Lost in translation, part I or Sleepless in Helsinki

"One writes ´Liverpool´, but reads ´Manchester´. I think I heard this many-many years ago. People in Liverpool (and Manchester) use a language loosely understood by me and somewhat better by Dan. Just to give an examples,

• The word ´bus´ is pronounced like [bus],


• ´Have´ becomes [hov],


• In the airport I realized that I did not understand our gate number (50).

Paris airport (CDG), though very hectic and without any information at all is staffed by nice people. There are only two problems with them - one cannot find them, and they speak French (I didn't try English with them). One woman registered us to the flight and was genuinely surprised to learn that we were Americans. When I said that we were of Russian descent, she switched to Russian - 'Spasibo' and 'Dobrogo puti!' were her words. Well, as comrades used to say - Russian language is the language of international communication.

I realized that I forgot about the white nights. As a result, the first night we slept for 15 hours straight. The housekeeping came worrying that something is wrong with us, but we kept sleeping. Well, the second night I had no sleep, roaming the streets and reading the newspapers and magazines in the hotel lobby. Dan fared a little better. The picture at the right is taken after 10 p.m.

Today we fly to Vienna, Helsinki was nice to us and both Dan and I would like to visit it again.