Helsinki Santa Rampage

A few weeks ago I sampled a local event, Santarchy. (A few hundred people dressed up as Santa, roaming city streets and partaking in various kinds of revelry). Taken by the charms of Santa Anarchy, I did a little background reading, and found there were similar events in a handful of cities, including -- coincidence! -- Helsinki on the very night I was going to be there. So with some help from someone I ran into at the Seattle version (thanks, Danyel!), I got a hold of the flier with the Helsinki event info and showed up.

The Helsinki version of Santarchy is a little different than the Seattle version. First, the name: Santa Rampage. Second, the scale: a couple dozen guys who all went to school together. But they very graciously got past the "who are you and why are you here??" stage (although they had a harder time getting past the 'How did you find out about us and know to show up at this public park?" stage) and let me tag along as they toured Helsinki, a smaller crowd than Seattle's but no less boisterous. Drinking, bowling, ice skating -- and then, presumably karaoking, but by then there was no way I could keep up with a bunch of Finns drinking.

You can see some photos . And I now have my very own Santa suit, thanks to the very generous, Swedish-speaking Finns of Santa Rampage.

I can now report, by the way, that Finnish bowling is pretty much the same as American bowling (i.e. I was able to bowl equally pitifully in a foreign language), with the exception of completely incomprehensible signage. I know a little bit of a lot of languages, but Finnish had me reduced to utter illiteracy to the point where using a public restroom was anxiety producing. What's the word for 'men'? for 'women'?? Seeing a familiar alphabet but being completely unable to recognize any root words definitely made an impression. Add that to the very few hours of diffused twilight that constitutes "daytime" and this was the most disorienting trip I've taken in quite a while.