Finland is great... for whitey...

So here is the good, the bad, and the really fucking ugly.

WTF part one, this was hanging in my hostel room

The Good

The Russian hostel mate apparently was here on some kind of night shift job for a week I think. He stayed up til 1am reading, which kept me awake (even though we have individual lights, his would keep me awake). After which he got up, changing into some utility type clothes, grabbed his backpack and split. His stuff was in his shelving unit and it looked like he had two dozen packs of smokes. Along with the bare eating essentials, like bread and fruit. He came back around 8am, packed up all his stuff and left. So my sleep sucked but now I don't have Serious Non-talkative Russian Guy in the room anymore.

So just waiting for the hot Scandinavian supermodel that likes to walk around her hostel room in expensive lingerie. Yup. I'll be right here awaitin'...  Anytime now...

So anyways, I walk down to the tram station right behind the hostel. Strutting meh stuff like I had a tram pass already. Oh wait, that I do! I hop on and head to the Central Train Station. I get there and I was able to book my trip to St. Petersburg and from St. Petersburg to Moscow. Unfortunately, they couldn't book my sleeper cab from Moscow to Riga. So I'll have to do that in St. Petersburg. The gal behind the desk told me that its doubtful that anyone in the train stations there speak English, so I'll have to drag my guide into the station in order to have them help me get tickets.

The Ugly
So I'm standing at the tram station waiting for the tram to take me to Kallio, a Bohemian artsy working type area in the middle of the city. So large Finnish working guy in some torn and stitched up jacket asks me about my hat. Huh? He says its a 1930s style cap, and that's not a good thing. I wasn't sure what he was talking about, but apparently the 30s weren't good in Finland. He mentioned a couple royalty (I think) blowing their brains out. Ok, good to know. Then after I mentioned I got the hat in Edinburgh, he immediately asks me what percentage of "dark skinned" people were in Scotland. Then he asked what about in London. Then he muttered something about not mixing the races as it destroyed blond, blue eyed people. Uhm...ok... He goes on an on about that, and how the US likes to bomb other countries. I try to be polite at this point and ignore him. He eventually have realizes I have stopped talking to him and he gets on his tram. Damn. I hope that isn't a prevalent attitude in Finland. Otherwise we may have to bomb this place.

The Bad
Finland has a nice enough tram system, but their information on it sucks serious balls. I'm used to tourist maps that have the tram/bus/metro lines on them. Neither of the ones I have do this and the only thing I have on one of them is a vague metro map without end destination names or the name of stops. Also the tram stops themselves have little to no information on them. I'm used to seeing the stop name, then the trams that stop there with the end destination next to it so you know which way you are going. They don't do that here. The station names don't match the street names most of the time and the end destination changes in some system I just do not understand. The central station also doesn't have bus or tram maps. The only place in any country I've been in where there is nothing. Feh.

So I wander around Kallio. I seen some artsy stuff but I mainly seen "massage parlors" and sex shops. I'm pretty sure I'm in the wrong part of Kallio as supposedly there is a cool pub/art scene. I did walk by some vegan shops, natural food places, and pipe shops. Just didn't see the cool arty shops and such I expected. And I seen a ton of residential apartments. So I'll have to figure out where this place is supposed to be.

So found a kebab shop and had a kebab with marinara sauce on french fry plate with a salad. Cheap and hit the spot, not a lot of English speaking folks around here so I just want to make do. On the way back I found a tram line that would take me back to the central station. Unfortunately, I could not make heads or tails of which way the trams went. There were two rails and the same number said different thing depending on which side of the street you were on. So yah, sometime the exact same stop have a different name depending on which way the train is going. Also the seeming destination made no sense and matched nothing on the map I had. I found someone who spoke English and he was kind enough to actually walk me down to the Metro station instead and explain which way each went. He said they had the smallest Metro in the world with only six stops (there were more, but not many) and the Metro actually DID have the end station on the signs.

Hit center station and then a train back. I seen a cute girl with short red hair in a dress and poofy mini-skirt. Great legs and knee high studded red shoes. Pretty decked out for a morning and she had a guitar on her back. When she walked by, that's when I noticed that the reason for her skirt being so short (it is pretty chilly out there right now) was that she was wearing something underneath the skirt. She had a 3 foot long fluffy brown tail attached to her butt and it was hanging down. You wouldn't see it until she walked past. I thought that was pretty damn cool. I would have commented but I doubt she spoke English, so telling her she was awesome would have just seemed like me being a lech if she didn't understand what I was saying.

The city downtown seems like pretty much every European downtown. Mostly 5-10 story buildings with the bottom floor being a shop. I see a far greater number of people with cool colored hair. So far I like it. I just hope that bigot bastard was not the norm around here.

Sometimes when life bugs you, a good gourmet meal is in order. I headed down to the hotel by the waterfront. The cruise ship (and another cruise line) docks at the port a couple blocks from the hostel. I'm on a smallish island called Skagg. I figured that any hotel with marble floor right in front of a cruise ship dock might have some nice food.

Reindeer goulash with rosemary fraiche and dried lingonberries
Beef fillet with bacon, fried mushrooms, and crispy onions in a red wine sauce
Pumpkin marscapone  risotto

Ok good mood restored. And still no hostel mate so it looks like I'm sleeping nude tonight, woohoo!

I'll leave your with this...

WTF part two, transvestite hooker donkey balls... for kids!