02: Helsinki Café (Pt. 1): Cinco de Mayo flashback

[1-minute read]

Content note: Let’s talk about sex, baby. Let’s talk about swinging across patios on the 27th floor. Parkour.

Helsinki had been magical. And alarming.

I witnessed an avalanche. But it wasn’t on a mountain.

Three days into our trip, we laughed at ourselves, remembering a Cinco de Mayo party friends had hosted from Woodward’s, Tower 2 — a heritage department store redeveloped into condos, art spaces, good intentions, and worthwhile returns on development investments.

Planted squarely in the Downtown Eastside, it was the kind of place that made people argue about gentrification while drinking on the patios above it.

It sat right at the edge of the city’s discomfort. Which somehow made it feel like the perfect place for bad ideas.

I’d walked onto the patio of this 27th-floor unit with my ex-boyfriend close behind. The next thing we knew, we were hopping the railing — 27 floors in the air.

Getting over there was the easy part. Getting back to the party was a sketchier story. Should I have belonged in a circus? Swing through the air like that. On some kind of wild sex trapeze.

Wait — how’d I end up on the Woodward’s patio story? Let me get us back on track to a café in Helsinki…

Up next >> Chapter 03: The unplanned pregnancy