Suomi is on my leg

Suomi is on my leg
Originally uploaded by benexhale

So for those who don't know already, my friend Scott is an apprentice at Timeless Tattoo and I'm helping him out by letting him practice on my leg. He's done 8 or so on me now. Mostly Sailor Jerry flash, but we've also done some random stuff as well, like a can of Diet Coke.

Well, today we were flipping through the Sailor Jerry books and saw a flag tattoo. Like tattoos a sailor might get after visiting a place. We switched it up a bit and now I have the Finnish flag with a banner that says "SUOMI", which is pretty great. It's as if I were a sailor whose travels took him to Finland and he fell in love with the country. Which is minus the sailing part, is completely true.

::Update:: Here is a better shot of the "Finnished" product.... if you will.... sorry that was lame.

Kukushka

The other day, Brooke rented a movie for us to watch called Kukushka or in English, "Cuckoo". The story takes place during WWII, right before Finland is about to drop out of the war. Through a series of circumstances a Finn, a Russian, and a Lapp are thrown together, they can't understand each other, and warm-hearted hilarity ensues. I won't ruin anything, in case you want to see it, but Brooke and I enjoyed it, and most importantly, it was nice to hear some Finnish. I hadn't heard any in a while, and it always does my heart good. And even cooler, i was able to understand a few words! Specifically "ymmärrä", which means "understand" because the Finn kept saying things like "Do you understand me?"

I haven't studied my Finnish in quite a while, so it was nice to know i hadn't lost too much. Even though, at this point, there isn't much to lose...

You know you want to...