The whole trip, wherever we went of public interest there was always a mob of kids, particularly if it was a weekday. In the art museum in Helsinki there was a mob of clearly disinterested students intentionally stamping around on the floors to hear the echo and otherwise alleviate the extraordinary boredom that fine art represents to the disinterested. In that museum there were kids making comments on what they were seeing in English to try out the language--very relevant stuff like, 'The case is plastic,' or, 'Oh, cool.' One punk-looking kid in a Mohawk haircut looked at Mark's beard and stroked his chin like he had a beard. Mark cupped his hand and stroked the top of his head like he had a Mohawk. It took the punkish kid a second to catch on, then he saw his classmates laughing and he laughed too. This was a clear victory.
Our next stop was the Handicrafts Museum, a combination open-air museum and crafts fair. It was one of the few sections of Turku that survived the 1827 fire that pretty much destroyed the city. (Most such museums are buildings that have been found elsewhere and moved to the museum location.) Since craftspeople lived in this section before, the idea in the 1940s was to turn this into an open-air museum and show people doing their crafts. However, it was only nominally open today. Nearly half the grounds were roped off. Most of the rest was padlocked. For maybe a quarter of the buildings could you actually go inside the buildings. They had a grand total of one craftsperson to be seen. She seemed to be making fur linings for shoes. To call this museum 'open' and collect a full admission was less than totally honest. (This, of course, was pretty much the same story as the similar museum in Riga.)
From there we returned to Hannu's place for lunch, which was effectively the same buffet as breakfast, and a rest. The lunch was welcome as we were ready to face this much food now. Also, Mark had awakened at 3:30 in the morning, could not sleep, and since then had walked around two museums, one which was actually very interesting but proved to have the floor area of Staten Island, while Evelyn's foot was also starting to bother her. She doesn't know if this was related to her twisting her ankle in India or is just a coincidence that it is the same foot. She always carries her suitcase on that side, so that may cause uneven pressure.
Mark says the reason he'd been up so early was a combination of nerves and coughing. He'd come this far in the trip and had not gotten sick, then the last day in Helsinki he caught cold. So to get an idea of how he felt, he says you should rent a copy of the film WHITE ZOMBIE--he was pretty much in the state of the title character. A little desperate, he took one of his caffeine pills, carefully cut in half, which he had brought in case of jet lag. He'd had no jet lag, but now needed the caffeine. Mark is not used to caffeine since he is neither a coffee nor a tea drinker.
Next we went to the local maritime museum. It is mostly ship models, but there was on an upper floor a nice collection of mathematical and astronomical instruments. (The brochure says the museum has to do with early astrology, but we're sure they mean astronomy.) Turku seems to be a town that respects mathematics. They recently paid some artist to give the city a unique landmark and he'd put in big electrically-lit letters the Fibonacci sequence on a smokestack. That sequence is a mathematical structure probably more intriguing than Rubik's Cube.
Back at Hannu's place we cleaned up a bit, then went to dinner. (Evelyn says she doesn't know if the Finns normally eat this much this frequently, or just think Americans do.) Mark had salmon; Evelyn had beef in mocha sauce. One of the things we talked about was crime. Hannu would not want to travel like we do because he is concerned about the crime rate in the Baltic republics. Evelyn had noticed that people in Finland don't lock their bicycles. Hannu says there is no point: the bicycle will be stolen lock and all. If you lock the bicycle to something that cannot be moved, they will just cut the lock.
Hannu says he would not travel to the Baltic republics because of the high crime level, but even in the United States we seem to kill tourists. Mark responds, 'He's right and he's wrong. There definitely is a danger in traveling. But it is a very low probability and one that you can manipulate very easily. There are ways to be cautious. When I travel nothing that could be sold for a quick or high profit is reachable outside my line of sight. And it is not visible. Wallets are in an inside pocket. The only thing that is valuable that I sometimes have out in the open is Thing. (The only thing I have to lose is Thing itself?) Thing is usually also in an inside pocket, but occasionally is put in an outside pocket when I have just used it and plan to use it again. But how many pickpockets seeing Thing would realize it is valuable and know where to fence it? My wallet is less valuable but I have to be much more careful with it. My passport is in a nylon bag on a string around my neck and it is almost always under at least one layer of clothing.'
You aren't completely safe with these precautions, but you lower the odds of trouble tremendously. That is the answer to Hannu about why to lock the bicycle if thieves have bolt cutters. It is a much smaller percentage of thieves.
Well, from there we went to the meeting, which is actually in a restaurant hall which has a side room with a cafe where the society meets. There must have been about fifteen people who showed up, which is lower than their usual number, but summer is coming on and the turnout is lower. Also this was a Wednesday night, where they usually meet on Fridays. Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, a fan who we have frequently seen at conventions, heard we would be there and bussed in from Helsinki. We have been trying to tell Hannu we are nothing special. (Mark insists that is more true for him than for Evelyn--she is at least a Hugo nominee.) Mark says, 'I write for a tiny audience. Humor I write for the AT&T science fiction fanzine and that does not make it to the Net. Trip logs I write basically to myself. Film reviews I write predominantly for the fanzine, but more to myself just to put my thoughts in order about what I thought about a film. Then I figure that as long as the stuff is already written, I might as well post it to the Net. And the fact that I write and let people look over my shoulder by posting to the Net means that people in Finland actually discuss my opinions. And if it happens here it is probably happening other places in Europe and the Middle East. I know it happens in Australia and New Zealand. Now that I know that, I will do my best to forget it. I do get stage fright.'
Well, we had each prepared about twenty minutes to speak but we ramble (as should be obvious from this log), and we could get conversation with the others there, so together we talked for about three hours. And it was absolutely painless. Mark was amazed. 'Three hours! You always used to hear on television entertainers say how terrific the audience had been. That never made sense to me. How much could an audience affect the goings-on--as long as they don't throw rotten fruit? Well, I guess now I have a much better idea. If I had a lectern and no audience feedback, I might have had twenty minutes of material.'
Evelyn talked about how travel is like science fiction, particularly first contact stories. For example, when immigrants came to Ellis Island around 1900, they were met with strange customs and strange foods. When they were given a watermelon they thought it was just a giant zucchini (after all, everything is bigger in America), and cooked it! Of course, in science fiction stories they figure out an entire alien civilization in a week, whereas Evelyn says she's lucky if she can figure out the telephone.
One woman sitting at a table (there were a bunch of large tables and we were sitting behind one in the corner) had a tremendous background in science fiction and cinema and classical music and opera. And she added a whole lot to the congeniality of the situation.
After three hours people had to start getting back. One of the audience members had asked what we thought of the film HIGHLANDER. This is a film that had fantasy, rock music, visuals, and fighting. For the American version they wanted to cut the length, so they cut all the scenes that added interest value to the fantasy. It was wretched. Mark had mentioned in his talk that he would like someday to see the European release version. The fan who had asked the question had a videotape and asked if we'd like to see it. It was about 22:15 so it was a bit late to start films but it also was a real opportunity for something Mark had been anxious to see and compare. Mark said if people were willing he would like that. They brought the tape to Hannu's apartment.
As Mark describes it, 'The story is basically about one of a group of immortals who have to fight until all but one are dead. But what was cut out was seventeen minutes about what it is to be an immortal and out-live all your loved ones. It was all the intelligence and human interest in the film. It was all the difference between an okay film and a bad film. It is really insulting to the American audience to decide that that part was unimportant.'
'After the film we discussed some notes I'd made on the film until about 1:00. We had to get up at 4:45 to take a bus to Helsinki to make our plane for Stockholm, so we called it quits,' he finishes.
May 26, 1994: Our watch alarms woke us at 4:45. We had a quick breakfast and then caught a bus. The fans in Turku had really been terrific to us, and we felt especially bad that Hannu had to get up so early to take us to the bus, but he insisted it was okay as he could come back and get some more sleep afterwards.
This whole thing was an example of why we don't like to lock in our travel plans. We had booked our Helsinki-to-Stockholm tickets before we realized we'd be in Turku, or we would have booked them from Turku instead. We could have still taken the ferry from Turku to Stockholm, but we didn't think of that, and as it turned out, getting to Stockholm early was a good idea (the ferry wouldn't have docked until late afternoon).
The bus driver collects the fare and prints out a ticket right there. He has a sort of battery-operated ticket machine. Similarly, in the restaurant the previous night Hannu paid with a credit card at the table and the waitress ran his card through a portable machine that printed his credit slip. In a lot of ways Finland seems more technologically advanced than the United States.
It was about a two-hour bus ride back to Helsinki. Mark pulled his hat down over his eyes and pretended to sleep, hoping to fool himself more than others (he claims) but he did not get much sleep.
The airport has spotless floors. A woman rides back and forth on a go-cart that has dust mops in front and behind. The woman just rides to mop the floor.
In the Helsinki, we had exchanged our remaining FIM 62, getting only 66 Swedish kronor (SEK) because of a hefty commission. In Stockholm we exchanged another US$200 for SEK 1511, a more reasonable rate. (This was 7.55 SEK per US dollar; the rate from Visa was 7.74 SEK per US dollar.)
There were ham-and-cheese sandwiches on the plane and little Milky Way candy bars. It is surprising how much you see of Mars candy in Europe. I have yet to see a Nestle or Hershey product. Mars candy bars are heavily advertised and available in every country we have visited.
Customs and passport checks were nominal. Speaking of advertising, we took an ad for the Apple Powerbook from the airport to the center of Stockholm. It had wheels and seats like a bus, but it was painted outside as an ad for the Powerbook computer. Inside a display ran a constant ad for Powerbook and in front of each seat was a brochure for the same computer.
Stockholm was rainy and cold. It was 7 degrees Centigrade--not as bad as Estonia but not really comfortable either. |
