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Well, I'm on the train again, this time all by myself, with far too much luggage to befit a Finn, yet given a ticket for the upper floor of the car.
This time I'm heading to Turku, and the conductor wouldn't accept my registration paper as proof of studentness, so I had to pay the other half of the fare also -> but J says I should talk to the people at the Turku station when I get there, so maybe I can sort this out.
The car is so well air-conditioned I really don't want to think that it's actually 20 degrees and sticky outside.
It was relatively quiet up here until Tampere, and I guess it's also normal for men to drink on the train as a couple of guys have independently popped open a beer each. One of these guys looks a bit like Ewan MacGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi but with darker hair and a small handful of dreadlocks at the back of his head instead of the silly Jedi padawan braid at the side. Finns are such hippies. I wish he'd give me a beer too.
The other guy with a beer is partly the contributor to the unquietness up here. His group of friends is responsible for the chattering.
I'm just sitting here writing and eating from a small bag of Nordic Haribo Goldbären. Guy with friends has finished his beer; Hippy Obi-Wan is doing some number puzzle on a sheet of paper. Guy with friends takes out a beer for his friend, and another one for himself. He smiles at me. I'm trying not to stare at them too much in shock of them having beer. It's not a conscious stare, it's just that it's so deeply ingrained in me that that's just not done on public transport that I can't help but have that obvious wide-eyed look when we accidentally make eye contact.
I suspect that you've all gotten so tired of my moaning about the drinking culture here, but not only is it very interesting anthropological study, it's also the most striking difference between here and Canada. The buildings are older, the bathrooms smaller, kitchen cupboards more clever, but the landscape isn't all that different from Northern Alberta. People look different too, but one expects that. And all that isn't really "culture", it's "how things work".
As for the stuff about student fares, no one checked J and me for student ID when we went to Tampere and the bus driver on the way back accepted my papers. J said I should claim ignorance that one's supposed to show a Finnish student card, but yet some people seem to take papers so I dunno. I guess it makes sense, though. After all, proof of registration isn't the same as my OneCard in Edmonton, either. But then again it's not like student status gets me half price on the Greyhound (only -10%) (Darn you, capitalism!). So it's fair. I don't care. [It's not worth the lie.] I budgeted for this anyway.
This time I'm heading to Turku, and the conductor wouldn't accept my registration paper as proof of studentness, so I had to pay the other half of the fare also -> but J says I should talk to the people at the Turku station when I get there, so maybe I can sort this out.
The car is so well air-conditioned I really don't want to think that it's actually 20 degrees and sticky outside.
It was relatively quiet up here until Tampere, and I guess it's also normal for men to drink on the train as a couple of guys have independently popped open a beer each. One of these guys looks a bit like Ewan MacGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi but with darker hair and a small handful of dreadlocks at the back of his head instead of the silly Jedi padawan braid at the side. Finns are such hippies. I wish he'd give me a beer too.
The other guy with a beer is partly the contributor to the unquietness up here. His group of friends is responsible for the chattering.
I'm just sitting here writing and eating from a small bag of Nordic Haribo Goldbären. Guy with friends has finished his beer; Hippy Obi-Wan is doing some number puzzle on a sheet of paper. Guy with friends takes out a beer for his friend, and another one for himself. He smiles at me. I'm trying not to stare at them too much in shock of them having beer. It's not a conscious stare, it's just that it's so deeply ingrained in me that that's just not done on public transport that I can't help but have that obvious wide-eyed look when we accidentally make eye contact.
I suspect that you've all gotten so tired of my moaning about the drinking culture here, but not only is it very interesting anthropological study, it's also the most striking difference between here and Canada. The buildings are older, the bathrooms smaller, kitchen cupboards more clever, but the landscape isn't all that different from Northern Alberta. People look different too, but one expects that. And all that isn't really "culture", it's "how things work".
As for the stuff about student fares, no one checked J and me for student ID when we went to Tampere and the bus driver on the way back accepted my papers. J said I should claim ignorance that one's supposed to show a Finnish student card, but yet some people seem to take papers so I dunno. I guess it makes sense, though. After all, proof of registration isn't the same as my OneCard in Edmonton, either. But then again it's not like student status gets me half price on the Greyhound (only -10%) (Darn you, capitalism!). So it's fair. I don't care. [It's not worth the lie.] I budgeted for this anyway.
