Antwerp to Tallinn - Grounded: A Down to Earth Journey Around the World - page 23

I take the opposite view. A shipwreck is scarier, because my own decisions could determine my survival.
I just imagine myself trapped shivering in some flooding chamber, awaiting my end, ruing my choice to
take a left down that corridor instead of a right.

IT'S getting toward midnight, and the ship is due to arrive in Helsinki at 6:00 tomorrow morning. Going
to sleep now would mean a return to our seats in the “room of despair,” as Rebecca has dubbed it. We just
can't bring ourselves to ever go down there again.
Instead, we find a table at one of the onboard nightclubs, check out the drinks menu, and order shots of
an obscure Estonian liqueur made from tree bark. Surprisingly tasty. The first pleasant surprise on the ship.
Over the course of the next two hours, we swallow several more shots. There's a band here playing cheesy
Europop, and an older Finnish couple is dancing to the electro-beat. We're digging the vibe, as well as the
tingle of the bark booze.
Around 2:00 a.m., when we can hold our eyes open no longer, we curl up on a pair of benches in a far
corner of the lounge. The music has stopped now, and only a few stragglers still sit at the tables. Within
moments, we start drifting off to sleep. If only we'd had this brilliant idea last night. Sleeping in a public
lounge is way better than suffering through the dense, foul air of that jail cell a few decks below.
At 5:30 a.m., a thin morning light comes trickling through the windows of the lounge. Rebecca blinks
open her eyes and finds there is a strange man sitting about eight feet away, staring intently at her face.
He's a little bald fellow, maybe sixty years old, wearing sandals with black socks. He's angled his chair so
it points straight at Rebecca. He must have been watching her while she slept.
Rebecca nudges me awake. I rub my eyes and soon become aware of her creepy admirer. Without a
word, Rebecca and I stand and walk quickly toward the other end of the ship.

THE ferry arrives at the dock in Helsinki a little after 6:00 a.m. Having spent the last three nights attempting
to sleep in a wide variety of subpar conditions, all we desire at this point is to check into a hotel, shower
away the last seventy-two hours, and crash into a deep, fully horizontal slumber. Tragically, no hotels will
make a room available for us until after noon. So we trudge the streets like zombies, bent forward under
the weight of our packs.
When the Helsinki City Museum opens for the day, we are the very first visitors through its doors. We
make a beeline for a bench in a distant, quiet exhibit hall, far from the entrance. Here we sink into sleep,
leaning our shoulders against one another, running the risk of being mistaken for vagrants. We manage a
forty-five-minute nap, during which not a single soul enters the room.
When we wake, feeling vaguely refreshed, we glance around at the dusty display cases all around us. I'm
pleased to find them chock-full of more wacky medieval Euro-lore. Helsinki's civic history is rife with tales
of fire-breathing dragons and shape-shifting goblins. Also, there's mention of something termed a “dung
fork.” I have no idea what this is and am afraid to Google it for fear that the search results will include
some searingly traumatic images.
After further hours spent dawdling in bookstores and coffee shops, we eventually manage to check in to
a hotel, wash up, and feel human again. That night for dinner we meet up with our friend Andrew, who's
been vacationing in Europe and e-mailed us with a plan to rendezvous here in Helsinki. Together we spend
the next couple of days strolling around the city.
My first impression of Helsinki is that it looks like a TV commercial for a high-end optician. Everyone
here seems to favor complex, rhomboid, asymmetrical eyewear. Also, everybody's very tall and