[TheForge] OT Subject change: Finland

[Hochewa at aol.com]

To All,
Finland is a great place.  The running joke when I was last there  about 10 
years ago was that Finland wanted to apply to become the 51st  state.  They had 
the highest percentage of "American" speakers of all of  the countries in 
Europe.  Not only would becoming the 51st state piss off  the Russians but the 
Swedes, too.  The sauna was invented in Finland no  matter what the Swedes say.  
They do tend to eat a lot of fish.  The  first time I was there for about a 
week and the only non-fish meal I had was  dinner at a restaurant specializing 
in Reindeer.  When we asked the clerk  at the desk of the hotel where can you 
get some reindeer, he said,  "Lapland."  Not all of them speak American that 
well.  The last night  we were there we did the company sauna house.  It was 
outside of Kotka,  right on the Baltic and it was February.  We were only two 
non-Finns  out of our party of about 10 or so.  I made it through three cycles 
which  impressed the hell out of the Finns.  After the sauna we sat out on the  
deck in robes and scuffs for about a half an hour.  It was about -10*F that  
night.  For dinner we had herring and salmon done every imaginable way as  
long as it was pickled.  We had our own bottles of aqua vita and when they  were 
empty, we left for the hotel, I think.
On the way back I had to stop in the UK for a few days.  I flew from  
Helsinki to Heathrow and drove to Birmingham.  On M-40 just outside of  Oxford, there 
was a rest stop with a very familar name, Burger King.  No  Whopper ever 
tasted so good.
 
Hochewa