Party of a lifetime..
Hello my friends. I just wanted to share the most amazing weekend I have ever had in my whole life with all of you. I hope you have as much fun reading this as I had being in the "eye of the hurricane".
First of all, I would like to explain how the bachelor parties usually are in Finland: The whole point is that it's a surprise. People always make sure that the guy who is going to get married won't know when, where and what will happen. This was the case with me too. My friends had organized everything months ahead and kept the secret to the last minute. The point is also that it should be organized some time before the actual wedding so he won't guess the day it will happen. If there is only one weekend to go before the wedding, there is no surprise at all as you know then is the only chance it can happen.
Last Friday, on the 27th of June I got a phone call from a policeman to my mobile phone. I was at work. He told me that my car has been stolen and there has been a dramatic car chase in the center of the city. My car has been totally wrecked by the thief as he was trying to avoid being caught and in the meantime drove it to the lake (after hitting several other cars). The policeman told me to come quickly to the station, as they needed my statement. The reason for such an urgent thing was that the guy claimed I had given a permission to use my car so this thing needed to be cleared, as I said I haven’t given permission to anyone. My colleague from work promised he can drive me there (he had been informed about this few days before as well as my boss..) I was totally crushed on the way to the station as I am going to get married in four weeks and I really need my car before the wedding. There are still so many things that need to be taken care of. Once we arrived to the station and I stepped out of the car, my friends (15 of them) rushed to the parking lot and cheered for me. They took my wallet, phone, keys and told me I don’t need these this weekend.
After this they took me behind the station and introduced the bus we had for the weekend. It was a bus of Finland’s former president Mauno Koivisto (president in the 80s and early 90s) so it is needless to say it was top class with a HUGE fridge. They took my clothes and put on the tiniest strings they had found from the "adult oriented" store. Then they covered my eyes and the bus ride started.
I was handed a new beer every time I finished one. They didn't tell me where we were going but I had to use the toilet of the bus few times and I took a little peek and saw that we were heading to Helsinki. On the way there they told me to dress up and they threw me some clothes. I put the gear on and they said I can watch now and I had the best Elvis costume one could have. They also had a guitar for me but that was very shitty one that was really out of tune. Then we arrived to our destination, Helsinki harbor.
They had organized a cruise for us (the boat was similar to Pacific Princess, if you ever watched the "Loveboat") and we went inside. Me and my bestman had the finest room on the boat. We just walked around the boat for some minutes and went to buy something to drink. We need quite few guys to carry all the drinks to the room and we loaded the fridge. We had a very loud stereo system with us and we were listening to music and sipping our drinks. After few hours my friends said that we needed to go now and so we went downstairs, I dressed as Elvis.
We went to the pub where my friends had arranged me to go on stage to play some Elvis tunes and sing for the crowd. There was this one performer who was there playing his guitar and singing some country etc stuff. He borrowed his guitar and did a little intro saying that "Elvis is in the house!!" and I rushed on stage people laughing and cheering. I joked around a bit first and then I played That’s All Right Mama and people came to dance. After that I quickly went to Heartbreak Hotel and people started to fill the tip cup in front of me. The coins get rolling in when I said I will be finishing my set with a little Rock'n'Roll medley and I started with Jailhouse Rock and ended it with Tutti Frutti. People went really nuts and it was probably the funniest gig I have ever been to. After I stepped off the stage, people rushed get my autograph and asked if I need any drinks. I suddenly seemed to have lot of friends on board..
After that, no matter where I went on the boat, people recognized me and came to talk and asked me to sing something. The ladies came to ask me to sing Love Me Tender and I can honestly say I sang that song maybe 40 times that night. It was pretty wild.. After the bars closed we headed back to the room to continue the party. I was the last one to stay up in the room and fell asleep at 7am. The wake up call was at 8am so I had a chance to sleep for an hour only. We were back in Helsinki around noon and jumped back into bus. This time we headed back to Tampere.
This past weekend there was a rock festival near my hometown so we drove through Tampere to the festival area. I was supposed to go one stage with this one band to do something (probably sing and play, or just to hang around) but we were 15 minutes late and the band that had given the permission to do it, had already left the stage. We ended up in the beer tent and later wandering around the area with my "Memphis mafia".. After spending about an hour there signing autographs and chatting with people we went back to bus and drove a short way to a sauna that my friends had booked for us for the night.
There was warm sauna waiting with food and drinks. The place was really nice although they didn’t have a swimming pool there. Later that night my friends said it was time for a new costume and few of them took me to another room and started to hand me clothes. I got black leather cap, black leather vest and jacket, sunglasses, yellow pants and false teeth that barely fit in my mouth. The leather vest had beautifully printed "FM" on the front so there was no doubt who I was going to be for the night. When I walked in the room the guys were nearly peeing in their pants, I looked so funny.
Quite soon the bus arrived again and picked us up. We went downtown to a nightclub where my friends were again filling the table with drinks. In some point of the evening they suddenly grabbed me (I was totally wasted by the time) and dragged me on stage again. This time there was Who Wants To Live Forever coming from the speakers and couples were dancing on the floor. All the spotlights were aimed at me and I did probably the lousiest miming performance anyone can do (remember, I was totally blown away by all the drinks they made me drink). After that I don’t have much memories left from the night except for that my friends took me into taxi about 5.30am and told the driver to drive by my home. They dropped me off and continued to one of my friend’s place to party. I was relieved they had mercy on me and let me go home. I would have never been able to have one more drink.
All in all, it was an unbeliavable weekend and I must say I'm very privileged to have such great friends who have the time, energy and will to do this for me. We all had such a good time that we are already planning another party for our friend who gets married on the 16th of August. Or maybe we just do this sometime again without any particular reason..
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