Thursday, September 13, 2007

No problem; we’ve got the room, the smiling bus driver looked at my three suitcases and two bags and easily placed them in the bottom compartment of a modern bus. This took place in Helsinki yesterday, 5 PM. I had learned that trains do not take extra luggage anymore, so for the first time in many years, I traveled by a long distance bus. Unlike an airline check-in employee, the driver waived his hand when I offered to pay for the extra luggage – you’re supposed to have two pieces. So I sat in a very comfortable, clean bus for four and a half hours. Current magazines were provided, and there was a clean bathroom in the back. I took a nap with my airline pillow on tow, and arrived in Jyväskylä at 9:35 PM.

The weather had changed the day I woke up in Helsinki, 12 hours after my arrival. The fall had come. So, it was cool. The driver happily lifted my suitcases and bags on the platform, and I inquired about a taxi. Right there, around the corner, the driver advised me. It didn’t take me very long to remember that I was in Finland, in a small town – and that it would be perfectly OK to leave my bags leaning on a traffic sign while I looked for a taxi. The taxi driver chatted about the weather and drove right in front of the door of the apartment building. The key worked. I got in, dragged the bags into the elevator and pushed the number 5.

To get in, I had to wade through a month of newspapers and advertisements. I kicked them aside, pulled in the suitcases and turned all the lights on. - The electricity is included in the rent. - The bedroom is great, and so is the kitchen. But the living room - I quickly removed the silk flowers and the crystal vases and nicknacks and hid them in a cabinet. Then I pulled the mustard seed color fabric I had brought along and covered the gold leaf-patterned sofa with it. Much better! I left the Alvar Aalto vase and vowed to get flowers the next day. Then I lit the candles, toasted two slices of my favorite rye bread, covered them with cucumber, my favorite cheese and smoked salmon I had picked up at the Helsinki marketplace and sat down in front of a glass of red wine; leftover from the flight. Wow – I’m actually doing this!

Thanks to the wine and melatonin, I slept well until 6:30 AM. I tried to hook up my laptop to the broadband – no results. I text-messaged the landlady (that’s what you do here) at 8, and she promptly answered. She called her ex to come to help at 10:15. I worked hard to empty all the suitcases, made the bed, and pulled the yellow fabric off the sofa. I didn’t want to upset anyone. The ex was a big, smiling man, but he couldn’t help me. It’s my MacBook – won’t work with the PC-friendly modem. He says no problem. He’s going hunting near the Russian border, but he has a young friend who’s a computer genius – and a Mac user. He also promised to take me shopping to a giant French store, Gigante, outside town for a digi-box on Monday. Finland moved into 100% digital at the end of August. If you don’t have a digital TV, you can buy a box to turn your old one into a digital unit.  My excitement for entertainment is to watch Finnish shows – and even news programs. Yes, my kids – I confess; I am nörtti (a nerd)!

Thursday night, 9:15 PM - no wideband - but the public library came to rescue. I easily got a library card, a code for free Internet, and I got the email work done. Since I had walked to two miles to town, I decided to take a bus back. I struck a conversation with a woman, waiting for the same bus and learned that she worked for the faculty of languages, had studied in Jyväskylä and stayed after her degree– and lived near me. I have a hunch that we’ll become friends.  (Later, my friend, Tuija advised me that Finns do NOT talk to each other on the bus.)

I got off the bus at a big, new supermarket. It took me an hour to wander around, ogling all the foods I had missed for so long. I spent the longest in front of the different müslies – passed the American crunch in favor of the local berry brand but did get a bottle of balsamic vinegar, named San Fransesco – from Modena – for nostalgic reasons. After buying too much food, I sweated hauling the bags home for a kilometer – welcome to carless living! But before I got to that point, I was approached by a young Korean woman. There’s no escape for my invisible ESL-sign (hopefully a halo?). I tried to explain what kumina (caraway) is as she was choosing cracker bread. Finally, after finding out that no, I don’t like kumina, she picked the ones with rye. I also advertised the Finn crisps my family loves, and she decided to send a box to her boyfriend in Seoul. After helping three French guys choose mustard I escaped.  - When I lived here with Robert, he was the exotic foreigner!