Dancing with Finnish Stars

Working for MTV3 certainly has its perks. Last night, I was among the elite and privileged few invited to attend a live broadcast of one of their most popular shows: Tanssii Tähtien Kanssa -- better known in America as Dancing with the Stars. It was a cold and rainy Sunday evening (quite a contrast to the previous day’s gorgeous weather) and, of course, I forgot my umbrella at home. Even if I had been “dressed to impress” as the invitation stated, by the time we walked the few blocks from the metro station to the set, I looked more like a drown rat.

We arrived about 30 minutes early and couldn’t figure out where the entrance was. This guy was outside smoking a cigarette:


He was very nice and helpful as he directed us toward the front door. I mistook him for a stagehand but as it turns out, he was Jone Nikula, a quite famous judge on the show. (Sort of like the Simon Cowell of Finland.) Oops.

We settled into the press area on the side of the stage with a great view of all the action, and I mentally prepared myself for an hour-long TV show entirely in Finnish. At least dancing is a universal language. We seriously lucked out with the week’s theme, which could have easily been the waltz or ballroom style. Instead it was salsa, something I was particularly excited to see Finnish stars attempt. Turns out, they did pretty well! The highlights:

Antti Tuisku, a total cutie who became famous on Idols (Finland’s version of American Idol), was the standout dancer and crowd favorite. And even though he nailed his salsa routine and was the top-scoring participant, he swears he’s not gay. Riiiiiiight. Neither was Adam Lambert.


The lowest-scoring contestant last week, Jethro Rostedt, was another crowd-pleaser, proving that even if you can’t get the moves just right, personality goes a long way. I could have sworn the judge slash stagehand quoted LL Cool J when he said “Don’t call it a comeback,” in English. (Newsflash: he didn’t. While he did use the word ‘comeback,’ the rest of the sentence was in Finnish. I tend to draw my own conclusions, though. It makes language barriers a lot more fun.)


The most painful routine was to the un-salsa-like song “I’ve Had the Time of My Life.” Ummm... huh? Yes, it was in Dirty Dancing and yes, I think there was a salsa routine in the beginning of the movie. But still, worst song choice ever? Probably why that particular couple was eliminated.

But I had so much fun watching the show live! Considering I live nowhere near Hollywood, I doubt I would ever have had this opportunity in The States. Even if I did, this season in America has the weirdest stars ever. Why would I want to see “stars” like spawn of Satan, Bristol Palin, or the Situation dude from Jersey Shore dance? (Michael Bolton, actual Dirty Dancer Jennifer Grey and David Hasselhoff -- that’s another story. I would totally want to see them live.)

Leena and me before the show

PS... My co-workers are giving me crap me because I thought the host, Mikko Leppilampi, was hot. Apparently he doesn’t have the best rep in Finland, but based on looks alone, he’s a stereotypical handsome man. (Plus, being European only makes him more attractive.)

American ladies, please weigh in. What do you think? Yay or nay?

Friday Lolz!

My Finnish friend, Leena, posted this on my FB wall and I thought it was pretty funny. The World According to San Francisco.

I love being an American. :)

Click to embiggen! (Tee hee, awesome Simpsons reference, btw!) Thanks to Graphjam for all of this.

Fall in Helsinki

It looks like Finland is finally dishing out some of that nasty Fall weather everyone has been warning me about/promising: rainy and wet, dark and freezing. (Like, numb fingers through gloves, freezing.) Seriously, the weather this week has sucked. Whenever I picture Autumn, I think of the stunning New England landscape, not wintery drearysville. (Fall would be easy if your colors were like my dreams: red, gold and green, red gold and greeeeeee-heeeeeen.)

But I'll admit, I've been pretty lucky so far. Up until this week, the weather has been brisk and sunny -- an absolutely lovely experience for this native Florida girl who hasn't yet had the pleasure of living where the leaves change.

So here are some Fall scenes in Helsinki through my eyes. It might not measure up to Boston or New Hampshire, but to me, it's been pretty effing beautiful.

On a walk home from work:

Bus stop by my office -- I love the ad with an ironically green tree.

The Golden Time of Day.

The treacherous footpath, now adorned with slippery leaves! Huzzah!

Scenes from Vanha kirkkopuisto (Old Church Park), better known as Ruttopuisto (Plague Park). Maybe not the most appealing name, but awesome just the same.

Now I am warm and cozy in my living room, listening to hurricane-worthy gusts pound against my (thankfully thick) window pane. Watching the trees outside dance in the wind, I know these pretty orange and yellow leaves will soon just be a memory. I feel lucky to have experienced living in a new city during one of the most enchanting times of year (despite what the locals might say). It has been truly inspiring and one of the best souvenirs a Floridian could ever ask for.

Found: Stevie Wonder in Helsinki!

I have officially found my favorite thing is Helsinki and, duh, it has to do with Stevie Wonder!

I was flipping through my new favorite free guide, We Are Helsinki (super cool mini mag + website), when I saw this photo:

I tried to catch my breath as I blurted out,"Um, where is this??? I need to have a beer at this bar immediately."

My Finnish friends probably took this as alcoholism rearing it's ugly head. (They're used to that here.) People who don't know me all that well (or maybe even people who do) probably wouldn't understand the urgency in which I needed to see this place. But please, take note: if there is anything (especially a cafe slash bar) with a dope ass Stevie Wonder mural within 30 miles of me, I need to see it. NOW. No, really, right NOW.

So we made our way to Cafe Aula Bar near Kamppi so I could witness the glory in person. You see, for me, a Stevie Wonder mural is the equivalent of someone spotting the Virgin Mary in her morning toast or seeing God appear on Google street view. And it's the "glory days of funk" Stevie, not the "wait, is my stylist blind, too?" Stevie.

In fact, I'm so much of a nerd, I even know the original photo the artwork is based on.

Bonus nerd points: I also know this photo was taken the same day as the cover shot for Funkafied Rainbow, a live bootleg album that I've actually even blogged about before. (Wow, obsessed factor is officially through the roof.)

Anyway, when we got to the bar, it was somehow even better than I was expecting. It wasn't a mural, as I had originally thought, but Stevie's shadow reflected on the wall through a brass silhouette cutout. Ohhhhh emmm geeeeee.

This was created by Kalle Taivainen and yet another example of how friggin' cool Helsinkians and their designs are. In my next life, I think I would like to come back as a Scandinavian. (Note: the artist's website, which was less than helpful as it was, is now mysteriously down.)

Close up for detail:

I haven't figured out how to acquire one of these for my living room -- yet. Because before I leave Finland, this will be mine, oh yes, this will be mine.

Here are more Stevie photos that make me happy. Because it's my blog and I can do whatever I want.

With Michael Sembello, his dope ass guitarist:

Being all-around amazing:

Appearing in my morning toast:

With the future King of Pop <3

If I could pick one photo to live in, for all eternity, it would probably be this one.

Finland Hearts Conan

I’ve recently discovered Finland’s love affair with one of my favorite Americans -- Conan O’Brien. Being the amazing late-night talk show God he is, he created a bit called “Conan O’Brien Hates My Homeland,” where he insulted every country in the world just to find out where his show was being aired. To his surprise, he got an overwhelming response when he insulted Finland; not surprisingly, and true to Finnish style, they mostly agreed with him! (My favorite response: “Conan, I hate my homeland too. Keep up the good work. Finland sucks.”)

I’m think I saw this on TV when it originally aired and found it amusing; seeing it in Finland and understanding the culture makes it a million times funnier.




In another video, he endorses Finland’s president, Tarja Halonen, during campaign time, because she looks like him! (OMG, she totally does!) Too funny.





I wonder how horrible Conan's Finnish-speaking skills are. I’ve noticed he mispronounces Tarja (we Americans have a hard time with the letter ‘J’ -- it's pronounced more like an English 'Y') so I can only imagine he must be butchering the language. I still think it’s awesome he did these commercials, though, and that he visited Finland to meet the president.

Good to see Suomi is on team Coco. To me, it proves what I already knew to be true: Finns are way smarter than Americans. Especially the Americans who seem to like Jay Leno’s bland, mediocre attempt at humor.

I wonder if they like Will Arnett.

Hullut Päivät, Circus Pigs, Black Superman and WTF???

Have you ever have a day so full of WTF?!?! that you were expecting a TV crew to pop out from behind a tree at any second screaming "Smile, you're on America's Most Candid Punk'd Videos!" Well that was my day on Saturday -- hopefully the photos will do it justice.

It all started innocently enough. The plan was to hit up Stockmann, Helsinki's major department store, for Hullut Päivät, aka Crazy Days. It was exactly as promised -- insane. The entire population of Helsinki jam-packs into the 10-story (or so) block-long brick building, shopping 'til they drop for not-as-ridiculously-overpriced-as-usual, but-still-waaaaaaay-too-expensive products. Imagine Black Friday in America lasting a full week at Saks Fifth Avenue in NYC.

Anyway, they had a mascot!!! Fun!!!

Next on the agenda was to visit Suomenlinna, a historic island fortress off Finland's coast, known for its World Heritage status. But the island has been on the agenda for the last four weeks now, and something always keeps us from actually getting there. This time, we had time restraints and weather issues working against us, but I *will* visit that island this month. Oh yes. I will.

In lieu of sightseeing, we hit Cafe Esplanad, my favorite, albeit touristy, coffee place because a) they have pastries the size of my head (mmmmm) and b) it's the only place I've found that will make me a latte with hazelnut flavoring. (I miss you and your sweet coffee, America.) We grabbed a table outside, which is right when the hidden camera show struck again.

They know where you live.

Hamming it up for the camera. Yuk, yuk, yuk.

Why is this kind of thing always more surreal when you're traveling??? Apparently, this was some sort of circus group promoting their upcoming show. It was more terrifying-eat-your-children vibe than charming circus performers, but hey, maybe that's just my downer American take on things.

So after that cavalcade of characters, we decided to walk around a bit, hoping all the madness had passed. It hadn't.


Cue this tightrope-walking Superman dude who just hangs out and randomly does... this... and expects money for it. He's pretty synonymous with the city center, so I guess it made sense we saw him next.

People call him the Superman Lover.

And then another slice of crazy appeared, this time with a puppet scarier than Chucky:

By now, we were really close to Aussie Bar (shocking), where I had left my camera case a few nights prior. We figured we'd just check to see if they had it (omg - they did!!!) and have a beer. This is when we met these crazy Jackass-style gents, who immediately began their Johnny Knoxville-esque stunts like hanging from chandeliers and slip-and-sliding across the bar, stomach first. (Ummm... Ashton.... have we been Punk'd yet???)

And since I have adopted a Yes Man-type attitude in Helsinki, when they invited us to a house party that evening, I had to accept. On the way, they wanted to stop at a secondhand store called Uff . (Sidenote: This place is the Dechoes of Helsinki and there are five locations!!! I am in looooove.) They played a game where they each had three minutes to find a new outfit, max price of 17 euros. (This is where I politely declined. Only three minutes to shop? You've got to be joking.) They came out with shiny new outfits and we proceeded to the party.

This is where the photos will have to take over. (Also, I am horrible with names in America. In Finland, I am freakin' clueless.)

Green was his color (that's a lovely new dress, btw):


This dude's catch phrase: "I'm a kitty cat." (Family Guy reference.)

This is Anders. I remember his name because of his uncreative parents (bonus points if you can guess his last name!):

?????



??????



They kept telling me how they weren't gay, but kind of wished they were. I took that as my cue to leave. :)


But, yeah, just another boring Saturday in Helsinki. What did you guys do???

Wheeeee, it's Afternoon Web Usability Testing!

As you can tell by the riveting title, this post is going to be chock-full of int3rn3tz g33kd0m. If you’re not a super d0rk like me, you might want to bail now.

For any of you still reading, as we came downstairs after lunch today, we noticed a table full of candy bars. Mmmmm.... chocolate. We asked the people at the table if we could have one. They said (in Finnish): “Sure! All you have to do is a take a little test!” Wheeeee!



After a minute, I realized the so-called test was actually a web usability experiment for a new travel site that MTV3 is developing! They had each person sit down and gave them a simple task, something like “Find a vacation to Playa del Carmen for under 500€.” They taped the user with a webcam, as well as recorded their screen interaction (where they clicked, how their mouse moved, etc.) so they could pinpoint exactly when a user got confused. I thought it was the coolest thing ever!



And they lured us in with chocolate! Brilliant! Can we do this for our websites back at Bonnier Corp???



PS... the guy leading the test? Dreamy McDreamington. Le sigh.





Sorry if you thought this post was boring. Here, read about naked people on Big Brother.