then either he'd crash at the apartment of some friendly stranger, or he'd walk the streets and check out the sunrise. I mean who does that at 35? He might have also had commitment issues, a pending jail sentence or the Mafia after him, but still. He was one of those people who open your eyes and remind that it's never too late. I'm not saying 35 is old, but you know what I mean.

And there's a pyramid in Rome, in case you didn't know.

Next up, Barcelona.
P.S. Don't forget to drop a line in my new and fancy Guestbook on your top-right corner.

London, Baby!!

2007-05-01T20:57:00.000+03:00

OK, time to recap the Ulysses-like journey that we embarked on as Semana Santa provided us with a week of pointless vacation, because some holy dudes died a long time ago.

The ever so cheery (or cheerleadery, to be precise) Vicky from the great state of Connecticut had planned this trip for a while and Kataya and I just sort of tagged along, for no real reason, which is always the best one, isn't it? And so, on the May 30th we got on a plane to London. The plan was to stay there for 3 nights, then fly to Rome, from there to Barcelona, and then back to Vigo, via Porto. This would make one extremely long blog post, so I've decided to divide it into handy little bits. So here's Part 1 of 3, London.

Having been to London a couple of times already, I hit the ground running. Using most of the communication methods known to (hu)mankind, besides smoke signals, we had planned the whole thing out with Mart-Man, who was going to be our host in London. Ze Americans took a bus from Stansted to their hostel somewhere in St. James Park, and Kataya headed towards her cousin's flight attendant-pad near the airport, whereas I calmly walked down the stairs to the comfy Stansted Express, that would take me to Liverpool St. station, our (Make-peace and myself) official meeting point in London. (I realize we've only used it twice, but it's cool to have a meeting point in London, so there you have it.) Make-peace, my "brotha from anotha motha", was once again up for the task and took a train down from the woods of Nottingham to Make (hahahahha) the best of the long weekend. We had a few hours to kill before Mart-Man would get out of work, so we did what any self-respecting gentlemen would do, and went for a couple of pints. It was London, after all.

After recapping the TOP 5 Post-party Awakenings including Mo's waking up with a beer can in his pocket in Sacramento and some other classics, as well as some other nostalgic stuff from the past, it was time to jump on a tube and get our behinds to Canary Wharf. Mart-Man had really gotten his shiznit together and even learned how to cook, I have to hand it to the man. The rocket salad and the salmon pasta were quite amazing as was the white wine. Soon enough it was hammer-time. We were to meet the Doc (the female-one, not D.O.C) to find out about the vivid campus life of "something-something" med school. It wasn't half bad, we played some pool, found a random Finnish dude who didn't have a clue, and a pint or two.

Exiting the campus after a few hastily drunken beers we were arguing over the correct pronunciation of a few medical terms, which resulted in me not being able to say the word "defibrillate" ever again without Make-peace cracking up uncontrollably. A job well done all around. Next stop, Funk & Candy (or Kandi). This restaurant/bar/lounge was really something else. The furniture and lighting were classy and the music was chilled, but not the type that makes you sleepy. Once again, random dudes keps popping out of nowhere, which is one of the coolest things about traveling. This time it was a Swedish geezer who had been living in London for 8 years, and we got into an argument about which one is the better brand of vodka, Absolut, or Finlandia. Obviously there was only one way to find out.. Horrible idea by the way, since the prices weren't exactly similar to those in a bar in east Helsinki during happy hour, but who cares. So what I'm eating tuna and vegetable soup for the rest of my time in Vigo because of that trip.

Nevertheless, I had to cut that good, clean and healthy fun short, because the apple of my eye was about to join us. You see, as ever the operator I had bought tickets for Jewelz to fly in from Finland for a long weekend, and her flight had landed only minutes ago. But that didn't mean that Mart-Man didn't have time to turn into Space-Marty, a state, in which he walks around in huge steps simulating low gravity and making wind/Darth Vader noises with his mouth. Priceless.

Meanwhile, I kept receiving the same sms from Jewelz from the airport over and over again, and yet was unable to reach her. Vishnu bless the Spanish network operators. Finally Doc got a hold of her, and by some amazingly timed stunt managed to pick her up in our cab. Or those of us, who were still within regular gravity's reach. By this time we had been joined by Yahaa and Ze German, who had the connections for the next place. It looked liked a closed down theatre. All doors were closed, no queue to be seen, no bouncers. Still, Ze German insisted that it's one of the coolest hangouts in London called Paper. She knocked on one of the doors. Seconds later a huge bouncer opened the door and told her that they're closed. She told him something, a password or something, and went in, and the door closed behind her. I was doing my best to turn into a human question mark, in which I succeeded rather well, partly because I really had to use the lavatory really badly by now. A couple of minutes later the door opened and the bouncer welcomed us all to Paper. Well. Like I always say, connections make the world go around.

The place turned out to be one of the coolest clubs that I've ever been to. Hence the prices were also a bit steep, to say the least. No matter. We took over the dance floor and even Make-peace, who usually doesn't get jiggy with it so much, brought his A-game, largely due to the DJ who was nothing short of "on fire". In the midst of the general euphoria caused by the all-around awesomeness of the night, together with a 9 quid GT I got a brilliant idea. Or more accurately an idea that seemed brilliant at the time, because of the aforementioned circumstances. I saw a part of a wall that was cushioned with brown leather, making it look like a luxury asylum cell wall. Without further scrutinizing the situation I jumped against it almost horizontally, forming a human X. However, midair I spotted a crack in the middle of the cushioned area, leading me to believe that the wall was, in fact, not a wall but a double door. So moments later I found myself on the other side of the doors, on the floor of the VIP area, in an almost perfect human X. Obviously the bouncer at the door of the VIP section was not very impressed by my uncanny stunt. But he was also having a hard time keeping a straight face, because the rest of the people within a 8m radius were laughing their asses off, so he just escorted me back to the regular people's side. I wonder if Diddy did the same thing we he had a party at the very same club a couple of months earlier?

Eventually we were done for the evening and left. A polite gentleman outside asked us if we cared to purchase any "pills o' charlie", but no one felt like x or cocaine at the time so we respectfully declined. Very nice of him to ask though. As we were closer to Make-peace's pad and Space-Marty was long gone, Jewelz and I crashed there, and Make-peace loyally offered to take one for the team: (his mom was moving, so there was only one bed left)

The next day we walked around, along the Thames

and checked out a local market, where we got introduced to the best brownies in London.

They were delicious, I have to admit. As a matter of fact, the only better ones that I've had were in Montreal. I'm actually thinking about starting to import that stuff (the Canadian brownies), but as we are already a bit chubby as a nation, I'm not sure it's a good idea to force everyone to gain 5 kilos. Later that day we had lunch at a Japanese restaurant whose staff was overwhelmingly Chinese. I wasn't sure what to do with that. I mean they have the same writing system, they're both Oriental peoples and so on, but something about that setup was completely wrong.

As the night was closing in we contemplated different musicals and eventually ended up going to see Lion King, which Make-peace and I had already seen before. Nevertheless, it blew us all away. Honestly, the little black kid playing young Simba sang better than any Finnish Idols-contender ever, including the ones who have "won". Although I'm not sure if that surprises anyone, but still. The night was capped off by two excellent NCAA Final Four basketball games, that we watched at Mart-Man's pad in Canary Wharf. Eventhough, to be completely honest with you, the girls showed flamboyant disinterest towards the games, and we (the geezers) basically forced ourselves to stay awake and watch them despite them not being that thrilling basketball-wise, because in order to get the games to show, Mart-Man had to order some epic sports channel package for a year, and Make-peace and myself had raced from the other side of London, climbing over some walls in the process, to make it on time.

Third day. Indiya (pronounced [indaieiaia]) informed us that there would be another market open that day, this time consisting of clothes, accessories and other contraptions by young designers. Needless to say Jewelz was interested, and she actually managed to spend all of her travel budget within 20 minutes on a jacket, a dress and a purse that looked like a deflated basketball, but in a cool way, I was told. Due to a minor misunderstanding my lunch consisted of the things that food eats. I have no idea what half the stuff was, but it was green and left me feeling very healthy (read: hungry). Fortunately we were going to a Thai restaurant in Soho later so I was only cranky for a while.

The Thai restaurant's name was written in code and I had no idea whether to read it horizontally or vertically and from which direction, but in a nutshell, it ROCKED. Thai beer turned out be quite tasty to my surprise and the food was "fetén-fetén". (That's actually old spanish fo "outSTANDING" but I don't know any Thai so it'll have to do.) The meal even got some comic charasterictics when we, like any healthy young men, started to screw around with the spices and chili sauces. Here are some free samples.

After the dinner our team was rather spent and only a few of us had the energy to go for drinks later. We found this one place that was alarmingly close to the red light district, and the atmosphere was fitting. The events ranged from Men's 10 minute Toncil-Hockey, to "Are these real or not?, but a personal favorite was definitely the Jewish activist. You heard me. This guy apparently thought that we were laughing at him, when in reality we were following the humorous moves of a sloshed Asian girl, as she repeatedly attempted to pick herself up from the floor. He came over to us and started to rant about us being Jew-haters and so on. How he thought that we had known his religion remained a mystery, but it didn't seem to bother him. Instead he let us hear it for a good ten minutes, until reaching the apex by trying to convince us that he, a low-level computer engineer, was going to "rule all the companies and the world" in TWO YEARS. In my book that would be quite an accomplishment for any one person, Jewish or not, in any number of years, but he had decided to do it in two. Obviously, at this point our drinks were casually bursting through our nostrils as we wiped tears from our eyes and gasped for air.

But in case he actually takes over the world in 2009 you heard it here first. Man, is that going to be the biggest, fattest "I told you so!", if the poor bastard pulls it off. Remains to be seen, I guess.

I leave you with this random higlight: A van that drove around London centre advertising something. What made this van special was its driver, who was playing instrumental Sinatra songs from a loudspeaker on the roof, whilst singing the vocals into a microphone that hung from the roof of the cockpit. (Das Cockpit in German, by the way) This guy was actually GOOD, and he put his heart into it, too. You could see the progressing wave of smiles on people's faces as this car passed by, with soap bubble blowing from underneath it. I would have given him an award for making the world a better place, but I didn't have any on me at the moment and he was busy with the second chorus of "Strangers in the night".

Bonus question: Of which music video does this picture remind you?

TOP 4 Beard Styles

2007-04-25T00:17:00.000+03:00

All right, dear readers! The time has come to address the topic that has been on everyones (and by everyone I mean the 4 people that actually read my doodles) lips for the better part of the early spring. THE 'STACHE!!

What started out as a personal endeavour into the mystical world of facial hair due to lack of warm water, soon escalated into a phenomenon of international proportions. I started getting e-mails, comments on this blog, facebook messages, text messages, and of course honest face-to-face dissing. I even got a threat or two, and one fan went as far as photoshopping a free sample picture more to his liking. And while I naturally enjoyed the attention, I had no clue that people cared so much. Anyway, here's a montage to bring this thing to a close.

4. "The Fisherman"
All out, uncontrolled pile of hair. Sported by Hemingway, Grizzly Adams, Pau Gasol, and most homeless guys.

3. "The Lover"
A closely groomed, greasy look. (notice the fake smile)
Sported by Italian football players, Craig David and Ali G

2. "The Original 'stache" (only a little thinner, but give me a couple of years..)
Not allowed to be sported at all, anywhere, unless the person has lost a bet.
Exceptions include Eddie Murphy, Tom Selleck, Freddie Mercury and the late Matti Tiilikainen.

1. "The Trucker"
A personal favorite, a Play-Off beard gone wrong, only for Badass Mofo's. (self not included)
Sported by Hightower, James Hetfield and Hulk Hogan.

And as a special treat for those who can't get enough of this hilarious and witty visual comedy I give you: The cop from Village people by NickRad: (notice the out-of-place 2Pac reference)

Vote for your favorite and win a personal Top 5o Worst Things About Spain-post!

Lastly I want to congratulate myself on the most useless blog post so far.

(And for any Senaior citizens out there, its called a "comment" because it's supposed to comment something, perhaps even the corresponding blog post..)

Next time: Tour d'Europe, Part I

It's Friggin' Freezing Mr. Bigglesworth!

2007-04-22T23:49:00.000+03:00

Well friends, life goes on, and so should we. SOO, today I shall tell you about the peculiar town of Segovia.

The drive was surprisingly uneventful up until we stopped for gas on the outskirts of Madrid. While the girls were buying only the bare essential, Make-peace and I discovered thus far one of the most curious contrapments known to man. A Pet-Washing-Machine!!

Apparently you're supposed to just kind of throw your cat, dog, ferret, or squirrel in, close the door and watch it get a heart attack/drown. At this point I felt that something was definitely awry, to say the least. My next sign was the fantastically dark horizon filled with ominous clouds and the fact that the uphills got so steep that our loyal C3 maxed out at 80km/h. I suddenly remembered what I wise Canuck once told me about European cars and their small engines. I started to think about some swear words that I hadn't already used 25 times on this magical trip, but before I could think of any my attention was needed elsewhere. For the car made a beep and a digit 3 C was blinking on the dashboard. I blinked a couple of times to find the 1
on its left side but it wouldn't show. Through a logic-defying thought process I managed to convince myself that the number was actually the current outdoor temperature. And soon enough it was snowing. Well..

We watched the thermometer manically as it went from 23 in Sagunto to 1(!) as we closed in on Segovia. Our feelings went from confusion to disbelief, followed by mild fear and finally amused hysteria.

Upon arrival to the mountainous town (which we later found out is meteorologically the COLDEST PLACE IN ALL OF SPAIN) I got out of the car to consult a city map, which was a horrible idea since it was now officially freezing and I was wearing a T-shirt and shorts. Additionally, it didn't occur to me that we were in Spain, hence that map was going to be like trying to tell someones fortune from a pile of guano. And so, we had to drive around the city for 45 minutes looking for a hotel, which with the snow, the one way streets and the narrow uphill passages and alleys made it resemble a scene from the movie TAXI, only with an infinitely crappier car. But as the good book says, seek and thou shall find. And we did. An affordable hotel with big rooms, a nice concierge, and most importantly HEATING. YATZY! We decided to celebrate this by going to dinner to a nice local restaurant. The concierge was happy to recommend a traditional tavern close by, in which the king himself had dined more that once. And sure enough, as we entered the restaurant, on their wall of fame there was a picture of the king Juan Carlos together with the owner of the restaurant. And he (the king) was smiling, so our hopes were pretty high. Even the recommended house wine was outSTANDING, and the international menus had less than five typos per page, so we couldn't wait to get to the food. (Make-peace is just marvelling at my beard, which was at its prime then.)

We couldn't translate everything and Make-peace was like Ray Charles in the Louvre, so we went with the waiter's recommendations. You guessed it, BAD IDEA!!

I don't even want to know what it was. The brown things are some kind of peas or nuts, and the white things are fat. Not even meat with fat like usually in Spain, just plain fat. The other stuff, I have no clue. So we concentrated on the wine and the desserts, which weren't half bad actually. Later that night, to our great surprise, we discovered that Make-peace was fluent in Norwegian.

The next day we donned every piece of clothing we had brought with us and headed out. The town had originally been a medieval fortress, so it was bulging with old buildings and historical monuments, highlights being sub-zero temperatures,

a giant cathedral,

a roman aqueduct,

and an actual, real castle.

Initially the slightly nippy weather brought a bit of a smirk on the faces of our happy campers, but the castle itself turned out to be remarkable.

It even had an artillery museum, which we had to rush through in 10 minutes though, because the castle was closing, but that didn't mean we couldn't take ingenious photos on the way.

I also experienced a small personal triumph. While having breakfast on the last day we got a parking ticket, but I chased down the parking attendant and came up with a story so mind-boggling, that she ripped the ticket apart on the spot and APOLOGIZED!

So there you have it, Segovia, DONE. Next time, TOP 4 Beard Styles.

The Streets of Heaven Are Crowded With Angels Tonight

2007-04-17T18:35:00.000+03:00

I was going to tell you about Segovia today, but I don't want to anymore.

Today I got only bad news. The first was about the 32 poor students of Virginia Tech whose lives were ended by a sad, sad man and his rifle. As I did not now any of these people, and it is not my country I will not speculate the tragedy further, but mark my words: no amount of metal detectors, or security guards with more guns, is going to reduce the amount of these annual killings, that have already become a twisted escalating game.

But the thing that really struck me was the news about a single man passing away. That man was a teacher of mine. Not one of the incompetent fools here, but a true teacher. I can honestly say that I probably learned more from him, than from any other human being in my life. And I would like to tell you a bit about him.

He was a wise man. Every time I tell someone about him I jokingly say, that during the years that he taught us, my friends and I could not come up with a single question, to which he wouldn't know the answer. And not just about religion, theology, or philosophy, that he taught us, but about anything. He would tell us exciting stories from the ancient Greece, Rome, Persia and the Far East. He could trace every word or term back to its Greek, Latin, Arab or African roots. He wouldn't just tell us the "what", he would tell us "why".

He was a just man. Not once did he have to raise his voice to me and my friends, even though we were the loudest boys in the class. Whenever we would start creating too much ruckus, all he had to do was to snap his fingers once, point at us, and give us a meaningful look, and we would quiet down. I remember one day; we were joking around loudly during a class and instead of throwing us out he told us: "Guys, you are so funny, that I am going to write those jokes down and laugh at them at home all weekend." And we knew that this man could take us down with his words in a blink of an eye. I don't think there is a single person among those, that he taught that would not respect him. He never forced his opinions on anyone. He always separated historical facts from his own views, and gave room to views of others.

He was a good man. Of course he, too, had his flaws like all of us do, but I never saw any. He was never boasting with his enormous amount of knowledge, never pretentious, never arrogant towads his students, he never made fun of anyone, at least not in a negative way. He was nice, funny, understanding and interesting.

So I ask you this. Picture this man for a while. Picture his round face, his wise eyes, his majectic moustache and a grinning smile. Picture his huge belly, his legendary suspenders and his brown shoes. And please think about him for a while.

He was many things, but to me he was a mentor, a model of character and a friend, I like to think, and I will miss him. I am not a very religious man, but I sincerely, truly hope that he has gone to a better place, and I hope you join me.

Lepää rauhassa, Matti Tiilikainen.

Fallas!!! [faijas]

2007-03-29T21:59:00.000+03:00

Only a week after the Bayona trip my inside sources gave me a hint to check out this huge annal festival in Valencia called Fallas. The same day I heard two people talking about it on the bus to school, and later a guy mentioning it on his cell phone. Hmmm. Surely enough I had to find out what all the ruckus is about.

I hatched a plan to the get there, called my loyal sidekick Make-peace,

who took the first flight out of Nottingham where he had been re-enacting a modern version of "The Color of Money", whilst moonlighting as a student, and hired Kataya and BHF (Ella, the Big-Headed Finn) [she doesn't actually have a large head, that nickname was born out of thin air (and tequila) on the night that I told you about in Play Ball!!], just to avoid the gay honeymoon remarks. It turned out that renting a car was the best (read: hardest) way to get there. And by best I mean cheapest. So we rented one, picked up Make-peace at Santiago de Compostela, wandered around in the mountain roads surrounding it for three hours to shake off any followers, or because Kataya was behind the wheel, and headed southeast.

It took Make-peace 5 hours and two relatively strong vodka-lemon drinks to get over my beard, but that's the price you pay. By the time we were about 100 miles from Madrid we found ourselves hungry and stopped in a small town, which might, by the way, go to the Top 4 Saddest Things in Spain. Not the fact that we went there, but the place itself. I'm pretty sure air stood still in that town. And not in a good, romantic little village type of way where no one's in a hurry. But more like...you know, when you wake up in the morning after a rough night, go to the bathroom, maybe take a shower and have a glass of juice (when no longer in the shower), and then return to your bedroom, and that smell of no oxygen, old booze, drawl, sweat and sub-blanket farts hits you in the face like Roy Jones Junior's right hook. That way. We were desperate, so we settled for any food, which turned out to be just that. A couple of yesterday's toasts cut into smaller bits, some limp fries and a seashell that had surely died at least twice, and not in the recent past.

At the 9-hour mark the group's morale was declining rapidly. I was whipping the C3 like Spartacus at the Colosseum, but the 1,1 litre beast was at the edge of its capacity and I, together with the gas tank, decided it was time to stop again. As fortune would have it, the gas station also carried a commendable collection of vodka, which, when combined with the mix-tape titled "Epic" quickly got the party started.

With a respectable figure of 1170 kilometers behind us we arrived at the Port of Sagunto. It was an industrial area, and one could not even see the sea in the darkness. Minor setback. 5 minutes, 38 swear words and 16 roundabouts later we somehow found the right road and thusly also our hotel. However, as we had no key and the ringing the doorbell didn't do squat, we felt like a bunch of homeless people in Baghdad, largely because the Spanish fire"crackers" seemed to lack any kind of restrictions in amount, size or loudness. I have played with firecrackers every new year since I was 8, so I have some frame of reference, and these things were insane. The medium sized ones sounded like hand grenades (and were thrown around in a similar manner) whereas the Spanish "Thunder Kings" bore a close resemblance to the mortar of a 81mm grenade launcher used by our dear armed forces. Kataya saw an older couple standing around close by, but since they didn't really speak any language properly, it took us a while to find out that they too were trying to get in. Kataya had to use Spanish, English, French and some German and 15 minutes in acquiring this information, that later proved completely useless for us. (This is exactly why Esperanto will never be REALLY spoken anywhere.)

We kept ringing the bell and banging on the door, since that, and dodging the explosives were the only things to do, and finally the door opened. It was the concierge. And by concierge I mean a drunken retard with cotton balls in his ears. Vexed because he couldn't go to the party, he decided to get drunk by himself and damp the sound of the fireworks by sticking stuff in his ears, and it worked so well that he fell asleep/passed out on the counter. That's Spain for you. We, however, had a hard time seeing the obvious comedy in this at the time and didn't exactly high-five the guy on the way to our rooms. For the next hour and a half we hunted for food but it turned out that the locals don't eat, so there wasn't any. Seriously. Nothing. Nada. So we gave up and went back to the hotel to get some good old shut-eye.

Six hours later Make-peace and I woke up abruptly and almost ducked for cover when the Apocalypse started. Five seconds later we realized that the world wasn't actually ending, but instead the locals had started a brand new day of Fallas with a bang, or around 200 actually. Well, there wasn't much we could do but to get up. Chow-time. As men we were compelled to go hunt for food for the tribe. Even though ALL the town's streets were one-way we managed to navigate our way to a Golden Arches. But wait, it gets better. Opposite to the Mickey D's there was a Burger King. Our hunt was over. The women said that the coffee was bad and the salads limp, but we thought our hunt was a success.

We could see the beach from our hotel room and decided to give it a try. Although the weather wasn't too hot, the beach was quite nice. A foot bag, a couple of Coronitas, and some mildly gay wading (the girls chose to get some "real coffee" instead) in the freezing Mediterranean made for an extremely pleasant afternoon. We heard that there would be all kinds of events and concerts later in the evening so we stayed at Sagunto for that night. And it paid off: we stumbled upon a stage where a band was playing some Spanish and Italian! hits. We recognized maybe one or two of them but sang along with every chorus. Then, in the early hours of the morning someone thought of a game, which involved going through Make-peace's personal life in its entirety. Although somehow Make-peace ended up being the only one to tell anything about themselves, so the game wasn't really a classic, at least according to him.

The next day we slept late, partly because of the night before, partly to gather strength for the next night, for it would be the big one. After midnight all the Fallas in Valencia would be burned and there would be much rejoicing. Kataya needed a few more hours to gather herself, and here's why:

The rest of us were very impressed. (You can't see Make-peace because he's spraying vodka and lemon juice through his nose.)

And then there was three. We took the train because we wanted to still have a car to get us back to Vigo. At the central station in Valencia all hell was breaking loose. At least the organizers had been smart enough to prepare for the worst. Although I don't see how the first aid people could actually help anyone if they were all in one place, posing for pictures like a football team.

Oh, well. To get him to stop worrying and to get us energized, I introduced Make-peace to the wonderfully disgusting world of "churros", sugar-coated, donut-resembling sticks that are made by a Play-Doh fat factory.

We also got ourselves some original, traditional Fallas-scarves and even Kataya found the willpower to show up, albeit in a rather "poor oxygen", so to speak.

We walked around the hectic Valencia centre and found bigger and bigger Fallas behind every corner, until it was close to midnight and time to pick the one we want to see go down in flames. We picked a Falla with some Indian and Viking! characters that looked funny and more importantly were situated dangerously close to the surrounding buildings. And since it was Spain, anything could happen.

And soon enough, it was hammer-time. The spectacle started with a crescendo of beautiful fireworks that served as an appetizer before the Fallas were lit. It took a while for the flames to lick the figures to a suitable temperature (451 F, or thereabouts) but once they did..DAEMN! The blazing inferno was nothing short of breathtaking, and the crowd cheered as if the papier-maché and wood statues would have been the Berlin Wall itself being torn down. The flames climbed higher and higher and the firemen present were forced to wet the trees and the facades of the buildings over and over again to keep them from catching on fire.

As the contraption slowly crumbled we continued walking, hoping to find another one that would still be standing (much like Elton John). And so we did. This time the journalist in me urged me to climb into a tree in search for a better angle, and it paid off. Here's a free before-after sample:

After the event it was raining ash, paper, and water from the firemen's hoses, i.e. an excellent photo-op. Btw, I also have some video clips that are pretty sweet but I have no idea how to post them here, so if you want to see them, tell me how. (I think this one's a job for the Symbol)

When everything had burned to the ground, the people spread out quickly and we found out that the next day would be a completely regular workday in Valencia. The party ended faster than I could say "Well, what the **** are we supposed to do now?". Dumbfounded by this revelation we shuffled our way back to the train station. As there were a lot of trains and not too many timetables the girls went into an information office to ask for help. Unfortunately the dude didn't have a clue were Santugo was. Kataya kept telling him that he must be kidding, how can he not know where Santugo is, it's only about 25 kms away, is he really that bad at his job and so on, you get the idea. The problem was that there is no Santugo. There is a Sagunto though, the man said to Kataya, after she had been chastising the poor man for several minutes. Whoops!!

On our way back to the hotel from SAGUNTO's train station we figured we still have the car for two days so why not check out another Spanish city while were at it. When consulted on the matter the cab driver suggested either Toledo or Segovia of which we picked the latter, because it was on the way to Vigo and sounded groovier. And so, the following morning we loaded up the faithful C3 and pressed the pedal to the metal. But that's another story, coming your way soon..

P.S. Sorry about the delay, dear readers. I was searching for new stories in various cities in Europe, of which I'll tell you in the flashest of flashes.

Breaking The Waves

2007-03-14T23:04:00.000+03:00

Every year on the first weekend of March the small town of Bayona sets aside its easy seaside town reputation and becomes a medieval village. The occasion is, of course, the arrival of Piña, the first of Cristobal Colón's ships to return from America in 1493. Having heard from the locals that this was something definitely worth seeing, a few of the American exchange students and myself headed towards that mysterious town, about 5o km south of Vigo.

As we stepped off the bus we could see the Piña,

or more accurately its exact replica tied to one of the long peers in front of the seaside boulevard. Obviously we had to take all the necessary Titanic and "land AHOY!" photos until we could concentrate on the history part of the ship. There was an older gentleman who was happy to enlighten us on the details about the vessel. For instance, it had a crew of 23 seamen (hahhahaah), which to my opinion is a lot, because the ship wasn't as big as one might think. Below the deck we found the captain with a worried look on his face, some nets for fishing, and chests filled with gold from America, probably paid for by glass pearls or lead, delivered into the natives breast pockets with an extremely rapid velocity. There were coins, nuggets, and all sorts of jewellery, which was also made to look as it would have back then, said the ship guide.

After the Piña we picked one of the narrow alleys that led towards the town square. A lot of people were wearing medieval clothing, there were blacksmiths, ladies with their cavaliers, jesters, wizards and monks. On both sides the were small tables and stands where the Bayonans were selling local delicacies, arts and crafts, clothes and beverages. At times there were men walking around with some sheep, pigs or a pair of bulls or cows, some real, some made of plastic for security reasons. At the main square musicians with medieval instruments, some of which I had never seen, were entertaining people while the latter exchanged compliments about each other's costumes. And no medieval fair would be complete without an extremely street-credible blacksmith, casually puffing on a Cuban.

Mingling with the locals paid off, as we were soon able to extricate some inside information about a traditional joust or a medieval tournament, that would take place on the beach in short order.
On our way there we were faced with a rather peculiar sight to say the least. There was a large tent next to the beach area, with several pedestals or columns inside. And on those columns were live birds. Well, birds isn't actually a very accurate depiction, for these geezers were from the badass-end of the bird gene pool. There were owls, hawks, a vulture and the don of the group: a huge eagle. This noble creature was tied to its pedestal with a rope so thin, that if it would have felt like it, it could have surely ripped anyone's eyes right out with it's nasty talons. So I decided not to pet it. Plus, it seemed to have eaten some spicy bees, hornets or even june bugs earlier, so it just concentrated in looking cool.

The joust was actually quite impressive. I feared it might be really lame, since there aren't really that many knights hanging around these days, but I'll tell you, these guys had some serious skills. The black knight (also a crowd favorite cause he was yummy, I was told), with his black stallion took the rest to school....two times. Although he had only one horsepower (ouch!), its engine seemed to have some extra pistons or something, because he made the green night, for example, his bitch, and made him look bad. Sadly his outstanding maverick was not enough to beat the purple knight in the thrilling final, and had to settle for second place. The silver lining was that the queens and kings in the audience were merciful, and he got to keep his life.

After this unforeseen and extremely entertaining event we decided to walk around some more since the weather was really nice, at times it was so hot that it felt like there would have been be two suns shining on us. There was a peninsula that looked interesting with a seashell-covered small beach,

huge waves crashing on the rocks and a breathtaking view of the sea and the nearby islands. Ever the adventurer (read: idiot), it didn't take me long to come up with the idea to go as near to the waves as possible, in hope of getting some nice and dramatic photos.

Well, we all know how that turned out. I spotted the most dangerous-looking rock,

over which every eleventh wave crashed, when the rest only came really close. The first photo was a success.

After that, however, I tried to leave that rock, but failed critically. The "every eleventh wave"-thing didn't really apply and I saw a huge wave rising above me, so I put my head down and grabbed the rock with everything I had. It washed over me, after which the second photo was taken.

(notice the water running down the cracks on the right) By now I was extremely sure that this had not been a very clever idea and tried to leave again. Unfortunately "every eleventh wave" had turned into "every other wave" so I had to take two more of those on my back. After taking about 8 tons of water in my face I finally managed to get to the shore. By an insane coincidence I was wearing my Fjällräven wind and waterproof jacket (top 4 things that rock, remember?), so my torso had remained dry. My camera still worked, because it had been in the jacket pocket, but my phone and mp3-player had not been that lucky. (After having tried everything else, I actually washed them both under running water once I got home. The mp3-player came back to life a couple of days later, but the salt had short-circuited something inside my phone, so I had to let it go.)

So there I was: pants, socks, shoes and head completely soaked and salty, feeling like a true winner, while the Americans laughed their asses off, repeating the mantra: "I can't believe you did it, you crazy Finnish bastard!!" I regained my cool, reminded them that they are fluent in only one language against my five, AND I could beat them in any sport they could think of, so they shut up. Three hours later I had had it with my wet clothes and marched into a chic seaside boulevard boutique that had a sale. The two female attendants were clearly a bit surprised to see a soaking wet Finn with an arguably awesome beard walk in like he owns the place, and ask to see their collection of pants. Oddly enough, I found a pair of jeans that weren't half bad, and walked happily away, going commando due to the lack of (well-chosen) briefs. I also found a pair of OK sneakers for 14e and the day took a turn for the better. The heat from the sun allowed me to remove my salt-covered [F-jail-rave-n] jacket and things could not have been dandier.

Just before we muscled ourselves into the last bus to Vigo that day we caught a glimpse of the epic play about the Pinta's travels,

its brave trail blazers and its celebrated return to Bayona. The rockets from the over-the-top fireworks properly culminated the somewhat eventful, and almost a magic excursion to this adorable little town.

P.S. How many NBA teams can you find in this story?

TOP 4 Nastiest Things So Far (not for people with weak stomachs..)

2007-03-04T23:23:00.000+03:00

4.
This girl in the school's cafeteria on Friday.
She obviously didn't either own a mirror or believe in them. Or maybe she had one of those distorting mirrors from amusement parks. Possibly even the Magic mirror from Snow White. At least I can't think of any other explanation for her clothes. She wore the type of jeans that Britney introduced to the larger public.

She also had a tiny top with a very generous decoltée. Nothing wrong there, albeit a slightly offensive outfit for school, perhaps. However, the problem was that her clothes were size XS. She was an XL (to be nice). This made her look like a Play-Doh fat factory, if you know what I mean. Furthermore, she had decided to complete the look with high heels AND she spoke really loud. So, as she went to the counter, her shoes went CLIP-CLOP-CLIP-CLOP and she just shouted useless crap to her "friends" in a table on the other side of the cafeteria, forcing everyone to look at her.

BUT WHY?

I'm not saying that fat people should only wear tutus and be quiet in the corner, but I honestly cannot understand what she was trying to achieve. There is no way in hell that she could have thought she looked hot, or else she had very serious issues. So again, WHY? And trust me, I was not the only one wondering this. There were dozens of girls staring at her with emotions ranging from disgust, via pity, to utter confusion. I still don't get it..

3.
Pigs. They're everywhere. And they're all dead. I have yet to run into a good steak, or any steak for that matter. All they have is pork. I think it might be a conspiracy to keep the Muslims away or then the people are just simply too poor to afford beef. And it's not just the cutlets with 85% fat and 15% meat, served in any restaurant and sold in every (super)market. They have dried pig's HEADS in stores, next to the meat and cheese section, just casually hung from hooks on the wall. Their dried eyes staring at you as you try to order some cheese. Also some snouts, ears, eyes and other body parts, that are so not meant to be eaten by humans. NOT COOL.

2.
Stretchy pants on dudes. Again...WHY? Almost everyone is wearing them while doing sports. With jogging I can sort of understand that, maybe, but gym? You don't have to be aerodynamic whilst doing bench presses. You don't have to show everyone to which religion you belong, whilst playing soccer. The few who wear shorts, wear really nifty ones, AND LONGER STRETCHY PANTS UNDER THEM. And then these guys don't even do useful stuff while working out like biceps, back muscles, or squats. They do a 101 different types of abs, inner and outer thighs and buttocks. For a macho nation, most guys that I've seen are fantastically gay. They even call it:

I rest my case.

1.
Number One with a bullet. The Witch. Here's what happened. At some point during the first few days in Vigo Kataya and I got on a bus. Right after I took my card out of the ticket machine the smell hit me like a wet sledgehammer. You know how you sometimes forget your gym stuff in the bag overnight.

Now imagine that a leprechaun (why not?) sneaks in and puts a rotting fish
in that same bag, and then urinates on it after eating a lot of asparagus. Then he hides the bag in your closet, where you find it a week later. Then you open it and stick your head inside. It smelled like that. Well, that..plus crap.

We sit down, and I start scanning the bus for the source of the stench, while my eyes water. No fluids on the floors, no jabbering drunkards, no gym bags.. Then I spot the witch. It's sitting next to the window on the other side of the aisle. It has a long woven coat, that's covered in cat and dog hair, white feathers!!!???, and questionable stains. It's hair has turned into dreadlocked lump for lack of washing and it has 7 long, curly hairs on its jaw. The teeth...oh the teeth. Well, remember the beggar/prisoner (later turns out to be Jafar) in Aladdin. It had similar teeth. After a grueling 10 minutes it gets off the bus and the air starts to flow, as two other women quickly open some windows. I look at the witches seat. It has a darker, large stain. I feel my stomach pressing rewind, but I pause it (la cucaracha) by some Zen-like breathing. And here's the best part: at the next stop, a really cranky-looking upper-class woman gets on and approaches the seat after giving the driver some crap about absolutely nothing.. Everyone in the bus holds their breath, but no one wants to warn to cocky harp. And she sits right smack in the middle of the stain in her fur coat!! A universal feeling of hilariousness and disgust fills the bus.

Finally we get off and I feel like doing what Ace Ventura did, when he found out that Einhorn is a man.. Hands down one of the nastiest things I have ever witnessed. Possibly sharing the title with the masturbating homeless guy in Burger King in London.. You just can't make this stuff up.

After The Party It's The After Party

2007-02-26T01:37:00.000+03:00

SO, after a lenghty, but a quite entertaining train ride we were in Madrid. For those of you, who have never been to the central railway station in Madrid, IT'S GARGANTUAN! It looks more like an airport than a train station. I tried to take a picture, but I couldn't fit it in a single shot from any angle, sorry about that. But it has dozens of stores, about a thousand platforms and at least one hotel. So imagine it, please. Now imagine me, looking like a moron with my camera twirling around like a fart in leather pants. But I did find a cool mailbox, so it was totally worth it.

From the station we took a taxi to Martina's house. She's Kataya's curling friend, who lives on the outskirts of Madrid. Now, when I say outskirts I don't mean some cheap suburb. I'm talking about La Moraleja, a restricted community where everyone has huge yards, high fences, pools, the works. (Westmount in MTL, Westend in Finland) Finally we arrive at the house, which is a few hundred meters from the Beckhams', by the way. Kataya had luckily given me a heads-up on where we were going, so I managed to keep my cool. Apparently I attract lairs, because the house was one, too. (Uni of Vigo the previous one)

From the moment the door opened, someone pressed fast forward.

Hiimmartinanicetomeetyou.
Thisismymomhelloimwies.
Kissesoncheeks.
Thisismartinasfriendlauratheyknowfromwaybackencantadomorekisses. Donttalktothedoginababyvoiceitwillgetexcitedandpeeeverywhere. Thisislaurasgrandmotherlauraistryingonadressforherhenpartyshes
gettingmarriedmorekissesoncheeks.
Holaimmartinasfatherpleasehavesomethingtodrinkhowwas
thetrainorwasitbushandshake.
(exhale)

In the first 35 seconds in that house I heard four languages. Martina speaking Dutch to her parents, the grandma speaking English, Martina's parents speaking English AND Spanish to us, and myself asking Katja in Finnish if she possibly knew what the hell was going on. She didn't.

We were shown to our room which was in the north-wing of the casa (could be any direction really, but you get the point), and I had to sit down. After a couple of deep breaths I got rid of my North Carolina Tar Heels cap (not the right crowd, really), put on several extra layers of deodorant, chewed frantically on some gum for 30 seconds and changed my shirt to one that doesn't say:

After this brief time-out (called "Jamo" in Finnish, after a legendary hockey goalie) I was ready to mingle. This is what I found out: Martina's family was originally from Holland (ishn't it veird?), but they had lived for years in the States, before moving to Madrid. Laura was getting married and her Grandma came to visit Martina's parents, whom she had known for a long time, whilst the girls where searching for a suitable outfit. And the wiener-dog called Inka would, in fact, take a wee-wee all over the place if it got too excited. This was interesting, because she already looked like she was trying to jump, and run to 3 different directions at once. In my opinion her getting any more excited would definitely involve some kind of a spontaneous combustion, turnig the wiener-dog into a hotdog wiener. (My God, think of the irony!)

AAANNYWAY, I got the tour of the house and the yard, that were both impressive, to say the least (Kataya had stayed there several times earlier). In time the situation cooled down and we got to, once again, tell our story. (Where do we know each other from, study in Vigo, why, so do you speak Spanish, really, seafood's really good etc.) Soon it was time to start planning the evening. Kataya complained that she was kind of tired from teh train ride, but as The Good Book says in Isaiah, 57 "No rest for the wicked", and boy, has it ever been so true.

11 pm:
We left the house. With Martina as our driver we headed to a local mall to get some dinner.

00.30 am:
We start towards Boss, a local college-type bar. Martina tells us she used to work there, and thus knows the bartender -> cheap drinks. I drink mine as well as the next guy, all the while trying to watch some NBA All-Star Weekend coverage on the wall-mounted flat-screen, and pay attention to the girls' stories. Time passes and we decide to go for seconds, since the drinks at the night clubs are VERY expensive. Unfortunately, either my beard is a dude-magnet or the guy thought I was looking at him, when I was actually looking over his shoulder; but the young man next to me turned to me and proceeded to introduce himself and ask how I was doing on this lovely night. Seeing this, the girls quickly decided to piss in my cereal, so to speak, and went to the bathroom, leaving me to be hit on. Ah. After some awkward conversation and a few polite smiles I turned around and was forced to take a long sip from my 50-50 drink. Luckily we were going to leave soon, so I didn't have time to unintentionally charm any more men.

2.57 am:
We arrived in front of a classy-looking club called Archy (possibly a misspelling of "artsy"). The valet took care of the car and parked it next to the other regular cars. The curb in the immediate proximity of the entrance was decorated with mostly Porsches, with an Audi A6-A8 here and there. The cue was as long as this story, but luckily we had a man inside. Josito, as the girls called him, was a man of 29, that turned out to be a synonym for Madrid's night/morning life. He talked to the bouncers and only I had to pay to get in (I'm not hot enough). The place was packed. The music was crap, but everyone knew the lyrics. Apparently they were some evergreen Spanish pop-rock classics, but they sounded like bad remixes of Nick Kershaw- songs. After we finally found seats a man came over. He offered me a half-full bottle of Bombay Sapphire on ice, with some glasses, tonic and lemon slices. I leaned in and said "WHAT?". He then quickly explained that his party was leaving and I looked like a nice guy that could use a drink. (I almost took a taxi to the nearest 24h barbershop to get a shave, but decided instead to blend back into the crowd and play it cool.) I thanked the man, as he left with his friends, and turned to my party who was staring at me, looking very confused.

4.40 am:
Josito says it's time to move on to the next club, and we start towards a place called Pacha. This one has a slightly upgraded entrance, boasting a silver Maserati and a true old school classic, a pitch black Ferrari Testarossa. We go in, and this time even I don't have to pay. The dance floor is so packed that no-one has any room to actually dance, so people just sort of flow around in a single mass. Drinks here are 10 euros a pop, so I concentrate on observing the surroundings in order to let You, dear reader, grasp some of the atmosphere that I experienced. The music was mostly shit to be honest. I was kind of looking forward to some groovy house or something, since it was supposed to be a really hip club, but no. Crappy techno with a couple of old pop/trance hits. They weren't even so old, that they would have been good in a funny way (so uncool it's cool), they were just...well..poo. Kataya and I ventured upstairs with hopes of finding some other kind of music, which we did. But after two good songs they closed the upstairs, to our disappointment. It was 5.30. We rejoined the others next to the dance floor only to find out that it was time to leave. Finally, I thought. Thank goodness I had foreseen something like this, and just had a few drinks. But instead of going home it was vital, apparently, to go to an after-hours club, that opened at 6. Since I didn't really have a say in anything, I followed reluctantly. I guess the people who were hammered had a good time there, but I wasn't exactly thrilled, being really tired and having paid a 20 to get in. Girls, as the custom is, paid diddly squat. The DJ was obviously a schizophrenic, playing whatever he happened to set his hand on, including a definite highlight "Freestyler" by the Finnish Bombfunk MC's.

8.15 am:
The J-Man blows the whistle. Enough is enough. Evidently most of the people there were there just so that they could tell people that they partied until 9am or 12am or the next Tuesday, or where too drunk to find their way home. I grabbed the nodding Kataya from the wall and told the rest that WE though it might be about time to hit the old dusty road. They concurred, so I didn't have to open a can of whoop-ass. After some maneuvers with the car we were home at around 8.47am. Josito wanted to cook breakfast. I folded.

8.49,23:
I'm asleep.

8.49,25:
My head hits the pillow.

In retrospect, a very interesting night, a lot of new experiences, but a bit forced towards the end. Even Kataya had to confess, that although the free (obviously) booze helped, she had had a lot more fun the previous times in smaller, salsa-type clubs. So next time we'll know better.

Sunday came and went. Since we woke up at around 5pm and everything was closed anyway, we rented a movie (Office Space, a true classic) and ate dangerous amounts of Ben&Jerry ice cream, a rare treat for us "Skandies". Although I bet they have that stuff in Sweden, the bastards.

On Monday we walked around Old Madrid, which was awesome, even if the weather wasn't the best possible. Madrid has, hands down, the coolest main post office that I have ever seen, judge for yourselves.

Also found a hysterical bobble-head angel in a Pope-store (capes, hats and everything). I'm still not over this one.

Later some very controlled shopping and some tapas at a very idyllic restaurant. The evening was capped off by some seriously delicious Mojitos at a small club/bar, together with some salsa and reggaeton. Home at 2am. Much better.

On Tuesday, we enjoyed some frozen ice-strawberry-shake-shiznits, that resulted in serious brain-freeze.

Later we went to check out the Thyssen-Bornemisza art museum. In a nutshell it was: generally very solid, partly a bit boring, but with moments of brilliance. Favourite pieces by Estes, Church, Andrews and Lindner. El Greco was representing the home turf quite nicely as well. Saw Bayern München in front of the Palace Hotel

, and had some melted cheese at a Mexican place. And no, it was not a fondue, just a huge lump of cheese.. Go figure.

Back in Vigo, after a comfortable 45-minute flight, we decided that it might just be worth the extra 12 euros to travel by air as much as possible. However, as You might agree, I think the train ride was definitely a worthy experience. Kataya doesn't concur.

Next time: TOP 4 Nastiest Things

The Train Ride: a Play by The J-Man

2007-02-23T22:31:00.000+03:00

Scene I "The Idea"

It's a typical Galician apartment, two girls are just..hanging out. A handsome man enters.

J:"So Ella (Big-headed Finn), any plans for the weekend?"
E:"Well, actually I'm going to Leon, I have a friend who studies there."
J:"Really? That's nice."
E:"I think so too. So, what about you guys?"
J:"No plans really, at least not yet."
E:"Oh, OK."
K:"Hey, how 'bout we go to Madrid?"
J:"Let's DO IT!!" (Voice of Joe from Family Guy)

Girl exits.

Scene II "The Girl"

It's morning the next day, about 8.30 am. J and K are sitting on a train, looking slightly puzzled, but excited.

J:"I can't believe we're actually on a train to Madrid. This is WHACK!" (much like PlayStation)
K laughs.
K:"Yep, I just called Martina, she said we could stay at her place, so why not?"
J:"Outstanding!"
J listening to music, K rolling around in her seat, trying desperately to sleep.
A woman enters the train with a little girl.
K:"AWWW, so cuuuute!!" (pronounced khjuut)

Five minutes later the little girl starts asking random things from a gentleman in front of her.
The mother looks bored, not really paying attention.

Girl:"Mom, you're boring, I'm gonna go play with the man."
Mom:"No, you're not, sit down."

Girl does the lower-lip-thing that kids do and mopes.
Two minutes later she gets tired of moping and starts to bother the man again.

Girl:"How come you got earphones and I don't?"
Man:"Because I'm trying to watch a movie."
Girl:"Oh yeah? What's it about?"
Man:"It's about some robbers doing a heist in Venice."
Girl:"Are you a robber?"
Man:"No."
Girl:"Why not?"
Man:"Well, I like my current job and I wouldn't like to go to jail."
Girl:"You're funny."
Man:"Thank you."
Girl:"Can you give your earphones?"
Man:"I think you have a pair in the seat pocket in front of you."
Girl:"Yours are nicer."
Man:"All right, here you go." (hands out earphones to girl and takes a new pair from the empty seat next to him)

Time passes. Girl tries to squeeze herself through the gap between the window and the seat in front of her, being more and more annoying/funny. K and J stare in growing disbelief as the mother acts like she doesn't notice anything. Tension rises. The girl sticks her fingers into the man's ears from behind and wiggles them around, laughing hysterically. K and J take cover, predicting an explosion and, possibly, a double homicide. Against all odds, the man laughs and frees himself by tickling.

Follows a montage, in which K laughs at times at the girl, at times whines about the 9-hour train trip to J. Meanwhile, the man whips out some chocolate for the mom from his man-bag, some crayons! for the girl and proceeds to assist her in drawing a colorful picture, that he then ties up into a neat roll with what looks like a twig and some horse-hair, that he pulls out of nowhere, all the while amusing the girl with some conversation.

K:"What an adorable man!" (man continues to enact chapters from the book "Being the perfect man/dad" by...someone)
J:"Seriously, if that woman isn't going to propose, I will. Or I'll hire him to be my dad on my road trip."

As the train approaches their station, the woman and the girl gather their things to get off. As the train comes to a screeching halt, the girl falls flat on the corridor like a domino piece.

K:"Aww, poor thing."
J trying desperately not to burst into an uncontrollable laughter.

Girl:"No me gusta este tren!" ("This train sucks!")

K and J crack up completely, joined by the mother who escorts the girl out of the train.

Scene III "Before sunrise"

K and J gaze at the changing views, pointing out beautiful trees, hills and rocks to each other, basically acting out the 1995 hit movie starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, only with no romance and an uglier beard.

K:" Would you look at those mountains!"
J:"Beautiful. Except I don't think they qualify as mountains, they're not steep enough."
K:"Fine, hills."
J:"I think they're more like rolling plains. Yes, definitely rolling plains."
K:"You're such an ass!"
J:"I know, it's what I do best.."

Slowly the countryside turns into suburbia and then into a throbbing (that's right, I said "throbbing") metropolis, as the train slows down. K and J step down to the platform.

K:"FINALLY!!"
J:"And to think we could have paid 12 euros more to make this trip on a 50-minute flight. We sure saved some money."

K:"AAAAAAARRRGGGHH!!!!"

K chases J into the sunset.

FIN.

PLAY BALL!!

2007-02-17T03:24:00.000+03:00

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the epic battle between mankind and and King Alcohol!!

The reigning champion has held his title for as long as he has existed, now holding a compelling professional record of 6,3 billion wins, 0 losses, and 1,2 billion KO's. In the terms of today's sport, his batting average is around .998 and a whopping 1,2 billion career homeruns. This might scare most challengers, but today a feisty group of young academics is willing to step up to the plate and try to bring down the hitherto indisputable champion.

And now, let's have a look at the rosters. Home team today, Alcohol, with his basic line-up: as the pitcher, Tequila; first base, 1906, a local strong beer; and as the short stop, mojito, a seemingly docile, but deceptive drink.

Next, the visitors, a 3-person team from the icy plains of Finland. As captain, The J-man, a relentless fighter who rarely knows the meaning of "OK fine, but these are the last ones!". He was recently transferred from his long-time home team of HGC (Horrible Guys Club), where he fought alongside some living legends such as Mo "Vamos" Pete and F'Baian "The Dream Boyfriend".

On first, Kataya, an international talent who has played for several different franchises in her past, such as the infamous MBTS (Madrid Body Tequila Society). On right field, a rookie, who actually joined the team but 7 hours before game-time, Big-E.

In a pregame interview Big-E revealed that she had actually scouted the stadium earlier, in order to maybe spot some weaknesses in the opponent's outfield. The J-Man and Kataya arrived at the stadium in a rather original Reggaeton-Cab. This cologne-marinated shaggin' wagon, with it's Rick Fox-look-a-like chauffeur, were definitely not modest about the amount of decibels they produced. As the J-Man, trying desperately to make conversation and thus reduce the blasting bass-line below the 140 db threshold remarked casually that this was the song where the woman needs more petrol (DAME MAS GASOLIIIINAAA!!), instead of turning down the volume, the driver flipped open the LCD TV-screen!!! between the front seats, revealing the music video of the very song, and boosted the sub-woofer...

Once at the stadium, the Finnish team retires to their dugout to come up with a tactic. Nice and easy wins 2-1. The umpire blows into his whistle: LETS PLAY BALL!!

Trying to get a general feel of the enemy, the challengers go for a 1906, a Coronita, and a pink girly cocktail. Whilst taking his first sip, the Captain and pitcher of the team comes to the realization that he has, ipso facto, not eaten anything after a salad at lunch. STRIKE ONE!!

After two innings The J-Man decides that it's time to change strategy. So many attempts to beat the champion have ended in too slow drinking, and the girls were definitely not going to be able to beat Big-Al in his own game. The J-Man opts for an all-out offense and, without telling his teammates, orders the first round of tequilas.

After the initial shock and some mild resistance The J-Man's leadership is enough to bring the rest of the team aboard. Having finished the 3rd inning with some strong batting, the Finns proceed to the outfield.

The next few hitters are somehow all called "Tequila", but the outfield stays strong. The J-man keeps calling out for more hitters in a feeling of invulnerability, keeping the rest of the team in the game by leading by example.

Then, in inning 6 or 9 both of the girls suddenly end up at second base. After a moment of cheering The J-Man realizes to his dismay that this actually qualifies as playing for the other team.. STRIKE TWO!!

A couple of innings later the score is tied. The young Finns are fatigued, but the stadium is out of shot-glasses, both teams are looking to deliver the final blow. Trying to psyche out the home team the Finnish captain moves to taunt the pitcher: "Hombre, no hay mas copas? hahahhahahha!!!" To his disappointment the home team replies by whipping out bigger glasses and pouring doubles. The girls are ready to throw in the towel. The J-Man however, hearing a crescendo of the song "Sirius" by Alan Parsons Project in his head, decides to knock the last one out of the ball park. As a desperation move, he points out to the left field, reaches for the last two glasses and downs them.
STRIKE THREE!!
As an attempt to kick them when they're down, the bartender tries to offer the visitors some more tequila, but it's no use. This game is over.

In a mixture of disappointment and disbelief, the Finns exit the stadium. Kataya suddenly remembers that nobody paid the referees, and returns to the stadium. Meanwhile, Big-E in a relatively bad oxygen succeeds in hailing a cab and retreats home to lick her wounds. As an act of self-punishment The J-Man pulls a fast one and starts walking home without telling anyone. 5 miles later he finds his teammate Kataya on their home street, trying to explain to a very eager stranger that she does not, SEERIOUSLY, want to move in with him. Unfortunately Kataya's communicative skills have deteriorated to a point where the words only come out in a very high pitched sighs, and in Finnish. Ever the gentleman I escort my comrade to our door, while dismissing the Spaniard by saying BZZZZZZ!!

---In a post-game interview on the next day The J-Man admits to perhaps having been on a slight power trip when trying to drink all the tequila in a Spanish bar, with a team of 3, of which two concentrated mostly on dancing after the 7th inning. He also added that he would like a sandwich, and will not drink any tequila for at least 48 hours.---

Strike ONE! (explicit content)

2007-02-13T16:06:00.000+03:00

So I woke up this morning bright and early, had some cereal, brushed my teeth and headed to the bus stop on Plaza America. Katja and I got on the U1-bus going to the direction of Universidad. This was all fine and dandy, until..

The buses don't go very often so they are often packed, as was the case this morning. Hence we had to stand the 28 minute climb to the mountains, where the university/agent training centre is so conveniently located. As we came closer to this one roundabout, where the road leading to the campus area begins, we started seeing cars parked on both sides of the road. There were dozens, parked bumper to bumper, with no drivers in sight. The other students started looking around as well, all the while murmuring indistinctly. After about 300 metres of this Parked Car Boulevard we reached the roundabout which, too, was surrounded by cars in addition to the several police vehicles scattered around the general area in a haphazard, Spanish kind of way. The bus stopped, and the driver turned on the loudspeaker to address the thoroughly confused passengers. Of course in this case the word "loudspeaker" was a pure oxymoron, because the noise coming from them was neither speaking nor loud. Either way, what we managed to decipher from Mr. Bus Driver's abysmal enunciation was: "......closed...up there..shorter....walk...get out". Everyone got out and started to shuffle towards the beginning of the uphill road towards the campus area. At this point a group of people caught my eye. They were standing in a random formation (häröpallo), holding banners that said something very catchy in Gallego, a language so useless it's amazing.

(I mean it's kind of like Portuguese, a lot like Spanish, with just a hint of Euskara. They only speak it in Galicia and the very northern parts of Portugal, and even then mix it together with their own language. They could have just created a dialect for the area like the rest of the world: a unique, distinctive and yet understandable form of Spanish. BUT NOOO, WE WANT TO BE MORE SPECIAL THAN THAT! WE WANT A LOT OF X'S AND A LOT OF ACCENTS THROWN ABOUT THE SENTENCES IN A CASUAL AND ÜBER-ARTISTIC MANNER! SO WE'RE GONNA TAKE SPANISH AND CHANGE EVERY WORD OF IT JUST ENOUGH TO RENDER IT IMPOSSIBLE TO READ!)

Moving on.. Baffled by the symbols on the banners we approached some of our fellow students and asked what IN THE NAME OF ZEUS' BUTT-HOLE was going on. They proceeded to talk over each other, explaining that this was a strike organized by the university staff, and that no vehicles, not even school buses, would be let through. WELL. We asked if there would still be classes held today, to which their reply was a comforting: "Depends what faculty you belong to.."OUTSTANDING!! Of course we wanted to go to class, if there would be one. After all, we had come this far and the bus had already left. So we continued to climb to the first hill overlooking the campus are, in order to see where we were and where our faculty's building was. Kataya's extremely well-pronounced "!Joder!" (the f-word, obviously) soon informed me that the news was not good. The department of translation and philology was about 200 metres above us, vertically that is, and about 1,6 kms away on the other side of the valley. Of course by roads the distance was anywhere between 2,5 and 3,5 kms so, once again I shared Kataya's razor-sharp analysis of the situation. We weren't going to walk all the way there with Kataya in high heels and myself in an acute lack of motivation.

Walking back down, hoping to catch one of the empty buses going down to the city, we tried to extrapolate some more information on the strike from our peers. They told us that the strike would PROBABLY be over by tomorrow, and that the good news was: the cafeteria was already open. WO-HOO!! What the HELL are we going to do with an open cafeteria on the other side of a closed campus at a handy distance of 2 miles?? And so, only asking for a reason to slap one of the teachers forming the road-block (who seemed to be having the time of their lives), we stood by the roundabout for 37 minutes, until we finally caught a bus and got back to town. Oh, did I mention it was 7 degrees, windy and raining..

My question therefore is: WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE? Is it so goddamn hard to inform someone about a strike on the second biggest university in Spain? The university has everyone's address, phone number, and e-mail. They could have posted something on the university's RIDICULOUSLY UNCLEAR AND SHITTY web-pages, leaked something to a radio station, a local newspaper or ANYONE REALLY!
Or maybe the exchange student coordinator, the language centre people, the dude at the philology department or the singing janitor, that we all spoke to last week, could have shed some information on this farce ("careful there, wicker..!"), so that people wouldn't have to travel an hour to the friggin' mountains, just to stand in the rain, looking like retards.

For your information, I wanted to come to this country to learn about the language, the people and the rich culture and to see the world, NOT TO BE PUSHED AROUND BY A BUNCH OF FUCKING NON-LANGUAGE-SPEAKING, BACKBONE-LACKING, DISORGANIZED, UNGRATEFUL, USELESS COMMIE-TWATS!!

You can quote me on that...

"It's My House and I Live Here - Es Mi Casa y Yo Vivo Aqui"

2007-02-10T19:00:00.000+03:00

Here I am, in my new house, in my very own room, freezing my butt off.

Because the one thing missing in this house is warmth. Actually it's two things: the lack of any type of heating system and the aforementioned poor insulation. But I'll live, don't worry. This might sound stupid back home, since it's about -15 Celsius outside, but at least it's warm indoors. Here on the other hand, it's usually warmer outside. For instance, at this very moment it's about 13 degrees outside and roughly 12 in my room, which kinda blows, I might add. Of course I don't mind the coldness too much, being the hairy bastard I am, but I'll tell you, it complicates things when nothing dries, ever. I have to dry my sports stuff and my towel using an "estufa", a very peculiar kerosene-burning contraption. And because the lady who owns the place is as poor as the insulation (she makes 800 e a month, before taxes), she doesn't like it when we use the "estufa". She still hasn't realized that we could keep that thing burning day and night, without it affecting our budget in any way. Negotiations are under way. But enough about temperature, just wanted you to know the general atmosphere.

SO, here I am. Travesía Tomas Alonso 15, tercero piso (third floor). The postal code is 36206, Vigo, Spain, for those of you still believing in old fashion mail. From the outside the place
looks like it should have been torn down a long, long time ago, but the apartment itself isn't actually too bad.

My room has a bed, a window, a closet and a table. Pretty basic, really. Except for the fact that the mattress is so old and soft that it's closer to a hammock than a bed. I feel sorry for anyone who tries to perform any other kind of action than sleeping in a similar bed. I have practised turning around in it for 4 nights now, and my current record time for turning from my right side to my left side is 8,2 seconds. The reverse turn is still slightly slower because usually the cat scares the crap out of me as I'm turning, by staring at me from my night stand, thus bringing my pulse up to about 230 and costing me at least 1,6 seconds. There's also another cat in my room (on my night stand in the picture) but he's not a live cat. It's Jim, my stuffed transvestite cat-friend (he wears a dress).

Other than these rooms, there's another toilet, a living room, Mabel's room (Maria Isabel, our landlord, more about her later..), and a random room, which is probably going to be a home for all of you coming to visit. The location of the house, that you can see in the map of the previous link, is actually very nice. It's right next to Plaza do Eugenio Fadrique, who was apparently a famous blacksmith because his statue is made of iron an is holding a large hammer. There are various cafés, boutiques, a bus stop etc. surrounding it, and Plaza America (with a mall and more bus stops) is only about 500 metres (or 35 cubic litres) away. All in all, not too shabby for The J-Man..

Top 4 Silliest Spanish Words So Far

1. "Estufa"
n. The only source of heat around here.
2. "Esponjoso"
adj. Spongy. Used for example when
referring to a certain type of seafood
3. "Malbitcho"
n. Apparently a really mean bitch.
4. "Ronronear"
v. To purr. As in: El gato está ronroneando.

No Longer Homeless in Seattle

2007-02-08T21:03:00.000+03:00

I'll tell you, finding a suitable apartment in Vigo, Galicia, turned out to be a lot harder than I initially thought. I thought that with my standards (some walls, a roof, a toilet, a possibility for an Internet connection and a location within 15 kms from the city and the university), it would be relatively easy to find a place. Boy was I wrong, AGAIN. Most of the places were straight up dumps. Now, it's important that you understand that I'm not actually very picky about where I live, but if the fridge and the washing machine (at least I think it was a washing machine) are OUTSIDE in a country where insulation, both in walls and in electric appliances, is a mostly a bad joke, that's where I draw the line. Moreover, if the landlord, when consulted on the possibility to get an Internet connection replies, "I don't know, it dependds, is it big?!" (Pues no sé, depende, es muy grande?), it's time to move on.

Above are a few examples of our options..

So, after having called all the numbers that the international student coordinator at the university gave us, on a scale from 2 to 7, we were mildly desperate. Either the places were full, lacking vital elements for living, or owned by vile racists (one place dismissed Polacs, Chechs, and Slovacs already in the contact information form). And so, three nights in a row we came back to our faboulous Hotel Nautico (heating works like clockwork, every day, from 7 pm to 11 pm only), only to find the same retarted Cuban (guy, not a cigar), who would stare at us for no reason and keep asking us if we were going to stay for a month. This was because in our anguish we had considered the option for taking the hotel room for a month while trying to find a place and asked the nut-case about lower prices for a longer stay. This was before we found out that his verbal output makes about as much sense as running head first into a wall.

In an unbelievable turn of events we decided, as a "hail mary" type of idea (for those of you who like american football, for the basketball lovers this would be considered "putting up a prayer"), to give an odd-seeming woman another call. She answered, we went to see it, and moved in the next morning. That day Kataya felt an irresistable urge to let out a high-pitched squeal of joy every half an hour or so, and I may have had joined in a couple of times, I'm not sure.

Either way, more on the pad next time, maybe even tomorrow when we hopefully get our wireless Internet installed. And here is your daily TOP 4!! (first one of those actually)

4 Things That Currently ROCK!!!

1. My Fjällräven jacket.

In these rather MOIST and still cool surroundings this water- and windproof bad boy seems to be the best investment since sliced bread. (shut up, it's a perfect metaphor)

2. Sportmania (cable channel)
3 NBA games a week plus the All-Star Game, Play-Offs etc.
(I'm laughing hysterically but you can't hear me...)

3. Cheap wine
I'm talking 1,60 e for a glass of some nice Rioja Crianza, that would cost four times that in Finland. In America they probably think he plays 2nd base for the Padres.

4. Empandillos
These hot, filled pastries come in dozens of different filling-combinations and cost absolutely fuck-all, pardon my French.

P.S. Thanks Nick, You're my first real fan!!

J.

Tour de Vigo

2007-02-05T19:37:00.000+03:00

Since the beginning of school was still about a week away, and all we had to before that was to find an apartertent, we thought we'd walk around and try to get a general idea of the city. Obviously that went to hell. The very first morning we thought it would be a good idea to follow the coast line towards the beaches in the west. After about 45 minutes of walking along the sidewalk of a road that failed our hopes to be an idyllic seaside boulevard by, in effect, being a high-speed, heavy traffic, city bypass road we decided to find a café of some sort to ask for information and hopefully to have lunch. The fantastically untidy lunch restaurant/bistro/hole that we finally stumbled upon was definitely an experience. For a very affordable 5,50 e we got a macaroni soup ! of some kind, some bread and what can only be described as "pieces of marinated meat alongside a cold potato omelette", all topped off with a plethora of suggestive looks and remarks from a bunch of dirty (in all the meanings of the word) guys in overalls, mostly directed towards Kataya. We decided it was time to move on.

Having covered the Docks, we looked back and counted the women we had seen thus far. We got a total of one: the bistro/hole's owner's daughter who had apparently had a major miscommunication with her hairdresser, as an important contemporary Nottinghamese thinker would put it. She basically looked like Jaroslav Sakala. The jury came to the unanimous decision that the Docks were not going to become one of our hangout spots. Samil, the beach area, or one of them, was actually pretty damn sweet, as Kataya expresses below.

Even though the weather was not exactly hot, I was forced to walk around in just a T-shirt, because that's what you do on a beach. However, remembering the heart-warming comments of me being fat and hairy by some of my dear friends earlier, in Facebook, I donned my shirt again, thus avoiding pneumonia and getting away with just a sore throat. We also saw some old guys (with old...) playing basketball, but I decided not to join, because I had a sore throat, and, well, they were about as good as my mom.

On Friday we visited the university. Well, they call it "the university", when in reality it unquestionably is only a front for a top-secret, mountain training centre for secret agents or guerilla soldiers, for the following reasons:

1. The buidings are illogical, they have loads of corridors, tunnels, pathways, ungerground lairs!, and probably oodles of trap-doors. The buildings are also low, and far away from each other, for anti-bombing reasons.

2. It's streets cannot be found on googlemaps or the commuter traffic firm Vitrasa's web pages, plus it has a Photomat. (Obviously for fake passports and IDs)

3. It is located about 15 kms outside the city in the mountains, making it almost unreachable by bus or tanks. It has a very good view over the valley below, and most of the landscaping looks suspiciously like bunkers.

4. The track&field area only includes possibilities for running, pole jump, long jump and rugby, all vital for spies. (rugby for being able to push people away while running away from the enemy on any given narrow alley/street in any given Asian metropolis) WHERE THE HELL ARE THE FOOTBALL FIELDS?? IT'S SPAIN FOR GOD'S SAKE!!

Anyway, I'll keep you posted on that, although I might have to kill you later..

P.S. I stuffed 12 Haribo candies in my mouth simultaneously. My personal best.

D-Day

2007-02-02T17:41:00.000+03:00

I made it! I am currently, actually, physically and finally in Vigo, Spain. Here's how it happened:

On Wednesday I took a cab from home to the airport, after finishing packing about 8 minutes before I had to leave. I told the cab driver that I was going to Spain. Being the sophisticated conversationalist that he is, he asked me if I was going for an "ass-vacation" (direct translation from finnish) I said no, actually I'm moving there. He was quiet for a while and then proceeded to tell me that at least it's going to "hot as hell" where I'm going, right? I was forced to tell him that Vigo is, in fact, one of the coolest (at least climate-wise) cities in Spain and that it also rains a lot there. After this the cab-driver had nothing, and we spent the remaining minutes by staring at the road and feeling mildly awkward.

Once at the airport, things went surpringly smoothly up to the point when I was supposed to board the plane. Because, for a reason unknown to me, half the population of Japan had simultaneously (pronounced saimultanaieiousli in Finnish) decided that it was impervious for them to fly to Madrid at once, preferably in a huge lump of cameras, badly dyed hair and sumimasens. Fortunately however, I was laughing my ass off listening to Dane Cook on my mp-3 player (NO, not an i-pod), while he (Dane) explained how he likes the girl to have a "good situation" "down there", so I didn't really mind the japaneesu. This was until one of them, midway to Madrid, decided to use my seat as a target to his hourly mawashigiri-kick practice. I tried to jump up, but 2 things happened that made me change my mind, 1: I realized that there was absolutely no way that, despite my uncanny vocab-skillz, I would be able to communicate to him that I didn't particularly care for his martial art moves, without beating him senseless that is, which would not have been cool. And 2: my seat belt was fastened, so instead of being able to stand up, I rocked the chair, dropped my book, and looked stupid. Later I wondered if I should have asked the elderly flight attendant to move me to an another seat, but I was too busy betting against myself on whether or not her bones would crumble and turn to dust before we land, so I dropped it.

In Madrid a lady, who was standing beside a very curious looking machine, asked me in Spanish if I would like for her to wrap my skis is plastic. Obviously I was not in possession of any kind of skis, whatsoever, so instead of saying "no thank you" I stared at her for about 10 seconds (bet it felt like 5 minutes to her) with a confused look on my face, and moved on. After 8 escalators, an intra-terminal metro (WHAT?), a bad sandwich, and a surprisingly uneventful flight, I was, to my amazement, in Vigo. Of course, my partner in crime Katja was also there, but she was less amazed. To get to the hotel, we took a cab whose driver, while giving us some random information about the area, ran a couple of red lights in a very casual manner, without even taking his hand off my shoulder. The hotel Husa Bahia de Vigo turned out to be slightly less than what the information on the internet said (shocking). According to them, it was a four star hotel, according to me, two and a half, but you know. Having checked in effortlessly we proceeded to the elevators that, we thought, would take us to the 12th floor where our room was. Unfortunately the button with the highest number on it was 9, so I thought:"that's not right". My next idea was to press 1 and 2, until I realized that there was no number 1 either. Well. We went for 9 and decided to play it by ear. The ninth floor was nice. The rooms were named after famous composers. (908: Sibelius, YEY!!) However, our room was nowhere to be found. After a careful recon I spotted a small staircase and headed up. The 10th floor had an elevator, which we happily took after dragging our luggage (weighing in at a respectable total of 73 kilos) up the rather narrow stairs. 12! We'll take it! But why the two sets of elevators? I'll tell you why: the first two go from the lobby to the 9th floor, and the second from a small corridor behind the reception area to floors B,3,10,11,12,13 etc. See the logic? Neither did we.

And so we slept like babies. The next morning we had a big (pretty good) breakfast, and headed out to the Docks, but that's another story...

T- 13 days

2007-01-18T14:02:00.001+03:00

Well. It's getting closer.

I still have no idea where we (Kataya and I) are going to live, but I managed to get us a hotel for 3 days on our arrival, which gives us some time to find out about different living options and then indubitably (mostly a biblical term) make the wrong choice. We're probably going to end up paying our asses off for a studio above a known crack-den, 15 clicks from the city. But hey, at least it won't be difficult to start slanging rocks when the money runs out, which it will, in about a month. Another interesting thing is going to be the level of teaching at the university, as well as the general skill-level of the students. Why is that important? I'll tell you why. The lower the level, the less work I have to do to pass the courses. (which I need to do in order to keep the government funding going) And the less work I have to do, the more time I have to travel around the city, the region, the country, and Southern Europe causing general commotion and playing with the boundaries of normal social conduct by, for example, asking random people whether or not "this is their tapasta", and then laughing my ass off, while they stare at me in a mixed state of confusion, pity and annoyment. (it's a real word, like gleeba)

Oh btw, as long as i'm jabbering about useless crap, which incidentally is my forté, i may aswell inform you, that i'm going to London tomorrow to meet the Mart-man, a buddy of mine who will shortly have a Ferrari with moonwalking rims. So i'm probably going to write something about that after the trip, assuming that it rocks, which it will.

For now, peace.
J.

T - 27 days

2007-01-04T22:32:00.000+03:00

Are u scared?
Are ya?