Day 1 in Helsinki: Humbled Upon Arrival
Well, I finally made it! After 6 weeks of waiting and
homelessness, I arrived in Helsinki yesterday. For the most part, the
trip was totally fine but there were definitely plenty of stupid /
frustrating / confusing moments. I'll skip the parts where it went
smoothly, because that's boring. I'll focus in on the embarrassing
parts for your entertainment:
- I didn't sleep well on the
Seattle to Reykjavik leg, and was very very tired on that last leg to
Helsinki. I sat by a nice Finnish couple and promptly fell asleep.
I'm usually a very quiet sleeper, but I guess my head was tilted back
and I had some weird dream that startled me...so I did one of those
snort-snores. Real sudden-like. And loud. The kind where you wake
yourself up. And everybody around my row laughed at me. :(
- When
I landed in Helsinki, it was really confusing because the screens that
displayed the baggage claim numbers of all the incoming flights didn't
have my exact flight number listed. So I just found the one that was
from Stockholm that arrived when I did, and made my way down there. It
was a relatively hefty walk to a whole separate terminal, and I waited
by the Stockholm carousel all by my lonesome for about 15 minutes. It
was weird that none of my flightmates were in sight, so I panicked. As
it turns out, I was supposed to stay in the original terminal. So I
had to walk all the way back and beg security to let me back in the
arrivals hall, where my three blue bags were just spinning around and
round, all alone.
- I went to the service desk who were holding
my apartment keys for me, and found a nice taxi driver who had a
station wagon big enough to fit all my luggage. We headed off for the
neighborhood of Töölö, which is a nice little lakey area and is impossible to pronounce. When we arrived, I asked him to wait there with my big bags while I came
upstairs to find the actual unit, and that I would come back down to get the rest. That little sweetheart didn't listen to me (or didn't understand) and he dragged both of those huge 50+ pound bags upstairs when I wasn't looking. I love you, taxi man!
- So yay! Finally...a home! (I will post pictures later.) My
first order of business was to boot my computer up so I could email my
family and friends that I had arrived safely. I got the computer power
cord out, and barely even touched the prongs to the outlet and
POP#%$#SPARK(darkness)!!! Shit. I totally blew the breaker. Before
you say "dummy, there is a voltage difference" let me assure you that I
did a very thorough audit of all my electronics months ago (I can show
you the spreadsheet) to make sure I only brought things with me that
wouldn't need a voltage converter, only a plug adapter. So I tried to
call the apartment office, but I couldn't get the call to go through
from my dumb Finnish cell phone. I tried every variation, and kept
getting a message from a mean Finnish lady, or an error beep. I thankfully got a hold of my colleague at work (Pertti) who has been helping me, and he got me in touch with
the apartment people. Now, before you say "dummy, why didn't you just
find the breaker box yourself and flip the switch" let me assure you that I did look for
the breaker box, and there was nothing breaker-box-like in this joint.
And when I spoke with the apartment guy, he said it was an old building
and the fuse box was probably in the hallway. Maintenance showed up (a
lady with a fanny pack), and it turns out the fuse box WAS inside, but
I never in a million years would have recognized it. She found the
box, and inside were actual fuse bulbs. I didn't even know those
existed. If I had thought to open the door on that box above the door, I would have thought I had found the control panel for a nuclear reactor. Look!
Anyway, she got me all fixed up before the sun went down and I would have had to sit here in the dark, and all is fine now.
- Later I learned that that "error beep" on the phone is actually the European sound for the phone ringing on the other end. Sigh...
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