For the Italian version of the Post: HERE
TURKU – TAMPERE, BY TRAIN
The man sitting in front of me looks like a typical average Finn.
A faithful son of the land he grew up in, even if we are talking about the land of a couple of generations ago. When Maamme was much more hostile, poorer, even colder.
This average Finn has got a big head well-planted on a squat and heavy body, which seems as solid as rock. His hands are large and callous, due to the hard working. His ash blond hair still many and kept upwards; the same color have thick mustache and the beard framing his face.
The eyes are those clear and nostalgic ones, sparkling with a melancholic light: the eyes of the Finns.
There are other evidences which allow to classify the passenger in front of me. It is only 10.30 am, and that gentleman is imperturbably drinking an unknown brand of whiskey (and unpronounceable).
This is Finland too. A place where placid workers, with stocky bodies and melancholy eyes, already drunk in the late morning, could approach you maybe just to discuss whether or not Juventus FC should purchase Jari Litmanen (the most famous local footballer, now almost in his forty).
I look at my travel companion with sympathy, meanwhile he leans his head to the seat with half-closed eyes, between a sip and another
I have lived up here in the north for nine months, and I am so pleased to be back again.
I do like the Finns. I am definitely at ease among them. They are the most calm, quiet, peaceful fellows in the world. It does not matter if they have drunk or not.
And furthermore they are respectable, honest and incorruptible people. Maybe not always moderate when it comes to drink, but morally reliable and civilly untarnished.
What a delight being surrounded by honest, reliable and untarnished people. Yes, I did miss Finland.
I’m traveling with the Express Train of 10.05 am to Pieksämäki.
I returned to Finland, to my Turku, eleven months after the end of my exchange studies to join the great celebration of May Day, the Vappu.
Now, I am expected to spend a full day tossed around train, bus, plane, bus again, train again. A total amount of ten hours, whose perspective bothers a bit and pushes me to write, so to spend the time.
Nonetheless, it could also turn to an interesting experience. For instance, I’m going to spend two journeys by train, taking the same time: one in Finland, and the other one 3000 kilometers down in Italy. There will be the chance to grasp, inevitably, some small or great peculiarity and difference.
The Express Train type corresponds to what in Italy we call Regionale o Interregionale. A secret code name for the most dilapidated trains, oldest couches, most dated locomotives of Finland.
We are not at the level of the cattle-wagons on which the despicable Trenitalia forces the commuters from the Boot to travel in, but this train unequivocally prompts something old-fashioned and obsolete.
Of course, the toilets are clean, the punctuality guaranteed. And then there it comes the ticket-collector, a figure mysteriously disappeared from Italian Regionale trains. Here he moves on, funny and friendly, warbling “Hei Hei”, “Päivää, “Kiitos, Kiitos”. He plays his ticket-machine between those warbles with the harmonic regularity a musician would show.
The Express Train loudly runs throughout the flat, green countryside, marked by red-wooden scattered farms, and woodsof birch trees.
The coaches in Finland are wrapped in a meek silence. If two passengers are chatting they do that in a low voice not to disturb the others around. Peace reigns supreme among people intent on reading, working with their own laptop, listening to music.
Unless a mobile suddenly rings. And then, breaking all the spatial and geographical distance, almost it seems to slip down Italy. These quiet people, who invented Nokia, cannot avoid screaming when talking via phone.
Joyful trills at the beginning and at the end of the conversations, fortunately never lasting for too long. Nevertheless, those trills feel like fresh buckets of water upon the sovereign torpor, which might drive you to suspect a gas-narcotic had spouted by some of fans on the ceiling.
Tampere welcomes me at the end of the first journey of the day as a city full of sunshine, almost dazzling under the springtime light. According to the t-shirts and shorts worn by men and women along the tracks, the temperature should be pleasant.
My travel companion does not make a move, but turning to the window with serene expression, letting some ray of light resting on his eyes. It happened to him to face something much worse than a bright day of Spring.
And the harsh land which has shaped him, at times, can be sweet and warm like the jam from his home-landscapes, flat and green and covered with birches.
