Celebrating Helsinki 458:th anniversary

This was my view from the dictatoresque waving-balcony on City Hall, Helsinki. I think the gentlemen in the foreground are Thai diplomats.

This was a genuinely surreal experience. I was attending by special invitation only, but I could not understand a single word anyone was saying. There was a cold platter buffé with fish of every imaginable variety, an unending supply of champagne...
I left the party with my brain trying to make connections to David Lynch movies. I walked home to my luxury hotel, housed in a former prison.
The windows in my room were seven feet up, and the walls seven feet thick.
I slept, well.