lupestripe's lair

Apart from visiting yet another Finnish sex shop (I have now been to four - they're everywhere here) the daytime yesterday was largely uneventful. As I am unsure what I can and can't bring back into the UK (particulalry on the extreme bondage side of things) I decided to forgoe any major purchases (that's not to say I didn't buy anything though hehe). Hiru bought an ultra gay pink muir cap thing, which is ultra camp, particularly when he is wearing it :P

Hiru and I also spent the day touring around the suburbs of Tampere. The pine trees here are splendid and are a beautiful backdrop to a beautiful city. I always believe you don't truly know a city until you explore its outskirts so it was great to have a nosey with Hiru.

We then went to Golden Rax - a pizza buffet like Pizza Hut. This is like Hesburger, a Finnish chain in an American market, but there are now Pizza Huts here yet. Golden Rax was very nice but I ate meat for the first time in three years (pepperoni). It then proceeded to make me ill so I won't be doing that again in a hurry. Apart from that, it was very much like Pizza Hut but it lacked a character like my good friend Pizza Pooch who is so adorable, you could just nom him up.

After this, we picked up Rekace from the train station after travelling from Helsinki. We made it back to the flat after buying many alcoholic drinks and cheese from the local supermarket. Heavy licquors (anything greater than about 12% I think) can only be bought until 8pm in government controlled stores and I wonder if such a punitive measure will be introduced in the UK. Not that it would work as I saw two bouts of alcohol fuelled violence in a Finnish bar last night, proving that we really are no worse than other places in Europe.

The drinking last night, both in the flat and in the pub, was immense. I won at Trivial Pursuit again and as we entered the pub a guy was singing karaoke to Fear Of The Dark by Iron Maiden. I hadn't seen a rock n roll karaoke before, merely cheesey pop tripe, so it was refreshing to hear. Hiru sang a Finnish song and I toyed with the idea of giving it a go (in Finnish too for a laugh) but decided to play TP instead. This was probably for the best as word was going around about the "only English speaking guy" and when I was in the toilet a guy started speaking  Finnish at me and when I said that I didn't understand, all he said was "Everything is fucked" and then stormed out.

In the bar Yin and I (Hiru and Rekace had gone home by this point) got talking to a group of ladies who were fascinated with my being English (that's an amazing part of travel, you suddenly become interesting) and we chatted to the two of them, as well as one of their fiances and his brother. When it was time to leave, Yin and I walked one of them back home to her apartment as the other one had to leave quickly after puking up all over herself. It turned out she was married too (she only us that once we got her home) but she was getting all drunk and huggy. She wanted more than that but I refused to provide it (for many reasons but mainly because of my commitment to Wolfie and the fact I didn't want a 15 stone bloke at my front door threatening to rearrange my face). Yin spent a bit of time snogging though.

After this, we were both quite drunk so went down to the lake (yeah, health and safety out of the window, like one of those "A British tourist drowned in a lake today, believed to be drunk" affairs) and skimmed stones across it. In the early morning light (the sun doesn't really rise here, it never really sets and never gets dark at this time of year) we saw the scape of Tampere in the mist and it was a very beautiful sight.

Lupe's Beer Watch
Olvi Tuplapukki 8.5% - A sweet, delicious high alcohol beer that must be the best I have now tasted in Finland. It tasted a bit like honey and went down so well :-)
A. Le Coq 6.5% - An Estonian high alcohol beer that I remember trying when in Tallinn in 2003. Sadly it came right after the Olvi so it was doomed from the start but this too was a gorgeous sweet beer that made me increase my faith in high alcohol lagers.
Saku - Not to be confused with the rice wine, this was a pleasant if unspectacular lager. Refreshing but it was the grooved textured can and the dark blue colour of it that had me swooning.
Finkbräu - A low alcohol (2.8%) taster. Very bland but what do you expect with low alcohol?
Krusovice - I think this is Czech. It certainly tasted Czech. It says it is Premium but it was no better than average. Think Carlsberg only slightly nicer.

Today's Lupe Shoot
There is a bar here called Ale Pupi - which sums me up rather well...