Okay, so the title might be a bit misleading, but then again no one will really read this and so it doesn’t particularly matter. Basically this post is about the disturbingly talkative and slightly racist people I’ve met on the bus, Erik the Norwegian “ex” junkie – his insane advice, snus and accepting drugs from strangers.
As all non-homicidal schizophrenics know, no one ever goes on public transport to make friends. The people you sit next to are not your friends, nor do they want to be your friends. The world outside of the cinema – deadened by its lack of crazy antics, life changing first encounters and hilarious shenanigans – is where we live, breath and die. Preferably without making too much of a fuss along the way. For all the people who don’t have the money to buy a car or are too lazy to bike, buses are pretty much the only way to get from A to B.
The only reason you get on a bus is to get from A to B.
They’re uncomfortable, sticky and sometimes smell worse than piss.
Urinal rules apply:
If you have to, you sit [stand] next to a stranger. You don’t comment on their original odour, their dress sense or the colour of the eyes. You pretend you’re invisible. You say nothing until you get the chance to escape. For the experienced passenger this process shouldn’t affect the vocal cords; just get up and make it clear that your time in purgatory is up and you’re going ascending into a brighter, relatively cleaner realm – the outside.
Finnish people are renowned for their seething, yet contained, rage. So you’d think they wouldn’t be the people making first contact. But some people don’t play by the rules – they just like to watch the world burn.
The event which I’ve been wasting your time with is the occasion when I spent 20 minutes trying to avoid eye contact with a fat Finnish guy, who just loved to talk about ‘Jews’, their money grubbing antics and how they controlled not just Hollywood – but the entire world. I tried to ignore him, I tried to tell him I didn’t understand his crazed Finnish, but that didn’t work.
Like a crack fiend denied coke, he just got more agitated.
He begun by saying how Jewish I looked and either violently accused me of being a ‘Packham Jew’ or something about Beckham being ‘Jew faced’. I told him I wasn’t Jewish. He decided otherwise and went onto tell me that the entirety of Finland’s wealth is tied up in Finnish gold; that David Hoffman was an economical mastermind who conspired with various actors – including David Schwimmer for some reason – to take control of 60% of the world’s wealth.
I don’t study economics, but that didn’t sound right.
Anyway, I politely declined his flyers and managed to get off the bus before he got to show me his ‘badge’, presumably for making people uncomfortable.
Three hours later I was with Joni, my tutor, watching fresher’s doing disgusting things and being force fed vodka laced mash-potato for roughly two hours in a kiddy-park. Apparently that’s a thing. After a bit we met Erik, the lonely Viking.
Now Erik the lonely Viking was a curious guy.
Erik was looking for drugs.
He came over and asked what was going on, drunk a couple of beers and decided to educate us on the facts of life. Do you know for instance, that in Norway there is a chronic shortage of available men? Well they are. And do you know how all the womenfolk get their man-hit? Well apparently his doctor was so sex-deprived that she would give out free vicodin if you let her suck your penis.
Fair deal? Probably.
Believe it? Neither do I.
Do you want to know what other pieces of advice he had? No? Well tough tits.
Before sniffing the floor for ‘shrooms he told us that if we should remember anything, it is that “you cannot lick more than one ass at once, it is physically impossible”. Sound advice. The last time I saw him was a couple of days later when I was walking to a club and he appears out of nowhere asking if I was gonna “bang those hoes?” which I think meant everyone in sight. I didn’t. He was disappointed. I was disappointed. And Erik the junkie is probably lying in a ditch somewhere.
In Finland marijuana is heavily illegalised with hefty fines and potential prison time for those caught in possession. As a result most people just drink heavily and ingest vast amounts of snus which is the healthiest, and a lot more potent, alternative to smoking I have ever come across. It comes in comically small tea bags containing tobacco ‘stuff’ and is only sold in Sweden. You put it under your lip and get a buzz for about 40 minutes. It’s fun, it’s cool, and its specifically a guy thing ‘cos it tastes rank.
After a night out I was on a bus ignoring the dodgy guy to my right and trying to speak German to the guys from my block. I failed so bad the guy next to me asked me if I was English, I was, so he gave me an empty bag of crisps, winked and left. Lo and behold ‘weed’. It smelt of rosemary and thyme. It probably wasn’t weed. But there – accepting drugs from strangers, as I promised.
I didn’t smoke it. I don’t condone drugs and neither should you.
My Dutch friends aren’t so picky.
Here’s a video of a guy using snus: