On Wednesday, June 25, I woke up at 9:00 a.m. and got to the breakfast table at around 9:30. I slowly walked to get my plate when my mom kindly told me we would need to leave in about five minutes for the birthday brunch with her parents. I forgot! Luckily, I only needed to put on my shoes and we still made it on time, but I decided I would need be more aware of the schedule in the future. The place we ate at was once again very nice in food and architecture. It was almost like a large wooden tent that was built around a large pole.
When found our table, we were greeted by an elderly woman with a warm smile (Johanna's mother) who told me she knew barely any English. I told her that was perfectly fine and she introduced me to her husband who remained quite quiet throughout the meal. We first went to the salad bar, as usual, and got our healthy greens before our main dish came in. In Finland, many restaurants will have about 4 or 5 options for lunch that change daily and a salad bar is included in the meal. While some may not like this system as it does not give much variety, I prefer it because I don't have to spend 10 minutes studying an overwhelming menu of countless options. My main meal was a chicken risotto, which I do not have very often, but I enjoyed. After my risotto we had our usual coffee with biscuits (I had tea). During the meal, everyone spoke mostly Finnish, but from what was translated to me and from the laughter I observed, I figured that Johanna's mother was a very funny lady. After thanking Johanna's parents for the meal, we got back into the car and headed to the movie theater to see Transcendence starring Johnny Depp. We had to turn around, because we forgot the tickets at home, but we still made it to the theater with plenty of time to spare. The theater lobby was quite empty, but most people were probably at their summer cottages or at work. Movie theaters are different in Finland in that you actually get to choose where in the theater you want to sit, as you usually would for an opera or concert. We got seats in the middle, but the lady at the cashier register told us that we could sit wherever we wanted since not many people were probably going to show up. Niklas and Aleksi got a huge popcorn box and Pepsi to share but I just took a regular sized popcorn box. They actually keep the popcorn in refrigerator-like cabinets that really just keep the popcorn luke warm, instead of just getting it fresh from the popcorn maker.
We threw all of the seasoning on our popcorn that we could find and Niklas and Aleksi ended up with barbecue, butter, sour cream and onion, jalapeño and cheese flavored seasoning on their bucket of popcorn. I stuck with butter. The movie (Transcendence) was really creepy. However, it did send a good message: there are certain lines that technology should never pass. After the movie, Mika picked us up and we went back to the house. Aleksi was picked up by a friend to go to soccer practice but Niklas, Mika, and I were headed for the Paavo Nurmi Games (Johanna was already volunteering at a nearby hotel where the athletes were staying). I had never been to such a large sports event other than my old school's football games in which a few hundred people would show up. However, there were a few more people at the Paavo Nuurmi Games. My jaw slowly dropped to the ground as I entered a crowd of over 10,000 people, some of which even came from outside of Finland.
There were many athletes from other European countries but also countries outside of Europe such as Egypt, Cuba, Mexico, Japan, and the U.S.A. I had so much fun actually seeing professional track and field athletes and watching long jump, high jump, javelin, hammer throw, hurdles, and all sorts of x meter dashes. I think my favorite sports were javelins and hurdles (partly because the woman from the U.S.A. won in hurdles). It was great to see so many people come together from abroad and share their passion for track and field. The closest thing I had seen to this were the Summer Olympic Games, but only on television. I even saw the best Finnish long jumper since the past decade make one of his last jumps as he would be finishing his career in a few weeks. Niklas was brave enough to wait in line for about 30 minutes for a sausage and a drink. We stayed until about 10:00 p.m. when the last races were being held and then headed home for a nice dinner before going to bed. I could barely contain my excitement because I knew I would be seeing some of my FUSYE friends the next day.
No comments:
Post a Comment