Sunday, July 29 – Aire-Maija and Train Ride

So, apologies – I’m behind because there was literally no internet in all of Naantali (where I stayed last), not because I’m lazy. Also, today, I really didn’t take pictures, so apologies for that too.

Today, I met up with my Finnish teacher Aire-Maija, which was an adventure in itself. The hostel phone refused to call her phone, so I ended up being very stalkerish and looking up her hotel. She wasn’t in her room, so I stalked her in the breakfast room (and found her, yay!)

We didn’t really do much exciting. We wandered through the market and a few little stores. She bought me a new companion, Marja, as a souvenir gift (who I send home because I was afraid the travelling might be too much for her). She is a dwarf, or in Finnish, “tuntti”.

We had lunch at Fazer, the home of Finnish chocolate. Finnish chocolate isn’t famous, but its actually really good. Anyways, I wish I had photos of this place for you guys because its impossible to explain. Just imagine a huge room full of chocolate and candy and then shelves of cakes and desserts and then a tiny shelf of sandwiches and, of course, coffee, because it isn’t Finnish without the coffee. For dessert, I had this very exciting pineapple-meringue thing in vanilla sauce. I think Finns have a super sweet tooth. I thought I was doing dessert by eating their sweet buns and donuts (I generally do dessert for breakfast, though now I have oatmeal, wheeee!) but then,  there’s all these cakes and explosive tart things, Finland is just a good place to find sugar. (yum)

We stopped at Kiasma, too, which was this interesting modern art museum. The best part was right at the entrance, where there was a life-sized crocheted police car. The rest was kind of…weird, though it was interesting to see the Finnish take on the Occupy movement. It was this very weird satire that made me borderline uncomfortable, but, at the same time, the mocking of Americans amused me to no end.

Then, saying good-bye to Aire-Maija, Moomin and Pippi and I got on a train to Turku. We were on the second level of the train, so there was amazing visibility, it was awesome.

From Turku, we took a bus to Naantali, where our hostel was, woohoo!

Saturday, July 28 – Churches and Parks

Today is my second to last day in Helsinki :-( . So, I spent it checking out new places, which were actually the super-touristy places. I’ve generally avoided most of tourists, or at least the high-tourist concentration places, so it was a bit of a culture shock, to say the least.

I started at the Uspenski Cathedral, which is a Russian church on Katajanokka. Sadly, I wasn’t able to go inside, but I got to spend lots of time admiring it. Plus, it’s really high up, so I got to look down on a lot of Helsinki, which was fun

Then we went off to the Stone Church, which is a classic example of tourism and popularity ruining a wonderful place. It’s a church built into a rock face. So first of all, there’s this random rocky hill in the middle of Helsinki. That’s probably the best part.

Inside is rather church-like. Its circular, though, and has lots of roof windows so the light does cool things on the walls, and it was fun to think about the fact that I was inside a rocky hill in the middle of a city. It also has amazing acoustics, which is generally great, but not so much when millions of tourists don’t know how to read the “silence please” sign. Grawr.

Tourists are only allowed in for 15 minute intervals, and then, in 45 minutes, they do ceremony stuff. I saw a wedding leave right before I entered and another entering as I left. It felt more like a machine than a church, despite the beauty (end whining).

Next stop was Sibelius Park to see a super-weird monument to Sibelius, which also turned out to be a major tourist destination. (though, when I arrived, it was fun, because there was a group of francophones playing soccer in and around the monument)

We spent a lot of time in parks today, walked through one to get to Uspenski, walked through the one on top of the Stone Church, walked through one to get to Sibelius Park…just a lot of parks. Moomin’s favourite part of the parks is the playground, though he gets scared when there are lots of children around.

Our final stop for the day was the Opera (and another park). Apparently Boston Ballet is coming to Helsinki? You’re not allowed in without a tour, but its an interesting enough building from the outside

So, I went to the market on my way back to the hostel to buy strawberries and a card as a thank-you for my roommate, but when I got back to the room, she had left! She left this morning and checked out before I woke up! I don’t even know her name. It makes me super-sad that I never got the chance to tell her how wonderful she is, but at the same time, it makes her almost magical, like a guardian fairie or something…oh well, more strawberries for me…

Friday, July 27 – Seurasaari

So today, we went off to Seurasaari, which is another island, but, unlike Suomenlinna, you get to it with a bridge (and a 40 minute bus ride), not a ferry. 

As a whole, it’s a pretty large island, known as the “people’s park” (or something like that, I forget the actual phrase). Basically, its been a government owned, park type place for a really long time. Most of it is just forest and beach (lots of people swimming) and then there’s an open air museum.

Since we were there before the museum opened, we started by walking around the entire island, and pausing in pretty places. It’s gorgeous. Finnish-Americans are always talking about how much more beautiful  Finland is, and, yeah, I saw it in Helsinki, but this, this was just amazing. Trees and lakes and meadows and rocks, all on one island!

The walk actually took about an hour and a half, it’s a large island. And then we came back to civilization, which, of course, we recognized because there was a phone booth.

So, the open air museum part of the island is basically the history of Finland in houses from all over the country. There was an entire farm (like 6ish buildings including sauna) that was transported all the way from Central Finland! There was a cowherd’s house, which looked like a pretty decent place to live for a cowherd a few hundred years ago. 

Oooh! The barn. So there was a barn near the church. Apparently, farm families would keep a barn near the church (which was generally far away from the town). They housed their animals there, but they also used the upstairs to change (so they didn’t look like a mess in church) and spend the night, if they had to. Isn’t that clever?

There was also a manor with a pool table and a corner store and a Russian-style house (which was super-dark) and a funny, unlabelled house with columns. Moomin especially enjoyed pretending to be Little My in the children’s room.

I had a Karelian pastry for lunch, which was scary because the vegetarian-status of the thing was unclear until it was all in my stomach (it was vegetarian), but it was actually really good – eggs and rice and pastry, so basically all my favourite foods (except berries) in one meal.

I spent the afternoon being responsible, researched hostels (yes, leaving Helsinki soon, yikes!), activated my rail pass, looked up timetables for trains and busses, all very convoluted and responsible and boring, but I did get strawberries again! So, at the end of the day, life is worth it, as long as there are strawberries.

Thursday, July 26 – Design and more Shop lurking

As mentioned last night, Moomin and I have a new companion. My roommate is an older Finn and language teacher, and she walked in last night while I was fight with the internet and dumped Pippi and a Little My shirt on my bed. Still trying to think of the best way to thank her, not just for this, she’s been an excellent resource as well, because she used to live in Helsinki. Anyways…

There’s this thing going called Helsinki is the World Design Capital. The Finns are really into design. They love elegant, beautiful, pretty, etc. things, but only if those things are also useful, and that’s kind of the point of design. It’s everywhere – Marimekko shops, glassware shops, vendors at the open air market, tourist shops, the works. So today, I went to the Design Forum, which is one of the centers of the whole thing. It was a pretty tiny room considering the amount it packed in: Chairs, mugs, unidentifiable (and identifiable) glass things, clothing, wooden shoes, “normal” shoes, these adorable plastic pony-things, jewelry, books, notebooks, pencils, embroidery kits, basically, everything.

 After lurking around there for a while (it feels like lurking, I just slouch my way into stores, look at one price tag for amusement and then wander around hoping no one will notice and think I’m considering stealing something, the backpack does not help) I went off to the Päivälehti museum. Päivälehti was the first Finnish newspaper, until it was censored and replaced by the Helsingin Sanomat.

Moomin enjoyed the bathroom mirror. He thinks the Snork Maiden looks lovely with lipstick.

I, on the other hand, really enjoyed the exhibit because the subject matter is distantly related to my NHD (which I now want to reread). The problem was that this was really not a tourist museum, and almost the entire thing was in Finnish, so I spent about half an hour decoding things on censorship with my dictionary and then, head aching, went through the rest of the exhibit without catching a lot of it. When I know more Finnish, I am totally coming back and doing more research.

After lunch, we found a Moomin store!

There’s Moomin dollhouses, and kitchens, and lunch boxes, and bags, and puzzles, and music boxes, and mini-soccer balls, and and and…you get it…

Next stop was “Akateeminen Kirjakauppa”, which is kind of like Barnes and Nobles and Borders combined and then put on a lot of steroids. Kind of. There was a HUGE shelf of books of Finnish for foreigners, like me! I had a lot of trouble not buying every single book (well, I had one of them already). No worries, I only got one book, full of lots and lots and lots of grammar exercises, woohoo!

A sign had told me there was going to be this concert at the Pavilion (this wooden structure that’s part of the Design Capital events) and it sounded cool, a violinist and a juggler. So, I took a new bus and got my way down there, it was a huge adventure, and there was no concert. But there was really good rhubarb juice, so I guess it was worth it, one of those amusing incidents that happen while travelling. 

Plus, when I walked back, I got to see special trucks wash all of Market Square once the market was gone.

Wednesday, July 25 – Museums!

So, today was super-fun for me, but probably super-boring for you because I went to museums, where cameras aren’t allows, so no pictures…sorry…

Also, Finnish went better today.  I managed to order my breakfast (coffee and these yummy egg/rice roll things) in about 90% Finnish, woohoo! I’m getting there (slowly)

So, I spent my morning in the Ateneum, which is a fine arts museum. The best part was that the guy I bought my ticket from wasn’t sure whether he should give me the Finnish or English pamphlet guide, it was fun. Anyways, there was this huge exhibition of this painter Helene Schjerfbeck. She painted a lot. Not all of her stuff was great, some if it was too “modern art” for my taste, but a lot of it was also really beautiful, she had one of these two people doing embroidery by the light of a lamp, and the shading and light used with the lamp was absolutely genius.

Then, we went to the National Museum (Kansallis Museo)

It houses the history of Finland from the ice age to present. I skipped over some of it. But certainly got the idea – Finland developed into an agrarian society quickly and then didn’t really change for a long time. It was part of Sweden and then Russia and then finally gained its independence.

The best part of the museum was this special exhibit of dollhouses. HUGE dollhouses. There were some taller and wider than me and just filled and filled and filled with dolls and furniture and mini books and animals and the works, it was soooooo cool!

By then, it was 3 pm and I had yet to eat lunch (spent way more time in the National Museum than expected) So Moomin and I stopped at the train station for a quick lunch.

That’s actually a half eaten salad, not a drink…

It was too late to visit my last planned museum for the day. So I walked down to Aleksanderinkatu (Alexander Street), where there’s lots of clothing shops and slouched through a couple of those. My new favourite clothing store is called “Mango”, its sale section includes an entire rack of black dresses of all different styles! The other thing I learned from store-lurking was that the Finns love stripes. Literally everywhere…just stripes, lots and lots and lots. (You also see a lot on the street, and I have yet to see my very Finnish roommate not wear stripes)

Anyways, Moomin and I stopped by the covered Market, which is basically an extension of the open-air market.

And then we went back to the hostel early, woohoo! Also, Moomin got a new friend after I transferred pictures on to my computer, so expect to see a picture or two of Pippi in later posts.

Tuesday, July 24 – Suomenlinna and Tram 3

We spent most of the day on Suomenlinna, a nearby island (and originally, an old military fortress) which was included in my public transportation card, so I decided, what the hell? It was great.

We started at the toy museum, looking at old doll houses and dolls and planes and ships and toy cars. There was a doll school set-up, and, most certainly, some super-old moomins (which do not look at all like hippos). There was also an old Mickey Mouse (Mikki-Hiiri) doll…he used to look a lot more like a mouse when he was younger, just saying. 

Then, we went down to the fortress and saw the tomb of the guy who designed the thing and explored the windows of the fortress, they were perfect moomin-sized caves (see above).

Next, we checked out the boat yard, which is actually currently in the middle of being reconstructed. 

These were the only two boats in the yard (the red one is HUGE, like cruise-liner huge, random side note), but they apparently plan to turn it into a place dedicated to building traditional Finnish boats.

On our way out, we stopped by the library, and met up with some friends.

I got through three childrens’ books in Finnish with help from my dictionary, woohoo!

With a final stop at the church, we got back on the ferry and landed in Market Square in time for a super-late lunch.

On the way to the tram stop, we were completely distracted by a group of street musicians. A violinist and two cellists were playing through a set of about 5 different popular classical pieces (all super showy violin pieces) including parts of Vivaldi’s Winter. It was super-amazing. My hypothesis is that they are conservatory students who had nothing to do in the summer, but I don’t even know where the conservatory is so…musicians of unclear origin…

 We then took Tram 3 (T and B) through the entire city as a way to get situated. We passed by The Olympic Stadium and some big churches. There was a super-artsy neighborhood that I kind of want to check out later (but buying anything there looked expensive, so maybe not…food is pricey enough here)

The day ended with the best strawberries ever, bought at the market, now almost eaten (I managed to save a couple for breakfast) They were probably the best thing I’ve bought since I got here, except, possibly, my tram card.

Monday, July 23 – Historic Center and Kamppi

So, first off, huge apologies for lateness. I've been pretty much writing day to day posts, just uploading photos has been hell because the wireless is funky here...They're coming though, I hope.

So, let’s look at a map.

This is actually an old tourist map from the 60s, found it in the City Museum. Anyways, on the right, see the knob of land sticking out around the middle? That’s actually an island, called Katajanokka, and that’s where I’m staying. Right at the beginning of the harbor is an open air market, and that’s where I went for breakfast, yum.  I ended up at a bakery type place, with someone who was willing to speak Finnglish (most people give me dirty looks when I try to speak Finnish…oh well) and got Rahkaapulla, which is kind of like a healthy cheese Danish.

Moomin and I then visited the City Museum, which had a huge exhibit on old Finnish films. 

Suomisen Perhe was apparently from the WWII era, when everyone wanted to hear about stable families. The person who wrote the descriptions added in snarky details such as “Person told time from the clock tower because you can have superhuman vision in movies” and “Brother and Sister playing together happily, just like in every family”

Then, we went to the mall. No kidding. I went to the mall of my own free will. (I was lured by a supermarket, and then later found out there was one on Katajanokka). The mall (Kamppi) is also a huge bus station (linja-autoasema) and metro stop, it’s a huge mix. (see! Bus arrival times and a supermarket in the background!)

Moomin got pretty tired of the mall, but happily there was a park/square right outside.

The final stop for the day was the Cathedral.

I spent a lot of time standing at the top of the stairs, watching the people in the square below. It was raining gently, so very few Finnish people were out (seriously, Finnish people are really not into rain), though there was a group of cosplayers (at least, I think they were…or maybe just people with cool costumes) who were most definitely speaking Finnish…

Anyways, that is the official Day 1…wheeeee!

Helsingissa!

Arrived in Helsinki without much eventfulness (thankfully) - Flights on time, quick through security, edible food. There's was a scary moment when the map and central Helsinki didn't correspond, but I ended up in the right place (and got a new map) (I think I currently have three different ones)

Moomins been enjoying the trip as well...watching airplanes leave at Logan...

admiring a Ben and Jerry's vending machine at Heathrow (there was a Cadbury one, too, sadly, no picture)

Visiting the Harrod's bear also at Heathrow...

and, of course, exploring the new room...(and experimenting with camouflage)

also, the sun thing is really weird...its 8.30pm and the sun is attempting to convince me its 4ish...confusing...

Moomin Info

So, quick housekeeping. If anyone wants a stuffed moomin from Finland, they should tell Nicole D (if you don't know her, tell me) and be prepared to pay. Specify small ($10ish, like my Moominmamma) or large ($20ish, like my Moomintroll). You have until July 30, when I go to Moominland, and I'll send a nice package back to Nicole afterwards, who will distribute as many as she can. Yay moomins!