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Editor's note: the events described here actually happened May 27-29, 2010.

Full disclosure: I am not a fan of France.  Or the French people.  Or the French language.  I am not one of those people that thinks "trip to Europe" = "trip to Paris".  I would have been totally happy to never, ever visit France.  But there are two things that I have always said that I wanted to do if I was ever in the unfortunate situation of being in/near Paris:

1. Visit the catacombs, which are tunnels underneath the city lined with the skulls and bones of dead Frenchmen.
   
   
2. Attend Roland Garros, aka the French Open grand slam clay court tennis tournament.  (This is the biggie.  One of my life goals is to attend all of the grand slam tennis tournaments in person, so I knew that I would have to suck it up and go to Paris to be able to achieve that goal.)
   

So after my day in Antwerp, I hopped on a train and headed to gay Paris.  It was a crappy, rainy day.  My jeans and shoes were completely soaked through after walking around for the first hour.  I had to eat my stupid baguette while walking through the rain.  I got lost repeatedly.  The trains stunk of French B.O.  But!  I finally found the right neighborhood for the catacombs!


French for "catacombs that-away!"

I got so excited and was so ready to go underground and see the creepy tunnels and get out of the rain.  And then...


As if I needed another reason to hate France.

Then this dead Frenchman / catacomb mascot mocked me...

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"France hates you, too, Halee."

So the catacomb adventure was a full-on French failure.  I made the best of the rest of my day in stupid Paris by visiting the stupid Louvre and looking at the stupid Eiffel Tower from a stupid boat.  Also, I ate a stupid crepe.  Luckily for me, Sophie was meeting up with me in Paris that night and once she arrived, things got a million times better.  I got her singing the "Les poissons, les poissons, hee hee hee, hawr hawr hawr" song from The Little Mermaid.  (But we usually substituted "poissons" with "croissants", or whatever we were eating/doing at that moment.)  We met up with her friend, and turned in early so we'd be ready for all the hot tennis action the next day!

I had bought my Roland Garros tickets many months before, right when they went on sale, but even then I was  too slow to get seats at the big daddy court (Court Phillippe Chartrier).  I had to settle for tickets to the #2 show court (Court Suzanne Lenglen).  But once we arrived at the Roland Garros grounds and got our hands on a schedule, our crappy #2 court tickets suddenly got amazing.  We weren't able to see Rafael Nadal, because obviously they're going to put that boy on the biggest court.  But since Rafa was hogging the big court, that meant this guy was delivered to my court...



In case you don't follow tennis enough to recognize faces or have never seen a Gillette commercial, that is Roger F'ing Federer.  Probably the greatest tennis player of all time.  And I saw him.  In the flesh.  With my own two little eyes.  For about 40 minutes or however long it took him to dismantle his opponent.  It was the best, I still can't believe we got so lucky.  When you watch him on TV, he always looks really smooth and graceful...but it was 20x more apparent in person.  His opponent moved really well, but looked like a drunk Clydesdale in comparison. 

Afterwards we watched Andy Murray vs. Marcos Baghdatis, and then headed to some of the outer courts to watch a few women's matches.  One girl in particular caught our attention due to her super manly serving grunts.  The following week, that same Francesca "Grunthouse" Schiavone went on to win the whole tournament, oops!

So after a rocky first day in Paris, the second day at the tennis was awesome.  The third day we spent flying through the city on bicycles.  Macaroons were consumed.  Eurovision finals were watched.  All in all, a really good trip considering I never wanted to be there!

As far as returning someday to see the catacombs that I should have rightfully seen, don't count on it.  If I want to see dead Frenchmen, I can just watch a Gerard Depardieu movie.  (He's dead, right?)

Editor's note: the events described here actually happened May 26 and 27, 2010.  Oops.

When I was planning my trip to Paris, my newfound Belgian friend Sophie piped up, and started helping me plan my trip.  This inevitably lead to me stopping to visit her in Antwerp before going on to Paris.  Here are the few things that I knew about Belgium prior to visiting:

1. They have good beer there!
2. They have good chocolate there!
3. They have a secret neighborhood there with all the diamond merchants!
4. The guy who created the Smurfs is from there!
5. I do not understand the difference between Dutch and Flemish!

So of course I wanted to try to experience those stereotypically Belgian things, along with whatever else Sophie recommended.



BELGIAN THING #1: THE GOOD BEER



I like my beer.  But I would not really consider myself a beer snob.  I'll drink anything.  (Including Natural Light.)  As we went on our walk around Antwerp, we periodically stopped in little cafes and pubs to have a sampling.  And I discovered there is a reason Belgian beer has such a good reputation: because, well, it's good.  The Leffe was great, the De Koninck was great...but it was the La Chouffe that won my heart.  "A golden blonde ale whose freshness and fruity taste really make it stand out."  Mmmmmm....and the cute little dwarf/troll/elf mascot doesn't hurt, either.  That beer and that dwarf could possibly turn me into a beer snob.



BELGIAN THING #2: THE GOOD CHOCOLATE



I also like my chocolate.  But I'm used to truck stop chocolate.  Sophie took me to a place that could only be described as a fancy chocolate...salon?  We stopped in to the very stylish, shiny black store and asked to look at their selection.  They invited us to the secret upstairs chocolate chamber, where all the chocolates were kept on display in velvet-lined boxes, and the chocolate steward handled everything wearing little white gloves.  It was so very, very fancy.  This chocolate was so pure.  Being raised on Hershey's milk chocolate, I'm used to the main ingredient of my chocolate being sugar.  But Belgian chocolate is less sugary and more chocolately.  It just tastes real.



BELGIAN THING #3: THE DIAMONDS



My whole perception of the Diamond District is based on the movie "Snatch" and this article from Wired magazine about The Untold Story of the World's Biggest Diamond Heist.  The area I saw was much less like that, and much more like one of those "Cash 4 Gold" commercials.  But I did keep seeing examples where they were clever enough to combine the diamonds and the chocolate into chocolate diamonds.



BELGIAN THING #4: THE SMURFS



You remember Peyo, right?  He was Belgian!  But when he made the Smurfs, they were really called Les Schtroumpfs.  Which morphed (smurfed?) into "Smurfs" in English, "Puffi" in Italian, "Strumparnir" in Icelandic, "Sumaafu" in Japanese, "Pitufos"in Spanish, etc.  And when we were shopping around in some antique shops, I found ol' Grumpy Schtroumpf standing around, haating de Golf.



BELGIAN THING #5: DUTCH VS. FLEMISH

I still have no idea what's going on.  I'm so confused.  But Dutch is very English-ish, so it was a nice change of pace to be able to walk around and sort-of know what the signs said.  And if you just said things in English fast and slurred, it might even sound like Dutch.  For example, "thank you" in Dutch is "dank u."


So in conclusion, everything that Belgium is known for it deserves to be known for.  Now they just need to figure out how to make a chocolate-flavored, Smurf-branded beer and they'll be all set!

P.S. Huge dank u to Sophie for being such an awesome hostess and cook and tour guide!  Please come visit me in Texas someday, so you can try the Natural Light beer and truck stop chocolate so you'll know what you're not missing!

If you're American, when you think of Estonia you think, "Oh, that is where Dave and Stoney told everyone that the caveman Linkovich Chomofsky is from in Encino Man."

If you're Finnish, when you think of Estonia you think, "The ferry costs 20€ roundtrip, and if I bring back 10 cases of beer then the trip pays for itself 5 times over in beer savings.  Also, I might as well get drunk on the ferry over, but that should NOT count against my beer cost-savings formula."

If you're Halee, when you think of Estonia, you think of the magical / fun / retarded birthday weekend you spent in Tallinn in 2010 with your favoritest girlfriends Tanja and Sinttu....


The Ferry

We boarded the ferry around 8am on Saturday.  Once onboard, I quickly realized that we were already hours behind schedule on beer consumption compared to all the other passengers.  Pretty much everyone at breakfast was enjoying an alcoholic beverage.  And I'm not talking light and breakfasty mimosas and bloody marys, I'm talking BEER.

After our breakfast, we decided to head up to the entertainment deck where the air was already soaked with the smell of booze, the live band was already rocking out, the karaoke was under way, rockabilly dudes were everywhere, and the power kept going out.  It was loud and obnoxious and ridiculous and awesome.  At one point the band and/or DJ was playing KISS's "I Was Made For Loving You (Baby)", and all the grannies were out on the dance floor rocking out.  The troubadour in the other room quickly switched from blues riffs to Metallica.  Shit got real, fast.  Reminder, IT WAS 9AM.  IN THE MORNING.  We only made it to about 9:30 before we started drinking, too.

        


Old Town

The ferry pulled into the dock around noontime, and all the tipsy folks (including us) started stumbling their way to old town in Tallinn.  If you don't know much about Tallinn, know this:  it is old.  Medieval-old.  It still has the old wall with all the towers surrounding the central part of the city.  The streets are covered in huge cobblestones (which doesn't seem to deter the women from walking around in 5 inch stilettos).  There are tons of amazing old-ass buildings to look at, including the ol' Kiek in de Kök.  It's all very quaint and scenic.

     

      


Miscellaneous Beers Drunken About Town

We spent the day walking around seeing the sights, and stopping every 30 minutes or so at a nice open air pub for a drink.  We drank at:

• Estonian pubs where we were not hit on at all
  
• Greek pubs where we were not hit on at all
  
• Texas pubs (!?) where we were hit on by Norwegians - We found a place called Cantina Texas and I waltzed in and declared my citizenship, and rated the authenticity of everything hanging on the walls.  Shockingly, they had Lone Star on tap. 
• Depeche Mode pubs (!?) where we were hit on by Russians - Apparently we missed the David Gahan birthday celebration by just a few days.

     


Miscellaneous Characters Seen About Town

Random people we saw around town included, but were not limited to:

1. Many, many maids and wenches and servants in tights
   
2. Russian transvestites
3. Men dressed in cheerleading uniforms
4. Pirates making off with a treasure chest
5. An executioner in a red hood offering to execute us
6. Evil dancing bunnies running through the street
7. The Blues Brothers lost and asking for directions!?

            



Dinner at Olde Hansa

The best part of the whole trip was our fancy medieval dinner at a place called Olde Hansa.  It's like going to Medieval Times, only you get to sit at an actual table, you get to use silverware, there is no jousting, and you have your choice of honey or cinnamon beer.  All the waiters and waitresses dress as wenches and serfs, and accept "with everlasting gratitude any squirrel skins or ducats" as tips.  Everything is lit by candle light, all the tableware is clay, and each dish is served with spelt.  Tanja and Sinttu both had leg of pork, while I finally...excitedly...after wanted to try it for months...ate bear!  It was prepared in the favorite style of Waldmar II, meaning it had been generously marinated in wine and was covered with berries.  Amazingly delicious.

      


After dinner we bar hopped a bit, and then dragged our tired feet back to our hotel and quickly passed out.  (17 hours of drinking is hard work.)  At 6:30am the next morning we were woken up by a mystery blast of Bryan Adams' "Summer of '69".  We still don't know where it came from.  Was it from a passing car?  Another hotel room?  A Bryan Adams bar (a rival to the Depeche Mode bar) which opens at 6:30am and is only open until 6:35am until it finishes playing that one song?  We'll never know...unless we can get access to those secret KGB surveillance rooms at the Sokos hotel nearby.

All in all, it was an amazing weekend and a birthday I will never forget.  Thanks, Tanjela and Sinttu Ellen!!  The only thing that would have made it 100% perfect would have been if this pony sweater had been available in my size:

Good Friday and Easter Monday are national bank holidays in Finland, so I took advantage of the extra days off and went off on a quick adventure to Iceland.  I had passed through Reykjavik a few times when flying to Helsinki from Seattle, and it looked amazing: volcanos, hot springs, sweaters with ponies on them, actual ponies, Viking history, etc.  (They say that the modern Icelandic language is still so similar to how the Vikings spoke that a person today could read ancient Viking text and understand it.)

DAY ONE:  Arrival, Whale Steak, and Northern Lights Tour

When I booked my trip and saw that there was a hotel in Reykjavik called Hótel Björk, even though I knew it had nothing to do with her and even though it was well outside of city center...I just had to stay there. 

When I arrived, I was sad to see it was snowing, but after getting settled at the hotel I decided to walk the mile or so down to city center in search of Reykjavik's legendary whale steak.  In the short time from check-in to walking out to go to the restaurant, the wind kicked up by about 25 miles an hour.  There were times when the gusts of wind were so strong that they nearly knocked me over.  I felt like Ishmael, braving the violent winds and high seas to hunt me some whale.  It was brutal.

Brutal, but worth it for one of the most memorable meals of my life.  I expected whale steak to be white and weird and rubbery.  In fact, when they brought it out to me, I thought they made a mistake and brought me beef!  The taste and texture was very similar to beef...maybe slightly tougher.  Super delicious and I was so happy to see they served steak with melted butter on top, just like we do in Texas.



I was completely and unashamedly a total tourist the entire time I was in Iceland.  So later that evening, a big tour bus picked me up at my hotel to take me on the "Northern Lights Tour."  It's getting on the late side of the year to be able to see the Northern Lights, and with the terrible weather I was not very hopeful.  Me and about 50 other tourists road out to the middle of nowhere to hunt for the lights.  I fell asleep on the bus really hard, and was woken up by the stench of sheep dung.  They drove us out to some farm land, and of course that's where we ended up stopping to look at the sky for 30 minutes in a stinky cloud of sheep shit.  We could sort of see the Northern Lights, but not really.  The sky had a green tint to it, but it wasn't all intense and amazing and dancey-dancey like you see on the postcards.  But my nap was great.

DAY TWO: Bike Tour and Blue Lagoon

The next morning I woke up and walked two or so miles down to city hall to meet up with the Reykjavik Free* Bike Tour.  (* Not actually free.)  There were only 5 of us on the tour and very little traffic in Reykjavik on the holiday weekend, so it was perfect.  We saw:

• The tour guide's daughter rolling around on the ground and pretending to shoot at us
• The pond Tjörnin by city hall
• An old 1930s apartment complex designed by Gudjon Samuelsson
• A cathedral designed by Gudjon Samuelsson (very popular guy)
  
• The Central Square of Reykjavik, with monuments to Viking dudes like Ingolfur Arnarson, who fled Norway for Iceland and threw two logs overboard (according to Viking tradition) and vowed to settle wherever the logs landed.  Hence...Reykjavik!
• Reykjavik Harbor
• The famous hot dog stand where Bill Clinton ate shortly before his heart attack.  Icelanders usually eat their hot dogs with mustard and ketchup and onions...but he only wanted mustard on his.  So now they call that "The Clinton."
  
• Iceland's Parliament
• Reykjavik University
• Reykjavik Second Hand Market
• Björk's house by the sea
  

After all the biking around, and the two mile walk back to the hotel, I was so very much looking forward to visiting the Blue Lagoon and soaking my tired legs.  These are hot springs fueled by all the geothermic activity.  When I arrived, I seriously might as well have landed on the moon, it was so weird.  Steam was rising up from strange places.  The water looked outer-spacey.  It was eerily quiet.

It was literally freezing outside, and snowing off and on.  And yet there we all were in our swimsuits, like we're at the beach!  Once in the milky-blue water, though....it was amazing.  The water temperature is about 100 degrees F, and you just wade around and soak and float and let all your worries melt away.  I kept floating on my back so only my face was sticking out, and letting the snow pelt me in the face.  It was so very surreal.  Then at times the steam coming off the water got super thick, and it felt like I was the only person there because I couldn't see another soul around me.  Then...someone would of course emerge from the fog and scare the shit out of me.

There was a waterfall that you could stand under and just let it pummel your back, neck, and shoulders in some sort of Viking DIY massage.  Steam room, sauna, observation deck, beers...it was generally just heaven on earth. 



DAY THREE: Pony Ride, Hanging Out at a Gas Station, and Watching Made for TV True Life Movies

On Sunday, the bus picked me up and took me out to a magical place called Íshestar where my little girl heart about exploded out of my chest.  This is an Icelandic horse ranch, where you can go horseback riding through the lava fields on pretty pretty Icelandic ponies.  I was in little girl heaven, it was like a real live My Little Pony ranch.  Icelandic horses are about 3/4 the size of a regular Texas-style cowboy horse.  So smaller than the average horse, but not miniature pony small.  And all the horsies have very long manes with their bangs in their eyes, and basically look like they're wearing wigs.

The pony assigned to me was a tan horsie with a tan mane named Skwisga, and you can see her head in the middle picture below.  The first thing that happened when we met was she tried to steal my camera out of my coat pocket!  I liked her spunkiness, and saddled up.  The waiver warned us: "Do not scream or shout at any time, screaming and shouting will excite the Icelandic horse, but remember that it loves to hear you sing!"  So I sang songs to her all during the ride, and she didn't buck me off.  It was a great business deal.  I fell in love with Skwisga, and was briefly tempted to ride away with her, and never come back.



After the horseback riding, I was exhausted and went back to the hotel for a nap.  When I woke up, I was starving.  I walked to a couple of nearby restaurants...and quickly and stupidly realized that everywhere was closed because it was Easter Sunday.  The only place I could find that was open was basically a gas station / video store / burger joint.  So I had a burger and fries, and hung out and pretended to read an Icelandic newspaper.  They also had soft-serve ice cream, and the Icelandic equivalent of a Dairy Queen blizzard!  I put crushed M&Ms, Malteasers, and some chocolate wafers in mine.  She tried to get me to put licorice in there, but I refused.  (Why so much licorice, Scandinavia?  Why???)

I took it easy the rest of the day, and chilled out watching the "True Movies" channel, featuring such made-for-TV movies as:

• I Know My First Name is Steven
• Without Her Consent
• When You Remember Me
• Every Woman's Worst Fear
• The Children That Nobody Wanted

And thus ended my Viking holiday, with a tale of the history of foster care in Missouri.  The end.

 

Over the weekend I went on my very first trip ever to Germany.  My friend Wendi who I used to work with in Texas was there on her maternity leave with her German husband and half German baby, so I flew down for a visit.  Here's what we did and saw...

Kölner Dom, aka the Cologne Cathedral



The Dom is the most distinctive (and most touristy) site in Köln.  It kinda reminded me of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.  My favorite part of the Dom was how Wendi's husband and friend were deadset on convincing us that on Sunday mornings, they clear all the pews out of the cathedral, open the huge doors, and allow people to drive in for "car church". 

Praetorium, aka the Roman/Romanian Underground



Next we visited a very unassuming place called the Praetorium.  It looked like we were just going to some office building, but when we snuck down some stairs we found ourselves in a basement full of Roman ruins.  This place was quite confusing, because all the dates on the placards noted the date they were found, not the date they were built.  Oh, and all the placards were only in German.  And also, our tour guide kept calling the "Romans" the "Romanians".  Despite the confusion, we were fortunate enough to be there on one of the days when the sewage canal was open, score! 

Schokoladen Museum, aka the Chocolate Museum



This lady was not happy about having to wait around for these chocolates to get pooped out so she could box them up, all while having dozens of tourists stare at her.  The Chocolate Museum wasn't quite like the Wonka Chocolate Factory, but it was pretty neat to see all the chocolate equipment and then eat the chocolate.  There were chocolate Easter bunnies, chocolate Santas, chocolate popes, chocolate donkeys, and chocolate elephants.

Pub Crawl, aka Many Tiny Beers



Drinking in Germany is serious business.  We went to an awesome old traditional bar called Päffgen, where I was quickly oriented to the German way of drinking.  First of all, by even entering the bar it is implying consent that you want a beer, I don't think we ever even ordered.  They bring beer in tiny little glasses, and then mark on a coaster with a black crayon with the number of beers they gave you.  Then once there is less than an inch of beer left in your glass, they bring you more.  WITHOUT ASKING.  REPEATEDLY.  And that Kölsch beer is very very very easy to drink. 

The other great part of Päffgen was the mystery painting on the wall.  It was ridiculously dark, so it was impossible to see what the subject was.  It's Juan Valdez and a donkey!  It's a flying wheelchair!  It's a runaway barrel from Donkey Kong!

German House Party, aka

On Saturday night, we were invited to a friend's house outside of Köln for dinner and drinks. Notable quotable quotes from the evening:

• "You have a URINAL in your HOUSE?"
• "Are you lying to me?  Is  'urinal' really 'pissoir' in German?"
• "When you watched the Smurfs when you were little, you supported Hitler.""
• "Do you have the word 'spray sausage' in English?"
• "Is everyone happy with the music or do you want to hear Robbie Williams?"

Dusche, aka Douche

Prior to moving to Europe, the word "douche" was one of the most frequently used words in my day-to-day speech.  When I moved here, I got worried that people wouldn't know its literal or figurative meaning, and I really didn't want to find myself in the situation where I had to define "douche."  So I had pretty much purged it from my vocabulary.

Until last weekend.

You see, the German word for "shower" is "dusche".  And when Wendi arrived from their transatlantic trip and was tired, her father-in-law suggested: "Why don't you take a dusche and have a nap?"  Hahaha!  That story awakened all my douche synapses and got me saying it again.

Add that to the fact that Wendi and her husband use the word "douche" even more than I ever did.  Wendi's husband often goes around absentmindedly singing the Elton John "That's Why They Call It the Blues" song as:  "And that's why they call you...the douche."

It's safe to say that "douche" is firmly back in my vocabulary...and I plan to expand its usage to include "shower".

My friend Tanja went to Turku for the weekend with her husband, and invited me to join up with them on Saturday.  It's only two hours west of Helsinki by train and one of my resolutions was to do a better job at exploring my new country, so duh, I said yes.  Here is how to have fun in Turku:

1. Ride the Train There
   Just show up at the train station and buy a ticket, and then get ushered to a big roomy seat with giant windows.  After so much time on planes lately, I was in heaven.  And after being too excited to sleep the night before, I was also very very tired, so I slept for most of the trip.  At one point I woke up at a station where we were stopped, and saw all these stacks of logs covered in snow, so I vowed to wake up, pay attention, and enjoy the scenery, which was snowy and beautiful.
   
   
   
   
2. Find Your Friend Quickly, It's Cold!
   Tanja's hotel was a short walk from the Turku train station, but no walk is "short" when it's -38432984 C outside.  And the sun was out, which turns out is a bad thing, if you can believe that.  Sunny = no clouds.  No clouds = nothing to hold the heat in.  Confusing.
   
   
3. Go to the Turku Library
   As I mentioned it was super super cold yesterday, so we popped into the Library for sightseeing and warmth.  It's a really interesting building because they kept a very old historical building, and added on a super new modern section...but it's all seamless and somehow works despite the very different styles.  I was most excited about the microfiche machine.
   
   
4. Visit the Turku Cathedral
   The Cathedral is one of the two biggest attractions in town, and as we were walking there I confessed my greatest fear about winters in Finland: slipping on the ice and falling and hurting myself.  About 30 seconds later when the cathedral came into view, I said "wow", grabbed my camera, and started trying to find the ideal vantage point for my photo...and stepped into a little snow hole and fell.  Oh, well.  At least it wasn't ice.
   
   
   
   
5. Go to the Turku Museum of Modern Art and Archeology (?) and Get Tipsy on Hot Chocolate
   At that point we had been walking around for a while and were pretty cold, so we decided to duck into a little cafe at an art museum for some hot chocolate.  This was a contemporary art museum, built on top of some old ruins.  Part of the ruins stick up/out into the museum, and the rest is underground and they have panes of glass in the floor so you can see the hallways of the medieval building underneath you.
   
   We asked the barista to give our hot chocolates a little extra oomph and to add some Minttu (peppermint liqueur).  He obliged, but I think instead of just adding a shot, he did equal parts liquor and hot chocolate.  I bought a postcard of some little Finnish boys playing cowboy (foreshadowing...) in the gift shop and we left very warm and very tipsy.
   
              
   
   
6. Tour the Turku Castle
   I mentioned there were two main attractions in Turku, the cathedral was one and this castle is the other.  It's a medieval castle, with several rooms of exhibitions of Finnish cultural stuff.  They didn't have an English tour, so they just gave us a little booklet in English that explained everything.  I read it out loud to Tanja, and became our very ineffectual defacto tour guide.  My favorite part was the scale model of the castle...which included a toy car parked out in front of it!?  (See middle photo below.)
   
   
   
   
7. Visit "The Restroom"
   Since we had seen all the main sites, we decided it was time for a beer.  As it turns out, Turku also has a bar called "The Restroom," just like Helsinki!  This one held a little truer to the theme on the inside, as the walls were adorned with lots of books about bathrooms and with plants growing out of chamber pots. 
   
   
   
   
8. Take a Sauna
   Tanja's hotel had a sauna, so we decided after such a long, cold day of walking around outside, we'd take a quick sauna before we met up with her husband and friends for dinner.  Just like last time, there was a little boy in there and it's hard not to feel weird about gettin' all nekkid in front of a child...but again, I just had to shut off all my normal prudishness.  It seriously does feel awesome to be so sweatily hot when you've been so numbingly cold.
   
   There was a small balcony off the sauna room overlooking the city center square, and we finally got warm enough that we were ready to stand outside for a moment.  I've been warned/threatened about how people often follow a sauna with a dip in an icy lake or by rolling around in snow...so when I wasn't looking Tanja dumped handfuls of snow on my shoulders!!!!!  ACK!
   
   P.S. These photos have nothing to do with our actual post-Restroom sauna, these photos were from the exhibition at the castle, but whatever...
   
   
   
   
9. Have Drinks at the Pharmacy
   I'm sensing a theme here.  Turku has a bar called "The Restroom." They also have a bar (shown below) called "The Pharmacy." And another called "The School," and another called "The Bank." I will forever be suspicious of anyone claiming to go on errands, because I now assume everything is the name of a bar!  "Oh, I have to stop by 'The Post Office' on my way home."  Whatever, drunkie.
   
   
   
   
10. Have Dinner on the Cindy Boat
    There is a river called the Aura that runs through the middle of Turku, and in warm, summery times it is lined with boats that are docked along the sides that are bars and restaurants.  Obviously in the winter, most of these are closed.  Also in winter, the river is frozen over (see below, all that to the right of the boats where those tracks are is where the river is supposed to be.)  This photo was taken earlier in the day, but we went to one of the few boat restaurants that was open for dinner.  Fortunately it was very toasty inside.  Unfortunately, the heating system did not extend to the bathroom area.  I ate a snail.
    




11. Go to the Castle to Hang Out With Cowboys
    All day, Tanja kept mentioning a friend of hers who was excited to meet me because I am a Texan.  Apparently he had visited Texas a while back, and underwent a total transformation while there and returned with a belt buckle, Stetson hat, and thick Texas accent.  I was equally excited to meet him. 
    
    His accent was hilarious and great.  Sadly, I was not able to capture him talking on video.  It would be worth going back just to do a quick documentary on him.
    
    
    
    
12. Ride the Train Back to Helsinki
    Unfortunately I wasn't able to hang out very late, because the last train left at 9.  So I said goodbye to my friends, and hopped on the train.  (I love how you can show up 10 minutes before the train leaves, buy your ticket and still make it with plenty of time to spare.)  I fell asleep against the window, thinking it would be like the trip over and I'd sleep lightly and wake up at every station.  No.  I fell asleep HARD.  I woke up inside the empty train car sitting at the station in Helsinki.  I have no idea how long I was there, or why no one woke me up!!

All in all, lovely day in Turku...goodbye castle!  Goodbye 260 proof hot chocolate!  Goodbye inexplicable Finnish cowboy!

I went back to Texas for the Christmas break, and it was wonderful.  Except for the part where it was 70 degrees on the day before I arrived, and as my plane was circling Arkansas deciding when to land...it was 30 and snowing in Dallas/Fort Worth!  What?  Why!?  Well, I never!

It all melted on Christmas day, and then I spent the next week going around on all my little social calls to various friends.  Shashana had me over for hot cocoa.  Cousin Allison snuck me into Aunt Sandie and Uncle Bob's for dinner.  Morley sacrificed his house so Jackie, Jeremy, and I could have people over like Rhonda and Micah and Rachel, and we stayed up late sitting around the kitchen table eating Little Debbie Snack Cakes and giggling.  The next day we had breakfast at the ol' T&A truck stop.  Staci and I watched the Hangover on PPV and ate popcorn balls.  Holly, Cari, and I downed several bottles of wine.  Val met me for breakfast at a divey diner in FW that I am SO MAD I didn't know about when I lived there.  Then...onto Granbury for some quality time with Jackie and Jeremy who were in town from Seattle.  I specifically wanted to be with them on New Year's Eve, because I've spent the last few New Year's Eveses with them.

So there we were, watching Travis Pastrana jump the rally car over the Bellagio or whatever.  Then the ball dropped.  Everybody on TV was kissing.  Jackie and Jeremy started kissing.  Jeremy's sister and her husband were kissing.  Jeremy's parents were totally making out.  And there I was, the seventh wheel and there was no one for me to kiss but the dog.  So I did. 

The end.

1. Visiting the spot where the cholera outbreak of the mid 1800s started...and not only finding the exact spot where the cholera-spouting pump was, but finding a whole pub there dedicated to cholera!
   
   
2. Making a Q-Tipped-Headed Guard at the Tower of London giggle.
   
   
3. Making shrinky dinks and sitting on the floor of Leslie's kitchen, gathered around the oven ooo-ing and ahh-ing.  There were moments where we were spazzing out all excited like Arsenio Hall audience members.  It kept looking like they were going to roll up and be ruined...but wait!  It flattened back out, yay!  So triumphant!
   
   
4. Playing drinking games at Leslie's local pub:
   
   
• Quick-thinking name game, where I say "Regis Philbin" and so you say something like "Pliny the Elder" and then the next person says "Eddie Guerrero".  Then, much like UNO, if someone does a name with the same letter for first and last name...reversal!  If you can't think of something, drink up.
  
  
• "The Minister's Cat". This is basically an alphabet game where you all clap out a rhythm, and go around the table inserting an adjective with that round's letter to describe the Minister's cat.  "The Minister's cat is an awful cat."  "The Minister's cat is an aerobics cat."  Etc... If you can't think of an adjective, drink up, and proceed to the next letter of the alphabet.  Andy was awesomely hilarious at this one, he was getting all in a twist: "THERE ARE NO MORE K ADJECTIVES!!!!" 
  
5. Getting a million British Invasion songs stuck in my head, particularly:
   
   
• "Going Underground" by The Jam, stuck each time I passed a London Underground sign which was every 12 seconds.
  
  
• "Waterloo Sunset" by The Kinks, stuck when I passed Waterloo Station and wondered if Terry and Julie would be meeting there on Friday.
  
  
• "Pictures of Jimmy" by The Who, which was me absent-mindedly getting confused between "Pictures of Lily" and "Dr. Jimmy and Mr. Jim."
  
  
6. Learning that Leslie (if given the proper sunglasses) can do a ridiculously amazing Yoko Ono impersonation.  "The sun is down.  It's getting...so dark."
   
   
7. At customs, the customs agent yawned in my face, and I smarted off to him saying that he wasn't allowed to yawn when I was so tired.  He said, "Oh, it's just that I read your occupation is a web analyst, and I couldn't help but yawn."
   
   
8. Unexpectedly happening upon a big Christmas caroling session at Trafalgar Square.  And unexpectedly not being able to sing along.  Did you know that there is a whole other violently different melody to "Away in a Manger"?  And if you try to sing the American version along with the English version, it does NOT magically harmonize?  And then you just end up looking tone deaf?
   
   
9. Discovering that the Elgin Marbles at the British Museum are not those kinds of marbles, but the crumbled remains of the Parthenon.
   
   
10. Pumpkin pie.  Not, not THAT kind of pumpkin pie.  When I say "pie," think Shepard's pie kind of pie.  We went to a traditional English comfort food place, and I was so confused when pumpkin pie was listed with the entrees and not the desserts.  It was explained that it was more of a casserole, filled with big chunks of cooked pumpkin all gooey with cheese and topped with a pastry cover.  Amazing.
    

I had a lovely time in London, and I am looking forward to going back a few more times in the next year.  Stonehenge, get ready!  Wimbledon, look out!

Here is a long list of things that I learned during my time in Beijing:

1. It is quite possible to have all sorts of meals that do not contain: turtle heads, mice, chicken feet, monkey brains, or eels.  I did eat: duck, beef tendon, fresh water shrimp, and lots of dried banana chips dipped liberally in Nutella.
   
   
2. They are not joking around about the swine flu.  They use infrared to take your temperature as you go through customs at the airport.
   
   
3. Communism = I couldn't access Facebook.
   
   
4. Beijing has a Chinatown!?
   
   
5. Street vendors are very aggressive.  And vocal.  And they grab at you.
   
   
6. Oh my gosh, the drivers are insane.  The bicyclists are insane.  The pedestrians are insane.  Every time we got into a cab, it was like NASCAR x bumper cars x Death Race 2000 x Critical Mass.  I was certain I was going to die about 4,000 times, yet somehow, miraculously we never crashed into anything or were plowed over.  It's so bad apparently, that if you get into an accident, your insurance premiums don't go up because it is totally certain that you WILL get into an accident.
   
   
7. A lot of the people riding bicycles wear these leather knee coverings...sorta like leg warmers, but made of leather and hiked up so they go from mid-thigh to mid-calf.
   
   
8. Everybody smokes, and they smoke everywhere.  Even in the office, people were smoking out by the elevator and in the stairwells.  (Thankfully, no one was smoking at their desks.)
   
   
9.  The currency is the Chinese Yuan (CNY), but everyone there calls it RMB.
   
   
10. Most of the toilets were the typical Western kind, with a commode.  I only encountered one where it was the hole in the ground with the footholds, and I was specifically seeking it out.
    
    
11. The Forbidden City isn't really forbidden, you can pretty much walk right up to it. I didn't have much time for sightseeing, but I did get up at dawn one day and walked down to the Forbidden Palace and Tian'anmen Square to check it out:

More pictures on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/haleebot2000/sets/72157622568644189/

I tried to figure out how to go home to Texas for the week of Christmas, really I did.  But it was just excessively expensive, and I thought a nice quiet Christmas in Seattle actually sounded really nice.  (Note: my family's big holiday gathering is at Thanksgiving, and we do presents and everything at the end of November so we don't have to fuck with it in December. It hasn't been required to go home for Christmas Proper in about 10-15 years.)

I planted the seed in my sister's mind that she should consider coming up to visit me, seeing as she has the whole week off, too.  She is smarter than me, and was able to find a decently priced plane ticket.  And I suggested that maybe, just maybe...she and I could spend a couple of days in Vancouver while she was here.  Vancouver holds a special place in both our hearts.  For no apparent reason.  Once we played one of our dumb list-making games during a long trip in the car.  One particular round's list was our top 3 vacation spots, and we both chose...Vancouver?

Staci and I have been on vacation to Canada together once before.  It was 2002, aka Wrestlemania XXIII.  We bought a WWF Travel Club package to go see Wrestlemania at the SkyDome in Toronto, and spent 3 days immersed in total WWF-itude.  It seemed appropriate to try to incorporate something wrestling-related into this trip to Vancouver, too, so that Staci could have the privilege and honor of saying that she attended wrestling matches every single time she ever set foot in Canada.  I set to work finding a regional wrestling alliance in the Vancouver area.

And lo and behold, I found Extreme Canadian Championship Wrestling!  And fortuitously, there are wrestling matches on December 26 when Staci will be here!  Tickets were only about $12, but of course I sprang for the $15 "FRONT ROW" seats.  No crappy Canadian wrestling match seats are too good for my sister!

Epilogue:

When I was buying the tickets, there was a typo in the PayPal checkout and "Extreme Canadian Championship Wrestling" was transformed into "Extremely Canadian Championship Wrestling."  I think I prefer that name.