Sat 02/28/09 (Day 28) - Fisu

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After such a lazy Friday night I got up and wandered down to the lobby for breakfast. I just grabbed an apple, an orange and a carafe of coffee to take to my room. With coffee in hand I ended up making the morning very productive, catching up on emails, blogs, bills, etc.

I finished up the chores and snuck out to Celtic House for a late lunch. They have a good club sandwich, but not so good a selection of English reading material. My buddy Jussi wasn't working when I got there, but showed up soon. He caught me reading the only English magazine they had which was something similar to Cosmo in America. After defending myself by stating it's the only English stuff they had he went out and bought me some new English magazines. Good place.

Having dinner plans I cut my Celtic House time short and hurried back to the hotel to clean up. A friend I'd connected with on Facebook, who now lives in Tampere had invited me to dinner with a group of friends. We were meeting beforehand for a drink so I didn't have to show up to a large group of people of which I knew no one. I quite appreciated that. The group was very fun, and eclectic. It ended up that not many people knew each other as a lot of people had brought a new friend or two. There were some Finnish folks, a couple American guys, a couple Chinese girls, a Dutch girl and a Swedish guy. We ate at Astor, which I enjoy, save for the snooty waiter that gave me a hard time for leaving my credit card... But he wasn't there so who cares!

After dinner we moved to a pub for some more drinks. I switched from wine to cider and just had generally good conversation. A few drinks later we moved to a club called Tabu which is connected to Esperanza, a restaurant I've eaten at before. Now I switched to Lonkero, and still being sober enough to realize that the dance floor isn't for me, I retired to the cigar lounge. In the cigar lounge I met a couple of Finns who convinced me I need to try Fisu. It's Koskenkorva (Kossu) vodka with ground up Fisherman's Friends (very, very high in menthol) cough drops mixed into it. Unlike the cough drops this did not make me feel better after I drink it. I suggest trying it earlier in the night. That was the end of my night... Or was it morning?

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Photos

Ravintola Astor
It was dark, but we did our best to get a picture.