Sunday, July 25, 2010

You Got Finns to the Left, Finns to Right and Your´re the Only Bait in Town

July 23, 2010

Last full day in Finland. Spent much of the morning updating this blog, and finally had a telephone conversation with Inga Fanney from the Icelandic tour company confirming that yes, I would take the private tour of Laugavegurinn that i´ve been trying in some way or another to book for the past 2 months, and which has involved extensive emailing with her. She was much friendlier on the phone than I had imagined. I later learned that she and my friend Audur in Reykjavik have been communicating extensively about my trip. While this trip will be expensive, I am apparently getting it for a very good price, and am very relieved that it looks like everything is going to work out.

Rode the bikes to a cafe by the harbor for lunch, had a salad with some salmon and other sea food on it, saw some bungee jumpers, ran into two of A´s friends with their baby, a bird tried to eat my lunch.

Sat for a while on the steps of the Helsinki cathedral and then dropped off the bikes.

Dinner at Mange Sud, another exceptional Helsinki restaurant. I´ve come to the conclusion that the food in this town is fantastic, or at least everywhere I´ve been. Paired drinks with the plates, scallops, gazpacho (which I normally hate, but in this case loved), steak, macaroon and ice cream, sparkling wine, red, white, sherry, dessert wine.

Drinks afterwards at Bar Olo with A´s friends. Bizarre performance by a hip hop group consisting of two Finnish guys (one fat, looks like Turtle from Entourage style, one with glasses and a scarf, manning the turntables) and a guy from Camaroon, one of the only non-white guy´s I have seen in Helsinki, and of those probably the only not from Somalia. Lot of rapping about how they were the "Dream Team". A´s friends were embarrassed by this, especially at a 5 star restaurant.

We left for the Havana style bar from Tuesday night, which was nice, but then it started to rain and we all went home.

**Jimmy Buffett -- Fins

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