Fanit

Fanit 07/16/2004 04:46 AM

When the olympic flame came through Helsinki, a few of us took it as a good excuse to go up to Linnanmäki to have some fun. In some silly nostalgic sense, I also wanted to see it since it went through St. Louis as this year is the centennial for the 1904 Olympics which were held at the World's Fair. It's a really goofy idea to think there was a shred of connection between me and my home town there but, well, noone ever said emotions had to be rational or non-goofy. I've been away from home so many times and for so long that I'm onto that con job where you think you're homesick, go home and, as soon as you arrive, are ready to leave. I prefer to think of it as missing the familiar since Finland could import all the yankee pop culture it could get its hands on and still be a mostly unfamiliar place.

I took the opportunity to take a few photographs of the stage and the flame cauldron before the crowds arrived and some girls sitting on the benches started shouting at me in Finnish to take their picture, which I didn't pay much attention to. Then the girls started shouting, "Do you speak Finnish?!", in English which I purposefully ignored :) They switched back to Finnish again so, as I was leaving I turned around and took their picture. Apparently, they were all there to see Antti Tuisku, the Finnish Idols champion[?], whom I'm completely unfamiliar with but he looks like pure teenage crush material. :) The t-shirt on the left, the "Antti sä oot niin WOW!" [Antti, you are so WOW!], continues to crack me up. I can't remember if I had any teenage crushboy, but I did have an odd lust for Spock.

I had to crop the photo a bit since I was in too much of a hurry to switch rolls for a paying gig I had and managed to forget to rewind the roll before I tried to reload. The Leica has a sub-optimal spool for this sort of mishap since it has 3 prongs instead of a toothed barrel so this is why there are streaks on the top. I'm not much with photoshop and I rarely do any photoshopping or cropping, but I think this one required it. I gave the girls my email address since they asked if they could have a copy, but maybe they lost it in all the excitment or the laundry so...if anyone recognizes these very cute girls, tell them to come see their photo with my apologies that it's a little wonky.

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