I'm On A Boat!

I have slept in some truly sketchy places in my life (dubiously stained motel rooms with recently kicked-in door jams, mosquito-net-for-walls huts 100 yards uphill from alligator mating grounds) but last night's bunk may be the most conceptually frightening so far. I slept on the ferry to Helsinki, across the Bothnian Bay. I slept in cabin 2023, on level 2. That's at the bottom of the ferry, just above the deep-freeze food storage. So it's below the 5 people decks crammed with captains and cabins and casinos and karaoke bars and cafes. And it's right below the automobile deck, because this is a big ferry. In fact, now that I think of it, it's probably below the waterline.

The cabin was tiny, barely big enough to see carpet when the bunks folded down. There's no windows on that level, just a cute porthole-shaped photo of a lighthouse taken somewhere made of equal parts perfect fluffy clouds and minnow-calm water. But it was scrupulously clean, and had its own bathroom and hot shower. Which is saying something, given that there are only about 6 public restrooms for all the public areas of the ferry.

I'd recommend it to anyone! It's like a snug little womb room, where nothing but sleep lives. The weird rocking and rumbling of engines pulling weight over waves is kinesthetic white noise. If you've ever enjoyed falling asleep in the backseat of a car, summer evening wrapped all around you; you'll love it. Yellowing plastic light switches glow like distant dashboard lights, and the hiss of air conditioning is like radio static, the warm air barely moving. Every mutter of of foreign language passing by in the halls is like the murmur of adults in the front seats, driving home from a day in the sun. I haven't slept so well in weeks.

[My favorite Swedish word right now is Ochså, Also. (Say it oak-so, with the first syllable in the back of your throat.)  Och (said with so slight a k-sound that it's almost oh -- no Engineering Officer impressions, please) is And; I love the relationship!]