Sara Hammerzmith

At last I’ve sat myself down and gone through the pictures from the exhibition itself. I do believe each and everyone of you out there should really GO TO IT, and support the local art department, support Lordi, support Savonlinna and meet some fantastic people, so I won’t publish too many detailed pictures or anything here. But yes, a few things.

The last pictures are with the AMAZING people working there. Love each and everyone of these people. Thank you so much for everything!

// Sara

Last night, after going home when the exhibition had closed, we decided to take on last stroll around the central of the town, more specifically, the forest close to their casino across the bridge from the square we lived in. The whole town was almost built up like that – islands. There were bridges and small seas everywhere.

Anyway, this city is really breathtaking. The nature, the seas, the architecture. I mean, I know I’ve said it quite a lot, that it’s basically the same, Sweden and Finland, and in the core it is, but on this town I tell you… extraordinary. The rain was pouring down like crazy, hence my lovely Slipknot-y title, because the rain did perhaps not kill us, but it did kill our faboluos hair, haha.

I tried to take som pictures, but yeah, rainy rainy!

After strolling around, we went home to the hotelroom and wrapped things up with Dark Floors. The night ended a lot later than we had expected it to, leaving us with a lot less sleep than we had expected. But yes, again, what did we expect. We’re on a journey and all, haha.

Anyway, when we woke up in the morning we immediatley went down for breakfast and then headed up to pack everything. I only bought two shirts, dry schampoo, a poster and some very tiny souvenirs, yet I struggled to pack my bag. What is that. WHY is this. Don’t know really, but precious Michelle offered to take on my toiletries, and eventually we could leave the amazing apartment and head towards the train station.

This is something we did with very, VERY heavy hearts. You know. This is my home. It feels like it. I’ve been drawn to Finland ever since I was little, and no matter what town I visit, or how many times I visit, my urge to get here gets stronger. I’ve paid so much attention to the finns when they speak during my stay, and I’ve picked up quite a bit in the language. Of course, it’s not easy breezy language, but you know.

After this, the whole… travelling madness began. First off, was the train from Savonlinna to Parkkila, and then in Parkkilla we had a 8 minutes train change. Gladly, Parkkila is a pretty small station, so getting between the trails aren’t hard at all.

However, on the train from Parkkila to Helsinki, panic start to wake up in me. I realized, that with the expected arrival, 16.48, it would leave us pretty exactly two hours until the plane would leave. And then we are only in the city central. Shit shit shit shit. We looked up the times of the air transfers, and noticed they departured every 20th minute, and one would go 16.50, and we hoped we would catch it.

Which we didn’t, of course. Why would it ever run smoothly for us? So well yeah, next one it was, 17.10, leaving us only 20 minutes to check in our luggage before they closed the bag-drop off. But as the smooth people we are, we managed it. Well what can I say… we got on the plane. Got off it. Collected our luggage.

Got some dinner, Got on another bus to the city terminal, and now I’m here.

On the last bus. My shoes are uncomfortable as hell, after wearing them for 16 hours. My whole body is sore and pressed together because I’ve been seated in small areas for so long. I’m tired as hell, I have a sore throat and I mix up Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish when I try to talk to someone. And on top of that, I forgot my seasickness pills, so I’m really ill as well.

But it’s worth it. This is the kind of thing you do for the bands you love, you know. This wasn’t even a concert, but I don’t regret a single second going there, supporting the band, supporting the local artschool and on the same time experience a bit of Lordi history. I’m completely blacked out financially right now, and I’m going back to work on Friday. And I hope I still got some voice. And that I’ve gotten rid of the finnish words by then.

But yeah. I’d do anything for Lordi, I would walk the distance for them. And that is something we’ve done in this trip. And just the fact that we’ve travelled 14 hours today, speaks a lot of it, don’t you think?

Thanks Lordi, thanks Savonlinna, thanks to the amazing hotel and most importantly, the amazing crew at the exhibition. We LOVE YOU.

// Sara

Alrighty alrighty. Day two in this gorgeous town started rather early with some heavy breakfast. Or perhaps, healthy breakfast. Yup. That’s right people. For once, I decided to go fairly healthy, and so did Michelle. Best breakfast EVER.

Tasty. TASTY FOOD I TELL YOU.

After breakfast, we decided to go for a smaller shopping spree. We mainly went out to get some dry schampoo (to make sure to look our best for the afternoon) but also because hey! We’re on vacation! The only thing I really did pick up though when we roamed the streets where a few souvenirs. Instead of getting a lot of decorations at stores, I plan to decorate my room and my future apartment with souvenirs from all the different towns I visit, mainly outside of Sweden of course. I also found this amazing little snake-necklace, and I love snakes on jewellery (and for real as well, but I don’t wanna own one myself) so I had to take it. Matched my snake earrings pretty well. Also found the cutest of stickers to use in montages for the future.

Anyways. After shopping, lunch at Subway and dry-schampooing, we headed for the very last time to the exhibition. We were greeted by the same amazing lady as we were yesterday, and then we got to enter the amazing thing again. Not sure how much I wrote about it yesterday, and it wasn’t TOO much stuff there – but it was basically this “Honey I’m home!” feeling when you got into the room with the Deadache and Babez line up.

Well.. what can I say. First of all we spent  a few hours photographing EVERY DETAIL on the costumes. I have a friend who’s into cosplaying, figured I’d do him a favor and photograph as much details as I possibly could. After this we just hung out, sitting on the floor discussing details on the shoes and the costumes when a couple of the crew came and talked a little to us.

When we were checking out the art exhibition the sweet lady came and told us she was leaving for the day, and we didn’t want to let go, so we asked her if we could perhaps have a picture with her, and she agreed! She also called the whole crew to come and take picutres with us, and we are SO THRILLED to get this. Because this is the absolute best crew ever.

I’m going to tell you why. These people… they kept us company all day. Talking Lordi with us. And later on talking about Finland, Sweden, Everything between heaven and earth really! It was SO NICE you know, to just sit and discuss Lordi up and down with people. People you’ve never talked to before about it.

But here’s the real deal. They asked us, “Hey, would you like to see the wings?”, you know, Mr Lordi’s wings? They weren’t a part of the exhibition (at least not at this point) so we said hell yeah! However, we expected it to be like, they would start some fancy thing on the set up or so, but what happened was the the guy actually WENT UPSTAIRS to the storage, and brought down the wings. Only to show us.

And it doesn’t stop there. Then he and the others started mending the thing (pretty broken) and fixing it up. So we could take pictures with it.

Do you guys hear this? They brought down the fucking wings for our sake. The mended the damn thing for our sake. I can’t even… I can’t even begin to describe this! THE BEST CREW I’M TELLING YOU!

After this, we sat and discussed music and whatnot with the crew, all the way until the thing closed. One of the guys even gave us the broom and told us “No no, you’re not leaving yet! Cleaning time!” Sadly, he was only joking. Seriously, I could VOLUNTEER cleaning the place, no problem!

Of course we didn’t leave the place emptyhanded. I came out of the place with a Hella faceshirt (after a few ifs and buts) as well as a Get Heavy shirt. I’m bankrupt, but you know. If it’s anyone I’d go bankrupt for, it’s Lordi.

After this, we cooked ourselves some tacos sitting here and just admiring the whole thing, loving the whole thing, saying to ourselves…

we don’t wanna go home

// Sara

Alright people! So I guess the cat’s out of the box! We are in Finland, and we are attending Lordis exhibition! Let me tell you about our journey.

Our journey started last night, Sunday night, at a cold busstation in Stockholm. We started walking towards the hotel we had booked in panic in realizing we need some sleep before going to Finland. Once reaching the hotel, we realize there are NO staff there whatsoever. Gladly, we could call them, and they let us in and told us what roomnumber we had and everything sorted out.

It was kinda weird you know, being like in charge, and it got even weirder when we noticed we were literally the ONLY guests at the hotel! Spooky, but also fun. We also had this MAJOR thing in the middle of our room, that looked like something that would come straight out of the Robinson-quest at Boda Borg.

Fun story about the hotel: Michelle was about to go and get ready for bed in the master-bathroom, but all of a sudden I heard her scream. Apparently, we weren’t alone at the hotel. We had company.

Well. Perhaps not her brand new best friend if you know what I mean. Gladly, there were a bunch of kids toilets we could use instead.

Anyway. Another fun story: After we located the Alfons Åberg toilets, I had a bit of an incident. I was just about to wash off my face when I got stuck. I thought it was just my festival bracelets who caught the necklace and tried to shake it off. Look closer in the mirror. It appears I managed to stuck the chain of my necklace inside the safety-pin I had nailed to one of my festivalbracelets. HOW. HOW DO I EVEN MANAGE THIS?!

After this, we managed to get about what, three hours of sleep? Before it was time for us to head for the airporttransfer. Once there, we checked in everything, got inside and eventually got some breakfast. AND ALMOST MANAGED TO MISS OUR FLIGHT. HOW IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE. When we reached the gate it was final call. HOW. HOW.

Well, gladly, we MADE the flight (I would never have forgiven  myself else) and you know. I’ve missed flying SOOO much. It was so nice to be back in the air, and I was excited as HELL getting back to Helsinki for the first time in forever.

Once landed and transported into the central of Helsinki we picked up some quick lunch and headed for our train. Everything went so perfectly – we never had to wait too long for anything, but on the same time we never really had to stress too much. Of course, I was worried as hell while on the first train (we were to change in another town) but after reaching that destination, realizing the other train departed two metres away, all the fear disappeared.

And you know. Savonlinna… It’s so beautiful! I mean, I’ve been in awe ever since we arrived. We located the hotel fairly quickly. and noticed what a pretty apartment we’d manage to get! It’s amazing! BEYOND AMAZING! After settling down, charging phones and getting ready, we headed for our final destination. The Lordi Exhibition.

At first, we missed it. But then, after turning on our GPS, we managed to locate it. We both squealed inside when we saw the banner flying high, or wwell, not so high, but fairly high!

And then we entered… and I must say. We came across the SWEETEST STAFF EVER! Instantly when we had come in, we started chatting about Lordimemories, the costumes, the shows, the eras, EVERYTHING! It was so great to for once you know, outside a concert, meet someone you can really talk to about Lordi. And then you had the other guy, who was the one who came up with the idea of the whole exhibition…

So here’s the deal. We stood there and admired Kalma and Kita’s costumes from the Monsterican Dream era, and we told him that we didn’t really dare to go too close because we were unsure if any of the costumes would actually start moving. Then he looked really close and he was like “No, they are all right! Go check!” Hesitantly, we both leaned in to look Kalma in the eyes….

And then the crewmember grabbed both of us and screamed.

Like. If I haven’t been closer to a heartattack before, then I sure was now. WHAT THE HELL. I mean, now, five minutes later, it’s hilarious as hell, but at the moment I was like WRTLDSFJASLDJASLDJ!! I may add, we were the only ones at the exhibition at the time, and the crew. The entire crew laughed, and after a while we joined in as well.

Well, what can I say. I enjoyed the exhibition. It was nice seeing the costumes so up and close, and to notice all these details. I feel somewhat decieved in a way, when I noticed some certain aspects. I mean, I know they are fake, but I didn’t realize how simple some of them where! I’m beyond fascinated though. It gives me a lot of ideas for questions, and tomorrow I’ll make sure to bring along a notepad so I can scribble down all I come up with.

We are going back tomorrow to pick up some merch as well as paying the exhibition and the lovley staff a last visit before leaving.

Not that I want to leave but…

Well. I figured I’d put up more pictures tomorrow, or when I get home. Right now both me and Michelle are pretty dead after being awake for almost 24 hours(!!) and we just want to sit down and watch Dark Floors. As you can see, we are posing with the props from the movie on the pictures above! Lovely place.

Over and out!

// Sara