Tuesday, January 1, 2008

On our way

I’m posting this from the Helsinki Vantaa airport, where we arrived after our turbulent 20 minute journey across the Finnish Bay. Every five minutes, there’s a kinky sounding female invitation “You want to have a ride?” coming from the crazy-looking pink toy car hinding behind the Christmas trees. Finnair is the official airline for Santa Claus, so the entire nearly empty waiting area is decorated with Santa sculptures and Christmas trees. In Finnair’s waiting lounge it is Christmas every day.

I hear the people at the money changing booth chatting to each other, and ponder about why Finnish sounds so god damn ugly. It’s barely any different from Estonian, but the pronunciation makes a world of difference. Estonian just sounds better. Finnish English is sexier than Estonian English though – gotta give them that. And why bother with a pretty language anyway – provided that you have the talent and brilliance that the Finns possess. Take the Finnish Complaints Choir for example, the Santa Claus parody by Rare Exports Inc., Lordi, or any of the other awesome things that come from Finland. The finns are awesome.

Leaving the hotel was rather interesting. Uniquestay’s shuttle driver happened to be a guy whose father was a former promoter of nationalism, so he also felt very passionate about politics. My father and he spent the entire ride talking about how things were almost better in the Soviet era, when it comes to social care and education. The conversation quickly digressed to blaming the politicians for everything, and talks about the “Estonian breed”, and how all the good genes have already left the country. Fortunately, we arrived at the airport before they got too depressing.

2 comments:

Tomi Ahti said...

In fact, it's Estonian that sounds uglier. Or was it Portuguese, can't remember.

glitch said...

Perhaps you're right - it all depends on where you're coming from:) Finnish can definitely sound sexy - i've experienced that myself whenever I drink with my Finnish friends.. Compared to Estonian, it's way less defined and bland though, (which I guess is arguable as well). The ongoing Estonian joke used to be that the Finnish couldn't handle Eurovision because their language sounded awful when sung (while we'd be scoring places in the top ten)..