Here's a picture of the eminently great thank you gift that my friend Mike gave me in return for driving him up to and then five weeks later back from the Montreal airport. He was often to visit his wife in Estonia and was, as is often the case for us living in Vermont, flying out of Montreal. He was not required to get me a gift, obviously, but for a long time he and I have had this tradition where the drivee always brings the driver a shirt from where we went. Normally our only rule is that the tshirt has to be completely random and relate to nothing. For instance, one time he brought me back a dive shop tshirt, even though neither he nor I scuba dive. With this gift he clearly raised the bar:
Mike and his wife had made a side trip to Finland, and thus the souvenir Finland hockey jersey (which I foresee as a staple for all future Winter Four Sport Triathlons). For those not in the know, and that included me until yesterday, Suomi is what Fins actually call their country. No one is actually certainly where Suomi comes from, which is fine because there's not complete agreement upon the origins of the word Finland either (essentially, people inside of Finland don't call Finland Finland, they call it Suomi, but the Fins, being kind souls, put both names on their international hockey jerseys to satisfy folks both inside and outside the country).
I feel in some ways this jersey has been fifteen years in the making because it reminds me of the famous/infamous Finlandia story from the summer I spent teaching in India. Because I've told the story many times I assumed that it was featured on some blog post or another, but I went back through my India posts and couldn't find anything (which is why I've tagged this post with the seemingly odd tag of India; now I feel like I need to go to Finland to justify a tag of Finland). Anyway, fifteen years ago when I taught in India I met these two European women who were backpacking across India, and we ended up bumming around for a couple days. They both assured me that they thought I could pass for Finnish (and I don't think they were trying to pick me up because, 1) I'm me, and 2) even by my ridiculously low standards that a terrible pickup line). Fast forward several weeks later when I was approaching the end of my time in India, and I was clearly exhausted of Indian merchants or touts pestering me (assuming that someone this big must be awash in disposable cash). Touts would routinely plop down next to you and ask where you were from, and then the process would begin of getting into your pocket. So, thinking back on what the women had told me, I had this inspiration to say: "Finlandia!" The idea being that I understood just enough English to grasp that I was being asked a question, but not enough to haggle or negotiate. I didn't want to must make up a country, but I also wanted to choose a country that while people would be familiar with it there would be a very small chance they would speak the language. Oddly, this ridiculous scheme worked. That said, since Fins refer to their country as Suomi and not Finland, I was actually giving myself away as both a rube and a faker.
Mike and his wife had made a side trip to Finland, and thus the souvenir Finland hockey jersey (which I foresee as a staple for all future Winter Four Sport Triathlons). For those not in the know, and that included me until yesterday, Suomi is what Fins actually call their country. No one is actually certainly where Suomi comes from, which is fine because there's not complete agreement upon the origins of the word Finland either (essentially, people inside of Finland don't call Finland Finland, they call it Suomi, but the Fins, being kind souls, put both names on their international hockey jerseys to satisfy folks both inside and outside the country).
I feel in some ways this jersey has been fifteen years in the making because it reminds me of the famous/infamous Finlandia story from the summer I spent teaching in India. Because I've told the story many times I assumed that it was featured on some blog post or another, but I went back through my India posts and couldn't find anything (which is why I've tagged this post with the seemingly odd tag of India; now I feel like I need to go to Finland to justify a tag of Finland). Anyway, fifteen years ago when I taught in India I met these two European women who were backpacking across India, and we ended up bumming around for a couple days. They both assured me that they thought I could pass for Finnish (and I don't think they were trying to pick me up because, 1) I'm me, and 2) even by my ridiculously low standards that a terrible pickup line). Fast forward several weeks later when I was approaching the end of my time in India, and I was clearly exhausted of Indian merchants or touts pestering me (assuming that someone this big must be awash in disposable cash). Touts would routinely plop down next to you and ask where you were from, and then the process would begin of getting into your pocket. So, thinking back on what the women had told me, I had this inspiration to say: "Finlandia!" The idea being that I understood just enough English to grasp that I was being asked a question, but not enough to haggle or negotiate. I didn't want to must make up a country, but I also wanted to choose a country that while people would be familiar with it there would be a very small chance they would speak the language. Oddly, this ridiculous scheme worked. That said, since Fins refer to their country as Suomi and not Finland, I was actually giving myself away as both a rube and a faker.
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