April 1996 (continued):
Unfortunately, I reached Helsinki’s Hotel Pasila later that evening than originally was planned.
I say unfortunately because I had been hoping to do something I rarely do on a night before a seminar (a “school night,” I call it): leave the hotel.
But in the hotel’s Visitor Guide I had read that the Helsinki Theatre Group was presenting a production of West Side Story — “partly sung & spoken in English.”
The thought of seeing a Leonard Bernstein musical about Puerto Ricans performed in Finland in both Finnish & English was irresistible.
Instead of an evening of musical theater, I enjoyed a very nice salmon dinner at the hotel restaurant. The salmon, by the way, came with French fries.
(In the U.S., fries often come with hamburgers or other sandwiches, but rarely with a “fancy” meal like salmon.)
Not wanting to be easily identified as an American, I resisted the impulse to ask for ketchup.
Before eating, however, I asked the hotel’s Reception desk if they had an electrical adapter I might be able to use. Oddly, I appeared to be the first guest ever to make that request, and they had nothing I could use. And there were no stores close by that might carry such an item.
But, I explained, I need to plug in my computer. Maybe I should take a taxi downtown in search of an adapter? Or is there some other hotel nearby that I could check with? (It really isn’t unusual for hotels to stock such items for their guests.)
One of the front desk clerks offered to phone a sister hotel elsewhere in Helsinki. She made the call and then excitedly informed me that the other hotel did have such a device. I arranged for a taxi to pick up the adapter at the other hotel while I ate my dinner.
After lingering over the salmon and fries (sans ketchup), I returned to the Reception desk. They handed me the oldest, rattiest-looking frayed adapter imaginable. It literally fell apart in my hands. Apologetic, the desk clerk explained it’s the only thing they could find.
I took it up to my room, attached it to my computer, applied some expert jiggling, and managed to transfer current from the wall to the Powerbook.
An hour later I went downstairs to let my friends at the Front Desk know it had worked. When they saw me approaching, the two women there froze with fear. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anyone appear more relieved than they did when I told them the good news.
(During another European seminar trip several months later, I experienced an unexpected coda to this story when I returned to the same Helsinki hotel. But I report these things chronologically, so you’ll have to wait a few weeks before hearing about it.)
My second day in Finland was spent speaking talking with 10 of YLE’s producers in their headquarters, just down the street from the hotel. For lunch we had Beef Lindstrom (ground beef with sauce). At the end of the day it was back to the airport to fly first to Stockholm and then on to Växjö, Sweden.
Next Installment: Stuck in a hotel with 400 Swedish student nurses…
