July 27, 2014
Finlandia Welcomes You/me…

I hoped to meet Santa while in Finland, however, he has been in the U.S. ( I saw him driving through Stormville NY last week.) I guess I am not lucky just like Mayor DiBlasio of NYC who could only see the second in command at the Vatican while vacationing in Italy. I guess I will meet only the elves…. How tall are they anyway…?.

“Vodka from the Top of the World…The Ice Cold Hot seven feet tall Ice skating siren
Next Wednesday I’ll be en route to Helsinki, Finland. I am going to the World Dog Show 2014 with Kaffogo Agyag. Since I’ll be blogging our journey, I hope you will follow our adventures. For a start, here are some essential facts about Finland.

The rugged ultimate Finnish specimen. He has it all… the woman, the ice sculpture and the vodka too… have a drink buddy…
I’ve never been in “Suomi”, so I am looking forward to this trip to the top of the world. It should be like home coming… back to my Finno -Ugric roots. I will spend 12 days there while traveling around. I will be crossing back and forth the land of Santa Claus and expecting to see a crowd of of tall blond people dancing tango in every ballroom, clubs and other establishments including public saunas. I believe in this because I am coming from the U.S. and because many years ago I saw a documentary film that has claimed that Finnish people are crazy about tango. The premise of this film of course was

Who is the most known Finnish person in the U.S.? Of course it depends on…If you ask me the first name to pop in my head is the late Tom of Finland akaTouko Laaksonen. I love his work.

Tango Tango Tango…
feeding on the contrast between the homeland of tango, Argentina, the global center of hot blood supply reserve versus the ice cold appearance of Finnish temperament with its rather complicated sociological as well as psychological package. But these topics are for a different blog entry written by shrinks, sociologists and anthropologists to explore…
My memory works in an odd way. Another thing I remember about Finland, is an ad in a glossy magazine from the 1990’s. It was about Finlandia Vodka. I recall looking at the bare winter landscape on the two-page ad with the ice cold and hot (what a perfect misnomer…) sexy blond, long legged, about seven foot tall speed skater (just to clarify things I am 5’4″…) the even taller curvy ice sculpture in the middle part of the picture, the ice fisherman, the rugged ultimate Finnish male specimen on the right and of course the insert in the corner, the Finlandia Vodka bottle with the message, “Finlandia Vodka from the Top of the World.” It was like a puzzle, did not make too much sense after my high school geography studies. I was taught that the top of the world was the land of Mt. Everest and K2. But because I went to high school in Romania, in the Land of Vampires where the King of Shoemakers, ruled a nation of bare-footed beggars, one never really knew what was true one learned in school… (talking about living in the world of hyperreality…)

this is serious Santa land…
Anyway, after all I realized that I have been swallowed by the bottomless black hole of advertising media where reality and fiction are seamlessly interchangeable. Let’s admit, it has been an effective ad…
Another crazy story that stuck in my mind about Finland is the income based traffic ticket article I’ve red somwhere. In Finland, the more money one earns the more one pays for speeding tickets. I do not know wether this is for real or not, but I am taking along my last year’s income tax return because I will be driving a lot.
So as you can see, I am well prepared, my expectations are pretty realistic and I am seriously looking forward to running into you Pumi people in Funland (sp?) on the top of our two dimensional world, either for a few steps of tango or a big glass of dry martini during the World Dog Show In August.
See you there!