wild night in oulu

boys night out in oulu. notice that even though it is technically night the sun is still blazing and the sky is still blue!

seemed like as good a place as any to wait for my pizza to cook-

pizza on the grass in front of city hall-

karoke finland style!!! (sweet child of mine of course)

random pics from helsinki

here is some random stuff from helsinki:

from the modern art museum-

from the natural history museaum-

stuff from around the city-

view from the train to oulu-

Oulu with Steve

Yeasterday I took a train from Helsinki to Oulo. It took seven hours to get here and the train had a cool bistro right in side. Steve and his brother picked me up and we hung out with his family for a while. Oulu reminds me of being the in U.P. There are lots of trees and everything seems very relaxed and low key. Most of Finland reminds me of the US. Everyone can speak english and dresses pretty much like we do. One thing that is different is that most of the guys have pony tails! I don't have to feel like a weirdo with my long hair any more. Another weird thing that I still have not gotten used to is the sun never setting. We were out on the town until at least 2 am and the sun was still up and people were all over the place. I guess the sun does go down at some point but I have yet to see it happen. So far it has been nothing but blue skies! We are heading further up north so Steve can run in the Arctic Marathon. I'm not sure if there is going to be any web, so there might not be any updates for a few days. I have a bunch of pics that I'll post as soon as I get a chance.

FNM videos

Who wants some badly shot video of last nights show? Enjoy!

FAITH NO MORE!!!

I woke up today at 6am to navigate 6 subway stops and a 20 minute walk to pick up my Faith No More Ticket from some creepy Fin. It cost me 74 euros and was totally worth it. The show was incredible. The two openers sucked, but I expected as much. They had ice cream and candy for sale, and the beer came in plastic cups that you had to pay a 2 euro deposit for. Amazingly enough even though it was a metal show in Scaandinavia there was no violence in the crowd! Faith No More came out and played a cover of "reunited and it feels so good". It was hilarious. There were 13,000 people at the show and they all were clearly fans. They were singing along in broken english to every song. The band was flawless and seemed to get along great considering they have been broken up for so long. I can see why they aren't in a hurry to play the US. There is no way that they would get a quarter of that reception in the states. Fins love their metal.


heavy metal ice cream!

huge crowd

patton

more patton

Finland: day two

I had a very relaxed day today. I woke up and ate breakfast at the hostel. I was finally able to get a hold of Steve and find out how to get my Faith No More ticket. I have to go to some random dudes apartment at 9am tomorrow and pick it up. It is not in town so I have to take a 15 min subway ride and then walk for 20 min to get there. I assume that I will get lost several times so I going to get up super early just in case. I spend the day wandering around the city. I went to the Helsinki Modern Art Museum and the Natural history museum. I also slept in that park for an hour. After some wondering I found a huge public pool and an amusement park very close to my hostel. I did not go to them though, maybe another day. I also have discovered that everyone seems to sit in the parks and drink beer and wine, but yet there are no party stores. When I finally found one they had a green shade over all the booze. None of this makes sense. This is a mystery that I'm sure Steve's brother will be able to solve when I head up to see them Thursday. I'll post some more pics after my morning adventure. I am having great difficulty getting this netbook to do what I want and I don't have the patience tonight.

Day one Finland Pics

summer of 09 begins!!!

It's about that time for my summer adventure. This year things have started out with disaster after disaster. My flight to boston was canceled after waiting on board for four hours. When I went to the service desk to figure out what I could do next they told me run down about 20 gates and get on a plane to amsterdam and I would be able to make it to finland on time. I made it to the gate and got to amsterdam, but that is where my luck ended. They couldn't get me to helsinki without me having to pay 300 euros and basically said that NWA lied to me to get me out of their faces. Needless to say I didn't have much choice but to pay the money and get to Finland. The problem is that I was meeting steve at 2:30 pm and I didn't get in until after 5 pm. I still have no idea how to get a hold of him since we were both to stupid exchange contact info before we let for finland. I still had a pretty good day once I got here. After a hot shower at the hostel, I took a tram into town. Helsinki reminds me of New York but without the hustle and bustle. There are still incredible buildings, stores, bars, women, etc. But Helsinki seems so calm, almost like a college campus, with people lounging everywhere you look. I stopped and had quite a few pints to take the edge off of the terrible day. I ended my night watching two old dudes playing cool jazz at an out door bar. It is almost midnight and the sun is still out. I hope I can get a good nights sleep and get stuff straightened out tomorrow. Wish me luck.