Tired as Helsinki

I blame the lack of, well, light.

Helsinki. Only there a bit over 24 hours. Felt like crap. Took forever to find place I was staying, as I was determined not to go GPS and burn my tiny international data plan allotment so early. 

So I wandered forever, found my way thrice, missed streets/turns, finally went to the GPS and found my way most quickly. Amazing technology -- y'all know about this? Totally worth the megabytes.

What happened in Helsinki ...

Well, I knocked down a light fixture, lost part of security deposit. Also knocked down shower curtain rod in Reykjavik, but it was a tension rod -- easy to remount. There's all sorts of bad ways to go with that. Anyway ...

There's a quasi-fake audio tour. Basically, you take the No. 3 tram in a big circle. There are pamphlets to help with this, apparently, but you can also download an mp3 audio guide to take you through it. Well, if you first download some app allowing one to download audio files onto an iphone, as it won't allow it natively. Which is annoying.

Anyway, I download the thing, test it out. Seems good. Off to the tram.

I'm at Kammpi, a giant transit hub and mall, and on an earlier map I saw a tram stop. Just can't find it. Remembering my dad's legendary advice from my first Euro trip, I proceed to ask pretty girls for directions to said tram.

Nobody knows where the tram is.

First girl I ask: "Um... it's either this way (points one way) or that way (points the other way)." She laughs, apologizes. Been a while since she took the tram.

Next girl: "Sorry, I am not local."

Please add dog poop to potion.

That's not what I asked, but whatever.

Third girl: "Um... I don't know, but maybe you can buy tickets over there (points)."

Becoming less amused with this process, I attempt to ask an official-looking guy for directions. He ignores me and keeps on walking. At this point I'm in danger of falling over, so I find a pizza place and grab a bite. New York-style, sort of. Not bad. 

There are no open tables so I sit near some random woman. Randomly sit by some woman? Wasn't random -- there were no other seats. No idea if she was random. Enough...

Anyway, random (or not) woman knows all about the tram. Mostly. She gives me ballpark directions (I don't even feel like making the, "but i'm looking for the damn tram, not a stadium" joke, but there it is), I confirm the stop's locale via the interwebs, and off I go.

I'm almost certain I walked right through/past this stop 40 minutes earlier when this search began. 

So I get on mp3-guided tram tour and fire up the audio a few stops away where it actually "begins". The tour probably is better during the day. And when not drizzly. And when you get on the right direction. 

After five stops of thinking, "this shee-ite don't sync up at all!," the guide mentions the stop I got on at (remember the tour started a few stops away), which was the other direction. Oops. 

I fix the issue, get back on tour. Still hard to follow -- and the tram route since has changed, adding to confusion. (The tour's authors claim it still is 80 percent accurate, but they give away the file for free now b/c of the change.) But still lots of good tidbits about landmarks, history of city and a department store, and it helped me identify what I want to do with my very brief time here the next day. 

Well, aside from sleep and consume large amounts of chicken soup.

Probably. Can't be sure, though.

Anyway, on the tram -- I got to sit near more direction-worthy women, and possibly the foulest smelling man alive - actually, even dead, as rotting corpse smell might be an improvement. Think Iceland knows it doesn't have the smelliest man?

There's a cheap France joke in here somewhere ...

After tour I go to bar. Was going to check out Elmo sports bar. Elmo. Literally empty, save for staff. Find a different joint, they tell me to sit anywhere. And I wait. And wait. Do I go back up and order? That happened in Reykjavik and the server apologized and said she was supposed to come to me. Ah, the dance we dance when wanting a beer. Different from the dance we dance after having too many. 

I went up. Ordered Finnish beer. It's pretty decent. They have Magners. But I stuck w/local. Yay me. Oh, Magners. Ireland. There were these 50-something (age, not number -- though what is age but a number?) Irish women on the Golden Circle tour -- I kept seeing in town afterward, joked that I'd see them later. And I did when I finally took the walking tour days later. They mostly thought it was funny. Mostly. Anyway, on the tour I asked one about some unification vote or maybe a Northern Ireland secession vote coming up that someone just told me about. 

Wrong. Scotland. Oops. Ehh, same diff.

Back to flat. Break light fixture. Have some homemade pastry-type thing. Go to sleep. Roll out next day to see central market area and the Salmonella Island fort. Well, that's not what it's called. But now it is.

So, Salmonella island. Actually a collection of islands with a big fort and town within. Kind of cool. Lots of things to check out there, but ... I didn't get much sleep. I had very little time before having to make like Danny. I took ferry over, walked around for a few, wondered how much I really could see in short span, started coughing up a lung, decided to shut it down. Pushing myself like this is silly. After all, discretion is the better part of not developing pneumonia - like not eating shark means not ingesting ammonia. Same deal.  

Soumelina Island.

Scotland. Fight for Northern Ireland's freedom. We stand for thee. Oh say can you see. The brave.

Ferry back to mainland, shoot some pics in/of market area (one of which might become a profile pic one of these days), tram back to Kammpi, by rocket to the moon, by airplane to the rocket, by taxi to the airport, by front door to the taxi. If my destination was the moon. But it wasn't.

Pick up crap at flat, head to ferry, set sail for Estonia.

Finland. Fin.