When in Rome..

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!!

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?