Wednesday, August 23, 2006
I am making my way North through Finland to stand in the Arctic Circle. English has completely disappeared, at least from the train stations and train attendants. The last night train I was on I wanted a seat and got a sleeper. This time I wanted a sleeper and got a seat. I tried to tell the train attendant in Tempere I wanted to sleep. “S-l-e-e-p-e-r” I said slowly; and loudly, because for some reason we seem to think if we speak more loudly, people who don’t speak our language will understand us better. For the record, it doesn’t help it just irritates the person you are trying to get to understand you
The nice non-English speaking train man put his hands prayer-like under his cheek, cocked his head sideways, closed his eyes, then pointed at me and shook his head back and forth. “No. You sit,” he said, pointing to me. “Yes, I know. I had this same, uh, conversation with the ticket lady. But I want to sleep.” I pointed to me, put my hands prayer like under my cheek, bent my head sideways, close my eyes, then pointed to me again and said, “Me, sleep?” “No, you sit” he said, pointing to me again. “No. Pay money – sleep,” I said, rubbing forefingers and thumbs together to indicate cold hard cash. “No, you sit,” he said again. I gave up. “Where I sit?” I asked deflatedly. He pointed down the track. I knew that was the best I was going to get for information as to where exactly my seat might be so I set off, trying to decipher the ticket. Of course the ticket was in Greek or Finn or whatever so I couldn’t decipher little things like “car” and “number”. Distinguishable Latin derivatives disappeared a long time ago.
I walked the length of the train, peering in the cars for someplace empty of people and full of sleep potential. Then I spotted it, an empty car, with a section glassed off and seats lined along the walls instead of two by two rows. Translation – BED! It was like my very own room. I was elated. I grabbed a row of seats and settled in – proud of my triumph. As it turned out I was in the dog car – yes dog car. How apropos. I was joined over the next few stops by a variety of canines each sporting the same breed of owner. I asked the person who belonged to the black and white border-collie look-alike if it was a Border Collie. She said no, he was a hunting dog. “Hunting?” I asked. “Yes,” she responded, “he hunt Elk and Bear.” “What?!” “Yes,” she stopped and looked up to the right to check her recollection of English vocabulary, “Yes, he hunt Elk and Bear. He bark. Bear stop. Men come, shoot bear.” We’re not in Kansas anymore Toto….
A few minutes later an alien came in. No really. Remember the “Men in Black” dog? The pug with the really bizarre face. Make him brown, keep the face, but give him a Chihuahua body. He was the strangest little dog I’ve ever seen – except perhaps the dog in Barcelona that was so bizarre looking I had to stop and take a picture. The girl with the alien dog arrived huffing and puffing, gibbering on in Greek or Finnish or something, ninety miles a minute with great enthusiasm as she turned her head like back and forth like an owl, looking first at me and then at the girl on the other side of the car. Suddenly she stopped talking and looked at me in that way that lets you know you are now supposed to contribute to the conversation. I smiled and said, “uh, I speak English…. but I take it something went wrong, you were sure there was no way you were going to make the train, you had to run all the way here, and you don’t know what you would have done if you hadn’t made it.” She said, “Exactly, you understand Finnish very well.” I laughed, “No, I’ve run to catch a lot of trains. I recognize the huffing and puffing!” They laughed. I don’t think because they actually understood but because it appeared from my inflection and pause that I had made a joke. That was the end of our conversation.
The dogs got acquainted in typical fashion. I don’t know about you, but I’d be scared poopless if I were a Chihuahua and a bear-hunting dog was sniffing my testicles! Maybe he was confident in his alien powers to tame the bear hunter. The girls chatted awhile then we all stretched out to sleep, or at least attempt to sleep. I don’t know if they were pumping air conditioning into the train or if the temperature outside had plummeted below 0 degrees, but it was frickin’ freezing. At various points in the night’s attempt at sleep, I had pulled out a sweater, my sleep sack, and the towel/blanket that has been taking up space the entire trip, thankful I hadn’t sent it home. As if the cold wasn’t enough for my skaters’ knees that got 80 years of use in my 8 years as an ice-skater and now feel like they are 88, these are the ricketiest, squeakiest, most jolting trains I have ever been on. It was like trying to sleep with a fifteen year old learning to drive stick in an army tank. Headphones helped the squeaking – now if I could only sleep through hitting the floor when the conductor would just hit his breaks for no reason. I swear he was messing with us for fun. Or maybe breaking for bears.
It was about 3:30 a.m. when the sun’s rays began gracing the horizon. At the next stop a pretty little husky-like dog came into our compartment – one part dog and fourteen parts fur – it was like a husky wearing an extra fur coat. How I envied that fur coat. I decided to believe it really was morning, after all there was sun, and headed to the bathroom to brush my teeth and the restaurant car to pay the highway robbery price of 2 euro for a thimble-sized coffee. For two hours of writing I never saw anything but evergreens and an occasional electric pole – and the pixels in my computer screen every time the conductor braked and I flew forward.
Interestingly, the scenery inside the train was also unchanging. With the exception of two extremely drunk young men, everyone on the train was twenty-something and blonde. Nope, erase that image in your mind right now. These were “farm bred” girls and sired by the same ‘pa’ from the looks of it. Every single one had hair blonder than mine, stood about 5’8”, and weighed about two hundred pounds. It was like a Wisconsin boy’s worst nightmare, a class full of blondes and none he wants to be locked in a dark room with - he’d feel like a poor alien Chihuahua dog getting his testicles sniffed by a bear hunter…
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