Oasis in the Darkness
One moment you had an almost late congressman Charlie Wilson type of social life and then dry like a Sahara Desert. Turning back to Finland hit really hard and wasn’t fun at all. As I mentioned in my article Culture Shock already on the plane flying to Helsinki, I had a serious doubt about what the hell I was doing. Well, you must live with your decisions, don’t you? One day at a time I went through the days. It’s not overstated to say my social life was nonexistent back in Finland. It was just me and everyday stuff to do, that’s all. Work and working out kept me going.
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Oasis
Before I left London, James and I agreed to keep in touch and he wanted to help me out in exchange I had helped him out with the gym and some other issues I knew rather well, James offered that he could arrange me regularly to England. Well, of course I agreed. So, soon I was back in England for long weekends, rushing to the Helsinki-Vantaa airport with my 1983 model Opel Kadet straight from work on Friday afternoon and landing to the Gatwick or Heathrow on the evening. Each time I flew back to Helsinki with first possible flight on Monday morning and straight to work. Gues how tired I was on Monday evening when I finally was at “home” around 9:30pm. But it was great to see James, his wife, and the folks who I had got to know while in London. As during those days, I kept all weekends off from work anyway, it was easy to just hop on to plane and have a weekend off. Usually, I spend two weekends in England but in some months, I was there for four weekend. Nobody was missing me anyway in Finland so, it was easy and great relief to be away. Don’t get me wrong, as fun it was always to go back, we didn’t spend the weekend just having some wild parties. I learned a lot during those weekends, and I think I was a bit helpful to my friends too. I admit that I wasn’t spitting into glass either! We raised some toasts on Sunday evening.
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领英推荐
Christmas 1996
Towards the end of the year, I was extremely busy at work during the weeks and working out. I was preparing myself for the National Championships for the next year. Must say that if I’d have such a schedule for a one month these days, I’d probably need a full week vacation, I woke up around 05:00. Was working from 8am till 19 or 21. I went to do my gym workout either in the middle of the day and back to work right after or went to gym after work. Either way, I was never home before 21:00 excluding those Fridays I was heading to England. On the evening of December 12th James called me on the evening and asked, “Jyrki, are you still planning to spend entire Christmas on your own like you mentioned earlier?” I replied, “Yeah, not going to visit my parents or anything. Why”? Then James continued. “Well, we talked about that last night at dinner and a strong consensus is that everyone would love to have you here”. I was completely flabbergasted so James continued. “Why don’t you come here? When do you need to be at work”? I was checking my calendar and replied, “I’m planning to be back at work on January 2nd”. James cleared his throat and responded. “Well, in that case my friend, you’re going to spend Christmas and New Year’s Eve with us”! That caught me as a surprise. “Are you sure James? You guys might want to kill me after so many days”. At this point we both laughed.
Thinking afterwards, spending that Christmas with James’s family, and surrounding all the friends was a double blessing. Why so? On December 20th after I left work and was parking my car in front of the local grocery store the damn gear box broke down! What an ending to the last working week of the year! I went by train to Tikkurila that evening and spent the night there at the hotel before my flight.
What can I say about that Christmas and the end of the year? It was awesome. We had a lot of fun.