Category Archives: Suomi, Suomi, Suomi

30 June to 25 July. One month of Finnish summer (with a short interruption for a week in Berlin).

Oi, odota hetki…

In this space should be a story about how I felt taking off from Helsinki, landing in Amsterdam where I was questioned for over 10 minutes by security, departed for Minneapolis and sat next to a guy who didn’t get up or pee for the entire flight, and then arrived in San Francisco; a proverbial […]

I Say Goodbye Too Often

Way far away, thousands of kilometers across the globe is a city called Helsinki. It’s become kind of a big deal to me. Why? Easy: Park benches with pigeons walking too close. Chinese food in a sweltering hot restaurant. Number 14 from the food cart outside Helsingin päärautatieasema. 3.00am sunrises over Lauttasaari (that’s what’s up) […]

Leaving an Epic Summer

The summer of 2011 will forever be a summer to remember. It’s the sommar that brought me back to my friends. The sommer that opened my eyes up to a whole new world. My favorite kesä by far, and the one that gave a thousand times more than any other before. I couldn’t I wouldn’t […]

Making Finland a Little Closer to… Home?

Food can transport you from one place to another in less time than it takes to properly savor the flavors you miss most. Jee Hei made kimchi for us in Vantaa. Before that, the table on the balcony became littered with beer/cider cans and cigarette ashes by the side of a pan of dokkbokki. Soondubu […]

Singing is Therapy

Sometimes you want to scream, sometimes you want to sing. Whether you karaoke one of your favorite songs to death in a language you don’t really know, or give an amazing performance of “Eye of the Tiger” at Mauer Park in Berlin, finding an outlet for the vocal release of whateverness is exhilarating. This photo […]

Return to Nordicland

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. The little more than a week that I spent in Berlin felt like eternity filled with cheap food, cheap drinks, wonderful coffee, too many nice shops, lots of fun people and a somewhat familiar city, not unlike a much larger, more European version of San Francisco. (By contrast, Göteborg is to […]

Suomen Kesä on Kaunis

Sauna. Lake. Sauna. Lake. Sauna. Lake. Cider on repeat. The healthy regiment of relaxation followed dilligenty for each of the past 5 days spent on an island summer house in Finland, with my friend Jee Hei. Spontaneous dance party. Kdrama mini-marathon. Conversations without need for wordy prefaces, confusing annotations, and unexplainable endings. A reminder that […]