The Drunkard's Walk, part 1: So This Is Love
Trip Start
Jun 10, 2008
1
12
16
Trip End
Ongoing
Kuopio, Finland
Thursday, October 9, 2008
After returning from the rehabilitation center in Punkaharju, Anita would still remain for some time in Helsinki, before finally fleeing from the incoming winter. Meanwhile Marjaana had gone traveling, leaving her room empty, so for a time everything was back to its former state - I continued to live in the same place and have the same job.
But soon enough the pillars would crumble. In two weeks, Anita left and I became definitively unemployed, not having had any answer at all from my previously sent applications. In another week, Marjaana came back and I had no house either. No house, no job and nothing binding me to Helsinki, except for the loose ties that dwell in my head, so the natural response was to begin drifting away. Or rather I should say that I had begun earlier.
When I was in Punkaharju, worried about the prospect of not finding a semi-permanent job in Finland and thus being forced to retreat, I came across an offer for a flight to Baile Átha Cliath (a.k.a. Dublin) for one half of a coin. I had never considered going to Ireland, but I knew that if I were to retreat from Finland I would have to do so south-westwards, as language was my biggest barrier, and in that direction were the homelands of all languages I could speak. And I wanted to have a cheap route out of Finland, so I bought that ticket for one month and a half later and, as I knew pretty much nothing about the city, I started doing some research on it. Looking back, I label that as a partial reason for my departure from Finland, first because when I checked this ticket, I shifted a bit my focus from solving the problem of unemployment to circumventing the problem - from going through to going around; seconde, because looking too much into any unknown region is for me a sure way to trigger strong wanderlust feelings.
Then, of course, those feelings were kept in check because I still had both a job and a place to stay, but later, when I had neither, when faced with the difficulty of getting a new job, compounded by the difficulty of finding a place to stay, I just severed my root and let my thoughts roam freely. I still needed to be around Helsinki for one more week, because Erika had planned a long time before to come from Brazil to Helsinki (well, not directly) to visit me.When she arrived we went straight to Tallinn, as I deemed one week too much to spend just in Helsinki. And it was a great decision, for then I recalled how interesting a city Tallinn is... and how cheap too, when compared to Finland. After spending there the weekend we returned to Helsinki, where I was harboured by Linda, a new friend I had made there for almost one week more. It was a strange time for, having a guest and wanting to play a bit the role of guide, I had to try to look at the city from the perspective of a Brazilian tourist and, trying to arrange things to do (the almost constant rain didn't help at all), for the first time the city striked me as very boring. A sad new perspective, but I guess it is true, after stripping the city of all the particular meanings I planted there.
Anyway, then Erika left and the last practical string tying me to Helsinki (and to Finland, for that matter) snapped, so that there ends the first act of my experiments about the impenetrability of the Finnish soil and starts the drunkard's walk that would bring me through an unforeseen route, although after the road ended it would appear obvious. And the first step was choosing to take my flight to Ireland, the second was to apply for a Russian visa in Helsinki so that I could visit the country before leaving its neighbourhood. The third was to decide what to do with the one week I had before my request was processed and on that I decided to do a bit of justice to the title I chose.
Before leaving Brazil, I had searched a bit for CS people in random Finnish towns and cities, and ended up making a small list of people I would like to meet, because something in their profiles had piqued my curiosity. I hadn't met them yet, because I ended up spending most of my time in Helsinki, so for this week I chose to dig through this list and send the people who lived within reasonable distance messages proposing meetings. The first person to accept was in Kuopio, so off I went to this lovely town, which was in my original plan for my first visit to Finland but got skipped somehow, and where I could get an excellent taste of autumn. In the capital the trees were already changing their colours, but in Kuopio it was accomplished already and it was really good to see that again - trees in ball dresses or sometimes even costumes, with their leaves in such a bright hue that one could swear they are flowers until closer inspection. And then there were the lakes, and the very pleasant chilling wind, and of course the good company.
I left Kuopio early one morning, the first time I saw naturally-occurring negative temperature. Upon seeing the forecast the previous day, I started praying for snow, but I all got was a stupid thin layer of ice. :(
