Where is Wacky Surliminal? pt 2.6777

[green_amber]

Get off coach. Two young women in unflattering garb are squabbling and swearing. Rude foreigners lunge for their luggage and run over my toes with their wheels. Where am I? Clearly not Finland any more..

Ring hotel for directions as did not manage to print off map. Am given them, wrongly, twice, by someone who clearly does not speak English but has pre-memorised a cheerfully regurgitated and unhelpful formula. Can I really be in hotel at £186 a night, where the "executive room " price does not only not include breakfast, but the promised dressing gown and slippers and cosmetics are all absent, the wi fi almost inaccessible, the swimming pool mouldy and dirty and the room clearly smells of old smoke? And a bowl of soup costs £7.25? Yep you guessed it - has to be London doesn't it?

OK, sour grapes, but it really was all a bit of a shock after 6 days of staying in lovely hotels (at less than half the price of this) staffed by perfect English speakers who cossetted and helped, surrounded by friendly polite good looking well educated people, who even on the return leg of a cheapo booze cruise from Estonia to a high alcohol tax society, did not shout, swear, fight, vomit or scream.

Why do we put up with this shit? (And now the TV is telling me how much booze is costing the NHS.Yes I know the Finns drink too. Indeed - it's why they're fun. So why do so many of them appear to be thin, healthy , fit and happy? I really noticed as soon as I got back the prevalence of fat unhealthy looking people. Not, I admit, only a London speciality..)

However it is true that Finland had more than its share of Goths and the heavy metal t-shirt and Linux brigade:-P No wonder it's fannish.(I wonder when/where next Finncon is? maybe I'll even go!)

Oh I had such a good time. My legs ache with walking. My knee is swollen, my luggage is bulging, my brain is exhausted and I've had the Best Time Evah. I love Finland, Finns, the weirdo language, the spirit of openness, the intelligent curiousity and the lack of stuffiness(the Dean of Faculty had a pony tail. Try that at Southampton. The Professor of Commercial Law leaned over in one session and said the whole faculty of law was in love with technology. Try THAT at any law school in the UK.)

It doesn't hurt that the whole of Finland seemed to like me too. People were lovely to me everywhere, from the guy in the kebab shop in Turku to the masseuse in Helsinki this morning who gave me her mobile number "just in case I wanted to ask any questions", to the taxi driver who turned out to be the only Jewish taxi driver in Helsinki and was off to study in Israel, and the academuic coincidentally next to me on the plane who also turned out to be researching in virtual worlds and gave me his card. As soon as i got back to London I stopped talking to random people, and they in turn looked surly and unhappy. I want to go back to Finland.

More written elsewhere I'll post later. (Yes in FINLAND I managed not to get the hotel wi fi network on my laptop for 3 days! pah! Ok even Helsinki Radisson City Centre isn't (quite) perfect.. Mysteriously I *could* get it fine on my Ipod Touch. (But I can't write more than a text coherently using the damn virtual keyboard.) Wassall that then then??)
..
I have blueberry vodka, cloudberry liqueur, free ice, and lingonberry jam and Finnish cheese. No rye bread tho , dammit! Some kind of cheering picnic may be in order? The salty liquorice is, however, All For Eeva. (Also I have an Estonian glass ring and a purple linen poncho thing and the Cutest Moomin Luggage Tag in the world - honestly, I'll have to photo it..)

Tallinn (Estonia) was superb if knackering and deserves a seperate post.

Best German Lesbian Pal tells me there's a chair going at` Helsinki :->

Notes:
No I am not paying for the hotel - BERR is. (Sorry Dave!)
I'm at a virtual worlds conf tomorrow which orobbaly means I can't even get to Chris Priest. Shame.

Anyone want to go see Dark Knight at the IMAX!!!!!

Comments

[sneerpout.livejournal.com]

I've always fancied Finland. Perhaps I'll get there one day...

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

Did you visit Tampere, home of the wise and good keirf of this parish and famous for Moomins, black pudding and buildings that look like they'd be at home in Sheffield?

Anyone want to go see Dark Knight at the IMAX!!!!!

What, the one here in Bratfud? If so, do let me know when you're in the area!

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

nope to both: London Imax, and Turku and Helsinki!

[blue-condition.livejournal.com]

I usually book my own hotels. I am a miser, and use priceline.co.uk's "name your own price" feature. OK, it means that you stay where they tell you, but the most I've ever paid for a four-star hotel in London on it was 80 quid a night and the least £40. For three-star it 35 quid usually nails something.

At the 4* end of the market it's recently been giving me the Copthorne Tara just off Kensington High Street at around 50 quid. I paid about £140 a night there 15 years ago so I'm not grumbling ;P

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tip... one for the bookmarks, methinks!

[blue-condition.livejournal.com]

It's never let me down. I've even used priceline for flights in the past, which is OK if you don't mind going from A to B via Z, where Z is usually either CDG or AMS.

[blue-condition.livejournal.com]

Indeed, you can't fault it really. When it gets you a room in a decent hotel (usually room-only, mind, but who wants a hotel breakfast in a big city? - there's always somewhere else to eat nearby!) for B&B prices what's to grumble about?

It did once stick me in the Marriott Maida Vale, which is a very good hotel even if it is rather Kilburn ;), but that's the furthest from central London it's ever given me.

Other places it throws up on a regular basis are the Hilton Metropole, Hilton Islington (great location and rooms, hotel but screamingly awful decor outside your room!), Holiday Inn Regent's Park (charisma-free but comfy)... If you click down a notch to three-star it often gives you the Novotel Tower Bridge at truly silly (£35-40) rates, particularly at weekends as it's in the City.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

ps laterooms.com got me the Hotel Russell on R Square at £81 last week or so - v plush - so it ain't bad:) Other good ones are the Fitzrovia (I think) and Goodenough Club. I aleays end up in Bloomsbury normally but I didn't want to drag suitcases round tube this time..

[blue-condition.livejournal.com]

I've stayed at the Russell several times. Lovely building, lovely lobby, but Jesus, the rooms! - Dank, tiny, shabby... and I don 't think any of the staff spoke English!

Mind you, the last time I was there was about 3 years ago and they were refurbing it pretty heavily, so it might be less horrible!

[whumpdotcom.livejournal.com]

I stayed at the Russell in, huh, 2003? I think. Small room, but large window, the bath was nearly as large as the room.

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

I did - I used laterooms.com which has always ben good in past. I specified near Victoria, this was only 3 pm today for tonight!!! so a lot were booked out, this looked good at about £90 I think (even a Travelodge costs £85 in central london at that kinda notice) bit when I rang they said "that's gone but you can have the exec room for 186" and I was just in such a rush and not wanting to make more international mobile calls i took it.. ((Lots of detail excluded here about work colleagues demanding conversation, absent wi fi, laptops, writing papers at last min, ppt in Finnish and trying to aqueeze in a last min shopping hour to Stockmans!!)

ah well you live and learn. I feel better after a swim, sauna, bath, glass of wine, LJ and The F Word:)

[clarehooper.livejournal.com]

Ooh, will remember that site, ta!

[whotheheckami.livejournal.com]

Your reaction to coming back to the UK sounds similar to the reaction Sarah and I got when we left Glastonbury and braved Waitrose in Cheltenham...no one was smiling. Perhaps that means that Finland = Festival Fun! What must a Finnish Festival/Con be like?

PS Sarah wants to know if you have a Second-best German Lesbian Pal? ;@)

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Um no but I do have another Best German Pal hence the differentiation!

[perlmonger.livejournal.com]

Tervetuloa kotiin… ;)

[perlmonger.livejournal.com]

Oh, and:

As soon as i got back to London I stopped talking to random people, and they in turn looked surly and unhappy. I want to go back to Finland

s/London/Bristol/; s/Finland/Ireland/ for ramtops and myself last weekend: I love Finland, but I fear the issue is more ingrained misery and surliness here than that Finland is especially civilised.

[clarehooper.livejournal.com]

Now I want to go Finland :)

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you can get a chance!!
Around for a quick drink tomorrow at 5 in staff club???

[clarehooper.livejournal.com]

Arm twisted, I'll see you there :)

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

No I am not paying for the hotel - BERR is.

Grudgingly, no doubt.