After four days in traveling alone in Tallinn, Estonia, it was finally
time for me to meet to head across the water and meet up with
Grant and Jake.
Tuesday, February 1st
Tuesday morning I got up super early and headed to the harbor in Tallinn
so I could take the ferry over to Helsinki, Finland to meet up with
Grant and Jake. Nothing else was open except McDonalds - and they don't
have a breakfast menu in Estonia. Mmmmm...what's up, 7:4am cheeseburger?
I made it down to the harbor and got my tickets with plenty of time left
to kill so I decided to read my book and have...
...a second breakfast! Oh, hello there weird yet tasty Estonian meat-filled
croissant thingy.
Fast-forward about 45 minutes later and it was time to board the fancy,
big-ass boat!
Check out the rad interior. Note to any fellow travelers: Fizzy Coke +
Breakfast meat croissant thingy + choppy-water ferry ride = Crazy-smelly
meat burps. Hahahaha.
Good thing most of the nearby passengers were Finns that were already
too wasted (at 9am!!) to care about my olfactory disturbance.
Finland, ho!
The water in the harbor is calm enough that it was actually freezes!
(According to Google, sea water freezes at 28.4 degrees Fahrenheit.
Holy shit). I got off the boat - and right on time - Grant and Jake
were there to meet me! (Yay! Let's hear it for no-longer having to
travel alone!)
Tacky Americans that we are - we immediately headed to McDonalds to celebrate!
(Actually, Finland is a lot pricier than Estonia and so McDonalds was one
of the few places there that fit into our "we're trying to spend as little
money as possible" broke-ass traveler's budget).
Moving on up! As soon we FINNISHed (ha!) wolfing down
our foreign Big Mac's, Grant and Jake took me to the Hotel
Kamp (the super-expensive
and fancy hotel that Finlandia Vodka had put them up in) so that I could
drop off my bags.
On the way up to Grant's room, we noticed that another guest of the hotel
had neglected to FINNISH (ha again!) their smoked salmon.
At 40 Euros a plate, we weren't about to let that shit go to waste! Cuh-lassy!
After eating a weird meat-pie thingy and McDonalds twice all
before 2pm, I was pretty psyched to find out that the toilet was equipped
Euro-style rocking the (very necessary) handheld bidet attachment that
allows you to shower just your ass.
I took care of business, unpacked my stuff, took a quick shower (sometimes
a bidet just isn't enough if you know what I'm sayin') and then decided
to get comfy and lounge in one of the ultry-downy hotel-provided robes
and sets of slippers. Grant came back to the room - saw how I was lounging
in style and quickly decided to get his robe-on as well. We called
Jake to come up to Grant's room to hang out and when he showed
up rocking his robe as well, we knew it was time for a photo shoot.
We all busted out our matching furry hats, set up my camera on top of the
TV on auto-timer...
...and got the "we're low-class dorks staying in a fancy hotel for
free" photo shoot going!
Hahaha.
Oh, snap!
The very necessary close up. After we'd gotten a satisfactory "cold-lamp"
pose locked down, Grant decided he wanted me to try capturing him pulling
off a David Lee Roth split kick off of the hotel window ledge.
Here's Grant helping me find the right focus for the cam and them...
...BLAMO! Attempt number one...so close!
Attempt number two! Bingo! Grant extended his legs as fully as he could
without exposing his luggage to the camera.
Here's Jake's off-the-window sill robe-and-hat action shot.
Then, never one to shy away from showing
off his luggage,
Jake started doing high-legged crescent kicks for the camera. First
attempt: Pretty good.
Second attempt: Getting closer.
Third attempt: "Houston, we have mudspot."
Here's a close up! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
This photo caused Grant Stoddard to laugh harder than I've ever seen him
laugh at anything before. He literally had a five minute long hysterical
fit where he COULD NOT stop laughing. So Grant, this one's for
you:
An even closer look at Jake Bronstein's nuts and deep-shaved ass!
Hahaha. Believe it or not, Jake's deep-shaved ass is going to be the subject
of a heated co-ed debate later on in the evening. So keep it in mind. (Not that
that'll be hard considering the above image is probably permanently seared into
your memory).
Here's Grant after he finally got his laughing under control. He laughed
so hard that his eyes swelled up!
Not one to let the laughter die, Jake managed to send Grant into a
second wave of hysterics with his this variation on the theme. Hahahaha.
Tired out from all high high-kickin' hijinx, Jake decided to stay at the
hotel and relax while Grant and I ventured out to explore Helsinki.
This building is probably the most exciting thing that Helsinki had to
offer. We took a photo of it and then decided to hit a internet cafe so
that we could check our email.
And so Grant could catch up on the entries I posted to this
very site (I'm
so meta!) before leaving for Estonia. But because of all the questionable
content I post (like Jake Bronstein's deep-shaved ass), he didn't want
to surf on it too long for fear that he'd...
 ...violate
the cafe's strict "NO PORNS HERE" rule and end up having
to pay a hefty 20 Euro fine!
After a few more hours of walking around and exploring...
...we headed back to the hotel to...
...mack and relax in the lobby while waiting to meet up with the hosts
of the Finlandia trip who were planning on taking the trip attendees on
one final fancy dinner before bidding everyone farewell. (Grant and Jake
asked the hosts nicely and they were gracious enough to invite me along.
Thanks guys!)
Here's Grant using the Financial Times as a screen to scout for hot Finnish
chicks.
The less-subtle Jake forwent the paper and blatantly leered at the ladies.
The Finlandia crew: Gus, Rich (from Brown-Forman),
Karen, Grizz and Jordan. (I think I got all of their names right, Grant?)
After a few aperitifs in the hotel's bar, we headed a few blocks over
to some fancy restaurant called Mecca.
The food was incredible - but it was hard to hear the dinner conversation
over...
...Karen's incessant clacking as she furiously took notes about the dinner
conversation on her AlphaSmart
3000. (Actually, for as much as we joked
around about it, this thing's pretty fucking rad. It weighs 2lbs, will
run for 700
hours using only THREE AA BATTERIES and when you're done
taking notes, you can upload them to any computer via infrared and
the thing only costs $139 dollars. Amazing.)
I take back every bad thing I said about Alphasmart, Karen. (But I
will, however, continue to make fun of your "cat shirts.").
Before leaving NYC, Grant and I ran into our friend friend Tracy. When
Tracy heard that we were going to be visiting Helsinki, he gave us
his friend Sanna's number and told us to call her and that she'd take
us out. So after we finished dinner, Grant, Jake, Jordan and I called
Sanna and she told us to meet her a few blocks from Mecca at a place
called Errotija Bar. On our way out of the restaurant, Jake saw cute
girls at the restaurant's bar and told us that he wanted to try to
meet them and that he'd see us at the bar later. We (laughingly) wished
him good luck and headed out.
So Jordan, Grant and I meet up with Sanna at the bar. We're all hanging
out, drinking a few beers, laughing about Jake thinking he's got enough
game to lay the mack on foreign girls and then the next thing you know...
...Jake shows up at the bar with Renja, the hot Finnish girl he'd wanted
to meet and her friend.
I think Grant's face sums up our collective surprise.
Jake was on fire. He was being all charming and telling jokes...working
his way up to getting all smoochy-smoochy.
Grant, meanwhile, was across the table making polite conversation with
Renja's friend (who I think was named Marja?).
Anyway, Jake starts telling Renja that Grant has no game and that when
wants to hit on a girl resort to trying to make conversation about
the weather. As if on cue, like 30 seconds later we all overhear Grant
ask Marja
"So, do you get a lot of rain here in Helsinki?" and the
three of burst out laughing at Grant. Grant and Jake are really competitive
so as soon as Grant realizes that Jake's making jokes at his expense,
he demands to know what's so funny. Renja explains to Grant that she's
laughing "because he doesn't know how to make conversation with
girls so he talks about the rain!" Grant gets furious and screams
that Jake is a "DIRTY JEW LIAR!" (Don't forget: before
leaving for the trip, Grant and I had convinced Jake that Estonia and
Finland were HIGHLY anti-semetic countries and that he should call
himself "Jack Brownstone" and never let on that he's Jewish. )
Grant was really upset that Jake would try to make time with a girl
by putting him down and decided to dedicate the rest of his night to
ruining any chance Jake had of making out with Renja.
Jake still wasn't sure if we were kidding about all Finns HATING Jews,
so Grant decided to keep chipping away at his confidence by sending ever-so
subtle messages to Renja behind Jake's back about him being
Jewish. He started off by trying remind her about his "Jew nose."
Very, very subtle.
Then, every oh, twenty seconds or so, he'd do this behind Jake's back
while fiercely mouthing the words "JEW HORNS! HE HAS JEW HORNS!"
Jake finally got wise to Grant's behind-the-back shenanigans and started
getting him back by telling the girls embarrassing stories about Grant.
This quickly escalated to a back and forth session with Grant and Jake
taking turns trying to out-embarrass each other. Jake touched a nerve
when he told Grant that he was "An agry little man!" and Grant came
back by standing up from his chair and shouted "GIRLS
DON'T TOUCH HIM! HE IS A FILTHY, HAIRY JEW! IN FACT, HE'S SO HAIRY
HE HAS TO DEEP SHAVE HIS ASS! HE DEEP-SHAVES HIS ASS!"
The girls, who had for ten minutes politely endured Grant and Jake's
one-upmanship, finally seemed to realize it wasn't going to end anytime
soon, and told the boys they had to get going. (Either that or they
had spoke English well enough to understand the curiously idiomatic
expression "deep shaves
his ass.") Judging by the expression on Marja's face, I'm willing
to bet it was the latter.
Hey, homeboy still managed to get her number though. Oh, snap!
So now it's me, Grant, Jake, Sanna, another girl named Sanna, Jordan
and another Finnish friend of Sanna's named Walter left at the bar.
Jake and Walter are getting drunk and taking lots of pictures and Jake
realizes that as Walter's getting progressively drunker, Walter's left
eye is becoming, to put it politely, slightly less
co-operative than his
right eye.
And then for the next hour or so, despite Walter being the nicest guy
we'd met in Finland, Jake decided to send subtle signals to the camera
to check out Walter's eyes.
Okay, maybe they weren't all that subtle. Cool? Not really.
Funny? Oh, yes.
Despite the fact that he caught Jake pointing at his floater (Jake: "Wow,
he can see pretty good for a guy with a wonky eye.") Walter was a good
enough guy to still head out to an hours club with Jake, Sanna and myself
(Grant, being a huge pussy, decided to head back to the hotel early).
Here's we are on our way into some after hours place that I think was
called "Lost & Found."
We ended up having a rad time.
Walter and Jake.
Jake and Sanna.
Jake managed to capture the creepy happy face I make when I'm drunk
and I dance.
Twice.
Three strikes and you're out. Sit the fuck down, clownface!
Jake, me and (cutely drunk) Sanna.
Here's us getting kicked out at closing time (I think it was 4am?)
I snapped this pic of naked men cooperatively striking an anvil on
our cold, snowy walk back to the hotel.
Wednesday, February 2nd
On Wednesday morning we woke up with just enough time to catch the
fancy hotel breakfast (shit cost $50
per person and Finlandia picked up the tab! Oh, snaaaap!) and for Grant
and Jake to bid farewell to their Finlandia hosts and rest of the people
they'd traveled through Finland with. Jake, Grant and I then checked
out of the hotel, stored our bags in the hotel's luggage room and decided
to spend our last few hours exploring Helsinki before we had to catch
the 5:15pm ferry back to Estonia later that afternoon.
We ended up at some weird mall / movie theater / art gallery that was
showing a Jeff Koons retrospective. (Before leaving, Grant had pitched
a travel piece on Finland to New York Magazine and wanted to make sure
he had a few "cultural" things to write about...besides Jake's
asshole, I mean.)
Oh, and because we like art.
Jeff Koons makes art that's easy to like. He's all about huge, glossy
porno pics and giant, stylized porcelain sculptures of early-80s Michael
Jackson posing with his chimp, Bubbles.
And all these rad little mylar-balloon looking sculptures that are
actually made out of highly-polished stainless steel.
Photos were forbidden in the gallery so all the shots I took above
were sneaky ones I was firing from the hip. Here's a close up I took
from a web site about Koon's work that better shows how much the stainless-steel
works really look like inflatable mylar. Neato! (Click here for an
even-better
pic!)
Afterwards, we wandered through a maze of construction.
It seemed like the whole city was under construction.
Walked around.
Walked around some more...
Then after nixing a bunch of Finnish restaurants, we opted to catch
a cheap lunch at a sketchy Chinese restaurant.
After lunch, we stopped by the hotel, picked up the bags we'd left
in the luggage room and headed for the harbor to catch the ferry to
Estonia!
We gorged ourselves on a giant bag of (duty-free!) Finnish candy.
Lemme see those Jazz Hands!
And promptly took turns conking the fuck out.
Jake sleeps with his mouth open. (This is known as foreshadowing. Much
like Jake's deep-shaved ass, this is something that will be relevant
in a future post...Hahahaha.)
Not many people know this about me, but I'm even funny in my sleep.
Here's me doing my cut-up impression of the Emperor
Palpatine. Spot on!
Grant puffed away on his little licorice pipe and daydreamed
about Estonian hizzores.
Tallinn, here we come...
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