13/8/06
What a long day. I just arrived in my new flat in Helsinki. The school I am studying at, Evtek hooked me up with a student to pick me up at the airport and show me to my place. The guy that picked me up was named Jarco, and he is one of the few Finns that plays Lacrosse. It just made it over here 5 years ago, and he only began playing a few months ago, however he is on the national team (small pool of people) When we arrived, at the apartment, Mat and Martin from Kwantlen were finishing the clean up of the apartment. They did leave their impressive beer bottle collection, in order that I could add to the collection, a task I am well up for. But maybe not tonight, as I am recovering from my reunion with my English friends that I met in Australia. The day started early, I couldn’t sleep, I was woken at 3 am buy a gigantic snoring Italian woman that made it her personal goal to ensure that I didn’t sleep. So instead of waiting till 10 am to meet Michelle, I went walking around London at 8am. I hopped on the Bigbus your. I was wanting to stretch my legs and walk, but the weather was shit, so I thought I needed a bit of guidance. The tour was very convenient, it took me to the national museum, where I saw my favourite painting that I can’t remember what it is called. There are these two merchants with this amazing paining style that makes their body seem surreal. There is heavy use of symbolism throughout the painting, there is a lute with at broken string, “discord” and my favourite part was the elongated skull along the bottom of the paining. At first I couldn’t make out what the shape was, but when I moved to the right side of the paining the perspective corrected itself and the skull became clear.
I saw Trafalgar square, with Lord nelson overlooking the area on his massive pedestal, the Canadian consulate, and numerous fountains. I love the rich and blatantly celebrated history of London, they truly know how to honour their hero’s. I saw Westminster Abby, Big Ben the parliament buildings, the London eye, the tower of London, and took a canal tu up the Thames. All in all, it was a good ay of exploring. Michelle and I didn’t manage top meet up, I did get her email address from a note she left, maybe I will look her up back home, maybe not. She was quite fun. I passed out for an hour, and then realised that my English mates still needed to connect with me. These guys are a riot. They are from Redding, which is like the Surrey of London, but the Canadian surrey, not the real English …. never mind. They are uneducated, racist drink too much and know how to make a Canadian boy in a strange land feel at home. We went to all this dodgy pubs to get a few pints before we went to TigerTiger. We were in Soho, which we found out is the shady/gay area of town. The club wouldn’t let us in because we didn’t have girls so we met up with these girls from Manchester, who were really hot and drunk, it was as if the heavens had opened up and said “have fun my blessed lad, to night you get some English muffins” but of course I loose them as soon as I get in the club trying to get a drink. Ahh well, I got to hang out with my drunken boys for a while, glasses became smashess, I must not have liked the music, because that tends to happen when the music turns south. I didn’t have my game together, I missed out on meeting any girls, but I realized that there were no quality connections to be made at this time anyways. So we end up leaving at around 2:30 and wandering around looking for a strip club down some of Soho’s dankest alley ways. Alas, it really became apparent that this was a waste of time and that it was 3 am and I was needing to be up at 6 am to catch my plane. So we hired a Somalian to drive us back to our place for 15 quid (32 bucks) I thought I didn’t have any money, but Phil paid my way, I need to send him some cash, because I found 15 quid the next day in my wallet. We managed to sneak them both into the hostel at 3:30 am ad crash for a few hours. The attendant must have been oblivious because he told us to be quiet, and didn’t catch on that these people hadn’t paid for the night. The next morning was a rude awakening, I really need to catch some proper sleep soon.. But not tonight, I will give her. After a nap, maybe.

12/8/06
I am here in London, and I have only ventured a few blocks from my Hostel. I forgot the shadiness of these places, however I wasn’t carrying $2000 worth of toys the last time I arrived. This city is unlike anything I have experienced, yet it seems so familiar. It is defiantly a multiethnic hotbed with a predominance of Arabs. The architecture is beautiful and the streets are clean, the block around the hostel screams of history, one can only imagine the events that have transpired blocks from this place. All of the buildings make full use of their Victorian styling at night with halogen spotlights highlighting the layer exterior of most of the buildings. If I were not soo jetlagged, I would be out exploring every nook and cranny. The room I m sharing has only Italians in it. I made dinner with them today, and peeled a tomato for the first time. Their pasta sauce had salt oil onion, and tomato in in. Honestly I prefer the bastardized north American version. These guys all come from Sicily and can hardly speak English. I feel ostracized when I hang out with them for too long. So I looked elsewhere for companionship. I met a nice Dutch girl who worked at reception. Her name is Anaje or something like that. I met a dancer from Vancouver, she is cute but only talks about herself, how boring. I may go to the market with her tomorrow in hopes of getting a little action now, or back home. I plyed cards with Michelle and the two beautiful French girls. We played asshole for 3 rounds and we didn’t change positions until I let the cutest of them beat me in the last round. I will see what tomorrow has in store for me, but I want to take full advantage of what the day could offer.