Kate (ET Guide) from the road between trips….- “I spent the day exploring Suomenlinna, a collection of islands in Helsinki Finland. After grabbing some tea, I head to the port to come back to mainland Finland, but remember I had wanted to pick up some tomato sauce from the shop before I left. I looked at the approaching ferry, and judged that I could quickly buy my supplies, hop on the boat, and pat myself on the back for my extreme efficiency in the four minutes before it left.
The first part goes well, but as I am exiting the shop I see that the ferry is already full of passengers, and start to run. This run is more of a strange speed-lunge, because I am trying not to spill my tea or move around the contents of my backpack. Already I am a spectacle.
Loose gravel catches me unaware, and I fall down in a Three Stooges/windmilling fashion, where my backpack flips off of me, and I do a full barrel roll around it. The tea is lost.
I scramble up, brush off my pants (which are now ripped at the knees) and hurry to the boat as cooly as I can. This is when I realize the ferry hadn’t even started unloading and now stand awkwardly around thirty people who clearly saw me get taken down. Hoping they would assume I had a medical condition (where I fall uncontrollably and should not be judged), I continued to brush off dirt, and found I had cut one knee open, along with some stones lodged in my palms. And then I remembered the damned tomato sauce.
My camera, notebooks, and “A Feast For Crows” fell to the mercy of a cheap Arrabiatta.
A kind man took pity on me and gave me a package of tissues to sadly wipe down my belongings.
I smell like an Olive Garden, my pants are blood-soaked, and my journal pages are red.
But, like a good backpacker, I am most upset about losing $1.39 on sauce.”
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