Pint and burger: Bagged beer walk

Hot summer. Really hot summer, some sort of record of hotness. So, I opted to walk over 10km with bagged beer with my friends, drinking by the sea, eating somewhere at nice restaurant or pic nic style packed lunch.
I started this habit in middle of 90’s, me and my friend Pete usually walked home from office whit couple beers when our summer break started. After awhile, I moved to Lahti (walk is located to Espoo-Helsinki area), but still came to walk when Pete’s summer break started. More peole came to walk, route changed etc etc…

But I hear you asking: is it legal? Well, it’s kind of grey area. The law says: ”The intake of intoxicants is prohibited in a public place in an urban area, at a border crossing point—  and in a public transport vehicle.

The previous does not apply to a licensed area of special permission or a declaration or the interior of a private vehicle.

Nor does it concern the enjoyment of an alcoholic beverage in a park or other comparable public place, so that enjoyment and the associated residence and behavior do not prevent or unreasonably hamper others’ right to use the place for it’s actual purpose.”

So it’s the police who’ll decide if you are doing something wrong or not, but Finnish police is very fair, if you overdrink or are drinking in wrong place, I’m pretty sure that you’ll get verbal notification first. If you are not making any trouble, you’ll be fine. Loud Americans may want keep their voice down a little bit, attention is not good with bagged beer.

When I travel I am usually checking local laws and if possible, I sometimes enjoy bagged beer in my holidays also. It’s so easy and cheap. Think about it: you either a) find a suitable restaurant/pub, go there, wait for a waiter, order, wait for a drink, wait for a bill… or b) go some minimarket and buy a cold beer and crack it open when you step outside. If you want to, you can go by the sea, to some nice park etc..
Some places like America you could end up to court and punishment could be whatever judge feels like (they told me this in internet… don’t blame me if this is not true ). Ok, could be ”the maximum penalty” that is for scaring people not to do it, but I didn’t have courage for bagged beer in USA. Shame, there were nice spots for it. I get no kicks from breaking laws, so if it’s not allowed, I don’t drink in public.
I’m always drinking moderately, of course. Just couple. Maybe another couple after awhile, if event will last a long time.

The journey begins: first in to grocery, couple brews and of course non-alcoholic beverages for hydration and we are ready to go. Our party was group of 8 people, it’s quite big and crowd like this is hard to keep at one place. I’ve been pub crawls with same people and almost every time there is some ”You left me in that pub” ”We had to leave when I still had half pint left” style drama.

We went to a seaside and annual checking who is gained weight or lost hair was going on. Sip of cold beer, sun, friends and useless talk, same old stories. This was actually fun, good feeling.

— Beach is my favorite bagged beer venues.

Beach pit stop was after very hot pizzeria and breeze from sea felt like heaven. We could have eaten pizzas outside, but there were too much wasps. Beach is always nice. Of course there was a happy geezer who checked us carefully, I was first sure that he was going to tell us to go away with our drinks (that could happen and usually you should leave, one of the public drinking definitions is that it shouldn’t bother anyone), but he smiled and said ”this seems to be a posse where you can fart freely”. Couple of my friends started to chat with that fellow and soon he told us his life story. Of course first was an ab muscle presentation ”I’m 62, could you believe”. Yes, I could, to put nicely, his skin was like an old luggage. Then he told how he is doing over 30 pull ups and rows 10km every day. A pleasant surprise was that he wasn’t a former boxer, those guys usually are. He was a former soldier, that is not very impressive fact in Finland, where almost every man has been in army.
I was feeling little tired, bored to geezer’s stories, full after pizza and very hot. Suddenly life on the beach actually wasn’t my idea of ultimate happiness anymore. Somewhere in my mind was fear of the home train trip, one hour in sweaty train and I wasn’t almost drunk at all, so it was impossible to ignore.

Couple pints at Helsinki, there was a beer festival, but payments in order to go in were too high for 1 or 2 drinks. I watched drunk and active people’s little ongoing games, someone tried to look like rich, other like tough/fashionable/what ever, you name it. I sat there drinking my IPA at crowded terrace, painfully feeling that I’ve eaten too much and that I didn’t belong there. I didn’t. Waiting for to get an over priced beer, sitting somewhere where music is so loud that you can’t hear what guy next to you is saying just ain’t my thing anymore, if ever was. I should have left earlier, but trains didn’t allow that and bus trip via airport, as buses to Lahti at evenings do, was almost hour longer than train, so I left for an extra hour or so.
Someone else also thought that we were different kind of people there. ”Are you the plastic model assosiation meeting people?”, he asked. No no… We just looked the part.

Last train to Lahti was an experience, I don’t think I’ve ever been there before. People were sleeping, 2 out of—  8 people in our car didn’t pay ticket but explained something ”I didn’t know/my iPad is just updating”.—  One guy pulled off very business style explanation and when train was in Lahti, same guy was digging trash bins at the station. Business is not good for him, I guess.

Well, next year I could go with bicycle (you can take bike to train, so you don’t have to pedal whole 100km per direction), take part to couple pit stops only, fade early to home. It’s always nice to see the old crowd though.