The Finnish Imposter

I can’t believe I have never been to Scandinavia. I have meant to, so many times. To go to Elsinore where Hamlet takes place. To visit the birthplace of so many friends over the years. These elegant floaty type people who have wandered through my life. A college friend of my sisters. An old girlfriend of my brothers. My mother’s friend Nina who had a blonde plait all the way down her back. My friend who still visits her mothers family home on an island of the Norwegian coast every summer. They all spoke English with the lightest of touches and the odd curve of a syllable showing that this language wasn’t their first. They all had and have eyes that reflect an achingly open sky. I can say it was because as a family we headed south to the Mediterranean and the tablecloth sized apartment that my parents had bought before I was a teenager. I can say that when I was traveling on my own I wanted to conquer the strangeness of farther shores before I got a ferry across the North Sea to countries that I had seen in Bergman films. When I went to work in America, I didn’t take holidays in the same way. It was people whom I missed. So I went to where they were. Be it the UK, or New Zealand, or Greece. But last week I landed in Scandinavia. Finland to be exact.

I got off a plane into an acutely organized airport and found myself on a train heading north to a small city or a large town called Tampere. It was a nice hotel, a nice room, with a view above the rooftops.

I went downstairs having put my toothbrush in a glass and asked if they had a bicycle I could use. Ten minutes, armed with a map, wearing a red helmet, I was out there. If I had been walking with a map I would have felt self-conscious. But with my yellow bag in the basket and my red helmet and knowing there were no cliffs I could drive off or motorways I could accidentally join, I rode and rode along by the river, away from the river, up and down the streets that had little strips marked out on the pavements for me and my bike. Nobody fussed. Cars stopped, pedestrians accommodated, me and my other friends on their bikes just ambled along getting where we were going whenever we could get there. The thing was I didn’t know where I was going. And so it continued for these days I was in Tampere. I went to beaches, arboretums, museums, harbours, look-outs. On my bike with no gears. One day I took a ferry out to an island. I bought myself some wild raspberries from this lovely farmer who had a little table on the dock with onions and peas and chanterelle mushrooms and berries. He is going in September to the beaches at Normandy. We had a lovely chat about that.

Because one of the oddest things here is that everyone speaks English. Everyone. Some young girl said it as because they watch television. But I don’t think it is that. I think they must have a curiosity. After all, they speak a language which reverberates in a very small circle around them. They just have it their back pocket.

Finnish is not an easy language. The street signs are unrecognizable. The language as you listen to it, is impossible to guess at. And then I have to mention breakfast. In no particular order: Porridge made with milk, salt and butter. Kale pesto. Lingonberry sauce. Pickled cauliflower Thick white yoghurt with cloudberry powder. Reindeer sausage. ( I just looked at that one) Rye bread. Chanterelle mushrooms.

There was this lovely woman who worked on the crew for breakfasts at the hotel. Her name was Jaana. She noticed I was alone. She guided me to a table with a good view.

She brought me my two pots of tea in the morning. The first, black. the second, Roobos. She told me how good the porridge was. I found out where she lived and what her hours were. I didn’t get much more than that. I don’t know if she had children or if she still liked the man she had married. She learned nothing much about me. On my last day I asked if I could take a photo of her. I told her I wanted a photo for this “ Thing” that I write. She got sort of embarrassed and sort of posed.

I think that people like her are a part of how people like me can travel alone. When I handed in my key card, the receptionist said I had a gift. Jaana had left me a package of the porridge. With instructions of how to make it at home. And a note. All of which is packed in my suitcase. I have no words for how big and small that made me feel. And I just want to go on the record that I didn’t pretend to be Finnish. Everyone just assumed I was. Maybe there is a stamp of someone who looks like me. Or there is a shampoo bottle with a face like mine on it. But I turned up anywhere and people launched at me with streams of the Finnish language. It took me two or three goes of “ I’m sorry.” before they stopped and heard my British bleatings and said ..” oh”. They still kept their eyes on me, thinking I might collapse into what surely must be my mother tongue. Apparently I look Finnish. People in the shops, In the museums. On the streets when I made a dodgy maneuver on my bike. When I sat in the wrong seat on the train. They all were so sure. Made me question my heritage . For a good long minute.