marksouthbend's insane travels

Finland/Shane´s birthday
Shane turned 30 years old yesterday. He had mentioned a couple of days earlier that it was coming, but I forgot, and I guess we all had. I have not often known during this trip what date or day of the week it is, but I wish I would have taken note of his birthday and tucked it away. That would have really shown I care. Despite my failure, though, I think I do care, and the day went well.

Shane woke up on his 30th birthday on an island in Lake Saimaa near Lappeenranta, Finland. He´s 50% Finnish, his dad is pure Finnish, so turning 30 in Finland might mean something. I´m not sure what it means, but you don´t have to know exactly what to know something is special. Kimmo deposited us on the island the night before with groceries, the power of handheld fire, our packs, and a borrowed axe to fend for ourselves. It had been raining earlier in the day, so the fire took a long time to start and demanded near constant nurturing. Nevertheless, when Kimmo picked us up the next day, we had a big pile of ashes, our food was cooked and eaten in a manly, primitive way, and we could hold our heads high.

We treated Shane to a birthday meal later in the day at a Mexican restaurant in Joensuu, Finland. The biggest element of birthday surprise that we could build in at the last minute was to order dessert in advance and have it delivered to our table at meal´s end with no prior warning for Shane. And I also borrowed a sombrero from the wall and clapped and sang obnoxiously, since the wait staff in Finland was unfamiliar with their duties in this regard.

Then we went to see Die Hard 4, which we talked about doing every time we saw one of the posters for it plastered across Europe. I had a good time listening to Shane laughing. He laughs hard at the appropriate times--at built in comic relief, but even harder at inappropriate times, like when something is just way, way cool.

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