The Finns

I remember that my dad allowed me to sip some wine when I was a kid. I didn’t like it of course, I just wanted to taste it. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why nowadays I can appreciate a glass of wine casually, without getting drunk. This week I learned that Finns can’t do that. If they start drinking… that’s it. They just start, there’s no end to it.

Friday and Saturday nights are marked in every Finns calendar with a “get wasted” sign, and maybe that’s why the tax on alcohol is so high. Although I hate to be the one to say it but, according to the amount of drunk people you have walking around in Hellsinki, that tax isn’t working. I managed to cruise around the city for a few times with my girlfriend. (Oh by the way, remember my friend and that problem with the one bed only on her apartment? Not a problem anymore. Apparently I misunderstood her. She was inviting me to live with her… you know… as a couple. We had never dated before, but it seems that that’s the way it goes. When she got home the night of my arrival we could get everything straighten up and just like that... we were dating. But I’ll dig into that some other day.)

So as I was saying, it is kinda cool to cruise around Hellsinki, jumping from bar to bar, until 23h or 24h. After that, you can’t find a sober soul anywhere. Everybody is stumbling around the city and screaming out loud completely drunk. Finns are strict and uptight every minute of the day, and I guess that they need those weekend night moments to release themselves.
That’s why every night I went out, either I ended up with a guy leaning on my shoulder speaking too close to my face trying to tell me how great they can play guitar, or with a drunken girl hitting on me. Now, on a normal situation I wouldn’t complain about the girl hitting on me, especially if she’s drunk. But not when I’m holding hands with my brand new girlfriend! Yeah, that happened. Even though I didn’t do anything, I got home last Saturday and just like that, I had to sleep on the sofa for a couple of nights just because I paid too much attention to a cute girl. It was Hell. My Finnish girlfriend can scream.

After a couple bad nights sleep I decided to walk around the city during the day to relax and I ended up at this wonderful small café in Eesplanadi. I sat outside drinking my tea, they gave me a blanket to put on my legs (as if that is enough when the temperature is -5ºC) and before I knew it I started chatting with a fairly nice man about the weather. Soon we were changing impressions about countries we’ve visited. The conversation sloped over to the news and corruption came up (yeah we were talking about Italy), and I told him some of my own experiences with governmental facilities and bribes until I said as a joke “Every country is corrupt in its own way. I bet every country has their own little pyramid scheme. hahaha”.
It was a mistake. That was THE drop that spilled the glass.
He became very serious and rose to his feet angrily. Maybe he was drunk, I don't know, but with a sober tone looking down at me directly in the eyes, said: “We are Finns. We are not corrupt. Hannu Kailajärvi was an exception. Don’t start accusing the nation because of one man.”, and then left.

I sat there, holding my blanket and my cup of tea, everybody around looking at me negatively. Of course I thought that he started drinking when he was little and he never stopped... But later I searched about it when I got home. Apparently he was right, that Hannu was the only one caught in a Finnish pyramid scheme, Maddof style, under the name “WinCapita”. That man in the coffee house, as well as all Finns I believe, take those actions personally. They are correct people, never fraudulent, always lawful, and that pyramid scheme was an ugly stain in their perfect behaviour (except for Friday and Saturday nights).
Of course I know those schemes are ridiculous, a failure and an economical disaster, besides illegal… but that man’s attitude made me think… How the Hell can I bribe the Hellsinki city hall to get this project approved if all Finns are like him?
Again, I’m a Latin!
Rules? What’s that?