A short discourse on alcohol in Finland.
Alcohol in Finland is EXPENSIVE. It was expensive before, but then the government levied an additional tax on it because the Finns are a bunch of drunks. Seriously. It is not at all unusual to see someone on the Metro halfway through a case of beer at 9am. The Finns love, love, love to drink.
Hard alcohol and wine has to be bought at an Alco Shop. I've never been in one, never had any need, but as far as I can tell they carry just about every alcohol imaginable, including nasty as Salmiaki liquor. [Salmiaki is a Finnish "candy". The closest I can come to describing it is imagine licorice soaked overnight in brine.]
The grocery stores is where you can buy beer, cider, that sort of thing. Beer is, well, beer. Most of it is dark and it all basically tastes the same. Cider is a bit more interesting. Finns like their cider sweet. Thus, you can buy regular apple cider, but also pear, grape, raspberry, and, most confusingly, pineapple. I wouldn't recommend the pineapple. There is also one kind of dry apple cider. Your third choice of alcohol is the Long Drink. What a long drink is, exactly, remains a mystery. Long drinks come in orange, lime, grape, and strawberry. They are approximately the color of water after you drop a highliter in it. Mmm, tasty. I think the alcohol in them is gin, but I could be wrong. No one really knows, but they are 10 cents cheaper than the cider, so people drink them. The orange isn't too bad, really. Imagine Tang made with gin instead of water and you have it about right.
The long drinks run about 1,80 for a can about the size of an Arizona Iced Tea, and the ciders run about 1,90.
I have no idea how much beer is, because a case of beer is not a fixed construct. Its entirely common for people to rip open cases of beer and buy individual cans, or make a case of 3 of one kind, 9 of another, and the rest of another. That shit would not fly in Food Lion, I guarantee it.

I emerged from my cave of sick today.I had an interview at 2 with a woman from the department of English, she is doing a research project on living and studying in Finland when you don't speak Finnish. I know how hard it is to find people to interview, so I figured I would go. It was actually kind of fun talking with her, and I'm glad I went.
After the interview, I was bound and determined to take pictures. I hadn't taken any pictures of the pretty part of the city, but that is now rectified, and by the time you read this they will all be up in convenient album form on Facebook. I wandered by the Helsinki City Museum, which I had been by before. It is free admission, and I didn't have anywhere else to be so I went in. It was a lot bigger than I expected, and really quite interesting. Definitely worth the money, I would have even donated a few euro if there had been a box. I spent an hour in there, it was 2 1/2 floors worth of stuff. There is a used book shop next to it, but I wanted to take pictures and I knew if I went in there that would be another hour gone. I am going to go in one day.
I took pictures down by the harbor, and went in the only tacky giftshop in the city. One room of Russian stuff, one of Finland.
On the steps of the Cathedral someone had trudged "I <3 ANNA" in the snow, it was really sweet. It must have taken forever and I hope she appreciated it. In my mind it was some sort of elaborate marriage proposal.
After picture taking I came back home, stopping by Lidl for random groceries. I think there is some sort of something special in Kamppi today, because there were banners and balloons. The girls giving them out wouldn't give me one though, which made me sad.
On tomorrows agenda is buying pants, doing laundry, and going to the Posti to mail Bryan's letter and buy stamps for future use.

Some random thoughts:
This city is really well equipped for blind people. All the crosswalks in the centre beep slowly when you can't cross, and then when you can it speeds up. Also, in Kamppi, there are metal dots on the ground that lead from the train terminal to all the different bus stops. I hadn't thought about it, but I saw a blind mad today run his cane along them to find where to go. Thats so smart.

Being sick in Finland is not like being sick anywhere else. I'm living in a 1st world country, one of the nicest places to live in the world. Yet I can't but toilet paper/tissues that don't feel like sandpaper. Why is this? Everything here is fucking recycled. Everything. I couldn't buy cold meds because I didn't speak the language, and after someone told me what to buy I still couldn't buy them because I couldn't find an open apoptek. Why? Because its Finland, and things close for fun.
Luckily, I have a Latvian friend who speaks Finnish and could tell me how to make the instant potatoes I bought. I still had to wing it because everything here is measured in metric, and I have no metric measuring utensils. Why? Because I can't fucking figure out where to buy them. I would literally kill for a Target. I live next to the biggest shopping center in Finland and can't buy measuring cups. Or scissors. Not, I can't find a pair that aren't ridiculously expensive, I CAN'T FUCKING FIND ANY.
On the upside, the street musicians here make me happy. There is a hobo band, comprised of a trumpet player, 2 accordionists, and what appears to be a mandolin with too many strings. They are awesome. I walk by them almost every day to go to class. At the end of the semester I'm going to through like 10e in the hat for always making me smile. My favorite is when the trumpet player plays "When The Saints Go Marching In" and the others play "Let It Be". Its special.
One another front, what all do you want from Finland? Ash, I know what I'm getting you, I just need your t-shirt size. Nickie, I know you want a bust of Lenin paperweight. What about the others? I can also probably score something from Cairo as well.