Helsinki Or Bust

Prologue

For the most of my sixteenth year, I tried to convince my parents to let me travel to a foreign country on my own. I spent nearly every moment I was with them telling them my plans, or random facts ("Did you know-" "YES.") or how it would be perfectly acceptable for me to sleep on someone's couch ("It's called Couch-surfing," "No, it's called 'Handing my daughter over for gang rape'.").

As I knew I wasn't very convincing, I started on New Year's Eve – I wanted to get in early. My mother and I were drinking. Well, she was – she insisted I water my Smirnoff Ice down (Have you ever tried Smirnoff Ice and Mountain Dew? It's actually really good). Alright, I'll admit it – as I was 15, I understand her trepidation but seriously, Smirnoff Ice? You don't need to water it down, it's an alco-pop - it's good enough as it is. But I enjoy it so I shut up.

So, she was drunk and I was tipsy (I'd had two bottles of slightly watered down Smirnoff Ice and I could just about hold my liquor better than my mother) and we were laughing and singing 'Auld Lang Sine' badly. And, as you do, I thought: "NOW… Would be a perfect time to say it."

It'd been on my mind a lot, since my birthday and in retrospect, since I'd joined Tumblr. There's no reason to sugar-coat it – I spend my weekends (weeknights, lunchtimes…) laughing at cats videos and Sherlock gifs. People at my school think I'm weird – They're right. But I'm with people who are like me, and that's acceptance. And it was there I met someone who was so much like me it was unbelievable and so cool, and also a little petrifying… So, on the whole it was, well and truly, AWESOME. Note: you may find that word popping up a lot. That's because I use it a lot.

Her name was Iriina. Yes, two 'i's, and why? Because she's awesome. Also, because she's Finnish but they're effectively the same thing. I followed her because we liked the same thing, that thing being the Finnish representative at the Eurovision that year. And by 'liked', I mean the Tumblr definition – we both imagined our last names as his, and we were both very willing to bear his children. Now, I followed a lot of people, but few meant more to me than her. Although I might have said differently, and at some point meant it too, she was one of the greatest. We'd chat for hours about our lives and they were blindingly similar, we both liked this guy, we were both Nerdfighters (more on that later), we both felt like social outcasts and we both dealt with this the only way we knew how: we both cut ourselves, on purpose. It is rarely in this world, surrounded by advertisements and cynicism and coldness that two people can reach out, through technology supposedly boxing us in, and be connected on the level that we were. We were friends in a world that didn't believe in our friendship. Internet friendship exists, because two people are miles apart but should be right next to each other, even if they've never met.

So, on my birthday, about 7 months after I started and 6 after I'd started following Iriina, I realised something: OH MY GOD, I'm 15. OH MY GOD I'M 16 NEXT YEAR. OH MY GOD I CAN BUY PLANE TICKETS! And then, finally, I came to an earth shattering conclusion: I. CAN. VISIT. IRIINA. The subject had never been off my mind – one day, I'd visit her, and she'd visit me. We'd meet and we'd get drunk on salmiakkossu (salt liquorice vodka – you don't leave without having drunken it. They won't let you) and laugh about things, because that's what friends do apparently. I spent my moments procrastinating by fake booking plane tickets and organising itineraries (I like to be organised) based on what she'd told me. The general consensus was: It's only fun if you're drunk. We couldn't drink, but we were Tumblr people. We could make fun. But it never seemed like I could actually do it. It didn't seem possible that I could pull it all off and actually visit her.

Explaining it only works this way: In English, you only say, 'when' and 'if'. There's a very clear distinction. Conversations with my mother went something like:

Mum: "When I lose weight-"

Me: "IF." (For some reason, she always wanted to lose weight. I find the concept of losing body mass a bit like that of Jupiter trying to get rid of just one moon – you're always going to have some more left over. In my mother's case, she always had some left over; to the point I had to refrain from calling her Jupiter).

But in German, they are the same thing: 'wenn'. As I studied German, it amused and bothered me, but then again, 'if you live by the sword, you die by the sword' (that's also not true but in menial cases, good advice). So, if you say, 'Wenn ich nach Finnland gehen,' you could either be saying 'when I go…' or 'if I go…', and nothing is certain about whether it is possible. By the time it had reached New Year's, my procrastination had amounted to the English 'when' becoming the German 'wenn'. I could either be definitely going or I could just be spending my time dreaming about it, and I wasn't sure which I was doing. It just seemed like something I was saying, that wasn't true.

Back to New Year's Eve:  My mum was singing. Schrödinger, my cat, was trying his valiant level best not to turn her leg into his scratching post. He even carried an expression seemingly equal parts death glare and Tibetan monk. In a relapse of my drunkenness, I knelt down and patted his head like George pats a mouse, and I belted, "YOU'RE A GOOD CAT SCHRRRODINGAAAR. MUMMY'S NOT GONNA PUT YOU IN THE BOX."

What could I say? It only happened once, and by the time the evening had progressed, I was relatively sober and we were all crowded around the television, the screen cutting to different New Year's celebrations, and it cut to Helsinki. That was what triggered it.

I turned to my mother, feeling a ton more dramatic than I should have, and announced, "Mum, I'm 16 this year."

"Yeah, I know. I was there." She belched. Charming.

"Well, I was wondering, as I would be considered a responsible adult-"

"BEING… An adult, and being responsible," She drawled drunkenly, "Are two very, very different things. I think that you're already quite responsible."

"I know, so… Well, you know Iriina, right?"

"Yeah, that paedophile you say is your friend and is not in fact a paedophile but a 16 year old girl."

"She is a girl," I corrected, "I was wondering, as I'd be a 'responsible adult'… Would you let me go to Finland on my own to visit her?"

"Sure," She nodded, without blinking, as if it was the easiest thing in the world, before going back to regarding the telly as the primary object.

My father, however, didn't share the same reaction. Mainly as he wasn't completely hammered out of his skull, but also because he's my father – I'd be worried if he didn't react. But he turned to me, sober as a nun, with a gash in his face where he'd stopped trying to be calm and had just settled with, "WHAT THE HOLY HELL, ARE YOU STILL DRUNK?" as his primary emotion.

"No. Sophie, you are NOT."

"Daaaaaaaaad-" He cut me off by speaking in a hurried tone and sliding all his words together:

"You're not visiting a foreign country alone, how are you going to pay for all this-"

"HAPPY NEW YEAR!" Andrew, my brother yelled, jumping up from the couch and shattering the somewhat awkward atmosphere. 2012 had begun, and I had just over 11 months to get them to relent by my birthday. As I reminded myself then and still do, a lot happens in 11 months.