TS Helena

Schooner Helena is quite a pretty lady indeed: as a Flying Finn she easily speeded up to 9 knots per hour even if the winds of that puddle of a Baltic Sea were not strong at all. I would like to see Helena in action on breezy open seas. To join the crew. 38,7 meters long and 6,6 metres wide - more than a double compered to the boat I sailed Caribbean with. Made for sail training and able to host up to 28 person. Masts reaching the blurry skies - one 30,3 metres tall and the other 25,8.

I had a quick 45 minutes walk from the Turku Main Railway Station to the wharf in which Helena was parked. 45 mins. AAaaaaaa. In my map (printed from the net, naturally) it looked like a relaxing 10 minutes stroll along the quays of Aurajoki river but little did I know. Neither about the sailing do I know a lot, should get a book called Sailing for Dummies. Real dummies, in my case. In my basket case.

We spent the first night at Airisto Island and the second one at island of Jussarö. Some decades ago there was a relatively big iron ore mine in Jussarö but later it was shut down - in the dark autumn-ish evening you can find a ghosty teen-horror atmosphere consisting of abandoned houses and mineshafts. I think the Finnish archipelago is highly overrated. Okay, it is pretty. Sometimes even charming with thousands of tiny whiny islands and islets, unbeliavable silence and harmony, seagulls, eagles, swans, seals... But not even close to for example the stunning landscapes of the West Indies. Apart from being a bit lame with faint colours and flat islands in Finland you have to always add the unpleasant facts of the bloody Finnish climate. This time we were kinda lucky - it was +16 degrees Celsius. Very nice for the end of August. In the Finnish scale.

Their Big Fat Italian Wedding

It was a bit bizarre to see us all in the wedding of M&P dressed in our smart skirts, serious suits and ties. Gives quite a contrast to the bunch we used to be with our rastro clothes, wearing the same old cap every single day and looking for occasional spice ups at the street stalls of Benidorm.

The Catholic wedding ceremony was held in an over 1000 years old small church in the middle of nowhere as the surrounding village had little by little moved further while the time passed. It was packed with people, emotions and atmosphere. Adorable place indeed.

After the marriage had been solemnized we headed to Viverone where the party was held in a hotel by the lake. Crazy Italian drivers were speeding away as usual and my personal rally driver SB had a great challenge of keeping on their trail through the narrow alleys of the villages and down the hills. Of course it was raining. I seem to carry the rain with me. Luckily the heaviest part of it started only after something like 200 kilos of rise had been cast and the newly weds were safely in their car. Bird lovers, please note it is just a myth that the pidgins will die if they eat too much rise. Birds are designed to eat and enjoy all kinda seeds and stuff like that. So no worries.

SB does not have a good karma regarding to the eldest brother of M. In Spain he slammed the door of the boot on her fingers and here he accidently made a painting fall directly into her poor head by leaning against an unsteady, temporary wall.

On Friday I went to Nervi. It is yet another small town on the coast, near to Genoa. Lovely views to the Mediterranean, nice park full of curious squirrels, delicious pizza and refreshing beer on a terrace by the sea, nice parking ticket from Alessandria on the way back. Genoa (Genova) is an interesting place as well, especially the old town quarters with very narrow lanes - in many of them you can actually touch the houses on both of the sides of the lane at the same time with your very own two hands. Naturally the only vehicles which can pass through these alleys are the scooters and bikes. If I remember right, the old town of Genoa is the biggest in Europe - and if it isn't, it's still a very impressive maze. The city itself is about the same size as Helsinki.

Valenza

I'm in Valenza, in the province of Alessandria, at the home of Italians P & M who finally decided to get married after almost 10 years of dating and 5 years of cohabitation. I love their relatively spacious flat in this old building, I love the local pizzeria, I love the river Po which is passing by this small town. Most of all I love the general sensation of being in Italy again. The only thing I don't love is the only local pub which is open late at nites - far away and not very tempting in any scale.

Apart from participating the wedding and wishing all the best to the newly weds the other purpose of this trip is to have a reunion of our small community which lived together 4 - 5 years ago in the caravans at Spanish coast. I've seen P & M couple of times after that, Italian L as well (we even lived as housemates in Dublin for a while) but French SB, Colombian D, Austrian B I haven't seen since. The Spaniard P, the highly dedicated scooter cleaner, I don't even wish to see. Italian E, French G, French N etc. are not coming due to several uninteresting excuses.

On Wednesday French SB picked me up at Malpensa Airport. She came from Alsace with her old car and there were some delays in the long tunnels under the Alps so I needed to wait at the airport for couple of hours. Have to say Malpensa is not one of my favourites. Neither the place, nor the name - Malpensa, pensare male, something related to bad thoughts.

We were trying to head directly to here from the airport but somehow madly succeeded in heading to Milan instead: so many road works preventing us from turning where we wanted to that finally we were just too close to Milan to skip it. What ever, a little bit of Milan has never hurt anybody. As SB had not been there before we did the obligatory tour of Castello Sforzesco, Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II and Duomo. Duomo is one of my favourite churches in Europe. Even though St. Peter's in Rome is bigger, Duomo is somehow more interesting as it looks like a gigantic gingerbread house made of lace.

Last time I was in Milan it was year 2005 and one of the sisters of L took me for a proper tour in town (she lives just outside of it). Finally we ended up getting tipsy at Iguana, having huge cocktails in the aperitivo Milanese style. This time no cocktails allowed as the drive to Valenza was still waiting. Quick pints and some pizza and that was it.

It took around 2 hours and 3 U-turns just to get out of town, traffic was jamming really nicely. SB was supposed to get a new car before this road trip so she had already removed her expensive CD player and replaced it with an old cassette player. Who still owns cassettes in the year 2008? I don't. SB does. 3 in total. About as old as the car. I'm already so fed up of those 3 cassettes that I would like to throw them out of the window.