June 2012.
The burly…read morelady working at the cafe at the Toy Museum doesn't look like the type who'd have much use for a toy unless it's to beat you unconscious with one. I order a slice of rhubarb pie with whipped cream. It's a really good piece of pie. They also sell a chocolate lava cake and an elegant tomato and spinach quiche. I ask the lady where they get their baked goods. She looks confused by my question.
"We bake them. In the back," she says.
"You make all this stuff?" I stammer. "From scratch?"
"Yes," the lady says with a what's-the-big-deal kind of shrug.
I want to tell her that I come from a country that dabbles in the black magic of eternal moistness, and that has figured out the science of making petroleum products taste like fresh strawberries. A country where a snack shop in a little out-of-the-way museum wouldn't bake its own baked goods. Instead, they'd come vacuum-sealed in little plastic baggies trucked in from a faraway industrial kitchen and they'd be stamped with expiration dates in the remote future.
But I just say thanks, the pie is really good.
On the way to the Toy Museum, S and I noticed a tunnel. We hadn't noticed it before because it's usually hidden behind an unremarkable garage door. But today, the door was open and we could see it: a one-lane paved road lit up by fluorescent lights that plunges into the bowels of the earth. I ask the lady at the Toy Museum about it.
"Oh, that. I don't know the word in English."
She goes in the back and confers with her colleague, who pulls out a little Finnish-English dictionary.
"It's a shelter. You know, for when they drop the bombs."
At first, I wonder if something is getting lost in translation. I mean, who would drop bombs on the Toy Museum? But it's a naive question. Finland may currently be peaceful and independent, but given the history of this country, there are no guarantees.
