Foreign Finland

I feel like I've been abducted by aliens. I'm in this strange, bleak place where people speak in monosyllabic grunts, but the written language uses 20 characters for every word; where the architecture is a mixture of gray, Soviet cinderblocks and modern, glass confections. Where my "sea-view" hotel looks out over a harbor filled with shipping containers and cranes, and everything is closed on Sundays. Hmmm, Finland.

I think the Eastern block and I just don't really jibe. There's nowhere in the world where I feel more foreign. There are places that should feel much more foreign to me: the Middle East, Asia or Africa, where I look really different from the natives and I don't know the customs. But these places tend to be warm, colorful, crowded and loud, and I understand that. I don't get quiet, closed, cold and gray.

Finland is technically Scandinavian, but its Russian heritage gives it a feeling wholly different from Sweden, Denmark and Norway. I'm going to dig in a little over the next five days and see if I can get to know it, but for right now, I might as well be in outer space.