bashed, befuddled, boozed up,

Holy hell my liver is crocked! Thank goodness I don't have to have any frickin blood tests for a while. I have learned something new though. Green stuff is bad. Very very bad. Okay not all green stuff..lettuce is okay, green beans, broccoli, asparagus... Liquid green stuff is deadly however.

K and D arrived on Friday evening after the thunderstorms from hell cleared out complete with a thank you gift of Kraft Mac N Cheese!!! Earlier the rain was coming down in sheets to the point where it was like white out conditions. I seriously think D is a rain magnet. After Cal-ass and Brugggearafdfvaergaerg (whatever the hell that city in Belgium is called) he brought it to Finland. At any rate,we all decided to go have a few cocktails. It is only fitting after they flew from the UK...libations would be required! We walked to Hotel Torni and went upstairs to the tower bar. That is when the boy saw the bottle, the bottle that will be the bane of my existance from now on. Folks, Absinthe is deadly stuff. Flaming green absinthe shots that D said would taste like a Good 'N Plenty but burn a "bit". A bit?!?! Okay he didn't say a "bit"..but I wasn't expecting the firey decent of this stuff (even without the flames) down my esophagus and searing every centimeter of my intestines as it worked is way thru my tummy. 15 minutes later I was right and truly drunk. Fastest drunk I ever got. But we continued on bravely consuming more alcohol for a few hours and discussing Kevin Bacon. Hey..I did say we drank absinthe..what were you expecting a dissertation on EU polotics while weighing the positives and negatives of a socialistic society as it relates to Finland?? As it was only, at that point, 2 AM and the bar staff really wanted to go home, we moved onto another bar called Bakers where we proceeded to continue drinking copious amounts of alcohol and discuss all manner of things which slip my mind right now. It was also a night for the traditional drunken Fusche phone call to my Sug in San Diego :) She puts up with so many drunk calls from me :) We finally dragged our behinds back to the flat at 4:30 :) Just in time to make little munchy tummies happy with ham, cherry tomato goodness, cheese, crackers etc.

Saturday Morning was not a good morning. Okay it was 12 minutes before noon, so it still counts as morning. Everyone was hung over, the firey ball in the sky (which Beth has termed the Day Star) hurt our eyes and we needed new shoes. The weather was okay..but D was in the house recovering from a combination of his cold and the green icky death stuff he made us drink, therefore the rain held off until, funny enough, he started feeling better. We proceeded to go to Saga and D experienced bear and smokey tennis court (Finnish tar shnapps). The weather was just starting to spit a bit of rain when we went into the restaurant. However, when we were eating it proceded to come down sideways and hard. Again..D is a rain magnet. The wine there proved to be total shite. I mean really..who knew a Cote du Rhone could taste like water. We actually sent the bottle back! That thing was horrible. Even though we all vowed we were "not gonna drink and f&%¤ing Merlot!!"... we did. It was the only semi full bodied wine in there that we were pretty certain wouldn't suck eggs. When we left the restaurant we headed to Storyville to listen to a swing band. Just as a note for anyone going there..go early and get a table. That place packs up right and quick..not to mention annoying people not knowing the meaning of personal space and practically sitting in D's lap or humping his leg because they have no concept of HOW to dance let alone what a beat is. The band was called Fat Sam's. Really quite a good band. They had the place jumpin... A nice selection of good swing music and some really nice guys in the band. American Swing in a Finnish bar played by a Scottish band?!!? Yep and it was good.

It finally proved to be waaaaaaaaaay to crowded and annoying to us so we went upstairs to the piano bar (with no piano player), had another drink and then headed back to the house. 3/4 of the way there I realized I forgot my bag at the bar with my cell in it. I hauled butt back there and got it. Run run run, wheeze wheeze wheeze..I make it back to the gang. Tummies decide they are hungry..so K, D and I go to the little all night grill joint around the corner from my flat to get a burger. BIG mistake. The nastiest, sloppiest, goopiest, icky combination of crap you could ever imagine was loaded into this "burger". It was practically soup with a bit of meat! Needless to say..our tummies were not as pleased with this!

Sunday...rain, rain and more rain. We opted to cook breakfast (brunch folks as it was 1:30 in the afternoon) and watch a DVD while Noah built the ark and we all got loaded 2 by 2 into it. Not kidding..I was going to grow webbed feet! DVD was DOGMA...Kevin Smith rocks. We have all seen it before, but let's face it..that is one great flick.

Sunday night - Ravintola Garlic :) Yum Yum Yum. We ended up consumig 2 bottles of wine at dinner - oh and I forgot to mention the 2 we had at the house before we left. The pattern here is becoming clear to me... After dinner we walked to Ahven (a bar close by) and had an after dinner drink - which I proceded to dump some of it onto myself with no idea how I did it. Walked home and put our little bums to bed as K and D had a flight at half past OH MY GOD in the morning back to the UK.

...my liver hurts.... 6 weeks from now..Italy!!!! I think my liver will have recovered by then...