Dateline: 23.16 17 Aug 1996
Location: Helsinki-Stockholm, m/s Viking Mariella
And they're off. The Viking Mariella departed the forlorn decks of
Helsinki, a flock of squealing gulls diving into the whirlpools left
in the wake of the ship. As the ship turned, one solitary whirlpool
continued to spin, a white eye of foam staring out of the flat olive
green sea. The shoreline, covered with mist, slowly receded
into nebulous nothingness. The massive prow of the ship cut into the
waves, neatly dissecting them so that the damage was minimal, picking
up speed on its way to the sea and the great unknown. Alea jacta est -
there is no turning back now.
It remains to be seen when I'll next have a meal like the one I had today.
Swedish meatballs in cream sauce, green salad, half a bottle of red wine,
mango sherbert in raspberry sauce with strawberries, kiwi and a slice
of carambola on top... succulent, and I don't mean "like a cactus".
Such opulent luxury has its price, of course; I ended up paying 64 FIM
for the meal, over half my allotted daily budget. Plus the close to 300
FIM I paid for the cruise itself, and I've already gone thrice over my
daily budget. Oh well, what the hell, you only live once and, since this
is a vacation, might as well spend a day of it in hedonistic
ecstasy. If such a term can be used when all elements of the
fundamental trio "sex, drugs and techno" are missing... but friendship,
alcohol and easy listening music will substitute in times of need.
Not only have I gone thrice over my financial limit, but my alcoholic
limit as well, the remains of half a bottle of wine and 45 cl of beer
percolating through my bloodstream as I write this. Not much effect
remains, but it was intensely amusing to sit in the red-tinted
Night Club (caps theirs, not mine) and watch as old-timers tangoed
to the orchestra intoning hits of ths sixties. Ever heard "Shoop Shoop
Shoop" in a Swedish accent? Quite an experience to live in pain,
as somebody once said in a movie.
If nothing else, I've been lucky so far. And I really don't mean any
applications of the laws of probability to the interconnected web we
call Life, I mean the raw game of fortune as dispensed by the random
circuits of RAY's poker machines. To date, with an initial investment
of 3.00 FIM, I have earned a total of 14.00 FIM thanks to a flush and
two pairs, augmented by two successfully pulled off double-or-nothings.
A shot at the one-armed bandit then failed spectacularly with a loss
of 1 mark, so I decided to call it quits while I was still at the
lucky number of 13. Hey, my winnings almost paid for the beer I bought.
Forward ever, backward never. Tomorrow the authentic journey alone
starts.
The day's budget
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