Fun in Finland part 1

I'm currently sitting in a lightless guest room at a family friend's apartment in Helsinki, after my mom forced me to turn the lights out because she wanted to go to sleep. I also can't type this on my laptop as my mom refused to buy an adapter for the trip, and has now succeeded in using my computer every day since we arrived last Thursday, draining my computer of its limited battery and forcing me to type this on my phone. But I'm a survivor.

I originally wanted to title this post "Hip in Helsinki", but I realized that that makes me sound like a total douchebag. I think "Fun in Finland" is an appropriate replacement.

I've been here for 5 days now, but I've spent half the time sleeping (almost literally) so I don't feel like I've done as much as I would have liked, but I still have over a week to make some magic happen. Still, I don't want to cram everything into one post. "Fun in Finland part 1" has already been a bit of a jumbled mess talking about nothing, and I don't want to make this any more chaotic than it already is. So I'll do a little introduction to Finland by discussing Helsinki's Market Square:

When I first visited Finland with my mom six years ago, Helsinki's famous Market Square was one of the first things she showed me, and one of the few that I can still remember vividly. While not impressive in size (it spans maybe 2-3 New York City blocks in length), it's a hotspot of Finnish culture.

The market square is composed of a mixture of food vendors and trinket sellers, much like a traditional flea market. In several tents, you can find little magnets with Finnish flags on them, moose with shirts saying "I <3 Finland!", or any of your other stereotypical tourist-y items. However, in most of the other tents you find items celebrating Finnish tradition: hand-made dolls line the walls of several shops, fur scarves or coats hang from the roof of tarps, and children's books detailing Finnish history lay in stacks on various tables lining the market. It comes as no surprise that tourists frequent the agora, making the Finnish population appear much more heterogenous than it actually is.

Of course, my favorite part of the market has to be the food. While I have yet to try any if the incredibly greasy fish vendors yet, the berry vendors and pastry shops are undoubtedly some of my favorite places in the world. 

Finland has the best strawberries in the world. You don't know a real strawberry until you've had a Finnish one. They're about a third of the size of a normal strawberry, but pack the same amount of flavor. If I could only eat Finnish strawberries for the rest of my life, I don't think I would complain that much.

However, if I could pick one other food to be able to dine on, the raspberry jam donuts would be a very close contender. They're very simple: a piece of dough with some raspberry jam fried and sprinkled with sugar. It doesn't sound too fancy, but sometimes stuff is better that way. And they shouldn't make it any more complicated, because it's perfect the way it is.

Now that wraps up all I have to say about the market square, but there is a lot more to Finland than just that. I'll hopefully be able to write about my day trip to Tallinn sometime tomorrow.

Moi moi (bye)! 

Lily Allen

A common interview question is something along the lines of "If you could have dinner anybody in the world, who would it be?" While I would like to come across as knowledgeable and cultured by answering with Madeleine Albright or Nelson Mandela, I would not. If I could share a meal with anyone on Earth, it would probably have to be Lily Allen.

But I'm not ashamed of that. While it would be absolutely amazing to meet the first female Secretary of State of the US or the man responsible for the end of Apartheid in South Africa, I would instead choose to dine with a British pop star.

Of course, I do have my reasons for feeling this way; I wouldn't say Lily Allen unless I meant it. First of all, I'm a huge fan of her work, which I think is a prerequisite for anyone being the answer to this question. Second, she's a good person. Despite her having the mouth of a sailor, Lily Allen never uses her language to rip on anyone, and she even attempted to remove a guy who made racist remarks off Twitter. But lastly, and the more important of the three reasons, I love her attitude. I'll extend point number 3 into a new paragraph.

Lily Allen's attitude is one of the best out there. I admire her for trying to ban the guy from Twitter who made racist remarks, because I don't think a lot of people would want to take a stand on something like that. She clearly doesn't take shit from anybody, and I'm incapable of saying that I can do the same. I've lived my life afraid of what other people thought about me, even if I didn't know at all: My mood can quickly turn sour if someone is giving me a strange look on the street because I think something's wrong with me. I worry that people make fun of me for something that I said or did once I leave the room. But I don't think Lily Allen gives a crap about what people think about her. I think Lily Allen lives her life the way she sees fit and tells everyone who tells her otherwise to go fuck themselves. That's the kind of attitude that I want for myself. I often feel held back because of my insecurities and self-consciousness, but I know that I could be a lot happier if I just let loose and stopped caring about what people thought about me.

And Lily Allen's music helps me do just that. When I listen to her, I think a bit of her attitude rubs off on me. I start seeing the world through her point of view, and it's a lot more enjoyable than my perspective. My lens is clouded by the outside world and my own inhibitions, while hers is clear and focused on whatever she wants to achieve. While millions of others have had this same perspective of the world and way of thinking, Lily Allen's has the biggest direct impact on me because I get to listen to her every day through her music. She is unknowingly helping me to become the person I want to be.

So that's why Lily Allen is one of the coolest people on Earth, and why I would probably prefer to have dinner with her than with Barack Obama.

16 should be the new 17

I guess you can call me a thrill-seeker now, considering I tried to sneak into a rated R movie.

Last week, I attempted to go see the The Bling Ring with one of my friends. Since we're both 16, we knew we technically should not have been allowed to go inside (you have to be 17 to see a rated R movie), but often enough the ticket venders actually don't give a crap and will let you go inside anyway without asking for ID. But, of course, this time the ticket vender actually did give a crap. After starting to tear one of our ticket stubs and directing us to our theater, she stopped saying, "oh wait. I need to see your IDs."

Since I am not 17, none of my ID would allow me to see the movie, and since I don't have a fake ID to use either, I realized there was no hope. So, I tried to play it cool: "Does an expired Barnes and Noble membership card count?"

"No. I'm sorry but I can't let you enter the theater"

While I was upset that I got stuck with the one ticket vender in the world who actually gives a shit about her job, I could tell that she felt bad about turning us away, which made me dislike her less. I was able to get a refund, so I guess it's ok.