Polttarit

So last weekend was fun, filled with Finnish drinking traditions. Thursday after a paintball battle in the forest with my work mates, was a celebration of the end of my good friend Antti's life, as he is now called "dad" for the first time. Apparently it is Finnish tradition for the men to drink the night away when a new baby is born.... while the wife is still at the hospital. Okay, I am sure that sounds worse then it is, but it sounds kinda funny. Anyway, it was just a small gathering with drinks and Finnish trivial pursuit. I am not good at Finnish trivial pursuit.

Then the next day I left work early for a friend's bachelor party. They are done a little bit different here. Of course it depends on the best man, but its much more then the cliché going-out-to-bars-all-night. This was planned, secret, and lasted all weekend. The bachelor doesn't even know when the party is, other then it will happen before the wedding. So Janne should had been a little surprised when the work meeting he attended Friday was in fact some of his friends there to kidnap him and place him on a train alone with his phone and wallet locked in a lock box with no key. There were many activities planned for him, the first was motorbike riding. Someone had a dirt bike, and we rented a track for him to learn to ride and have some fun. They had been off on the track out of site for sometime when the ambulance showed up. Oops. It looked as if the whole weekend might be ending after only a few hours. Turned out that he lost control and dislocated his knee, so professional help was called in to fix it. But after a side trip to the hospital, Janne was ready to continue the festivities, be it in a brace with crutches. I think if it was me, I would have just wanted to go home. Maybe its that "sisu" stuff...

The rest of the weekend was fairly uneventful - though when we took him to the shooting range I had a laugh watching him sit in a chair while taking shoots with the rifle. Right out of some stereotypical movie taking place in the South. Two nights in a cabin with good food, sauna, and good company makes for a good weekend. But it took me most of the week to recover. This weekend is empty, how I wanted it, leaving time for me to post...