The Finnish Line

"Yeah, there are," he says with a laugh.

That's how he got his headache.

Buses for Vierumaki, where the sports institute is located, leave Helsinki four times a day, and I decide to make the 80-mile trip the following morning. If sisu can be learned, maybe I can take a crash course.

A light snow is falling as the bus leaves the crowded Helsinki station. On our way out of the city past czarist-era buildings and daring new architecture, often on the same block, we drive up narrow streets lined with pastel houses that could have been airlifted from the Caribbean. The bright tropical colors are intended to ward off the winter doldrums.

English is spoken by nearly everyone in Helsinki, but once out of town I have to fall back on my rudimentary Finnish and assorted hand gestures, neither of which help very much after I get off the bus in Heinola, 20 miles from my destination.

"Is this the way to Vierumaki?" I ask a woman standing at the bus shelter. She smiles.

"Vierumaki?"

More smiles.

"No English," says a salesman in an antiques shop across the street. I get the same response in a music store and a beauty salon. Back at the shelter, no one speaks English, although when I ask about Vierumaki, one man in a fur hat gives my arm a friendly squeeze and announces, "Arnold Schwarzenegger!" So I must be headed in the right direction, and I grab the next bus.

When we stop at the edge of a pine forest, a passenger whose English is surprisingly good says the sports institute is a short walk down the road. Forty-five minutes later I'm still walking. For Finns distance is more of a gauge of willpower than actual mileage -- in other words, a sisumeter. And mine is on empty when I flag down a Saab, the first car I've seen since I got off the bus. The driver assures me the institute is only a few more kilometers.

Under similar circumstances in any other country, it would be common courtesy to be given a lift. In Finland, it's not that simple. If I ask for a ride, I'm admitting I'm out of sisu. If I'm offered one, it confirms the same thing.

I let my fingers hang for a few seconds on the lowered car window. The heat feels good. What's strange is that it feels just as good knowing what I have to do. As the Saab disappears in a swirl of wind and snow, there's no telling how much farther I have to walk. But you don't build up sisu by following the path of least resistance.