Osmo was knackered from the day befores mammoth driving session, and since he had organised a party at his apartment in the evening, he went back for some sleep. I walked into Helsinki city centre by myself with the aim of shooting some images of the youth of the city. It all went quite well, although getting peoples attention was harder than I thought it would be. Trying to avoid being a typical Englishman, by making an effort to use Finnish saying 'anteeksi' (excuse me!) mostly got no response, people were really switched off to it. However, the merest whisper in English would get everyone in the vicinities attention. Finnish people seem to really like talking English, I wish I had tried harder in my french lessons as a child.
Most of the kids I spoke to had the usual, slightly aloof exterior of British kids, but as soon as you spoke to them the facade dropped away, and they were really nice. They could have been mercilessly ripping the piss out of the foppish Englishman and I wouldn't have known, but it didn't seem like it.
The houseparty later in the evening was fun, I had a lot of an alcopop called Gin, and a cocktail Osmo made using mint and his beloved Soda Stream. We left at half nine to go to a local club where top Finnish synth pop act Villa Nah were playing (their album is brilliant, and got 9/10 in the latest issue of Vice) and unfortunately there was a Shoreditch length queue of people waiting to get in. As we reached the front, the call of 'only 50 more allowed in' went out from the bouncers, creating a big scrum. Separated in the crush from my group, I'm ashamed to say I tried to push to the front pretending to be a BBC reporter in order to get in. This failed dismally, but my reedy, worried voice did at least cause amusement in the queue.
Some shots Osmo took at the party. On the right is Sebu.
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