helsinki

Last Saturday May 31st after working a half day that turned into leaving only 10 min only, I came home from work and frantically packed my bags, and then we were off! We flew the red eye Vancouver to Amsterdam and then a quick transfer to another flight Amsterdam to Helsinki. The flights were relatively uneventful other than poor Paul barfing four times (once on me) and the flight attendants being relatively unconcerned (responding to our button push a good 30 min later when they were serving drinks). The airplane food was gross, but that's nothing new. Arrived in Helsinki Sunday afternoon and made our way to our downtown hotel. We're staying at Glo Hotel an awesome little boutique hotel with a lot of art and character, really central. It's of course way out of our budget, but this is the leg of the trip being funded by UBC, so we're enjoying the luxory while we can. If you can afford it, I highly reccomend it. Finland is expensive in general (the beer is cheap!) but we've managed to spend not very much money all things considered.

I had pretty much no expectations for Helsinki, and it blew my mind! The lightness is really amazing. This time of year it's light out and sunny and warm nearly 23 hours a day. Around midnight it gets a little dim for a while, but no darkness to speak of. The city is gorgeous, steeped in character and history, clean and safe, bustling but not crowded, the Fins are amazingly friendly, and English is spoken everywhere. The Finnish language is very complex - every letter is pronounced. For example Tuullikki, the name of a girl who showed me around on Tuesday - you need to pronounce both t's, both l's and both k's. Challenging for our western tongues.

Monday morning Paul was off to the conference. We had breakfast together at our hotel buffet which was incredible, and had all the fixings for sandwiches too, so we made some for our lunches (and have done this every day, so didn't have to pay for 2 meals a day) and headed in opposite directions for the day. Paul out to Espos, the suburb where the conference was being held, and I meandering around the city. I did a guided tour and learned a lot of Finnish history, and then wandered through the markets and some of the historic buildings. Back to the hotel to try and nap off the jetlag, which proved extra challenging with it being light 23 hours a day. Paul returned around 5pm and had a brief nap, and then we headed out to meet Jens and Antti (Antti is a Finnish boys name, you need to say both the t's) who are in Paul's research group at UBC (Antti is also in my brother's fraternity and comes from a small town in northern Finland but has been at UBC the last few years . . . small world). We went back to the conference site to go to a wine and dine (more like wine and salad for me - vegetarian eating has been somewhat challenging here) with the conference people. Paul shook hands with the Finnish prof who was the external examiner for his PhD.

Tuesday I got up and went for a run with Paul, and discovered the window where I thought I'd be a faster runner than him has already closed, broken bones and everything. Back to the hotel for breakfast and sandwich making, and then he headed to the conference and I headed to meet Tuullikki, a girl friend of Antti's who he had arranged to take me around for the day. She was really kind and showed me around Helsinki's design district - some really cool and really expensive clothes, particularly once you translate Euros into Cdn dollars. In the evening Paul and I met up with Antti and Jens and some of Antti's friends and we went to a Finnish restaurant. My stomach had been bugging me till this point so we stopped at a pharmacy where Antti translated between me and the pharmacist and eventually I left with some Tums type thing. We came home early to bed totally exhausted.

Wednesday I went out to the conference with the boys and watched Paul give his talk. I realized that Paul had been getting a much worse deal - he's been at this conference listening to lectures on paper physics and I've been gallivanting around my new favourite European city. After the talks Paul, Jens, Antti, Juha (another Fin who did a stint at UBC a few years ago) and I got some Finnish beers and drank them in the park, then met up with the rest of the conference congregation and went on an hour boat trip from Espos to a little island (can't even begin to spell it) near downtown Helsinki where there is an old sea fortress built by the Swedes when they controlled Finland, and conquered by the Russians. We had a guided tour and then a banquet in the inner most fortress. The banquet hall was stunning, but the meal was among the worst any of us had ever eaten. There was lots of wine though.

Thursday Paul finally had a day to go sight seeing. We went for a run in the morning to the Olympic Stadium built in 1938 for the 1940 games, but war broke out in 1939 so it wasn't used till 1952. There is a tower you can go up and get a great view from. We went up, but my acrophobia took over and I went right back down after a quick look. After showers and breakfast I took Paul around downtown and showed him all the cool things I've discovered, and then we went and had a treat at Helsinki's oldest bakery where they used to make pastries for royalty. We met up with Jens for a drink at a bar literally on the roof of another hotel which has a great 360 view of all of Helsinki, and then out for a decent dinner.

If Helsinki and nordic Europe hasn't been on your list of places to visit, put it on! This place has really been amazing and I am genuinely sad to leave it. We will be back for sure. We leave this afternoon back to Amsterdam and then on to Barcelona, where my sister is going to meet us for a 22 hour visit! More adventures to come. . .