Bic Mac Economics

Friday in Helsinki… Both Tommy and Jennica are at work and then going to an Iron Maiden concert (it was sold out, months ago, in 17 minutes or I would have gone along – approximately 1% of the population of Finland had tickets) so I was pretty much on my own for the day. I figured I was in a world capitol, I might as well do a little exploring. First stop – The Money Museum!

This is a brand new place, just opened. It’s a small museum, but jam packed with information, too much in fact (no pun intended). There’s WAY too much reading for such a small space. It’s fascinating, sure, but after a few minutes, you just get overwhelmed. I would have bought a book to read it all on my own, but they didn’t have one. What they did, have, though, was some serious Jaq validation. That’s right, remember the Big Mac theory from way back in Munich? Well guess what? Some top notch economists had the same theory. So I’m smarter than I thought I was! (of course, when I mentioned this to Jennica and Tommy later that day, they said they had learned about in school and everyone knew the Big Mac theory so I didn’t feel as smart – it was a Flowers For Algernon moment but that’s okay, I still felt validated and you get the pictures.

Zoo sign

From there I did what I always do… I went to the zoo. I really don’t know what my fascination with zoos is, but I feel compelled to check them out. And I should learn better not to go to the zoo in the middle of the afternoon because all the animals are sleeping. I mean once you’ve seen a tiger or a lion crashed out you’ve pretty much seen them all. I’m sure to other lions and tigers there are differences, but to us mere humans, honestly, they look pretty darn similar. So here I go to another zoo. This one, though, is on an island and you have to take a ferry to get there. That’s right, another ferry! And I got the student price, so I saved 5 Euro (Student pricing is weird here. Some places just accept I’m a student, some want to see my ID and will accept or reject it randomly and some won’t accept anything other than an International Student card).

So I get to the zoo, get off the boat and get ready to see the many exotic animals Finland’s largest city has to offer. I get to the first enclosure and look in expectantly. What do I see? Bunny rabbits. They’re cute and all, but I didn’t see a sign proclaiming it feeding time and I certainly don’t know what kind of a critter they’re feeding live bunnies to but hey, maybe they do things

Bunnies at the zoo... who's hungry?

differently in Finland. Then I see it, off in the corner, the sign telling what kind of animals are supposed to be in this enclosure. I walk over, hoping I can read the Finnish or Swedish (both languages are official) to discern the name of the beast. Thankfully, there’s an English language

Rabbits on display

name written in large letters on the bottom – RABBIT.

Yeah, all the way to Finland, further north than anywhere in the contiguous United States, take a ferry to an island and the first animal I come across is the domestic bunny. It’s not even a Reindeeralope (distant cousin of the Jackalope). Nope, just the same little (not even lop-eared) bunny you can get at a regular pet store. My hopes for a decent zoo were diminishing fast.

To be fair, The rest of the zoo was okay. It wasn’t great mind you, but decent. A number of the animals were hidden from view due to the fact it was 2 in the afternoon, and hot for Finnish standards. There was a bear running around and a seal lounging in the shallows of his enclosure. The skunk exhibit had no skunk but an interactive area where the particular scent of the stripped one could be sampled. Being that it was on an island, there were some great picnic areas overlooking the surf and a “bird’s nest” observatory from which one could see over the whole area.

I took the paddlewheel ferry back to the harbor and began heading for home. Since it was still early, I knew no one would be there so I thought I’d walk a bit and explore more of the city. I was trying to find Plague Park but I failed. Instead, I wandered through the esplanade and then through a shopping street and finally found myself in front of the train station. I went in and booked my ticket for the next day to Tampere and then continued on. That was when I found myself walking through the doors of Kiasma, the Helsinki Museum of Modern Art.

It was a funky place (really, would expect less from a modern art museum?) just big enough to let you enjoy it leisurely without being overwhelming. As is the case with any museum, I enjoyed some of the pieces and didn’t understand others. But this is where Kiasma differed from other museums. It knew you weren’t going

The Post it wall

to get it all and turned that into part of the art itself. In two places, there were big bulletin boards covered with post-it notes in all sorts of colors. Pre-printed on the

Post-It Wall (detail)

notes, in several different languages across the top (one language per) were the words “I don’t quite get it…” leaving the rest for you to fill in and add to the wall. I loved it. At the end, when I was leaving, I walked past a display sign covered in little circle stickers with a “K.” These were your admission tickets and the patrons, as they were walking out the door, covered this sign with them, creating a Seurat inspired collage of a piece of Hockney drip art.

Covered in entry stickers

I made it home after I expected to (I got lost on the tram – okay, not on the tram itself, they’re not that big, but on which tram I chose to take), just in time to say goodbye to Jennica and Tommy as they were leaving for Iron Maiden (and may I say, seriously, I haven’t seen so many Iron Maiden shirts around a city since 1985 – this may be good or bad depending on your view of Iron Maiden shirts and/or Helsinki). When they were gone, it left me and Donna home alone together. Oh wait, I’ve completely forgotten to mention Donna

My girl Donna

haven’t I? Donna is Jen and Tommy’s dog, an adorable girl with eyes the size of Montana and sadder than Uncle Uris at a wedding. She and I had a great evening, hanging out and making sandwiches. Yes, I made the sandwiches, but she played me good with those eyes and ended up with more people food than she was probably supposed to have. That’s okay,

that’s what Uncle Jaqs are for, to spoil the little ones.

After the concert, Tommy and Jennica and I went for traditional Finnish late night cuisine (I had the salmon soup) and talked well into the early morning. I got a few

Tommy dropping me off at the train station

hours sleep before Tommy and Donna drove me to the train station so I could go to Tampere and met up with Antti and Tiina and the wonder that is Vaasa.

The ferry to Helsinki was uneventful, save for a very expensive buffet. At one point I tried to find a comfortable place to sit and maybe sleep for a few minutes, but discovered all the good spots were already taken by folks who were already sleeping! That appears to be the thing to do on the early morning crossing. Pulling into the Helsinki harbor, though, I saw the most brilliant

Summer house

thing – a tiny island with a tiny house on it! I found out later this is a traditional summer house and all the Finns either have one of their own or have friends with one so they go there for several days to several weeks in the summer.

I’m learning that Finns tend to spend the winter, dark months living like zombies, annoyed at the world, locked away inside their own places and thoughts. But come summer, they light up like fireworks, enjoying the sunlight, listening to music and generally enjoying each other’s company. It is really, from my understanding, a tale of two worlds.

So anyway, off the boat, heavy pack loaded on and meet Jennica and Tommy at the dock. Jennica, as you’ll recall, I met in Prague and Tommy is her significant other. He had taken the morning off work so they could come get me in the car to take my stuff back to the house and then he was going back to the set (he makes TV/Commercials) and Jennica and I were going to wander.

Which is what we did!

We started out by taking a tram back down to the waterfront and having a traditional Finnish breakfast of meat pies and apple

Jennica at the Rock Church

donuts. The atmosphere reminded me of Café du Monde in New Orleans but the food was certainly different. The meat pies were just that, a pastry filled with a minced meat and spice concoction which was quite tasty, once I got over the fact it wasn’t a donut. The donut, though, was a donut and that was all good. The place we ate was where Jen used to work so we got the royal treatment (and considering the President of Finland, who lives across the street, has eaten there, that’s saying something).

The fountain by the harbor

Afterwards, we did indeed wander. We hit the fountain (yes I made a wish and no, I’m not telling you what it was) which is a central meeting point, we walked up the stairs to a large church and we went through a park called the Esplanade which had statues and monuments for writers and poets! We even went to a museum where, for some inexplicable reason, the exhibits all had something to do with marriage. There was a chupah set up and a chair with a crown on it (I couldn’t resist sitting in the chair and putting the crown on – I’d

King Jaq

already done the chupah thing).

Honestly though, we just wandered and talked. Every now and again Jennica would point out something or I would ask a question, but for the most part it was just hanging out with a friend. We did, however, run into The Pink One (see, I’m not the only one who gives their friends epithets). The Pink One is one of Jennica’s oldest friends and she met us for lunch and then for drinks

The Pink One (like I could resist)

afterwards. A very funny girl! And she was wearing pink (how she got the name to begin with).

I must say, though, there’s this weird fascination in Finland for naming businesses after American cities. We ate lunch at Memphis, had drinks at Texas and passed Amarillo down the street. You never realize how much of your culture is exported until you hear the Friends theme as a ring tone on a cellular phone.

The next day, Jennica had to go to work but we made a plan to meet up at the statue when she was done. This meant I had the day to myself. What did I do? I did what you do in Finland – I got on a boat and went to see a fortress!

The fortress is called Suomienlinna (which is, quite literally, Finland’s Castle). It’s on a series of six islands in the Helsinki harbor and not only does it have a rich and varied history, but it also has the only remaining submarine in the Finnish navy (they had 6 at one point but after WWII had to get rid of them all – I think there were plans to move them to SuomienDisney but in the end

The Vesikko Submarine

they were scrapped). There was also a toy museum on the island, but they didn’t allow pictures. I did, however, buy a card game where you had to collect cards to make a little blonde haired, blue eyed family and the bad card, the “old maid” if you will, was a little black boy. I had to get it.

The castle itself held a distinguished place in Finnish history. It was never finished, it didn’t quite

Re-enactors showing how things used to be...

do what it was supposed to do and in the end, in it’s one major battle, it surrendered. Over the years, though, various governments have owned and operated it, changing the armaments, updating the

Guns on the island

catacombs. Now it’s a UNESCO World Heritage site and a prison (the inmates are used as groundskeepers).

After taking the Ferry back to Helsinki, I met up with Jennica in the Esplanade. We listened to a live band for a few minutes (whose name I really can’t remember and they really weren’t that good) before heading off to meet Tommy and then get fixins for a barbecue that night. On our way, though, we decided to stop for ice cream. Let me stop and take a few minutes to talk about ice cream in Europe…

It’s everywhere! If I get fat over here, that’s why. No matter where you turn, if there is a crowd of people, there is an ice cream stand. Usually, it’s one unit of currency for a single scoop in a waffle cone (i.e. if they have Euro, it’s a Euro or two, if they have crowns it’s a crown, etc…) Sometimes there are more flavors than you’ll know what to do with, sometimes, like in Finland, they have just a few. But anyway you cut it, there is ice cream whenever you want one, and when they’re everywhere, you want one all the time! So Jennica and I wanted an ice cream. We hit the stand and the way the cost breakdown worked you could get one big scoop or two little ones for the same price, We both chose two little ones and then went happily on our way. About now, you’re wondering, why is he telling us about getting an ice cream? Be patient. As we’re leaving the stand, Jen hands me a napkin. I look at her, and she responds by saying “I don’t think you’ll need it or anything…”

Those of you who know me know what’s coming next, don’t you?

Yup. No sooner is the napkin in my hand than the top scoop of ice cream is falling down the front of my shirt while I scramble to catch it before it hits the ground. Which I manage to do. Of course, my jacket is a mess, my hands need the napkin and Jennica is laughing hysterically, but I still have my ice cream!

For another thirty seconds.

I take three more licks (and don’t get to the center of a tootsie roll tootsie pop) and the whole thing goes sailing off the cone, forward so there’s no chance of survival, and into the dirt. My altruistic attitude instantly becomes one of “well, I guess someone doesn’t want me to have any ice cream.” Jennica feels bad, certainly, but she still has hers so we continue on. We get about 50m when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, comes a lokki (that would be Finnish for seagull) who dive bombs her and takes a chunk out of the top of her ice cream. We stop so she can scrap the residue off, lokki are disgusting critters after all, and she is not about to eat where it’s landed. We are both laughing at this point, me without an ice cream and her’s cut down in the prime of its half-eaten life. Basically, we are off our guard. I mean seriously, how much more can happen in once little trip with an ice cream cone?

Turns out lokki are not only disgustingly dirty, they are also incredibly crafty! While that first one distracted us, got us to relax,

Jennica post lokki attack!

its fellows came in on a sneak attack a few minutes later, this time taking out the whole cone, knocking it right out of her hands! Honestly, if they had opened season on lokki right then, Jen would have taken out a dozen with her bare hands. Of course, just to prove the point that they were NOT going to stop us, we went and each of us got another cone (single scoops this time, we might be filled with hubris, but we’re not crazy!)

Continuing on, we made our way through the Plague Park (yes, they have a park named for victims of the plague. The big church in the middle of town? Doom Church. The Finns are not a jolly people, despite the fact Santa allegedly lives in Finnish Lapland) and finally meet up with Tommy. The idea is that we are going to meet up with Jen’s sister then go to her parent’s house (they’re out of town) to get their car and have the

Doom Church

BBQ.

Everything goes smoothly until we get to the house and Jennica realizes she doesn’t have the keys to get in. No worries – quick change of plans. Instead of open flames and outdoor beer, we’re going to go back to Jen’s place and Tommy is going to put his culinary expertise to work. And he does. We have reindeer sausage, some kind of pork filet and a marinated chicken (heavy on the meat here). For dessert, Tommy makes some sort of chocolate/banana concoction which like heaven in a (burnt) peel. Despite never finding the keys, I’d say the evening was a complete success!