The French Connection

When I started this blog, the main idea was to share those funny everyday incidents that brighten up your day. You know those little, sometimes surprising interactions that people have, even with strangers. I love them, they are my favourite subject to talk about. Something worth mentioning tends to literally happen every day.

On Saturday we were getting off the plane in Medan on the northern shore of Sumatra island. Standing in the bus that took us to the airport building, I was holding my passport in my hand so it was very visible that I was from Finland (but I didn't realize it). Suddenly someone cheerfully said "Paiva!" ("Päivää" is "good afternoon" in Finnish.) I turned to look at an enthusiastic French guy who immediately started to take off his clothes.

Oh, you people with your dirty minds! He was just eager to show me his t-shirt that he had bought last summer when he had been hitch-hiking in Finland. Had completely fallen in love with the country, knew two words of Finnish (good afternoon and thank you) and wanted me to translate the text in his t-shirt because he didn't know what it meant. (Luckily he had bought a cute and not an obscene one.) It said "I'm on holiday - salary's running, I'm not". (Lomalla - palkka juoksee, minä en.) His hitch-hiking had taken place in Eastern Finland so I asked him if he knew my hometown, and he did, although he had not had time to go and see it. "But I know about the opera, oh, in the open air, must be really something", he said waving his arms (add French accent).

The French guy introduced himself as Carl and he was in fact on holiday from his job in Singapore. I boarded on the plane to Banda Aceh, thinking how important it is to keep your eyes open to make someone's day, and let them make yours. And to keep your passport where everyone can see it.

P.S. Aceh had recovered from the tsunami fantastically, at least when it comes to material things. People have pretty new houses, business is booming and the once ghost-towns are full of life. I was very happy to see all of it. Let's all hope there will never be another tsunami.

Now that's what I call friendship

In an earlier posting, I mentioned someone having to get by with 8,5 euros a day. That someone is me after my experience as an entrepreneur last year. Should have invested those 100 euros a month to hire a bookkeeper...

It's not a "call the UN" type of situation - the budget is counted after I've paid all the bills, the mortgage, and the massive taxes I now have to pay. But it is hard sometimes to get by on such a small amount when you're living in downtown Helsinki and your social life is almost completely somewhere else than in your own flat. Plus I absolutely can't buy any clothes, books, gifts (except really cheap ones...) or anything extra. So I've had to start telling people why I can't go anywhere and spend any money anymore, not before March anyway.

I know the friend I'm talking about would be embarrassed if I told her name here so I won't. But she happened to ask me if I'm still giving money to charity in my "situation". There are two sponsor payments that are charged automatically from my bank account every month and I haven't wanted to put them on hold. It's not a huge sum, not very small either, but to be honest right now I could come up with many other uses for the money.

My friend offered to pay me those for 4 months and before I even realized, she had put the money on my bank account. Summed up, 4 months worth of those payments look like - and are - a lot of money, and she's not a rich woman. A normal working mother of 2 with big bills from the house they've recently built.

There are more ways to help friends out than we ordinarily figure. Thank you, my friend, for your creativity and for having such a big heart!


P.S. Greetings from Singapore, arrived here today and on Saturday we'll fly to Aceh to visit our tsunami relief project. It should make me shut up about not being able to buy any foods I like from the supermarket of my choice. For a while at least.

You know you have been going out too much when...

Today I had lunch with my friend and ex-colleague Tuomas. We went to restaurant Sävel in Hakaniemi.

Approahing the counter, I realised I knew the waiter. (But, for my defence, I have this perversion that I never forget names or faces.) He used to work in the pub downstairs of the building where I worked from year 2000 to 2003. He looked at me to get my order and said: "Hi. HI!!! Hello! Haven't seen you for a long time!!!" I could have taken that as one of those things that happen when you work in the service industry and you meet thousands of people and don't really connect their faces to places although you know you've often seen them. But he went on about the bar and how he had been wondering where I had gone to.

I didn't return to the bar since I left Helsingin Sanomat and it was four years ago...

But I really did go there very often when I did.