The secrets of the city = Shoe tossing

Incredible! For once I must say that I am surprised about how dishonest Finns are! In this case our biggest newspaper actually! I'm sure all the Finns know which newspaper I'm talking about if I name it the biggest one. No name is needed here in order to explain my frustration. The cause of my frustration?

Well, about one month, one month and a half ago, an Italian I got to know came to Helsinki on a short work practice experience. He worked in a hotel and stayed at some kind of campus apartment in Haaga, Helsinki.

Shoe tossing in Helsinki
He spent one month here in Helsinki, and when he and his Italian friends were about to live, they decided to leave a sign of themselves on the Helsinkian streets. Therefore they came up with the idea to hang some shoes close by to the Glass palace also known as Lasipalatsi, a well-known building in central Helsinki. They hung these shoes on electricity cables hanging between two buildings. On the shoes they had written different things; how much they liked the city, about their plans to return and so on. The point behind this? To leave a mark in the city that had touched them so deeply.

This is all fine, but soon after they did this, different theories about the shoes started to occur among the people of Helsinki. Some actually thought the shoes to be a sign of drug dealing like it is in some other countries.

Anyhow, this all lead to the fact that the biggest Finnish newspaper started to ask for stories about these mysterious shoes. I thought since I knew something about it that I should say something. So I sent one of the reporters at the newspaper an email explaining what I knew about the shoes and their origin. I even sent him some pics that I had got from my Italian friend, just to show that I didn't come up with this story but that it was actually true.

The reporter soon contacted me, asking me for more details. At that point, I told him that I didn't want to participate with a more significant role in this whole story. He continued to send me emails and asking me to call him. When I didn't do so, I thought the whole thing would fade away. But how wrong I was...

Last Sunday, when I was at work, I opened the newspaper and what shock was there waiting for me. I found an article with my story, that was fine, but even with my picture that I had never given permission to publish!!! It wasn't even my picture!

Well, I must say that I learned something from all this. The secrets of this city should be kept as secrets since anonymity is not respected. I feel like I let down my friend because I didn't ask his permission to publish his pictures, but I didn't mean to publish them. Arrghh! I must say this changes how I feel about the newspaper we call our most important one.