[SKRIVA] Mission: Finncon (I)

A half-eaten potato salad is staring me in the face. I know I have to finish 
it, or else I won't have the strength to finish my Finnish Mission: Finncon. I 
brace myself.
  How did I get here? I tell you how.
  The place is the club house of the Turku (Åbo in Swedish) SF Society. After 
deliberating travellintg options, I found that going through Turku would save 
me a whole bunch of money. The ferry to Helsinki would be almost twice as 
expensive, while the bus Turku-Tampere would be about the same price. It was a 
most beautiful day. The sune shone like almost never tis rainy summer.
  The ferry, M/S Isabella of Viking Line, was packed with people, so many I'm 
sure some must have been left behind. There were long lines behind me as I 
finished my check-in, some 7-8 minutes before the ferry was to leave. It left 
on time.
  I took half an hour's nap in the aeroplane chairs in the TV room and then 
filled up with two boxes of Danish beer in the taxfree shop. Started Neil 
McAleer's Arthur C Clarke biography - "authorised", which means that the author 
won't write anything that might upset Sir Arthur. But it could be interesting 
anyway.
  On the aft deck a troubadour sang pop songs.He did a decent job fighting the 
wind and people's indifference. He did some Beatles, some Dylan, even ABBA's 
"Dacing Queen" (which becomes quite different with just a voice and a guitar).
  A friend has borrowed me his 8-9 years 3 kg laptop with an installed WiFi 
card. It's not state of the art, but it works very nicely, and on the streets 
of Stockholm you can easily, say, every 200 metres find an "open" wireless 
network. It's my intention to continue filing reports from Mission: Finncon, 
possibly through this WiFi laptop (but this is written on an ordinary computer 
in the HQ of the Turku SF Society). Viking Line had, I noticed, a wireless 
network called "Isabella Cafe", but the info desk said I couldn't log into it, 
because it was for staff use only. Don't they realise they'd have a huge 
competitive edge by offering passengers net access?
  And they'd need an edge, because this ferry ride was sloppily done. I've 
been going on these ferries perhaps 30 times, perhaps more, and they may be 5-
10 minutes late. This ferry was 40 minutes late, later than any ferry I have 
experienced. The staff (I asked) blamed it on their evil competitor, Silja 
Line, who had a big ferry squeezing in before them in Mariehamn (of Åcon fame) 
just before them. Evil, evil, evil Silja!
  This made my program for Turku a bit time-pressed. I followed the tips I got 
that you could take the train one station from the harbour, and they wouldn't 
have time to check the tickets for that short bit. It saved me perhaps 2 km of 
walking, and I now had perhaps 2 km more to find the Turku SF Society. That 
wasn't easy! I early on found the small street where they were supposed to have 
their club house. But I can tell you that on the streets of Turku the knowledge 
among common men about the benefits of - even the existence of - the Turku SF 
Society leaves something to be desired. Finally, after almost forcing myself 
through a looked door, I found the club house. About half a dozen people, 
including my friend Pasi, was there. I had been told this was a meeting of the 
Turku "Mafia" (they call it that; I don't know if the Turku SF Society has some 
interest in "protection", "laundry" and the like) among them people from the 
Swedish speaking SF Society. We fell into the habit of me speaking Swedish and 
they answering me in English. (The others wanted me to, to practice their 
Swedish; most Finns will understand Swedish, which they pick up from school and 
the 6% Swedish speaking minority).
  And after the meeting was over, I dug out my sleeping bag, Pasi showed me 
this computer and left (warning me not to set fire to the place; a nice place 
stackled with shelves of books, fanzines and videos, perhaps 25-30 square 
metres - they eg host the Tom Ölander fanzine collection, peace over the memory 
of my good friend Tom of Finland, his country's No 1 Fan) and I had some good 
sleep in a sofa. After eating half a potato salad.
  It will be interesting to go to Tampere (Tammerfors in Swedish), because 
this is the first time ever the Finncon is held there. Finncon is after all, 
give or take, the perhaps second biggest regular sf convention of the world, 
with 3-5000 attendees - after Worldcon, but before eg Eastercon or Eurocon. 
(Perhaps some US non-Worldcon con is bigger, and certainly some media cons, but 
I don't count those.)
  Signing off for now. I always feel very comfortable in this very friendly 
and beautiful country of Finland, potato salad or not. Hyvä Suomi!

--Ahrvid
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