Good Grief....

So, about tonight....our group is getting ready to leave the big city (population 200K) of Tampere tomorrow to head out to a smaller town known as Akäa. As a going away treat I thought that I would go on a walk about to see what I could find.....I started out towards city center. All was well as I made my way to a pub I found a couple of nights ago. The place is kind of a cross between CBGB and the trailhead, punk music in the back, cheap beers in the quaint. Lucky for me it happened to be karokee night. Euro ´trash´abound, and me in the corner enjoying my Koff (Finish beer...quite good actually), until an oversized version of Roseann Barr came to my table side and started spouting some sort of Finnish jibberish (and I use that term lightly considering their language in general) that was referencing the song being ´performed´. Luckily I was able to fend off such attack by shifting gears and heading into "me no speaky finny" routine. Once I found the bottom of that pint it was time to begin the cross town navigation back to my host family. Upon the way I spotted a British pub called Henri´s. I thought, "what the heck...I like Brit´s...let's give it a try". In I went....long story short, it turns out that telling people you are a ´football´coach in an English bar is a good idea (despite the fact it´s an entirely sperate sport in the states). After a couple rounds of house drinks it is defiently time to head to the barn. I get up and leave and make my way under the city center bridge in route to my host family. Along the way I spot a late night food kiosk. I think to myself...."what the hell, if nothing else I can burn up some of these euro coins that are weighing my pants down. The menu, as expected, is all in Finnish. I look things over carefully and order the ´kabab pulidsnfoisndfinsdofnoiandfonasiond´, thinking that this is going to be the equivelent of a turkish kabab, or at worst a gyro. No, it turns out that it´s an onion covered cooney the shape of CA.....just what I needed right? So, €4 later I am thinking to myself there must be some sort of reason I was served this....here is what I came up with....

A) A kabab is so middle eastern that Finland has yet to adopt it as a food and is in fact serving their interpretation of the dish as such.....
B) Finland hasn´t yet got over the fact that we (USA) were less than receptive to helping them out in the world wars due to the cold temperatures.......
C) Condi Rice and Co. (GWBush) have bloody messed things up so much in the international arena that americans abroad can in fact order one thing and receive something totally different as punishment for our global mess.

You make the call....

JP