As the program progressed over the ensuing weeks, they would take us to the west coast city of Turku, where one could drink aboard boats turned into bars on the beautiful city canals. We would be introduced to the university town of Tampere, where we could learn to whip ourselves with birch branches in the sauna. Then they would jet us up to Lapland to hike through the stark Arctic wilderness and drink from the same streams as reindeer.
Finland, as we would come to learn, was a country where people put themselves to work with enormous helpings of coffee and put themselves to sleep with sweat and vodka. And how could I say no to all that free alcohol?
It was after a party in downtown Helsinki on one of the first nights after meeting my fellow correspondents that the other American and I took our bus back to the dormitory where we were staying. While she vomited in her purse, I became overwhelmed by my need to piss. Fearing I would wet my pants, I ran off the bus at a random stop and relieved myself on a nearby bush.
The night was warm and black. There was no one around. At first, I was happy about this. But then I realized that I had no idea where I was or any idea of how to get home. Helsinki wasn’t so big, I told myself. Our student hall must be right around the corner.
After what seemed like an hour of trekking anxiously through quiet, dark back streets, though, I came to the conclusion that the only way to get back home was to get back on bus 55. The only problem was that I had wandered so far from our bus stop, I had no idea how to find that either.
Still drunk and incredibly confused, I met a group of young people outside a house party.
A blond-haired young woman said something to me in Finnish. Her hair hung down her back in a long, plated braid. She repeated her question.
“I’m looking for my bus,” I slurred.
“You speak English? Where are you from?”
“New York.”
“New York? What the hell are you doing in Helsinki?”
“I’m in the,” I paused to burped, “Finnish foreign correspondents’ program.”
The pretty Finn with the braided hair smiled with pity and helped direct me to a bus stop where I caught another bus going somewhere. Tired, drunk, and lost, I now poured out my life story to the bus driver, who spoke excellent English.
“I used to be a bus driver in Oregon,” the bus driver said. “And in Estonia too; I was driving buses in Tallinn for awhile.”
The golden-haired bus driver looked at me in his rear view mirror. He seemed to be about the same age as me.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Mati.” He reached out and shook my hand quickly, while keeping one hand on the wheel.
“Where are you from?”
“Well, originally, I’m from Estonia.”
“Estonia? There is a girl in our program from Estonia… Epp.”
“Epp. Sounds like an Estonian girl,” he smiled.
“When I first saw the manifest for our program, I couldn’t believe someone could have a name so short.”
“Oh yeah. We Estonians have lots of funny names,” Mati smiled. “My brother’s name is Uku.”
“Yoko?”
“Not Yoko,” he smiled. “U-ku.”
After a long ride through the backstreets of Helsinki, Mati finally pulled up behind bus number 55.
“This is your last chance,” Mati said. “The buses stop running around this time, so you have to run and get on that bus before it’s too late.”
“Kiitos4,” I yelled to him.
“Don’t mention it.”
I made it just in time to reflect on how lucky I was to have made it. What would have I done if it weren’t for Mati? Slept on a park bench? Called the Finnish foreign ministry at 3 am? When I got finally staggered back to the dorm, I was told the students had sent out a search party to find me. I was happy to have so much attention, but depressed because once again alcohol had found me.
“Do you know how to say ‘Fancy a shag’ in Finnish?” an Arab journalist whispered. “It’s ‘Halut sie panna’.”
“Really?
“Oh yes, and “‘I like your new haircut’ is …”
We were at another Finnish correspondents’ program wine and cheese late night event. Was there a day that went by in Finland where I didn’t go to bed drunk? The Egyptian correspondent in Helsinki, Mohammed, had also had a few too many and was lecturing me about the finer points of life in Finland.
“The thing my readers like most is when I write about the sauna,” he dragged on. “You can imagine how exotic the sauna is for people in Cairo.”
From the throng of other drunken writers, Epp ran up to me, giggling beside Réka, the Hungarian correspondent.
“Do you know the secret?” Epp whispered into my ear.
“What’s the secret?” I asked, intrigued.
“You mean you don’t know the secret?” She hit the last syllable like a bee sting. Epp then turned back to Réka, laughed again, and walked away.
Epp was weird. Of all of our group members, she was the only one who did not drink alcohol. She told me once that it was because of her time spent in an ashram in India, where people lived a “pure” life, and yet, she seemed crazier than anyone else in the program. What was her secret?
Mohammed was right about the saunas, though. In Finland, our group saunaed everywhere, every evening. We saunaed in the city, in the forest, on the islands, even in special Lappish “smoke saunas,” where the walls were black with soot and the air heavy with carcinogenic smog.
One day our group stopped at a summer cottage outside the city of Tampere. The men saunaed in one house, the ladies in another.
“Usually everyone saunas together,” said our host Jari. “But we thought it would be too weird for you since you are all from abroad.” I had heard a rumor during the program that Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja and President Tarja Halonen saunaed together regularly during the heady 1960s. After hearing what Jari told us, I now suspected it might be true.
Saunaing together with a bunch of naked guys wasn’t exactly normal, either. We were expected to disrobe in front of what were still a bunch of strangers, and then snuggle up together on a bench in a hot dark room, supposedly for relaxation.
So what do a bunch of naked foreign guys talk about in the sauna after having a few beers? Most of the time, we were talking about what might be going on in the women’s sauna. Florent, the French journalist, informed us that he was in love with just about every woman in Finland. Matjaz, the Slovenian, tried to find out which one of the girls we were most attracted to. The last thing I wanted to do was answer that question, even though I had a good idea of what my answer would be. Mitchell, the hearty Canadian, and Jevgeni, the boyish Russian, who apparently had not yet started shaving, discussed the finer points of the English language.
“Do you want to know the word for a gentle kiss on the ear?” Mitch asked Jevgeni.
“Oh, yeah, Mitch, please tell me.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I really want to know. I have a little book where I write all the new words I learn each day.”
“Jevgeni, the word for a gentle kiss on the ear is dildo.”
“Dildo? That’s fantastic,” said Jevgeni in wonder. He paused for a moment to digest the new word.
“So Mitch, if I go up to a Canadian