Some travels, and a bit about Spain
Some of you may know that i took a short trip to Spain recently. While i was there, i jotted down a bunch of stuff i wanted to write down once i got home. So here they are.
Firstly, people behaving badly on planes (that’s what i wrote down anyway). First of all, Finnish people (i guess this is true for many other people as well) are troublesome as soon as they wake up. When traveling, you see their worst sides, clearly. People drink excessively even before they get on the plane, and then once they are on the damn thing, they drink more. I may have written about a previous trip to god knows where, where a guy was arrested before even getting off the plane. Apparently he had been drinking, and then playing some ass-grabby-grabby with one of the flight attendants. He was sitting alone in the now-empty front section of the plane, singing to himself “who has the cops waiting for them outside!”. And sure enough, cops were waiting for him right outside the plane. Great way to start a vacation.
Another thing i still can’t understand after all these years traveling, is why people don’t listen to the damn flight attendants. When they say jump, you ask: “how high?”. On the plane, they are the supreme authority. If they tell you not to use electronic equipment, you don’t. I know that most equipment probably don’t interfere with any modern aircraft, but it’s their damn plane. They make the rules as they see fit. If they tell you to keep your seat belt on until the sign is off and the plane has stopped, you do it! I don’t care if it’s your first or your fifteenth time on a plane, you don’t get up and start unloading as soon as the plane hits the ground. You sit the fuck down and wait. You ain’t getting off the plane any faster.
On that fucking note, why, when the plane has finally stopped, do you take your carry-on and go stand in the aisle? Why? You stand there with no space, and your bag in hand, and you wait 10 minutes for them to complete post-landing checklists and open the doors and so on. And then you get out. I sit down and keep reading my book, and i get out like 30 seconds after you do. I fucking hate that. But then again, what’s it to me? Why do i care?
Well obviously, so i have something to write about. D’uh.
The next bullet point is ‘Finland is taking over the Costa Del Sol. This is true! According to some shady source, 20 000 Finns populate the Spanish coasts at any one time. That’s a lot. I’ve been to Spain maybe 20 times, and either i’m getting older and more cynical (is this even possible?), or there were more Finns there than ever. Up to the point of annoyance. Violent thoughts.
During one day, we took the bus up to the mountains, to Ronda. which is about.. 800 meters above sea level. The road is winding and dangerous. People die there constantly. It took nearly two hours to get there by bus (which cost 8,80, feasible). On the bus, there were Finnish people. The first restaurant we had lunch at had Finnish people at the table next to us. There was no escape. Except perhaps the 200 meter drop from the cliffs.
Every single mode of public transport, every café, every… well not every, but most restaurants. Finnish people. We (i’m ashamed to say) even have our part of town. Well, basically. It’s a place where you can operate solely in Finnish. Stores have clerks that know Finnish. Taxi and bus-drivers are fluent in Finnish, almost. Signs at restaurants and such are in Finnish. There is a Finnish school. A church. Night clubs. Stores where you can get exclusively Finnish goods (which these people obviously can’t survive without). The store has anything from Finnish beer (which is shit), Long Drinks, rye bread, liquorice, and “sausages” (i use air-quotes because most Finnish sausages insult the word, containing scarcely any meat. Seriously. We have sausages with 0 per cent meat).
This brings me nicely into the next bullet point. “Ja mitä se on suomeksi??”. Translates loosely into “And what’s that in Finnish?”. This was a sentence overheard at a local Jazz-club (owned by a Finnish person, and with mostly Finnish patrons). We listened to admittedly excellent Jazz provided by The Andalucian Swing Band. After the show, there was some kind of lottery going on for the mostly senior crowd. We were easily the youngest people there, by a margin of at least 30 years. During the lottery, the hostess read out the winning number. Sometimes she’d do it in Spanish, mostly Finnish, and whatever crossed her mind. Once she did not read out the number in Finnish, but instead in Spanish, Swedish and English. So, obviously, on of the esteemed patrons had to stand up and say, in a snarky voice: “And what’s that in Finnish??”. I nearly flipped out and shouted “It was R for Red-neck”. We’re 4000 kilometers away from Finland. Most of those people either live there permanently, or most of the year. But you can’t be bothered to learn anything local. And then you make noise about it, as if you’re proud of the fact that you’re a fucking ignorant prick?
Ok, let’s get out of Spain. The flight we took was through Zürich. That’s a fucking expensive place! We had two meals at the airport (ok, airport prices, but still!) Burger King. 26 euro. The same meals in Finland, if we had Burger King, would be like 13 bucks. Expensive place. Everything except booze was expensive.
Back to Spain. While i have nothing against Muslims or Islam, i noted that the amount of Muslims on the coast had increased greatly. There was even a brand new mosque that i don’t remember being there in 2008 when i last visited. I guess Spain will also be a “victim” of the slow and creeping Islami..fication of Europe. Some study i read somewhere ™, said that some countries in Europe would have more Muslims in 50 years than any other religion. That’s kind of interesting. As long as they don’t start enforcing Sharya or old traditions that don’t sit well with the rest of the population, I’m fine with this.
Ok that’s all.
Currently I’m reading Stefan Didak’s posts on his new Home Office version 7. You should check them out. Inspiring.