As Kings and Warlords

Location: Purmo, Finland
Forearm Condition: Near Breaking

October 3

Only two hours of sleep last night due to Mike the Snoring American's contribution to the annals of audiographic misconduct, but up and at 'em at 7:00 AM. Flight leaves at 10:15, after all. Bit of a struggle because have to get to post office to airmail home bitchin' fantasy art won at World Championships. Too big and nice to travel will, would be smushed. Hard to use post office when you don't know the language, you're carrying 50 pounds of stuff on your back, it's raining, and you have 10 minutes to get in and out or you'll miss your flight to Finland. Also, clerk very rude. Still, get it done. When get home, have awesome artwork waiting for me. Very good.

Two crowded subways and one very cheap and comfortable express train later, at airport. Check in, no problem. Security, problem. Credit card in money belt sets off metal detector. Who knew? Must submit to body search a.k.a. pat down for guns. Minor humiliation, but man working security has very gentle hands. Ew. As it turns out, I have no weapons. Again, who knew? They let me through grudgingly.

Brussels National Airport enormous. 'A' Terminals span three vertical levels. Didn't know terminals could be stacked like that. Freakin' Belgians. Even so, get to gate with 45 minutes to spare. Go me.

Two-leg journey, Brussels-Stockholm-Vaasa. Very uneventful. Pass out on flights. Very attractive girl sitting next to me on second leg, but very standoffish in stereotypical Finnish way. Hell with her. Jenny prettier anyway.

Customs in Finland even more lax than in Belgium. Hadn't thought that possible. They didn't even stamp my passport. Nobody working customs. Nothing to say that I'm even here. Very messed up.

Greated by Caj in airport! Hooray! First time I've seen him in two years. This is one of my good friends from Australia, mind you. The entire reason I came to Finland. He hasn't changed a bit. Very warm greetings all around, then we make the drive to his house in Purmo.

Let me tell you a little bit about Caj. First off, he's the only cool white guy with dredlocks that I've ever known. Expand that out and you'll understand a little bit about him. This is the guy who learned to play both the digeridoo and the organ just for fun. Sings, plays guitar, rock climbs, cooks, drinks, and laughs with equal expertise. If there was a Finnish equivilent to a rennaissance man, this is it. My time with him is about evenly split between awe at his ability to wrangle the world and a deep feeling of being around a kindred spirit in his general attitude. And believe me, in this last I greatly compliment myself.

Caj lives with his wife, Malin (whom I also know from her time visiting Caj in Australia), and his 4-month old daughter Lovis (pronounced LOO-vis) in the tiny Ostrobothnian village of Purmo. And by tiny, I mean there is no one here.

See, Finland (at least this part, the farming countryside that virtually no tourists ever see), is much like the American image of it, if with slightly less tundra and polar bears. There is a very grim beauty around, with literally miles of farmland broken by misty forests in every direction, filled with ramshackle hay barns that are half-collapsed under their own weight. Tell you what... go watch the movie "The 13th Warrior." That's the kind of landscape we're dealing with. The additions of running water and electricity have barely altered a thing.

As it turns out, Caj and Malin are the perfect people to visit. On top of being good old friends, they are also just wonderfully hospitable people who love food, drink, and music, making me feel delightfully at home, physically and spiritually. Not only that, but they are seasoned world travelers, far more so than myself, and thus know what a backpacker wants and needs, and are absolutely determined to show me Finland in all it's native glory. Quite frankly, I couldn't be happier with the arrangement.



I get my first taste of Finnish food on the way home, something called a karjalanpiirakka, essentially bread with cold potato porridge and eggs on top. Quite good, surprisingly. The drive is about an hour and a half long out into the middle of nowhere. Since Finland is already in the middle of nowhere on the world scale, and Vaasa is already in the middle of nowhere on the Finnish scale, then the middle of nowhere on the Vaasa scale should say something.

We arrive at Caj's house and immediately go for a berry- and mushroom-picking excursion, one of the family's favorite activities. As it turns out, the countryside around the house is absolutely littered with berry bushes and edible mushrooms, even as close to winter as it is. We manage to gather a few before Malin gets home with Lovis. We get our greeting ya-yas out, then settle in for dinner. Dinner is homemade pizza, and when I say homemade, I mean from the dough on up, which they mix and back from scratch. This is real folksy stuff, right up the mushroom toppings that they picked themselves. And I'll tell you, it may just have been the best pizza I ever had. Things looking up in the food department, if this is any indication of what things will be like.

After dinner Caj and I head downstairs for a sauna. Oh, important Finland fact: they invented the sauna, and they are very proud of it. Every house in Finland has its own sauna. Seriously. All of them. Government employees have it as part of their contracts that they have the right to at least a weekly sauna. These people are sauna crazy. As it turns out, that means they also know how to do it right. Travel-worn muscles relax in mere minutes in the 165 degree, moist heat, especially combined with good company and an ice-cold Finnish beer (the local beer is delicious). A quick shower and it's bedtime, on a mattress in a spare room. I sleep like a baby.

October 4

Up in the morning to be greeted with porridge for breakfast. Basically hot, plain oatmeal. At first this looks upsetting. However, it's surprising how much a touch of jam, a few raisins, and a splash of milk can improve the taste of oatmeal. Delicious. I eat two huge bowls, and I'm ready to attack the day.

It's a day of long walks, first over to see the house that Caj and Malin are trying to buy (they currently rent). It's a lovely little place with separate buildings for the guest rooms, sauna, carpentry workshop, and stables, which they are giddy over for the possibility of raising sheep and goats there. On the way back, I discover a grove of birch trees planted in perfect, straight lines that reminds me a lot of the forest in any given badass Hong Kong Ku movie. After a little Jones Kung Fu, we're on the road again.

We continue on home for a lunch of sandwiches, delicious on their dark, home-baked bread. After chilling for a while, Caj and I decide on another hike, this time down a trail he's never been down. The walk is long and very peaceful. I can't get over the forests here. They're simply begging to be the location for a fantasy film shoot. It's too good. Thick moss grows everywhere, thin pines tower above us, and the undergrowth has been replaced by mist. Very cool. After about an hour we realize that if we don't head back, we'll be lost as the sun goes down. Trouble is, the trail continues on for another 8 km or so, and if we simply go back the way we came, we'll get caught by darkness in the woods. So we hop onto an intersecting paved road (only one or two of those around here) and take a left on a best guess, Mr. Sulu. Thank God we guessed right, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to make it home. We make a small stop to say hi to and pet some cows. Other than the cows trying to eat me, it goes very well.

Back home, some leftover pizza for dinner (still amazingly good), and to bed.

October 5

This morning's breakfast of porridge is augmented by American-style fried eggs, courtesy of me. I'm not sure how much Caj and Malin like them, but they actually complement the porridge quite nicely.

Caj and I head out to see Lostenen (literally "Lynx Rock"), the largest glacial boulder in Scandanavia, which happens to be about 13 km down the road. It's a bit of a hike once we park, but again with the beautiful forests. We get there and it's quite an imposing sight, this 75 foot boulder in the middle of the forest. We climb up the thing and have a picnic of sandwiches and hot chocolate on top of the rock in the drizzle.

Let me tell you... this is the middle of nowhere. We can see all the way to the horizon from on top of this rock, level with the treeline as it is, and as far as you can see in every direction, there is not a sign of human habitation. Nothing. It's easy to imagine, here, what it was like for the first barbarian tribes to settle the land, stalking through these same forests, utterly unchanged, hunting elk and bears. Inspired, I had to let loose with my own viking bellow from atop Lostenen, letting the roar echo off the trees and the clouds alone.

Then we climbed down and I gave Lostenen the finger.

Back to the house for tea and cake with Caj's grandparents, who dropped by to say hi. They don't speak a word of English, but are very friendly just the same, and the strawberry shortcake is simply divine.

As soon as they leave, Caj and I head to a local gym for some rock climbing practice. This was humbling, to say the least. After a couple of tries, I was finally able to reach the top of the easiest route, my fingers and forearms creaking in protest. Meanwhile, Caj and his friend Toffe (also Malin's cousin, on both sides) are clambering around like little Finnish monkeys. Nay, spiders. It's ridiculous. Caj can actually cling by his fingertips to the ceiling of sheer overhangs. I was gaping the entire time. It suddenly snaps into perfect clarity why Caj's body looks like bundles of steel cables covered by a taut layer of skin. Jesus H. Christ in a Chicken Basket... want to get into shape? Go rock climbing on a regular basis.

Like friggin' superheroes, I tell you.

Coming home, there are mashed potatoes and seasoned chicken for dinner, which my aching body gulps down with cheshire cat eagerness. Another sauna takes the edge off the soreness, and after a spirited discussion on Americans' perceptions of the world versus those of Finns, it's off to bed.

Progress Thus Far:
Countries Visited: 2
Stupid Tourist Moments: 7
Monuments Flipped Off: 6
Free Food Ganked: 2
Free Booze Ganked: 5



i sound my barbaric 'Yawp' from the rooftops of the world.
-Walt Whitman