Helsinki - Spring

Statutory Warning : This blog might have terms/phrases/incidents which are quite unhealthy for a person who is narrow minded. You can start reading this if your age is above 18 years or read at your own risk.


" There is a salsa dance happening in the stage. Am dancing with a hot chick. Just met her in the pub and realised she was the one. Was dancing ,enjoying.Her laugh was beautiful .If it goes more I might even propose her.But there was this spotlight on my face which made everything difficult. Spotlight use to follow me and its damn hot and the music is loud. I need a break from dance and I took her to the nearby couch.But still the spot light was following me."

- damn... I woke up from the dream @#$#@. It was the sunrays which is breaking my dream. SPOTLIGHT is nothing other than sunlight.I moved my bed so that it doesnt fall directly to my face,but it just reflects the door and spreads all over the room. I checked my mobile time ( my watch batteries are dead. didnt repair it becuase the batteries were expensive but the charge to put the new batteries to the watch was even more expensive ). Time is 4am. Damn this has been routine for past one mth. My sweet dreams gets broken everyday. I looked at the curtains which I bought 3 weeks back.I didnt get time to fit them in and am suffering from bright sunrays starting from 4 in the morning.I should either put those curtains or buy eye shades to sleep.Thinking of it I covered my head with the bedsheet nd went back to the dream.. Welcome to the Spring season in Helsinki . :)

They were so many festivals during winter like New Year , Xmas which I celebrated in Russia., Chineese New Year( which happens some other day) in Helsinki ,then Russian New year, and I dont know.. just go to central and there mite be some celebrations happening.. nobody cares why they are for.. just relax,enjoy and have fun. or else salsa or skating,skiing.But spring was different. It started with a bang called Vaapu. Then friends meet, movie nights,bowling, farewell parties, birthday parties,visiting homes, checking out beaches and the babes,DJ parties, pubs,discos.There has not be a single weekend when i stayed at home other than to sleep. I would reach home by 3 am morning ( by the time sun would rise) ,woke up frequently due to sunlight and leave the house by noon.Now you knw the reason why I dont have time for those curtains not been kept in window.

I went India when it was so called winter here(-10 C ) and I came back when it was spring(+5 C) .Everything is totally different.It's a cultural shock . People are crazy during spring. I cant blame them. Its the frustration which they had during winter.Now they are acting crazy. The first time sun was bright during winter,my manager went upstairs at 2 degrees C to warm himself !! He left the office early and asked us to leave !!! Its not only people... I can see rabbits( as big as my lower leg) running all over, dogs runninng here and there, birds chirping from 4 am ( which is one more reason why I wake up. Remember the loud music in the salsa bar in my dream -- nothing other than birds singing :) ) My new home is far away from central station.( Every European country has a big station called Center ) .I have to catch a train( most of the days I have to run to chase the train.. being indian am late and being finnish the train is on time ) , and then metro to office .Travel is 30 mts.. but u can enjoy the whole journey. Beautiful trees , green leaves, clean city, sun light , cold breeze,people cycling , crowded streets ( totally different from winter season) ,colorful dresses ( apart from black ,dark blue,brown which I used to see in winter ) and its amazing to see girls in short skirts.. I mean " dont they get cold " coz I still wear jacket .Once I even asked a german friend if she weared skincolored stockings and she said she was not feeling cold at all when I was shivering in the cold breeze. Well who cares abt their protection if they want to show everything :P yeah its a cultural shock something more than the center fresh shock ! :P

Are you down ns you feel u need some more energy? Come here during spring or when winter ends.. you will get a lot of static electricity. Touch the elevator switch, staircase, laptop, dresses,comb. You will get shock and then you realise why is there so much static elec.Once I even got normal electricity when I tried to fit the bulb in my house.( taking Electrical engg degree has teached me nothing so far :( ) btw everyone loves to do house hold work by themself.Fixing my bathroom sink,kitchen sink when they got jammed, fitting electric bulbs, fitting curtains, buying kitchen table and fixing them .. I did all of them by my hands.. I never used to touch such things in India.. Here population is so less that manual labour costs your one mth salary. Now you know why my watch is still dead.

Meeting and knowing neighbours is a strange thing in finland ,but I know three of my neighbours.. here goes the story of ' How I Met My Neighbours '

1. First I moved to my room, my roomie said the aunt nearby said that " No loud music ".We usually reduce the volume everytime we have a party or we watch movies.whenever the volume increases, I used to hear some strange noise from window..Initially we thought it mite be the snow falling during winter.. but it happend during spring too.. then we realised.. the neighbour just above us used to hit the window thrice whenever the volume is high and we would reduce it.It was just a morse code which he used to communicate with us . Thats our Morse Code neighbour.

2. As we couldnt clean our house for past 3 weeks ,and as we had some drinks in our fridge, we decided to call couple of our finnish / austrian/russian friends for lunch .. to taste Indian food in our place. 4 finn girls showed up right on time. austrian guy one hr later, russian guy 2 hrs later and of course we indians prepared food 3 hrs after the scheduled time :P Well it was tasty :) and then we went for a walk in the forest( my house is near to forest which has a jogging lane.. once I was walking through the lane and lost my way inside the jungle.. Thank God sun sets at 11 pm here .. So I could reach home within 40 mts of struggling in the jungle. ) we saw an indian english movie - " Hollywood Bollywood " . We showed this one as we need not translate each word to them.They bought some food items and we bought coal and used the open grill in the backyard to cook food.
An old guy came and started talking to us in English about our whereabouts.. and then said.."Only old guys come here, you adults should come here more often. IT would be nice.enjoy the grill ,drink wine". Later we realised this is the guy who put notes on of my guest's car stating " This is not where you have to park cars. Do them in Parking Slot " .. We initially wondered who would take the pain to write notes on some random car in backyard, but now we got it .. Last week I forgot to take back my dried clothes after washing them.. Next day I saw all my clothes folded up and a note stating : " You have to take the clothes before 6 pm " .. I really wondered at that time who would take the pain to write notes, moreover who would have the guts to touch my undergarments. I would not do it.. but now I know who is the active guy.. There will be an active guy in every apartment and we just met Our Mr Active Uncle.

3.As soon as the "active uncle" left , the old granny came and started talking to us in finnish, Though she knew english she prefered talking to the finn girls in finnish.Later girls just translated us what the granny said

Aunt : Whats your name ?
I : Rakesh.
X ( indian name)
Y ( austian male name )
Z (Russian male name)
Aunt :These name are so confusing.Finn girls have normal names.. Where do u work?
I : Nokia
Aunt : These smart monkeys learn everything quick. I love having food here in open grill enjoying sunlight. Sing an indian song for me..
I : We dont know, why dont all u finn girls sing a song for us. Aunt can join you too..

nd finally we came back to apartment.
Aunt : Hmm finn girls.. foreign boys.. Go to your apartment and practise SEX .

What ??? Why did she say that. I mean having sex is normal thing here.. but why practise sex? It seem as if she would like to join after practise session is over. anyways doesnt matter what she meant. We just met our new neighbour.. Sex Granny.

So now we know acitve uncle,sex granny and the morse code stranger as our neighbours. What great neighbours do we have !!!

The party happened last week helped us a lot. We cleaned up our house esp the bathroom.went for a DJ party in a bar after that. enjoyed good food. and we were hoping the drinks we had ( 6 cans of beer, 2 cola bottles, 1 beer bottle, 1 chivas regal) would finish . Yes they got over .. but now the drinks which everyone brought( 4 ciders, 4 beer cans, 1 beer bootle, 1 cola, 2 pineapple juice,1 martini, 1 tequila,1 big pack of white wine,red wine is left over in the fridge. Now we just have to carry them as a present to some house or take it to a party or Sell Them :P But yeah in general the party was fun. and I guess they too liked the afternoon-evening..esp the food and the movie.Movie had lots of songs and dance which is totally different from finnish movies which have silence playing the lead role followed by sex in the supporting role.I wanted to watch a finnish movie and asked my friends which is the best one.. most of them refered to 'Levottomat' and said this depicts finnish film industry and it even has 3 sequels. Later I heard the summary of the movie from a finn girl. Here are her words : " Levottomat .. hmm I cant really say the story, but in a nutshell there are a bunch of adults( 18 yrs) who doesnt know what to do and then they do sex with eachother. Levottomat 3 is a movie of a married woman who is totally confused and doesnt know what to do and finally she sleeps with everyone she meets." What a promising movie .. 90% of the finns refered me this movie . Can you believe it ? nd this 90% even included people from west finland.( West finnishers are consider to be silent than east finland. Well I find finland itself is silent !! ) As a joke they say for height of silence : - ' There is a place called Hammelitina,west finland where you ask a question like How are youe ? this monday nd feel yourself lucky if you get an answer by next monday. '
Here are the very few words which came out of those gentlemen when I saw them in a party
- " Every finnish person talks abt shitty weather in finland coz its depressive and I need a beer to move that depression now. "
- " Eastern finnish people do not repect elders. They dont have table manners.They might eat food with elders like a lion eating an ass of an elephant. "
- Seeing the popular song in Hey Baby where three guys dance with hot girls.. " Why do those guys dance like gay ?? "
- Levottomat is a popular finnish movie . You should watch it ..
And thats it .. so Levottomat came 25% of the discussion topic he mentioned.

Well for those who are planning to download the movie as soon as they are going to read this blog.. am not sure if Levottomat is the movie name.. nd I cant guarantee you for anything you might or might not expect from the film. It has been a lengthy night and I just came from Amusement park in Helsinki.It was fun with rides which would last only for 20 seconds and might push the adrenaline all through ur body.Here the max time in a ride is 2 mts , not like Indian amusement park rides where they only aim is to screw the visitors. Checkout the link for photos:
http://picasaweb.google.com/rakeshcherian/HelsinkiSpring Hope I didnt touch any sensitive matters or political /religious views by posting this. Enjoy your weekend. :)