Finnish fun
Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008Stepping into Helsinki, it was even colder than Tallinn. Finland doesn’t actually count as Scandinavia, more Nordic, but still my first time up in this part of the world and a definite difference from the Eastern European countries I had been in. Helsinki is a nice city, it’s very clean and organized, obviously built for the cold though, most main streets are just lined with big shopping malls so you can stay out of the cold. There are a crap load of McDonalds, like around 6 on one intersection which is not so cool, lots of European brand shops, and a lot of cool looking design shops. People all seem very ‘cool’. And process were definitely a lot higher, back on the Euro and very western Europe prices
We had a bit of trouble booking a hostel as it was a Saturday night and everything was booked out, EVERYTHING. Very frustration but we had found a campsite that was in the city and accessible by metro so had booked a cabin there which was about the same price as a hostel (which is expensive here, around 23 euro so almost $50 NZD). We couldn’t check in until 4pm so we left our bags in a locker, managing to fit all 3 of our packs and day packs in there, and walked around the city for a bit. First of all we stopped at a food market right on the water which sold heaps of fish and vege’s. We had an amazing lunch by buying a big fillet of smoked salmon and some bread rolls…yum.
Had a wander round the rest of the market which turned into like a handicraft/souvenir market which had lots of fur, a lot of santa themed things and lots of reindeer. The north of Finland sounds really amazing, in Lapland where you can see the northern lights and beautiful scenery. But I imagine its very very cold there. But another time it would be good to get back to the country and see more. We made a detour to the tourist information were we loaded up on brouchers (we had no guidebook) then wandered around a bit more working out that there wasn’t that much to do. We did walk into a second hand book store which randomly turned out to be an art gallery, as we walked through all these dusty rows of books it just kept going and you came out into a kind of cave filled with hanging flowers and lights and plasticine where you could make your own creations. It was very random. After we got sick of walking we grabbed our bags and took the highly efficient (and English) metro out to our camp site.
It was easy to get to but pretty much on the edge of the city. I am sure it would get packed in summer and its right on a river so really nice. We had a 4 bed cabin for the night which was pretty small but enough for us, it had a heater which was great and a microwave.
Me and Rdoc headed over to find the supermarket but got there just after it closed. There wasn’t really a lot else around, just a petrol station and a pub. We ended up buying a pizza and some chips from a pizza shop and grabbed a loaf of bread, a very pathetic dinner but about all we could manage! Being a Saturday night even though we were far away in our camp site we tried to head into town to go to a few bars. We found one kind of cool retro bar and had a drink there before walking around in vain without really any lunch finding anywhere decent enough eventually we headed home as it was cold and we were over walking round. In the morning we checked out of the camp site and headed to town and found a hostel which had some space, actually it was a cool hostel and in a great area, so probably would have been a much better time if we had ended up there from the beginning. We went via the train station and brought our Also it was a Sunday and apparently on Sunday’s the whole city shuts down and nothing is open, so not so good for me as I had planned to do some shopping for some more warm clothes. It was cold outside and we were kind of over it, it took us ages to find something that was open so we could eat and I ended up with not so good salad from a supermarket, it was all a bit depressing. The boys headed off to a café to hang out and I went back to the hostel and talked to people there. The afternoon passed and we made some dinner then somehow ended up at a Finnish guys house with naked people trying to get us ina sauna with them.
Let me explain….in our search for accommodation I had sent messages to people through this website called hospitality club where people offer free accommodation and to show people around. I got an email back from one guy who said he was having a Sauna part and we should come, and so you why not? He was super friendly and came and picked us up with one of his friends and we went back to his place, actually his parent where were clearly loaded with this crazy flash apartment. There were a few other very strange people there and the whole thing was very very weird. Weirder still when they tried to get us in the sauna and we were trying to subtly get out of there. So we had 3 naked guys standing over us trying to convince us to stay. It was weird. Too weird. Although nice people, just a bit strange. We eventually got out of there and got the tram home….a very strange night.
Our train to St Petersburg was leaving early so we got up at 6 and walked to the train station where we settled in for the 6 hour journey into Russia where we hoped our visas would pass and we would get in
So our Helsinki experience was a bit strange, I wouldn’t write off the whole city but we didn’t find that much to do The accommodation thing was a bit of a pain and I think if we had managed to stay at the hostel the whole time it would have been a bit better as it was in a cool area, that would have been good if it was actually open. I do want to get back to Finland to see the rest of the country, but maybe in summer as I don’t think I could handle it any colder!
admin